Medieval European culture covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the active formation of the Renaissance culture and the culture is divided early period(V-XI centuries) and culture classic middle ages(XII-XIV centuries). The emergence of the term "Middle Ages" is associated with the activities of the Italian humanists of the 15th-16th centuries, who, by introducing this term, sought to separate the culture of their era - the culture of the Renaissance - from the culture of previous eras. The era of the Middle Ages brought with it new economic relations, a new type of political system, as well as global changes in the worldview of people.

The entire culture of the early Middle Ages had a religious connotation.

The images and interpretations of the Bible formed the basis of the medieval picture of the world. The idea of ​​a complete and unconditional opposition between God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body was the starting point for explaining the world. The man of the Middle Ages imagined and understood the world as an arena of confrontation between good and evil, as a kind of hierarchical system that includes God, angels, and people, and the otherworldly forces of darkness.

Along with the strong influence of the church, the consciousness of medieval man continued to be deeply magical. This was facilitated by the very nature of medieval culture, filled with prayers, fairy tales, myths, magic spells. In general, the history of medieval culture is the history of the struggle between church and state. The position and role of art in this era were complex and contradictory, but nevertheless, during the entire period of development of European medieval culture, there was a search for a semantic support for the spiritual community of people.

All classes of medieval society recognized the spiritual leadership of the church, but nevertheless, each of them developed his own special culture, in which he reflected his moods and ideals.

1. The main periods of the development of the Middle Ages.

The beginning of the Middle Ages is associated with the great migration of peoples, which began at the end of the IV century. Vandals, Goths, Huns and other peoples invaded the territory of the Western Roman Empire. After the collapse in 476. A number of short-lived states formed on its territory of the Western Roman Empire, which consisted of foreign tribes mixed with the indigenous population, which consisted mainly of the Celts and the so-called Romans. The Franks settled in Gaul and West Germany, the Vesgoths in northern Spain, the Ostrogoths in northern Italy, and the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The barbarian peoples, who created their states on the ruins of the Roman Empire, found themselves either in the Roman or in the romanized environment. Nevertheless, the culture of the ancient world experienced a deep crisis during the invasion of the barbarians, and this crisis was aggravated by the introduction by the barbarians of their mythological thinking and worship of the elemental forces of nature. All this was reflected in the cultural process of the early Middle Ages.

Medieval culture developed in line with the period of early (V-XIII centuries) feudalism in the countries of Western Europe, the formation of which was accompanied by the transition from barbarian empires to the classical states of medieval Europe. It was a period of serious social and military upheaval.

At the stage of late feudalism (XI-XII centuries), craft, trade, and urban life had a rather low level of development. The rule of the feudal lords - the landowners - was undivided. The figure of the king was decorative in nature, and did not personify strength and state power. However, from the end of the XI century. (especially France), the process of strengthening royal power begins and gradually centralized feudal states are created, in which the rise of the feudal economy takes place, contributing to the formation of the cultural process.

The crusades at the end of this period were of great importance. These campaigns helped introduce Western Europe to the rich culture of the Arab East and accelerated the growth of crafts.

In the second development of the mature (classical) European Middle Ages (XI century), there is a further growth of the productive forces of feudal society. A clear division is established between town and country, and there is an intensive development of crafts and trade. Royal power is becoming essential. This process was facilitated by the elimination of feudal anarchy. Chivalry and wealthy citizens become the mainstay of royal power. A characteristic feature of this period is the emergence of city-states, for example, Venice, Florence.

2. Features of the art of medieval Europe.

The development of medieval art includes the following three stages:

1. pre-Romanesque art (V- Xcenturies),

Which is divided into three periods: early Christian art, the art of the barbarian kingdoms, and the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires.

V early christian period, Christianity became the official religion. The appearance of the first Christian churches dates back to this time. Separate buildings of the centric type (round, octahedral, cruciform), called baptisteries or baptisms. The interior decoration of these buildings was mosaics and frescoes. They reflected in themselves all the main features of medieval painting, although they were greatly divorced from reality. Symbolism and conventionality prevailed in the images, and the mysticality of the images was achieved through the use of such formal elements as the enlargement of the eyes, the incorporealness of images, prayer poses, the reception of different scales in the depiction of figures according to the spiritual hierarchy.

Barbarian art played a positive role in the development of the ornamental and decorative direction, which later became the main part of the artistic creativity of the classical Middle Ages. And which already did not have a close connection with ancient traditions.

A characteristic feature of art Carolingian and Ottonian empires is a combination of ancient, early Christian, barbarian and Byzantine traditions, which were most clearly manifested in the ornament. The architecture of these kingdoms is based on Roman examples and includes centric stone or wooden temples, the use of mosaics and frescoes in the interior decoration of the temples.

An architectural monument of pre-Romanesque art is the Chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen, created around 800. During the same period, the development of monastic construction was actively going on. In the Carolingian Empire, 400 new monasteries were built and 800 existing monasteries expanded.

Federal Agency for Education

State educational institution of higher professional education "Ural State Economic University"

Distance Education Center

TEST

by discipline: " Culturology»

on the topic ( option):

"Culture of the European Middle Ages »

Executor:

student group: FK-08 SR

Shanova

Natalia Vladimirovna_

(Surname, name, patronymic of the student)

(signature)

Teacher:

__________________________

(Surname, name, patronymic of the teacher)

(signature)

Yekaterinburg 2008

Introduction …………………………………………………………………. ……………. …………… .3

Romanesque and Germanic beginnings of European medieval culture. The main periods of the Middle Ages ……………………………………………………………… ... 5

Feudalism and its influence on the human value world (natural economy, class hierarchy, urban and rural culture) ……………………………… .9

Spiritual culture of the Middle Ages in the conditions of the omnipotence of the church (philosophy, science, heretical teachings and the struggle against them) ......................... ..................fourteen

Art of the Middle Ages: Romanesque and Gothic styles, literature, folklore, icon painting. Medieval Cathedral as a Model of the World ………………… ... ……………… 24

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… ... 33

List of used literature ………………………………………………… .34

INTRODUCTION

Medieval European culture covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire until the active formation of the Renaissance culture and divides the culture of the early period (V-XI centuries) and the culture of the classical Middle Ages (XII-XIV centuries). The emergence of the term "Middle Ages" is associated with the activities of the Italian humanists of the 15th-16th centuries, who, by introducing this term, sought to separate the culture of their era - the culture of the Renaissance - from the culture of previous eras. The era of the Middle Ages brought with it new economic relations, a new type of political system, as well as global changes in the worldview of people.

The entire culture of the early Middle Ages had a religious connotation. The images and interpretations of the Bible formed the basis of the medieval picture of the world. The starting point for explaining the world was the idea of ​​a complete and unconditional opposition between God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body. The man of the Middle Ages imagined and understood the world as an arena of confrontation between good and evil, as a kind of hierarchical system that includes God, angels, and people, and the otherworldly forces of darkness.

Along with the strong influence of the church, the consciousness of medieval man continued to be deeply magical. This was facilitated by the very nature of medieval culture, filled with prayers, fairy tales, myths, magic spells. In general, the history of medieval culture is the history of the struggle between church and state. The position and role of art in this era were complex and contradictory, but nevertheless, during the entire period of development of European medieval culture, there was a search for a semantic support for the spiritual community of people.

All classes of medieval society recognized the spiritual leadership of the church, but nevertheless, each of them developed his own special culture, in which he reflected his moods and ideals.

The purpose of this test is to study the culture of Western Europe in the Middle Ages.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

Summarize the scientific literature on the culture of Western Europe in the Middle Ages

Consider the Romanesque and Germanic beginnings of European medieval culture. Identify the main periods of the Middle Ages.

Describe the influence of feudalism on the value world of man

Analyze the spiritual culture and art of the Middle Ages

1. ROMANIAN AND GERMAN BEGINNINGS OF EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL CULTURE. MAIN PERIODS OF THE MEDIEVAL

The Middle Ages is a period, the beginning of which coincided with the withering away of Hellenic-classical, ancient culture, and the end - with its revival in modern times. The medieval culture is based on the traditions of the Western Roman Empire, representing the so-called "Romanesque". The main in the cultural heritage of Rome are law, high legal culture; science, art, philosophy, Christianity.

These traditions were assimilated during the struggle of the Romans with the "barbarians" and actively influenced their own culture of the pagan tribal life of the Franks, Britons, Saxons, Jutes and other tribes of Western Europe, representing the so-called "Germanic origin" of medieval culture. As a result of the interaction of these principles, the tension of the "dialogue of cultures" arose, which gave a powerful impetus to the formation and development of Western European medieval culture proper.

The Roman Empire met the Germans with hostility and waged a long and stubborn struggle with them, protecting its traditional cultural and political foundations, its borders and provinces from the new faith and from new peoples. The barbarians were considered the enemies of the "human race" imprisoned within the Roman Empire, they were considered enemies precisely by the defenders of education and civics of ancient origin.

The mutual relations between these principles, from which the entire Middle Ages emerged in the narrow sense of the word, at different times and by different historians were understood in different ways. In general, the transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages has always attracted the special attention of historians, for whom this epoch of a great world-historical turning point, indeed, poses extremely important and at the same time difficult tasks of a scientific nature.

In different philosophical constructions of world history, this significant epoch of the death of the old and the birth of the new received very different illumination, moreover, one or the other beginning, that is, either Romanism or Germanism, was brought to the fore.

