MEDIEVAL CULTURE OF WESTERN EUROPE AND BYZANTINE

"The Middle Ages" is the designation of the period in the history of Western Europe between Antiquity and Modern Times, accepted in cultural thought. The Middle Ages is a significant era in the history of mankind. This period spans over a millennium. Within this period, three main stages are distinguished (it should be noted that the division is conditional and the chronological framework is approximate):

Early Middle Ages, V-XI centuries;

High (classical) Middle Ages, XII-XIV centuries;

Late Middle Ages, XV-XVI centuries.

The early Middle Ages are sometimes called the "dark ages" investing in this concept a certain destructive shade. The birth of European civilization and culture took place in a complex environment of wars and displacements. In the era of the "Great Migration of Peoples" "(IV-VIII centuries), numerous tribal unions (Germanic, Slavic, Turkic, etc.), the so-called barbarians (from the Latin barda-beard), moved across Europe. The Western Roman Empire fell under the blows of the barbarians. On its former territory, barbarian states were formed, which waged constant wars with each other.The decline and barbarism into which the West swiftly plunged in the late V-VII centuries as a result of barbaric conquests and incessant wars are opposed not only to the achievements of ancient civilization, but also to spiritual life of Byzantium, which did not go through such a tragic turning point during the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages.

However, it is impossible to erase this time from the cultural history of Europe. It was then that the foundations of European civilization were laid. Indeed, in ancient times there was no "Europe" in the modern sense as a certain cultural and historical community with a single destiny in world history. It began to really take shape ethnically, politically, economically and culturally in the early Middle Ages as a result of the life of many peoples who had inhabited Europe for a long time and who came again. It was the early Middle Ages, which did not give achievements comparable to the heights of ancient culture or the high Middle Ages, that laid the foundation for the European cultural history proper.

The new culture arose on the basis of the interaction of the heritage of the ancient world, or rather the disintegrated civilization of the Roman Empire, the Christianity it engendered and the tribal, folk cultures of the barbarians.

To understand the development of medieval culture, it is important to take into account that it was formed in a region where, until recently, the center of a powerful Roman civilization was located, which could not disappear at one moment. The most important means of cultural continuity between antiquity and the Middle Ages was the Latin language. It has retained its significance as the language of the church and state administration, international communication and culture. Medieval Europe also preserved the Roman school tradition - the seven liberal arts system.

The most striking phenomena in the culture of the late 5th century - the first half of the 7th century are associated with the assimilation of the ancient heritage, which became a breeding ground for the revitalization of cultural life in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain. Master of Office (First Minister) of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric Severin Boethius(c. 480-525) was considered one of the most revered teachers of the Middle Ages. His treatises on arithmetic and music, compositions on logic and theology, translations of Aristotle became the foundation of the medieval system of education and philosophy. Boethius is often called the "father of scholasticism." His work "On the Consolation of Philosophy" became one of the most widely read works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Another Master of Offices of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, Flavius \u200b\u200bCassiodorus(c. 490 - c. 585), hatched plans to create the first university in the West. In the south of Italy, in his estate, Cassiodorus founded a monastery - Vivarium - a cultural center that united a school, a book correspondence workshop (scriptorium), and a library. The vivarium became a model for Benedictine monasteries, which, starting from the second half of the 6th century, became the guardians of the cultural tradition in Western Europe. Visigothic Spain nominated one of the largest educators of the early Middle Ages - Isidore of Seville(circa 570 - 636), which became the first medieval encyclopedist. His main work "Etymology" (in twenty books) is a collection of what has been preserved from ancient knowledge.

But the assimilation of the ancient heritage was not carried out freely and on a large scale. In the late 6th - early 7th centuries, Pope Gregory I sharply opposed the idea of \u200b\u200badmitting pagan wisdom into the world of Christian spiritual life, condemning vain worldly knowledge. His position triumphed in the spiritual life of Western Europe for several centuries. Since the second half of the 7th century, cultural life in Western Europe has been declining, it barely glimmers in monasteries. Until the XI-XII centuries, Europe in its cultural development lagged behind Byzantium and the Arab East. Only the XI-XIV centuries will become the time when medieval European culture will acquire its ““ classical forms. ”Starting from the XII century, interest in ancient wisdom is revived in the spiritual culture of Europe.

Extremely scanty data sources do not allow to recreate any complete picture of the cultural life of the barbarian tribes that stood at the origins of medieval civilization in Europe. It is known for sure that by the time of the Great Migration of Nations, to the first centuries of the Middle Ages, the beginning of the formation of the heroic epic of the peoples of Western and Northern Europe (Old German, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Irish), which replaced history, belongs to them.

The barbarians of the early Middle Ages brought a kind of vision and feeling of the world, filled with primitive power, nourished by the family ties of man and the community to which he belonged, warlike energy. The perception of the world of these new inhabitants of Europe was characterized by the feeling of inseparability of man from nature, the indivisibility of the world of people and the world of gods. The unbridled and gloomy fantasy of the Germans, the Celts inhabited forests, hills and rivers with evil dwarfs, werewolf monsters, dragons and fairies. Gods and people - heroes were in constant struggle with evil forces. At the same time, the gods appeared in the minds of people as powerful sorcerers and wizards. These ideas are reflected in the bizarre ornaments of the barbarian animal style, in art. During the Christianization of the barbarians, their gods did not die, they transformed and merged with the cults of local saints or joined the ranks of demons.

The Germans also brought with them a system of moral values \u200b\u200bformed in the depths of the patriarchal-clan society. Particular importance was attached to the ideals of loyalty and military courage. The psychological makeup of the Germans, Celts and other barbarians was characterized by open emotionality, unrestrained intensity in the expression of feelings. All this also left its mark on the emerging medieval culture.

The Christian religion and the Roman Catholic Church played a special role in the formation of medieval culture. Even in late antiquity, Christianity became that unifying shell in which a variety of views could fit - from subtle theological doctrines to pagan superstitions and barbaric rituals. During the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, Christianity was very susceptible to other ideological phenomena, absorbed and united them. This was one of the most important reasons for its gradual strengthening. During the decline of culture in the early Middle Ages, it was the church that remained the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of Europe.

Christianity originated at the beginning of the 1st century in Palestine conquered by Rome as a doctrine of the Messiah, a divine savior who would save people from suffering. The highest religious goal of Christianity is salvation. Jesus Christ, by his martyrdom, took upon himself the sins of mankind and showed the way to salvation. This path is faith in the great and one God in three persons (Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit). Salvation requires spiritual efforts from a person, faith, but it is impossible to be saved independently. The path of salvation is the path of becoming like Jesus and (with His help) the transformation of one's sinful nature. Salvation is possible only in the bosom of the Church.

Christianity became the official religion in the Roman Empire in the IV century, later the Christian faith was adopted by the Germanic, Slavic and other tribes of Europe. Christianity is becoming the state religion in the young barbarian states. It was Christianity that became the main axis of the emerging social worldview in Western Europe. In the conditions of a difficult, harsh life (war, destruction, hunger, etc.), against the background of extremely limited and most often unreliable knowledge about the world, Christianity offered people a harmonious system of knowledge about the world, about its structure, about the forces acting in it and laws. Showing considerable attention to the inner life of a person and highlighting, above all, morality with its problems of the meaning of human existence, spiritual life, equality of people, condemnation of violence, Christianity affirmed a special type of spirituality and formed a new, higher level of human self-awareness. The moral values \u200b\u200bof Christianity and the preaching of love, which was significant to all mankind, had a great emotional attraction for people.

Since Christianity performed the function of an ideological integrator in the medieval society of Western Europe, the ego led to the consolidation of its organization - the Roman Catholic Church, which was a strictly hierarchically centralized system headed by the Pope and aspired to dominance in the Christian world. The church was a major landowner, sanctified the inviolability of the existing social order, church dogmas served as the starting point and foundation of all spiritual life.

Each historical epoch has its own perception of the world, its own ideas about nature, time, space, about the order of everything that exists, about the relationship of people to each other. Christianity was at the heart of the perception of an individual and mass perceptions, although it did not completely absorb them. Christianity, in comparison with antiquity, significantly changed the image of the world and man. The ancient understanding of the world as an eternal, indivisible, beautiful cosmos is being replaced by the idea of \u200b\u200ba bifurcated, complex and contradictory world. The consciousness of medieval man proceeded from the statement of the dualism of the world. At the same time, the earthly world lost its independent value and turned out to be correlated with the heavenly world. Terrestrial existence was viewed as a reflection of the existence of the higher, heavenly world. On frescoes in temples, heavenly powers (God the Father, Christ, the Mother of God, angels) were depicted on the upper part of the wall, earthly beings were placed in the lower row. The dualism of medieval ideas divided the world into polar pairs of opposites: heavenly-earthly, god-devil, top-bottom. The concept of the top was combined with the concept of nobility, purity of good, the concept of the bottom - with ignorance, rudeness, evil.

The ideas about man were dualistic - soul and body were separated and opposed. The body was considered base, perishable, and the soul is close to God and immortal. The superiority of the soul over the body requires a person to take care, first of all, of the soul, to suppress sensual pleasures. In medieval culture, the problem of the soul and body took on the form of an eternal conflict between heavenly and earthly, spiritual and physical, sacred and sinful principles in man. The body turns a person away from a higher purpose. The combination of these polar principles in man is God's punishment for original sin. Hence the most important for the Christian Middle Ages idea of \u200b\u200bbelittling and suppressing the bodily in man.

The central position in the Christian teaching about man is his creation in the image and likeness of God. All other creations were created for the sake and for the person who is the crown of creation. Thus, a person in Christianity has acquired a certain intrinsic value. All phenomena of the world began to be perceived from the point of view of human experience and values. At the same time, the value of a person in Christianity is supra-individual. It is not about the value of the individual and unique in earthly life, but about the immortal soul that God breathed into each individual.

The most important feature of medieval consciousness was that a person perceived the world surrounding reality as a system of symbols. The medieval symbol expressed the invisible and intelligible through the visible and material. For any phenomenon, in addition to the literal, factual understanding, one could find a symbolic, mystical interpretation, revealing the secrets of faith. In addition to information concerning its physical nature, there was also another knowledge about each object - knowledge of its symbolic meaning. The world of symbols was inexhaustible. Thus, the Christian cathedral was a symbol of the universe. Its structure was conceived in everything similar to a cosmic order, a review of its internal plan, dome, altar, side-altars was supposed to give a complete picture of the structure of the world. The portals of cathedrals and churches were perceived as "heavenly gates". The western part of the cathedral symbolized the future ("the end of the world"), the eastern part - the sacred past (in the eastern part of the temple there was always an altar).

Numbers and geometrical figures had a deep symbolic meaning, they expressed world harmony. The number 3 was considered a symbol of the Holy Trinity and everything spiritual; 4 - a symbol of the four great prophets and 4 evangelists, as well as the number of world elements, that is, a symbol of the material world. Multiplication 3 * 4 in the mystical sense meant the penetration of the spirit into matter, the proclamation of the true faith to the world. The number 12 was associated with 12 apostles. The addition of 4 + 3 symbolized the union of two natures - bodily and spiritual. At the same time 7 is a symbol of the seven sacraments, seven virtues, seven deadly sins; 7 - the number of days of creation (the Lord worked six days, rested on the seventh day) and a symbol of eternal rest. Many medieval writings had seven chapters.

The settlements where people lived were thought of as centers, the rest of the world was located on the periphery (outskirts). Space was divided into "" ours ", familiar, nearby and" alien ", distant and hostile. Although Christianity expanded the world (in comparison with the ideas of the barbarians), all non-Christians, as well as Christian heretics, were excluded from the number of full-fledged human beings.

The ideas of medieval Europeans about time were vague, unnecessary. Personal, household time moved in a vicious circle: morning-day-evening-night, winter-spring-summer-autumn. From the point of view of Christianity, time was linearly directed: from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment and the completion of earthly history. Human history was viewed as the life of an individual. Medieval society was young; a man at forty was already considered an old man. There was no particular emotional relationship to childhood. In medieval images, babies had the faces and figures of adults.

The attitude to nature was very specific. During the early Middle Ages, man viewed nature as an extension of his own "I". There has not yet been a complete separation of man from nature. In the future, the medieval European no longer merges himself with nature, but does not oppose himself to it either. The most natural and common measurements of land plots are elbow, span, finger, number of steps. In the monuments of art and literature, there is no aesthetic attitude to nature. Nature is a symbol of the invisible world. She could not be an object of admiration. Therefore, the depiction of nature in literature and painting was conditional and obeyed the canon. The forest in the knightly novel means the place of the knight's wandering, the field is the place of the duel, the garden is the place of a love adventure or conversation. The landscape itself was not of interest to the author.

The specifics of the perception of the world and space by medieval man can be better understood by considering the categories of microcosm and macrocosm. The gigantic world (macrocosm), created by God, also included the "small cosmos" (microcosm) - man. Everything that is in the macrocosm is also in the microcosm. This theme, already known in ancient Greece, was very popular in medieval Europe. Each part of the human body was represented in accordance with one or another part of the Universe: the head corresponded to the heavens, the chest to the air, the stomach to the sea, the legs to the earth, the hair to the grasses, etc. Attempts have been made many times to visually embody the idea of \u200b\u200ba macro- and microcosm. In one of the allegorical drawings, the macrocosm is represented as a symbol of eternity - a circle held in the hands of Nature. Inside the circle is a human figure - a microcosm. The analogy between the microcosm and the macrocosm constituted the very foundation of medieval symbolism, because nature was understood as a mirror in which a person can contemplate the image of God.

It is necessary to highlight the medieval ideas about labor and wealth. In ancient society, labor was considered the work of slaves, the lot of the unfree, physical labor was seen as a hard and unclean occupation that humiliated human dignity. Christianity, proclaiming the principle "if someone does not want to work, he does not eat", broke with these attitudes of antiquity. But the church's attitude to work was contradictory. On the one hand, the church taught that the need to work is a consequence of the Fall (in Paradise, Adam and Eve did not work). Labor is a punishment. A person needs to be more concerned with spiritual salvation rather than physical well-being. On the other hand, labor was recognized as a necessary occupation of a person. Christian theologians appreciated primarily the educational role of labor, for "idleness is the enemy of the soul." But labor should not turn into an end in itself and serve as enrichment.

Wealth and money in and of themselves are neither good nor evil. Possession of them can help, but can prevent the soul from achieving heavenly bliss. But the church expressed a different attitude towards different forms of ownership. Trade and usury were strongly condemned. Lavish spending on the church by the privileged estates was welcomed.

In medieval society, every person was part of a social group - an estate. Christianity itself sanctified the hierarchical structure of feudal society. The three main estates in medieval Europe are the clergy, the nobility (knighthood), the people. For each of these estates, the medieval consciousness recognized not only a useful function for society, but also a sacred duty. Higher state affairs ("earthly affairs") are the maintenance of the church, the protection of the faith, the consolidation of the world, etc. - were considered the sacred duty of chivalry, and all concerns about spiritual life ("heavenly affairs") - the lot of the clergy. Therefore, the clergy was considered the first upper class, and chivalry - the second. The third estate, that is, the common people, the Lord commanded to work, cultivating the land or selling the fruits of their labor, and thereby ensuring the existence of all. Fulfillment of the listed duties in real historical conditions required an appropriate lifestyle and activity. Occupations, conditions of material existence, behavior, way of thinking, views of a medieval person were determined by his belonging to a particular class. In this regard, within the framework of a single medieval culture, the following subcultures can be distinguished: noble (knightly), clergy culture, peasant culture and the culture of townspeople (burghers).

Let's consider the most important features of some subcultures of medieval Europe. Knightly novels, medieval historical chronicles paint the image of an ideal knight. And although the real life of an era never corresponds to ideals, ideals always correspond to an era. The main knightly virtues included the following. It was desirable that the knight came from an ancient family, since in medieval society spiritual life was based on authority, and "antiquity" was a guarantee of respect. But sometimes they were knighted for exclusively military exploits. A knight was required to have strength (to wear armor) and a warrior's courage; it was expected that he would constantly care for his fame. Glory demanded a tireless confirmation of military qualities, and, consequently, more and more tests and exploits. From the very duty of caring for glory, it followed that there was no point in doing good deeds if they were destined to remain unknown, and also that pride was completely justified. The most important knightly virtue was loyalty to God, overlord, word, etc. The custom included vows-oaths that were not violated. An indispensable property of a knight was generosity. It was necessary, without bargaining, to give anyone (but equal) what he asks for. Better to go broke than to be called a miser. Glory to the knight was brought not so much by victory as by noble behavior in battle, a generous attitude towards the opponent. The knight's duty was to serve the Beautiful Lady. "Fight and love" is the knight's motto. This love for a woman was supposed to uplift the soul and ennoble morals. Gradually, a code of courtly ("courtly" - from Old French "courtier") love took shape. The rules of courtly love suggested a "noble" way of conquering it: performing feats in her honor, winning knightly tournaments, checking loyalty in a long separation, the ability to clothe one's feelings in aesthetic forms of courtship.

Thus, the ideal of the knight was far from the Christian model of man - a person deeply religious and moral. But he refracted the Christian virtues in accordance with the conditions of chivalry. Courtly love, which the church condemned, undoubtedly developed under the influence of the Christian cult of love as suffering that purifies the soul. There is no doubt that the origins of the chivalrous system of values \u200b\u200bin many respects go back to the period of barbarism (ideals of bravery, loyalty and other military qualities). At the same time, it should be noted that the knightly code is an ideal that was only partially realized in the behavior of people. Actual morals were "simpler", cruder, more primitive. So, the worship of the Beautiful Lady was combined with rudeness in family relationships. The valor and nobility of knights were often intertwined with savagery (for example, behavior during a feast), bloodthirstiness, and ignorance. The rules of honor were valid only within the knightly estate and did not apply to others.

