The study Everyday life it seems logical to organize our ancestors in accordance with the main milestones of the human life cycle. The cycle of human life is eternal in the sense in which it is predetermined by nature. A person is born, grows up, marries or gets married, gives birth to children and dies. And it is quite natural that he would like to properly mark the milestones of this cycle. In our day of urbanized and mechanized civilization, rituals related to each link in the life cycle are reduced to a minimum. This was not the case in antiquity, especially in the era of the tribal organization of society, when the main milestones in the life of an individual were considered part of the life of the clan. According to G. V. Vernadsky, the ancient Slavs, like other tribes, marked the milestones of the life cycle with complex rituals reflected in folklore. Immediately after the adoption of Christianity, the Church appropriated the organization of some ancient rites and introduced its own new rituals, such as the rite of baptism and the celebration of name days in honor of the patron saint of every man or woman.

Based on this, several areas of the daily life of a resident of Medieval Rus' and the events accompanying them, such as love, weddings, funerals, meals, festivities and amusements, were singled out for analysis. It also seemed interesting to us to explore the attitude of our ancestors to alcohol and women.

Wedding

Wedding customs in the era of paganism were noted among different tribes. The groom had to kidnap the bride from the radmichi, vyatichi and northerners. Other tribes considered it normal to pay a ransom for her family. This custom probably developed from a kidnapping ransom. In the end, the frank payment was replaced by a gift to the bride from the groom or her parents (veno). There was a custom among the glades that required the parents or their representatives to bring the bride to the groom's house, and her dowry was to be delivered the next morning. Traces of all these ancient rites can be clearly seen in Russian folklore, especially in wedding rites of even later times.

After the conversion of Rus' to Christianity, the engagement and marriage were sanctioned by the Church. However, at first only the prince and the boyars cared about the church blessing. The bulk of the population, especially in rural areas, were content with the recognition of marriage by the respective clans and communities. Cases of marriage avoidance in the church by ordinary people were frequent until the 15th century.

According to Byzantine legislation (Ekloga and Prokeiron), in accordance with the customs of the peoples of the south, the lowest age requirements for future married couples were established. The 8th century eclogue allows men to marry at the age of fifteen, and women at thirteen. In the Prokeiron of the ninth century, these requirements are even lower: fourteen years for the groom and twelve for the bride. It is known that Eclogue and Prokeiron existed in Slavic translation and the legitimacy of both manuals was recognized by Russian "jurists". In medieval Rus', even the Sami people did not always respect the low age requirements of the Prokeyron, especially in princely families, where marriages were most often concluded for diplomatic reasons. Known for at least one, the case when the prince's son married at the age of eleven, and Vsevolod III gave his daughter Verkhuslav as a wife to Prince Rostislav when she was only eight years old. As the bride's parents saw her off, "they both wept because their beloved daughter was so young."

In medieval moralizing sources, there are two points of view on marriage. Don of them - the attitude towards marriage as a sacrament, a sacred act, is expressed in the Izbornik of 1076. "Woe to the fornicator, for he defiles the groom's clothes: let him be expelled from the kingdom of marriage with disgrace," instructs Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem.

Jesus, the son of Sirach, writes: "Give your daughter in marriage - and you will do a great deed, but only give her to a wise husband."

We see that, in the opinion of these church fathers, marriage, marriage, is called a "kingdom," a "great deed," but with reservations. The groom's clothes are sacred, but only a worthy person can enter the "kingdom of marriage". Marriage can become a "great thing" only if a "wise man" marries.

The sage Menander, on the contrary, sees only evil in marriage: “Marriage is a great bitterness for everyone”, “If you decide to marry, ask your neighbor who is already married”, “Do not marry, and nothing bad will ever happen to you.”

In Domostroy, it is indicated that prudent parents ahead of time, from the birth of their daughter, began to prepare to marry her off with a good dowry: "If a daughter is born to someone, a prudent father<…>from any profit he saves for his daughter<…>: either they raise a little animal for her with offspring, or from her share, that God will send there, buy canvases and canvases, and pieces of fabric, and robes, and a shirt - and all these years they put her in a special chest or in a box and a dress, and headwear , and monist, and church utensils, and tin and copper and wooden dishes, always adding a little, every year ... ".

According to Sylvester, who is credited with the authorship of "Domostroy", such an approach did not allow "at a loss" to gradually collect a good dowry, "and everything, God willing, will be full." In the event of the girl's death, it was customary to commemorate "her dowry, magpies like her, and alms are distributed."

In "Domostroy" he himself is described in detail wedding ceremony or, as it was then called, "wedding rite".

The wedding procedure was preceded by a conspiracy: the groom with his father or older brother came to his father-in-law in the yard, the guests were brought "the best wines in goblets", then "after blessing with a cross, they will begin to speak and write contractual records and an in-line letter, agreeing how much for the contract and what dowry", after which, "having secured everything with a signature, everyone takes a cup of honey, congratulates each other and exchanges letters". Thus, the collusion was a normal transaction.

At the same time, gifts were brought: the son-in-law's father-in-law gave "the first blessing ~ an image, a goblet or a ladle, velvet, damask, forty sables." After that they went to the half of the mother of the bride, where "the mother-in-law asks the groom's father about his health and kisses through a scarf both with him and with the groom, and with everyone the same way."

The princely rank is more complicated, the rite was simpler for commoners. For example, in "Domostroy" it is noted that with the princely rank "the bride should not be here; ordinary people have a custom - and the bride is here." Then they set the table, "everyone feasts with pleasure, but there is no big table."

The next day, the groom's mother comes to see the bride, "here they give her damask and sables, and she will give the bride a ring."

The day of the wedding was appointed, the guests were "painted", the groom chose their roles: planted father and mother, invited boyars and boyars, thousand and travellers, friends, matchmakers.

On the day of the wedding itself, a friend with a retinue came in gold, followed by a bed "in a sleigh with a limber, and in the summer - with a headboard to the irradiation, covered with a blanket. And in the sleigh there are two gray horses, and near the sleigh boyar servants in an elegant dress, on the irradiation the elder in bed will become in gold, holding a holy image. A matchmaker rode behind the bed, her outfit was prescribed by custom: "a yellow summer coat, a red fur coat, and also in a scarf and a beaver mantle. And if it were in winter, then in a fur hat."

It is already clear from this episode alone that the wedding ceremony was strictly regulated by tradition, all other episodes of this ceremony (preparing the bed, the arrival of the groom, wedding, "resting" and "cognition", etc.) were also strictly played out in accordance with the canon.

Thus, the wedding was an important event in the life of a medieval person, and the attitude towards this event, judging by the moralistic sources, was ambiguous. On the one hand, the sacrament of marriage was exalted, on the other hand, the imperfection of human relations was reflected in an ironically negative attitude towards marriage (for example, the statements of the "wise Menander"). In fact, we are talking about two types of marriages: happy and unhappy marriages. It is generally accepted that a happy marriage is a marriage of love. In this regard, it seems interesting to consider how the question of love is reflected in moralizing sources.

Love (in the modern sense) as love between a man and a woman; "The basis of marriage, judging by moralistic sources, did not exist in the minds of medieval authors. Indeed, marriages were made not out of love, but at the will of the parents. Therefore, in case of successful circumstances, for example, if a "good" wife is caught, the sages advise to appreciate and save this gift, otherwise - humble yourself and be on your guard: "Do not leave a wise and kind wife: her virtue is more precious than gold"; "if you have a wife to your liking, do not drive her away, but if she hates you, do not trust her." However, the word "love" is practically not used in these contexts (according to the results of the analysis of the texts of the sources, only two such cases were found).During the "wedding rite" the father-in-law punishes the son-in-law: and love her in lawful marriage, as the fathers and fathers of our fathers lived. "The use of the subjunctive mood ("you should favor her and love") is noteworthy. One of Menander's aphorisms says: "Great connection love is the birth of a child.

In other cases, love between a man and a woman is interpreted as evil, a destructive temptation. Jesus, the son of Sirach, warns: "Do not look at the virgin, otherwise you will be tempted by her charms." "To avoid carnal and voluptuous deeds..." Saint Basil advises. "It is better to shun voluptuous thoughts," Hesychius echoes him.

In the Tale of Akira the Wise, an instruction is given to his son: "... do not be seduced by the beauty of a woman and do not desire her with your heart: if you give all the wealth to her, and then you will not benefit from her, you will only sin more before God."

The word "love" on the pages of the moralistic sources of medieval Rus' is mainly used in the context of love for God, gospel quotes, love for parents, love of others: "... the merciful Lord loves the righteous"; "I remembered the words of the Gospel:" Love your enemies ..., "Love strongly those who gave birth to you"; "Democritus. Wish to be loved during your lifetime, and not terrible: for whom everyone is afraid of, he himself is afraid of everyone."

At the same time, the positive, ennobling role of love is recognized: “Whoever loves a lot, gets angry a little,” said Menander.

So, love in moralistic sources is interpreted in a positive sense in the context of love for one's neighbor and for the Lord. Love for a woman, according to the analyzed sources, is perceived by the consciousness of a medieval person as a sin, danger, temptation of unrighteousness.

Most likely, this interpretation of this concept is due to genre originality sources (instructions, moralizing prose).

The funeral

No less significant rite than a wedding in the life of medieval society was a funeral rite. The details of the descriptions of these rites make it possible to reveal the attitude of our ancestors towards death.

Funeral rites in pagan times included memorial feasts held at the burial site. A high mound (mound) was raised over the grave of a prince or some outstanding warrior, and professional mourners were hired to mourn his death. They continued to perform their duties at Christian funerals, although the form of crying changed according to Christian concepts. Christian funeral rites, like other church services, were, of course, borrowed from Byzantium. John of Damascus is the author of an Orthodox requiem ("funeral" service), and the Slavic translation is worthy of the original. Christian cemeteries were created near churches. The bodies of prominent princes were placed in sarcophagi and placed in the cathedrals of the princely capital.

Our ancestors perceived death as one of the inevitable links in the chain of births: "Do not try to have fun in this world: for all the joys of this world end in crying. Yes, that crying is also vain: today they cry, and tomorrow they feast."

You must always remember about death: "Death and exile, and troubles, and all visible misfortunes, let them stand before your eyes at all days and hours."

Death completes a person's earthly life, but for Christians, earthly life is only a preparation for the afterlife. Therefore, special respect is given to death: "Child, if there is grief in someone's house, then, leaving them in trouble, do not go to a feast with others, but first visit those who are grieving, and then go feast and remember that you too doomed to death." The "Measure of the Righteous" regulates the norms of behavior at a funeral: "Do not cry loudly, but grieve with dignity, do not grieve, but do mournful deeds."

However, at the same time, in the minds of medieval authors of moralizing literature, there is always the idea that the death or loss of a loved one is not the worst thing that can happen. Much worse is spiritual death: "Weep not over the dead, over the unreasonable: for this one has a common path for all, but this one has its own will"; "Cry over the dead - he lost the light, but mourn the fool - he left his mind."

The existence of the soul in that future life must be secured by prayers. To secure the continuation of his prayers, a rich man usually bequeathed part of his property to the monastery. If for some reason he was not able to do this, then his relatives should have taken care of it. Then the Christian name of the deceased will be included in the synodic - a list of commemorated names in prayers at every divine service, or at least on certain days established by the church for commemoration of the departed. The princely family used to keep their own synodik in the monastery, whose donors were traditionally princes of this kind.

So, death in the minds of medieval authors of moralistic literature is the inevitable end of human life, one must be prepared for it, but always remember it, but for Christians, death is the boundary of the transition to another, afterlife. Therefore, the sorrow of the funeral rite must be "worthy", and spiritual death is much worse than physical death.

Food

Analyzing the statements of medieval sages about food, one can, firstly, draw a conclusion about the attitude of our ancestors to this issue, and secondly, find out what specific products they used and what dishes they prepared from them.

First of all, it can be concluded that in popular consciousness moderation, healthy minimalism is preached: "From many dishes, illness arises, and satiety will bring to grief; many have died from gluttony - remembering this will prolong your life."

On the other hand, the attitude towards food is reverent, food is a gift, a blessing sent from above and not to everyone: "When you sit at a plentiful table, remember the one who eats dry bread and cannot bring water in illness." "And to eat and drink with gratitude - it will be sweet."

The fact that the food was cooked at home and was varied is evidenced by the following entries in Domostroy: “And the food is meat and fish, and all sorts of pies and pancakes, various cereals and jelly, any dishes to bake and cook - all if the hostess herself knew how so that she can teach servants what she knows. The owners themselves carefully monitored the process of cooking and spending products. Every morning it is recommended that “husband and wife consult about household chores”, plan “when and what food and drink to prepare for guests and for themselves”, count the necessary products, after which “send to the cook what should be cooked, and to the baker, and for other blanks, send the goods as well.

Domostroy also describes in great detail what foods to eat on which days of the year, depending on the church calendar, and provides many recipes for preparing dishes and drinks.

Reading this document, one can only admire the diligence and frugality of the Russian hosts and marvel at the richness, abundance and diversity of the Russian table.

Bread and meat were two staples in the diet of the Russian princes of Kievan Rus. In the south of Rus', bread was baked from wheat flour, in the north rye bread was more common.

The most common meats were beef, pork, and lamb, as well as geese, chickens, ducks, and pigeons. The meat of wild animals and birds was also consumed. Most often in "Domostroy" hare and swans are mentioned, as well as cranes, herons, ducks, black grouse, hazel grouse, etc.

The church encouraged the eating of fish. Wednesdays and Fridays were declared fast days and, in addition, three fasts were established, including Great Lent. Of course, fish was already in the diet of Russian people before the Baptism of Vladimir, and so was caviar. In "Domostroy" they mention white fish, sterlet, sturgeon, beluga, pike, loaches, herring, bream, minnows, crucians and other types of fish.

Lenten food included all dishes from cereals with hemp oil, "he bakes flour, and all kinds of pies and pancakes and succulents, and makes rolls and various cereals, and pea noodles, and strained peas, and stews, and kundumtsy, and boiled and sweet porridges and dishes - pies with pancakes and mushrooms, and saffron milk mushrooms, and mushrooms, and poppy seeds, and porridge, and turnips, and cabbage, or nuts in sugar or rich pies with what God sent.

From legumes Rusichi grew and actively ate beans and peas. They also actively ate vegetables (this word meant all fruits and fruits). Domostroy lists radishes, watermelons, several varieties of apples, berries (blueberries, raspberries, currants, strawberries, lingonberries).

Meat was boiled or roasted on a spit, vegetables were eaten boiled or raw. Corned beef and stew are also mentioned in the sources. Stocks were stored "in the cellar, on the glacier and in the barn." The main type of preservation was pickles, they salted "both in barrels, and in tubs, and in merniks, and in vats, and in buckets"

They made jam from berries, made fruit drinks, and also prepared levashi (butter pies) and marshmallows.

The author of "Domostroy" devotes several chapters to describing how to properly "satiate all sorts of honey", prepare and store alcoholic beverages. Traditionally, in the era of Kievan Rus, they did not drive alcohol. Three types of drinks were consumed. Kvass, a non-alcoholic or slightly intoxicating drink, was made from rye bread. It was something like beer. Vernadsky points out that it was probably the traditional drink of the Slavs, since it is mentioned in the records of the journey of the Byzantine envoy to the leader of the Huns Attila at the beginning of the fifth century, along with honey. Honey was extremely popular in Kievan Rus. It was brewed and drunk by both laymen and monks. According to the chronicle, Prince Vladimir the Red Sun ordered three hundred cauldrons of honey on the occasion of the opening of the church in Vasilevo. In 1146 Prince Izyaslav II discovered five hundred barrels of honey and eighty barrels of wine in the cellars of his rival Svyatoslav 73 . Several varieties of honey were known: sweet, dry, with pepper, and so on.

Thus, the analysis of moralistic sources allows us to identify such trends in nutrition. On the one hand, moderation is recommended, a reminder that a good year may be followed by a hungry one. On the other hand, studying, for example, "Domostroy", one can draw conclusions about the diversity and richness of Russian cuisine, due to the natural wealth of Russian lands. Compared to today, Russian cuisine has not changed much. The main set of products remained the same, but their variety was significantly reduced.

Holidays and entertainment

Daily life was often interrupted by holidays and other social events. The ancient holidays of pagan times were gradually supplanted by church holidays,” writes V. G. Vernadsky, “in the way these holidays were celebrated, pagan customs were still noticeable for a long time, despite all the objections of the clergy. Each major church holiday, such as Christmas, Easter, Trinity, and the Transfiguration of the Lord, was celebrated not only with special church services, but also with social gatherings, songs, dances, and special treats. On such occasions, the prince usually opened the doors of his palace to the city people and arranged magnificent feasts, at which musicians and buffoons entertained the guests. In addition to princely feasts, there were more intimate meetings of various communities and brotherhoods, whose members usually belonged to the same social or professional group. Such brotherhoods played an important role in the social life of big cities, especially Novgorod and Pskov"" 74 .

On holidays in Rus' it was customary to arrange feasts. It was considered good form to have strong drinks and food for the holidays to prepare ahead of time: "... whoever lives with a supply, always has everything in store for a sharp-witted hostess, you are never ashamed in front of a guest, but you have to arrange a feast - you need to buy and you need a little, you see: gave God - everything and houses in abundance" 7 .

Prayerful sources contain a number of maxims on the topic of behavior at feasts. First of all, the authors call for moderation and modesty: "If you are not hungry, do not eat up, otherwise you will be known as a glutton"; "Be able to keep the womb from gluttony"; "In satiety, debauchery arises; in hunger, never."

Part of the moralizing statements is devoted to how to behave at a feast: "At a feast, do not scold your neighbor and do not interfere with him in his joy"; "... at the feast do not be foolish, be like one who knows, but is silent"; "When they call you to a feast, do not sit in a place of honor, suddenly from among those invited there will be someone more respectable than you, and the host will come up to you and say:" Give him a seat! - And then you will have to go to the last place with shame " .