Dwelling on the relationship between the ancient and the barbarian principles, first of all, it should be noted that many historians have underestimated the significance of the first of these elements, the Roman, and, on the contrary, overestimated the significance of the second, Germanic. They were ready to deduce all the features of the medieval social and political system and even the general spirit of medieval culture from the principles brought with them by the Germans. Especially there is a tendency towards such an interpretation of the transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages among the Germans, for a very understandable reason, however, which, however, hardly makes this interpretation sound.

The periodization of medieval culture is based on the stages of development of its socio-economic foundation - feudalism (its origin, development and crisis). Accordingly, the early Middle Ages are distinguished - V-IX centuries, the mature (classical) Middle Ages - X-XIII centuries. and later the Middle Ages - XIV-XV centuries.

The early Middle Ages (V-IX centuries) is a period of tragic, dramatic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages proper. Christianity slowly entered the world of barbaric existence. The barbarians of the early Middle Ages carried a peculiar vision and sense of the world, based on the ancestral ties of a person and the community to which he belonged, the spirit of warlike energy, a sense of inseparability from nature. In the process of the formation of medieval culture, the most important task was the destruction of the "power thinking" of the mythological barbarian consciousness, the destruction of the ancient roots of the pagan cult of power.

The formation of early medieval culture is a complex, painful process of synthesis of Christian and barbarian traditions. The drama of this process was due to the opposite, multidirectional Christian value-thinking orientations and the barbaric consciousness based on "power thinking". Only gradually the main role in the emerging culture begins to belong to the Christian religion and the church.

The barbarian states that emerged in the 6th century - the Visigoths (Spain), the Franks (France), the Ostrogoths (Northern Italy), the Anglo-Saxon (England) - were weak and short-lived. The most noticeable phenomena in the culture of the 6th-first half of the 7th centuries. associated with the assimilation of the ancient heritage in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain. Master of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric Severin Boethius (c. 480-524) became one of the revered medieval scholars. His works on music, arithmetic, theological works, translations of Aristotle, Euclid became the basis of medieval education and science.

Thus, the early Middle Ages, on the one hand, is an era of decline, barbarism, constant conquests, endless wars, a dramatic clash of pagan and Christian cultures, on the other hand, this is a time of gradual strengthening of Christianity, assimilation of the ancient heritage (even in this tragic period for Western Europe the ancient school tradition was not suppressed). At the end of the 6th and beginning of the 7th centuries. against the pagan wisdom the church came out sharply. However, ancient culture was quite strongly represented in the culture of the early Middle Ages. Interest in her especially increased during the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. At the court of Charlemagne (742-814), who restored the Western Roman Empire, an "Academy" was created following the example of the ancient one (whose members even called themselves Roman names). In the empire of Charlemagne, elementary schools were opened at monasteries. The Emperor's courtier Flaccus Albin Alcuin (c. 735-804) and his students collected antique manuscripts, were engaged in their restoration, doing a lot to preserve the ancient heritage for subsequent generations.

In the early Middle Ages, the first written "Histories" of the barbarians were created. In general, progress in the development of culture was characteristic of the early Middle Ages, despite wars, raids, the conquest of some peoples by others, the seizure of territories, which significantly slowed down cultural development.

The abolition of slavery contributed to the development of technical inventions (already from the 6th century they began to use the energy of water).

It should be noted that, in general, the Middle Ages was characterized by the widespread use of technical inventions. In the XII century. a windmill appears using the force of the wind. In the XIII century. the steering wheel was invented. During the mature Middle Ages (XIV century), sluices with gates appeared, which made it possible to switch to the construction of canals and contributed to the development of trade relations, both external and internal.

The era of the mature Middle Ages (X-XIII centuries) begins with the time of "cultural silence", which lasted almost until the end of the X century. Endless wars, civil strife, political decline of the state led to the partition of the empire of Charlemagne (843) and laid the foundation for three states: France, Italy and Germany. In the XI century. an improvement in the economic situation in Europe, population growth, and a decrease in hostilities led to an acceleration in the process of separating handicrafts from agriculture, which resulted in the growth of both new cities and their size. In the XII-XIII centuries. many cities are liberated from the rule of spiritual or secular feudal lords. Population growth, accompanied by food and land shortages, triggered the Crusades. They contributed to the acquaintance with the eastern, Muslim culture (Europe got acquainted with the Arab world through Spain, which was captured by the Arabs). The Church, having reached the peak of its power in the struggle against the state in the XII-XIII centuries, gradually began to lose its position in the struggle against the royal power. By the XIII century. the natural economy begins to collapse as a result of the development of commodity-money relations, the personal dependence of the peasants is weakened.

During the late Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries), the personal dependence of the peasants ceased as a result of the development of the monetary economy in the countryside. There is a weakening of the influence of the church on society. The influence of Christianity on consciousness is also weakening. The appearance of secular chivalric and urban literature, music, art destroyed the foundations of medieval culture. Gradually, the social structure of medieval society began to loosen. A new class is emerging - the bourgeoisie.

The beginning process of decomposition of feudalism (the socio-economic basis of medieval culture), the weakening of the influence of Christianity caused a deep crisis of medieval culture, expressed primarily in the destruction of its integrity, accelerated the transition to a new, qualitatively different era - the era of the Renaissance, associated with the formation of a new, bourgeois type of society ...

2. FEUDALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE VALUABLE WORLD OF A MAN (NATURAL ECONOMY, SOSLOVNAYA HIERARCHY, URBAN AND VILLAGE CULTURE)

The socio-political system, which was established in the Middle Ages in Europe, in historical science is usually called feudalism. This word comes from the name of the land ownership, which the representative of the ruling class-estate received for military service. This property was called a feud. Not all historians believe that the term feudalism is apt, since the concept underlying it is incapable of expressing the specifics of Central European civilization. In addition, there was no consensus on the essence of feudalism. Some historians see it in a vassalage system, others in political fragmentation, and still others in a specific mode of production. Nevertheless, the concepts of the feudal system, the feudal lord, the feudal-dependent peasantry have become firmly established in historical science.

A characteristic feature of feudalism is feudal ownership of land. First, it was alienated from the main producer. Secondly, it was conditional, and thirdly, it was hierarchical. Fourthly, it was connected with political power. The alienation of the main producers from land ownership was manifested in the fact that the land plot on which the peasant worked was the property of large landowners - feudal lords. The peasant had it in use. For this, he was obliged either to work in the master's field for some days a week or to pay a quitrent - in kind or in cash. Therefore, the exploitation of the peasants was of an economic nature. Non-economic coercion - the personal dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords - played the role of an additional means. This system of relations arose with the formation of two main classes of medieval society: the feudal lords (secular and spiritual) and the feudal-dependent peasantry.

Feudal ownership of land was conditional, since the feud was considered to be granted for service. Over time, it turned into a hereditary possession, but formally it could be taken away for non-compliance with the vassal agreement. Hierarchically, the nature of property was expressed in the fact that it was, as it were, distributed among a large group of feudal lords from top to bottom, so no one possessed full private ownership of land. The tendency in the development of forms of ownership in the Middle Ages was that the feud gradually became full private property, and dependent peasants, turning into free (as a result of the redemption of personal dependence), acquired some ownership rights to their land plot, receiving the right to sell it subject to payment to the feudal lord of a special tax.

The combination of feudal property with political power was manifested in the fact that the main economic, judicial and political unit in the Middle Ages was a large feudal patrimony - the seigneur. The reason for this was the weakness of the central state power in the conditions of the dominance of the subsistence economy. At the same time, a certain number of allodist peasants remained in medieval Europe - complete private owners. There were especially many of them in Germany and southern Italy.

Subsistence farming is an essential feature of feudalism, although not as characteristic as forms of ownership, since a subsistence farming in which nothing is bought or sold was present both in the Ancient East and in Antiquity. In medieval Europe, natural economy existed until about the 13th century, when it began to turn into a commodity-money economy under the influence of the growth of cities.

Many researchers consider the monopolization of military affairs by the ruling class to be one of the most important signs of feudalism. War was the lot of the knights. This concept, originally denoting just a warrior, eventually began to denote the privileged class of medieval society, spreading to all secular feudal lords. However, it should be noted that where allodist peasants existed, they, as a rule, had the right to carry weapons. The participation of dependent peasants in the crusades also shows the non-absoluteness of this sign of feudalism.

The most important characteristic of medieval Western European society was its hierarchical structure, the system of vassalage. At the head of the feudal hierarchy was the king - the supreme overlord and often only the nominal head of state. This convention of the absolute power of the highest person in the states of Western Europe is also an essential feature of Western European society, in contrast to the truly absolute monarchies of the East. Even in Spain (where the power of royal power was quite palpable), when the king was introduced to the office, the grandees, in accordance with the established ritual, pronounced the following words: you respected and protected our rights. And if not, then no. " Thus, the king in medieval Europe is only "the first among equals" and not an omnipotent despot. It is characteristic that the king, occupying the first rung of the hierarchical ladder in his state, could well be a vassal of another king or pope.

On the second step of the feudal ladder were the immediate vassals of the king. These were large feudal lords - dukes, counts; archbishops, bishops, abbots. According to the immunity letter received from the king, they possessed various types of immunity (from Lat. - inviolability). The most common types of immunity were tax, judicial and administrative, i.e. holders of immunity letters themselves collected taxes from their peasants and townspeople, administered the courts, and made administrative decisions. Feudal lords of this level could themselves mint their own coin, which often circulated not only within the given estate, but also outside it. The subordination of such feudal lords to the king was often just formal.

On the third step of the feudal ladder were the vassals of dukes, earls, bishops - barons. They enjoyed de facto immunity on their estates. Even below were the vassals of the barons - the knights. Some of them could also have their vassals, even smaller knights, while others - only peasants were subordinate, who, however, stood outside the feudal ladder.

