essay on the middle ages

Western Civilization in the Middle Ages Essay

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In Europe, the period after the fall of the Roman Empire until 1500 is commonly called the Middle Ages. This period can be characterized both as a period of chaos and instability and a period of a great increase in instability and order. This époque is divided by the scholars into three periods: an early phase, 500-1000; the central, 1000-1300; and the later, 1300-1500.

The following events in the course of the European countries’ development give us a way to state that there was a time of chaos and instability during the period under consideration:

• The decay of the ancient city-state. Existing before as physical and social units, now they have led to the establishment of the isolated rural estate as a typical form of social and economic organization. The economic and cultural unity of the cities was ruined, only some cities survived as ecclesiastical or political centers.
• The decline of long-distance trade. As a result, the individual’s needs depended only on locally produced goods. Large-scale pottery manufacture and other major industries that depended on long-distance trade vanished in many countries.
• Diseases. Assaults from outside Europe carried outbreaks of bubonic plague. As a result, there was a drastic population decline in Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
• The decline of power by the two the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.
• The breakup of the Carolingian Empire. This process was accompanied by the invasions, migrations, and raids of external foes which brought chaos and instability to societies.
• The start of feudalism in Europe in the High Middle Ages.
• The long conflicts during the Late Middle Ages (for example, the Hundred Years’ War) strengthened royal control over the kingdoms, whereas the conditions in which peasantry existed were extremely hard.

The following factors, on the contrary, brought order to the European society:

• The collapse of the centralized state (the Roman Empire). This contributed to the established government of law and social order.
• Conversion of peoples to Christianity. It led to a shift of basic loyalty from the state to religion.
• Explosion in population during the High Middle Ages.
• The first sustained urbanization, which resulted from the military and dynastic achievements of this period.
• The protestant reformation. It formed the shifts in attitude leading to the rise of modern nation-states.
• The rise of strong centralized monarchial states in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, France, England, Russia, and Germany.
• The independence of Switzerland and the Republic of Belgium.
• Carolingian Renaissance. This period of cultural revival is characterized by an increase in literacy, developments in arts, architecture, and other spheres of human knowledge.
• In the High Middle Ages major barbarian incursions ceased.
• The divisiveness of the Catholic Church in the Late Middle Ages undermined papal authority and led to the formation of national churches.

We are inclined to believe that the factors and the events mentioned above should be considered in their complex interconnection, as emphasizing any of them will lead only to a one-sided approach to the problem of the European development after the fall of the Roman Empire up to 1500.

After the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution European society differed from the one it used to be in the Early Middle Ages. Contrary to the Early Middle Ages period when the Catholic Church remained the unifying factor, Europe in 1600 was divided according to the countries’ religious orientations. Religious strife took place within several European states. For example, France suffered from the French Wars of Religion.

Religion remained the main power that influenced the development of the European states: Germany was divided into states according to the principles of the Holy Roman Empire, England was characterized by moderate Anglicanism. Changes in religion we consider to be the most influential for European development.

Feudalism which originates in Europe from the Early Middle Ages was replaced by capitalism as the principal form of economic organization. Therefore, collapse in trade and manufacture for export common for the Early Middle Ages Europe was not typical for Europe of 1600. The rise of modern science and the application of its findings also contributed to the emergence of the new forms of trade and expanding horizons that differed Europe of 1600 from Europe of 500-600.

During the Middle Ages the formation of the Islamic Eastern culture and Asian culture, along with the European culture was characterized by the growth of the productive forces – the usage of the iron tools expanded, artificial irrigation and irrigation engineering were modernized. The main tendency of the historical development of the East as well as of the West was the establishment of feudalism. But the eastern cultures differed from the western ones by the dynamism of the feudalism development. The main reasons that determined the latency of the eastern cultures are:

• The slow break-up of the primitive communal system and conservation of slavery along with the feudal relationships;
• Stability of the communal forms which postpone the differentiation of peasantry;
• Prevalence of the state property and governmental authorities over the landlordism and private property of feudal lords;
• Authoritative power of feudal over a town which impaired the anti-feudal aspirations of the citizens.

These were the main tendencies that distinguished the formation of feudalism in the western and eastern countries.

Feudalism is a system of reciprocal legal and military obligations among members of the nobility during the High Middle Ages. The three main elements of the feudalism system are lords, vassals, and fiefs. The interrelation of these three elements is rooted in the following: a lord-owned land, known as a fief, the possession of this land was granted by the lord to a vassal who, in his turn, should have provided military service to the lord. These three elements fitting together, the obligations and relations between them form the basis of feudalism.

There is no specific start of feudalism in Europe. In its classical form, it occurred around the 10 th century. The causes of feudalism in Europe are as follows:

• Taxation (either by means of feorm-fultum, or danegelt, or gabelle) forced the poorer people to commend themselves to a lord;
• The royal grant of fole-land;
• International war. Kings needed to surround themselves with the help of the army, the members of which were granted the king’s protection.

