The Late Middle Ages
The Crusades
1095: Urban II calls for knights to
capture Jerusalem from Muslims
Recover Christian lands
Lasted three hundred years
After 1st Crusade knights killed Arabs
and Jews and set up feudal estates
Crusaders created demand for Arab
goods
Arabs fueled intellectual revival in
Europe
The Decline of Feudalism
Crusades fueled conflict between Church
and secular leaders
Church used excommunication as tool
Thomas a Beckett
As popes’ power lessened, kings grew in
power at the expense of feudal lords
The Rise of Towns and Cities
Cities became vital
Cities were crude and filthy but citizens
were free from feudal lords
Constitutions guaranteed freedoms
Universities were established
Middle class emerged:
Abbott Suger and the Gothic
Style
1085-1151 Rebuilt St. Denis to let light in
Light: analogy to God’s spiritual being
Technical innovation: glass walls
Three elements: Pointed arches,Ribbed
vaults and flying buttresses.
Created Gothic framework of soaring lines;
metaphor for God’s world.
Chartres:1194-1240
Other cathedrals rose after St.-Denis
Gothic originally termed “French Style”
Chartres surpassed all others: perfection
of design, stained glass and sculpture.
Relic: Mary’s tunic
Floor plan: basic Latin Cross but with
broader portals on north and south
Still has the all of its original glass
Chartres’ stained-glass windows
22,000 square feet of colored glass
Each depicts a biblical story, life of saint or
Christian doctrine
Rose window over each portal: both the
sun and Mary, “rose without thorns”
Lancet windows, shaped like pointed
arches
Trade and craft guilds paid for and built
these windows.
Gothic Sculpture
Carved symbols, stories and figures of the
Bible used to instruct
West or “royal”portal shows glory of Christ
1. Incarnation of Christ on right
2. Christ King of Heaven and Earth in
center
3. Christ Ascension into Heaven
Jamb sculpture: ancestors of Christ,
patriarchs, saints.
Music and Theater in the Gothic
Age
Organum: Polyphony or two or more
melodic lines playing simultaneously.
Sounded like an organ
Duplum organum: traditional melody
sung by the tenor and held. Duplum voice
sang more complex melody above
tenor.Two distinct melodic lines
independent of other.
The Notre Dame School
Leading musicians gathered in Paris
Leonin compiled sacred music of the time
Perotin added third and fourth voices
Cantus firmus the complex music of the
late middle ages demanded more
advanced musical notation and training
provided by the Notre Dame School
Gothic Theater: From Church to
Town
Sacred drama outside church: complexity
Cooperative between church and town
Mystery plays: cycles of plays depicting
biblical stories
Miracle plays: lives of saints
Morality plays: struggle of soul between
virtues and vices
Vernacular
The Universities
Organization of scholars to teach and
certify lawyers and clerks
Baccalaureates in theology, law or
medicine
No women
Paris: theology faculty
Strenuous day for students
Final examinations oral, during Lent
Rediscovery of Aristotle
1150-1250 Aristotle’s works were rediscovered: “The Philosopher”
Islamic scholars translated and interpreted
Ibn-Sina medical encyclopedia
Averroes: best interpretation of Aristotle
Maimonides: Jew who wrote of the
conflict of reason and faith
Thomas Aquinas
Synthesized medieval theology and
Aristotelian philosophy
Summa Theologica wanted to make a
science of faith
Christian philosophy: “Reason does not
destroy faith but perfects it”
God reveals himself in works of nature and
human reason. Nature leads to God
Courtly Love
Code of behavior governing relations
between the sexes at medieval courts.
