DIVISION THREE
THE MIDDLE AGES
Ⅰ. General Introduction
Ⅱ. Manor and Church
Ⅲ. Learning and Science
Ⅳ. Literature
Ⅴ. Art and Architecture
Manor and Church
1. Feudalism
2. The Church
3. The Crusades
Feudalism
a. Growth of Feudalism
b. The Manor
c. Knighthood and Code of Chivalry
The Church
a. The Organization of Church
b. Church Fathers and Early Monasticism
c. The Power and Influence of the Catholic Church
1. Charlemagne and Carolingian Renaissance
• Charlemagne temporarily restored order in western
and central Europe and was the most important figure
of the early medieval period.
• Charlemagne encouraged learning by setting up
monastery schools, giving support to scholars and
setting scribes to work copying various ancient books.
• The result of his efforts is usually called the
Carolingian Renaissance.
2. Alfred the Great and Wessex Centre of Learning
• Contributing greatly to the medieval European
culture
• Making Wessex the Anglo-Saxon cultural centre
by introducing teachers and scholars
• Founding new monasteries and inspiring the
compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
• Promoting translation into the vernacular from
Latin works.
3. St. Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism
• The supreme figure in scholasticism
• The medieval philosophical effort to
harmonize faith and reason
• Summa Contra Ventiles
4. Rogar Bacon and Experimental Science
• One of the earliest advocates of
scientific research
• Calling for careful observation and
experimentation
• Opus maius
Optic studies by Rogar Bacon
Literature
1. National Epics
2. Dante Alighieri and The Divine Comedy
3. Geoffery Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
a. Beowulf
• Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic, in alliterative
verse, originating from the collective efforts of
oral literature.
• The story is set in Denmark or Sweden and
tells how the hero, Beowulf, defeats the
monster Grendel and Grendel’s mother, a sea
monster, but eventually receives his own death
in fighting with a fire dragon.
The first page of the Beowulf manuscript
b. Song of Roland
• Song of Roland is the most
well-known of a group of
French epics known as La
Chanson de Gestes.
• It tells how Roland, one of
Charlemagne’s warriors, fights
in Spain and dies defending a
pass in the Pyrenees.
Eight phases of The Song of
Roland in one picture.
Dante Alighieri
• Dante Alighieri was the greatest poet of Italy and
also a prose writer, literary theorist, moral
philosopher as well as political thinker.
• The Divine Comedy is the greatest Christian
poem with a profound vision of the medieval
Christian world, expresses humanistic ideas
which foreshadowed the spirit of Renaissance.
• It influenced decisively the evolution of
European literature away from its origins in Latin
culture to a new varied expression.
Dante Alighieri
Statue of Dante at
the Uffizi, Florence.
Statue of Dante in
the Piazza di Santa
Croce in Florence.
Mural of Dante in
the Uffizi Gallery,
by Andrea del
Castagno, c. 1450.
Dante's tomb
in Ravenna,
built in 1780.
Geoffery Chaucer
Engraving of Chaucer
from Speght's edition
Art and Architecture
1. Romanesque
2. Gothic
Gothic Cathedrals