The vassalage system was based on the practice of land grants. The person who received the land became a vassal, the one who gave it became a seigneur. The land was given under certain conditions, the most important of which was the service for the lord, which, according to feudal custom, usually constituted 40 days a year. The most important duties of a vassal in relation to his lord were participation in the lord's army, protection of his possessions, honor, dignity, participation in his council. If necessary, the vassals ransomed the lord from captivity.

When receiving land, the vassal took an oath of loyalty to his master. If the vassal did not fulfill his obligations, the lord could take the land away from him, but it was not so easy to do this, since the vassal - the feudal lord was inclined to defend his recent property with arms in hand. In general, despite the seemingly clear order, which was described by the well-known formula: “my vassal's vassal is not my vassal”, the vassal system was rather complicated, and the vassal could have several lords at the same time.

The formation of feudal land ownership took place in two ways. The first way is through the peasant community. Allotted land owned by a peasant family, passed on by inheritance from father to son (and from the 6th century - to daughter) and was their property. This is how allod was gradually formed - the freely alienated land property of the communal peasants. Allod hastened property stratification among the free peasants: the land began to be concentrated in the hands of the communal elite, which already acts as part of the feudal class. Thus, this was the path of the formation of the patrimonial-allodial form of feudal ownership of land, especially characteristic of the Germanic tribes.

The second way of the formation of feudal land ownership and, consequently, of the entire feudal system is the practice of land grants by the king or other large landowners-feudal lords to their entourage. At first, a plot of land (benefit) was given to a vassal only on condition of service and for the duration of his service, and the lord retained the supreme rights to benefit. Gradually, the rights of the vassals to the lands granted to them expanded, as the sons of many vassals continued to serve the lord of their father. In addition, purely psychological reasons were also important: the nature of the relationship developing between the lord and the vassal. As contemporaries testify, vassals, as a rule, were loyal and devoted to their master.

Cities were a characteristic phenomenon of medieval European civilization, starting from the 11th century. The question of the relationship between feudalism and cities is debatable. The cities gradually destroyed the natural character of the feudal economy, contributed to the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, and contributed to the emergence of a new psychology and ideology. At the same time, the life of the medieval city was based on the principles characteristic of medieval society. The cities were located on the lands of the feudal lords, so initially the population of the cities was in feudal dependence on the lords, although it was weaker than the dependence of the peasants. The medieval city was based on such a principle as corporatism. The townspeople were organized into workshops and guilds, within which leveling tendencies operated. The city itself was also a corporation. This was especially evident after the liberation from the power of the feudal lords, when the cities received self-government and city law. But precisely due to the fact that the medieval city was a corporation, after liberation it acquired some features that made it akin to the city of antiquity. The population consisted of full-fledged burghers and non-corporate members: beggars, day laborers, visitors. The transformation of a number of medieval cities into city-states (as was the case in ancient civilization) also shows the opposition of cities to the feudal system. With the development of commodity-money relations, the central state power began to rely on the cities. Therefore, the cities helped to overcome feudal fragmentation - a characteristic feature of feudalism. Ultimately, the restructuring of medieval civilization took place precisely thanks to the cities.

The cities grew and developed rapidly on the basis of an intensive division of labor, the growth of private property, the development of commodity production and trade. Commodity production removed the limitations inherent in the subsistence economy and stimulated the need for the development of the means of production and the skills of the worker. Urban life, with its intensity and diversity, many times surpassed its stagnant and monotonous flow in the countryside, where everything was tied to the cyclical natural process of changing the seasons and bordered on an almost vegetative existence. On the contrary, cities with their vortex of life, intense nature of social relations, division of labor and new forms of social ties became places of intersection of new trends, open to changes and innovations. Thus, they became the true sprouts of the formation of a new, urban, civilization. By their very structure, the cities of the late Middle Ages stimulated the development of production and the improvement of the skills of social self-organization and self-government.

The historical center of all cities were markets, a city square with a town hall and a cathedral, around which the quarters of craft workshops and workshops, as well as residential buildings, grew. Later, as a result of the development of commodity production and trade, city centers were decorated with buildings of banks and exchanges, mints, and hospitals, prisons, hospitals, i.e. inns and hotels appeared on the outskirts. An important place in the cities was occupied by educational institutions - colleges and universities, based mostly on the territory of monasteries or abbeys, these centers of medieval scholarship.

However, the city square remained the true center of the entire social life of the city, serving as a gathering place for citizens to solve the most important common affairs, a place of solemn political and religious rituals, a place of execution, as well as folk festivals and festivities with booths, carnival and fireworks.

Thus, the development of the culture of medieval natural agrarian production contained the preconditions for its own overcoming. The transition from the natural-quitrent to the monetary form of payment of feudal obligations, the emergence of handicraft production in the depths of agricultural production, the increasing transformation of the products of this production into goods and the widespread distribution of commodity-money relations, led to a change in the social base of feudalism, its social-class structure. Between the representatives of the privileged estates - the royal power and the feudal barons, clergy and secular feudal lords, the struggle for power intensified, where the third estate, represented by the townspeople, began to invade more and more actively. The cities grew and developed, gained economic strength, but continued to remain politically deprived of rights.

3. SPIRITUAL CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE Omnipotence of the CHURCH (PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, HERETICAL TEACHINGS AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM)

Having existed for many centuries in the conditions of the omnipotence of the church, philosophy acquired the form of religious philosophy, becoming a "servant of theology." Its dependence on religion was reflected in its content, the nature of the main problems discussed.

The philosophy of the Western European Middle Ages arose and developed over four historical periods:

The preparatory stage (II-VIII centuries), during which the culture and philosophy of the Middle Ages are gradually formed.

Early scholasticism (IX-XII centuries), in which knowledge and faith are practically not separated, although there is a clear understanding of the specific value and the same results of the activity of reason. During this period, Abelard created the main scholastic method of knowing the truth ("yes and no"), which boils down to the fact that when solving any problem, we must first listen to the authorities who speak "for", then - the authorities who are "against", and later decide.

Middle scholasticism (XIII century), in which the final separation of philosophy and other sciences from theology takes place, as well as the inclusion of the teachings of Aristotle in Western philosophical thinking. The philosophy of the Franciscan, Dominican and other orders, as well as the philosophical systems of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, were created.

Late scholasticism (XIV-XV centuries) was distinguished by the rationalistic systematization of the knowledge gained, the further formation of natural-scientific and natural-philosophical thinking, the creation of logic and metaphysics of the irrationalist direction, the final separation of esotericism (mysticism) from church theology.

With regard to the general theoretical basis of medieval philosophy, it can be noted that it is based on the Christian religion of monotheism, where the main reality that created all that exists is God. He, being omnipotent, by an act of his Divine will, created the world from "nothing". And in the future, the omnipotent Divine will constantly and tirelessly continues to support the existence of the world.

Therefore, from the point of view of the doctrine of being (ontology), medieval philosophy was the philosophy of theocentrism (theo - God) and is based on the dogma of creationism (creation - creation, creation).

Medieval philosophy also had a kind of anthropology (the doctrine of man). Man is not only created by God, but also like him. However, the nature of man is twofold: he has both a soul (divine) and a body (sinful). To overcome sinfulness, the support of religion and the church is needed. Since it was impossible to rationally substantiate the ontology and anthropology of medieval philosophy, a kind of theory of knowledge was also created: not only what is based on reason, but also what is based on faith can be recognized as true.

So, the ontology of medieval philosophy is theocentric, anthropology is dualistic, epistemology is irrational.

Features of medieval philosophy found the most vivid embodiment in the work of one of the largest representatives of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). His merit is the development of one of the central problems in medieval philosophy of the problem of the relationship between faith and reason. F. Aquinas created the doctrine of the emergence of harmony of faith and reason, since they have one subject - God and the world he created; in addition, faith and reason as methods of knowledge complement, rather than exclude each other.

But between them there are not only similarities, but also significant differences: the mind constantly doubts the truths it has obtained, and faith accepts the truth based on will, desire. Therefore, faith is higher than reason.

The historical significance of the concept created by F. Aquinas is that it substantiated the idea of ​​a possible compromise between science and religion, which was further developed in a number of philosophical teachings, especially in the philosophical system of Hegel, Russian religious philosophy of the 19th-20th centuries, as well as in modern religious philosophy of neo-Thomism.

The principle of harmony of faith and reason was embodied in the five rational proofs of the existence of God developed by F. Aquinas. Since everything moves and changes, there must also be a “prime mover,” a primary source, that is, God. The world is diverse and perfect, therefore there is God as the highest perfection. According to F. Aquinas, since there is a goal in the living world, there must also be a source of purposefulness, that is, God. Although there is randomness in the world, on the whole its development bears a natural character, which comes from God. The world is unique and finite in space, but there is orderliness everywhere in it, that is, God.

These proofs have long been perceived as convincing, despite their one-sidedness, since they are only evidence of an abstract-logical nature. However, the evidence cited by F. Aquinas is still actively used by the church.

Another problem discussed in medieval philosophy was the problem of the relationship between general, abstract concepts and concrete concepts, reflecting individual things. In the course of its discussion, two directions were formed - realism and nominalism.

Nominalism (I. Roscellin, W. Ockham) believed that the common exists only in the mind of a person (there is a separate horse, but there is no "horseness"). By belittling the meaning of general concepts, nominalism questioned the universal, extremely abstract concept of "God", for which it was persecuted by the church. Realism (F. Aquinas), on the contrary, asserted the reality of general ideas, and considered individual things and their corresponding concepts to be derivatives of general ones.