After the introduction of Christianity in Rus', the concept of "holiday" first of all acquires the meaning of "church holiday". The "Tale of Akira the Wise" says: "On a holiday, do not pass by the church."

From the same point of view, the church regulates aspects of the sexual life of parishioners. So, according to "Domostroy", a husband and wife were forbidden to cohabit on Saturdays and Sundays, and those who did this were not allowed to go to church.

So, we see that a lot of attention was paid to the holidays in moralizing literature. They were prepared for them in advance, but modest, respectful behavior, moderation in food were encouraged at the feast. The same principle of moderation prevails in moralistic statements "about hops."

In a number of similar works condemning drunkenness, the "Word about the hops of Cyril, the Slovenian philosopher" is widely distributed in ancient Russian manuscript collections. It warns readers against addiction to intoxicating drink, draws the misfortunes that threaten the drunkard - impoverishment, deprivation of a place in the social hierarchy, loss of health, excommunication from the church. The "Word" combines Khmel's own grotesque appeal to the reader with a traditional sermon against drunkenness.

Here is how the drunkard is described in this work: “Need-poverty sits at his house, and illnesses lie on his shoulders, sadness and sorrow ring with hunger on his thighs, poverty has made a nest in his wallet, evil laziness has become attached to him, like a dear wife , and sleep is like a father, and groaning is like beloved children"; "From drunkenness, his legs hurt, and his hands tremble, the sight of his eyes fades"; "Drunkenness destroys the beauty of the face"; drunkenness "plunges good and equal people, and masters into slavery", "quarrels brother with brother, and excommunicates a husband from his wife."

Other moralistic sources also condemn drunkenness, calling for moderation. In "The Wisdom of the Wise Menander" it is noted that "wine, drunk in abundance, instructs little"; "The abundance of drunk wine entails talkativeness."

The “Bee” monument contains the following historical anecdote attributed to Diogenes: “This was given a lot of wine at the feast, and he took it and spilled it. perished, I would perish from the wine."

Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, advises: "Drink honey little by little, and the less, the better: you will not stumble"; "It is necessary to refrain from drunkenness, because groans and remorse follow sobering up."

Jesus, the son of Sirach, warns: "A drunkard worker will not get rich"; "Wine and women will corrupt even the sensible...". Saint Basil echoes him: "Wine and women seduce even the wise..."; "Avoid both drunkenness and the sorrows of this life, do not speak slyly, never talk about anyone behind your back."

"When you are invited to a feast, do not get drunk to the point of terrible intoxication ...", the priest Sylvester, the author of Domostroy, instructs his son.

Especially terrible, according to the authors of moralistic prose, is the effect of hops on a woman: So says Hops: “If my wife, whatever she is, begins to get drunk, I will make her crazy, and she will be more bitter than all people.

And I will raise bodily lusts in her, and she will be a laughing stock between: people, and she is excommunicated from God and from the church of God, so it would be better for her not to be born ";" Yes, always beware of a drunken wife: a drunken husband: - it’s bad, and the wife is drunk and not nice in the world."

So, the analysis of the texts of moralistic prose shows that traditionally in Rus' drunkenness was condemned, a drunk person was strictly condemned by the authors of the texts, and, consequently, by society as a whole.

The role and place of women in medieval society

Many statements of moralizing texts are devoted to a woman. Initially, a woman, according to the Christian tradition, is perceived as a source of danger, sinful temptation, death: "Wine and women will corrupt and reasonable, but he who sticks to harlots will become even more impudent."

A woman is an enemy of the human race, therefore the sages warn: "Do not reveal your soul to a woman, for she will destroy your firmness"; "But most of all, a man should refrain from talking with women ..."; "Because of women, many get into trouble"; "Beware of the kiss of a beautiful woman, like the venom of a snake."

Entire separate treatises about "good" and "evil" wives appear. In one of them, dating from the 15th century, the evil wife is likened to the "eye of the devil", this is "a hellish marketplace, the queen of filth, the governor of lies, the arrow of Satan, striking the hearts of many."

Among the texts with which the ancient Russian scribes supplemented their writings “about evil wives”, peculiar “worldly parables” attract attention - small plot narratives (about a husband crying for an evil wife; about selling children from an evil wife; about an old woman looking in a mirror ; about the one who married a rich widow; about the husband who pretended to be sick; about the one who flogged his first wife and asking for another for himself; about the husband who was called to the spectacle of monkey games, etc.). All of them condemn the woman as a source of voluptuousness, unhappiness for a man.

Women are full of "feminine cunning", frivolous: "Women's thoughts are unstable, like a temple without a roof", deceitful: "You rarely learn the truth from a woman"; initially prone to vice and deceit: "Girls do bad things without blushing, while others are ashamed, but secretly they do worse."

The original depravity of a woman is in her beauty, and an ugly wife is also perceived as torment. So, one of the anecdotes of the "Bee", attributed to Solon, reads: "This one, asked by someone whether he advises marriage, said" No! If you take an ugly woman, you will be tormented; if you take a beauty, others will also want to admire her.

"It is better to live in the wilderness with a lion and a snake than with a lying and talkative wife," says Solomon.

Seeing the arguing women, Diogenes says: "Look! The snake asks the viper for poison!"

"Domostroy" regulates the behavior of a woman: she must be a good housewife, take care of the house, be able to cook and take care of her husband, receive guests, please everyone and at the same time not cause complaints. Even the wife goes to church "in consultation with her husband." Here is how the norms of a woman's behavior in a public place - at a church service are described: "In church, she should not talk to anyone, stand silently, listen to singing with attention and read Holy Scripture, without looking anywhere, do not lean against a wall or a pillar , and do not stand with a staff, do not step from foot to foot; stand with your hands crossed on your chest, unshakably and firmly, lowering your bodily eyes down, and your heart to God; pray to God with fear and trembling, with sighs and tears. leave the church until the end of the service, but come to its very beginning.

The image of a woman in the moralizing literature of medieval Rus' is mainly associated with an "evil" wife. Only a few isolated statements show that wives can be good. Let us turn to "Domostroy": "If God gives someone a good wife, it is more expensive than a stone of great value. It is a sin to lose such a wife and with greater profit: he will establish a prosperous life for his husband."

The beauty of the "evil" wife is contrasted with the modesty and mind of the "good" one. So, the Wise Menander is credited with saying: "Not the beauty of every woman is gold, but the mind and silence."

One cannot but agree with V. G. Vernadsky, who noted that the medieval Church, although imbued with biblical concepts, humiliated a woman on the very threshold of the life cycle: “For physiological reasons, the mother was considered unclean for forty days after the birth of a child and she was not allowed to enter the church during this period. She was not allowed to be present at the baptism of her child."

The same humiliation sounds in the moralizing sayings of the ancient wise men and church fathers. Modesty, obedience and humility are required from a woman, she must clearly understand her place in the male world and not go beyond the accepted behavioral stereotype.

Thus, the analysis of the texts of medieval moralistic literature gives us the opportunity to recreate the features of the worldview of a medieval person.

The main events of the daily life of a medieval person are weddings, festivities, household arrangements, funeral rites, as well as prevailing value and moral norms, love, attitude towards a woman, towards drunkenness. Of course, it should be borne in mind that moralizing sources were oriented towards the ruling stratum of society, therefore, for example, such an important aspect of peasant life as work was practically not considered in them. For a more complete reconstruction of the picture of Russian life of that time, it seems necessary to analyze other historical sources.



Content:
1.Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3
2. The brightness and sharpness of life……………………………………………………….4
3. Chivalry……………………………………………………………………..7
4. The value of the cathedral in the medieval city…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
5. Citizen and time……………………………………………………………..14
6.Crime of the Middle Ages…………………………………………………..16
7. The role of the church…………………………………………………………………..17
7.1 The role of the church in education……………………………………………….18
8. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..19
Application……………………………………………………………………...20
List of used literature……………………………………………..21