The height of feudalism in Europe was during the 11 th century, feudalism flourished in the 12th. The decline of feudalism started in the 13 th century and proceeded until the 15 th century. The decline was due to the new processes that replaced the system of land tenure paid for by governmental work.

The troops for war were raised according to the new system that substituted money for land. The latter stopped having the same value in the eyes of the monarch, since then money became a symbol of his power. Vassals preferred to give money to their lords and the lords also preferred money as it enabled them to hire professional troops more disciplined and trained than the vassals. The revival of infantry tactics and the introduction of new weapons made cavalry tactics useless.

Another cause of the decline of feudalism is the increase in communication that took place in Europe. This process broke down the isolated manor houses and assisted the rise of towns. The burgess class emerged.

The Peasant Revolt all over Europe has broken the system of the old economy and started the modern social economy. By 1550, it consisted of the métier system or division of national wealth among small landed possessors on the Continent. In England, feudalism was replaced by “enclosed” agriculture.

In the late Middle Ages, feudal obligations existing between lords and vassals were replaced by agreements based on money payments. The economy developed from an agricultural base to commercial and manufacturing interests.

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Introduction to the Middle Ages

The Lindisfarne Gospels , left: Saint Matthew, portrait page (25v); right: Saint Matthew, cross-carpet page (26v), c. 700 (Northumbria), 340 x 250 mm ( British Library , Cotton MS Nero D IV)

The dark ages?

So much of what the average person knows, or thinks they know, about the Middle Ages comes from film and tv. When I polled a group of well-educated friends on Facebook, they told me that the word “medieval” called to mind Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Blackadder, The Sword in the Stone, lusty wenches, feasting, courtly love, the plague, jousting and chain mail.

Perhaps someone who had seen (or better yet read) The Name of the Rose or Pillars of the Earth would add cathedrals, manuscripts, monasteries, feudalism, monks and friars.

Petrarch, an Italian poet and scholar of the fourteenth century, famously referred to the period of time between the fall of the Roman Empire (c. 476) and his own day (c. 1330s) as the Dark Ages. Petrarch believed that the Dark Ages was a period of intellectual darkness due to the loss of the classical learning, which he saw as light. Later historians picked up on this idea and ultimately the term Dark Ages was transformed into Middle Ages. Broadly speaking, the Middle Ages is the period of time in Europe between the end of antiquity in the fifth century and the Renaissance , or rebirth of classical learning, in the fifteenth century and sixteenth centuries.

North Transept Rose Window, c. 1235, Chartres Cathedral , France (photo: Dr. Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Not so dark after all

Characterizing the Middle Ages as a period of darkness falling between two greater, more intellectually significant periods in history is misleading. The Middle Ages was not a time of ignorance and backwardness, but rather a period during which Christianity flourished in Europe. Christianity, and specifically Catholicism in the Latin West, brought with it new views of life and the world that rejected the traditions and learning of the ancient world.

During this time, the Roman Empire slowly fragmented into many smaller political entities. The geographical boundaries for European countries today were established during the Middle Ages. This was a period that heralded the formation and rise of universities, the establishment of the rule of law, numerous periods of ecclesiastical reform and the birth of the tourism industry. Many works of medieval literature, such as the Canterbury Tales, the Divine Comedy, and The Song of Roland, are widely read and studied today.

The visual arts prospered during Middles Ages, which created its own aesthetic values. The wealthiest and most influential members of society commissioned cathedrals, churches, sculpture, painting, textiles, manuscripts, jewelry and ritual items from artists. Many of these commissions were religious in nature but medieval artists also produced secular art. Few names of artists survive and fewer documents record their business dealings, but they left behind an impressive legacy of art and culture.

When I polled the same group of friends about the word “Byzantine,” many struggled to come up with answers. Among the better ones were the song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” sung by They Might Be Giants, crusades, things that are too complex (like the tax code or medical billing), Hagia Sophia, the poet Yeats, mosaics, monks, and icons. Unlike Western Europe in the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire is not romanticized in television and film.

Approximate boundaries of the Byzantine Empire, mid-6th century (underlying map © Google)

In the medieval West, the Roman Empire fragmented, but in the Byzantine East, it remained a strong, centrally-focused political entity. Byzantine emperors ruled from Constantinople, which they thought of as the New Rome. Constantinople housed Hagia Sophia , one of the world’s largest churches, and was a major center of artistic production.