A compromise solution in the dispute about universals was the position of the Scottish scientist D. Scott, who considered the thing as a unity of the general and the particular. Moreover, the common exists in reality, in things themselves, reflecting their essence, there is no common independent existence.

Assessing the role of medieval philosophy in the development of world philosophical thought, it should be emphasized that this was a fruitful stage in the development of culture. The religious ideology of Christianity was one of the important factors contributing to the emergence and strengthening of states, the development of their spiritual life (architecture, painting, music, etc.). Medieval philosophy also contributed to the development of a number of the most important problems of philosophy (the relationship between faith and reason, the nature of general concepts). Preaching universal human values, the equality of all before God, medieval philosophy contributed to the assertion of the ideals of humanism, which was especially evident in the philosophy of the Renaissance.

Medieval education was mainly religious education. Since the early Middle Ages, the entire education system was controlled by the church. Although the foundation on which medieval education was built was inherited from antiquity - the "seven liberal arts" were studied in monasteries and church schools of the early Middle Ages (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy - academic disciplines that developed in late antiquity ) - the main thing was the study of theological sciences. Until the end of the 9th century. all schools were in the hands of the church (they trained both future priests and young men who were not intended for a church career).

After the Arab conquest of Spain and Sicily, interest in the study of the ancient heritage is revived. The growth of cities contributed to the rise of education. In the second half of the XI century. secular schools appeared in cities, universities appeared, which became centers for the development of scientific thought of their time. The first university was opened in Bologna (1088), later in Paris (1160), Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1209). In the XIII - XV centuries. almost all European countries had universities. University education was conducted in Latin, which allowed students from all over Europe to study at any university. Typically, the medieval university had four faculties: preparatory, where they studied seven "free arts", theological, medical and legal. The universities were founded by the church, the secular power in the person of kings, emperors, princes, and also the city. The university was a corporation, a community of teachers and students, led by an elected master. The university as an institute of scientific knowledge and education is an outstanding achievement of medieval culture. In European universities, the basic forms of education, scientific principles that are characteristic of modern education and science (lecture, seminar, exam, session, public defense of a dissertation, scientific debate, and much more) were developed and began to apply.

Medieval science was subject to a strictly defined hierarchical order. The highest place in the hierarchy of its spheres was given to philosophy, the purpose of which was seen in proving the truth of the Christian doctrine. The "lower" sciences (astronomy, geometry, mathematics, historical knowledge, etc.) obeyed and served philosophy.

Under the conditions of theocratism (dominance of religious views), theology became the most developed form of theoretical thinking. In the XI century. it was theology that gave rise to such a phenomenon of medieval science as scholasticism - a philosophy inextricably linked with theology, but not identical to it. Scholasticism is primarily a method of cognizing God and the world he created. She proceeded from the conviction that faith and knowledge, revelation and reason can be reconciled with each other, and, relying on them, to comprehend God and the world. The scholastic in his reasoning had, on the one hand, not to deviate from the letter of the Bible, on the other, not to admit a single mistake in a long chain of rigorous logical proofs. Hence the great attention that the scholastics paid to logic as a technique of reasoning. Thus, the essence of scholasticism was the comprehension of Christian dogma from a rationalistic position with the help of logical methods. This is due to the fact that in scholasticism a central place was taken by the development of various kinds of general concepts, classifications (universals). The scholastics, discussing the problems of the synthesis of pagan rational philosophy and Christian doctrine, not only studied the ancient heritage, but also introduced Europe to the original works of Islamic scholars. Scholasticism became a broad intellectual movement, bringing together the most prominent philosophers of its time. The pinnacle of medieval scholasticism was the work of Thomas Aquinas (13th century). Affirming the harmony of reason and faith, he was able to carry out a synthesis of the philosophy of Aristotle and Christian dogma.

In the 13th century, an interest in experimental knowledge arises in science, natural-scientific treatises of ancient authors and Arab scientists begin to be translated and commented on. Oxford professor Roger Bacon (XIII century) introduced experiment into the sphere of science as a new method of studying nature (the scientist worked fruitfully in the field of physics, chemistry, optics, trying to understand the nature of light and color). Although rationalism and an experimental approach were combined with a Christian vision of the world, the very birth of interest in experimental knowledge undermined the traditional foundations of the medieval world outlook, putting experiment in the place of authority.

In the XII-XIII centuries. the whole of Europe was engulfed in a heretical movement, which was not local in nature, but pan-European. It covered all emerging European states. In essence, the common European heresies were not homogeneous. Two types of heresies are conventionally distinguished: burgher (i.e. urban) and peasant-plebeian. The demands of both heretics often coincided. Both types of heretical tendencies demanded the elimination of the political claims of the papacy, the land wealth of the Church, and the special position of the Catholic clergy. The early Christian Apostolic Church was the ideal of medieval heretical teachings.

The doctrines of the early heretical teachings had some religious foundations. First of all, such doctrines implied a critical attitude towards the ministers of the Church, from the pope to the priest. The heresiarchs created an ideal image of the biblical shepherd and sharply opposed it to the real shepherd. Heretics opposed indulgences, they denied the oath on the Bible, a separate communion for laymen and clergy. Western heretics called the Church the Babylonian harlot, and the Pope called the viceroy of Satan and the Antichrist. They denied the teachings of the Church Fathers, the decisions of councils, as well as papal bulls, etc. They practically denied the entire church organization of Catholicism.

At the same time, the heretics were divided into two clearly defined groups. Some, criticizing the priesthood, indulgences, the pope and the church organization, nevertheless remained in the bosom of the Catholic Church and believed that with their new teachings they contributed to its renewal. This position was characteristic of the moderate wing of the heretical movement. But there was also another direction - radical extremist, whose representatives broke with the official Catholic Church and, in opposition to it, created their own church organizations. These heretics were primarily Cathars, Waldensians, apostolics, Joachimites, and Taborites.

The overwhelming majority of heretical teachings in the early and later stages are characterized by the desire to follow the gospel. One of the most popular ideas in heretical circles, taken from the Gospel, was the idea, or principle, of "apostolic poverty." However, this idea was interpreted in different ways by the two main heretical directions. Heretic burghers declared a desire for a simple, cheap and clean church. It is in the burgher heresy that one should look for the sources of the future Reformation. The heretics of the peasant-plebeian trend also strove for apostolic poverty, but in a more radical way. They did not confine themselves to this idea alone, but also introduced into their teaching the ideas of community of property and universal equality.

Many Western European heresies were characterized by mystical sentiments. In interpreting the biblical texts in their own way, heretics-mystics most often turned to the Apocalypse. Based on the Apocalypse, many heresiarchs (such as Joachim of Flora (Calabrian), Dolcino, etc.) predicted an imminent and inevitable radical change in the existing order and even predicted the timing of these changes. The prophecies of the mystical heresiarchs were associated with "millenarian" or chiliastic sentiments, inherent primarily in the peasant-plebeian heresy. The burgher heresy also had its own mystical tendencies, especially widespread in the German lands. There, the heretics took as a basis some mystical teachings of the German theologians Eckart, Tauler and others, who believed that "Divine truth" is contained in man himself, therefore man has free will and creative activity.

Elements of pantheism were also inherent in burgher heresies, which led to the denial of the need for the Church. Mystical moods are characterized by withdrawal into the inner world, immersion in oneself, denial of the world and any relationship with it. Such moods often gave rise to a state of religious ecstasy in a person, leading to various forms of mystical vision.

The earliest heretical sects appeared in the 11th century. in France, in Italy and in the German lands. One of the first creators of an independent heretical doctrine was Arnold of Brescia (1100-1155), who was also the first heretic politician - he led an uprising against the bishop in Brescia, an antipapal uprising in Rome. Arnold was a student of Peter Abelard and supported his teacher in the fight against Bernard of Clairvaux. In his teaching, Arnold Breshiansky criticized the church of his day, relying on the Gospel. In addition, he demanded the transfer of all spiritual power to secular people. The sect he created was named Arnold. This was one of the first, early burgher heresies. Arnold Breshiansky demanded the deprivation of property by the clergy, the elimination of the institution of bishops, denounced the idleness of the clergy, and called for a return to the simplicity of apostolic times. He recognized the institution of the papacy, but was at odds with the official understanding of the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism.

The Arnoldist sect continued to exist after the execution of Arnold of Brescia, carried out by order of Frederick I Barbarossa. In the XIII century. she melted into other heretical movements. In the XII-XIII centuries. accounts for the flourishing of the heretical movement in northern Italy and southern France. In these regions, practically the entire population was heretical. In Lombardy alone, the Arnoldists, Cathars, Waldensians, Fraticelli, Apostolics, Flagellants, and many others flourished. Since all these heresies, as a rule, originated in cities, they conditionally refer to the burgher direction of the heretical movement.

One of the most massive directions of the heretical movement of the XII century. was the heresy of the Cathars. In their teaching, the Cathars began not with a denial of the established church hierarchy, but with a denial of the state as such, its power. The Cathars also denied physical abuse and bloodshed. Denying the state, they denied both the Church and the entire earthly world. The rejection of the Cathars was truly cosmic. They considered the earthly world as a product and creation of Satan, and the Pope considered him a direct governor. Naturally, they denied both the dogma and the cults of the official church, and its hierarchy, opposed its wealth and power.