1. Introduction
. I wanted to take a closer look at the life of those times. How did people live? What was their morality? What guided you in life? What daily concerns occupied their minds? How strongly do the interests of the people of the present and that time contrast? As now there were big cities, squares, but since then a lot has changed: if earlier in the square you could hear
the creak of wheels, the clatter of hooves, the clatter of wooden shoes, the cries of pedlars, the rumble and ringing of craft workshops, but now this has been replaced by the frantic pace of city streets, industrial plants. But how have people changed?
I was interested to find out what role the cathedral played. And why did so much time was devoted to the construction of the cathedral. What meaning did the cathedral bring to public life?
2. Brightness and sharpness of life
When the world was five centuries younger, all the events of life took on forms much more sharply outlined than they do today. Suffering and joy, misfortune and good fortune are much more palpable; human experiences retained that degree of fullness and immediacy with which the soul of a child perceives grief and joy to this day. Every action, every deed, followed an elaborate and expressive ritual, rising to a stable and unchanging way of life. Important events: birth, marriage, death - thanks to the sacraments of the Church, they achieved the brilliance of mystery. Things not so significant, such as travel, work, business or friendly visits, were also accompanied by repeated blessings, ceremonies, proverbs and furnished with certain ceremonies.
Disasters and deprivation had nowhere to wait for relief, at that time they were much more painful and terrible. Sickness and health differed much more, frightening darkness and severe cold in winter represented a real evil. They reveled in nobility and wealth with greater greed and more earnestly, for they opposed blatant poverty and rejection much more sharply. The fur-lined cloak, the hot fire of the hearth, the wine and the joke, the soft and comfortable bed, gave that tremendous pleasure, which later, perhaps thanks to English novels, invariably becomes the most vivid embodiment of worldly joys. All aspects of life were paraded arrogantly and rudely. The lepers twirled their rattles and gathered in procession, the beggars screamed on the porches, exposing their squalor and ugliness. Conditions and estates, ranks and professions differed in clothing. Noble gentlemen moved only shining with the splendor of weapons and outfits, to everyone's fear and envy. The administration of justice, the appearance of merchants with goods, weddings and funerals were loudly announced with shouts, processions, weeping and music. Lovers wore the colors of their lady, members of the brotherhood their emblem, supporters of an influential person their respective badges and distinctions.
Diversity and contrasts also prevailed in the external appearance of cities and villages. The medieval city did not move, like our cities, into slovenly outskirts with simple houses and dull factories, but appeared as a single whole, surrounded by walls and bristling with formidable towers. No matter how high and massive the stone houses of merchants or the nobility were, the buildings of the temples majestically reigned over the city with their bulk.
The difference between summer and winter was felt more sharply than in our life, just as between light and darkness, silence and noise. The modern city is hardly aware of the impenetrable darkness, the dead silence, the impressive impact of a single light or a single distant cry.
Because of the constant contrasts, the diversity of forms of everything that touched the mind and feelings, everyday life aroused and kindled passion, manifested either in unexpected explosions of rude unbridledness and bestial cruelty, or in impulses of spiritual responsiveness, in the changeable atmosphere of which the life of a medieval city flowed.
But one sound invariably blotted out the hustle and bustle of life; no matter how varied it was, it did not mix with anything and exalted everything transcendent into a sphere of order and clarity. This bell ringing of bells in everyday life was likened to warning good spirits, who in familiar voices announced grief and joy, peace and anxiety, summoned the people and warned of imminent danger. They were called by their first names: Roland, Fatty, Jacqueline - and everyone understood the meaning of this or that ringing. And although the bells sounded almost incessantly, attention to their ringing was not dulled. In the continuation of the notorious duel between two townspeople in 1455, which plunged both the city and the entire Burgundian court into a state of incredible tension, a large bell - "terrifying hearing", according to Chatellin - rang until the fight was over. An old alarm bell, cast in 1316 and nicknamed “Orida”, still hangs on the bell churches of Our Lady in Antwerp. horrida - scary. What incredible excitement must have seized everyone when all the churches and monasteries of Paris rang their bells from morning to evening - and even at night - on the occasion of the election of a pope who was supposed to put an end to the schism, or in honor of the conclusion of peace between the Bourguignons and Armagnacs.
A deeply moving spectacle, no doubt, was the procession. In bad times - and they happened often - processions succeeded each other, day after day, week after week. When the disastrous strife between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy eventually led to open civil war, and King Charles VI in 1412. unfolded the oriflamme, in order to, together with John the Fearless, oppose the Armagnacs, who had betrayed their homeland by allying with the British, in Paris, for the duration of the king's stay in hostile lands, it was decided to organize processions daily. They continued from the end of May almost until the end of July; successive orders, guilds and corporations participated in them; each time they walked along different streets and each time they carried other relics. These days people fasted; everyone walked barefoot - councilors of parliament, as well as the poorest citizens. Many carried torches or candles. There were always children among the participants in the procession. On foot, from afar, barefoot, poor peasants came to Paris. People walked by themselves or looked at those walking. And it was very rainy.
And there were solemn exits of brilliant nobles, furnished with all the cunning and skill for which only the imagination was enough. And in never-ending abundance - executions. The cruel excitement and rude participation caused by the spectacle of the scaffold were an important part of the spiritual food of the people. These are moral performances. Terrible punishments are invented for terrible crimes. In Brussels, a young arsonist and murderer is chained to a ring placed on a pole around which bundles of brushwood and straw are blazing. Addressing the audience with touching words, he softened their hearts so much, “that they shed all the tears out of compassion, and set up his death as an example, as the most beautiful of anyone ever seen.” Mensir Mansart du Bois, an Armagnac who was to be beheaded in 1411. in Paris during the Bourguignon terror, not only from the bottom of his heart grants forgiveness to the executioner, which he asks him according to custom, but also wants to exchange a kiss with him. “And there were crowds of people, and almost everyone wept bitter tears.” Often the condemned were noble gentlemen, and then the people received an even more lively satisfaction from the accomplishment of inexorable justice and an even more cruel lesson in the frailty of earthly greatness than any picturesque depiction of the Dance of Death could do. The authorities tried not to miss anything in order to achieve the effect of the whole performance: signs of the high dignity of the convicts accompanied them during this mournful procession.
Everyday life invariably gave endless expanse to ardent passions and childish fantasies. Modern medieval studies, which, because of the unreliability of the chronicles, mainly turns, as far as possible, to sources that are of an official nature, thereby unwittingly falls into a dangerous mistake. Such sources do not sufficiently reveal the differences in lifestyle that separate us from the era of the Middle Ages. They make us forget the tense pathos of medieval life. Of all the passions that colored it, they tell us only about two: greed and militancy. Who will not be amazed by the almost incomprehensible frenzy, the constancy with which in the legal documents of the late Middle Ages greed, quarrelsomeness, vindictiveness come to the fore! Only in connection with this passion that overwhelmed everyone, scorched all aspects of life, can one understand and accept the aspirations characteristic of those people. That is why the chronicles, even if they skim the surface of the events described and, moreover, so often report false information, are absolutely necessary if we want to see this time in its true light.
Life still retained the flavor of a fairy tale. If even court chroniclers, noble, learned people close to sovereigns, saw and portrayed the latter in no other way than in an archaic, hieratic guise, then what was the magical brilliance of royal power supposed to mean for the naive popular imagination!
Community of citizens. The uniqueness of medieval cities Western Europe gave them a socio-political system. All other features - concentration of population, narrow streets, walls and towers, occupations of citizens, economic and ideological functions and political role - could also be inherent in cities of other regions and other eras. But only in the medieval West, the city is invariably presented as a self-regulating community, endowed with a relatively high degree of autonomy and having a special right and a rather complex structure.
3. Chivalry
Chivalry is a special privileged social stratum of medieval society. Traditionally, this concept is associated with the history of the countries of Western and Central Europe, where in the heyday of the Middle Ages, in fact, all secular feudal warriors belonged to chivalry. But more often this term is used in relation to medium and small feudal lords, as opposed to the nobility. The origin of chivalry dates back to that period of the early Middle Ages (7th-8th centuries), when conditional forms of feudal landownership, first for life, later hereditary, became widespread. When land was transferred to a feud, its complainant became a lord (suzerain), and the recipient became a vassal of the latter, which involved military service (compulsory military service did not exceed 40 days a year) and the performance of some other duties in favor of the lord. These included monetary "assistance" in the event of a son being knighted, a daughter's wedding, and the need to ransom a seigneur who was captured. According to custom, the vassals participated in the court of the lord, were present in his council. The ceremony of registration of vassal relations was called homage, and the oath of allegiance to the lord was called foie. If the size of the land received for service allowed, the new owner, in turn, transferred part of it as fiefs to his vassals (subinfeodation). This is how a multi-stage system of vassalage developed ("suzerainty", "feudal hierarchy", "feudal ladder") from the supreme overlord - the king to single-shielded knights who did not have their own vassals. For the continental countries of Western Europe, the rules of vassal relations reflected the principle: "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal", while, for example, in England (the Salisbury oath of 1085) a direct vassal dependence of all feudal landowners on the king was introduced with compulsory service in royal army.
The hierarchy of vassal relations repeated the hierarchy of land holdings and determined the principle of the formation of the military militia of the feudal lords. So, along with the establishment of military-feudal relations, the formation of chivalry as a military-feudal service class, which flourished in the 11-14 centuries. Military affairs became its main social function. The military profession gave rights and privileges, determined special estate views, ethical norms, traditions, and cultural values.
The military duties of the knights included defending the honor and dignity of the suzerain, and most importantly, the land from encroachment both by neighboring feudal rulers in internecine wars and by troops of other states in the event of an external attack. In the conditions of civil strife, the line between defending one's own possessions and seizing foreign lands was rather shaky, and the champion of justice in words often turned out to be an invader in deed, not to mention participation in conquest campaigns organized by the royal government, such as numerous campaigns of German emperors in Italy, or by the Pope himself, like the Crusades. The knightly army was a powerful force. His armament, battle tactics corresponded to military tasks, the scale of military operations and the technical level of his time. Protected by metal military armor, the knightly cavalry, invulnerable to foot soldiers and peasant militia, played the main role in the battle.
Feudal wars did not exhaust the social role of chivalry. Under the conditions of feudal fragmentation, with the relative weakness of royal power, chivalry, fastened by a system of vassalage into a single privileged corporation, protected the feudal lords' property rights to land, the basis of their dominance. A striking example of this is the history of the suppression of the largest peasant uprising in France - Jacquerie (1358-1359), which broke out during the Hundred Years War. At the same time, the knights representing the belligerents, the British and French, united under the banner of the Navarrese king Charles the Evil and turned their weapons against the rebellious peasants, solving a common social problem. Chivalry also influenced the political processes of the era, since the social interests of the feudal class as a whole and the norms of knightly morality to a certain extent restrained centrifugal tendencies and limited the feudal freemen. During the process of state centralization, chivalry (medium and small feudal lords) constituted the main military force of the kings in their opposition to the nobility in the struggle for the territorial unification of the country and real power in the state. This was the case, for example, in France in the 14th century, when, in violation of the former norm of vassalage, a significant part of the chivalry was recruited into the army of the king on terms of monetary payment.
Participation in the knightly army required a certain security, and the land grant was not only a reward for the service, but also a necessary material condition for its implementation, since the knight acquired both a warhorse and expensive heavy weapons (spear, sword, mace, armor, armor for a horse) at their own expense, not to mention the maintenance of the corresponding retinue. Knightly armor included up to 200 parts, and the total weight of military equipment reached 50 kg; over time, their complexity and cost have grown. The training of future warriors was served by the system of knightly training and education. In Western Europe, boys up to 7 years old grew up in a family, later up to 14 years old they were brought up at the court of a seigneur as a page, then a squire, and finally they were knighted.
Tradition required a knight to be knowledgeable in matters of religion, to know the rules of court etiquette, to possess the "seven knightly virtues": horseback riding, fencing, skillful handling of a spear, swimming, hunting, playing checkers, writing and singing poems in honor of the lady of the heart.
Knighting symbolized entry into the privileged class, familiarization with its rights and duties, and was accompanied by a special ceremony. According to European custom, the knight initiating the rank struck the initiate with a sword on the shoulder, pronounced the initiation formula, put on a helmet and golden spurs, handed over a sword - a symbol of knightly dignity - and a shield with a coat of arms and motto. The initiate, in turn, took an oath of allegiance and an obligation to uphold the code of honor. The ritual often ended with a jousting tournament (duel) - a demonstration of military skill and courage.
Knightly traditions and special ethical norms have evolved over the centuries. The code of honor was based on the principle of loyalty to the overlord and duty. Among the knightly virtues were military courage and contempt for danger, pride, a noble attitude towards a woman, attention to members of knightly families in need of help. Avarice and avarice were subject to condemnation, betrayal was not forgiven.
But the ideal was not always in harmony with reality. As for predatory campaigns in foreign lands (for example, the capture of Jerusalem or Constantinople during the Crusades), then knightly "exploits" brought grief, ruin, reproach and shame to more than one common people.
The Crusades contributed to the formation of ideas, customs, morality of chivalry, the interaction of Western and Eastern traditions. In the course of them in Palestine, special organizations of Western European feudal lords arose to protect and expand the possessions of the crusaders - spiritual and knightly orders. These include the Order of St. John (1113), the Order of the Knights Templar (1118), the Teutonic Order (1128). Later, the orders of Calatrava, Sant'Iago, and Alcantara acted in Spain. In the Baltics, the Order of the Sword and the Livonian Order are known. Members of the order took monastic vows (non-possession, renunciation of property, chastity, obedience), wore robes similar to monastic ones, and under them - military armor. Each order had its own distinctive clothing (for example, the Templars had a white cloak with a red cross). Organizationally, they were built on the basis of a strict hierarchy, headed by an elected master, approved by the pope. When the master acted chapter (council), with legislative functions.
The reflection of knightly morals in the field of spiritual culture opened the brightest page of medieval literature with its own special color, genre and style. She poeticized earthly joys in spite of Christian asceticism, glorified the feat and not only embodied chivalric ideals, but also shaped them. Along with the heroic epic of high patriotic sound (for example, the French "Song of Roland", the Spanish "Song of my Sid"), chivalric poetry appeared (for example, the lyrics of the troubadours and trouveurs in France and the minnesingers in Germany) and the chivalric romance (the love story of Tristan and Isolde), representing the so-called "courtly literature" (from the French courtois - courteous, chivalrous) with the obligatory cult of the lady.
In Europe, chivalry has been losing its significance as the main military force of feudal states since the 15th century. The so-called "battle of spurs" (July 11, 1302), when the foot militia of the Flemish townspeople defeated the French knightly cavalry, became a harbinger of the sunset of the glory of French chivalry. Later, the ineffectiveness of the actions of the French knightly army was clearly manifested at the first stage of the Hundred Years' War, when it suffered a series of severe defeats from the English army. To withstand the competition of mercenary armies using firearms (which appeared in the 15th century), chivalry proved incapable. The new conditions of the era of the disintegration of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist relations led to its disappearance from the historical arena. In the 16-17 centuries. chivalry finally loses the specifics of a special class and is part of the nobility.
Brought up on the military traditions of their ancestors, representatives of the old knightly families made up the officer corps of the armies of the absolutist time, went on risky sea expeditions, and carried out colonial conquests. The noble ethics of subsequent centuries, including the noble principles of fidelity to duty and worthy service to the fatherland, undoubtedly bear the influence of the knightly era.
4. The significance of the cathedral in the medieval city
For a long time, the cathedral was the only public building in the medieval city. It played the role of not only a religious, ideological, cultural, educational center, but also an administrative and, to some extent, economic center. Later, town halls and covered markets appeared, and part of the functions of the cathedral passed to them, but even then it by no means remained only a religious center. The idea that “the main tasks of the city ... served as the material basis and symbols of the conflicting social forces that dominated urban life: the castle was the pillar of secular feudal power; the cathedral is the embodiment of the power of the clergy; the town hall is a stronghold of self-government of citizens” (A.V. Ikonnikov) - only partly true. Their unconditional acceptance simplifies the socio-cultural life of the medieval city.
It is rather difficult for a modern person to perceive the variety of functions of a medieval cathedral, its significance in all spheres of urban life. The cathedral remained a temple, a religious building or became a monument of architecture and culture, a museum, a concert hall, necessary and accessible to a few. His life today does not convey the fullness of his being in the past.
The medieval city was small and enclosed by walls. Residents perceived it as a whole, in an ensemble - a feeling lost in a modern city. The cathedral defines the architectural and spatial center of the city; in any type of urban planning, the web of streets gravitated towards it. As the tallest building in the city, it served as a watchtower if necessary. Cathedral Square was the main, and sometimes the only one. All vital public events took place or began in this square. Subsequently, when the market was moved from the suburbs to the city and a special market square appeared, it often adjoins the cathedral one of the corners. So it was in a number of cities in Germany and France: Dresden, Meissen, Naumburg, Montauban, Monpazier. In the city, in addition to the main cathedral, as a rule, there were also parish churches, some of the functions of the cathedral were transferred to them. In large cities, their number could be significant. So a contemporary notes in London at the end of the 12th century. One hundred twenty-six such churches.
To our admiring eyes, the cathedral appears in a completed and “purified form”. Around him there are no those small shops and little shops that, like bird nests, clung to all the ledges and caused the demands of the city and church authorities "not to punch holes in the walls of the temple." The aesthetic inappropriateness of these shops, apparently, did not bother contemporaries at all, they became an integral part of the cathedral, did not interfere with its greatness. The silhouette of the cathedral was also different, since one or the other of its wing was constantly in the forests.
The medieval city was noisy: in a small space there was a creak of wheels, the clatter of hooves, the clatter of wooden shoes, the cries of peddlers, the rumble and ringing of craft workshops, the voices and bells of domestic animals, which were only gradually driven out of the streets by the city authorities, the rattles of leprosy patients. “But one sound invariably blocked the noise of a restless life: no matter how diverse it was, it did not mix with anything, it elevated everything that happened to the sphere of order and clarity. This is a bell ringing. Bells in everyday life were likened to good warning spirits, who, with familiar voices, announced grief and joy, peace and anxiety, called the people together and warned of impending danger. They were called by their names: Roland, Fat Jacqueline - and everyone understood the meaning of this or that ringing. And although their glosses sounded almost incessantly, attention to their ringing was not dulled at all ”(J. Huizinga). The cathedral spikelet compiled the necessary information for all the townspeople at once: about a fire, about the sea, an attack, any emergency intracity event. And today the ancient "Big Paul" or "Big Ben" animate the space of the modern city.
The cathedral was the keeper of time. The bells chimed the hours of duck worship, but for a long time they also announced the beginning and end of the craftsman's work. Until the XIV century. - the beginning of the spread of mechanical tower clocks - it was the cathedral bell that set the rhythm of "well-measured life".
The watchful eye of the church accompanied the city dweller from birth to death. The church accepted him into society, and she also helped him pass into the afterlife. Church sacraments and rituals were an essential part of everyday life. Baptism, engagement, marriage ceremony, funeral service and burial, confession and communion - all this connected the citizen with the cathedral or parish church (in small towns the cathedral was also a parish church), made it possible to feel part of the Christian society. The cathedral also served as a burial place for wealthy citizens, some of them had closed family tombs with tombstones. It was not only prestigious, but also practical (as historians note, the robberies of parish cemeteries occurred constantly).
The relationship between the townspeople and the city clergy was far from idyllic. The chronicles of Guibert of Nozhansky, Otto of Freisingen, Richard Devise do not say anything good about the townspeople. In turn, in urban literature - fablio, schwank, satirical poetry - the monk and the priest are often ridiculed. The townspeople oppose the freedom of the clergy from taxes, they seek not only to free themselves from the power of their senior prelates, but also to take under municipal control the affairs that were traditionally the responsibility of the church. Indicative in this regard, the evolution of the situation of hospitals, which during the XIII-XIV centuries. gradually cease to be ecclesiastical institutions, although they retain the patronage of the church and, therefore, the inviolability of their property. However, the frequent opposition to the clergy is combined with constant contacts with him in everyday life and does not prevent the townspeople from considering the construction and decoration of the cathedral as their vital business.
The construction of the city cathedral was attended not only by the townspeople, but also by the peasants of the district, the magnates and the clergy. Medieval chronicles and other documents reflected examples of religious enthusiasm that struck contemporaries: “ladies, knights, all sought not only donations, but also feasible work to help the construction.” Often, funds were raised throughout the country for the construction of the cathedral. “In the Middle Ages, a wide variety of donations, donations, contributions to the construction of the temple, which were considered as a worthy and pleasing deed, became widespread. Most often, these were donations of jewelry and valuables, sums of money or free provision of materials for future construction ”(K.M. Muratov). The cathedral was built for several decades, but the complete completion of the building dragged on for centuries. From generation to generation, legends about the laying and construction of the temple were indulged, more and more funds were collected, donations were made, wills were left. The phrase of the papal legate and former chancellor of the University of Paris, Odo de Châteauroux, that "the cathedral Notre Dame of Paris built on the pennies of poor widows ”of course, should not be taken literally, but precisely under a foundation. A sincere impulse of piety was combined with rivalry with a neighboring city, and for some, with a desire to receive personal remission of sins. The beautiful cathedral was one of the important signs of prestige, it demonstrated the strength and wealth of the city community. The size of the temples built in very small cities, the luxury and complexity of their interiors meet the need to create something incommensurable in beauty and grandeur with everything around. The significance of the cathedral is also evidenced by the desire to immediately restore its aftermath of the fire, and certainly in the same place, in order to preserve the usual objects of pilgrimage.
The construction of the cathedral was for many years in the center of attention of the townspeople, but it entered into action long before its final completion. The construction began from the choir, the roof was built, as a rule, even before the church was covered with vaults, so the service could be performed fairly quickly after the start of construction.
The construction and decoration of the temple served as an impetus for the development of urban artistic crafts. The famous Parisian "Book of Crafts" (XIII century) reports on a number of such professions, the use of which in the daily life of the city would be very limited. Among them are painters, stone carvers, filigree makers, sculptors, rosary makers (from corals, shells, bones, horns, ambergris, amber), carpets, inlays, gold and silver threads for brocade, book fasteners, etc. Then the town hall, the houses of magnates living in the city and the city patriciate, charitable institutions will be decorated. But at first, the craftsmen mostly work for the cathedral. The builders did not stay in one place, they moved from city to city, from country to country. They learned from renowned masters; the site of the cathedral under construction was a school for architects.
The iconographic material of the era also testifies to the keen interest of contemporaries in the process of building the temple: the plot of the construction of the cathedral is often on miniatures of medieval manuscripts. (Appendix A)
Relics with relics were kept in the cathedral, pilgrims flocked to it, sometimes from afar. There was a constant exchange between the inhabitants of different areas. The motley crowd of pilgrims going to Canterbury to venerate the relics of Thomas Becket gave Chaucer the idea for The Canterbury Tales. The city and the temple valued such pilgrimages: they brought substantial income.
At the cathedral there was a school with a singing and grammar class. In a small town, she often remained the only one. So, in London in the XIV century. Only three church schools are known. Church book collections could be quite rich, but they were accessible only to a narrow circle of clergy and, possibly, urban intellectuals. Libraries at town halls and Guildhalls appeared later. On the porch, and in the winter and in the premises of the cathedral, schoolchildren and students held disputes. The townspeople present at them enjoyed the gesture and the very process of the dispute rather than the word: the disputes were conducted in Latin. In Bologna, lectures were given to university students from the outer pulpit of the Cathedral of San Stefano.
The porch of the cathedral was the liveliest place in the city: various deals were concluded here, people were hired, the marriage ceremony began here, the beggars asked for alms. London lawyers on the porch of the Cathedral of St. Pavel arranged meetings and gave advice to clients. The porch served as a stage for dramatic performances for a long time. On the porch, and sometimes in the church itself, the so-called "church ales" were arranged - the prototype of future charity bazaars, they sold wine, various local crafts and agricultural products. The proceeds went to the maintenance of the temple, the needs of the parish, in particular, and to pay for festive processions and theatrical performances. A custom that was constantly condemned, but with the passage of time became more and more frequent. These feasts greatly revolted church reformers and zealots of piety in general.
The city cathedral has long served as a place of municipal meetings, was used in case of various public needs. True, monastery churches and the houses of city lords were also used for the same purpose. The temple was always a ready and open refuge in the days of grief, anxiety and doubt, it could also become a refuge in the literal sense, guaranteeing immunity for a while. The cathedral tried to accommodate everyone, but on especially solemn days there were too many people who wanted to. And despite the strict etiquette of the medieval way of life, which for us has already become a frozen stereotype, there was a stampede and not always a harmless crowd in the cathedral. Contemporaries left evidence of riots during coronation ceremonies in Reims Cathedral.
The cathedral was one of the most significant (if not the most significant) implementation of medieval culture. He contained the entire amount of knowledge of his era, all its materialized ideas about beauty. He satisfied the needs of the soul in the high and beautiful, non-everyday, and the simpleton, and the intellectual. “The symbol of the universe was the cathedral,” writes a modern historian, “its structure was conceived in everything similar to the cosmic order: a review of its internal plan, dome, altar, aisles should have given a complete picture of the structure of the world. Each of its details, as well as the layout as a whole, was executed symbolic meaning. The one praying in the temple contemplated the beauty and harmony of divine creation. It is, of course, impossible to restore in its entirety how an ordinary city dweller perceived worship. The experience of "temple action" was both a deeply individual and at the same time a collective process. Upbringing, ritualized norms of behavior were superimposed on the piety, impressionability, education of the individual.