The duality of value orientations manifested itself even more clearly in popular culture. The principle of "two-worldness" approved by Christianity - the separation of the world and the opposition of spirituality and physicality, "top and bottom" in it - was hardly perceived by the popular consciousness, which retained a lively, direct connection with the natural roots of man in rural labor, in everyday pagan traditions. In everyday life, spirit and flesh, good and evil, striving for God and sensual joys, fear of "sin" and "sin" are constantly intertwined. God was treated as a man with a rude nature, and in the church they danced to obscene songs about gospel characters. This was not a manifestation of depravity, but rather the barbaric childishness of their perception and ideas.

The highest manifestation of this uniqueness of medieval culture was folk holidays, where the natural need for psychological relief, for carefree fun after hard work resulted in a parody of ridicule of everything high and serious in the official Christian culture. According to M.M. Bakhtin, an outstanding Russian scientist and philosopher, three types of forms of folk culture should be distinguished:

1) Ritual and spectacular forms (carnival-type festivals, various areal laughing actions);

2) Verbal forms of laughter (including parody works of various kinds): oral and written, in Latin and in folk languages;

3) Various forms and genres of familiar-areal speech (swear words, godly, oath, etc.).

The ritual and spectacular forms included carnivals, "fools' holidays", "donkey holiday", temple festivals, accompanied by fairs and public entertainment, laughter rites of civil or everyday ceremonies (parodies of jesters on knightly tournaments, etc.), household feasts with an election for laughter "kings of the tables". The verbal and laughter forms included parody works such as "The Liturgy of Drunkards", "Testament of the Donkey", parody disputes, parody prayers, which were created in Latin in monasteries, universities, schools. In folk languages, secular folk motives prevailed - parodic epics: animals, buffoonery, roguish and stupid. For familiar-areal speech is characterized by a fairly frequent use of swear words, swear words and swear words. Swearing contributed to the creation of a free carnival atmosphere. All forms of folk laughter culture are closely interconnected and are diversely intertwined with each other.

The creators of the carnival and laughter culture were ordinary people - peasants and townspeople. But it is possible to highlight significant differences in the position, value system, worldview of these social groups. The peasant remained merged with his natural environment. His horizons were limited to the immediate rural area. The whole course of his life depended on natural rhythms. Constant communication with nature led the peasants to the confidence that everything moves in a circle: spring-summer-autumn-winter; plowing-sowing-growth-reaping. The peasant treated himself not so much as an individual, but as a member of the rural "world", a community. There was no self-developed personality, the consciousness of the peasant was collectivist.

The layer of townspeople was formed from representatives of different classes, but the majority of the population were artisans. In the city, the dependence of its inhabitants on nature and its rhythms was much weaker than that of the peasants. Man, face to face with the nature he was changing, asked a question that could not occur to a peasant: are the tools of labor and his other products the creations of God or his own creations.

The city dweller was more subordinated to the order created by himself than to natural rhythms. He more clearly separated himself from nature and treated it as an external object. The city became the bearer of a new attitude to time: time moves not in a circle, but in a straight line, and quite quickly. In the 13th century, mechanical clocks were installed on the city towers. They are not only a source of pride for the townspeople, but also satisfy the previously unheard-of need - to know the exact time of day. Time becomes the measure of labor.

The life of a medieval city dweller was regulated in all forms. Guild (shops - associations of artisans by profession) regulations regulated not only production issues, they included instructions on the procedure for baptism, weddings, types of clothing, etc. The workshop was the form in which the whole life of artisans and their families took place. It was in the workshop environment that a fundamentally new attitude to work was developed. The craftsman considered labor as a source of not only existence, but also moral satisfaction. Creating a bright, unique product, the master at the same time asserted himself in the thought of his own significance and uniqueness. Thus, in the cities, an unusual idea for the Middle Ages was born that a person is not only a part of some community, but also an individuality, valuable not by nobility or holiness, but by his talent, manifested in everyday work.

In medieval society, the city resisted all: the feudal lords who sought to profit from it; church, if she interfered in his internal affairs. In the course of the centuries-old struggle for self-government in cities, ideas of freedom and equality were forged. The cities of the medieval East and Byzantium lacked that social type of citizen, a member of a free self-governing community, which had formed in a medieval European city. A free citizen of medieval Europe who realized his individuality became the bearer of a new system of values. It was in the city that the culture of the Renaissance was further formed.

Education in medieval Europe was primarily a religious education. During the early Middle Ages, only monasteries had schools. Monasteries played an important role in maintaining education during the period of cultural decline. When organizing church schools, some knowledge of antiquity was used. The seven liberal arts system was divided into two parts: trivium and quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy. Grammar was considered the "mother of all sciences", dialectics provided formal logical knowledge, the foundations of philosophy and logic, rhetoric taught to speak correctly and expressively. "Mathematical disciplines" - arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy - were thought of as the sciences of numerical ratios that underlie world harmony.

A steady rise of medieval schools began in the 11th century. Schools were subdivided into monastic, cathedral (at city cathedrals), parish. With the growth of cities, secular urban schools (private and municipal) appear that are not subject to the direct dictates of the church. The students in non-church schools were stray schoolboyscoming from different layers. Instruction in schools was conducted in Latin, only in the XIV century schools with teaching in national languages \u200b\u200bappeared.

In the 13th century, universities emerged in Europe: Parisian - in France, Oxford and Cambridge - in England, Palermo and others - in Italy. At the end of the 15th century, there were already 65 universities. Universities possessed legal, administrative and financial autonomy, which were bestowed on him by special documents of the sovereign or pope. The medieval university had several faculties; the junior faculty, compulsory for all students, was the artistic department, in which the seven liberal arts were fully studied. Other faculties are law, medicine, theology. Classes at universities usually took the form of lectures: professors and masters read and commented on the works of authoritative ecclesiastical and ancient authors. Public disputes were held on topics of a theological and philosophical nature. The teaching was conducted in Latin.

Universities have become centers for the development of philosophy and science. They replaced the former church higher theological schools, but Christian theology also played a leading role in the universities. Medieval university science was named scholastics (from the Latin word "school" "). Scholastic knowledge is, in fact, speculative knowledge. Scholasticism was most vividly reflected in medieval theology and philosophy. Throughout medieval philosophy there is a polemic realists and nominalists about universals (concepts). The beginning of the controversy is connected with the posing of the question of the Trinity: how can God be one in sinful persons? Subsequently, the controversy turned into a discussion of the philosophical problem of the relationship between the general and the individual. The realists argued that there are first of all general concepts, and individual things are derived from them. The nominalists insisted that single things really exist and that general concepts are formed on their basis. Nominalists made significant contributions to the development of scholastic logic.

Since the XI century, as a result of the Crusades, Europe begins to get acquainted with the culture of the Arab East and Byzantium. Just as the Arabs used to translate Greek, Indian and other treatises, so in Europe they are now beginning to translate Arabic manuscripts. Another channel for the penetration of Eastern "scholarship" into Europe is Spain, which for several centuries was an Arab province. Thanks to cultural contacts in Europe, the Arabic numeral system was introduced (before that, Europeans used inconvenient Roman numerals, which significantly complicated mathematical operations). Through Arab mediation, Europe became acquainted with the legacy of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, while Arabic versions of his works were translated into Latin. Only from the 13th century, the works of Aristotle began to be translated directly from the Greek language. The works of Greek and Arab scientists were translated into Latin: Archimedes, Hippocrates, Avicenna, etc. Acquaintance with these works contributed to the spread of free-thinking and rationalism in European science in the 13th century.

The emergence of experimental knowledge in European universities can be attributed to the XIII century. Roger Bacon(1214-1292), an English learned monk, professor at Oxford University, was one of the first who insisted on the need for experiential knowledge of nature, opposed scholasticism. Bacon conducted physical experiments, discovered some laws in optics (for example, the law of reflection and refraction of light), made a recipe for gunpowder. He put forward a number of remarkable guesses - about the possibility of creating self-propelled ships, chariots, vehicles flying through the air or moving along the seabed. His successors continued research in physics, mechanics, and astronomy. Nikolay Orezmsky(1330-1382) approached the discovery of the law of falling bodies, developed the doctrine of the daily rotation of the Earth, substantiated the idea of \u200b\u200busing coordinates. Professor and Rector of the University of Paris Jean Buridan(c. 1300-1358) introduced the concept of impulse - an omen of the later law of inertia.

Alchemy occupied an important place in the scientific culture of medieval Europe. Alchemists, engaged in the search for a "philosopher's stone" that can turn base metals into gold or silver, along the way made a number of important discoveries. The properties of various substances, methods of exposure to them were studied, and various alloys and chemical compounds were obtained. Thus, alchemy was the forerunner of modern chemistry. At the same time, it was a specific phenomenon of medieval culture, combining a magical and mythological vision of the world with sober practicality, rational logic and an experimental approach.

The growth of cities and trade leads already in the late Middle Ages to the expansion and filling of practical, experienced knowledge. Clocks were invented, paper production was established, book printing was opened, a mirror and glasses appeared. Geographical knowledge has been significantly enriched. In the XIV-XV centuries, numerous descriptions of new lands, maps, atlases were compiled.

In the medieval culture of Europe, the position and role of art were quite complex and contradictory. This was due to his relationship with Christian ideology. Christianity rejected the sensual, "bodily" forms created by art, capable of arousing "sinful desires". But in medieval society, literacy was the lot of a few, and only fine art could make the dogmas of religion accessible and understandable to people, giving them a sensually visual character. Therefore, art occupies an exceptional position in medieval culture, as it was addressed to all strata of society; architecture and sculpture, along with the spoken word, became a "sermon in stone" for the illiterate.

In order for the images to be perceived as the embodiment of the divine, it was necessary to make them different from the earthly phenomena familiar to everyone, to tear them away from the familiar environment, to exclude them from earthly experiences. Art ceases to be an imitation of nature, the real world - images of strange, almost incorporeal, frozen figures appear, but striking with the spiritual power of "holy sorrow", "cleansing suffering".

The central and synthesizing form of art in medieval Europe was architecture, which united all other types and genres, subordinating them to its own concept, artistic image. It is the delimitation of architectural styles that serves as the basis for the periodization of medieval art. There are two main periods: romanesque and gothic... The Romanesque style characterizes the art and architecture of Western Europe in the X-XII centuries. The term "Romanesque" was introduced in the 19th century on the basis of the similarity of the structures of this period with ancient Roman architecture. The main buildings of the Romanesque era are the castle-fortress and the temple-fortress. The castle is the fortress of the knight, the church is the fortress of God. Romanesque art is permeated with the spirit of militancy and constant self-defense, as it belongs to the era of feudal fragmentation. Raids and battles constituted the element of life. Most of the castles were located on hills, surrounded by moats with towers.

The cathedral - the main city and monastery building - became the most complete expression of the spirit of the era. The grandiose size of the cathedrals inspired the idea of \u200b\u200bhuman weakness. Outside and inside, the Romanesque cathedral is austere and massive. Like a castle-fortress, it is crowned with several towers. The combination of simple, geometrically clear parts of the building with their pronounced purposefulness, the abundance of smooth surfaces of massive walls give the temple nobility, monumentality and grandeur. In Western Europe, unlike Byzantium and Russia, sculpture and reliefs were of great importance in the design of cathedrals. In the images of various creatures (centaurs, lions, half-lizard-half birds, all kinds of chimeras) on capitals and at the foot of columns, on windows, in the reliefs of walls, the "barbaric" foundations of European medieval art are clearly revealed. This is reflected in the understanding of the human image. In the squat figures of the Romanesque saints, the apostles, their characteristic muzhishness can be traced, clearly of common origin.

Transfer from romanesque style to the Gothic is associated with the growth and flourishing of cities in Western Europe. Religious and secular buildings, sculpture, book illustrations and other works began to be created in this style. visual arts... The term "Gothic" "arose in Italy during the Renaissance. Initially, this term was used to refer to all medieval art, considering it a product of the barbaric Goths. Later, Gothic began to be called the art of the high (classical) and partly late Middle Ages - the end of the XII-XV centuries. The main phenomenon Gothic, the embodiment of everything new in the artistic and social life of this era - the city's cathedral, which symbolized the freedom, strength and wealth of the city.

The Gothic cathedral has a completely different look from the Romanesque one. It is immense, often asymmetrical, directed upward; its walls seem to be gone; the facades are filled with all kinds of openwork forms: columns, towers, galleries, arches, spiers, sculptors, carved ornaments. This seemingly incredible appearance of the Gothic building was made possible by new design principles. At the heart of the airiness, fabulousness of the Gothic cathedral is the frame construction system. Gothic cathedrals are filled with a mass of sculptures, the arrangement of reliefs and sculptures is subject to church canons. But, creating specific biblical and evangelical characters, the artists revealed in them a new, deeper and more complex idea of \u200b\u200ba person about himself and his place in the world. Gothic art reflected the cruelty and hardships of life in the era of wars, crusades, epidemics. The image of a suffering, offended person is the hidden nerve of Gothic art. The plots of martyrdom became widespread: the torture of Christ, the crucifixion, mourning, the suffering of Job, the beating of infants. However, not only an expressive, accentuated image of suffering is available to Gothic, but also the expression of subtle emotional movements, the transmission of a variety of feelings and states of a person, a high spirituality of images.

Having considered the features of Western European culture, let us turn to another medieval culture - byzantine... The culture of Byzantium is distinguished by its deep originality.

Back in the 4th century, the united Roman Empire was divided into Western and Eastern. Barbaric attacks, social movements, internal strife in the West threatened the very existence of the Roman state; this forced Emperor Constantine I to move the political center of the empire to the East. The adoption of Christianity by Constantine also played a role in moving the center of ideological life to the East, for it was the eastern provinces that were not only the cradle, but also the ideological support of the Christian religion. In 324 - 330 Constantine founded the new capital of the empire (on the European coast of the Bosphorus), named after him Constantinople.

The final division of the Roman Empire officially took place in 395, each part of it had its own emperor. The Eastern Roman Empire eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire (the city of Constantinople was founded on the site of the former Greek colony of Byzantium). But the Byzantines themselves called themselves Romans (in Greek, Romans), and the empire - Romeian. Greek became the official language of the empire. For a long time, the capital of the empire bore the proud name of New Rome. Byzantium managed to avoid the invasion of the barbarians and continued to exist in power and glory, surviving after the fall of the Western Roman Empire as "the empire of the Romans".

In the early period of the history of Byzantium (IV - first half of the VII century), it included the entire eastern half of the Roman Empire. It included the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, part of Mesopotamia and Armenia, the southern coast of Crimea, etc. The geographical position of Byzantium, which spread its possessions on two continents - in Europe and Asia, and sometimes extending its power to the regions of Africa, made this empire a kind of connecting link between East and West. The confusion of Greco-Roman and Eastern traditions left an imprint on public life, statehood, religious and philosophical ideas, and the art of Byzantine society.

At the dawn of the Middle Ages, Byzantium remained the only guardian of ancient cultural traditions. Cities were the citadel of preserving the cultural heritage of antiquity. The large urban centers of early Byzantium still retained the appearance of the ancient city. Ancient traditions in education were preserved on a significant scale. Byzantium inherited from the Greco-Roman world a classical education, which was based on the study of the seven liberal arts. The training programs developed in the previous centuries have not yet undergone a fundamental change. B. Byzantium had the highest level of elementary literacy for that time. In the 4th - first half of the 7th century, higher schools also existed in the Byzantine Empire. The schools of philosophy and natural sciences in Alexandria, Antioch, the Athenian Academy (created by Plato) and other higher educational institutions have retained their former glory. Until the 13th century, Byzantium was ahead of all the countries of medieval Europe in terms of the level of development of education and the intensity of spiritual life.

Ancient traditions dominated the natural sciences for a long time. Particular attention was paid to those branches of knowledge that were associated with practice, primarily medicine, agriculture, craft, military and construction. During this period, a tremendous amount of work was done to systematize and comment on the works of ancient scientists. But the contribution of Byzantine scientists of that time to the development of scientific thought was not limited to this. In early Byzantium, a process of gradual rethinking and improvement of scientific knowledge accumulated by antiquity took place. This helped the Byzantine scientists to make significant progress in mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, navigation, construction and military affairs and in many other branches of science.

In the first centuries of the empire's existence, an important ideological revolution took place, the ideological foundations of Byzantine society were formed. The new system of outlook was based on the traditions of pagan Hellenism and acquired official status christianity. In the beginning, Christianity was a religion of slaves and freedmen, poor and oppressed peoples; it preached the idea of \u200b\u200bequality and universal love, a protest against luxury and wealth, the focus of which was Rome. The first Christian sects were persecuted by the Roman government, but under Emperor Constantine, Christianity became the state religion. The gradual transformation of the ideas of Christianity turned it from a religion of the oppressed into a doctrine that justified and sanctified the existing world order. The doctrine of one God substantiated the inviolability of the imperial power. Already in the early period of the Byzantine Empire, the foundations of its most important political doctrine were laid - the idea of \u200b\u200bsymphony and harmony of relations between the Christian church and the state. The Christian church deifies the origin of the imperial power, and the imperial power will give the church the sanction of immunity. It should be noted that the cult of the emperor, the preaching of the exclusivity of Byzantine statehood, were based on the Roman state tradition.