In addition to their own teaching, the Cathars created their own church organization, as well as their teaching, quite complex. It consisted, as it were, of two circles. The first circle, or inner circle, was the circle of the perfect. They were prescribed compulsory withdrawal from the world and the strictest asceticism. They were not supposed to manifest themselves in any way in the outside world. The second circle, which included most of the Cathars, was open to the outside world. All the actions of the Cathars of the second circle, up to the choice of profession, were necessarily prescribed by their heresiarchs. The Cathars of the second circle were the guides and link between the perfecti and the outside world.

Another heretical teaching that became widespread was the chiliastic teaching of Joachim of Flora (Calabrian) (1132-1202), a Cistercian monk. The teachings of the Joachimites enjoyed great authority in Europe in the 12th-13th centuries. This teaching can be seen as a theological heresy. The central and most important moment in the heretical theology of Joachim of Flora was the interpretation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which he regarded as the mystical embodiment of three eras of world history. In the beginning, the power of God the Father prevailed, which is characterized by severity and the requirement of slavish submission to oneself. This era was "regulated" by the ancient law of Moses, embodied in the Old Testament. The second era is milder - the power of God the Son, based on the Gospel, the New Testament. And the third era - the era of the Holy Spirit, or "the eternal gospel" - the kingdom of true love, complete freedom and eternal justice. According to the teachings of Joachim of Flora, this kingdom was to come as a result of a universal revolution, and very soon. Joachim of Flora even established its exact dates - between 1200 and 1260.

At the same time, the Waldensian heresy, founded by the wealthy Lyon merchant Pierre Wald, was gaining widespread and influence in Europe. Having abandoned his usual way of life, he began to preach the ideals of poverty and asceticism. His followers, as is customary among all heretics, criticized the Catholic clergy and Catholic dogma. They denied the threefold concept of the afterlife, i.e. denied purgatory. They denied most church sacraments, denied veneration of icons, worship, cults of saints, church hierarchy, church tithes, taxes, military service, feudal court, capital punishment, etc. Very many provisions from the teachings of the Waldensians brought them closer to the Cathars. Therefore, it is no coincidence at the end of the XII century. the Cathars and part of the Waldensians who preached in southern France united and received the common name of the Albigensians. This name comes from the southern French city of Albi, the former center of the French Cathars.

Heresies covered broad social strata of the population of Europe. The lower strata were drawn into the peasant-plebeian heresies, but the educated strata of the townspeople - university teachers and students - also entered the burgher heresies.

The breadth of the spread of heretical teachings, their profound impact on the consciousness of the European population, naturally forced the Catholic Church itself to somehow maneuver, to resort to actions directed against heretics. The first impulse of the official church was the call for the most decisive action - the unconditional destruction of sects and heretical movements. At cathedrals, the teachings of Arnold of Brescia, Joachim of Flora, Amory of Vienna, Peter Olivius were anathematized. Many leaders of sects and heretical movements were condemned and burned at the stake. Not only heresiarchs were burned, but also ordinary heretics. Heretics were constantly persecuted.

However, the forms that the Catholic Church invented in the fight against heretics were not limited to persecution, conciliar condemnation, and bonfires. One of the essential forms of struggle against heresy was the Crusades. In the XIII century. there were several such campaigns against the Albigensians in southern France, in the XIV century. - against the apostles.

The listed mechanisms of combating heresy could not eradicate it, and then the church begins to feverishly look for other, more effective ones. The institution of the Inquisition was such a mechanism. At the end of the XII century. the Inquisition arises as a form of papal court. In each episcopate, the office of a papal inquisitor was introduced, who conducted the investigation of cases of heresy and passed the sentence. In the XIII century. the inquisition becomes an independent organization with very broad powers, which was directly subordinate to the pope. Then the time came when this subordination became purely formal. The Inquisition became an independent formidable organization that everyone feared - heretics and Catholics, peasants and townspeople, nobles and kings, secular and spiritual authorities. The popes themselves were afraid of the Inquisition. Fear is a powerful weapon, and the Inquisition knew how to use it.

The Inquisition introduces a wide system of tracing, judicial investigation of heretics, not disdaining methods such as denunciations and espionage. Accusing someone of heresy, the inquisitors sought recognition in all possible ways - from the confusing conduct of the investigation, casuistic theological debate to the most brutal torture. Under torture, even an innocent person confessed to anything, and he was sentenced to the usual sentence - burning at the stake. The Spanish Inquisition was especially brutal. In the XV century. in Spain, the so-called new inquisition was created, headed by the chief inquisitor, the Dominican Thomas Torquemada, who had tremendous influence. Under him, the persecution was widespread.

But even the Inquisition could not fully cope with its task, it did not succeed in eradicating the sects to the end, and then the church took a different path - along the path of legalizing some sects (this is how the moderate group of Waldenses was legalized). Nevertheless, it was impossible to destroy heresies, and they became an organic part of the life of Western Europe. With this, the Catholic Church could not reconcile, and she begins new searches on the path of struggle against heretics. The Church drew attention to the fact that the sermon was developed among the heretics. And not just preaching, but preaching the ideals of poverty. The Church is going to create a new type of monasticism - the so-called mendicant orders, which were supposed to preach poverty and asceticism.

This new mechanism for fighting heresies began to be developed by Pope Innocent III and his followers. The mendicant orders embodied a new view of monastic asceticism, which in part went back to the ideal of the regular canons. The first mendicant order, the Franciscan order, was created in Italy. Its founder was the son of a wealthy merchant from Assisi - Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). He wandered around Italy, feeding on alms, and his ideal was "Madame Poverty." Francis of Assisi demanded that his disciples renounce not only wealth, but also any property, a life of charity, asceticism and obedience. Francis of Assisi criticized monasticism, but did not deny monasticism as an institution. By the middle of the XIII century. the Franciscan order departed from its original ideals and became one of the richest monastic orders, and at its head was no longer a poor man and a vagabond "out of this world", but a general appointed by the pope. One of the main tasks of the order is the fight against heresy.

The second mendicant order, the Dominican Order, emerged in the 13th century in Spain and was named after its founder, the monk Dominic (1170-1221). This order immediately, from the moment of its foundation, obeys the Pope. The Dominicans attached great importance to the art of preaching and scholastic theological controversy. Brothers preachers (as the Dominicans were called), with the support of the pope, very soon occupied the theological departments of the largest universities in Europe. Major theologians such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas emerged from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans played a huge role in the politics of the papacy, but their main task was to fight heresy.

Both "mendicant" orders were widely engaged in politics and diplomacy, as well as the expansion of Catholicism. The Dominican Order was especially successful in this field. The expansion vector was directed to the East. In the XIII century, even before the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the Dominicans founded their monastery near Kiev. They penetrate China, Japan and other eastern countries.

However, neither the persecution of heretics, nor the Inquisition, nor the mendicant orders led to the renewal, reform of Catholicism and could not prevent the crisis of the papacy in the XIV-XV centuries. Heretical movements of the XII-XIII centuries. contributed to the weakening of his authority.

4. ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ROMANIC AND GOTHIC STYLES, LITERATURE, FOLKLORE, ICONOPICATION. MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL AS A MODEL OF THE WORLD

The figurative and semantic system of medieval art expressed the central idea of ​​the picture of the world of medieval man - the Christian idea of ​​God. Art was perceived as a kind of biblical text, easily "read" by believers through numerous sculptural and pictorial images. Since the language of the Bible and worship was Latin, unknown to most of the laity, the sculptural and pictorial images had a didactic meaning - to convey to believers the foundations of Christian dogma. In the temple, before the eyes of a medieval man, the entire Christian teaching was developed. The idea of ​​the sinfulness of the world was reflected in the leading plot in the design of churches, sculptures and reliefs - scenes of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse. Looking at the cathedral, a medieval person could, as it were, read Holy Scripture in the images depicted there. The same image of the Last Judgment clearly represented the theological scheme of the hierarchical structure of the world. The figure of Christ was always depicted in the center of the composition. The upper part was occupied by heaven, the lower - earth, on the right hand of Christ was heaven and the righteous (good), on the left - sinners condemned to eternal torment, devils and hell (evil).

Strictly following the universal church canons, medieval artists were called to manifest divine beauty in a figurative form. The aesthetic ideal of medieval art was the opposite of that of antiquity, reflecting the Christian understanding of beauty. The idea of ​​the superiority of the spirit over the bodily, carnal is presented in the asceticism of images of monumental painting and sculpture, their severity and detachment from the outside world. The ultimate conventionality of the entire figurative system of medieval art was reflected in the canons of the construction of the human figure: linearity, solemn immobility, elongation of the oval of the face and figures, wide open eyes, "incorporeal", incorporeal figures. Medieval painting does not know the perspective that reveals the depth of the painting. In front of the viewer there is a flat unfolding of the composition and the only visible movement is ascending, directed towards the sky.

The most important feature of medieval art is symbolism. A sculptural or pictorial image is, first of all, a symbol, a kind of religious idea, captured in stone or paints. Like the Bible, icon painting is primarily a manifest word (complete identity between painting and verbal texts was confirmed by the church already in the 8th century). The whole figurative structure of medieval art is symbolic (the long, almost sexless bodies of the apostles and saints express the idea of ​​overcoming the spiritual principle of sinful matter - the flesh).

The different scale of the figures is another feature of medieval art. The size of the figures was determined by the hierarchical significance of the depicted (which, by the way, made it easy to "recognize" the depicted characters). Christ is always greater than the apostles and angels, who, in turn, are greater than the common laity.

XI - XII centuries in Western Europe, this is the period of the greatest power of the church. Monasteries and episcopal cities became the creators of the Romanesque style. The Church during this period reduced the task of art to the need to show not the visible beauty, but the true beauty of the spirit. The aesthetic ideal that arose in Romanesque art, the entire figurative and semantic system of Romanics was designed to solve the problem.