4. Citizen and time
The Middle Ages inherited the methods of measuring time from ancient times. Instruments for such measurement were divided into two large groups: those that measured time intervals and those that showed astronomical time. The first include the hourglass, known since antiquity, but recorded in Western Europe only in 1339, and the fire clock - candles or oil lamps, the combustion of which occurs over a certain period of time. The second type of clock includes solar and mechanical. Solar gnomon, known in Egypt in the 5th millennium BC, were widely spread in the Roman Empire and were an almost obligatory decoration of many villas and houses. An intermediate type of clock can be considered water-clepsydra. Clepsydras have also been known since the 15th century. BC. in Egypt. Others of them are two connected flasks in which water is poured from one to another in a fixed time - such, for example, are known in Greece from about 450g. BC. "Hours for Speakers". Another type of water clock is large cisterns, in which water also overflows from one to another, but for many days or, when one of the cisterns is connected to a natural or artificial water stream, it is constant, and the absolute time is determined by the water level. About 150g. BC. Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a water clock in which a rising float turned a shaft with an arrow. This watch was more like a yearly calendar, and the hand marked the day; every hour, however, the water threw out a pebble, which fell with a ringing sound on a metal plate. Later, the clepsydra were modified so that the arrow showed not the day, but the hour. (The division of a day into 24 hours, and an hour into 60 minutes, was known in Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC)
In the early Middle Ages, accurate measurement of time, especially of the day, was not widely used. The first clocks known then - solar and water - were built according to the instructions of the famous philosopher Boethius (c. 480-524) by order of Theodoric the Great (c. 454-526; king of the Ostrogoths from 471, king of Italy from 493); they were intended as a gift to the king of the Burgundians, Gunvold. From the letter accompanying this gift, it was clear that in the barbarian kingdoms that arose on the territory of Gaul, clocks were unknown (although there were gnomons and clepsydras in Roman villas in Gaul).
The low prevalence of watches in the early Middle Ages is explained, firstly, by the attitude (in a certain sense, indifference) of people to time, in which they proceeded from natural cyclicality and were guided by signs and phenomena observed over the centuries. Secondly, technical difficulties: both clepsydra and gnomons were motionless, bulky and (especially the first) complex structures, and a sundial, moreover, could only show time during the day and in clear weather.
Many thinkers of the Middle Ages paid much attention to the careful gradation of time. For example, Honorius Augustodunsky (first half of the 12th century) divided the hour into 4 "points", 10 "minutes", 15 "parts", 40 "moments", 60 "signs" and 22560 "atoms". But still, the unit of measurement of time remained at best an hour, and that one, rather, in liturgical use, while in everyday life it is a day. Gregory of Tours (c. 538-594), in his De cursu stellarum ratio, proposed to calculate time by the rising of the stars and by the number of psalms read.
The division of time into equal hours was absent for a long time: the light and dark times of the day were divided into 12 hours each, so that the hours of the day and night were not the same and varied at different times of the year. The primary division of the day into 24 hours was made in the Middle East, at whose latitude day and night are approximately equal throughout the year, but in the northern regions of Europe the difference was striking. One of the first, if not the first thinker to express the desire to equalize the hours was the Anglo-Saxon Bede the Venerable (c. 673-731), as is clear from his treatise De ratione computi. He or his entourage owns the first calendar, which indicates the distribution of light and dark time at the latitude of the middle part of the British Isles: “December - night hours XVIII, daytime - VI; March - night hours XII, daytime - XII; June - night hours VI; daily - XVIII ", etc. Already after the invention of mechanical clocks and before the beginning of the XVII century. Very complex adjustable drives were used, which made it possible to divide the day into unequal periods of time - the hours of the day and night, so that the idea of ​​the hour as a constant unit of time spread rather slowly and initially only in church life, where it was caused by liturgical necessity. The constancy of the hour was especially actively maintained in the 10th century, in the process of the Cluniac reform, in order to unify the church ritual, which provided, among other things, for the simultaneousness of church services (they did not know about standard time then).
19th century explorers The invention of the mechanical clock was attributed to the famous scientist Herbert of Aurillac (c. 940-1003), who became in 999. Pope under the name of Sylvester II. In fact, he only improved (c. 983) clepsydra, and now its axis rotated under the influence of falling water; this made it possible to subsequently replace the force of water with the weight of weights, i.e. facilitated the creation of mechanical watches.
The reasons for the appearance of the latter were more socio-psychological than technical. The exact measurement of time was carried out only inside the church space, outside the time was noted not so accurately.
6. Crime of the Middle Ages.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, historians painted romantic pictures of the equality and communal unity of medieval townspeople, supposedly opposing their secular and spiritual lords as a united front.
The study of urban poverty is hampered by the state of the sources, especially for the early centuries of urban history. Sources become more eloquent only as we approach the late Middle Ages. But it would be a mistake to conclude from this that poverty is an exceptional phenomenon of these centuries.
Below we will talk about specific representatives of the underworld of medieval France and Burgundy - professional thieves.
The problems of urban crime constantly occupied the minds of officials. Potential criminals were those who refused to work and led a wild life, visiting taverns and brothels. These lazy people set a "bad example" to those around them, spending all their time at gambling and drinking under the pretext that wages are not high enough. Secondly, people who did not have any worthy profession at all.
The city was an ideal place for the creation and existence of the gang. On its streets one could meet anyone. Moreover, theft is considered not just a profession - in it, as in any craft, there is a certain specialization.
Already in the XIII century. In Paris, there is a gang of "dirty Baboons" ("livilains Baubuins") who lured dupes to Notre Dame Cathedral and, while they stared at the sculptures of Pepin and Charlemagne, cut their wallets from their belts.
There are the following types of masters, thieves' specialties:
- A burglar is someone who knows how to open locks.
- "collector" - one who cuts wallets
- "mockery" is a thief who lures a dupe, plays
- "sender" - killer
 “kidala” - someone who sells counterfeit gold bars.
Actually, nothing could really exclude them from the life of society. Professional criminals lived in "symbiosis" with the urban population, they could even cooperate with the authorities, especially with the nobility.
7. The role of the church in the Early Middle Ages
The most important feature of medieval culture is the special role of Christian doctrine and the Christian church. In the context of the general decline of culture immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire, only the church for many centuries remained the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of Western Europe. The church was not only the dominant political institution, but also had a dominant influence directly on the consciousness of the population. In the conditions of a difficult and meager life, against the background of extremely limited and unreliable knowledge about the surrounding world, the church offered people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, its structure, and the forces acting in it. This picture of the world completely determined the mentality of the believing villagers and townspeople and was based on the images and interpretations of the Bible.
The entire cultural life of European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.
The population was traditionally attached to pagan cults and sermons, and descriptions of the lives of the saints were not enough to convert them to the true faith. They converted to a new religion with the help of state power. However, even a long time after the official recognition of a single religion, the clergy had to deal with the persistent remnants of paganism among the peasantry.
The church destroyed temples and idols, forbade worshiping gods and making sacrifices, arranging pagan holidays and rituals. Severe punishments threatened those who practiced divination, divination, spells, or simply believed in them.
The formation of the process of Christianization was one of the sources of sharp clashes, since. the concept of people's freedom was often associated with the old faith among the people, while the connection between the Christian church and state power and oppression stood out clearly enough.
In the minds of the masses of the rural population, regardless of belief in certain gods, attitudes of behavior were preserved in which people felt themselves directly included in the cycle of natural phenomena.
This constant influence of nature on man and the belief in man's influence on the course of natural phenomena with the help of a whole system of supernatural means was a manifestation of the magical consciousness of the medieval community, an important feature of its worldview.
In the mind of a medieval European, the world was seen as a kind of arena of confrontation between the forces of heaven and hell, good and evil. At the same time, the consciousness of people was deeply magical, everyone was absolutely sure of the possibility of miracles and perceived everything that the Bible reported about in a literal sense.
In the most general terms, the world was seen by people in accordance with a certain hierarchical ladder, or rather, as a symmetrical scheme, resembling two pyramids folded with their bases. The top of one of them is God. Below are the levels of sacred characters - Apostles, archangels, angels, etc. At some level, people are included in this hierarchy: first the pope and the cardinals, then lower-level clerics, then the laity, starting with the secular authorities. Then, further from God and closer to the earth, there were animals and plants, then - the earth itself, already completely inanimate. And then it was like a mirror image of the upper, earthly and heavenly, hierarchy, but in a different dimension, as if with a “minus” sign, along the growth of evil and proximity to Satan, who was the embodiment of Evil.
Thus, the adherence to tradition, the conservatism of all social life, the dominance of the stereotype in artistic creativity, the stability of magical thinking, which was imposed on the church.
7.1 The role of the church in education
In the V-IX centuries, all schools in Europe were in the hands of the church. She drew up a curriculum, selected students. The Christian church preserved and used elements of secular culture left over from the ancient education system: disciplines inherited from antiquity were taught in church schools: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics with elements of logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
Medieval university science was called scholasticism. The influence of the church on medieval universities was enormous. A woman in the Middle Ages, as a rule, with very rare exceptions, did not receive education. Some noble ladies could afford to be educated, but usually a woman was kept in the background, and even if noble men did not receive an education, since they were fascinated by military affairs, and not by books, then a lot of effort and money were not spent on women in this sense. .
Byzantium during the early Middle Ages was characterized by the strengthening of the positions of the Christian Church in the field of education, which was expressed in the persecution of ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophy was replaced by theology. A prominent representative of the Byzantine culture of that time was Patriarch Photius, the compiler of the "Mariobiblion" - a collection of reviews of 280 works of mainly ancient authors, authors of theological works.
8.Conclusion
In answer to the questions I posed at the beginning, we can say that no matter how barbaric the Middle Ages, it cultivated a sense of duty, if only out of pride. However limited the amount of knowledge of that time was, at least it taught first of all to think and only then to act; and then there was no plague of modern society - complacency. And the Middle Ages are considered naive.
Undoubtedly, the cathedral, the church, played an important role, determining the mindset of the inhabitants.
Along with the poverty of that time, the problems of crime, luxurious trips of nobles and knightly competitions were arranged.
The courage and dexterity of the knights, the variegated forms of everything that affected the mind and feelings, everyday life aroused and kindled passion, manifested either in unexpected explosions of rude unbridledness and bestial cruelty, or in impulses of spiritual responsiveness, in the changeable atmosphere of which the life of a medieval city flowed. In a word, life retained the flavor of a fairy tale.
Annex A

Bibliography:
1. A.A. Svanidze "City in the medieval civilization of Western Europe" v.3, v.4 M. "Science", 2000
2. L.M. Bragin "The culture of the revival and the religious life of the era" M. "Science", 1997
3. A. Ya Gurevich "Problems of medieval folk culture" M., 1981
4. J. Huizinga "Autumn of the Middle Ages"

As soon as it comes to medieval knights or chivalry in general, immediately before our mind's eye passes one and the same, in essence, image: the image of valiant and noble warriors in bright shining armor. Here their cavalcade leaves the castle gates at a trot under bright banners pleasing to the eye with the freshness of colors. Here they are - some with a spear at the ready, some with a sparkling sword in their hand - rush into battle to defend the right of the undeservedly offended, to protect the widow and the orphan ...

It is worth, however, to peer into this beautiful image, as it begins to blur, split up, losing its original unambiguity. Historical reality must have been much more complex before the stereotypical image of the knight, the one that served Cervantes as a model for his immortal, cruel, and at the same time touching caricature, developed in the public mind.

To begin with, the word "knight" itself has more than one meaning. Initially, it obviously indicates a warrior-rider (this is obvious for a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Italian, a German, but, for example, not for an Englishman. - F.N.). But chivalry is far from just cavalry. Very early, this term is applied to a warrior of a very respectable social status, but it still becomes a title of nobility much later. Chivalry, in fact, is associated with the nobility, but, be that as it may, these categories are not at all synonymous. Finally, the knight is the bearer of a special ethics, various aspects of which appear in different eras with varying degrees of intensity. Knightly morality implies: honest fulfillment of all obligations related to military service - vassal or feudal, devotion to the Church and the king, as well as to one's patron, seigneur or beautiful lady; the greatness of the soul; a sense of honor; humility mixed with pride. From such and such elements, taken at different times in different proportions and under various names, an ideal is formed - an ideal offered to the knight by the main actors on the medieval scene: first of all, the Church, which has an almost complete monopoly on culture and which, with all the means of medieval "mass media" available to it, persistently spreads its own ideology; then, the secular aristocracy, which is related to chivalry by blood ties, which gradually acquires its social self-consciousness and, in opposition to ecclesiastical influence, highlights its own ways of feeling, acting and thinking.

It was the interaction of these two poles, ecclesiastical and aristocratic, that gave soldier, as the knight was originally, professional deontology, social dignity and a multifaceted ideal. It was it that gave birth to chivalry as such, gradually, over the centuries, hewing and polishing it - until Bayar, “a knight without fear and reproach” emerged from the ranks of the latter, both in life and on the pages of historical works XV-XVIII centuries. The image molded by Epinal fascinates us, but this enchanting - and, like a mask, frozen face hides behind itself, like behind a thick curtain, a changing historical reality. The task of the proposed book is to restore the history of chivalry, marking the main stages of its development with milestones.

Chivalry, first of all, is a profession. The profession of those elite warriors who serve their sovereign (king) or their master (seigneur). The special methods of warfare of this heavy cavalry will soon transform it - due to the high cost of weapons and the training required to own them - into an aristocratic elite. Military service is increasingly concentrated in the hands of this social class, which eventually begins to look upon it as its exclusive privilege.

Such military service has its own ethics. Ethics from two sources. The first of them is the old military morality, requiring obedience to the lord, courage, and combat skill. The second is the old royal ideology, which called not only for the fulfillment of purely military duty, but also, moreover, placed obligations of a somewhat different kind on chivalry - such as protecting the country and its inhabitants, patronizing the weak, widows and orphans. . Education in the same spirit of the military elite was continued by the Church already in the feudal era proper, when the decline of royal power revealed the power of the owners of castles and their armed servants.

However, the mentality of chivalry was determined not only by this ideal inspired by the Church. More secular literature expressed the aspirations of the knights themselves and gave them a model of behavior based on the example of their heroes. This model, perhaps even more than the factors mentioned, contributed to the development of a purely chivalric ideology based on values ​​that were cherished primarily by the knights themselves and which were defended and strengthened by the knights, by no one else. This ideology is not without greatness, but it also has its vices. Recognizing them does not at all mean rejecting the knightly ideal, which, perhaps, continues to live in the depths of our souls.

Notes:

Translator's notes

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Note. per.

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republican Note. per.

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combatant retinue friends Note. per.

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Note. per.

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Note. per.

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Note. per.

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Note. per.

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Note. per.

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order" (plural orders ex ordine- in order, in order. - Note. per.

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12 Binary - binomial. - Note. per.

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Note. per.

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14 Pataria (it. pataria Note. per.

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Hue, Hugues hhhu Hue Note. per.

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Note. per.

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17 Perceval or Parzival Note. per.

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Bretagne ancient Note. per.

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courtoisie Note. per.

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>

Arnold W.

Barber R.

Barber A.

Bumke Joachim. Jackson W.T.H. et E. New York, 1982.

Cardini F.

Chênerie M. L.

Cohen G.

Contamine P.

Coss P.R.

Duby G.

Duby G.

Flori J.

Flori J.

Flori J.

Flori J.

Gautier L. La Chevalerie. Paris, 1884.

Jackson W. T. N.

Keen M. Chivalry. London, 1984.

Parisse M.

Reuter H.G.

Ritter J.P.

Stanesco M.

Winter J. M., van.

>

Literature in Russian

Barber M.

Barg M.A.

Bessmertny Yu. L.

Bitsilli P. M.

Block M.

Boytsov M.A.

Bordonov J.

Budanova V.P.

Volkova Z. N.

Gurevich A. Ya.

Gurevich A. Ya.

Duby J.

Egorov D. Ya.

Zaborov M.A. Crusades. M., 1956.

Zaborov M. A.

Ivanov K.

Cardini F.

Kartashov A.V. Ecumenical Councils. M., 1998.

Kolesnitsky N. F.

Konrad N.K. West and East. M., 1966.

Contamine F.

Korsunsky A. R., Günther R.

Le Goff J.

Le Goff J.

Levandovsky A.P.

Laurent T.

Lyublinskaya A. D.

Meletinsky E. M.

Melik-Gaykazova H. N.

Mikhailov A. D.

Moulin L.

Matthews J. Grail tradition. M., 1997.

Pasturo M.

Ponyon E.

Rua J. History of chivalry. M, 1996.

Wallace-Hedryll J.M.

Flory J.

Fustel de Coulanges.

>

Illustrations

Translator's notes

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1 Deontology is a section of ethics that deals with the problems of duty and due. - Note. per.

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2 Estates, first of all, are not “established” by an imperial edict, the latter is capable, at most, of legalizing an actually existing estate, “prescribing” its rights and obligations, but in this case there was no need for this kind of legislative activity: the horsemen are still in the early republican period, that is, several centuries before Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD) were constituted as the second, after the senatorial, estate, with clearly defined rights and obligations.

It is true that the equestrian class under Augustus abruptly "went uphill", taking the highest and most profitable posts in the hastily put together imperial administration. - Note. per.

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3 This statement is overly categorical and needs to be clarified. cavalry in republican Rome was both a traditional and even more honorable branch of the army, as it was formed from the patrician nobility, that is, that faction of it that formed the estate of "horsemen". Later, the "horsemen" more and more departed from military service, making a career in the field of civil administration or heading into wholesale trade, usury and tax farming. Their place in the army was gradually taken by turmas (squadrons) recruited from the barbarians, but even in the battle of Pharsalus (48 BC), on this “last day of the Republic”, Gnaeus Pompey’s cavalry consisted mostly of Roman aristocrats . With such a social composition, she could not in any way become (see the next paragraph) an object of neglect. - Note. per.

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4 As the reader probably remembers, the epithet “faithful” was applied, if not exclusively, then primarily to those who surrounded their leader in a tight ring in battle. This is a synonym combatant, that is, by definition, an aristocrat. By the way, in Rus', as in the West, retinue there is a commonwealth, fastened by bonds of fidelity in relation to the prince; this is - friends prince, with whom he likes to feast and go into battle. In Rus', the squad was divided into the elder (boyars) and the “younger” (grid, “youths”). Senior combatants came to the service of the prince at the head of their own squads, which required considerable expenses for their maintenance. Now we come to the concept of "loyalties" that needed to be created. "Faithful", this Western equivalent of the Russian boyar, also brought his squad to the service of the Frankish king, but he did this, one must think, less disinterestedly than his Russian counterpart. Such "fidelity" in the West, earlier than in Rus', found its expression in a certain amount of land allotment. That is the meaning of this term. - Note. per.

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5 The latter assumption finds indirect confirmation in the memoirs of Russian participants in the Caucasian War of the 19th century. Murids of Shamil (sometimes) and Kabardian princes (quite often) went to battle in chain mail made by Dagestan craftsmen. Such chain mail made its owner invulnerable in a fight on checkers and for a Cossack pike, it could only be shot through, and even then only at close range. She fit in the palm of her hand. - Note. per.

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6 The list of battles given by J. Flory can hardly serve as a sufficient substantiation of the thesis put forward by him.

At the Battle of Lechfeld, the light, that is, not at all knightly, Hungarian cavalry suffered a heavy defeat, encountering not only close-knit infantry, but also mounted knightly militia, collected from most of the Holy Roman Empire, including Bohemia. Obviously, this defeat has nothing to do with the issue raised. Under Hastings and under Crecy, the knightly cavalry was forced to attack the infantry (under Crecy, by the way, the infantry consisted of dismounted English knights mixed with archers), so to speak, “from the bottom up”, climbing a steep slope and thereby losing their main “trump card”, the power of a ram hit. At Courtrai, the horse attack of the French knights bogged down, as it was carried out through a meadow, which turned out to be a swamp. The Flemish infantry owed its victory not to its own stamina (the horsemen did not ride to it), but to the lack of horse reconnaissance among the French. Under Azincourt, the French cavalry vanguard, being cut off from its main forces, attacked the English army deployed in battle formation, and this army numerically outnumbered the entire French, and not just its vanguard.