Isidore of Miletus & Anthemius of Tralles for Emperor Justinian, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532–37 (photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Byzantine Empire experienced two periods of Iconoclasm (720s–787 and 815–843), when images and image-making were problematic. Iconoclasm left a visible legacy on Byzantine art because it created limits on what artists could represent and how those subjects could be represented. Byzantine Art is broken into three periods. Early Byzantine or Early Christian art begins with the earliest extant Christian works of art c. 250 and ends with the end of Iconoclasm in 843. Middle Byzantine art picks up at the end of Iconoclasm and extends to the sack of Constantinople by Latin Crusaders in 1204. Late Byzantine art was made between the sack of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

In the European West, Medieval art is often broken into smaller periods. These date ranges vary by location.

Bibliography

Art and Death in the Middle Ages on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Byzantium from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Icons and Iconoclasm on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Hagia Sophia on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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The Middle Ages

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The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400–1500 ce is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the period between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The period is often considered to have its own internal divisions: either early and late or early, central or high, and late.

Although once regarded as a time of uninterrupted ignorance, superstition, and social oppression, the Middle Ages are now understood as a dynamic period during which the idea of Europe as a distinct cultural unit emerged. During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, political, social, economic, and cultural structures were profoundly reorganized, as Roman imperial traditions gave way to those of the Germanic peoples who established kingdoms in the former Western Empire. New forms of political leadership were introduced, the population of Europe was gradually Christianized, and monasticism was established as the ideal form of religious life. These developments reached their mature form in the 9th century during the reign of Charlemagne and other rulers of the Carolingian dynasty , who oversaw a broad cultural revival known as the Carolingian renaissance.

In the central, or high, Middle Ages, even more dramatic growth occurred. The period was marked by economic and territorial expansion, demographic and urban growth, the emergence of national identity, and the restructuring of secular and ecclesiastical institutions. It was the era of the Crusades , Gothic art and architecture, the papal monarchy , the birth of the university , the recovery of ancient Greek thought, and the soaring intellectual achievements of St. Thomas Aquinas ( c. 1224–74).

It has been traditionally held that by the 14th century the dynamic force of medieval civilization had been spent and that the late Middle Ages were characterized by decline and decay. Europe did indeed suffer disasters of war, famine, and pestilence in the 14th century, but many of the underlying social, intellectual, and political structures remained intact. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe experienced an intellectual and economic revival, conventionally called the Renaissance , that laid the foundation for the subsequent expansion of European culture throughout the world.

Many historians have questioned the conventional dating of the beginning and end of the Middle Ages, which were never precise in any case and cannot be located in any year or even century. Some scholars have advocated extending the period defined as late antiquity ( c. 250– c. 750 ce ) into the 10th century or later, and some have proposed a Middle Ages lasting from about 1000 to 1800. Still others argue for the inclusion of the old periods Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation into a single period beginning in late antiquity and ending in the second half of the 16th century.

Essay on Medieval Times

This essay will cover key aspects of medieval times, including social structure, culture, and historical events. It will discuss life in medieval society, the role of the Church, and significant developments of the era. The piece will provide insights into the complexities of medieval life and its impact on modern society. At PapersOwl too, you can discover numerous free essay illustrations related to Byzantine Empire.

How it works

The middle ages began in the 5th century and last until the 15th century. It began with eh fall of the Western Roman Empire and made its way into the Renaissance. In Medieval Europe there was a war in Northern Spain in 792. It targeted the Christian countries. Charlemagne’s army was ambushed by the Basques. There was a qualitative change in the nature of Christian virtue in Europe.

Christendom is the realm of the Christians. In the Early ages Jesus represented the king.

In the high middle ages Jesus suffered and He walked to his family, friends, disciples, enemies, and rivals. There was a lot of competition between the aristocracies. Charlemagne’s empire was divided into three kingdoms by his grandsons, and each further divided. The more kings there were, the more choices for aristocrats to shop for honors. The weakening of kings led to the rise of aristocracies. In the year 1000 to the year 1300 the population increased in Europe 36 million. During this time there was also less warfare and a decline in slavery. The climate slightly improved from what it was before.

They cleared out the forests and made them into farmlands. With farmlands in place, the agriculture equipment and techniques improved. They had better harness, intensive manuring, and they had a three-field system. The three-field system is wheat or rye, fallow, and barley, beans, and peas. There was an economic development in the 11th century. There was a surplus from agriculture. They also had commercial activity. Europe had had great cities including Paris, London, Florence, and Munich. Europe and China had an interdependence of commerce and agriculture turned investments into infrastructure.

Islamic world had profits of trade in Medieval Europe. Serfs were not slaves in a legal sense, nut they were bound to the land. The serfs had a degraded status, and they limited or no access to public courts. They would exchange their protection with their own freedom. Feudalism was a social system tied together by kinship, regional alliance, and personal bonds of loyalty. There was local autonomy and spread of political authority. The disappearance of Serfdom in Europe happened in the 14th century by purchasing freedom, peasant rebellions, and the bubonic plague.