The contrast between the ponderous, squat outlines of the cathedral and the spiritual expression of its images reflected the Christian formula of beauty - the idea of ​​the superiority of the spiritual over the physical. The Romanesque cathedral was a symbol of the stronghold of the human spirit in art. Architecture, paintings, door reliefs necessarily complemented each other, making up a unity based on the subordination of the small to the big, reflecting the principle of the medieval hierarchy. The murals of the Romanesque temple create a special closed world, where the layman became a participant in the depicted plots. The drama and expressiveness, intense spiritual expressiveness of pictorial images characteristic of Romanesque painting (scenes of the Last Judgment, the struggle between angels and the devil for human souls - a common plot of temple paintings) had a huge emotional impact, reflecting the idea of ​​the sinfulness of the world, the idea of ​​redemption and salvation. The flat, two-dimensional depiction of paintings and sculptures of the Romanesque style, the generalization of forms, the violation of proportions, the monumental significance of the images symbolized the timeless, eternal in the understanding of the world.

Romanesque architecture was based on the achievements of the previous period (in particular, the Carolingian Renaissance) and was formed under the strong influence of the traditions of ancient, Byzantine or Arab art, distinguished by a wide variety of forms. It shows many trends that existed in various regions of Western Europe and reflected local traditions and artistic tastes (for example, Italian Romanesque art was more strongly influenced by Byzantine traditions). Nevertheless, the Romanesque style by the XII century. became the first common European style. This is the historical style of the mature Middle Ages, characterized by the common types of buildings, their constructive techniques and means of expression.

The main structures of Romanesque architecture were the monastic complex of temples and a type of closed fortified dwelling of a feudal lord - a castle. In the X century. a type of fortified dwelling was formed in the form of a tower - a donjon, which was surrounded by a moat and a rampart. By the end of the XI century. for the dwelling of the feudal lord, they begin to build a separate building. Donjon now plays only defensive functions, being a refuge when taking defensive walls. The architecture of the castles was deeply functional. As in temple architecture, thick, massive walls and towers, narrow windows, a general expression of severity were their characteristic features.

Along with sculpture, painting was an indispensable part of the Romanesque architectural ensemble. Biblical stories and episodes from the lives of saints are widely represented on the inner surfaces of the walls. Romanesque painting was influenced by Byzantine traditions. Following the iconographic canon, the artists created flat, with elongated proportions, with severe, motionless ascetic faces, which were perceived as symbols of Christian beauty - spiritual beauty that conquers sinful matter.

Among the outstanding monuments of Romanesque architecture are the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Poitiers, the cathedrals in Toulouse, Orsinval, Arne (France), the cathedrals in Oxford, Winchester, Norice (England), the cathedral in Lund (Sweden). The cathedrals in Worms, Speyer and Mainz (Germany) became examples of late Romanesque.

By the end of the XII century. Romanesque art was replaced by Gothic (the term was first used by Renaissance historians to characterize all medieval art, which they associated with barbaric art).

The Gothic era (late 12th - 15th centuries) is a period when urban culture begins to play an increasingly important role in medieval culture. In all areas of the life of medieval society, the importance of the secular, rational principle is increasing. The Church is gradually losing its dominant position in the spiritual sphere. With the development of urban culture, on the one hand, church restrictions in the field of art began to weaken, and on the other, in striving to make the most of the ideological and emotional power of art for its own purposes, the church finally develops its attitude to art, which found expression in the treatises of the philosophers of that time. Medieval scholastics argued that art is an imitation of nature. Although didacticism, the ability to express religious dogmas and values, was still recognized as the main task of art, the scholastics did not deny the emotional power of art, its ability to evoke admiration.

In the concept of the Gothic cathedral, new ideas of the Catholic Church, and the increased self-awareness of the urban strata, and new ideas about the world were manifested. The dynamic upward aspiration of all forms of the cathedral reflected the Christian idea of ​​the aspiration of the soul of the righteous to heaven, where it was promised eternal bliss. Religious subjects retain their dominant position in Gothic art. The images of Gothic sculpture, personifying the dogmas and values ​​of Christianity, the very appearance of the cathedral, all forms of Gothic art were called upon to contribute to the mystical perception of God and the world. At the same time, the growing interest in human feelings, the beauty of the real world, the desire to individualize images, the growing role of secular subjects, the strengthening of realistic tendencies - all this distinguishes the Gothic style from the Romanesque as a more mature style of art that reflected the spirit of its time, its new trends - awakening of reason and feelings, growing interest in a person.

The first Gothic forms in architecture appear in Europe already at the end of the 12th century, but the heyday of the Gothic style falls on the 13th century. In the XIV - XV centuries. there is a gradual "extinction" of the Gothic ("flaming Gothic").

Gothic architecture became a new stage in the development of the basilical type of building, in which all elements began to obey a single system. The main feature of the Gothic cathedral is a stable frame system, in which the cross-rib lancet vaults and lancet arches play a constructive role, which largely determine the internal and external appearance of the cathedral. The entire weight of the bulk of the cathedral fell on its frame. This made it possible to make thin walls in which huge windows were carved. The most characteristic motif of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch, which, as it were, pulled the building towards the heavens.

The construction of Gothic temples was carried out not only by the church, but also by the cities. Moreover, the largest structures, and primarily cathedrals, were built at the expense of the townspeople. The purpose of the Gothic temple was not only cult, it also served as the center of public life in the city. University lectures were read in it, mysteries were played out. All sorts of secular and church ceremonies were held on the Cathedral Square, gathering crowds of townspeople. Cathedrals were built "by the whole world", often their construction lasted for tens of years, and sometimes for several centuries.

The Gothic style has received a classic expression in France, which is rightfully considered the birthplace of the Gothic. (Notre Dame Cathedral was founded in 1163, was completed until the middle of the XIII century.) The most famous monuments of French Gothic are the cathedrals of Amiens and Reims (XIII century), Saint Chapelle church (XIII century).

Mature Gothic is characterized by an increase in verticalism, a greater aspiration upward. One of the most remarkable monuments of mature Gothic is Reims Cathedral - the place where the French kings were crowned.

The English cathedrals were somewhat different, which are characterized by a large length and a peculiar intersection of pointed arches of the vaults. The most famous monument of English Gothic is Westminster Abbey (XIII - XVI centuries).

The development of sculpture, which played a leading role in the visual arts of this period, is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. Gothic sculpture is more subordinate to architecture and has a more independent meaning than Romanesque. In numerous niches on the facades of cathedrals, figures were placed, personifying the dogmas of the Christian faith. Lively poses, light bends give them mobility, dynamism, in contrast to Romanesque. The images of the saints themselves have become more varied, specific, and individual. The most significant figures were attached to the columns in the openings on the sides of the entrance to the cathedral. Along with those placed in niches or attached to columns, there were also free-standing monumental statues (i.e., sculpture in the modern sense of the word).

Thus, Gothic art revived sculpture itself, unknown to medieval culture since antiquity. Like Romanesque temples, images of monsters and fantastic creatures (chimeras) are often found in the Gothic cathedral. The characteristic features of Gothic sculpture can be summarized as follows: interest in the phenomena of the real world; figures representing the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church become more realistic; the role of secular subjects is increasing; round plastic appears and begins to play a dominant role (although the relief does not disappear).

In the Gothic cathedral, painting is represented mainly by the painting of the altars. As the frame system was established and the wall became more and more openwork, the space for frescoes in the cathedral narrowed more and more - they were often replaced by stained glass windows. Stained glass opened up new possibilities for the medieval artist. Christianity gave light a divine and mystical meaning. The light pouring from the sky symbolized the light coming from God. The play of light penetrating through the stained glass led the laity away from everything concrete, earthly, leading to the intangible, luminous. The stained-glass window seemed to muffle the corporeality, expressiveness, concreteness of the images of Gothic plastic. The luminosity of the inner space of the cathedral, as it were, deprived matter of impenetrability, spiritualized it.

The Gothic style changed the appearance of the medieval city and contributed to the development of secular construction. Town halls with open galleries are being erected in cities. Castles of aristocrats are increasingly reminiscent of palaces. Rich townspeople build houses with peaked gable roofs, narrow windows, pointed doorways, and corner turrets.

Traces of the pagan beliefs of peasants can be traced in folklore, especially in fairy tales and sayings. Peasant folklore expresses a negative attitude towards the rich. The beloved hero of Western European fairy tales is a poor man. The heroes of folk tales were often Jean-Fool in France, Foolish Hans in Germany, Big Fool in England.

Secular and church literature used fairy-tale material of the Middle Ages quite widely. Around 1100 the Spaniard Petrus Alfonsky compiled a whole collection, which included 34 stories, including a number of animal tales - “common stories”. The compiling clergy gave these stories a moralistic interpretation.

Fairy-tale narrative material was widely used in knightly novels, in the short stories of Mary of France (XII century), in urban short stories of the XIV-XV centuries, in individual works of the Meistersingers. However, in all cases, this is only material, often only isolated episodes, motives and details are used. Only from the middle of the XVI century. we can talk about the introduction of fairy tales proper into literature.

All kinds of evil spirits are a frequent hero of Western European folk tales. In many stories, the characters are animals with human abilities. In the XIII century. these numerous stories were combined and put into verse - this is how the already mentioned famous medieval folk poem "The Novel of the Fox" arose.

Peasant ideas about a just life, about nobility and honor are heard in the legends about noble robbers who protect the orphan and the disadvantaged.