The list of victories of united infantry over knightly cavalry can be replenished with two more: the battle of Legnano (1176) and on the ice of Lake Peipsi (1242). They had two things in common. Both near Milan and on the border with Russia, the German knights, having exhausted their first blow, no longer resumed the classic cavalry attack “with a run”, as they were drawn into an exhausting sword fight with infantry at Legnano, storming the Milanese camp surrounded by a moat on foot, and at the Raven Stone, having no place to turn around and reorganize for a new attack. The second common feature of the two battles is the cavalry strike on the flank of the Teutons who have upset their ranks. Under Legnano, it was inflicted, moreover, the nominal “from a running start”, absolutely necessary for gaining proper power, by the Milanese knights, who managed to rebuild after the initial defeat. The battle on Lake Peipsi was also completed by the attack of the prince's squad, saved for the decisive hour on a wooded shore under the canopy of spruce branches.

All this is so. However, the above exceptions confirm the general rule: throughout the Middle Ages, it was the knightly cavalry that remained the “queen” on the battlefields. An analysis of each of the cases when she failed to maintain her royal dignity in clashes with the infantry shows quite clearly: she was entrusted with the solution of unsolvable combat missions - such as jumping through the swamp "like on dry land" or taking off, without losing initial speed, to the top steep hill like a bird. - Note. per.

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7 Jugglers - itinerant comedians, singers and musicians in medieval France (X-XIII centuries). They performed chivalrous epic poems (gestures) in recitative or in a singsong voice and were therefore welcome guests both in the knight's castle and at the prince's court. Not a single holiday in high society could do without them. - Note. per.

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8 Above is a prose translation of a rhymed text. - Note. per.

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9 Interdict - a temporary prohibition (without excommunication) of the pope or bishop to perform divine services and religious rites in the punished territory (baptism of newborns, weddings in the church during marriage, funerals for the dead, etc.). - Note. per.

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10 The "Schism" (literally, "schism"), which finally divided the Universal Church into Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) in 1054, was the result of both the centuries-old separatist policy of the Roman Church, and the clearly provocative actions of the papacy directly in the year of the schism . Nevertheless, the West always placed the responsibility for the "schism" on Constantinople and stuck the slanderous label of "schismatics" on the Orthodox. For the current Western mentality, it is very characteristic that even such an objective researcher as Jean Flory, at the first meeting with the odious term, did not consider it necessary to put it in quotation marks. - Note. per.

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11 In classical Latin, the word " order" (plural orders) had the following main meanings: 1) row; 2) military row, system, line; 3) estate, rank, social system; 4) order; ex ordine- in order, in order. - Note. per.

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12 Binary - binomial. - Note. per.

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13 We are talking, of course, about the "Consolation of Philosophy" by the last Roman philosopher and politician Anicius Manlius Boethius (480-524). Boethius, the author of treatises on logic, mathematics and theology and court adviser to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric in Ravenna, was accused of treasonous relations with the Byzantine emperor, sentenced to death and imprisoned until the execution of the sentence.

Expecting execution every day, he wrote his last work, the title of which quite clearly reveals its content. The significance of The Consolation of Philosophy went far beyond the personal tragic fate its author: the medieval intellectual elite of the West saw in the book a testament and greetings of Ancient Rome to the new world that came to replace it. The manuscript taken by the jailers from the place of execution was diligently copied, multiplied in dozens of copies, read in the original language, wherever a handful of learned monks could gather. Then they began to translate. - Note. per.

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14 Pataria (it. pataria, from the name of the junk market in Milan) - popular movement in Milan and a number of neighboring cities against the clergy and urban nobility for the church (Cluniac) reform in the second half of the 11th century. It was suppressed, but nevertheless played an important role both in the success of the Cluniac reform and in the formation of city-republics in northern Italy. - Note. per.

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15 Russian reading of such French names as Hue, Hugues and the like, in the English way runs the risk of surprising the reader, who, of course, knows that the French "ash" ( h), as opposed to the English "h" ( h), in no way like the Russian "ha" is pronounced. But the trouble is that in Russian phonetics and in the Russian alphabet there are no such sounds and letters that would be able to convey, even with a very large "tolerance", the French letter combination " hu”, and that in the literary text there is no possibility to resort to the signs of international phonetic transcription. English name Hue it is pronounced in Russian as “Hugh” quite correctly, but exactly the same spelling in French is not pronounced in any way. The author of Les Misérables and Notre Dame Cathedral was “christened” in Russian as “Hugo” in the 19th century, and it was terrible: not a single Frenchman would ever recognize under this Russified name his famous writer. Of two or more evils, I have chosen, as it seems to me, the least. - Note. per.

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16 Reiters - here: German cavalry mercenaries who took an active part in the Wars of Religion in France in the 16th century. They differed, even from other mercenaries, in unbridled cruelty and insatiable greed. - Note. per.

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17 Perceval or Parzival - literary character, better known to the Russian public by his second, German name, thanks mainly to Wagner's opera. Wagner was inspired, as you know, by the poetic novel of the same name (c. 1198–1210) by Wolfram von Eschenbach, who creatively rethought the novel of Chrétien de Troyes, which was then very readable by Western chivalry. - Note. per.

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18 The Bretons are the original inhabitants of Brittany, which is now part of France, but which is at the same time much older than France. It was called "Brittany" while still part of Celtic Gaul, that is, when the Franks, who would give their name to France, had not yet been heard of. It is no coincidence that in modern French "Brittany" and "Britain" are denoted by one word. Bretagne: the Brittany peninsula, apparently, became a springboard for the Celtic colonization of the British Isles, in any case, a single ethnic array for many centuries (at least half a millennium) extended from Gaul through Brittany to the British Isles. In this sense ancient the British (before the landing of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who arrived from the shores of Schleswig and Jutland), it is perhaps permissible to designate as "Breton". The same term applied to the remnants of the Celtic population in England of the 12th century is hardly acceptable, and the current British, who are listed as such after the union of England with Scotland at the beginning of the 17th century, cannot be called "Breton" by any means. - Note. per.

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19 It is impossible to convey in Russian the meaning of the term "courtiness" or "courtiness" in any one word, so I have to turn, firstly, to transcription and, secondly, to an explanation of the authoritative "New French-Russian Dictionary" by V. G. Gak and K. A. Ganshina: courtoisie- courtesy, courtesy, courtesy, gallantry. - Note. per.

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20 The following are only works covering the problem of chivalry in general. The reader will find literature on particular questions in the notes to this book.

>

Arnold W. German Knighthood, 1050–1300. Oxford, 1985.

Barber R. The Knight and Chivalry. Woodbridge, 1995.

Barber A. L "Aristocrazia nella società francese del medioevo. Bologna, 1987.

Bumke Joachim. The Concept of Knighthood in the Middle Ages, trad. Jackson W.T.H. et E. New York, 1982.

Cardini F. Alle radici delia cavalleria medievale. Firenze, 1982.

Chênerie M. L. Le Chevalier errant dans les romans arthuriens en vers des XII e et XIII e siècles. Geneve, 1986.

Chickering H. et Seiler Th. H. The study of chivalry. Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1988.

Cohen G. Histoire de la chevalerie en France au Moyen Age. Paris, 1949.

Contamine P. La Noblesse au royaume de France, de Philippe le Bel à Louis XII. Paris, 1997.

Coss P.R. The Knight in Medieval England 1000–1400. Stroud, 1993.

Duby G. Les Trois Ordres ou l "imaginaire du féodalisme. Paris, 1978.

Duby G. Guillaume le Maréchal ou le meilleur chevalier du monde. Paris, 1984.

Flori J. L "Idéologie du glaive. Préhistoire de la chevalerie. Geneve, 1983.

Flori J. L "Essor de la chevalerie, XI e -XII e siècle. Genève, 1986.

Flori J. La Chevalerie en France au Moyen Age. Paris, 1995.

Flori J. Croisade et chevalerie. Louvain-La Neuve, 1998.

Gautier L. La Chevalerie. Paris, 1884.

Jackson W. T. N. Chivalry in XIIth century Germany. Cambridge, 1994.

Keen M. Chivalry. London, 1984.

Parisse M. Noblesse et chevalerie en Lorraine mediévale. Nancy, 1982.

Reuter H.G. Die Lehre vom Ritterstand. Koln, 1975 (2nd ed.).

Ritter J.P. Ministerialite et chevalerie. Lausanne, 1955.

Stanesco M. Jeux d "errance du chevalier mediéval. Leiden, 1988.

Winter J. M., van. Rittertum, Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Bussum, 1969.

>

Literature in Russian

Barber M. Templar process. M., 1998.

Barg M.A. Studies in the history of English feudalism in the 11th-13th centuries. M., 1962.

Bessmertny Yu. L. Life and Death in the Middle Ages. M., 1991.

Bitsilli P. M. Elements of medieval culture. SPb., 1995.

Block M. Feudal society // Blok M. Apology of history or the craft of a historian. M., 1986.

Theology in the culture of the Middle Ages. Kyiv, 1992.

Boytsov M.A. The German emperor of the XIV century: tools for the implementation of power // Power and political culture in medieval Europe. M., 1992.

Bordonov J. Daily life of the Templars in the 13th century. M., 2004.

Brunel-Lobrichon J., Duhamel-Amado K. Daily life in the time of the troubadours of the XII-XIII centuries. M., 2003.

Budanova V.P. The barbaric world of the era of the Great Migration of Nations. M., 2000.

The relationship of social relations and ideology in medieval Europe. M., 1983.

Power and political culture in medieval Europe. M., 1992. Part 1.

Volkova Z. N. Epic of France. History and language of French epic legends. M., 1984.

Gurevich A. Ya. Culture and society of medieval Europe through the eyes of contemporaries. M., 1989.

Gurevich A. Ya. The Medieval World: The Culture of the Silent Majority. M., 1990.

Duby J. Europe in the Middle Ages. Smolensk, 1994.

Egorov D. Ya. Crusades. M., 1914–1915. T. 1–2.

Zaborov M.A. Crusades. M., 1956.

Zaborov M. A. Crusaders in the East. M., 1980.

Ivanov K. The Many Faces of the Middle Ages. M., 1996.

History of Europe. M., 1992. T. 2.

Cardini F. Origins of medieval chivalry. M., 1987.

Kartashov A.V. Ecumenical Councils. M., 1998.

Kolesnitsky N. F. Feudal state V-XV centuries. M., 1967.

Konrad N.K. West and East. M., 1966.

Contamine F. War in the Middle Ages. SPb., 2001.

Korsunsky A. R., Günther R. The decline and death of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of the German kingdoms (until the middle of the 6th century). M., 1984.

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Illustrations

Translator's notes

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1 Deontology is a section of ethics that deals with the problems of duty and due. - Note. per.

I would like to start an overview of the life of a medieval person with a dwelling. It was not difficult to make a choice in his favor, since it is housing, a house, that is the most important component of the worldview of everyday life of a person at all times. The house is one of the fundamental archetypes of human consciousness since ancient times. All the mysteries of human everyday life take place in it, such as marriage, the birth of children, the death of loved ones.

Most clearly, medieval architecture manifested itself in monumental construction, in the form of cathedrals, churches and castles. The latter became one of the symbols of the Middle Ages; their appearance, as well as their interior decoration, clearly testify to the everyday life of the medieval nobility and can be very useful for a researcher of everyday life.

Before proceeding to the study of the dwellings of the medieval man of Northern Europe, it is necessary to give the main features of the Northern Renaissance, since this process largely determined the architectural appearance of the castles. In fact, the term "Renaissance" (in relation to the processes that took place in the art and social thought of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium) is somewhat conditional. The essence of the Renaissance, whose origins lay in Italy, was a return to the traditions and heritage of antiquity. In the northern countries, there was nothing to “revive” by and large, since there were no such traditions. This moment largely determined the specific features of the Renaissance in Germany and Holland. However, of course, the Northern Renaissance was under significant Italian influence.

Otto Benesh traces the specifics of the Northern Renaissance in more detail, citing the differences in its development in Germany and Holland: “One of the features of the German nation is that it always tends to break off the previous course of its development and start a new one, while throwing away all its highest achievements ... Hence - irrational changes, catastrophic leaps, ... reflected also in art. In Western countries, these changes proceeded more evenly. Due to its extensive international connections, the Netherlands perceived new discoveries and new directions much faster than other countries in Western Europe.” O. Benes. Art of the Northern Renaissance. Its connection with contemporary spiritual and intellectual movements. M., 1973. S. 117. Here we note that it was the architecture of the Netherlands that was not directly, but indirectly dependent on Italian trends that penetrated into it through painting and engraving. The forms of Italian architecture were transformed in a peculiar way in Holland, reworked, leaving the Gothic foundations unchanged. These features manifested themselves both during the construction of churches and during the interior and exterior decoration of castles.

According to their location relative to the landscape, castles are conventionally divided into two types. Firstly, these are castles located on hills, and secondly, the so-called lowland castles. It should be noted that such castles are much less common, since they were the most vulnerable to attack, and for the same reason, to this day they are practically not preserved. Among the lowland castles, there are castles located on the water, on a hill, on a plain, in a cave. During the construction of such buildings, much attention had to be paid to defensive structures. It should be added that there are castles placed on the rock, this type of castle was the most protected, however, due to the difficulties of implementing such construction, these castles are very rare. Apparently, one of these castles is depicted in A. Dürer's watercolor “Castle in Innsbruck”. The castle is located on a slight elevation, surrounded by a high fortress wall. The central watchtower is closed with scaffolding. By the way, this detail allowed art historians to date this painting almost exactly 1494-1496.

D. I. Ilovaisky gives a brief and rather typical description of these types of castles: “The feudal nobility lived, as a rule, in fortified castles. They were built on elevated, often impregnable places and represented a group of stone, closely built buildings, surrounded by a stone battlement wall with battlements at the corners. There was a deep ditch around the wall, sometimes filled with water; across this ditch a drawbridge descended from the gates of the castle, which, after passing through, rose again on chains. Sometimes it was necessary to pass two or three more walls, each with a moat and a drawbridge, before reaching the courtyard; around it, in the lower floor, mostly sunk into the ground, there were stables, pantries, cellars, underground prisons, and living rooms towered above them. These were small cells with narrow windows; only the reception and banqueting halls were distinguished by their spaciousness and various decorations: expensive weapons, horned heads of deer, elk and other items of hunting and military booty were hung on the walls. In the middle of the courtyard, sometimes the main tower towered, in which the owner's treasury, feudal documents and other precious things were kept. Long underground passages, in case of danger, led from the castle to a neighboring valley or forest. Of course, the castles of the petty barons were cramped, gloomy, and represented rough, unadorned stone masses; and rich feudal lords built vast castles for themselves, decorating them with many slender turrets, columns, arches, carvings, turning them into beautiful palaces. The function of the castle was transformed over time: if initially the castle was a fortification and was intended only to protect the owners in case of danger, then later the castle began to serve as a form of demonstration of the power and wealth of its inhabitants. “Fortified castles were a symbol of security, power, prestige. In the XI century. donjons were bristling everywhere, the function of protection prevailed. Remaining well-defended, castles began to have more living quarters, residential buildings were built inside the walls. D. I. Ilovaisky. History of the Middle Ages.// http://www.bibliotekar.ru/polk-8/139.htm

“The medieval castle ... with its famous accessories - drawbridges, towers and battlements - was not created immediately. Scientific researchers who devoted their work to the question of the origin and development of castle structures noted several points in this history, of which the earliest moment is of greatest interest: to such an extent, the original castles are not similar to the castles of the subsequent time, But with all the dissimilarity that exists between them , it is not difficult to find similar features, it is not difficult to see hints of later buildings in the original castle ...

The devastating raids of the enemies prompted the construction of such fortifications that could serve as reliable shelters. The first castles were earthen trenches of more or less extensive dimensions, surrounded by a moat and crowned with a wooden palisade. In this form, they looked like Roman camps, and this resemblance, of course, was not a mere accident; there is no doubt that these early fortifications were modeled after Roman camps. As in the center of the latter stood the tent of the commander, or praetorium (praetorium), so in the middle of the space closed by the castle rampart, a natural or, for the most part, artificial earthen elevation of a conical shape (la motte) rose. Usually a wooden structure was erected on this embankment, the front door of which was at the top of the embankment. Inside the mound itself, a passage was made to the dungeon with a well. Thus, it was possible to get into this wooden structure only by climbing the very embankment. For the convenience of the inhabitants, something like a wooden platform was arranged, a descent on props; in case of need, he easily understood, thanks to which the enemy, who wanted to penetrate the dwelling itself, met a serious obstacle. After passing the danger, the disassembled parts were just as easily restored to their previous state.