While serfdom ended in Western Europe, it was picked up in Eastern Europe, and it continued to exist in Russia until the late 19th century. There were new reforms in the churched happening to create a new order. The wanted to purify monasticism. There was also a reform in papacy. The problems before the reform were Lay Investiture were appointment of bishops by kings, and simony was buying and selling the church offices. The appointment of bishops is by the Pope. The church was reorganized as a bureaucratic operation with the pope as monarch. Some of the goals were to be free from the control of secular authorities and management of professional clerics.

The first crusade was to aid the Byzantine Empire, and to regain the Holy Land in Jerusalem. The first crusade established a Latin kingdom in Palestine. The second crusade was defeated in 1148. The third crusade started in 1189 to 1192. This entailed drowning the German emperor and a peace treaty with Saladin. In the fourth crusade the pope contracted the Venetian merchants to ferry the troops, and there was competition between Venice and Constantinople during trade.

During this time, they attacked Constantinople, and there was mistrust between the Eastern and Western churches. The crusaders had some problem. The leaders argued amongst themselves, and doubts about the spiritual significance of such wars. The crusade also had significances which were showing the greed and piety of lords and outgrowth of Papal reform. “During the high Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church became organized into a hierarchy with the pope as the head of western Europe. He established supreme power. Many innovations took place in the creative arts during the high Middle Ages. Literacy was no longer merely requirement among the clergy. New readings were addressed to a newly literate public that had both the time and the knowledge to enjoy the work,” (James Sigona). During the medieval time period they had many achievements. These achievements were feudalism, cathedrals, and universities. They also had some negative effects which were, first pogroms against Jews, crusades against infidel Muslims, and conscious division of the world into Christians and non-Christians.

The relationship between the Church and the feudal states during the medieval period went through multiple developments. The struggles for power between kings and popes shaped the western world. The church became more defining of the Roman Empire. In the 5th century when the Roman Empire fell, there was no single powerful government in the West.

However, in Rome there was power, and this was the church. In the church became the most dominant power in the West. In the 10th century the church began to expand. The kingdoms began to gain power at the same time as the church. There was competition between the church power and the kingdom authority.

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Religion in the Middle Ages

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Religion in the Middle Ages, though dominated by the Catholic Church, was far more varied than only orthodox Christianity . In the Early Middle Ages (c. 476-1000), long-established pagan beliefs and practices entwined with those of the new religion so that many people who would have identified as Christian would not have been considered so by orthodox authority figures.

Practices such as fortune-telling, dowsing, making charms, talismans, or spells to ward off danger or bad luck, incantations spoken while sowing crops or weaving cloth, and many other daily observances were condemned by the medieval Church which tried to suppress them. At the same time, heretical sects throughout the Middle Ages offered people an alternative to the Church more in keeping with their folk beliefs.

Jewish scholars and merchants contributed to the religious make-up of medieval Europe as well as those who lived in rural areas who simply were not interested in embracing the new religion and, especially after the First Crusade , Christians and Muslims interacted to each other's mutual benefit. As the medieval period progressed, the Church exerted more control over people's thoughts and practices, controlling – or trying to – every aspect of an individual's life until the corruption of the institution, as well as its perceived failure to offer any meaningful response to the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352, brought on its fracture through the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Early Middle Ages & Pagan Christianity

Christianity did not immediately win the hearts and minds of the people of Europe. The process of Christianization was a slow one and, even toward the end of the Middle Ages, many people still practiced 'folk magic' and held to the beliefs of their ancestors even while observing Christian rites and rituals. The pre-Christian people – now commonly referenced as pagans – had no such label for themselves. The term pagan is a Christian designation from the French meaning a rustic who came from the countryside where the old beliefs and practices held tightly long after urban centers had more or less adopted orthodox Christian belief.

Even though there is ample evidence of Europeans in the Early Middle Ages accepting the basics of Christian doctrine, most definitely the existence of hell, a different paradigm of life on earth and the afterlife was so deeply ingrained in the communal consciousness that it could not easily just be set aside. In Britain , Scotland , and Ireland , especially, a belief in the “wee folk”, fairies, earth and water spirits, was regarded as simple common sense on how the world worked. One would no more go out of one's way to offend a water sprite than poison one's own well.

The belief in fairies, sprites, and ghosts (defined as spirits of the once-living) was so deeply embedded that parish priests allowed members of their congregations to continue practices of appeasement even though the Church instructed them to make clear such entities were demonic and not to be trifled with. Rituals involving certain incantations and spells, eating or displaying certain types of vegetables, performing certain acts or wearing a certain type of charm – all pagan practices with a long history – continued to be observed alongside going to Church, veneration of the saints, Christian prayer, confession, and acts of contrition.