The formation of Christianity in Byzantium went through the processes of convergence and repulsion of the ancient heritage. Christianity fought desperately against the philosophical, natural-scientific and aesthetic views of the ancient world. Passionate controversy, in particular, was conducted by pagan philosophers and Christian theologians. But at the same time, Christianity absorbed many of the philosophical ideas of antiquity. Thus, fighting against Neoplatonism, Christianity eventually absorbed this philosophical doctrine, which became one of the most important starting points of medieval philosophy and theology (theology). The combination, mixing of pagan and Christian ideas, ideas was manifested in all spheres of knowledge, literature, art.

It should be borne in mind that the Christian ideology of Byzantine society is characterized by the presence of two lines (levels): aristocratic, associated with the church and the imperial court, and the people, rooted in the religious and ethical ideas of the masses. The appeal to the ancient heritage was carried out precisely by representatives of the aristocratic line. Christian theologians, writers, preachers used the psychologism and eloquence of ancient rhetoric, the logic of Aristotle, the simplicity and plasticity of the philosophical prose of Greco-Roman authors. The asserting Christianity sought to oust the Greco-Roman traditions from all spheres of culture. The struggle between the ancient and the emerging Christian culture characterizes the entire period of the 4th - first half of the 7th centuries. This struggle leads to the closure of higher educational institutions that have survived from antiquity (including the famous Platonic Academy), the destruction of the largest library of Alexandria. But higher theological schools are opening, in which, in addition to theology, they also give secular knowledge.

The most important ideological issue for the church was the question of the structure of the universe. The biblical concept of the universe begins to penetrate the Byzantine geographical literature. In the IV-VI centuries, two main schools of Christian geographical thought were formed. The first (Antiochian) school was based on a dogmatic approach to the interpretation of Holy Scripture and had an extremely negative attitude towards ancient geography. The second (Cappadocian-Alexandrian) school showed respect for ancient traditions in geography and philosophy. Representatives of this school (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, etc.) remained committed to the ancient idea of \u200b\u200bthe sphericity of the Earth, the sphericity of the heavens surrounding it from all sides (while the representatives of the Antiochian school believed that a solid domed sky was spread over the flat Earth).

A mixture of ancient traditions and Christian principles was observed in art. Christianity was transforming the heritage of antiquity. In the construction of Christian churches, the Roman type of construction was used - basilica... It is an elongated building, divided in length by rows of columns into three or five naves; the middle nave was usually wider and higher than the side naves. The longitudinal aisles were often crossed by a transverse transept located closer to the eastern end and protruding from both sides, so that the building had the shape of a cross, the main symbol of Christianity. Gradually, another type of temple began to acquire more and more importance - cross-domed, having the shape of an equal-pointed cross and completed in the center with a dome.

Christianity radically changed the purpose of the temple. The Christian cathedral, unlike the Greek temple, was not a place where a statue of a deity was, not an abode of God, but a symbol of the Universe and the place on Earth where believers listened to the "voice of God", where they could join the ideal world of divine spheres and participate in religious sacraments. Therefore, if in antiquity the main importance was attached to the external appearance of the temple, then in the Christian cathedral the main attention was paid to its internal space, which was supposed to create the illusion of not being made by hand, incomprehensible.

The power of the impact of a Christian church on believers was due to the unity of architecture, fine and applied arts. The Byzantine masters inherited the art of fresco painting and mosaics from antiquity. In the 5th century, icons appeared - objects of worship for believers. The origins of the icon lie in the funerary portraits of the Hellenistic era and in the revered, deified portraits of the late Roman emperors. In the Christian cult, the icon has become a reification, the realization of the unreal, a manifestation of the divine essence. Therefore, the icon itself became a shrine; it was decorated with precious stones, frames.

In VI - first half of the 7th century the basic principles of Byzantine art are formed. It largely relied on ancient views of the essence of beauty, but synthesized and reinterpreted them in the spirit of Christian ideology. A distinctive feature of Byzantine art is its deep spiritualism, preference of spirit over body. Without denying bodily beauty, the Byzantine thinkers put the beauty of the soul, virtue, and moral perfection much higher.

With the growing influence of Christianity in Byzantium, secular artistic creativity never faded. Palaces of emperors and houses of nobility were built, which were decorated with paintings and mosaics on secular themes: emperors were depicted, scenes of court life, hunting, rural life and labor, performances of actors. In early Byzantium, many works of secular portrait sculpture were created. Secular culture still dominated almost completely at this time in the field of theatrical performances and mass shows inherited from the ancient era. The circus (hippodrome) was especially popular. The efforts of the Christian church to replace pagan spectacles with church holidays have not yet met with much success.

VIII-IX centuries in the social and cultural life of Byzantium are characterized by drama and tension. From the first quarter of the 8th century, the iconoclastic movement gained strength, which had a significant impact on the cultural development of Byzantium. The iconoclasts put forward the thesis of the indescribability and unknowability of God. Researchers believe that the formation of iconoclastic doctrines was influenced by the religious and aesthetic systems of Judaism and Islam, in which there were prohibitions on the image of God.

The struggle between iconoclasts and icon-worshipers led at first to the destruction of mosaics, icons, frescoes (the iconoclasts replaced them with the symbol of the cross or geometric ornament). After the victory of the icon-worshipers, the victors mercilessly burned the iconoclastic books. By destroying works of art and monuments of human thought, both iconoclasts and icon-worshipers harmed the cultural development of Byzantium. But iconoclasm paved the way for the victory of sublime spirituality, the establishment of deep spiritualism in art.

One of the consequences of the ideological struggle of the 8th-9th centuries was the increased influence of religious ideology on Byzantine literature. Such literary genres as the Lives of Saints and liturgical poetry (church hymns and canons) are gaining particular popularity. One of the famous hymnographers of this period was John Damascene(c. 675 - 753), his liturgical poetry later gained great popularity and entered the Orthodox liturgy of many countries, including Russia. John Damascene was also the greatest Byzantine theologian and philosopher who made an attempt to systematize the entire body of knowledge of Christian theology. To create his theological work, he used the teachings of Plato, the logic of Aristotle, the foundations of ancient science. Damascene's work "The Source of Knowledge" had a significant impact on the medieval theology of Byzantium and Western Europe.

The strengthening of the influence of Christian ideology was felt in the field of scientific knowledge and education; the ancient heritage was perceived more critically. With the seizure of the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs, the largest scientific centers concentrated there were lost. But even under these conditions, the development of scientific knowledge continued. Constantinople became the center of education and scientific knowledge. Brilliant erudite scientists appear there, unmatched in the West. Among them is an outstanding scientist-encyclopedist Leo Philosopher or Mathematician(early IX century - c. 869). Possessing deep knowledge in the field of mathematics, physics, mechanics, philosophy, having studied ancient authors, he introduced a lot of new things into the development of Byzantine science. One of his most interesting discoveries was the use of letters as arithmetic symbols, which essentially laid the foundations of algebra. Lev the Mathematician recreated the University of Constantinople, a secular high school that studied the seven liberal arts. The university, where outstanding scientists of that era taught, trained officials, diplomats, and military leaders.

Since the 10th century, a new stage in the history of Byzantine culture begins: a generalization and classification of everything achieved in science, theology, philosophy, and literature takes place. Generalizing works of encyclopedic character are being created. During this period, encyclopedias on history, agriculture, medicine were compiled. Emperor's writings Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913 - 959) "On the government", "On the themes", "On the ceremonies of the Byzantine court" are an encyclopedia of the most valuable information about the political and administrative structure of the Byzantine state, and also contain rich materials of a historical, geographical and ethnographic nature about neighboring countries and peoples, including the Slavs.

In the culture of this period, generalized spiritualistic principles fully prevail. Social thought, literature, art, as it were, are torn away from reality and locked in a circle of higher abstract ideas. In the works of church literature, symbolic stereotypical heroes act, performing specified actions against the background of abstract landscapes; in painting and architecture, strict, rational symmetry begins to dominate, a calm, solemn balance of lines and movements of human figures on frescoes and mosaics of temples. The visual arts acquire a timeless and extra-dimensional character.

At the same time, traditionalism and canonicity are affirmed in artistic creation, as in all spiritual life. So, the iconographic canon is finally formed in Byzantine painting - strict rules for depicting all scenes of religious content and images of saints. Iconographic types and plots have hardly changed over the centuries. In wall paintings, in mosaics and icons, even in book miniatures, the head as the focus of spiritual life becomes dominant in the human figure; the body shyly hides under the flowing folds of clothing. In the depiction of a human face, the artist brings to the fore its spirituality, inner greatness, and the depth of emotional experiences. Sculpture almost completely disappears from the cult artistic creation, only a flat relief remains.

At the same time, unlike Western Europe, which almost completely lost the treasures of ancient culture in the early Middle Ages, the traditions of Greco-Roman civilization never died in Byzantium. Ancient traditions, temporarily weakened in the 8th-9th centuries, have been reviving with renewed vigor since the 10th century. In the XI-XII centuries, important worldview shifts took place in Byzantine culture. There is a rise in scientific knowledge and the emergence of rationalism in philosophical thought. The rationalistic tendencies among Byzantine philosophers and theologians manifested themselves in the desire to combine faith with reason, and sometimes put reason above faith.

The most important prerequisite for the development of rationalism in Byzantium was a new stage in the revival of ancient culture. Byzantine thinkers XI-XII centuries perceive from ancient philosophers respect for reason. At the same time, the attention of Byzantine philosophers was attracted by the ideas of various schools of ancient philosophy, and not only the works of Aristotle (as was the case in Western Europe). The exponents of rationalistic trends in Byzantine philosophy were Michael Psell, John Ital and their followers. But all these representatives of rationalism were condemned by the church, and their works were committed to burning. However, their activities paved the way for the emergence of humanistic ideas in Byzantium in the 13th - first half of the 15th century.

The renewed interest in antiquity and the growth of rationalistic tendencies were reflected in the development of literature. New literary genres appear - secular love lyrics and accusatory satirical poetry. The old literary genre of the late antique love story is being revived. Through authorized translations, the Byzantines become familiar with the literature of the East (primarily Indian and Arabic). There is a gradual departure, sometimes still timid, from the clichés and canons that dominated the literature of previous eras. There is a tendency towards the individualization of the author's face, towards the manifestation of the author's position. Literature approaches life: a complex human character takes the place of the unambiguous characterization of the hero as a vessel of good or a repository of evil; the hero is drawn not only with light or dark paint, but also in halftones; the image is made more vital and true. Simple human feelings are sung - earthly love, the beauty of nature, friendship. There is a flourishing of folk literature of various genres, the national language receives the rights of citizenship. However, all these new processes are taking place within the framework of medieval thinking and church ideology.

In the XI-XII centuries, Byzantine art reached a significant flourishing. In church architecture, the basilica, as a form of a religious building, gives way to a cross-domed church. The scale of the temple is decreasing, it becomes small in size, but at the same time the temple grows in height - the vertical becomes the predominant idea. The appearance of the temple, the decoration of the facade and walls are gaining more and more importance. The architectural forms of churches are becoming more sophisticated, more perfect, more cheerful. Second half of the 11th century and the entire XII century - the classical era in the development of Byzantine, fine arts: fresco and mosaic painting, icon painting, book miniatures. Despite the canonicity of art, the sprouts of new trends are breaking through in it, which found further development in Byzantine art of the 13th-14th centuries. In the period under review, the art of Byzantium intensively influenced the artistic creativity of other countries and peoples, became an indisputable standard for the art of the Orthodox world - Georgian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian. The influence of Byzantine art can be traced in the Latin West, in particular in Italy.

The new phenomena noted above in the culture of the XI-XII centuries were further developed in the late Byzantine society. But the progressive tendencies of Byzantine culture met with resistance from the ideologists of the ruling church. In the XIII-XV centuries. there is a polarization of two main trends in Byzantine ideology: progressive-pre-Renaissance, associated with the emergence of the ideas of humanism, and religious-mystical, which has found embodiment in the teachings of hesychasts. Pre-Renaissance tendencies in Byzantine culture found expression in the development of humanistic traits: in literature and philosophy, interest in the human personality, the reality surrounding a person, and nature is growing; dynamism, expression, brilliance are enhanced in painting.

According to its characteristics, "Byzantine humanism" can be considered an analogue of Italian humanism. At the same time, we are talking not so much about the completed and formed culture of humanism, but about humanistic tendencies. But it is significant that during the period under review there was an ideological communication between Byzantine thinkers and Italian scientists, poets, writers, which influenced the formation of early Italian humanism. Byzantine erudites opened the wonderful world of Greco-Roman antiquity to Western humanists, introduced them to classical ancient literature, the true philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. But in Byzantium itself, the new tendencies were not completed; the germs of humanistic ideas in literature and art were stifled by the religious and mystical ideas of hesychasm (for more details about hesychasm, see topic 4.1.).

The Byzantine Empire perished under the blows of the Turks in 1453, but the cultural influence of Byzantium survived the empire itself. It had a deep and lasting impact on the development of the cultures of many countries of medieval Europe. Through Byzantium, they got the opportunity to get in touch with the ancient cultural heritage. The Byzantine cultural influence manifested itself most intensively in the countries where Orthodoxy was established, including Ancient Russia.

LITERATURE

Bakhtin M.M. Creativity of Francois Rabelais and folk culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. M., 1990.

Darkevich V.P. Folk culture of the Middle Ages. M., 1988.

Dmitrieva N.A. A Brief History of Art. M., 1988. Part I.

Culture of Byzantium. 4th - first half of the 7th centuries M., 1989.

Culture of Byzantium. Second half of the 7th-12th centuries M., 1989.

Le Goff J. Civilization of the Medieval West. M., 1992.

Chapter 21. Medieval culture of Western Europe V-XV centuries. (Ukolova V.I.)

The culture of the Western European Middle Ages covers more than twelve centuries of a difficult, extremely difficult path traversed by the peoples of this region. In this era, the horizons of European culture were significantly expanded, the historical and cultural unity of Europe was formed with all the heterogeneity of processes in individual regions, viable nations and states were formed, modern European languages \u200b\u200bwere formed, works were created that enriched the history of world culture, significant scientific and technical successes were achieved. ... The culture of the Middle Ages - the culture of the feudal formation - is an inseparable and natural part of the global cultural development, which has at the same time its deeply original content and original appearance.

The beginning of the formation of medieval culture. The early Middle Ages are sometimes called the "dark ages", putting a certain derogatory connotation into this concept. Decline and barbarism, into which the West swiftly plunged at the end of the 5th-7th centuries. as a result of barbaric conquests and incessant wars, they were opposed not only to the achievements of Roman civilization, but also to the spiritual life of Byzantium, which did not experience such a tragic turning point in the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. And yet it is impossible to erase this time from the cultural history of Europe, for it was during the early Middle Ages that the cardinal tasks that determined its future were solved. The first and most important of them is the laying of the foundations of European civilization, because in ancient times there was no "Europe" in the modern sense as a kind of cultural and historical community with a single destiny in world history. It began to really form ethnically, politically, economically and culturally in the early Middle Ages as the fruit of the life of many peoples who had inhabited Europe for a long time and who came again: Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, Slavs, etc. As paradoxical as it sounds, but it was early the Middle Ages, which did not give achievements comparable to the heights of ancient culture or the mature Middle Ages, laid the foundation for a proper European cultural history, which grew out of the interaction of the heritage of the ancient world, more precisely - the disintegrating civilization of the Roman Empire, Christianity it engendered, and, on the other hand, tribal, folk cultures of the barbarians. It was a process of painful synthesis, born of the fusion of contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive principles, the search for not only new content, but also new forms of culture, the transfer of the baton of cultural development to its new carriers.

Even in late antiquity, Christianity became that unifying shell, which could accommodate a variety of views, ideas and moods - from subtle theological doctrines to pagan superstitions and barbaric rituals. In fact, Christianity during the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages was a very receptive (up to certain limits) form that met the needs of the mass consciousness of the era. This was one of the most important reasons for its gradual strengthening, absorbing other ideological and cultural phenomena and combining them into a relatively unified structure. In this regard, the activity of the father of the church, the greatest theologian, Bishop Aurelius Augustine of Hippo, was of great importance for the Middle Ages, whose multifaceted work, in fact, outlined the boundaries of the spiritual space of the Middle Ages up to the 13th century, when the theological system of Thomas Aquinas was created. Augustine belongs to the most consistent substantiation of the dogma about the role of the church, which became the basis of medieval Catholicism, the Christian philosophy of history, developed by him in the work "On the City of God", in Christian psychology. Before the Augustinian "Confession", Greek and Latin literature did not know such a deep introspection and such a deep penetration into the inner world of man. The philosophical and pedagogical works of Augustine were of significant value for medieval culture.

To understand the genesis of medieval culture, it is important to take into account that it was primarily formed in a region where until recently was the center of a powerful, universalist Roman civilization, which could not disappear historically at one time, while social relations and institutions, culture, generated by it, continued to exist. , the people who were fed by her were alive. Even in the most difficult time for Western Europe, the Roman school tradition was not stopped. The Middle Ages perceived such an important element of it as the system of seven liberal arts, divided into two levels: the lower, initial - trivium, which included grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, and the upper - quadrivium, which included arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. One of the most widespread textbooks in the Middle Ages was created by the African Neoplatonist of the 5th century. Marcian Capella. This was his work "On the marriage of Philology and Mercury". The most important means of cultural continuity between antiquity and the Middle Ages was the Latin language, which retained its significance as the language of the church and state administration, international communication and culture, and served as the basis for the Romance languages \u200b\u200bthat subsequently developed.