Essential parts of a medieval knight's castle are present here, in this unpretentious structure: a house on an earthen embankment corresponds to the main castle tower, a collapsible descent - to a drawbridge, a shaft with a palisade - to the battlements of a later castle. Over time, more and more dangers from external enemies, devastating Norman raids, as well as new living conditions caused by the development of feudalism, contributed both to an increase in the number of castle structures and to the complexity of their forms ... ”Ivanov K A. The Many Faces of the Middle Ages. Medieval Castle and Its Inhabitants.// http://www.bibliotekar.ru/polk-9/2.htm Ivanov further describes the entrance to the castle in some detail, in particular, the construction of a drawbridge for crossing the moat that surrounded the castle. These bridges were located between two towers and were raised and lowered with chains or ropes. “Above the gate, in the wall connecting the two newly named towers, oblong holes were made; they went from top to bottom. One beam was threaded into each of them. From the inside, that is, from the castle courtyard, these beams were connected by a transverse crossbar, and here an iron chain descended from the end of one of the beams. Two chains (one to each beam) were attached to the opposite ends of the beams that went outward, and the lower ends of these chains were connected to the corners of the bridge. With such a device, it is only necessary, upon entering the gate, to pull down the chain descending there, as the outer ends of the beams begin to rise and pull the bridge behind them, which, after lifting, will turn into a kind of partition that obscures the gate. But, of course, the bridge was not the gate's only defense. The latter were locked up, and, moreover, very thoroughly. If we approached them at such an inconvenient time, we would have to announce our arrival to the porter, located nearby. To do this, one would have to either blow a horn, or hit a metal board with a mallet, or knock with a special ring attached to the gate for this purpose. There. Chapter from the book Werner Meyer, Erich Lessing. Deutsche Ritter - Deutsche Burgen, translated by Natalia Meteleva, provides valuable additions to this information: the bridge “supports one or more pillars. While the outer part of the bridge is fixed, the last segment is movable. This is the so-called drawbridge. It is designed so that its plate can rotate around an axis fixed at the base of the gate, breaking the bridge and closing the gate. To set the drawbridge in motion, devices are used, both on the gate itself and on its inside. The bridge is raised by hand, on ropes or chains passing through the blocks in the slots of the wall. To facilitate the work, counterweights can be used. The chain can go through the blocks to the gate, located in the room above the gate. This gate can be horizontal and rotated by a handle, or vertical and driven by beams horizontally threaded through it. Another way to raise the bridge is with a lever. Swinging beams are threaded through the slots in the wall, the outer end of which is connected by chains to the front end of the bridge plate, and counterweights are attached to the rear inside the gate. This design facilitates the rapid lifting of the bridge. And, finally, the bridge plate can be arranged according to the rocker principle. The outer part of the plate, turning around the axis at the base of the gate, closes the passage, and the inner part, on which the attackers may already be, goes down into the so-called. a wolf pit, invisible while the bridge is down. Such a bridge is called overturning (Kippbrücke) or swinging (Wippbrücke). To enter when the main gate is closed, there is a gate located on the side of the gate, which sometimes leads to a separate lifting ladder. As the most vulnerable point of the castle, the gate locks and protects other devices. First of all, these are gate leaves, tightly knocked together from two layers of boards and upholstered on the outside with iron to protect against arson. Most often, the gates are double-winged, while in one of the wings there is a small door through which, bending over, one person can pass. In addition to locks and iron bolts, the gates are also locked by a cross beam. It is located in a channel cut in the wall of the gate and slides into a recess located in the opposite wall. The cross beam can also be inserted into hook-shaped slots in the walls. It increases the stability of the gate and prevents them from being thrown out. Further, the gate is protected by a descending grate: a device already known to the Romans. In the Middle Ages, it is first found in the castles of the crusaders and since that time has been spreading in Europe. The lattice is most often wooden, with ironed lower ends. It can also be iron, made of steel tetrahedral rods connected by iron strips. The drop-down grate can either hang outside, moving in grooves along the sides of the gate, or behind the gate leaves, passing through a slot in the ceiling, or be in the middle, cutting off the front of the portal. It hangs on ropes or chains, which can be cut off if necessary, and quickly falls by the force of its own weight. The lower floor of the gate building (or gate tower), the portal, may have slots and loopholes for archers and crossbowmen on the sides. Usually it is vaulted, while at the top of the vault there is a vertical hole that serves to defeat the enemy from above, as well as for communication between sentries below and on the upper floor. Guards keep watch here, guarding the drawbridge, asking arrivals for the name and purpose of their visit, raising the bridge when attacked and, if it is too late for this, watering the attackers through a tar nose (Pechnase). In medieval Germany, in front of the center, or the core of the castle (Kernburg), most often there is a front castle - forburg (Vorburg), which not only serves as a household yard, but also represents a significant barrier to the enemy. In castles of this type, the external fortification "Barbican" (Barbakan), common in Western and Eastern Europe, is rarely found. The barbican is a courtyard surrounded by a wall with a gallery (Wehrgang) in front of the gate, sometimes with corner towers or bay windows. In this form, the barbican is most often found in front of the city gates. Less often, it is found as a defensive structure standing separately in front of the gate, surrounded by its own moat, through which the entrance to the castle passes at an angle. And with the castle, and with the area lying in front of it, it is connected by a drawbridge. Meyer, Erich Lessing. Deutsche Ritter - Deutsche Burgen.München, 1976, translated by N. Meteleva.// http://meteleva.ucoz.ru/blog/2009-01-25-3 It is also mentioned here that after the first crusades it was customary to double the surrounding castle wall. And along the road leading to the castle there were houses of people who performed certain functions in the castle. Apparently, it is these houses that can be seen on the already mentioned watercolor by Dürer “The Castle in Innsbruck”. The gatekeeper was also placed at the gate. Both the bridge and the gatekeeper are not the only defenders of the entrance to the castle.

Now let's summarize all of the above. So, the castle is surrounded by an outer fortress wall, in which there were about ten bastions. Immediately behind the main entrance, a barbican was sometimes placed, surrounded by a wooden palisade. Then followed a moat with water and a dam. Under the vaults of the gate, in a special hole, there was a mechanism that set in motion an almost instantly lowering grate. In the courtyard there was a whole village: there was a chapel (it could also fit in a residential building), a pool with water, a smithy, and a mill. Let us dwell a little more on the listed elements of the castle infrastructure.

Chapel. It was impossible to do without it due to the fact that when accepting knighthood, a person made a vow to attend worship every day. The chapel was also necessary in case of a siege of the castle; its presence excluded the possibility for the inhabitants of the castle to be cut off from the church, from the consolation and hopes received during prayer. The chaplain (castle priest) often served as a secretary, and was also a mentor in matters of faith for young people. The chapel could simply be a niche in the wall where the altar stood. The niche, in turn, could be carved into the wall, and protrude outside. N. Meteleva explains this by the fact that the inhabitants of the castle hoped to receive God's help in the most vulnerable place of the castle. “Single-standing castle chapels were most often simple rectangular or square hall buildings with a semicircular apse. Sometimes there are round, octagonal or cruciform buildings. Chapels associated with residential buildings often have choirs for the masters. The division of worshipers according to rank and position presumably also lay in the idea of ​​two-story chapels, where a hole in the vault of the lower room served as communication with the upper one. Chapels of this kind were built mainly in the castles of the high nobility, which have the character of a residence. Sometimes the floors were also connected by stairs. The furnishings of the castle chapel included a small altar and simple benches, as a rule there were also wall frescoes depicting biblical walls or the legend of the patron. Good examples survive primarily in South Tyrol. Sometimes the chapel also served as a tomb for the family living in the castle. It could also be a refuge "Ibid..

Pool with water. It was very important for the castle to have an adequate supply of water in case of a siege. Therefore, they tried to build the central tower - the donjon - on the site of a spring, often it was at a distance from the rest of the castle buildings. In other cases, deep wells were made, and the technical complexity and high cost of such work did not become an obstacle. Pools served as a kind of water storage. In those areas where it was difficult to find a spring, a drinking supply was provided with the help of ground and rain water. For this purpose, special tanks were arranged, the water collected in them was filtered through gravel.

The interior decoration of castles can be judged both on the basis of paintings and on the basis of information from surviving documents. One characteristic feature inherent in the painters of the Northern Renaissance is very helpful to the researcher of the daily life of a medieval person. We are talking about the fact that the plots of the paintings could be taken from any historical era (basically, of course, biblical plots predominate), but the action was transferred to the contemporary world of the artist. The objects surrounding this or that biblical character are not authentic, they look like contemporary artists. That is, the same Virgin Mary with the baby Christ could well be in the chambers of the castle. In the setting of the same chambers, the Magi worship Christ, all kinds of saints were also depicted in contemporary artist clothes. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it was believed that the saints are always there, invisibly present in people's lives, therefore, they were dressed the same way. Therefore, with a careful examination of the paintings of Dutch and German masters, and, of course, with the help of special literature, one can get a fairly complete picture of the interior decoration of a medieval castle.

The residential building of the castle - the palace (la grand "salle, der Saal) - was located on the upper floors, the second or even the third. Such a device of the palace was most common, and only in rich princely castles the palace was a separate building, on the top floor of which it was located like this called the knight's hall (by the way, in those days the term "knight's hall" was not used and was introduced only in the 19th century as a romantic sophistication. In the same princely castles, the hall was preceded by a gallery with a large number of windows. Due to this, such galleries were called light galleries. However, with the beginning of a small ice age, which brought significant climate changes in the direction of lowering the temperature, large windows in the halls and galleries were either reduced in size or completely walled up. By the beginning of the late Middle Ages, windows began to appear in the outer fortress walls, this was due to a change in the castle defense system: earthen fortifications began to be erected in front of the castle, which assumed the main defensive functions.

In the early Middle Ages, windows were closed with wooden shutters. This is clearly illustrated by the picture Dutch artist Robert Campin "The Annunciation" Here you can see that the windows are covered with something opaque, most likely it is either parchment or very cloudy glass; on the hinges attached to the frames are wooden shutters. There is a very similar window in another work by the same artist, Madonna and Child. The same shutters are made of boards fastened together with nails with semicircular hats. A lock is clearly visible on one of the shutters. Despite the fact that the window is clearly located on the top floor, the artist did not omit such a detail, which once again testifies to the constant concern of the owners of the castles about security.

Later, for glazing windows, the so-called "forest glass" was used, which was a round washers, rather cloudy and weakly transmitting light. Feature of these glasses is that they thickened at the base, which is explained by the specifics of their manufacture. Sheet glass was still unknown, and therefore glassmakers first blew out cylinders, which were then flattened (often unevenly) and took the form of washers. And the builders, in turn, preferred to install glass there in such a way that the thickened segment was at the base of the window. Forest glass (waldglas) got its name because it included tree resin - potash; they were replaced with soda, the secret of which the Venetians kept a strict secret. The German monk Theophilus in his famous "Treatise on Various Crafts" wrote that in the X-XI centuries. German glassmakers brewed glass from two parts of beech ash and one part of well-washed sand, and in the 12th century. used fern ash. Based on materials from the site http://biseropletenie.com/sposobipr/5.html Due to the high content of iron oxides used in production, the glass turned out to be an unusual greenish color. However, not every owner of the castle could afford even such glass, it was so expensive. Therefore, most often window openings were sealed with parchment, leather linens; the cracks were plugged with moss or straw. The floor was also covered with straw in the castles of the early Middle Ages. When the flooring fell into disrepair due to the fact that bones were thrown on it, beer was spilled and spit, the straw was replaced with fresh.

Lighting in the castle as a whole was quite poor, paraffin candles, of course, did not yet exist, so candles from mutton fat or fat obtained from cow kidneys were mainly used. Wax candles were expensive and were used only if the owner of the castle had his own apiary. The wick of wax candles was made of reed, and special scissors were used to remove carbon deposits.

In connection with the use of candles, chandeliers of various shapes and sizes began to appear. An example of such candelabra can be seen in the already mentioned painting by Robert Campin "The Annunciation". They are mounted on the portal of the fireplace and are not very intricate in appearance, they are made of dark, or, probably, metal that has darkened from burning. On the table, at which the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael are sitting, there is a bronze candlestick. There were also wall candlesticks, which easily turned and could be moved up to the wall itself. Another example of candlesticks can be seen in Jan de Beer's painting The Assumption of the Virgin. One of them - curved - is also attached to the fireplace portal; the other is a bowl. In Campin's painting "Madonna and Child in an Interior?" (my translation ..) the candlestick is also located on the fireplace, which allows us to conclude about the prevalence ... .. However, it is important to note here that when depicting certain objects in the paintings, the painters not only had the goal of describing everyday life, but they encrypted various signs and symbols in these objects . So, for example, the leitmotif of all paintings depicting the Madonna is a vase with a lily, which symbolizes the purity of the Virgin Mary. The same mentioned candles in the candlesticks denoted Christ and his grace. A seven-horned candlestick was used to represent the Holy Spirit and his seven gifts: wisdom, intelligence, insight, firmness, knowledge, piety and fear.

Then chandeliers began to appear, at first they were quite simple, but later they began to be made from deer antlers and decorated with various figures. An example of a rather skillfully made chandelier we see on famous painting Jan van Eyck "Portrait of the Arnolfinis". It is made of yellow metal and consists of seven horns, each of which is decorated with a floral ornament.

As already mentioned, in the early period of the Middle Ages, the floors in castles were covered with straw or were completely earthen. However, in the future, the feudal lords, paying more and more attention to convenience and comfort, began to prefer floors lined with multi-colored slabs. Often these slabs were simply two contrasting colors, arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Such floors can be seen in almost every picture, acting person which are located in the castle premises or in the church. So, for example, on Van Eyck’s painting “Madonna of Chancellor Roland”, the floor is laid out not only with square tiles, but also decorated with repeating ornaments. The floor is also richly finished in the painting “Madonna of Canon Van der Pale” by the same author; in the Campin painting mentioned above, tiles in the form of medium-sized rhombuses are laid out in a checkerboard pattern.

Above the hall was usually the bedroom of the owner and members of his family, under the roof there was a servant. As noted in the article A.Schlunk, R.Giersch. Die Ritter: Geschichte - Kultur - Alltagsleben, servants' quarters did not have heating until modern times. These rooms, as well as the far corners of the castle, were heated by iron baskets with hot coals, which, as you might guess, gave very little heat. There was a fireplace in the main hall, as well as in the master bedroom; in fact, all heated rooms are kelmnaty rooms (kemenaten), (in Latin - heated by a fireplace, stove). “This is a whole building. It is placed between two windows. The basis of its outer part are straight columns almost in human height; above them protrudes quite far forward a stone cap, gradually narrowing as it approaches the ceiling. The cap is painted with images on the plots of chivalric poetry” Ivanov K. A. The Many Faces of the Middle Ages. M., 1996. S. 43 .. Indeed - Campin depicts the scene of the Annunciation against the backdrop of a fireplace, the height of which is at least human height. The fireplace in the hall was often combined with a tiled stove. Tiled slabs, which have existed since the 12th century, were made from simple clay. They retained and distributed heat better and at the same time were not so fire hazardous. Soon they began to be faced with baked clay tiles, which increased the surface area and retained heat better. Later, tiles began to be covered with glaze and decorated with various patterns.

As already mentioned, the upper floor of the residential tower was occupied by the master bedroom, which could be reached by a spiral staircase. The lighting here, as elsewhere, is rather poor - forest glass is very cloudy and does not transmit light well. The bedroom also has a fireplace that fits in the wall between two windows, but the fireplace is usually smaller than in the large hall. The walls were covered with carpets or tapestries to keep out the cold. Carpets were also on the floor. Initially, they were brought to Europe by participants in the Crusades. Subsequently, after the discovery of tapestry production in Spain, carpets began to be widely used in the interiors of castles and wealthy houses. They were bent at the corners from one wall to another, sometimes tucked up so as not to be cut off. In some cases, tapestries divided large halls into separate rooms. On the work of Van Eyck "Madonna of Canon Van der Pale" we see one of these carpets, or rather, a carpet. Judging by the pattern, it is clearly of oriental origin.

The main item in the bedroom, of course, was the bed. Various beds can be seen in the works of Dutch and German painters. Michael Pacher's painting The Birth of Our Lady depicts one of them. It is not richly decorated, but still has a canopy, tassels along the edges of the upper frame. By the way, in addition to the aesthetic function, canopies also had a utilitarian meaning: they were designed to protect the sleeping person from bedbugs falling from the ceiling. However, this did not help much, since there were even more bedbugs in the folds of the canopy. Another bed is in Bosch's Death and the Merchant. From the title of the painting, it is clear that this bed was in the house of a merchant, and therefore much simpler than it could be in the castle of an aristocrat. However, the principle is the same - a frame and a canopy. An example of a more richly decorated bed is in Van Eyck's painting "Portrait of the Arnolfinis". Despite the fact that only a fragment of the bed is depicted here, the lush folds of the rich canopy are clearly visible. In almost all the pictures you can see that the bed was headboard against the wall. K. A. Ivanov specifies the appearance of the bed: Pillows embroidered with silk rise high. The curtains, moving on iron rods, are completely drawn back. A rich ermine blanket stands out sharply. On both sides, near the bed, animal skins are thrown on the stone patterned floor. Ivanov K. A. The Many Faces of the Middle Ages. M., 1996. P.45.

The bedroom was always present or candelabra or chandelier. The chandelier is clearly visible in the painting by van Eyck just mentioned, as well as in the "Annunciation" by Rogier van der Weyden. But since the chandelier was a rather expensive household item, many aristocratic families used candelabra for lighting. Candelabra were often depicted by artists, mainly on canvases dedicated to the Virgin Mary, since a candelabra with seven candles symbolizes the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Candelabra with one candle were also common. Each living room had benches with cushions for sitting, mostly red. They can be seen on the "Annunciation" by Campin, and on the painting with the same name by Rogier van der Weyden, on the "Portrait of the Arnolfinis" and on many others.

In the bedrooms of wealthy homeowners, merchants and aristocrats, in addition to the bed, there was often a small cabinet with drawers like a modern chest of drawers (The Annunciation by Rogier van der Weyden). The boxes were decorated with carvings and served to store jewelry.

Another luxury item is a mirror. Mirrors were small, most often round and convex. They were inserted either in a decorated frame (on the "Portrait of Arnolfini" the frame is decorated with images of the passion of Christ), or in an ordinary wooden frame without decorations.