The genre of medieval folk art based on this subject became Anglo-Scottish ballads. Their anonymous authors - peasants, artisans, sometimes the ballads were composed by professional singers - minstrels. These works were common among the people. The time of the origin of the ballad as a genre of folk art is unknown. The earliest ballad dates back to the 13th century. English and Scottish ballads are divided into several groups: epic ballads, which are based on real historical events, the so-called robber ballads, lyric-dramatic love ballads, fantastic and everyday ones.

The hero of the robber ballads is the noble Robin Hood, the folk hero of England, and his army. The first ballads about Robin Hood were recorded in the 15th century. In the ballad, it is easy to trace the sympathy of the people for the forest arrows, who went into the forest as a result of oppression. For the first time in European poetry, a man of ignoble birth became the ideal. Unlike the knights, Robin Hood fights against the oppressors of the people. All the good feelings and deeds of a brave archer extend only to the people.

The main thing in the plot of love ballads is not the glorification of a heroic deed in the name of a beautiful lady (as in knightly poetry), but a genuine feeling, emotional experiences of lovers.

The fantastic ballads reflected the beliefs of the people. The supernatural world with its fairies, elves and other fantastic characters appears in these ballads as a real, real world.

In a later period, everyday ballads appeared, characterized by greater prosaicity, the predominance of the comic element. The ballad often uses artistic techniques of folk art. The language of the ballads is peculiar - concrete words, without lush metaphors and rhetorical figures. A feature of the ballads is also their clear rhythm.

Peasant labor and rest was associated with songs - ceremonial, labor, holiday, folk dances.

In the countries of French and German culture, joggers (amusements) and spielmans (literally - igrets) - wandering poets-singers, bearers of folk culture - often performed at fairs and villages. They performed spiritual verses, folk songs, heroic poems, etc. to musical accompaniment. The singing was accompanied by dancing, puppet theater, and all sorts of tricks. Folk singers often performed in the castles of feudal lords and in monasteries, making folk culture the property of all strata of medieval society. Later, from the XII century, they began to perform various genres of chivalrous and urban literature. The folk art of jugglers and shpielmans became the basis of secular knightly and urban musical and poetic culture.

Medieval literature had a number of common characteristics that determined its internal integrity. It was literature of the traditionalist type. Throughout its existence, it has developed on the basis of constant reproduction of a limited set of figurative, ideological, compositional and other structures - toposes (common places) or clichés, expressed in the constancy of epithets, pictorial cliches, the stability of motives and themes, the constancy of the canons for the depiction of the entire figurative systems (be it a young man in love, a Christian martyr, a knight, a beauty, an emperor, a city dweller, etc.). On the basis of these clichés, genre toposes were formed, which had their own semantic, thematic and pictorial-expressive canon (for example, the genre of hagiography or the genre of the courtly novel in knightly literature).

Medieval man found in literature a generally recognized, traditional model, a ready-made universal formula for describing a hero, his feelings, appearance, etc. (beauties are always gold-headed and blue-eyed, the rich are stingy, the saints have a traditional set of virtues, etc.). Medieval toposes, clichés, canons reduced the singular to the general, the typical. Hence the specificity of authorship in medieval literature (and in general in medieval art).

Medieval art did not deny the originality of the author. The medieval reader (and the author) saw the originality of the author not in a unique, individual (author's) understanding of the world and man, but in the skill of implementing a system of topics common to all authors (in fine art - canons).

The formation of medieval topics was significantly influenced by the literature of antiquity. In the episcopal schools of the early Middle Ages, students, in particular, read "exemplary" works of ancient authors (the fables of Aesop, the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, etc.), mastered the antique topic and used it in their own writings.

The ambivalent attitude of the Middle Ages to ancient culture as primarily pagan determined the selective assimilation of ancient cultural traditions and their adaptation to express Christian spiritual values ​​and ideals. In literature, this was expressed in the imposition of an antique topic on the topic of the Bible, the main source of the figurative system of medieval literature, which sanctified the spiritual values ​​and ideals of medieval society.

The second feature of medieval literature is its pronounced moral and didactic character. Medieval man expected morality from literature; outside of morality, the whole meaning of the work was lost for him.

The third feature is that the literature of the Middle Ages is equally based on Christian ideals and values ​​and equally strived for aesthetic perfection, delimiting only thematically. Although, of course, the very appearance and development of secular principles in culture was of fundamental importance, reflecting the line in the formation of the spiritual culture of medieval society, the development of which would later prepare the flourishing of Renaissance literature.

Throughout the centuries-old development of the Middle Ages, hagiography - church literature describing the lives of the saints - was especially popular. By the X century. the canon of this literary genre was formed: the indestructible, firm spirit of the hero (martyr, missionary, fighter for the Christian faith), a classic set of virtues, constant formulas of praise. The life of the saint offered the highest moral lesson, carried away with examples of a righteous life. The hagiographic literature is characterized by a miracle motive that corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the Lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - "legends" began to be read in the church, and the Lives themselves were collected in vast collections. The Golden Legend by Yakov Voraginsky (13th century), a collection of the lives of Catholic saints, became widely known in medieval Europe.

The tendency of the Middle Ages to allegory, allegory expressed the genre of visions. According to medieval ideas, the highest meaning is revealed only by revelation - a vision. In the genre of visions, the fate of people and the world was revealed to the author in a dream. The visions were often told of real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. Visions had a significant impact on the development of later medieval literature, starting with the famous French "Novel of the Rose" (XIII century), which clearly expressed the motive of visions ("revelations in a dream"), to Dante's "Divine Comedy".

The genre of a didactic-allegorical poem (about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.) adjoins visions. Among the didactic genres are also sermons, various kinds of maxims borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. The maxims were collected in special collections, a kind of textbooks of worldly wisdom.

Among the lyric genres of literature, the dominant position was occupied by hymns praising the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. Hymns had their own canon. The composition of the hymn about the saints, for example, included an opening, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his exploits, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.

The Liturgy, the main Christian divine service, known since the 2nd century, is strictly canonical and symbolic. The birth of the liturgical drama dates back to the early Middle Ages. The Catholic Church supported the liturgical drama with its pronounced didacticism. By the end of the XI century. the liturgical drama lost touch with the liturgy. In addition to dramatizing biblical episodes, she began to act out the lives of the saints, using elements of the theater itself - the scenery. Strengthening the entertainment and entertainment of the drama, the penetration of the mundane principle into it forced the church to take dramatic performances outside the temple - first to the porch, and then to the city square. The liturgical drama became the basis for the emergence of the medieval city theater.

CONCLUSION

The decline of medieval culture consisted in the destruction of the ideational system of culture, based on the principle of supersensibility and superintelligence of God as the only reality and value. It began at the end of the 12th century, when the embryo of a new - completely different - basic principle appeared, which was that objective reality and its meaning are sensual. Only what we see, hear, touch, feel and perceive through our senses is real and makes sense.

This new principle, slowly gaining weight, collided with the decaying principle of ideational culture, and their fusion into an organic whole created a completely new culture in the XIII-XIV centuries. Its basic premise was that objective reality is partly supersensible and partly sensible. The cultural system that embodies this premise can be called idealistic. The culture of the 13th - 14th centuries in Western Europe was predominantly idealistic, based on this synthesizing idea.

However, the process did not end there. The ideational culture of the Middle Ages continued to decline, while a culture based on the recognition that objective reality and its meaning were sensory continued to accelerate in subsequent centuries. Starting around the 16th century, the new principle became dominant, and with it the culture based on it. Thus, a modern form of our culture arose - a culture of sensory, empirical, secular and "corresponding to this world."

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The era of the Middle Ages was considered by the progressive thinkers of the modern era as a gloomy time that did not give the world anything: a narrow religious worldview imposed by the Catholic Church hindered the development of science and art. In today's lesson, we will try to challenge this claim and prove that the Middle Ages, which lasted a thousand years, left a rich cultural heritage for future generations.

In the XI century in the south of France, in Provence, a knightly style arose. The Provencal singing poets were called troubadours (Fig. 1). The imagination of the poets created the image of an ideal knight - brave, generous and just. In the poetry of the troubadours, the service to the Beautiful Lady, Madonna ("my mistress"), was sung, in which the worship of the Mother of God and the earthly, living and beautiful woman were combined. In Northern France, Italy, Spain, Germany, knightly poets were called trouvers and minnesingers (translated as singers of love).

Rice. 1. Troubadour ()

In the same centuries, poetic knightly novels and stories arose. The legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are especially widely reflected in the novels. Arthur's court appeared as a place where the best knightly qualities flourished. The Romans transported the reader to a fantastic world, where fairies, greats, wizards, oppressed beauties, waiting for help from brave knights, met at every step.

In the 12th century, urban literature began to flourish. The townspeople loved short stories in verse and fables on everyday topics. Their heroes were most often a clever, cunning burgher or a cheerful, resourceful peasant. They invariably left their opponents in the fools - swaggering knights and greedy monks. Poems of the va-gants (in translation from Latin - vagabonds) are associated with urban literature. Vagants were called schoolchildren and students who, in the XII-XIII centuries, roamed the cities and universities of Europe in search of new teachers.