A central concern of the Church, however, was right practice which reflected right belief, and the authorities struggled constantly to bring the population of Europe to this understanding. The problem, though, was that the rites of the Church did not resonate with a congregation like folk belief. The parish church or cathedral altar, at which the priest stood to celebrate the mass and transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, was far removed from the congregation of onlookers. The priest recited the mass in Latin, his back to the people, and whatever went on up there at the front had little to do with the people observing it.

The baptismal font, therefore, became the focal point of church life as it was present at the beginning of one's life (through infant baptism), at confirmation, weddings, and funerals – even if it was not used at all of these events – and most notably for the ritual known as the ordeal (or Ordeal by Water) which decided a person's guilt or innocence.

The baptismal font was often quite large and deep and the accused would be bound and thrown into it. If the accused floated to the top, they were guilty of the charges while, if they sank, they were innocent. Unfortunately, the innocent had to enjoy exoneration post-mortem since they usually drowned. The ordeal was used for serious crimes in a community as well as charges of heresy, which included the continued practice of pre-Christian rites.

High Middle Ages & the Cult of Mary

The tendency of the laity to continue these practices did not diminish with time, threats, or repeated drownings. Just as in the present day one justifies one's own actions while condemning others for the same sort of behavior, the medieval peasant seems to have accepted that their neighbor, drowned by the Church for some transgression, deserved their fate. There is certainly no record of public outcry, and the ritual of the ordeal – like executions – were a form of public entertainment.

How the medieval peasant felt about anything at all is unknown as they were illiterate and anything recorded about their beliefs or behavior comes from Church or town records kept by clerics and priests. The peasants ' silence is especially noted regarding the Church's view of women , who worked alongside men in the fields, could own their own businesses, join guilds, monastic orders and, in many cases, do the same work as a man but were still considered inferiors. As scholar Eileen Power observes, the peasants of a town "went to their churches on Sundays and listened while preachers told them in one breath that a woman was the gate of hell and that Mary was Queen of Heaven" (11). This view, established by the Church and supported by the aristocracy, would change significantly during the High Middle Ages (1000-1300), even though whatever progress was made would not last.

The Cult of the Virgin Mary was not new to the High Middle Ages – it had been popular in Palestine and Egypt from the 1st century onward – but became more highly developed during this time. Pope Gregory I (l. 540-604) established the two poles of womanhood in Christianity by characterizing Mary Magdalene as the redeemed prostitute and Mary the Mother of Jesus as the elevated virgin. Scholars still debate Gregory's reasons for characterizing Mary Magdalene in this way, conflating her with the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8:1-11), even though there is no biblical support for his claim.

Mary Magdalene, linked through her sins to Eve and the Fall of Man, was the sexual temptress men were encouraged to flee while the Virgin Mary was beyond the realm of temptation, incorruptible, and untouchable. Actual human women might at one time be Magdalene and another the Virgin and, whether one or the other, were best dealt with from a distance. The Cult of the Virgin, however, at least encouraged greater respect for women.

At the same time the Cult of the Virgin was developing most rapidly (or possibly because of it) a genre of romantic poetry and an accompanying ideal was appearing in Southern France, known today as courtly love . Courtly love romanticism maintained that women were not only worthy of respect but adoration, devotion, and service. The genre and attendant behavior it inspired are closely linked to the queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (l. c. 1122-1204), her daughter Marie de Champagne (l. 1145-1198), and writers associated with them such as Chretien de Troyes (l. c. 1130-1190), Marie de France (wrote c. 1160-1215), and Andreas Capellanus (12th century). These writers and the women who inspired and patronized them created an elevated vision of womanhood unprecedented in the medieval period.

These changes occurred at the same time as the popularity of a heretical religious sect known as the Cathars was winning adherents away from the Catholic Church in precisely the same region of Southern France. The Cathars venerated a divine feminine principle, Sophia , whom they swore to protect and serve in the same way that the noble, chivalric knights in courtly love poetry devoted themselves to a lady. Some scholars (most notably Denis de Rougemont) have therefore suggested that courtly love poetry was a kind of code of the Cathars, who were regularly threatened and persecuted by the Church, by which they disseminated their teachings. This theory has been challenged repeatedly but never refuted.

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The Cathars were destroyed by the Church in the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) with the last blow struck in 1244 at the Cathar stronghold of Montsegur. The crusading knights of the Church took the fortress after the Cathars' surrender and burned 200 of their clergy alive as heretics. The Inquisition, led by the order of the Dominicans, rooted out and condemned similar sects.

Islamic & Jewish Influences

The Cathars were not alone in suffering persecution from the Church, however, as the Jewish population of Europe had been experiencing that for centuries. Overall, relations between Jews and Christians were amicable, and there are letters, records, and personal journals extant showing that some Christians sought to convert to Judaism and Jews to Christianity. Scholar Joshua Trachtenberg notes how "in the tenth and eleventh centuries we hear of Jews receiving gifts from Gentile friends on Jewish holidays, of Jews leaving keys to their homes with Christian neighbors before departing on a journey" (160). Relations between members of the two religions were more or less cordial, in fact, until after the First Crusade (1096-1099).