Le Goff gives this description: “There was not much furniture. Tables were usually collapsible and removed after the meal. The permanent furniture was a chest, or chest, where clothes or dishes were put. Since the life of the seniors was a vagabond, it was necessary to be able to carry luggage easily. Joinville, going on a crusade, burdened himself only with jewels and relics. Carpets were another functional luxury item; they were hung like screens, and they formed rooms. Carpets were taken from castle to castle; they reminded the warlike people of their favorite dwelling - a tent. Jacques le Goff. Civilization of the Medieval West. M., 1992. S. 125. Indeed, the chest was an integral part of the interior of both a rich castle and the dwelling of a simple city dweller or even a peasant. This is evidenced by the numerous images of the chest on the canvases of various artists. So in Bosch's painting "Death and the Merchant" in the foreground there is a rather simple chest on low legs. There are also images of chests in the work of Michael Pacher "The Birth of the Virgin". During the early Middle Ages, the skills used by the master carpenters of Egypt were lost. In those days, chests roughly hollowed out in a tree trunk were common. They were equipped with a lid and reinforced with iron rims, preventing the tree from splitting. Another type of chests are chests made of rough boards, samples of which have been preserved in ancient European churches to this day. The design of the chests of the later Middle Ages is similar to the design of antique chests. In the south (in the Alps) chests were made of spruce; in the north (in German, English, Scandinavian territories) - more often from oak. Along with simple pew chests, churches used taller chests with short legs and doors. This is already a transitional form to the closet. The wardrobe of the Gothic period is actually just a chest turned on its side. In the same period, there are already quite a few chests with frames and panels. Decor of medieval chests, imitates architectural forms gothic. Woodcarving is widely used, which is facilitated by the use of hardwoods. In the south, first of all, semi-hard wood species were used, and therefore a shallow carved ornament with numerous plant elements, foliage, curls, ribbons, often in a naturalistic image, is widespread. This “shallow carving had a certain coloration, mainly in the furniture of the Alpine countries. The most commonly used colors are red and green. The interior furnishings made using this technology are known as "Tyrolean Carpenter's Gothic" (Tiroler Zimmergotik). With the development of everyday culture, the number of types of furniture in use increases, but the chest remains one of the main pieces of furniture, acting as a wardrobe and a bench, gradually transforming into other pieces of furniture, such as a sideboard, credenza or dressoir (dressoir). http://www.redwoodmaster.ru/catalog/trunk.html Also, the chest was covered with cloth and it could serve as a desk, as can be seen in the painting "Saint Jerome" by van Eyck.

The capitulary of estates provides a detailed list of household items that should be available in the castle. “In the chambers of each estate, to have bed covers, feather beds, pillows, sheets, tablecloths, carpets for benches, copper, pewter, iron and wood utensils, tagans, chains, hooks, plows, axes, that is, cleavers, drills, that is, drills, knives and all kinds of utensils, so that there is no need to ask for it or borrow it anywhere ”Capitulary on estates. History of the Middle Ages. Reader. M., 1969. S. 73.

Let's add a few more words about the manufacture of furniture. “The furniture art of medieval Europe almost did not inherit ancient traditions. It developed on its own. In the early Middle Ages, chests, stools (which were stumps of tree trunks), as well as tables (in the form of boards resting on goats), were quite high, which was determined by the custom of sitting on a stool during a meal or writing. In the Romanesque period, three-legged stools, high-backed chairs, wardrobes, beds (like a chest without a lid), tables with supports in the form of vertical planes began to be used. Made using the method of box knitting from boards chopped with an ax or skinned poles, Romanesque furniture was distinguished by the laconicism of massive forms (often decorated with carved geometric, floral or ribbon ornaments), and a deaf undivided volume. Later, with the invention of the two-handed saw anew (which made it possible to obtain thin boards), as well as the spread of frame-paneled frame construction (as if echoing the structure of Gothic architectural structures), lighter and more durable furniture appeared. http://www.vibormebely.ru/mebsrednvek.html

As for sanitation in the castle and in the Middle Ages in general, there are absolutely polar opinions on this matter. Here are two opposing points of view. According to the authors of the article Die Ritter: Geschichte - Kultur - Alltagsleben, hygiene in the Middle Ages was at the proper level. “Sanitation, water supply and personal hygiene were closely linked in the castles. Where water had to be obtained with difficulty from wells, taken from cisterns or delivered several kilometers away, its economical use was the first covenant. More important than personal hygiene was then the care of animals, especially expensive horses. Therefore, it is not surprising that the townspeople and villagers wrinkled their noses in the presence of the inhabitants of the castles. Back in the 16th century. the chronicle substantiated the resettlement of the nobility from the castles with the argument: "So that we have a place to wash." Since the then city baths were not limited to body care, but included in their repertoire the services of a modern "massage parlor", it is difficult to say with certainty what the knights were really looking for. If we follow medieval novels and epics, then personal hygiene was of high value. Dusty after a long ride, Parzival takes a bath, guarded by bathing attendants. Melegants (in the novel of the same name of the Arthurian cycle, 1160-80) finds the hostess of the castle, who is not at all indignant at this, in a bathing tub, by the way, located in front of the castle under a linden tree. The epic hero Biterolf arranges joint bathing "86 or more", and once 500 knights at once - in a tub installed in the hall. In the “Naked Ambassador” shvanka, the protagonist was sent with his news to the bathhouse. Logically assuming that the owner of the castle washes there, the ambassador strips naked and enters the room, but finds there the whole knightly family with maids - also dressed. They retired to a warm bath only because of the cold weather. And the story is not at all a joke, as in 1045, several people, including the Bishop of Würzburg, died in the bathing tub of the castle of Persenbeug after the ceiling of the bath collapsed.

Baths and baths, of course, were typical of castles of high nobility and were usually located on the ground floor of a palace or residential tower, as they required a large amount of water. In the castles of ordinary knights, on the contrary, they are rarely found, and even then only on the threshold of the New Age. Soap, even if of poor quality, was a mandatory accessory, expensive soap was learned to be made already in the era of the Crusades. Various brushes, including toothbrushes, nail and ear cleaners were also required equipment and their existence can be traced through sources in individual castles. Small mirrors were famous, but they were considered luxury items, since they were only able to be made in Venice. Some, mostly noble ladies, wore wigs, dyed their hair or curled it. A. Schlunk, R. Giersch. Die Ritter: Geschichte - Kultur - Alltagsleben. Stutgart, 2003. The life of a medieval castle. (Concise translation of a chapter from N. Meteleva's book). Thus, according to this point of view, sanitation and hygiene took place in the Middle Ages and were put on a certain level (of course, corresponding to the era).

Opposite scholars describe medieval Europe as a huge stinking cesspool. Here is what the Absentis has to say about sanitation: "The phrase 'the accused is known to have taken baths . . . was common in the reports of the Inquisition.' Bathing began to be interpreted as a tool of the devil to seduce Christians. Frightened Europe by 1500 will cease to wash at all. All the baths that briefly returned to Europe during the Crusades will be closed again: “In terms of washing in the bath and cleanliness, the West in the XV-XVII centuries. I experienced a fantastic regression… The ancient world made hygienic procedures one of the main pleasures, it is enough to recall the famous Roman baths. Before the victory of Christianity, more than a thousand baths operated in Rome alone. The fact that the first thing Christians did when they came to power closed all the baths is well known, but I have not seen an explanation for this action anywhere. Nevertheless, the reason, quite possibly, lies on the surface. Christians have always been irritated by the ritual baths of competing religions - Judaism and, later, Islam. Even the Apostolic Rules forbade Christians to wash in the same bathhouse with a Jew ... Christianity uprooted even thoughts about baths and baths from the memory of the people. Centuries later, the crusaders who broke into the Middle East amazed the Arabs with their savagery and filth. But the Franks (Crusaders), faced with such a forgotten boon of civilization as the baths of the East, appreciated them and even tried to return this institution to Europe in the XIII century. Unsuccessfully, of course, - during the time of the Reformation, which soon came, the baths in Europe were again eradicated for a long time as centers of debauchery and spiritual infection by the efforts of church and secular authorities. A visual representation of the hygiene of the Middle Ages, a wave adequate to reality, can be obtained by watching the film "The 13th Warrior", where the pelvis, in which one washes and where one blows his nose and spits, passes in a circle. A couple of years ago, the English-speaking part of the Internet was bypassed by the article “Life in the 1500s” (“Life in the 1500s”, immediately called by Christians “anti-Catholic lies”), which examined the etymology of various sayings. The authors argued that such dirty the pelvis provoked the idiom "do not throw out the baby with water". Indeed, one could not notice in dirty water. But in reality, such pelvises were very rare. In those troubled times, caring for the body was considered a sin. Christian preachers urged to walk literally in rags and never bathe, since it was in this way that spiritual purification could be achieved. It was also impossible to wash, because in this way it was possible to wash off the holy water that had been touched during baptism. As a result, people did not wash for years or did not know water at all. Dirt and lice were considered special signs of holiness. The monks and nuns gave the rest of the Christians an appropriate example of serving the Lord: “Apparently, the nuns appeared earlier than the monks: no later than the middle of the 3rd century. Some of them walled themselves up in tombs. Cleanliness was viewed with disgust. Lice were called "God's pearls" and considered a sign of holiness. Saints, both male and female, usually boasted that the water never touched their feet, except when they had to ford the river. (Bertrand Russell)" http://absentis.front.ru/abs/lsd_01_preface.htm A few more words on the topic of sanitation. If German authors delicately bypass it and only mention the existence of bay windows in every castle, Absentis, with his characteristic sarcasm, describes the state of affairs at length: “With the advent of Christianity, future generations of Europeans forgot about toilets with a flush for one and a half thousand years, turning their faces to night vases. The role of the forgotten sewage was performed by grooves in the streets, where fetid streams of slops flowed. Forgetting about the ancient benefits of civilization, people now relieved themselves wherever they could. For example, on front staircase palace or castle. The French royal court periodically moved from castle to castle due to the fact that there was literally nothing to breathe in the old one. The chamber pots stood under the beds for days and nights. The people of that time were suspicious of washing the body: nudity is a sin, and it’s cold - you can catch a cold. A hot bath is unrealistic - firewood was already very expensive, the main consumer - the Holy Inquisition - was hardly enough, sometimes the favorite burning had to be replaced by quartering, and later - by wheeling. http://www.asher.ru/library/human/history/europe1.html “Due to constant dirt, almost all members of the Duma go to the Duma in wooden shoes, and when they sit in the council hall, wooden shoes stand outside the door. Looking at them, you can perfectly count how many people came to the meeting ... ”A book to read on the history of the Middle Ages. Part 2. / Ed. S.D. Skazkin. - M., 1951. Cited. according to http://www.asher.ru/library/human/history/europe1.html I will add that hygiene was revived for a very short time: baths and baths as an attribute of luxury only briefly returned to Europe after the first campaigns of the crusaders. And in any case, they were fully available only to the noble inhabitants of the castles.

Of course, according to the generally accepted tradition, one should refrain from such categorical judgments. But at the same time, a certain part of medievalists considers the Middle Ages to be an era of extreme living conditions, and in this case, the situation described above with hygiene and sanitation in the Middle Ages could well have taken place.

In conclusion, it should be added that the castle as a whole was not just the home of a separate noble family, it was also a kind of social cell. “The society ... of the castle united the young sons of the vassals sent there to serve the seigneur, learn martial arts from the seigneurial household, as well as those who satisfied the master's needs for entertainment and served to maintain a certain feudal prestige, with those who represented the world of entertainment . Obliged to sing of the virtues of those who hired them, being dependent on the money and favors of their masters, they most often aspired to become seigneurs in their turn, and sometimes they succeeded in fulfilling this hope - such was the case of Minnesinger, who became a knight and received a coat of arms (famous The Heidelberg manuscript, whose miniatures depict the Minnesingers and their coats of arms, testifies to this elevation through the noble art of lyric poetry.) Jacques le Goff. Civilization of the Medieval West. M., 1996. S. 290-291.

The villages that belonged to the owner of the castle, as a rule, were located at the foot of the hill on which the castle itself stood. The general view of the village is well given by K. A. Ivanov: “For the most part, these buildings are small and have suffered greatly from time and bad weather. Each family has a dwelling, a barn for stacking hay and a granary for grain; part of the dwelling is reserved for cattle. All this is fenced with a wattle fence, but so pitiful and frail that at the sight of it one is somehow involuntarily amazed at the sharp contrast that the master's dwelling and the dwellings of his people represent. It seems that a few strong gusts of wind will suffice, and everything will be demolished and scattered. The owners of the villages forbade their inhabitants to surround their dwellings with moats and surround them with palisades, as if in order to further emphasize their helplessness and defenselessness. But these prohibitions fell with all their weight only on the most insufficient: as soon as a prosperous peasant managed to receive some benefits from his owner, he already became in better conditions. That is why among the low, neglected huts one comes across stronger and better built houses, with spacious yards, strong fences, heavy bolts. K. A. Ivanov. The many faces of the Middle Ages.// This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Peasant life and, in particular, housing are almost constantly present on the canvases of the masters of the Northern Renaissance. The most important of the pictorial sources on peasant life, perhaps, can be called Pieter Brueghel (no wonder his nickname is Peasant) and, to some extent, Hieronymus Bosch. So, for example, for Brueghel, the main model was the common people - artisans, merchants, peasants. The entire mass of the people is very dynamic and is in constant motion. It is customary to characterize this artist as a peasant one, but in fact one cannot lose sight of the undoubted complexity of the master's work. A great help for the researcher of everyday life are his works such as "Census in Bethlehem", "Massacre of the Innocents". As mentioned above, these biblical stories placed by the artist in the contemporary setting of a medieval village or town. From these paintings, as well as from the works of other Dutch and German masters, one can get an idea of ​​the appearance of a peasant dwelling.

In Bosch's painting Prodigal son” apparently depicts a typical peasant house. It has two floors; the poverty of its inhabitants is obvious: one of the shutters hung on one hinge, the roof was leaky, the windows were covered with a torn bull bladder. Near the house there is a corral for livestock. An entire village street is depicted in Bruegel's Peasant Dance. The artist also posted a story about the worship of the Volkhov against the backdrop of a two-story peasant house. This work clearly shows the details of a village dwelling, and especially its horrifying poverty. These works show that peasant houses mainly had two floors. Often the houses were rectangular in plan, the entrance to the house, located on the narrow side, was protected by a roof canopy resting on pillars. Such a canopy can be seen in Brueghel's painting "The Adoration of the Magi". I must say that this type of construction is very archaic and was formed in the Neolithic era. Subsequently, the entrance from the narrow part moved to the side of the house. These canopies were common both in the Netherlands and in Central and Southern Germany; in the specialized literature, this type of house is usually referred to by the term forhallenhaus, i.e. "house with a canopy." In the north of Germany, two forms of the house became the main ones - Low German and Frisian.

In the Netherlands and Germany, the so-called stall house has become widespread. Its main feature is the combination of utility and residential premises under one roof in a building divided by two rows of pillars into three parts. There was an open hearth in the center. With the development of agriculture, the central passage began to expand and was used as an extensive threshing floor. This transformation is apparently due to the fact that high humidity, frequent rains and fogs made it difficult to thresh grain in an open room. Large houses, uniting under one roof the residential part, the barn and the threshing floor, have been found since the 13th century, but they have become widespread since the 16th century. The roof of such a house was very steep and high, four- or two-pitched, which is also caused, apparently, by a large amount of precipitation in the Netherlands. Also, such roofs provided a large attic where grain stocks were stored. Tokarev. Types of rural housing in the countries of foreign Europe. M., 1968. S. 227 The roofs were covered with straw, later with tiles. Straw on occasion went to feed livestock. Brueghel's "Prodigal Son" depicts a house with just such a gable steep roof covered with thatch.

The Frisian type of peasant dwelling mentioned above also became widespread in the North of Europe and differed from the stall house in that instead of a threshing floor in the center of the house there was a large haystack, around which all the premises were located. Ahead of him, against the wall overlooking the street, was the residential part of the house, on the right - the stall; the back of the house served as a workroom. To the left of the haystack was a wide corridor with large gates on both sides; carts, agricultural implements, etc. were also stored here. In the Northern Netherlands, agriculture did not play a big role, dairy farming was more developed, so there was no need for a large threshing floor. Hay, on the contrary, was one of the items of income. For this reason, the storage of hay was treated with great attention here. Initially, it was stored in stacks under a four-pitched removable roof, which was placed on piles; subsequently, the gaps between the piles began to be clogged with boards so that the hay was better preserved. Thus, gradually a barn arose, which at first was a separate building, but more and more merged with the house, and then the place for hay was transferred to the main building in the central opening between the pillars. As a result, the whole building acquired that monumental appearance with a steep pyramidal roof, which is still found in North Holland today Op. Op. S. 231..

The choice of building material was determined by the surrounding conditions. If we talk about Germany rich in forests, then, of course, the main building material was wood.

Their internal layout differed somewhat in different countries , and also depended on the financial situation of the peasant. In general terms, the house inside looked something like this: on the ground floor there was a pantry, a place for a hearth, a kitchen, and sometimes a lavatory. On the top floor there was a landing and a staircase leading to it, often there were bedrooms. K. A. Ivanov describes the medieval village and the peasant’s house in this way: “At the very foot of the mountain, one of the villages belonging to the inhabitant of the castle sheltered. Huts and outbuildings of farmers with shingled or thatched roofs spread out in a disorderly, close crowd. For the most part, these buildings are small and have suffered greatly from time and bad weather. Each family has a dwelling, a barn for stacking hay and a granary for grain; part of the dwelling is reserved for cattle. All this is fenced with a wattle fence, but so pitiful and frail that at the sight of it one is somehow involuntarily amazed at the sharp contrast that the master's dwelling and the dwellings of his people represent. It seems that a few strong gusts of wind will suffice, and everything will be demolished and scattered. The owners of the villages forbade their inhabitants to surround their dwellings with moats and surround them with palisades, as if in order to further emphasize their helplessness and defenselessness. But these prohibitions fell with all their weight only on the most insufficient: as soon as a prosperous peasant managed to receive some benefits from his owner, he already became in better conditions. That is why, among the low, neglected huts, we come across stronger and better built houses, with spacious yards, strong fences, heavy bolts ... If we penetrate into one of the dwellings, the first thing that catches our eye is a high fireplace. An iron tripod stands on its floor, on which a fire burns, and above the fire hangs a cauldron on an iron chain attached to a large iron hook. The smoke is blown into the hole above, but a large proportion of it enters the chamber itself. Right next to it is a bread oven, near which an elderly hostess is busy. A table, benches, chests with vessels for making cheese, a large bed on which not only the hosts with their children sleep, but also a guest randomly sent by God, wandering under the roof of a peasant hut - that's all the decoration, the whole furnishings of the dwelling. In addition, there are baskets, jugs, a trough near the walls; then a ladder leaned against the wall; there hang fishing nets, large scissors, so thin, as if resting from their work; a broom with drills nestled at the door. In most cases, the floor is earthen, lined with stone, only in some places it is already wooden. Ivanov K. A. Many Faces of the Middle Ages.// This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I'll add that the listed household items were only in the homes of relatively wealthy peasants. The poor, on the other hand, made a fire right in the middle of the main room, the smoke also went out after a hole made in the ceiling; in order to save heat, sometimes all the openings, except for the door, were covered with hay. Furnishing everywhere was more than meager: for the poorest peasants, even a bed remained an unattainable luxury for a long time, they slept on straw or on a chest, and the whole furnishings consisted of chests and bread chests. In the houses of wealthy peasants, one could sometimes see cupboards and stalls with tin and even silver utensils. But all household utensils here were usually clay. In general, few images of peasant dwellings differ little from each other.