The most striking phenomena in the culture of the late V - first half of the VII century. associated with the assimilation of the ancient heritage, which became a breeding ground for the revitalization of cultural life in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain.

The Master of Offices (First Minister) of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric Severin Boethius (c. 480-525) is one of the most revered teachers of the Middle Ages. His treatises on arithmetic and music, works on logic and theology, translations of Aristotle's logical works became the foundation of the medieval system of education and philosophy. Boethius is often called the "father of scholasticism." Boethius's brilliant career was suddenly interrupted. On false denunciation, he was thrown into prison and then executed. Before his death, he wrote a small essay in verse and prose "On the Consolation of Philosophy", which became one of the most widely read works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The idea of \u200b\u200bcombining Christian theology and rhetorical culture determined the direction of the activity of the quaestor (secretary) and master of offices of the Ostrogothic kings Flavius \u200b\u200bCassiodorus (c. 490 - c. 585). He hatched plans to create the first university in the West, which, unfortunately, were not destined to come true. He penned "Varia", a unique collection of documents, business and diplomatic correspondence, which became for many centuries a model of Latin stylistics. In the south of Italy, in his estate, Cassiodorus founded the Vivarium monastery - a cultural center that united a school, a book correspondence workshop (scriptorium), and a library. The vivarium became a model for Benedictine monasteries, which, starting from the second half of the 6th century. turn into custodians of the cultural tradition in the West until the era of the developed Middle Ages. Among them, the most famous was the Montecassino Monastery in Italy.

Visigothic Spain nominated one of the greatest educators of the early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville (c. 570-636), who became the first medieval encyclopedist. His main work "Etymology" in 20 books is a collection of what has been preserved from ancient knowledge.

However, one should not think that the assimilation of the ancient heritage was carried out unimpeded and on a large scale. Continuity in the culture of that time was not and could not be a complete continuity of the achievements of classical antiquity. The struggle was to preserve only a small surviving part of the cultural values \u200b\u200band knowledge of the previous era. But this was also extremely important for the formation of medieval culture, for what was preserved constituted an important part of its foundation and concealed the possibilities of creative development, which were realized later.

At the end of the VI-beginning of the VII century. Pope Gregory I (590-604) sharply opposed the idea of \u200b\u200ballowing pagan wisdom into the world of Christian spiritual life, condemning vain worldly knowledge. For several centuries, his position triumphed in the spiritual life of Western Europe, and later found adherents among church leaders until the end of the Middle Ages. The name of Pope Gregory is associated with the development of Latin hagiographic literature, which perfectly met the needs of the mass consciousness of the people of the early Middle Ages. Lives of the saints have become a favorite genre for a long time in these centuries of social upheavals, hunger, calamities and wars. The saint becomes the new hero of a man thirsty for a miracle, tormented by the terrible reality of a person.

From the second half of the 7th century. cultural life in Western Europe is in complete decline; it barely lingers in monasteries, and somewhat more intensely in Ireland, from where the monastic teachers "came" to the continent.

Extremely scanty data sources do not allow to recreate any complete picture of the cultural life of the barbarian tribes that stood at the origins of medieval civilization in Europe. However, it is generally recognized that the beginning of the formation of the heroic epic of the peoples of Western and Northern Europe (ancient German, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Irish), which replaced history, dates back to the time of the Great Migration of Nations, to the first centuries of the Middle Ages.

The barbarians of the early Middle Ages brought a kind of vision and feeling of the world, still full of primitive power, nourished by the tribal ties of man and the community to which he belonged, a warlike energy characteristic of the tribal feeling of inseparability from nature, the indivisibility of the world of people and gods.

The unbridled and gloomy fantasy of the Germans and Celts inhabited forests, hills and rivers with evil dwarfs, werewolf monsters, dragons and fairies. Gods and people-heroes are constantly fighting against evil forces. At the same time, the gods are powerful sorcerers, wizards. These ideas were reflected in the bizarre ornaments of the barbarian animal style in art, in which the figures of animals lost their integrity and definiteness, as if "flowing" into one another in arbitrary pattern combinations and turning into a kind of magical symbols. But the gods of barbarian mythology are the personification of not only natural, but already social forces. The head of the Germanic pantheon Wotan (Odin) is the god of the storm, the whirlwind, but he is also a warrior leader, standing at the head of the heroic heavenly army. The souls of the Germans who fell on the battlefield rush to him in the bright Valhalla in order to be accepted into Wotan's squad. During the Christianization of the barbarians, their gods did not die, they were transformed and merged with the cults of local saints or joined the ranks of demons.

The Germans also brought with them a system of moral values \u200b\u200bformed in the depths of the patriarchal clan society, where special importance was attached to the ideals of loyalty, military courage with a sacred attitude to the military leader, and ritual. The psychological makeup of the Germans, Celts and other barbarians was characterized by open emotionality, unrestrained intensity in the expression of feelings. All this also left its mark on the emerging medieval culture.

The early Middle Ages was a time of growth in the consciousness of barbarian peoples who came to the fore in European history. It was then that the first written "histories" were created, covering the deeds of not the Romans, but the barbarians: "Getika" by the historian Goths Jordan (6th century), "The story of the kings of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi" by Isidore of Seville (first third of the 7th century), " History of the Franks "Gregory of Tours (second half of the 6th century)," Ecclesiastical history of the people of the Angles "The troubles of the Venerable (late 7th - early 8th century)," History of the Lombards "by Paul the Deacon (8th century).

The formation of the culture of the early Middle Ages was a complex process of synthesis of the late antique, Christian and barbarian traditions. During this period, a certain type of spiritual life of Western European society crystallized, the main role in which began to belong to the Christian religion and the church.

Carolingian Revival. The first tangible fruits of this interaction were obtained during the Carolingian Renaissance - the rise of cultural life that took place under Charlemagne and his closest successors. For Charlemagne, the political ideal was the empire of Constantine the Great. Culturally and ideologically, he strove to consolidate a multi-tribal state based on the Christian religion. This is evidenced by the fact that the reforms in the cultural sphere began with a comparison of various copies of the Bible and the establishment of its single canonical text for the entire Carolingian state. At the same time, a reform of the liturgy was carried out, its uniformity was established, it corresponded to the Roman model.

The reformist aspirations of the sovereign coincided with the deep processes taking place in society, which needed to expand the circle of educated people capable of contributing to the practical implementation of new political and social tasks. Charlemagne, although he himself, according to the testimony of his biographer Einhard, was never able to learn to write, he was constantly concerned about improving education in the state. Around 787, the "Capitulary on the Sciences" was published, obliging to create schools in all dioceses, at each monastery. They were supposed to study not only the clergy, but also the children of the laity. Along with this, a letter reform was carried out, textbooks were compiled on various school disciplines.

The main center of education was the court academy in Aachen. The most educated people of that time Europe were invited here. The largest figure in the Carolingian Renaissance was Alcuin, a native of Britain. He urged not to despise "human (ie, not theological) sciences", to teach children to read and write and philosophy, so that they can reach the heights of wisdom. Most of Alcuin's works are written for pedagogical purposes, their favorite form is a dialogue between a teacher and a student or two students, he used riddles and answers, simple paraphrases and complex allegories. Among the students of Alcuin were prominent figures of the Carolingian Renaissance, among them - the encyclopedic writer Raban Mavr. At the court of Charlemagne, a kind of historical school was formed, the most prominent representatives of which were Paul the Deacon, the author of the "History of the Lombards," and Einhardt, who compiled the "Biography" of Charlemagne.

After Karl's death, the cultural movement that he inspired quickly declined, schools were closed, secular tendencies were gradually fading away, and cultural life was again concentrated in monasteries. In the monastery scriptoriums, the works of ancient authors were rewritten and preserved for future generations, but the main occupation of the learned monks was still not ancient literature, but theology.

Quite apart in the culture of the 9th century. there is a native of Ireland, one of the greatest philosophers of the European Middle Ages, John Scott Eriugena. Relying on neo-Platonic philosophy, in particular on the writings of the Byzantine thinker Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, he came to original pantheistic conclusions. He was saved from reprisals by the fact that the radicalism of his views was not understood by his contemporaries, who had little interest in philosophy. Only in the XIII century. Eriugena's views were condemned as heretical.

The 9th century gave very interesting examples of monastic religious poetry. The secular line in literature is represented by "historical poems" and "praise" in honor of kings, squad poetry. At that time, the first recordings of Germanic folklore and its transcriptions into Latin were made, which later served as the basis for the Germanic epic "Valtarius" compiled in Latin.

At the end of the early Middle Ages in northern Europe in Iceland and Norway, the poetry of the Skalds, which has no analogues in world literature, flourishes, which were not only poets and performers at the same time, but also Vikings, vigilantes. Their songs of praise, lyrical or "topical" songs are a necessary element of the life of the king's court and his squad.

The response to the needs of the mass consciousness of the era was the proliferation of literature such as Lives of Saints and Visions. They bore the imprint of popular consciousness, mass psychology, their inherent imagery, system of ideas.

By the X century. the impetus given to the cultural life of Europe by the Carolingian renaissance is dwindling due to incessant wars and civil strife, the political decline of the state. A period of "cultural silence" began, which lasted almost until the end of the 10th century. and was replaced by a short period of rise, the so-called Ottonian revival, after which there will no longer be periods of such a deep decline in the cultural life of Western Europe as from the middle of the 7th to the beginning of the 9th century. and for several decades in the X century. XI-XIV centuries will be the time when medieval culture will take on its "classical" forms.

Worldview. Theology and philosophy. The worldview of the Middle Ages was predominantly theological *. Christianity was the ideological core of culture and all spiritual life. Theology, or religious philosophy, became the highest form of ideology intended for the elite, educated people, while for the huge mass of the illiterate, for the "simple people", ideology appeared primarily in the form of a "practical", cult religion. The fusion of theology and other levels of religious consciousness created a single ideological and psychological complex, embracing all classes and strata of feudal society.

* (See: K. Marx, F. Engels, Soch. 2nd ed. T. 21.S. 495.)

Medieval philosophy, like the entire culture of feudal Western Europe, from the very first stages of its development, reveals a gravitation towards universalism. It is formed on the basis of Latin Christian thought revolving around the problem of the relationship between God, the world and man, which was discussed in the patristics - the teachings of the church fathers of the 2nd-8th centuries. The specificity of medieval consciousness dictated that not a single even the most radical thinker objectively denied and could not deny the primacy of spirit over matter, of God over the world. However, the interpretation of the problem of the relationship between faith and reason was by no means unambiguous. In the XI century. the ascetic and theologian Peter Damiani categorically stated that reason is insignificant before faith, philosophy can only be a "servant of theology." He was opposed by Berengary of Tours, who defended the human mind and in his rationalism reached the point of outright ridicule of the church.

XI century - the time of birth of scholasticism as a broad intellectual movement. This name is derived from the Latin word schola (school) and literally means "school philosophy", which rather indicates the place of its birth than the content. Scholasticism is a philosophy that grows out of theology and is inextricably linked with it, but not identical to it. Its essence is the comprehension of the dogmatic premises of Christianity from rationalistic positions and with the help of logical tools. This is due to the fact that the central place in scholasticism was occupied by the struggle around the problem of universals - general concepts. In her interpretation, three main directions were identified: realism, nominalism and conceptualism. Realists argued that universals exist for eternity, dwelling in the divine mind. Connecting with matter, they are realized in specific things. Nominalists, however, believed that general concepts are derived by reason from the comprehension of single, concrete things. An intermediate position was occupied by conceptualists who viewed general concepts as something that exists in things. This seemingly abstract philosophical controversy had very specific outlets in theology, and it was no coincidence that the Church condemned nominalism, which sometimes led to heresy, and supported moderate realism.

In the XII century. out of the confrontation of various trends in scholasticism, an open resistance to the authority of the church grew. It was expressed by Peter Abelard (1079-1142), whom his contemporaries called "the most brilliant mind of his age." A disciple of the nominalist Roscellin Compiegne, Abelard, in his youth, defeated the then popular realist philosopher Guillaume of Champeau in a dispute, leaving no stone unturned from his arguments. The most inquisitive and daring students began to gather around Abelard, he acquired the glory of a brilliant teacher and an orator invincible in philosophical debates. Abelard rationalized the relationship between faith and reason, making understanding as a prerequisite for faith. In his work "Yes and No" Abelard developed the methods of dialectics, which significantly advanced scholasticism forward. Abelard was a supporter of conceptualism. However, although in a philosophical sense he did not always come to the most radical conclusions, he was often overwhelmed by the desire to bring the interpretation of Christian dogmas to a logical conclusion, and in so doing he naturally came to heresy.

Abelard's opponent was Bernard of Clairvaux, who during his lifetime acquired the glory of a saint, one of the most prominent representatives of medieval mysticism. In the XII century. mysticism became widespread, became a powerful trend within the framework of scholasticism. It reflected an exalted attraction to the God-redeemer, the limit of mystical meditation was the merging of man with the creator. The philosophizing mysticism of Bernard of Clairvaux and other philosophical schools found a response in secular literature, in various heresies of a mystical sense. However, the essence of the clash between Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux is not so much in the dissimilarity of their philosophical positions, but in the fact that Abelard embodied the opposition to the authority of the church, and Bernard acted as its defender and major figure, as an apologist for church organization and discipline. As a result, Abelard's views were condemned at church councils, and he himself ended his life in a monastery.

For the XII century. the growing interest in the Greco-Roman heritage is characteristic. In philosophy, this is expressed in a deeper study of ancient thinkers. Their works are beginning to be translated into Latin, primarily the works of Aristotle, as well as the treatises of the ancient scholars Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen and others, preserved in Greek and Arabic manuscripts.

For the fate of Aristotelian philosophy in Western Europe, it was essential that it was, as it were, re-assimilated not in its original form, but through the Byzantine and especially Arab commentators, first of all Averroes (Ibn Rushd), who gave it a peculiarly "materialistic" interpretation. Of course, it is wrong to talk about true materialism in the Middle Ages. All attempts at "materialist" interpretation, even the most radical ones, denying the immortality of the human soul or affirming the eternity of the world, were nevertheless carried out within the framework of theism, that is, the recognition of absolute being, God. From this, however, they did not lose their revolutionary significance.

Aristotle's doctrine quickly gained immense authority in the scientific centers of Italy, France, England, Spain. However, at the beginning of the XIII century. it met with sharp resistance in Paris from theologians who relied on the Augustinian tradition. A number of official prohibitions of Aristotelianism followed, the views of supporters of the radical interpretation of Aristotle Amory of Vienna and David of Dinans were condemned. However, Aristotelianism in Europe was gaining strength so rapidly that by the middle of the XIII century. the church turned out to be powerless before this onslaught and faced the need to assimilate the Aristotelian doctrine. The Dominicans were involved in this task. It was started by Albertus Magnus, and the synthesis of Aristotelianism and Catholic theology was attempted by his disciple Form Aquinas (1225 / 26-1274), whose activity became the pinnacle and result of theological-rationalistic searches of mature scholasticism. The teaching of Thomas was at first greeted by the church rather wary, and some of his provisions were even condemned. But already from the end of the XIII century. Thomism becomes the official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The ideological opponents of Thomas Aquinas were the Averroists, followers of the Arab thinker Averroes, who taught at the University of Paris at the Faculty of Arts. They demanded the liberation of philosophy from the interference of theology and dogma. Essentially, they insisted on separating reason from faith. On this basis, the concept of Latin averroism was formed, which included the concept of the eternity of the world, the denial of divine providence and developed the doctrine of the unity of the intellect.

In the XIV century. Orthodox scholasticism, which asserted the possibility of reconciling reason and faith on the basis of submission to the first revelation, was criticized by the radical English philosophers Duns Scotus and William Ockham, who defended the position of nominalism. Dune Scott, and then Ockham and his disciples demanded a decisive distinction between the spheres of faith and reason, theology and philosophy. Theology denied the right to interfere in the field of philosophy and empirical knowledge. Ockham spoke about the eternity of motion and time, about the infinity of the Universe, developed the doctrine of experience as a foundation and source of knowledge. Occamism was condemned by the church, Occam's books were burned. However, the ideas of occamism continued to develop, they were partly taken up by the philosophers of the Renaissance.

The greatest thinker who influenced the formation of the natural philosophy of the Renaissance was Nikolai Kuzansky (1401-1464), a native of Germany, who spent the end of his life in Rome as the general vicar at the papal court. He tried to develop a universal understanding of the principles of the world and the structure of the Universe, based not on orthodox Christianity, but on its dialectical-pantheistic interpretation. Nikolai Kuzansky insisted on separating the subject of rational knowledge (the study of nature) from theology, which dealt a tangible blow to orthodox scholasticism, mired in formal logical reasoning, increasingly losing its positive meaning, degenerating into a play on words and terms.

Education. Schools and universities. The Middle Ages inherited from antiquity the basis on which education was built. These were the seven liberal arts. Grammar was considered the "mother of all sciences", dialectics provided formal logical knowledge, the foundations of philosophy and logic, rhetoric taught to speak correctly and expressively. "Mathematical disciplines" - arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy were thought of as the sciences of numerical ratios that underlie world harmony.