Jews were forbidden to bear arms and so could not participate in the crusade, which seems to have upset their Christian neighbors whose husbands and sons were taken by the feudal lords off to the Holy Land. Economic hardships caused by lack of manpower to work the fields further damaged relationships between the two as many Jews were merchants who could continue their trade while the Christian peasant was tied to the land and struggled to plant, tend, and harvest a crop.

The First Crusade had the opposite effect on Muslims who, outside of Spain, had previously only appeared in Europe as traders. The crusade opened up the possibility of travel to the Holy Land, and a number of scholars took advantage of this to study with their Muslim counterparts. The works of Islamic scholars and scientists found their way to Europe along with translations of some of the greatest classical thinkers and writers such as Aristotle , whose works would have been lost if not for Muslim scribes. Jewish and Islamic scholasticism, in fact, contributed more significantly to the culture of Europe than any Christian efforts outside of the monasteries.

The Church's insistence on the absolute truth of its own vision, while condemning that of others, extended even to fellow Christians. The Catholic Church of the West quarreled with the Eastern Orthodox Church in 867 over who had the true faith, and the Eastern Orthodox Church finally broke all ties with its western counterpart in 1054, the so-called Great Schism. This was brought on by the Church's claim that it was founded by Saint Peter , was the only legitimate expression of Christian faith, and should therefore rightly be able to control the policies and land holdings of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Late Middle Ages & Reformation

In the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500), the Church continued to root out heresy on a large scale by suppressing upstart religious sects, individually by encouraging priests to punish heterodox belief or practice, and by labeling any critic or reformer a 'heretic' outside of God 's grace. The peasantry, though nominally orthodox Catholic, continued to observe folk practices and, as scholar Patrick J. Geary notes, "knowledge of Christian belief did not mean that individuals used this knowledge in ways that coincided with officially sanctioned practice" (202). Since a medieval peasant was taught the prayers of the Our Father and Hail Mary in Latin, a language they did not understand, they recited them as incantations to ward off misfortune or bring luck, paying little attention to the importance of the words as understood by the Church. The mass itself, also conducted in Latin, was equally mysterious to the peasantry.

Consequently, the medieval peasant felt far more comfortable with a blending of the old pagan beliefs with Christianity which resulted in heterodox belief. Parish priests were again instructed to take heretical practices seriously and punish them, but the clergy was disinclined, largely because of the effort involved. Further, many of the clergy, especially the parish priests, were seen as hypocrites and had been for some time. One of the reasons heretical sects attracted adherents, in fact, was the respect generated by their clergy who lived their beliefs. In contrast, as Geary notes, the Catholic clergy epitomized the very Seven Deadly Sins they condemned:

The ignorance, sexual promiscuity, venality, and corruption of the clergy, combined with their frequent absenteeism, were major and long-standing complaints within the laity. Anti-clericalism was endemic to medieval society and in no way detracted from religious devotion. (199)

A parishioner could loathe the priest but still respect the religion that said priest represented. The priest, after all, had little to do with the life of the peasant while the saints could answer prayers, protect one from harm, and reward one's good deeds. Pilgrimages to saints' sites like Canterbury or Santiago de Compostela were thought to please the saint who would then grant the pilgrim favors and expiate sin in ways no priest could ever do.

At the same time, one could not do without the clergy owing to the Church's insistence on sacerdotalism – the policy which mandated that laypersons required the intercession of a priest to communicate with God or understand scripture – and so priests still wielded considerable power over individuals' lives. This was especially so regarding the afterlife state of purgatory in which one's soul would pay in torment for any sins not forgiven by a priest in one's life. Ecclesiastical writs known as indulgences were sold to people – often for high prices – which were believed to lessen the time for one's soul, or that of a loved one, in purgatorial fires.

The unending struggle to bring the peasantry in line with orthodoxy eventually relented as practices formerly condemned by the Church – such as astrology, oneirology (the study of dreams), demonology, and the use of talismans and charms – were recognized as significant sources of income. Sales of relics like a saint's toe or a splinter of the True Cross were common and, for a price, a priest could interpret one's dreams, chart one's stars, or name whatever demon was preventing a good marriage for one's son or daughter.

For many years, medieval scholarship insisted on a dichotomy of two Christianities in the Middle Ages – an elite culture dominated by the clergy, city -dwellers, and the written word, and a popular culture of the oral tradition of the rural masses, infused with pagan belief and practice. In the present day, it is recognized that pagan beliefs and rituals informed Christianity in both city and country from the beginning. As the Church gained more and more power, it was able to insist more stridently on people obeying its strictures, but the same underlying form – of the Church trying to impose a new belief structure on people used to the one of their ancestors – remained more or less intact throughout the Middle Ages.