Court of Eleanor of Aquitaine
Paradoxes of medieval society: Marriage
not an occasion of fantasy and
tenderness. Romance: adulterous longing
for forbidden woman
Woman powerful over man
The Medieval Romance
Tradition
Troubadors: lyric poet-singers of
Provence
Arabic love poetry of Muslim culture in
Spain
Bernart de Ventadorn, Beatriz de Dia
Medieval Romance: long narrative in
verse of chivalric adventures and courtly
lovers
Arthurian legends
Music in the Late Middle Ages
Secular songs in polyphony: Ars Nova
Guillaume de Machaut: sacred motet:
polyphonic song form in which the higher
voices sang different poetic texts.
Instrument played lower part while voices
sang freer upper parts in Latin and French
Secular music, sung in stanzas
accompanied by lute; used sharps and
flats
Dante’s Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy: three-part poem
reflecting his vision of afterlife
Metaphor for pilgrimage through life
Inferno: Vergil, symbol of human reason
Purgatorio: sins are not yet forgiven
Paradiso:Guide Beatrice, his ideal love
Master own nature, submit to commands
of human reason and sacred truth
Canto XXVIII
The Poets then come to the edge of the
Ninth Bolgia which contains the Sowers of
Discord. They are walking around the
edge of the circle. At one point in the circle
stands a demon who hacks at them. By
the time they reach him again their
wounds are healed and they are hacked
anew.
Canto XXVIII
Dante distinguishes three classes of
Sowers of Discord. First are the Sowers of
Religious Discord, then the Sowers of
Political Discord and finaly is the Sower of
Discord Among Kinsmen. One of the
Sower of Discord Among Kinsmen they
meet is Bertrand De Born. He head is
severed and he must hold it up in order to
talk to the Poets.
Canto XXXIV
The Poets see Satan in the distance
beating his great wings which is the
source of the icy wind of Cocytus. Around
them are the sinners who were
Treacherous to Their Masters, and this
round is named Judecca (named for Judas
Iscariot). These sinners lie completely in
the ice, their bodies twisted and distorted
in every possible manner.
Satan
In the middle of Cocytus stands Satan who
is fixed into the ice which flow all the rivers
of guilt, and as he tries to escape their icy
clutches by batting his wings, he just
freezes himself more solidly into the ice.
He has three faces, and in each of the
mouths is a man whom he rips eternally
with his teeth.
The Pit of Hell
These men are Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and
Cassius. Having seen everything the
Poets now climb up Satan himself, and
passing the center of gravity they emerge
from Hell and begin their ascent of Mount
Purgatory.
Three-line stanza form: terza rima
Holy number three in 33 cantos of each
main section + introductory canto= 100
Written in the vernacular Italian, not
Latin
Uses the device of contrapasso, where
the right punishment is given for the sin
Puts historical as well as contemporary
figures in Hell: creativity: Renaissance
Paradiso is full of spiritual love. Feeling
and intellect guide human toward divine
love.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims
Chaucer poet: entertain circle of friends
Canterbury Tales Journey of pilgrims to
Canterbury; each for different reason
Cross section of English society
Irony and insight to human psychology
Wife of Bath
Human comedy: Creativity: Renaissance
Reclaiming the Classical Past
Petrarch: continuity between classicism
and Christianity: humanism
Sonnet: a fourteen line poem dedicated to
Laura who died during plague.
Christine de Pisan: Wrote poetry and
made a living of her writings
The Book of the City of Ladies:
Goddesses and heroic women
Giotto’s Pictorial Revolution
Italy’s merchants and traders commerce
with Byzantine empire
Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204
and robbed Byzantine art.
Italian cities: hubs of manufacture and
finance
Byzantine influence in gold surfaces:
Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned
Giotto
Student of Cimabue; revolutionized
painting
Madonna Enthroned breaks with
medieval style
New volume and vitality for figures
Drapery falls naturally
Throne more believable space
Some medieval characteristics: gold
haloes
inconsistent scale
Arena Chapel in Padua
Ancient art of fresco painting (paint
applied to wet plaster
Life of the Virgin, Life of Christ, Passion
of Christ
Eliminated detail to make scene more
emotional and real
Pieta: faces and gestures reflect
individual emotional responses
Interest in individuality: Renaissance