Since the XI century. a steady rise of medieval schools begins, the education system is improving. Schools were subdivided into monastic, cathedral (at city cathedrals), parish. With the growth of cities, the emergence of an ever-increasing stratum of townspeople and the flourishing of workshops, secular, urban private, as well as guild and municipal schools, not subject to the direct dictates of the church, are gaining strength. The students of non-church schools were wandering schoolboys - vagants or goliards, who came from the urban, peasant, knightly environment, the lower clergy.

Education in schools was conducted in Latin, only in the XIV century. schools with teaching in national languages \u200b\u200bappeared. The Middle Ages did not know a stable division of the school into primary, secondary and higher, taking into account the specifics of child and youth perception and psychology. Religious in content, in form, education was of a verbal and rhetorical character. The beginnings of mathematics and natural sciences were presented fragmentarily, descriptively, often in a fantastic interpretation. Centers for teaching craft skills in the XII century. workshops become.

In the XII-XIII centuries. Western Europe experienced economic and cultural growth. The development of cities as centers of crafts and trade, broadening the horizons of Europeans, acquaintance with the culture of the East, primarily Byzantine and Arab, served as incentives for the improvement of medieval education. Cathedral schools in the largest urban centers of Europe turned into general schools, and then into universities, which received their name from the Latin word universitas - a set, a community. In the XIII century. such higher schools have developed in Bologna, Montpellier, Palermo, Paris, Oxford; Salerno and other cities. By the XV century. there were about 60 universities in Europe.

The university possessed legal, administrative, financial autonomy, which were bestowed on it by special documents of the sovereign or the pope. The university's external independence was combined with strict regulation and discipline of internal life. The university was subdivided into faculties. The junior faculty, compulsory for all students, was the artistic (from the Latin word artes - art), in which the seven liberal arts were studied in full, then law, medical, theological (the latter did not exist in all universities). The largest university was Paris. Western European students also flocked to Spain for education. Schools and universities in Cordoba, Seville, Salamanca, Malaga and Valencia provided more extensive and deeper knowledge in philosophy, mathematics, medicine, chemistry, astronomy.

In the XIV-XV centuries. the geography of universities is expanding significantly. Collegia are developing (hence the colleges). Initially, this was the name of student dormitories, but gradually the colleges are turning into centers for classes, lectures, and disputes. Founded in 1257 by the confessor of the French king Robert de Sorbonne, the college, called the Sorbonne, gradually grew and strengthened its authority so much that the entire University of Paris was named after it.

Universities hastened the process of forming a secular intelligentsia in Western Europe. They were real nurseries of knowledge, played an important role in the cultural development of society. However, by the end of the 15th century. there is a certain aristocratization of universities, an increasing number of students, teachers (masters) and university professors come from the privileged strata of society. For a while, conservative forces have been gaining the upper hand in universities, especially where these institutions have not yet freed themselves from papal influence.

With the development of schools and universities, the demand for books is expanding. In the early Middle Ages, the book was a luxury item. The books were written on parchment - specially made calfskin. Parchment sheets were sewn together using thin strong ropes and placed in a binding of boards covered with leather, sometimes decorated with precious stones and metals. The text written by scribes was adorned with hand-painted capital letters - initials, headpieces, and later - magnificent miniatures. Since the XII century. the book becomes cheaper, city workshops for the correspondence of books are opened, in which not monks, but artisans work. Since the XIV century. paper began to be widely used in the production of books. The book production process is simplified and unified, which was especially important for the preparation of book printing, the appearance of which in the 40s of the 15th century. (its inventor was the German master Johannes Gutenberg) made the book truly popular in Europe and entailed significant changes in cultural life.

Until the XII century. books were predominantly concentrated in church libraries. In the XII-XV centuries. there are numerous libraries at universities, royal courts, large feudal lords, clerics and wealthy citizens.

The origin of experiential knowledge. By the XIII century. usually refers to the origin of interest in empirical knowledge in Western Europe. Until then, abstract knowledge based on pure speculation, often very fantastic in content, prevailed here. Between practical knowledge and philosophy lay a gulf that seemed insurmountable. Natural science methods of cognition were not developed. Grammatical, rhetorical and logical approaches prevailed. It is no coincidence that the medieval encyclopedist Vincent from Beauvais wrote: "The science of nature has as its subject the invisible causes of visible things." Communication with the material world was carried out through artificial and cumbersome, often fantastic abstractions. Alchemy provided a peculiar example of this. To a medieval man, the world seemed knowable, but he knew only what he wanted to know, and the way this world seemed to him, that is, full of unusual things, inhabited by outlandish creatures like people with dog heads. The line between the real and the higher, supersensible world was often erased.

However, life demanded not illusory, but practical knowledge. In the XII century. some progress has been outlined in the field of mechanics and mathematics. This has raised concerns among orthodox theologians who have called practical science "adulterous." The Oxford University translated and commented on the natural science treatises of ancient scholars and Arabs. Robert Grossetest made an attempt to apply a mathematical approach to the study of nature.

In the XIII century. Oxford professor Roger Bacon, starting with scholastic studies, eventually comes to the study of nature, to the denial of authority, decisively giving preference to experience over purely speculative argumentation. Bacon achieved significant results in optics, physics, chemistry. The reputation of a magician and a wizard was strengthened behind him. It was said about him that he created a talking copper head or a metal man, put forward the idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding a bridge by thickening the air. He owned the assertion that it is possible to make self-propelled ships and chariots, vehicles that fly through the air or move unhindered along the bottom of the sea or river. Bacon's life was full of vicissitudes and hardships, he was more than once condemned by the church and spent a long time in captivity.

The successors of his work were William Ockham and his students Nikolai Otrekur, Buridan and Nikolai Orezmsky (Orem), who did a lot for the further development of physics, mechanics, astronomy. So, Orem, for example, approached the discovery of the law of falling bodies, developed the doctrine of the daily rotation of the earth, substantiated the idea of \u200b\u200busing coordinates. Nikolai Otrekur was close to atomism.

Various sectors of society were engulfed in "cognitive enthusiasm". In the Kingdom of Sicily, where various sciences and arts flourished, the activity of translators, who turned to the philosophical and natural-scientific works of Greek and Arab authors, was widely developed. Under the auspices of the Sicilian sovereigns, a medical school flourished in Salerno, from which the famous "Salerno Codex" by Arnold da Villanov came out. It gives a variety of instructions for maintaining health, descriptions medicinal properties various plants, poisons and antidotes, etc.

Alchemists, engaged in the search for a "philosopher's stone" capable of converting base metals into gold, side-by-side made a number of important discoveries - they studied the properties of various substances, numerous ways of acting on them, obtained various alloys and chemical compounds, acids, alkalis, mineral paints, equipment and installations for experiments have been created and improved: a distillation still, chemical furnaces, apparatus for filtration and distillation, etc.

The geographical knowledge of Europeans has been significantly enriched. Back in the XIII century. the Vivaldi brothers from Genoa tried to round the West African coast. The Venetian Marco Polo made a long-term trip to China and Central Asia, describing it in his "Book", which was distributed in Europe in many copies in various languages. In the XIV-XV centuries. quite numerous descriptions of various lands made by travelers appear, maps are improved, geographic atlases are compiled. All this was of no small importance for the preparation of the Great Geographical Discoveries.

The place of history in the medieval worldview. Historical representations played an important role in the spiritual life of the Middle Ages. In that era, history was not seen as science or as fun reading; she was an essential part of the worldview.

Various kinds of "stories", chronicles, annals, biographies of kings, descriptions of their deeds and other historical works were the favorite genres of medieval literature. This was largely due to the fact that Christianity attached great importance to history. The Christian religion initially claimed that its foundation - the Old and New Testaments - was fundamentally historical. The existence of man unfolds in time, has its beginning - the creation of the world and man - and the end - the second coming of Christ, when the Last Judgment must take place and the goal of history, presented as the way of salvation of mankind by God, will be accomplished.

In feudal society, the historian, chronicler, chronicler was thought of as "a person who binds times." History was a means of self-knowledge of society and a guarantor of its worldview and social stability, for it affirmed its universality and regularity in the change of generations, in the world-historical process. This can be seen especially clearly in such "classic" works of the historical genre as the chronicles of Otto Freisingen, Guibert Nozhansky, and others.

Such a universal "historicism" was combined with a seemingly surprising lack of a sense of a specific historical distance among medieval people. They represented the past in the appearance and costumes of their era, seeing in it not what distinguished people and events of ancient times from themselves, but what seemed to them to be common, universal. The past was not assimilated, but appropriated, as if becoming a part of their own historical reality. Alexander the Great presented himself as a medieval knight, and the biblical kings ruled in the manner of feudal sovereigns.

Heroic epic. The keeper of history, collective memory, a kind of life and behavioral standard, a means of ideological and aesthetic self-affirmation was the heroic epic, which concentrated in itself the most important aspects of spiritual life, ideals and aesthetic values, the poetics of medieval peoples. The roots of the heroic epic of Western Europe go back to the depths of the barbarian era. This is first of all evidenced by the plot outline of many epic works, it is based on the events of the Great Migration of Nations.

Questions about the origin of the heroic epic, its dating, the relationship between collective and authorial creativity in its creation are still debatable in science. The first records of epic works in Western Europe date back to the 8th-9th centuries. The early stage of epic poetry is associated with the development of early feudal military poetry - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Old Scandinavian - which has been preserved in unique scattered fragments.

The epos of the developed Middle Ages is national-patriotic in nature, at the same time it reflected not only universal human values, but also knightly-feudal ones. In it, the idealization of ancient heroes takes place in the spirit of chivalrous Christian ideology, the motive of the struggle "for the right faith" arises, as if reinforcing the ideal of defending the fatherland, and features of courtesy appear.

Epic works, as a rule, are structurally holistic and universal. Each of them is the embodiment of a certain picture of the world, covers many aspects of the life of the heroes. Hence the displacement of the historical, the real and the fantastic. The epic, probably in one form or another, was familiar to every member of medieval society, was a public property.

In the Western European epic, two layers can be distinguished: the historical (heroic legends having a real historical basis) and the fantastic, closer to folklore, a folk tale.

The record of the Anglo-Saxon epic "The Tale of Beowulf" dates back to about 1000. It tells the story of a young warrior from the Gout people, performing heroic deeds, defeating monsters and dying in battle with a dragon. Fantastic adventures unfold against a real historical background, reflecting the process of feudalization among the peoples of Northern Europe.

Among the famous monuments of world literature are the Icelandic sagas. "The Elder Edda" includes nineteen Old Icelandic epic songs that retain the features of the most ancient stages in the development of verbal art. "Younger Edda", belonging to the Skald poet of the XIII century. Snorri Sturlusonu is a kind of guide in the poetic art of the Skalds with a vivid exposition of Icelandic pagan mythological legends, rooted in the most ancient common Germanic mythology.

The French epic "Song of Roland" and the Spanish "Song of My Side" are based on real historical events: in the first - the battle of the Frankish detachment with the enemies in the Ronseval Gorge in 778, in the second - one of the episodes of the Reconquista. These works have very strong patriotic motives, which allows us to draw certain parallels between them and the Russian epic "The Lay of Igor's Campaign." The patriotic duty of idealized heroes is paramount. The real military-political situation in epic legends acquires the scale of a universal event, and through such exaggeration, ideals are affirmed that outgrow the framework of their epoch and become human values \u200b\u200b"for all time."

The heroic epic of Germany "The Song of the Nibelungs" is much more mythologized. In it we also meet heroes who have historical prototypes - Etzel (Attila), Dietrich of Berne (Theodoric), the Burgundian king Gunther, Queen Brunhilde, etc. The story about them is intertwined with plots, the hero of which is Siegfried (Sigurd); his adventures are reminiscent of ancient heroic tales. He defeats the terrible dragon Fafnir, guarding the treasures of the Nibelungen, performs other feats, but in the end he dies.

Associated with a certain type of historical understanding of the world, the heroic epic of the Middle Ages was a means of ritual-symbolic reflection and experience of reality, which is typical for both the West and the East. This revealed a certain typological similarity of medieval cultures from different regions of the world.

Knightly culture. Knightly culture was a bright and so often romanticized page in the cultural life of the Middle Ages. Its creator and bearer was knighthood - a military aristocratic class, which originated in the early Middle Ages and reached its peak in the XI-XIV centuries. The ideology of chivalry is rooted, on the one hand, in the depths of self-consciousness of barbarian peoples, and on the other, in the concept of service developed by Christianity, which was initially interpreted as purely religious, but in the Middle Ages acquired a much broader meaning and spread to the area of \u200b\u200bpurely secular relations, up to before serving the lady of the heart.

Loyalty to the lord was the core of the knightly epic. Betrayal and treachery were considered the gravest sins for the knight, and entailed expulsion from the corporation. War was a knight's profession, but gradually chivalry began to consider itself in general a champion of justice. In fact, this remained an unattainable ideal, because justice was understood by chivalry in a very peculiar way and extended only to a very narrow circle of people, bearing a clearly expressed estate-corporate character. Suffice it to recall the frank statement of the troubadour Bertrand de Born: "I love to see the people starving, naked, suffering, not warmed up."

The knightly code demanded many virtues from those who had to follow it, for a knight, in the words of Raymond Llull, the author of the famous instruction, is one who "acts nobly and leads a noble way of life."

In the life of a knight, much was deliberately exposed. Courage, generosity, nobility, which few people knew about, had no value. The knight constantly strove for primacy, for glory. The whole Christian world should have known about his deeds and love. Hence the external brilliance of knightly culture, its special attention to ritual, paraphernalia, symbolism of colors, objects, to etiquette. Knightly tournaments, imitating real battles, acquired special splendor in the XIII-XIV centuries, when the color of knighthood from different parts of Europe was going to them.

Knightly literature was not only a means of expressing the self-consciousness of chivalry, its ideals, but also actively formed them. The feedback was so strong that medieval chroniclers, describing battles or exploits of real people, did so in accordance with models from chivalric novels, which, having emerged in the middle of the 12th century, became the central phenomenon of secular culture over several decades. They were created in folk languages, the action developed as a series of heroes' adventures. One of the main sources of the Western European knightly (courtly) novel was the Celtic epic about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. From it was born the most beautiful story of love and death - the story of Tristan and Isolde, forever remaining in the treasury of human culture. The heroes of this Breton cycle are Lancelot and Perceval, Palmerin and Amidis and others, according to the authors of the novels, among whom the most famous was a French poet of the 12th century. Chrétien de Trois, embodied the highest human values \u200b\u200bthat belonged not to the otherworldly, but to earthly being. This was especially clearly expressed in a new understanding of love, the former center and driving force of any chivalrous romance. In knightly culture, the cult of the lady arises, which constitutes a necessary element of courtesy. From the end of the XI century. in Provence, the poetry of the troubadours - poets-knights flourishes. In the XII century. from Provence, her passion spreads to other countries. In the north of France trouvers appeared, in Germany - minnesingers, courtly poetry developed both in Italy and on the Iberian Peninsula.

Love service has become a kind of "religion" of the upper circle. It is not accidental that at the same time in medieval Christianity the cult of the Virgin Mary came to the fore. Madonna reigns in heaven and in the hearts of believers, just as a lady reigns in the heart of a knight in love with her.

For all its attractiveness, the ideal of courtesy has not always been embodied in life. With the decline of chivalry in the 15th century. it becomes just an element of a fashionable game.

Urban culture. Since the XI century. cities are becoming centers of cultural life in Western Europe. The anti-clerical freedom-loving orientation of urban culture, its connections with folk art, were most clearly manifested in the development of urban literature, which from its very inception was created in folk dialects, in contrast to the dominant church Latin-language literature. Her favorite genres are poetic novellas, fables, jokes (fablio in France, Schwanki in Germany). They were distinguished by their satirical spirit, rude humor, and vivid imagery. They ridiculed the greed of the clergy, the sterility of scholastic wisdom, the arrogance and ignorance of the feudal lords, and many other realities of medieval life that contradicted the sober, practical view of the world that was forming among the townspeople.

Fablio, the Schwanks put forward a new type of hero - cheerful, roguish, smart, always finding a way out of any difficult situation thanks to his natural intelligence and abilities. Thus, in the well-known collection of Schwanks "Pop Amis", which left a deep mark in German literature, the hero feels himself in the world of city life, confidently and easily in the most incredible circumstances. With all his tricks and ingenuity, he claims that life belongs to the townspeople no less than to other estates, and that the place of townspeople in the world is solid and reliable. Urban literature castigated vices and morals, responded to the news of the day, and was highly "modern". The wisdom of the people was clothed in it in the form of apt proverbs and sayings. The church persecuted poets from the urban lower classes, in whose work it saw a direct threat. For example, the works of the Parisian Ruetbeuf at the end of the XIII century. were condemned by the Pope to be burned.

Along with short stories, fables and schwanks, an urban satirical epic took shape. It was based on fairy tales that originated in the early Middle Ages. One of the most beloved among the townspeople was "The Romance of the Fox", formed in France, but translated into German, English, Italian and other languages. The resourceful and daring Fox Renard, in whose image a prosperous, intelligent and enterprising city dweller is bred, invariably defeats the stupid and bloodthirsty Wolf Isengrin, the strong and stupid Bear Bren - they were easily guessed as a knight and a large feudal lord. He also twisted around the finger of Leo Noble (king) and constantly ridiculed the foolishness of the Donkey Baudouin (priest). But sometimes Renard plotted against chickens, hares, snails, and began to pursue the weak and humiliated. And then the common people destroyed his intentions. Even sculptural images in cathedrals in Autun, Bourges and others were created on the plots of the "Novel of the Fox".