Outstanding in this Middle Ages was Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) (Fig. 2). Dante was born in Florence into an old noble family. He studied at a city school, and then studied philosophy, astronomy, and ancient literature all his life. At the age of 18, he lived out his love for the young Beatrice, who later married another and died early. Dante told about his experiences with unprecedented frankness for those times in a small book "New Life"; she glorified his name in literature. Dante wrote a great work in verse, which he called "Comedy". The descendants called it "The Divine Comedy" as a sign of the highest praise. Dante describes a journey to the afterlife: hell for sinners, paradise for the righteous, and purgatory for those to whom God has not yet passed judgment. At the gates of hell, located in the north, there is an inscription that has become winged: "Leave hope, everyone who enters here." In the center of the southern hemisphere there is a huge mountain in the form of a truncated cone, there is a purgatory on the slopes of the mountain, and on its flat top is earthly paradise. Accompanied by the great Roman poet Virgil, Dante visits hell and purgatory, and Beatrice leads him through paradise. There are 9 circles in hell: the heavier the sins, the lower the circle and the more severe the punishment. In hell, Dante placed bloodthirsty Vlas-tolubians, cruel rulers, criminals, misers. In the center of hell is the devil himself, gnawing traitors: Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Dante put his enemies into hell, including several popes. In his image, sinners are not ethereal shadows, but living people: they conduct conversations and disputes with the poet, political strife raging in hell. Dante talks with the righteous in paradise and, finally, contemplates the Mother of God and God. Pictures of the afterlife are drawn so vividly and convincingly that it seemed to contemporaries that the poet saw it with his own eyes. And he described, in essence, the diverse earthly world, with its contradictions and passions. Po-ema is written in Italian: the poet wants to be understood by the widest circle of readers.

Rice. 2. Domenico Petarlini. Dante Alighieri)

Large construction began in the 11th century in Western Europe. The rich church expanded the number and size of churches, rebuilt old buildings. Until the XI-XII centuries, the Romanesque style prevailed in Europe. The Romanesque temple is a massive building with almost smooth walls, high towers and laconic décor. Everywhere the outlines of a semicircular arch are repeated - on the vaults, window openings, entrances to the temple (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Church of San Martin in Fromiste (1066) - one of the best monuments of the Romanesque style in Spain)

From the middle of the XII century, trading premises, halls for meetings of workshops and guilds, hospitals, and hotels were built in free cities. The main decorations of the city were the town hall and especially the cathedral. The buildings of the XII-XV centuries were later called Gothic. Now the light and high pointed vault rests on the inside on beams of narrow, high columns, and on the outside on massive support pillars and on connecting arches. The halls are spacious and high, they receive more light and air, they are richly decorated with paintings, carvings, and bas-reliefs. Thanks to the wide aisles and through galleries, many huge windows and lacy stone carvings, Gothic cathedrals seem transparent (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Notre Dame Cathedral (

In the Middle Ages, sculpture was inseparable from architecture. Temples were decorated outside and inside with hundreds, or even thousands, of reliefs and statues depicting God and the Virgin Mary, apostles and saints, bishops and kings. For example, in the cathedral in Chartres (France) there were up to 9 thousand statues, not counting the reliefs. Church art was supposed to serve as a "Bible for the non-literate" - to depict the scenes described in Christian books, to strengthen in faith and torment the torment of hell. Unlike ancient art, which glorified the beauty of the human body, the artists of the Middle Ages sought to reveal the wealth of the soul, thoughts and feelings of a person, his intense inner life. In Gothic statues, in their flexible, elongated figures, the appearance of people is especially vividly conveyed, body shapes appear more clearly under the folds of clothes, there is more movement in poses. The idea of ​​harmony between the external and internal appearance of a person is becoming more and more noticeable; especially beautiful female images - Mary in Reims Cathedral, Uty in Naumburg.

The walls of the Romanesque temples were covered with paintings. Book miniature was a great achievement in painting. The whole life of people was reflected in many vivid drawings. Everyday scenes were also depicted on frescoes, which is especially characteristic of German and Scandinavian temples of the XIV-XV centuries.

Considering the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages, let us dwell on scientific achievements. Astrology and alchemy flourished in the Middle Ages. The observations and experiments of astrologers and alchemists contributed to the accumulation of knowledge in astronomy and chemistry. Alchemists, for example, discovered and improved methods of obtaining metal alloys, paints, medicinal substances, created many chemical devices and devices for conducting experiments. Astrologers studied the location of stars and luminaries, their movement and the laws of physics. She also accumulated useful knowledge and medicine.

In the XIV-XV centuries, water mills began to be actively used in mining and crafts. The water wheel has long been the basis of mills, which were built on rivers and lakes for grinding grain (Fig. 5). But later a more powerful wheel was invented, which was set in motion by the force of water falling on it. The energy of the mill was also used in cloth making, for washing ("enrichment") and smelting metal ores, lifting weights, etc. The mill and mechanical clock were the first mechanisms of the Middle Ages.

Rice. 5. Overhead waterwheel ()

The advent of firearms. Previously, metal was melted in small forges, blowing air into them with hand bellows. Since the XIV century, they began to build blast furnaces - smelting furnaces up to 3-4 meters in height. The waterwheel was connected to large bellows, which forcefully blew air into the furnace. Thanks to this, a very high temperature was reached in the blast furnace: the iron ore melted, and liquid chu-gun was formed. Various products were cast from cast iron, and iron and steel were obtained by remelting it. Much more metal was smelted now than before. For smelting metal in blast furnaces, they began to use not only charcoal, but also coal.

For a long time, rare Europeans dared to embark on long voyages on the high seas. Without correct maps and nautical instruments, the ships sailed "cabotage" (along the coast) along the seas washing Europe and along North Africa. It became safer to go out to sea after the sailors got a compass. Astrolabes were invented - devices for determining the location of the ship (Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Astrolabe ()

With the development of the state and cities, science and navigation, the volume of knowledge increased and, at the same time, the need for educated people, in the expansion of education and in books, including textbooks. In the 14th century, a cheaper writing material, paper, began to be produced in Europe, but there was still a shortage of books. To reproduce the text, they made prints from a wooden or copper board with letters carved on it, but this method was very imperfect and required a lot of labor. In the middle of the 15th century, the German Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1399-1468) invented printing. After long and hard work and searches, he began to cast individual letters (letters) from metal; of these, the inventor made up the lines and pages of the set, from which he made an imprint on paper. With the help of a collapsible font, you could type as many pages of any text as you wanted. Gutenberg also invented the printing press. In 1456 Gutenberg published the first printed book - the Bible (Fig. 7), which in artistic terms was not inferior to the best manuscripts. The invention of printing is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. It contributed to the development of education, science and literature. Thanks to the printed book, the knowledge accumulated by people, all the necessary information began to spread faster. They were more fully preserved and passed on to the next generations of people. Success in disseminating information, an important part of the development of culture and all sectors of society's life, made their next important step in the late Middle Ages - a step towards the New Age.

Rice. 7. Bible Johannes Gutenberg ()

Bibliography

1. Agibalova E.V., G.M. Donskoy. History of the Middle Ages. - M., 2012
2. Atlas of the Middle Ages: History. Traditions. - M., 2000
3. Illustrated World History: From Ancient Times to the 17th Century. - M., 1999
4. History of the Middle Ages: book. For reading / Ed. V.P. Budanova. - M., 1999
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Homework

1. What genres of literature developed in medieval Europe?
2. Why is Dante considered the greatest poet of the Middle Ages?
3. What styles dominated medieval architecture?
4. What technical inventions of the Middle Ages do you know?
5. Why is the invention of printing considered one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind?

Culture is a variety of forms and ways of human self-expression. What were the features of the culture of the Middle Ages, summarized? The Middle Ages spanned over 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. In many ways, this determined the formation of culture. Among the polls of the illiterate population of Europe, the ministers of the Christian religion represented a separate class of educated people. The church in the early Middle Ages played the role of a single center of culture. In the monastery workshops, 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, the lives of the saints, the knightly romance. Later, the genre of ballads, courtly romance, and love lyrics appeared.
If we talk about the early Middle Ages, then the level of development of culture 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 Marco Polo's journey, Europeans gain another valuable experience of how other countries live. The worldview of a medieval man is undergoing major changes.

Medieval Science

It is widely developed with the emergence of the first at universities in the 11th century. Alchemy was a very interesting science of the Middle Ages. The transformation of metals into gold, the search for the philosopher's stone are her main tasks.

Architecture

It is represented in the Middle Ages in two directions - Romanesque and Gothic. The Romanesque style is massive and geometric, with thick walls and narrow windows. It is more suitable for defense installations. Gothic is lightness, considerable height, wide windows and an abundance of sculptures. If in the Romanesque style they built mainly castles, then in the Gothic style - beautiful temples.
During the Renaissance (Renaissance), the culture of the Middle Ages makes a powerful leap forward.

The spiritual world of medieval man. Everyday life and holidays. Medieval epic. Knightly literature. Urban and peasant folklore. Romanesque and Gothic styles in architecture, sculpture and decorative arts.

Development of science and technology. The emergence of universities. Scholasticism. The beginning of book printing in Europe.

Cultural heritage of Byzantium.

Features of the medieval culture of the peoples of the East. Architecture and poetry.

Countries of Asia, Africa and America in the Middle Ages (V-XV centuries)

The conquests of the Seljuks and the Ottomans. Ottoman Empire. Ottoman conquests in the Balkans. Fall of Byzantium.

China: disintegration and restoration of a single power. Tang and Song empires. Peasant uprisings, nomadic invasions. Creation of the Ming empire. Indian principalities. Creation of the state of the Great Mughals. Delhi Sultanate. Medieval Japan.

Central Asian states in the Middle Ages. State of Khorezm and its conquest by the Mongols. Campaigns of Timur (Tamerlane).

Pre-Columbian civilizations of America. Maya, Aztecs and Incas: states, beliefs, features of economic life.

CALENDAR-THEME PLANNING

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES (28 hours)