As the medieval period wound to a close, the orthodoxy of the Church finally did permeate down through the lowest social class but this hardly did anyone any favors. The backlash against the progressive movement of the 12th century and its new value of women took the form of monastic religious orders such as the Premonstratensians banning women, guilds which had previously had female members declaring themselves men's-only-clubs, and women's ability to run businesses curtailed.

The ongoing crusades vilified Muslims as the archenemy of Christendom while Jews were blamed for practicing usury (charging interest) – even though the Church had more or less defined that role in finance for them through official policy – and were expelled from communities and entire countries. Pagan practices had now either been stamped out or Christianized, and the Church held significant power over people's daily lives.

The corruption of the medieval Church, however, against which critics and reformers had been preaching for centuries, finally grew too intolerable and general distrust of the Church and its vision was further encouraged by its failure to meet the challenge of the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352 which resulted in a widespread spiritual crisis. The Protestant Reformation began as simply another attempt at getting the Church to pay attention to its own failings, but the political climate in Germany, and the personal power of the priest-monk Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546 CE), led to a revolt by people who had long grown tired of the monolithic Church.

After Martin Luther initiated the Reformation, other clerics followed his example. Christianity in Europe afterwards would frequently show itself no more tolerant or pure in Protestant form than it had been as expressed through the medieval Church but, in time, found a way to coexist with other faiths and allow for greater freedom of individual religious experience.

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Bibliography

• Baker, A. The Viking. Wiley, 2019.
• Barber, M. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. Routledge, 2000.
• Brooke, R & C. Popular Religion in the Middle Ages. Barnes & Noble Books, 1996.
• Cantor, N. F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages. Harper Perennial, 1994.
• De Rougemont, D. Love in the Western World. Princeton University Press, 1983.
• Deanesley, M. A History of the Medieval Church 590-1500. Obscure Press, 2010.
• Gies, F. & J. Women in the Middle Ages. Ty Crowell Co, 2019.
• Loyn, H. R. The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia. Thames & Hudson, 1991.
• Nigg, W. The Heretics. Dorset Press, 2019.
• Patrick J. Geary. "Peasant Religion in Medieval Europe." Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie , Volume 12/2001, pp. 185-209.
• Power, E. Medieval Women. Cambridge University Press (1997-10-13), 2019.
• Trachtenberg, J. The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism. The Jewish Publication Society, 2002.

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Social Life During The Middle Ages

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Power and Identity in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of Rees Davies

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This volume celebrates the work of the late Rees Davies. Reflecting Davies' interest in identities, political culture, and the workings of power in medieval Britain, the chapters range across ten centuries, looking at a variety of key topics. Issues explored range from the historical representations of peoples and the changing patterns of power and authority, to the notions of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ and the relationship between local conditions and international movements. The political impact of words and ideas, and the parallels between developments in Wales and those elsewhere in Britain, Ireland, and Europe are also discussed.

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Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The cult of the virgin mary in the middle ages.

Icon with the Koimesis

Cameo of the Virgin and Child

Adrien Jean Maximilien Vachette [Gold Frame]

Pendant Brooch with Cameo of Enthroned Virgin and Child and Christ Pantokrator

Virgin and Child in Majesty

Enthroned Virgin and Child

• Madonna and Child
• Duccio di Buoninsegna

Shrine of the Virgin

Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa

• The Assumption of the Virgin

Bernardo Daddi (possibly with workshop assistance)

Manuscript Illumination with the Birth of the Virgin in an Initial G, from a Gradual

• Don Silvestro de' Gherarducci

Bust of the Virgin

Virgin and Child

Dieric Bouts

Follower of Rogier van der Weyden (Master of the Saint Ursula Legend Group, Netherlandish, active late 15th century)

Enthroned Virgin

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2001

The Virgin Mary and the Church A mother figure is a central object of worship in several religions (for example, images of the Virgin and Child call to mind Egyptian representations of Isis nursing her son Horus). The history of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ , depends on the texts of the Gospels. Embellishments to her legend seem to have taken form in the fifth century in Syria. The life of the mother of Christ was exceptional: she was born free of original sin (21.168) , through the Immaculate Conception; she was taken to heaven after her death ( 17.190.132 ); and, just as Saint Thomas doubted Christ’s Resurrection, so he doubted Mary’s Assumption. Theologians established a parallel between Christ’s Passion and the Virgin’s compassion: while he suffered physically on the cross, she was crucified in spirit. The Council of Ephesus in 431 sanctioned the cult of the Virgin as Mother of God; the dissemination of images of the Virgin and Child, which came to embody church doctrine, soon followed.