By the XIII century. the emergence of urban theatrical art. Liturgical events, church mysteries were known much earlier. It is characteristic that under the influence of new trends associated with the development of cities, they become brighter, carnival. Secular elements penetrate them. Urban "games", that is, theatrical performances, from the very beginning are secular in nature, their plots are borrowed from life, and expressive means are from folklore, the work of wandering actors - jugglers, who were simultaneously dancers, singers, musicians, acrobats, magicians. One of the most beloved urban "games" in the XIII century. was "The Game of Robin and Marion", an ingenuous story of a young shepherdess and shepherdess, whose love conquered the machinations of a crafty and rude knight. Theatrical "games" were played out right on the city squares, the townspeople present took part in them. These "games" were an expression of the folk culture of the Middle Ages.

The bearers of the spirit of protest and free thinking were wandering schoolchildren and students - vagants. Oppositional sentiments against the church and the existing order were strong among the Vagants, which were also characteristic of the urban lower classes as a whole. Vagantes created a kind of poetry in Latin. All Europe from Toledo to Prague, from Palermo to London knew and sang the witty, scourging vices of society and glorifying the joy of life. These songs especially hit the church and its ministers.

"The last vagant" is sometimes called a French poet of the 15th century. François Villon, although he wrote not in Latin, but in his native language... Like the Vagants of earlier times, he was a vagrant, a poor man, doomed to eternal wanderings, persecution from the church and justice. Villon's poetry is marked by a tart taste of life and lyricism, full of tragic contradictions and drama. She is deeply human. Villon's poems absorbed the suffering of disadvantaged ordinary people and their optimism, rebellious moods of that time.

However, urban culture was not unambiguous. Since the XIII century. in it didactic (edifying, instructive) and allegorical motives begin to sound more and more. This is also manifested in the fate of theatrical genres, in which, since the XIV century. the language of hints, symbols and allegories is gaining more and more importance. There is a certain "ossification" of the figurative structure of theatrical performances, in which religious motives are intensified.

Allegorism becomes an indispensable condition for "high" literature. This is especially clearly seen in one of the most interesting works of that time, "The Romance of the Rose", written successively by two authors, Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Men. The hero of this philosophical and allegorical poem is a young poet aspiring to the ideal embodied in the symbolic image of the Rose. "The novel about the Rose" is permeated with ideas of free thought, praises Nature and Reason, it criticizes the estate structure of feudal society.

New trends. Dante Alighieri. The most complex figure of the Italian poet and thinker, the Florentine Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), crowns the Middle Ages and at the same time stands at the origins of the Renaissance. Expelled from his hometown by political opponents, condemned to wandering until the end of his life, Dante was an ardent champion of the unification and social renewal of Italy. His poetical and ideological synthesis - "Divine Comedy" - is the result of the best spiritual aspirations of the mature Middle Ages, but at the same time it carries the insight of the coming cultural and historical era, its aspirations, creative possibilities and insoluble contradictions.

The highest achievements of philosophical thought, political doctrines and natural scientific knowledge, the deepest comprehension of the human soul and social relations, melted in the crucible of poetic inspiration, create in Dante's Divine Comedy a grandiose picture of the universe, nature, the existence of society and man. Dante's mystical images and motives of "holy poverty" also did not leave indifferent. A whole gallery of outstanding figures of the Middle Ages, the rulers of the thoughts of that era, passes before the readers of the "Divine Comedy". Its author takes the reader through the fire and icy horror of hell, through the furnace of purgatory to the heights of paradise, in order to gain the highest wisdom here, to affirm the ideals of goodness, bright hope and the height of the human spirit.

The call of the coming era is also felt in the works of other writers and poets of the 14th century. Outstanding Spanish statesman, warrior and writer Infante Juan Manuel left a great literary heritage, but a special place in it for its pre-humanistic sentiments is occupied by the collection of instructive stories "Count Lucanor", which guesses some of the motives characteristic of the younger contemporary of Juan Manuel - the Italian humanist Boccaccio, the author of the famous "Decameron".

The work of the Spanish author is typologically close to the "Canterbury Tales" of the great English poet Jeffie Chaucer (1340-1400), who in many respects took on the humanistic impulse emanating from Italy, but at the same time was the largest writer of the English Middle Ages. His work is characterized by democratic and realistic tendencies. The variety and richness of images, the subtlety of observations and characteristics, a combination of drama and humor, a refined literary form make Chaucer's works truly literary masterpieces.

The fact that the aspirations of the people for equality, their rebellious spirit are reflected in urban literature, is evidenced by the fact that the figure of the peasant acquires significant impressiveness in it. This is largely found in the German novel "The Peasant Helmbrecht", written by Werner Sadovnik at the end of the 13th century. But with the greatest force, the searches of the people were reflected in the work of the English poet of the XIV century. William Langland, especially in his work "William's Vision of Peter the Pahar", imbued with sympathy for the peasants, in whom the author sees the basis of society, and in their work - the guarantee of the improvement of all people. Thus, urban culture discards the framework that limited it and merges with folk culture as a whole.

Folk culture. The creativity of the working people is the foundation of the culture of every historical epoch. First of all, the people are the creator of the language, without which the development of culture is impossible. Folk psychology, imagery, stereotypes of behavior and perception are the breeding ground of culture. But almost all the written sources of the Middle Ages that have come down to us are created within the framework of the "official" or "high" culture. The folk culture was non-written, oral. You can see it only by collecting data from sources that give them in a peculiar refraction, from a certain angle of view. The "grassroots" stratum is clearly visible in the "high" culture of the Middle Ages, in its literature and art, it is latently felt in the entire system of intellectual life, in its national fundamental principle. This lower stratum was not only "carnival-laughter", it assumed the presence of a certain "picture of the world", reflecting in a special way all aspects of human and social life, the world order.

Picture of the world. Each historical epoch has its own perception of the world, its own ideas about nature, time and space, the order of everything that exists, about the relationship of people to each other. These ideas do not remain unchanged throughout the era, they have their own differences among different classes and social groups, but at the same time they are typical, indicative of this particular period of historical time. It is not enough to state that medieval man proceeded from the "picture of the world" developed by Christianity. Christianity was the basis of the perception of the world, mass representations of the Middle Ages, but did not absorb them entirely.

The consciousness of that era in its elite and grassroots forms equally proceeded from the statement of the dualism of the world. Terrestrial existence was viewed as a reflection of the existence of the higher, "heavenly world", on the one hand, which absorbed the harmony and beauty of its archetype, and on the other hand, representing its clearly "worsened" version in its materiality. The relationship between the two worlds - earthly and heavenly - is a problem that occupied medieval consciousness at all its levels. Universalism, symbolism and allegorism, which were integral features of the heart-ages worldview and culture, ascended to this dualism.

Medieval consciousness strives more towards synthesis than analysis. Its ideal is integrity, not multiple diversity. And although the earthly world seems to him to consist of "his" familiar nearby space and "alien", distant and hostile, nevertheless both of these parts are merged into an inseparable whole, they cannot exist without the other.

The peasant often viewed the land as his extension. It is no accident that in medieval documents it is described through a person - by the number of steps or the time of his labor invested in its processing. The world was not so much assimilated by medieval man as it was appropriated, made his own in a difficult struggle with nature.

Medieval literature and art have no interest in accurate, concrete, detailed depictions of space. Fantasy prevailed over observation, and there is no contradiction in this. For in the unity of the higher world and the earthly world, in which only the first appears to be truly real, true, specifics can be neglected, it only complicates the perception of integrity, a closed system with sacred centers and worldly periphery.

The gigantic world created by God - the cosmos - included the "small cosmos" (microcosm) - a man who was conceived not only as the "crown of creation", but also as an integral, complete world that contained the same thing as the big universe. In the images, the macrocosm was presented in the form of a closed circle of being, driven by divine wisdom, and containing within itself its animate embodiment - a person. In medieval consciousness, nature is likened to man, and man - to space.

The concept of time was different than in the modern era. In the routine, slowly developing civilization of the Middle Ages, time guidelines were vague, unnecessary. The exact measurement of time spreads only in the late Middle Ages. The personal, everyday life of a medieval person moved, as it were, in a vicious circle: morning - day - evening - night; winter spring Summer Autumn. But the more general, "higher" experience of time was different. Christianity filled it with sacred content, the time circle broke, time turned out to be linearly directed, moving from the creation of the world to the first coming, and after it - to the Last Judgment and the end of earthly history. In this regard, in the mass consciousness, peculiar ideas were formed about the time of earthly life, death, retribution after it for human deeds, the Last Judgment. It is significant that the history of mankind had the same ages as the life of an individual person: infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity, old age.

In the Middle Ages, the perception of human ages also differed from those familiar to modern humans. Medieval society was demographically younger. Life expectancy was short. A person who crossed the line of the fortieth birthday was considered an old man. The Middle Ages did not know much attention to childhood, deep emotionality in relation to children, so characteristic of our time. It is no coincidence that in medieval sculpture there is no image of babies; they were presented with the faces and figures of adults. But the attitude towards youth was very bright, emotional. It was thought of as a time of flowering, games, a tribute to revelry, ideas about vital magical power were associated with it. Youthful revelry was legalized in medieval society, which in general, in its moral principles, gravitated towards sobriety, chastity and stability. Entry into "adult" life demanded that the youth give up such liberties, the energy of youth had to rush into the traditional social channel and not spill over the banks.

In relations between people, great importance was attached to their form. Hence the requirement of scrupulous adherence to tradition, observance of the ritual. Detailed etiquette is also a product of medieval culture.

In the mass representations of the Middle Ages, magic and witchcraft occupied an important place. However, during the heyday of spiritualism in the XI-XIII centuries. magic is relegated to the background into the depths of the lower consciousness, which is inspired primarily by the idea of \u200b\u200bmessianism, lives by hopes for the coming of the kingdom of heaven promised in the New Testament. The heyday of magic, demonology, witchcraft falls on the XV-XVI centuries, that is, at the time of the decline of medieval culture proper.

An artistic ideal. Art, the artistic language of the Middle Ages, is polysemantic and deep. This ambiguity was not immediately understood by descendants. It took the work of several generations of scientists to show the high value and originality of medieval culture, which is so unlike the ancient or modern European. Her "secret language" turned out to be understandable and exciting for our contemporaries.

The Middle Ages created their own forms of artistic expression that corresponded to the worldview of that era. Art was a way of reflecting the highest, "invisible" beauty that resides outside of earthly existence in the supernatural world. Art, like philosophy, was one of the ways to comprehend the absolute idea, divine truth. Hence its symbolism, allegoricality. Plots of the Old Testament, for example, were interpreted as types of New Testament events. Fragments of ancient mythology were assimilated as allegorical allegories.

Since in the minds of medieval people the ideal often prevailed over the material, the bodily, changeable and perishable lost its artistic and aesthetic value. The sensual is sacrificed to the idea. Artistic technique no longer requires imitation of nature and even, on the contrary, leads away from it to maximum generalization, in which the image first of all becomes a sign of the hidden. Canonical rules, traditionality of techniques begin to prevail over individual creativity. The point is not that the medieval master did not know anatomy or the laws of perspective, he basically did not need them. They seemed to fall out of the canons of symbolic art, striving for universalism.

From the moment of its inception, medieval culture gravitated towards encyclopedism, the holistic coverage of all that exists. In philosophy, science, literature, this was expressed in the creation of all-encompassing encyclopedias, the so-called sums. Medieval cathedrals were also a kind of stone encyclopedias of universal knowledge, "bibles of the laity." The masters who erected the cathedrals tried to show the world in its diversity and complete harmonious unity. And if on the whole the cathedral stood as a symbol of the universe, striving for a higher idea, then inside and outside it was abundantly decorated with a wide variety of sculptures and images, which sometimes were so similar to prototypes that, according to contemporaries, “it seemed as if they were caught on free, in the woods, on the roads. " Outside, one could see the figures of Grammar, Arithmetic, Music, Philosophy, personifying the sciences studied in medieval schools, not to mention the fact that any cathedral abounded in "stone illustrations" to the Bible. Everything that worried a person of that time, one way or another, was reflected here. And for many people of the Middle Ages, especially the "simple", these "stone books" were one of the main sources of knowledge.

A holistic image of the world in that era could be presented as internally hierarchical. The hierarchical principle largely determined the nature of medieval architecture and art, the correlation in them of various structural and compositional elements. But it took several centuries for medieval Western Europe to acquire a formed artistic language and a system of images.

In the X century. the Romanesque style was formed, which dominated in the next two centuries. It is most prominently represented in France, Italy and Germany. Romanesque cathedrals, stone, vaulted, simple and austere. They have powerful walls, they are, in essence, temples-fortresses. At first glance, the Romanesque cathedral is rude and squat, only gradually the harmony of the plan and the nobility of its simplicity, aimed at revealing the unity and harmony of the world, glorifying the divine principle, are revealed. Its portal symbolized the heavenly gates, over which the triumphant god and the supreme judge seemed to hover.

Romanesque sculpture that adorns temples, for all its "naivety and ineptitude", embodies not only idealized ideas, but tense faces of real life and real people of the Middle Ages. The artistic ideal, clothed in flesh and blood, was "grounded". Artists in the Middle Ages were simple, and often illiterate people. They introduced a religious feeling into their creations, but this was not the spiritualism of the scribes, but folk religiosity, which interpreted the orthodox creed in a very peculiar way. In their creations, the pathos of not only heavenly, but also earthly sounds.

The heights of the Romanesque style in France are the cathedrals in Cluny and Autun. The Romanesque citadel of Carcassonne, a complex of secular castles, amazes with its inaccessibility and monumentality.

A new stage in the development of medieval art and architecture was marked by the emergence of Gothic. In contrast to the Romanesque, the Gothic cathedral is immense, often asymmetrical, and directed upward. Its walls seem to be dissolved, they become delicate, light, giving way to tall narrow windows decorated with colored stained-glass windows. Inside, the cathedral is spacious and superbly decorated. Each portal of the cathedral is individualized.

Cathedrals were built by order of city communes. They symbolized not only the power of the church, but also the power and freedom of cities. These grandiose structures were built for tens, and often hundreds of years.

Gothic sculpture has tremendous expressive power. The ultimate tension of mental strength is reflected on the faces and in the figures, elongated and broken, which creates the impression of a desire to free oneself from the flesh, to reach the ultimate mysteries of being. Human suffering, purification and exaltation through them is the hidden nerve of Gothic art. There is no peace and tranquility in it, it is permeated with confusion, a high spiritual impulse. Artists reach a tragic intensity in the depiction of the suffering of the crucified Christ, the god suppressed by his creation and grieving for him. The beauty of Gothic sculpture is a triumph of spirit, seeking and struggle over the flesh. But the Gothic masters were able to create quite realistic images, which captured a warm human feeling. Softness and lyricism characterize the figures of Mary and Elizabeth, carved on the portal of the magnificent Reims Cathedral. The characteristic features of the sculpture of the Naumburg Cathedral in Germany are filled with living charm, the statue of the Margrave of Uta.

The builders of the Gothic cathedrals were excellent craftsmen. The surviving album of the architect of the XIII century. Villara de Onecura testifies to high professionalism, extensive practical knowledge and interests, independence of creative aspirations and assessments. The creators of the Gothic cathedrals united in building artels-lodges. Freemasonry, which emerged several centuries later, used this form of organization and even borrowed the name itself (Freemasons - French "free masons").

In Gothic art, sculpture prevailed over painting. Sculptural images of one of the most famous Gothic cathedrals - Notre Dame Cathedral, amaze with their power and imagination. The largest sculptor of the Middle Ages was Sluter, who lived in the XIV century. in Burgundy, creator of the "Well of the Prophets" in Dijon. Painting in Gothic cathedrals was represented mainly by painting on altars. However, the true galleries of tiny paintings are medieval manuscripts with their colorful and exquisite miniatures. In the XIV century. in France and England easel portrait appeared, secular monumental painting developed.

The medieval culture of Western Europe has long been viewed as purely religious, denying it positive historical significance for the development of mankind. Today, thanks to the research of several generations of medievalists, she appears before us with many of her faces. Extreme asceticism and a life-affirming popular worldview, mystical exaltation and logical rationalism, striving for the absolute and passionate love for the concrete, material side of being are fancifully and at the same time organically combined in it, obeying the laws of aesthetics that are different from those in antiquity and the new time, a system of values \u200b\u200binherent precisely in the Middle Ages, a natural and original stage of human civilization. With all the diversity, medieval culture, full of internal contradictions, which knew its ups and downs, forms an ensemble, ideological, spiritual and artistic integrity, which was determined primarily by the unity of the historical reality that lay at its foundation.