No matter how important the military and religious aspects of existence and contacts with the surrounding Muslim world were for the Latin states of Lenant, the problems of peaceful life and the provision of daily life activities occupied no less significant place. Immediately after the bloody wave of conquest, it became clear that murder and terror were not The best way ensure the stability and viability of the new states. The Franks themselves did not have the opportunity to populate these countries precisely because of the peculiarities of the “combat” pilgrimage: after all, the vast majority of the participants in the crusades, after they had fulfilled their duty as pilgrims, left the Holy Land. And those thousands, even tens of thousands of Catholic soldiers that still remained, could by no means become a replacement for millions. In addition, the conquerors themselves needed subjects, they needed money and food for the army. Therefore, soon after the First Campaign, especially since 1110, when new government sufficiently strengthened, the attitude towards the conquered population has changed significantly.

It is important to note that the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean were distinguished by exceptional national and religious diversity. About half of the population were Muslims (in the Kingdom of Jerusalem their percentage was even higher). And in the Principality of Antioch, most of the inhabitants were Greeks of the Orthodox faith.

The county of Edessa and Eastern Cilicia were predominantly Armenian. The mountainous regions and valleys of Lebanon were inhabited by both Maronite Christians* and Druze who had broken away from everyone and everything**. All this was supplemented by a considerable number of Jewish Jews, and in the mountainous northeast, also by fire-worshipping Persians. If we take into account that the same Muslims were divided into Ismailis, Duodecimal Shiites and Orthodox Sunnis***, then the picture becomes extremely variegated.

It must be admitted that the new rulers coped quite well with the task of restoring order in the conquered territories. It was based on the principle as old as the world, clearly formulated in ancient Macedonia: “divide and conquer”. The entire population was clearly divided depending on privileges or, conversely, restrictions, taxes paid and legal status. At the same time, the authorities tried not to interfere in the internal life of these communities, demanding only the implementation of general legislation. Frankish lords did not interfere in local customs and self-government; moreover, each social group had its own legal norms. So, for example, Muslims judged according to Sharia law - of course, Muslims were also judges. Naturally, the supreme jurisdiction belonged to the conquerors, whose court dealt with crimes that went beyond the boundaries of a single community (for example, a lawsuit between a Muslim and an Orthodox Greek) or especially serious crimes. Otherwise, these different groups were practically autonomous.

* Maronites - an Eastern Christian sect that arose around the 5th century. In 1181 they submitted to the apostolic see, but retained a certain internal autonomy.

** Druze is a heretical movement in Islam founded by the Egyptian Sultan al-Hakim, who around 1017 declared himself a living god. They refused to practice Shahada, thereby excluding themselves from the ranks of Muslims; were also hostile to Islam.

*** See chapter 3.

The most privileged part of the subjects were, of course, the crusaders themselves and their descendants. Almost all of them, with the exception of a small part of the servants of the feudal lords, enjoyed personal freedom, including complete freedom of movement and settlement. In general, these former peasants, who by the will of fate became warriors, also occupied a place in the Levant that has no analogues in the European class system of that time. A fairly clear three-tier gradation dominated there: the worshipers - that is, the clergy, the warring ones - the chivalry, and the working people - the peasantry. The growth of cities, of course, began to complicate this order - craft and trade have significantly moved away from rural labor. Nevertheless, the belonging of merchants and artisans to the working class was not in doubt. But with the crusaders of the first wave and their descendants, the situation was more complicated. On the one hand, they were undeniably working people who lived on their own work. Some of them became tenants of the feudal lords, usually on the terms of paying a tenth of the harvest**. Another part, and, until the end of the XII century, a smaller one, settled in cities. But, on the other hand, the Catholic conquerors were a small minority in the Holy Land, living among a hostile (or, at best, neutral) population, outnumbering them by dozens of times. And the feudal lords were forced to constantly involve them as a military force for endless wars. That is, they were both breastfeeding and military at the same time.

The collision for a rigidly structured medieval society, indeed, was almost unprecedented. Only as a very incomplete analogy, and even then a later one, can one cite the English yeomen or the Russian one-dwellers. And yet, the yeomanry legally remained peasants, while the odnodvortsy, despite their de facto peasant labor, belonged to the nobility. For crusaders of non-noble origin, a clear legal status was never defined: they remained an intermediate social group. And from the end of the XII century, this legal problem gradually began to fade away. Saladin's conquests forced almost all Catholics to move to the cities, and after the death of Saladin, a half-century period of peace ensued, and there was no need for constant military service. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the line that completely separated the nobility from the peasants in Europe was largely blurred in the Holy Land, and during the years of the Crusades, many of these “Catholic single-palaces” joined the ranks of the knighthood.

Among the conquered population, Christians of various kinds had a higher status; moreover, before the break with Byzantium at the beginning of the 13th century, the position of the Orthodox Greeks was the best. They enjoyed some benefits in taxation, and sometimes were recruited into the army. Relations with the Monophysite Armenians* were more complicated, but on the whole the Armenians remained a privileged group. Moreover, the crusader nobles willingly married representatives of the Armenian nobility, and the Armenian princes married the daughters of Frankish lords and knights. This was especially noticeable in the county of Edessa, which already in the thirties of the XIII century turned into a prosperous Franco-Armenian enclave beyond the Euphrates.

The most numerous part of the population was in a less advantageous position. Muslims were taxed at a much higher rate of 30 to 50%, depending on the area and the crop being grown. They were also forbidden to live in Jerusalem and some port cities. At the same time, their situation was not particularly difficult, and in many ways it was even better than under the rule of fellow Muslims. Interestingly, in THIS connection, the evidence of the implacable enemy of the crusaders is the slave traveler ibn Ju-bair, who wrote the following around 1184: - may Allah save us from such a temptation... Muslims are the owners of their homes and govern themselves as they themselves understand... The hearts of many Muslims are tempted to settle there (in the Frankish lands) when THEY see the situation of their fellows in the areas ruled by Muslims, for the condition of those is far from prosperous. Unfortunately for Muslims, in countries ruled by their co-religionists, they always complain about the injustice of their rulers, but they criticize the behavior of the Franks, whose justice they can only be proud of.

The words of ibn Jubayr are echoed by the famous Arab poet and scholar Usama ibn Munkiz, who also seriously fears the mass migration of Muslims under the rule of the Crusaders. Osama, who is by no means friendly towards the Franks, praises the justice of their justice, which he experienced firsthand - the court in his lawsuit with a Catholic took the side of Usima, and not his co-religionist. The Arab poet also notes that the Christians (in this case, the Templars) gave him the opportunity to pray to Allah in his own chapel. In general, Islamic authors emphasize that the conquerors were quite tolerant in matters of religious rituals: suffice it to say that there were two mosques in the citadel of the Crusaders - Acre.

The Jewish population of the Levant was in a similar position to the Muslims. They were also forbidden to live in Jerusalem, and the tax burden was the same. However, it is worth noting that both Muslims and Jews did not pay church tithes, which reduced the fiscal burden, and sometimes caused discontent among some Christian communities; in particular, the Armenians of Jerusalem complained about such injustice. And in general, the attitude towards Jews in the Christian states of the East was not bad. The Jews were quite free to perform their religious rites, no one forced them to wear special clothes indicating their faith, which was practiced constantly in Europe and often caused the hostility of the population and persecution. In Syria and Palestine for all two hundred years there was not a single Jewish pogrom. The practice of the ghetto*, so beloved in Europe, was also not applied: Jews could freely settle in cities and engage in any kind of activity at their discretion.

An overview of the national-religious situation in the Latin East would be incomplete without mentioning another very curious group - the so-called. turco-catching. Auxiliary detachments of lightly armed cavalry of the Seljuk type were recruited from them. From this it is clear that the Turkopols were the descendants of the Seljuks and preserved the main elements of their life and culture. However, the origin of the Turcopoles is still unclear. They may have been Turks who converted from Islam to Catholicism, although such conversions are rare in the society of the time. They could also be descendants of mixed Muslim-Christian marriages - Christians by faith and Turks by way of life. Finally, it could also be Muslim Turks who had crossed II.-| side of the enemy and sworn allegiance to the crusaders. In favor of the first of the versions, perhaps, the goth fact speaks that Saladin in 1169 ordered to kill all the captured Turkopols. The change of faith - that is, in fact, the betrayal of Islam, fully explains this fury of the Kurdish ruler, who, in general, was not particularly bloodthirsty. Yes, and in later times there were precedents for a mass transition from Islam to Christianity - it is enough to recall the baptized Tatars in the service of the Russian Grand Dukes.

The conquering crusaders quite organically joined this conglomeration of peoples and cultures. Already the second generation of "Christ warriors" was sharply different from their fanatical fathers, as well as from the newly arriving pilgrims. And despite the constant external war (with the exception of the aforementioned peaceful half-century of 1193-1243), which the Christian states waged, a fairly strong internal peace was established in them. The history of the Latin East for all two centuries of its existence knows almost no major popular unrest (which, by the way, the neighboring Muslim countries could not boast of). A certain symbiosis was established - the Franks guaranteed law and order, the conquered peoples, almost without changing their way of life, paid the established, not too burdensome, taxes. As far back as 1120 (!) the famous chronicler Fulcherius of Chartres spoke figuratively and emotionally about the existing cultural phenomenon: “People from the West, we have turned into residents of the East. Yesterday's Italian or Frenchman has become a Galilean or a Palestinian. The inhabitant of Reims or Chartres has now become a Syrian or an Antiochene. We have forgotten our native country. Here, one owns the house and servants with such confidence, as if it were his inheritance right from time immemorial. Another marries a Syrian, an Armenian, or even a baptized Saracen. The third one lives with a local family. We all speak several languages ​​of this land.”

The internal peace established in the Latin East soon led to a revival of economic life. Crusader states in the XII-XIII centuries were in a flourishing state, even despite the constant war and the incessant raids of the regular Seljuk cavalry or Bedouin robbers. Great success was achieved by the agriculture of the Levant, which embarked on the path of commodity production much earlier and more firmly than Europe.

Agricultural advances, of course, were aided by the fact that both the coast of the Levant and many of the lands inland around the Sea of ​​Galilee and along the banks of the Jordan were extremely fertile, and they could grow several crops a year.

The wonderful climate, a well-established irrigation system of canals and aqueducts preserved from Roman times gave the peasants the opportunity to grow a wide variety of crops. In addition to traditional wheat, other grains were also cultivated, including millet. Viticulture, horticulture and olive cultivation played a very important role in the economy. Significant was the export of these products to Europe, where Levantine olive oil and many varieties of olive oil were very popular. On the tables of European nobles, ek-yutic Mediterranean fruits also came. It is interesting that the now known apricot for the West was an absolutely unknown fruit and gained popularity only after the conquest of the Holy Land. Moreover, the apricot began to enjoy the glory of "charitable" food and began to be actively cultivated in monasteries, from where it later spread throughout Europe.

The agriculture of the Eastern Mediterranean provided the Western world with two other extremely important products - sugar and cotton. In the Levant, these technical crops were grown almost exclusively for export and, with the growth of commodity-money relations, gradually occupied an increasing place in the region's economy. Finally, a separate and important export item was precious woods, incense, and especially spices, the trade in which brought fabulous incomes and became one of the main factors in the economic prosperity of the Levant in the 12th-13th centuries.

In general, trade in the new Christian states occupied an exceptionally important place. Already from the middle of the XII century, and especially in the first half of the XIII century, commerce, focused on large import-export operations, became the driving force of the entire Levantine economy. The cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, and especially the ports, turned into prosperous trading centers that attracted merchants from all over the world. In the middle of the 13th century, Acre, which became the most important transshipment base for world transit trade, was home to more than sixty thousand people, it was one of the largest cities in the world, surpassing in population such large capital cities as Paris, Rome and London. Acre, Tyre, Beirut, Tripoli and Laodicea became destinations for trade routes to the east and from the east, turned into a meeting point for East and West.

The growth of Levantine trade could not fail to attract the special attention of such large trading cities as Venice, Genoa and Pisa. Initially, their interest was focused on the transportation of pilgrims, whose number increased significantly after the conquest of Jerusalem, crusading military contingents and military equipment. This brought huge incomes to the Italian city-republics and became one of the main sources of primitive capital accumulation. Little by little, priorities began to shift, and by the end of the 13th century, cunning Italian merchants had taken control of the Leantian transit trade. Quarters and entire districts belonging to Genoese or Venetian merchants appeared in coastal cities. In Tyre, the Venetians, in general, owned a third of the city, under ■-JTOM they enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality and enjoyed huge tax benefits. The Genoese quarter and Acre occupied the central square with the church ell. Lawrence and the palace, where the judicial chamber met. The quarter had its own fortified gates, its own bakeries, shops and hotels for visiting merchants.

Trade gave the Italians colossal dividends. It was not too uncommon to receive five hundred or even a thousand percent of the profit from a trade transaction. But even taking into account all kinds of tax benefits (especially since, for example, Byzantine or Armenian merchants did not have such benefits), a considerable share of these incomes remained in the Holy Land, settling in the pockets of princes and feudal lords; something fell to the common population. It was the unprecedented scope of trade operations that led to a situation that was unique for the Middle Ages, when not land holdings, but various financial payments, such as shares of tax or port dues, interest on trade transactions, etc., often appeared as fiefs. Muslim invasion could be expected - this was a kind of insurance for the lords and knights, allowing them to invest in strengthening their castles. And although the feudal nobility did not take a direct part in trade operations - this contradicted the unwritten knightly code of honor - its very wealth and even, to some extent, political power was based precisely on the success of trade.

The economic advantages of the princely-knightly elite were well supported by legal trump cards. In the second half of the 12th century, under King Amal-rich, a set of laws was finally formulated and written down - the famous Jerusalem assizes. Unfortunately, this remarkable monument of medieval law has not reached us: manuscripts with a complete record of the laws were lost during the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin. But until the fall of Acre, the oral tradition of the interpretation of these laws prevailed; there were also written comments, of which the so-called. "The book of Jean d" Ibelin ". Its author himself was a representative of the princely elite, the Count of Jaffa, and in his work both political moments and legal procedures related to the concepts of vassalage and possession of a feud, the rules of conduct for knights and the limits of jurisdiction are analyzed in particular detail in relation to feudal lords.

Even based on the sources that have come down to us, we can safely say that the Jerusalem assizes were indeed a fundamental body of feudal law. Moreover, the assizes defended, so to speak, "feudalism squared", feudalism in its most striking and pure forms. The relations of vassalage were very clearly spelled out in them, the powers of the central government in relation to the sovereign barons were severely limited. In fact, large landowners in their estates were almost sovereign sovereigns, holding both the life and property of their subjects in their hands. Any feudal lord could be condemned only by a court of peers, i.e. seniors equal to him in rank: The legislative and political possibilities of kings were sharply limited and were actually reduced to the formal adoption of an oath of allegiance - homage. However, in the XII century - a century of permanent puff wars, the kings still had considerable authority as the bearers of supreme power. With the onset of a relatively peaceful era, the real power of the kings began to rapidly decrease; they have indeed become nothing more than "first among equals." In the end, the very title of the King of Jerusalem itself turned into just a card being played, giving the winner in the game for him almost nothing but moral satisfaction. And if in Europe the 13th century became the century of the formation of centralized states and the restriction of the arbitrariness of princes and lords, then in Palestine these years were the time of conservation of the most odious feudal orders.

However, this political fragmentation had little effect on the economic life of the states of the Levant, for which the first half of the 13th century was the time of the highest economic prosperity. So, in 1240 Acre alone gave in the form of taxes and fees (excluding the actual profit of trading operations) about fifty thousand pounds of silver per year, which exceeded the financial income of the king of England. In Tripoli in the thirteenth century there were four thousand silk-weaving looms, and Antioch was not inferior to him. In the markets in Tire and Acre, one could buy goods from all over the world - European cloth and manufactory, Arabian and Indian spices, noble horses from Central Asia. Until the Mongols cut the Great Silk Road in the middle of the 13th century, caravans even from distant China came to the Levant.

The huge incomes that the Levantine trade brought, especially the spice trade, made it possible to invest heavily in construction, in raising the standard of living. Acquaintance of the crusaders with highly developed Islamic culture introduced many of its achievements into everyday life of Christians. One of these conquests was the serious success of hygienic procedures, which was almost unknown to Europe at that time. In the cities there were dozens of baths, some of them could accommodate up to a thousand people. Among women, the use of cosmetics has become fashionable; there was even something like salons, beauty salons, where women could communicate and pay attention to their appearance. In numerous hospitals of the Joannite and Teutonic orders, not only pilgrims, but also the urban poor could receive a very diverse food, as well as medical assistance. Pools and fountains were common in the houses of nobles and large merchants.

And yet, despite some interpenetration of Christian and Muslim cultures, its degree should not be exaggerated. The "Christ warriors" by no means merged with the subjugated population; each national and religious group lived in isolation, in essence closed in on itself. A nobleman could know several languages ​​​​of the country, in order to facilitate communication, but, for example, for all two centuries of Christian domination, not a single Arabic book was translated into Latin commonly used among Catholics. However, in the same way, Muslims accepted the introduced Western culture. The Latin East was an absolutely remarkable conglomeration of cultures, each of which retained its own identity.