The Virgin Mary in Byzantine Representations The Virgin Mary, known as the Theotokos in Greek terminology, was central to Byzantine spirituality as one of its most important religious figures . As the mediator between suffering mankind and Christ and the protectress of Constantinople , she was widely venerated. The Virgin is the subject of important liturgical hymns, such as the Akathistos Hymn, sung at the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) and during Lent. Narrative artistic representations of Christ’s mother focus on her conception and childhood or her Koimesis (her Dormition, or eternal sleep). Most images of the Virgin stress her role as Christ’s Mother, showing her standing and holding her son. The manner in which the Virgin holds Christ is very particular. Certain poses developed into “types” that became names of sanctuaries or poetic epithets. Hence, an icon of the Virgin was meant to represent her image and, at the same time, the replica of a famous icon original. For example, the Virgin Hodegetria is a popular representation of the Virgin in which she holds Christ on her left arm and gestures toward him with her right hand, showing that he is the way to salvation. The name Hodegetria comes from the Hodegon Monastery in Constantinople, in which the icon showing the Virgin in this particular stance resided from at least the twelfth century onward, acting to protect the city. A later type is that of the Virgin Eleousa, imagined to have derived from the Virgin Hodegetria. This type represents the compassionate side of the Virgin. She is shown bending to touch her cheek to the cheek of her child, who reciprocates this affection by placing his arm around her neck. Byzantine images of the Virgin were adopted in the West. For example, Early Netherlandish paintings such as the Virgin and Child ( 17.190.16 ) by the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend and the Virgin and Child ( 30.95.280 ) by Dieric Bouts reveal an interest in Byzantine representations of the Theotokos.

The Virgin Mary in Western Representations Most Western types of the Virgin’s image, such as the twelfth-century “Throne of Wisdom” from central France, in which the Christ Child is presented frontally as the sum of divine wisdom, seem to have originated in Byzantium ( 16.32.194 ). Byzantine models became widely distributed in western Europe by the seventh century. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who identified her as the bride of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. The Virgin was worshipped as the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven, and Intercessor for the salvation of humankind. This movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals , which are often dedicated to “Our Lady,” and many cities, such as Siena, placed themselves under her protection.

The Virgin Mary in the Later Middle Ages The hieratic images of the Romanesque period , which emphasize Mary’s regal aspect, gave way in the Gothic age to more tender representations ( 1999.208 ; 1979.402 ) emphasizing the relationship between mother and child. The early fourteenth-century Vierge Ouvrante ( 17.190.185 ) from Cologne articulates her role in Christian salvation . When closed, the hinged sculpture represents the Virgin nursing the Christ Child, who holds the dove of the Holy Spirit. Her garment opens up, like the wings of a triptych, to reveal in her body the figure of God the Father. He holds the cross, made of two tree trunks, from which the now-missing figure of Christ hung. The flanking wings are painted with scenes from Christ’s infancy or Incarnation, that is to say, the embodiment of God the Son in human flesh.

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/virg/hd_virg.htm (October 2001)

Further Reading

Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Forsyth, Ilene H. The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Additional Essays by Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Private Devotion in Medieval Christianity .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Art of the Book in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Crusades (1095–1291) .” (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Stained Glass in Medieval Europe .” (October 2001)

Related Essays

• Art and Death in the Middle Ages
• Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages
• The Birth and Infancy of Christ in Italian Painting
• Monasticism in Western Medieval Europe
• Private Devotion in Medieval Christianity
• Arts of the Spanish Americas, 1550–1850
• Botanical Imagery in European Painting
• The Crucifixion and Passion of Christ in Italian Painting
• Early Netherlandish Painting
• Fra Angelico (ca. 1395–1455)
• The Ghent Altarpiece
• Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages
• Italian Renaissance Frames
• Juan de Flandes (active by 1496, died 1519)
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
• Life of Jesus of Nazareth
• The Master of Monte Oliveto (active about 1305–35)
• Painting the Life of Christ in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
• Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Christianity
• Saints and Other Sacred Byzantine Figures
• Stained Glass in Medieval Europe
• Balkan Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Balkan Peninsula, 500–1000 A.D.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 1000–1400 A.D.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 500–1000 A.D.
• Eastern and Southern Africa, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, 1400–1600 A.D.
• France, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Italian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Christianity
• Gilded Wood
• Icon / Iconoclasm
• International Gothic Style
• Medieval Art
• Monasticism
• Old Testament
• Romanesque Art
• Virgin Mary

Artist or Maker

• Antonio del Massaro da Viterbo
• Bouts, Dieric
• Daddi, Bernardo
• Master Heinrich of Constance
• Master of the Saint Ursula Legend
• Rossellino, Antonio
• Vachette, Adrien Jean Maximilien

Online Features

• Connections: “Motherhood” by Jean Sorabella
• Connections: “Perfection” by Barbara Weinberg
• Viewpoints/Body Language: “The Visitation”
• Viewpoints/Body Language: “Virgin and Child in Majesty”