The barbarian kingdoms were formed in the IV-VI centuries. The barbarians immediately adopted Christianity, but their art was strongly influenced by paganism.
The further north you go, the less Romanization left its mark on the claims of these kingdoms, the more elements of paganism there are in it. The most difficult thing was to inculcate Christianity in the kingdoms of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Denmark. Until the XI century. cult architecture did not develop here. In the IX-X centuries. stone crosses decorated with reliefs began to be erected at the crossroads of roads. Judging by the objects found in the burial mounds, the decoration is dominated by animal-ribbon and geometric types of ornaments, and the images of animals and mythological monsters are flat and stylized, which is typical of pagan art.
England and Ireland of this period were only superficially romanized. Their first Christian places of worship were generally devoid of decor and were extremely primitive. Monasteries became the focus of artistic life in these countries, with the construction of which the art of book miniatures spread.
In the architecture of the Ostrogothic and Lombard kingdoms, there is a clearer connection with antiquity, but elements of barbarian architecture are strong in it. Temples and baptisteries of that period had a round shape, the dome was hollowed out of stone, roughly hewn. Tombstones with Christian themes, made in flat relief technique, appear.
The characteristic features of the architecture of the barbarian kingdom include crypts - basements and semi-basements under the basilicas.
In the Frankish kingdom, the art of book miniature was developing, which was decorated with isomorphic headpieces from stylized animal figures. The art of the barbarians played a positive role in the development of a new artistic language, freed from the shackles of antiquity, and, above all, in the development of the ornamental and decorative direction, which later entered as an integral part of the artistic creativity of the classical Middle Ages.
Art of the Carolingian Empire .
"Carolingian Renaissance" (the flowering of culture, dating back to the era of the first emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" Charlemagne and the Carolingian dynasty. The era of Charlemagne was marked by the reform of the administrative, judicial and ecclesiastical spheres, as well as the revival of ancient culture. The capital of the empire, Aachen, became the center of this revival ...
In the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires, a distinctive feature is a kind of fusion of ancient, early Christian, barbarian and Byzantine traditions, especially manifested in ornament. The architecture of these kingdoms is based on Roman examples. These are basilicas, centric temples, made in stone, wood, or a mixed technique. The interior is decorated with mosaics and frescoes.
Monastic construction is developing. In the Carolingian Empire, 400 new monasteries were built and 800 existing monasteries expanded.
The empire of Charlemagne was short-lived and collapsed in the 9th century after the invasion of the Vikings and Hungarian tribes. But the Carolingian ideal of the Christian empire continued to live in the 10th century. The basis of European culture is now the Christian religion. The peripheral culture assimilates the Carolingian tradition.

4.Romanesque architecture

Architecture was the leading type of Romanesque art. Its development was associated with the monumental construction that began in Western Europe during the formation and prosperity of feudal states, the new growth of culture and art. The monumental architecture of Western Europe originated in the art of barbarian peoples. In each country, this style has evolved under the influence and strong influence of local traditions. The severity and power of the Romanesque structures were generated by concerns about their strength. Builders limited themselves to simple and massive stone forms.
The focus of life in the early Middle Ages was the castles of the feudal lords, churches and monasteries. The fortified castle - the dwelling of the feudal lord and at the same time the fortress that defended his possessions - clearly expressed the character of the formidable era of feudal wars. Its layout was based on practical calculation. Usually located on the top of a mountain or rocky hill, the castle served as a defense during a siege and as a center of preparation for raids. The castle with a drawbridge and a fortified portal was surrounded by a moat, monolithic stone walls crowned with battlements and towers. The core of the fortress was a massive round or quadrangular - the feudal lord's refuge. Around it is a vast courtyard with residential and office buildings. The experience of building castles was subsequently transferred to monastic complexes, which were entire villages and fortress cities. The importance of the latter increased in the life of Europe in the 11-13 centuries. In their planning, usually asymmetric, the requirements of defense were strictly observed, sober consideration of the terrain features, etc. The compositional center of the monastery in the city was usually the temple - the most significant creation of Romanesque architecture. It rose in pointed towers over the small buildings surrounding it. The exterior view of the romance cathedral is severe, simple and clear. The central nave rises above the side ones, the bypass walls - above the chapels, above them is the main apse. The center of the composition is formed by the tower of the cross, crowned with a spire. Sometimes the western facade, apse and transepts are closed by bell towers. They give stability to the structure. Towers and walls with a massive plinth bring the external appearance of the cathedral closer to the fortress, firmly, indestructiblely connected to the ground. France... Monuments of Romanesque art are scattered throughout Western Europe. Most of them are in France. In the architecture of Central and Western France, there is the greatest variety in solving constructive problems, a wealth of forms. The features of a Romanesque temple are clearly expressed in it. An example of this is the Church of Notre Dame la Grande in Poitiers. In the grandiose temples of Burgundy, which took first place among other French schools, the first steps were taken to change the design of the vaulted ceilings in the type of a basilical church with a high and wide middle nave, with many altars, transverse and side ships, an extensive choir and a developed, radially located crown chapels. The high, three-tiered central nave was covered with a box vault not with a semicircular arch, as in most Romanesque churches, but with light pointed outlines. A classic example of such a complex type is the grandiose main five-nave monastery church of the Abbey of Cluny, destroyed in the early 19th century. she became a model for many temple buildings in Europe. The temples of Burgundy are close to her. They are characterized by the presence of a wide hall located in front of the naves, the use of high towers. Burgundy temples are distinguished by the perfection of forms, the clarity of the dismembered volumes, the measured rhythm, the completeness of the parts, their subordination to the whole. Monastic Romanesque churches are usually small in size, the vaults are low, and the transepts are small. With a similar layout, the design of the facades was different. For the southern regions of France, near the Mediterranean Sea, for the temples of Provence, a connection with the ancient late Roman order architecture is characteristic, the monuments of which have been preserved here in abundance; hall temples, simple in form and proportion, prevailed, distinguished by the richness of sculptural decoration on the facades, sometimes resembling Roman triumphal arches. Modified domed buildings penetrated the southwestern regions. Germany... A special place in the construction of large cathedrals in Germany was occupied by the powerful imperial cities on the Rhine (Speyer, Mainz, Worms). The cathedrals erected here are distinguished by the grandeur of massive clear cubic volumes, an abundance of heavy towers, and more dynamic silhouettes. In the Worms Cathedral, built of yellow-gray sandstone, the divisions of volumes are less developed than in French churches, which creates a sense of solidity of forms. Also not used is such a technique as a gradual increase in volumes, smooth linear rhythms. The squat towers of the middle cross and four high round towers with cone-shaped stone tents at the corners of the temple on the western and eastern sides, as if cutting into the sky, give it the character of a severe fortress. Smooth surfaces of impenetrable walls with narrow windows dominate everywhere, only sparingly animated by a frieze in the form of arches along the cornice. In the Worms Cathedral, the pressure of the vaults on the walls is relieved. The central nave is covered with a cross vault and aligned with the cross vaults of the side aisles. For this purpose, the so-called "connected system" was used, in which there are two side aisles for each span of the central nave. The edges of the external forms clearly express the internal volumetric-spatial structure of the building. Spain... The architecture of Spain was influenced by the presence of pilgrimage routes from France. On the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, the paths converged at Puente la Reina, and from there one road led to the monastery of Santiago de Campostela. The belief that the apostle James was buried with him was so strong that the monastery became the most famous medieval place of pilgrimage after Rome and Jerusalem. The appearance of the monastery in Santiago was changed during the Baroque era. The architects who rebuilt the church in the 1830s retained not only the Romanesque interior design, but also parts of the western façade, which was covered by a magnificent new façade.

The warlike spirit of Spanish Catholicism is nowhere better manifested than in the fortified church with a monastery in Loarre, which could serve as a fortress, as well as the city wall of Avila erected at about the same time.

The influence of Mozarabian architecture and the use of the labor of Muslim artisans make Spanish Romanesque a particularly interesting subject for study. In the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, which houses some of the most famous examples of Spanish monumental sculpture, the corner pylons are adorned with finely crafted relief plates modeled on Romanesque ivory carvings and Mozarabian illuminated manuscripts.

The old cathedral of Salamanca can be seen as the culmination of the development of Spanish Romanesque architecture.The monumental dome, which rests on two floors of arcades, has a rich outdoor decor, it is octagonal, with a convex profile and is covered with stone plates with ornaments in the form of fish scales. Bearing gables and turrets with conical roofs contribute to a cheerful overall impression and complex architectural polyphony.

5.Romanesque art

The term "Romanesque" is applied to the art of the 11th-12th centuries. It is conditional and arose in the first half of the 19th century, when the connection between medieval and Roman architecture was discovered. The Romanesque period is the time of the emergence of the common European monumental style of medieval architecture, sculpture and painting in the era of the highest development of feudalism.

Unlike Byzantium, where art was regulated by the metropolitan school, the unity of the Romanesque style did not exclude the abundance and diversity of local local schools, which indicated the possibility of various searches within the same style.

Romanesque art in Western Europe was predominantly religious, as was the outlook of feudal society. The Catholic Church possessed exceptional ideological and economic power. In the conditions of the feudal fragmentation of Europe, it was the only force uniting the peoples. Monasteries were large economic units, were the focus of mental life and centers of church education and artistic creativity. The Western Church is characterized by attempts to reconcile the religious and rational explanation of the world, which also distinguished it from the Eastern and opened up the possibility of a freer interpretation of dogmas and knowledge of the real world.

The desire for heightened spirituality distinguishes the images of Romanesque art as well as of Byzantine, but their content and form of expression are different. In Western European art a direct, active attitude to life was combined with religiosity. The image of a spiritually perfect person, detached from the real world, did not develop here to the same extent as in Byzantium. Romanesque architecture amazes with power, sculpture - with a restless spirit. In the increased expression of feelings, one can feel the traditions of barbaric art, the stormy and formidable character of the era.

The birth of a new civilization, the long process of the formation of feudalism in Western Europe, accompanied by the destruction of clan relations, wars and crusades, gave rise to a feeling of disharmony in life, incompatibility of beauty and reality. Both in the sermons of the church and in the minds of the people there lived the idea of \u200b\u200bthe sinfulness of the world, full of evil, temptations, subject to the influence of terrible mysterious forces. On this basis, an ethical and aesthetic ideal arose in the Romanesque art of Western Europe, the opposite of ancient art. The superiority of the spiritual over the bodily was expressed in the contrast of frantic spiritual expression and the external ugliness of the appearance, as if embodying inert matter. Folk art was of great importance in the formation of medieval artistic culture. His influence was reflected in the monumental forms of architecture, in the interpretation of biblical and evangelical subjects, in his attraction to science fiction. Romanesque art was created mainly in monasteries. However, the tradition of folk art also penetrated into church art. Secular culture did not disappear during the Romanesque era. The heroic epic, the poetry of the troubadours, the chivalric romance, the genre of everyday life, fablio, farces, proverbs full of mockery, and fables reached their heyday at that time.

6.Gothic temple

It is difficult to find suitable words to describe the experience of a Gothic cathedral. They are high and stretch towards the sky with endless arrows of towers and turrets, phials, pointed arches. But what is more striking is not so much the height as the richness of the aspects that open up when you go around the cathedral.
Gothic cathedrals are not only tall, but also very long: for example, Chartres is 130 meters long, and the transept is 64 meters long, and it takes at least half a kilometer to walk around it. And from every point the cathedral looks new. Unlike the Romanesque church with its clear, easily visible forms, the Gothic cathedral is immense, often asymmetric and even heterogeneous in its parts: each of its facades with its own portal is individual. The walls are not felt, as if they are not.
Arches, galleries, towers, huge windows, an endlessly complex, openwork play of shapes. And all this space is inhabited - the cathedral is inhabited by a mass of sculptures. They occupy not only portals and galleries, but they can also be found on the roof, cornices, under the arches of chapels, on spiral staircases, and appear on drainpipes. In short, a Gothic cathedral is a whole world. He really absorbed the world of a medieval city. If even now, in modern Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral reigns over the city, and the architecture of Baroque, Empire style, classicism fades before it, then one can imagine how even more impressive it looked then, in that Paris, among the crooked streets and small courtyards along the banks Seine. Then the cathedral was something more than just a place of church services. Together with the town hall, it was the center of the entire social life of the city. If the town hall was the center of business activity, then in the cathedral, in addition to divine services, theatrical performances took place, university lectures were read, sometimes the parliament sat and even small trade agreements were concluded. Trading rows were usually located near the cathedral. The needs of city life prompted the transformation of a closed thick-walled, serf-type Romanesque cathedral into such a spatial one, open to the outside. But for this it was necessary to change the design itself.
And after the construction, there was a change in the architectural style. The turn towards Gothic began with architecture, and only then began to spread to sculpture and painting. Architecture has invariably remained the basis of medieval art synthesis. When comparing typical Romanesque and Gothic buildings, it seems that they are opposite. But if you look at the buildings of the transitional period, you can see that Gothic originates from Romanesque roots. It all began with the simplest cell, with a vaulted cell of grass. They were square, and this set a certain limit on the expansion of the main nave.
With such a ceiling system, the temple could not be spacious enough inside - it remained narrow and dark. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe architects is to expand and facilitate the system of vaults. Solid vaults are replaced with ribbed ceilings by a system of bearing arches. All the airiness, all the fabulousness of the Gothic structure has a rational basis: it follows from the frame system of the building. This is how through galleries, arcades and huge windows appear. The galleries are used for the installation of statues, and the windows are used for monumental painting in colored glass. Medieval artists passionately loved clean, bright, sonorous colors. This was reflected in the stained glass windows, in miniatures, and in the painting of sculptures. Inside, the cathedral is spacious, the transept almost merges with the longitudinal space. This removes the sharp line between the clear and the visitors. The "sanctuary" ceases to be something inaccessible and secret. The Gothic style is dramatic, but not gloomy or dull.
Cathedrals and town halls were built by order of city communes. They were built and completed for a long time - decades, or even centuries.
In most Gothic cathedrals, sculptural decoration prevailed over painting, except for stained glass: this, again, was determined by the nature of the architecture, making the walls delicate and therefore unsuitable for frescoes. Gothic painting did not develop in the form of murals, but mainly in miniatures of manuscripts and in paintings of altar doors.
Altar painting developed more in those countries where Gothic architecture, for one reason or another, retained the relative massiveness and smoothness of the walls.

7. Gothic of France, Germany, Czech Republic, England.

France is rightfully considered the cradle of the Gothic. Back in the XII, during the restructuring of the Church of Saint Denis, a rib vault (bypass and chapels) was first used here. The largest temple of the early Gothic period was Notre Dame Cathedral. The western facade in its construction served as an example for many subsequent cathedrals. In the design of Notre Dame Cathedral, the basic principles of Gothic are clearly traced: the ribbed lancet vault of the central nave, the height of which is 35 m, lancet windows, flying buttresses. But the massive smoothness of the walls, the squat pillars of the central nave, the predominance of horizontal articulations, heavy towers, and restrained sculptural decor remained from the heavy Romanesque architecture.
The early Gothic cathedral in Lana, three-nave with a three-nave transept, also has Romanesque features. A special feature of the Lansky Cathedral is the decoration of the top of the towers with figures of 16 bulls. Chartres Cathedral is an example of the transition to mature Gothic and the connection of facades of different times. A brilliant example of mature French Gothic is the cathedral at Reims. In the appearance of Reims Cathedral, one can see a tendency towards verticalism of all lines. The entire western façade is completely decorated with sculptures, the stone has acquired a delicacy, it truly resembles lace. Note, however, that, unlike the late Gothic, this “lace” does not hide the structure of the building. The largest and tallest Gothic cathedral in France is Amiens. Amiens Cathedral took 40 years to build. Amiens Cathedral is often referred to as the "Gothic Parthenon".
By the middle of the XIII century. the scope of construction in France is weakening. The last remarkable creation of the Gothic during this period is the chapel of Louis IX, the "holy chapel" of Saint Chapelle. Since the XIV century. the period of late Gothic begins, in France it lasts two centuries. The 15th century in Gothic architecture is also called flaming Gothic. Late Gothic buildings are overloaded with decor, intricate decorative carvings and intricate ribbing patterns.
Feudal castles at the end of the 13th century were built already only with the permission of the king, in the XIV century. this generally becomes the privilege of the king and his entourage, luxuriously decorated palaces appear in the castle complexes. Castles are gradually turning into recreational residences, into hunting chateau. But urban construction (town halls, workshop buildings, residential buildings) is not decreasing.

Gothic art in Germany is not as uniform as French. There are a number of reasons for this, first of all, the weakness of the imperial power, the constant struggle of feudal lords with the townspeople. There is no need to prove the influence of French architecture on German, many German masters simply studied in France, worked in French construction artels. But this did not prevent German architects from preserving their national identity. German Gothic architecture developed later than French. German cathedrals are simpler in plan, the crown of chapels, as a rule, is absent, flying buttresses are very rare, the vaults are higher, the building is more elongated vertically, the spiers of the towers are very high. A feature of the Germanic Gothic is the one-tower temples, crowned with high ones. In northern Germany, brick is used as a building material instead of stone. The so-called brick Gothic is generally characteristic of Northern Europe, especially in civil architecture.
Due to the lag of the Gothic in comparison with the French in Germany, the Gothic features in architecture were more fused with the Romanesque. The outdoor decor is much more restrained and stingy.
Sculptural decor, as in the Romanesque period, in German churches is used more in the interior than outside, it is more varied in material: not only stone, but also wood, bronze, knock. In late Gothic German sculpture, as well as in French, the fragmentation of forms is enhanced, monumentality is lost, pathos is accentuated, mannerism, naturalistic details appear, which was almost completely unknown to French Gothic even in the latest period.

