Chapter 10
High Middle Ages: The Search for Synthesis
10.1 The City, the Cathedral, and the University
Goals
Discuss the important role of the city in the development of medieval society.
Discuss the important role of the Church in the development of medieval society.
Discuss the important role of the university in the development of medieval society.
The High Middle Ages saw the growth of a number of institutions that stood in sharp
contrast to those of the Carolingian period. Foremost was the rise of the city.
Urbanization brought with it a lessening of the importance of monastic life as a cultural
center and the emergence of the influence of the bishop and the cathedral school. The
increased need for a “knowledge class” triggered an expansion in education that would
eventually lead to the university of scholars. Urbanization also warred against the old
feudal [link to glossary] values. It fostered trade and commerce, and it made possible the
growth of what today we would call a “middle class” who stood on the social ladder
between the rural peasant/city worker and the landed royalty or hereditary aristocracy
[link to glossary].
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10.2 Intellectual and Architectural Advances
Goals
Discuss the increased importance of intellectual pursuits.
Discuss the important contributions of Arabic sources to the development of Western
awareness of classical scholarship.
Recognize developments in architecture during the Middle Ages.
Recognize developments in art during the Middle Ages.
Recognize developments in music during the Middle Ages.
The 12th and 13th Centuries were times of intense intellectual ferment and advance. New
sources of knowledge came through Arabic sources either as original contributions (e.g.,
in medicine and science) or in the form of lost works of the classical past (e.g., the
writings of Aristotle) that fueled the work of medieval scholars. Advances in technology
as “spinoffs” from the ambitious plans of both Romanesque and Gothic architects had
their impact. The growing prevalence of a money-based economy aided the growth of
artistic and musical culture.
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10.3 Philosophical Investigations
Goals
Discuss the architectural accomplishments evident in Chartres Cathedral.
Discuss the philosophical contributions of Thomas Aquinas.
Discuss the literary accomplishments of Dante Alighieri.
One conspicuous characteristic of medieval culture was its belief that everything
knowable could be expressed in a manageable and rational whole. Whether it appeared in
stone (Chartres) or technical prose (Thomas Aquinas) or in poetry (Dante), the medieval
mind saw hierarchy, order, intelligibility, and, above all, God, in all of observable
creation. This hierarchy expressed itself in an emphasis on advancing steps of
understanding. The sculptural program of Chartres, for example, is a revelation of the Old
Testament figures who point us to their proper fulfillment in the New Testament. In the
theology of Aquinas, we move from the plane of natural reason to a fuller truth taught by
revelation. In Dante, we progress from an awareness of our sinful nature to an intuition
into the nature of God. In each of these cases, the emphasis is on harmony, on gradation,
and on a final purpose of all knowledge, which is to become aware of God. In that sense,
at least, much of medieval culture could be said to be oriented in an otherworldly manner.
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