Gothic Czech Republic. During the Gothic period (13-14 - partly 15th century), the Czech Republic entered the circle of developed and cultural countries of Europe, had significant independence despite the formal subordination of the Holy Roman Empire. Vulnerable wooden architecture is being replaced by stone, which contributes to its safety and preservation for centuries. Samples of Czech Gothic architecture are not much inferior to samples of Gothic architecture of other countries, with only two exceptions - the architecture of France and Italy. The Gothic cathedral became the dominant building in the city squares, uniting the town hall and the houses of the inhabitants around it with the Gothic galleries on the ground floor - a characteristic feature of many Czech cities from the Gothic era and beyond. Gothic cathedrals of Bohemia are often of the hall type, when the central nave is equal to the height of the side naves or slightly exceeds them. The transept has not received development, it is almost never used. The outer walls are thick, powerful, devoid of additional supports, as in the cathedrals of France. The tall narrow windows are decorated with stained-glass windows. Time-consuming technology and wars hampered construction, and large cathedrals remained unfinished, as happened with the grandiose Cathedral of St. Vitus in Prague. It was completed in forms close to the medieval style of Parler only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gothic England. Formed in France, Gothic has come to other countries. In England the main nave of a cathedral is narrower than in France, and often longer; two transepts, one in the middle and the other closer to the eastern part of the church, form in plan the shape of an "archbishop's cross"; The British preferred the rectangular end of the eastern end of the temple to a semicircular apse with a semicircular bypass of the choir and a crown of chapels radiating from it. The walls thickened as in Romanesque buildings, a composition with emphasized horizontal articulations, also characteristic of Romanesque architecture, remained in England for a long time after their disappearance in France.
Many English cathedrals were monastic, but even those that were not part of monasteries retained the features of monastic architecture in their appearance, for example, a closed courtyard or cloister adjacent to the cathedral. Often the main entrance to the cathedral was arranged from the side of one of the side naves, and not from the western side. Due to the relatively low height of the vaults, towering over the relatively narrow naves, and the rather thick walls, there was no need to use buttresses and flying buttresses.
Three periods can be roughly distinguished in the development of English Gothic. In the last decades of the 13th century. and the very beginning of the 14th century. the period of the early Gothic falls. This style is closer to the French, when simple four-part vaults were usually used; the exception is the cathedral at Canterbury, where they are six-part. Beam supports repeat the French models, a little later in the west of England, supports of complex shapes appear. There are few decorative elements. The narrow windows have pointed ends. A more elaborate decoration system appears at Westminster Abbey at the very end of the period. Westminster Abbey - "the most French" of the English buildings, the tallest, built using a system of buttresses.
In the 14th century. the so-called decorated gothic. As its name suggests, decorativeness replaces the severity of early English Gothic. The most amazing metamorphosis occurs with windows, the width of which increases so much that it becomes necessary to have decorative sculptural elements between the stained-glass panels. First, the ends of the windows are completely filled with circles and arcs, then this pattern is replaced by curly curves that form a complex ornament.
In the 15th century. "Decorated Gothic" is being replaced by "Perpendicular Gothic". This name is associated with the predominance of vertical lines in the drawing of decorative elements. Perpendicular Gothic lasted until the early 16th century.

9... Addition of Byzantine art

The formation of Byzantine art took place in those areas of the Eastern Roman Empire, where ancient, Greek-Hellenistic art has long been in contact with the ancient artistic tradition of the cultures of the Near East. In the new capital of the empire - Constantinople - in the 4-5 centuries, numerous ancient monuments were concentrated, brought from various ancient centers. Elements of the artistic cultures of different nations merged here, and new forms of art were gradually developed. The very appearance of the city with its vast squares decorated with triumphal columns crowned with statues of emperors, with aqueducts that brought fresh water from distant springs, cisterns and thermal baths reminded ancient Rome. The city was surrounded by a complex system of defensive structures, erected at the beginning of the 5th century and consisted of a double row of walls and a deep moat, with numerous towers and several civil or military gates.
Ancient traditions were just as alive in the large centers of the eastern provinces, such as Alexandria and Antioch. The mosaic floors of the 5th-6th centuries, recently discovered in Antioch, both in content and in form, largely reproduce old samples; a number of points bring them closer at the same time to Sassanian art. In small provincial cities, as well as in the periphery in the same eastern regions, local artistic cultures also developed.
New forms of art appeared already in the painting of the Roman catacombs. The same kind of murals were found in the countries of the Near East.
Such are, for example, the widely known temples dedicated to various cults in Dura Evropos on the Euphrates, burial crypts in Palmyra, and others. The late Hellenistic portraits on boards discovered in the burials of the Fayum oasis, made in the technique of wax, the so-called encaustic painting (Fayum portraits), are closely related in technique, and to some extent in form, with early Byzantine icons.
In the 4-6 centuries, a number of areas of the Near East became the center for the creation of a new Christian iconography, and this iconography appears in two manifestations: in some works the traditions of Greco-Hellenistic art are clearly revealed, in others, created in monasteries and other Christian centers of Syria and Palestine, - the traditions of Syrian art.
In the same period, trends emerged in the Christian art of the eastern provinces that presented a kind of opposition to the art of the dominant church.
Thus, Byzantine art emerged on a very complex basis. It was diverse in its further development, because its monuments were created in the most diverse in their artistic culture areas, more or less for a long time were part of the empire that was constantly changing its borders.
Starting from the 4th and 5th centuries, the provinces of Byzantium were gradually exposed to the influence of the artistic culture of the barbarians, which can be traced in the art of Constantinople, Greece and also Italy. In Syria and Asia Minor, the relationship with Sassanian art, and later with the culture created by the eastern peoples under the Arabs, is especially noticeable.

10. Justinian's time

In the history of Byzantine art, the reign of Justinian marks an entire era. Talented writers, such historians as Procopius and Agathius, John of Ephesus, such poets as Paul Silentiarius, such theologians as Leontius of Byzantine, brilliantly continued the traditions of classical Greek literature, and it was at the dawn of the 6th century. Roman the Sweet Songwriter, "the king of melodies", created religious poetry - perhaps the most beautiful and most original manifestation of the Byzantine spirit. Even more remarkable was the splendor of the visual arts. At this time in Constantinople a slow process was being completed, which had been prepared for two centuries in the local schools of the East. And since Justinian loved buildings, since he managed to find outstanding masters for the implementation of his intentions and provide inexhaustible means at their disposal, as a result, the monuments of this century - wonders of knowledge, courage and splendor - marked the peak of Byzantine art in perfect creations.

Art has never been more varied, more mature, more free; in the 6th century all architectural styles are found, all types of buildings - basilicas, for example St. Apollinaria in Ravenna or St. Demetrius of Thessalonica; churches that are polygonal in plan, such as St. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople or St. Vitaly in Ravenna; buildings in the shape of a cross, topped with five domes, like the church of St. The Apostles; churches, such as St. Sophia, built by Anthimius of Trall and Isidore of Miletus in 532-537; thanks to its original plan, light, bold and precisely calculated structure, skillful solution of problems of balance, harmonious combination of parts, this temple remains to this day an unsurpassed masterpiece of Byzantine art. Skillful selection of multi-colored marble, fine molding of sculptures, mosaic decorations on a blue and gold background inside the temple are incomparable splendor, an idea of \u200b\u200bwhich can still be obtained today, in the absence of the mosaics destroyed in the church of St. Apostles or barely visible under the Turkish painting of St. Sofia, - on the mosaics in the churches of Parenzo and Ravenna, as well as on the remains of the wonderful decorations of the church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica. Everywhere - in jewelry, in fabrics, in ivory, in manuscripts - the same character of dazzling luxury and solemn grandeur is manifested that heralds the birth of a new style. Under the joint influence of the East and ancient tradition, Byzantine art entered its golden age in the era of Justinian.

Periodization of medieval culture

II. Christianity as the main factor in the formation of medieval culture

Christianity became a kind of unifying shell that determined the formation of medieval culture as a whole
Christian consciousness as the basis of medieval mentality

III. Clerical culture in the context of medieval mentality

Education
Medieval Science
Medieval art
Official clerical literature
Music as a component of church Catholic life, spirituality

IV. Formation of secular culture

Knightly culture as a component of secular culture
Urban culture

V. Folk culture of medieval Western Europe

Heroic epic
Folklore of Western European peoples
Folk laughter culture Literature

I. Periodization and prerequisites for the formation of medieval culture in Western Europe

The term "Middle Ages" originated during the Renaissance. The thinkers of the Italian Renaissance understood it as a dark "middle" age in the development of European culture, a time of general decline, lying in the middle between the brilliant era of antiquity and the Renaissance itself, a new flourishing of European culture, the revival of ancient ideals. And although later, in the era of romanticism, a "bright image" of the Middle Ages arose, both these assessments of the Middle Ages created extremely one-sided and false images of this most important stage in the development of Western European culture.

In fact, everything was much more complicated. It was a complex, diverse, contradictory culture, just like medieval society was a complex hierarchical formation.

Western European medieval culture represents a qualitatively new stage in the development of European culture, following after antiquity and covering more than a thousand years (V-XV centuries).

· The transition from ancient civilization to the Middle Ages was caused, firstly, by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire as a result of the general crisis of the slave-owning mode of production and the collapse of the entire ancient culture associated with it. The deep crisis of Roman civilization, expressed in the crisis of the entire socio-economic system underlying it, became apparent already in the III century. It was impossible to stop the process of the disintegration that had begun. The spiritual reform of the Emperor Constantine did not help either, turning the Christian religion into a permissible, and then dominant. Barbaric peoples willingly accepted baptism, but this did not diminish the strength of their onslaught on the decrepit empire.

Secondly, the Great Migration of Peoples (from IV to VII centuries), during which dozens of tribes rushed to conquer new lands. From 375, when the first troops of the Visigoths crossed the Danube border of the empire, and until 455 (the capture of Rome by the vandals), the painful process of extinction of the greatest civilization continued. The Western Roman Empire, which was experiencing a deep internal crisis, could not withstand the waves of barbarian invasions in 476 BC ceased to exist. As a result of barbarian conquests, dozens of barbarian kingdoms arose on its territory.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the history of the Western European Middle Ages begins (the Eastern Roman Empire - Byzantium - existed for another 1000 years - until the middle of the 15th century)

The formation of medieval culture took place as a result of a dramatic and contradictory process of the collision of two cultures - ancient and barbaric, accompanied, on the one hand, by violence, destruction of ancient cities, loss of outstanding achievements of ancient culture (for example, the capture of Rome by vandals in 455 became a symbol of the destruction of cultural values - "vandalism"), on the other hand, - the interaction and gradual fusion of Roman and barbarian cultures.

Cultural interaction between the barbarian tribes and Rome existed even before the death of the empire. After the fall of Rome, the cultural influence of antiquity took place in the form of the assimilation of its heritage (the assimilation of Latin, which became the language of European communication and legal acts, especially contributed to this). Knowledge of Latin made it possible to comprehend not only ancient law, but also science, philosophy, art, etc.

Thus, the formation of medieval culture occurred as a result of the interaction of two principles: the culture of barbarian tribes (Germanic origin) and ancient culture (Romanesque origin). The third and most important factor that determined the formation of European culture was Christianity. Christianity has become not only its spiritual foundation, but also that integrating principle that allows us to speak of Western European culture as a single integral culture.

Thus, medieval culture is the result of a complex, contradictory synthesis of ancient traditions, the culture of barbarian peoples and Christianity.

However, the influence of these three principles of medieval culture on its character was not, and could not be equivalent. Christianity became the dominant feature of medieval culture, its spiritual core. It acted as a new worldview support for the worldview and worldview of a person of that era.

The social basis of medieval culture was feudal relations, which are characterized by:

Alienation from the main producer (the land on which the peasant worked was the property of the feudal lord).
Conventionality (the feud was considered to be granted for service and, although it later turned into an hereditary possession, formally, for non-compliance with the contract, it could be alienated from the vassal).
Hierarchy - property was, as it were, distributed among all the feudal lords from top to bottom, thus no one possessed full private property. This led to the class-hierarchical structure of society characteristic of the Middle Ages, the so-called feudal ladder - a hierarchy of secular feudal lords, where almost everyone could be both a vassal and a suzerain at the same time with clear mutual obligations.

On the basis of feudal land ownership, two main poles of the sociocultural field of medieval culture were formed - feudal lords (secular and spiritual) and feudal-dependent producers - peasants, which, in turn, led to the existence of two poles of the Middle Ages: 1) the scientific culture of the spiritual and intellectual elite, 2 ) the culture of the "silent majority", i.e. culture of common people, for the most part illiterate.

Medieval culture was formed in the following conditions:

the domination of natural economy, which existed until about the 13th century, when it began to turn into a commodity-money economy as a result of the growth and strengthening of cities;
a closed feudal patrimony - seigneurs, which is the main economic, judicial and political unit;
Periodization of medieval culture

The periodization of medieval culture is based on the stages of development of its socio-economic foundation - feudalism (its origin, development and crisis). Accordingly, the early Middle Ages - V-IX centuries, the mature or high (classical) Middle Ages - X-XIII centuries are distinguished. and later the Middle Ages - XIV-XV centuries.

Early middle ages (V-IX centuries) - This is a period of tragic, dramatic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages proper. Christianity slowly entered the world of barbaric existence. The barbarians of the early Middle Ages carried a kind of vision and sense of the world, based on the ancestral ties of man and the community to which he belonged, the spirit of warlike energy, the feeling of inseparability from nature. In the process of the formation of medieval culture, the most important task was the destruction of the "power thinking" of the mythological barbarian consciousness, the destruction of the ancient roots of the pagan cult of power.

The formation of early medieval culture is a complex, painful process of synthesis of Christian and barbarian traditions. The dramatic nature of this process was due to the opposite, multidirectional Christian value-thinking orientations and the barbaric consciousness based on "forceful thinking". Only gradually the main role in the emerging culture begins to belong to the Christian religion and the church.

The barbaric conquest of the Roman Empire in the 5th century contributed to the decline of ancient culture: the barbarians destroyed cities where cultural life was concentrated, destroyed monuments of ancient art, libraries.

A large historical period called the "Middle Ages" does not have a generally accepted chronological framework. This is largely determined by the difference in views on the originality and place of this era in the history of Western European countries.

The decline of culture in the early Middle Ages is explained to a large extent by the church-feudal ideology that was introduced into the life of the new society by the Catholic Church. People were brought up in the spirit of a religiously ascetic worldview; every believer had to prepare in his earthly life for being in the eternal afterlife; for this the church recommended fasts, prayers, and repentance. The human body was viewed as a dungeon of the soul, which had to be freed for supreme bliss.

Domestic and world medieval studies consider the beginning of the Middle Ages the collapse of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the 5th century (it is believed that the empire ceased to exist on September 4, 476, when Romulus Augustus abdicated the throne). Historians have no consensus regarding the end of the Middle Ages. It was proposed to consider as such: the fall of Constantinople (1453), the discovery of America (1492), the beginning of the Reformation (1517), the beginning of the English Revolution (1640) or the beginning of the Great French Revolution (1789). IN last years Russian medieval studies attribute the end of the Middle Ages to the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. However, any periodization of a period is conditional.

The term "Middle Ages" was first coined by the Italian humanist Flavio Biondo in Decades of History, Starting from the Decline of the Roman Empire (1483). So he designated the millennium that separated them from the "golden age" of antiquity. The Middle Ages is a period, the beginning of CT coincided with the withering away of ancient culture, and the end - with its Renaissance in New Time. Before Biondo, the dominant term for this period was the concept of "Dark Ages" introduced by Petrarch, which in modern historiography means a narrower period of time (VI-VIII centuries).

The early Middle Ages include 2 outstanding cultures - the culture of the Carolingian Renaissance and Byzantium. They gave rise to 2 great cultures - Catholic (Western Christian) and Orthodox (Eastern Christian)

The period of culture of the Early and Classical Middle Ages, covers at least 10 centuries, from the 5th century to the end of the 14th century, i.e. from the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the active formation of the Renaissance culture. The period of the early Middle Ages occupies the period of the 5-11th centuries, and the Classical period - 12-14th centuries.

In socio-economic terms, it corresponds to the origin, development and decomposition of feudalism. In this historically long socio-cultural process of the development of feudal society, a peculiar type of man's relationship to the world was developed, qualitatively distinguishing it both from the culture of the ancient world and from subsequent eras.

The term "Carolingian Revival" describes the cultural upsurge in the empire of Charlemagne and in the kingdoms of the Carolingian dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries. (mainly in France and Germany). He expressed himself in the organization of schools, the attraction of educated figures to the royal court, in the development of literature, fine arts, architecture. Scholasticism ("school theology") became the dominant trend in medieval philosophy.

The origins of medieval culture should be indicated:

1. the culture of the "barbarian peoples" of Western Europe (the so-called Germanic origin);

2. cultural traditions of the Western Roman Empire (Romanesque beginning: powerful statehood, law, science and art);

3. Christianity.

The culture of Rome was assimilated during its conquest by the "barbarians", interacted with the traditional pagan tribal culture of the peoples of North-Western Europe. The interaction of these principles gave impetus to the formation of Western European culture proper.

The conditions for forcing medieval culture were as follows:

· Feudal form of property, based on the personal and land dependence of peasants on vassals-landowners;

· The estate-hierarchical structure of the society (vassal service to the suzerain);

· The process of endless wars, who carried a sense of the tragedy of human life;

· The spiritual atmosphere of the era, where the traditions of the "lost" ancient culture, Christianity and the spiritual culture of barbarian tribes (heroic epic) were intertwined in a peculiar way.

Medieval culture was formed under the conditions of the dominance of the natural economy, the closed world of the rural estate, underdevelopment of commodity-money relations. In the future, the urban environment, burghers, craft guild production, trade became more and more the social basis of culture. There was also a process of technical development: the use of water and windmills, lifts for the construction of temples, etc. Machines became more widespread, preparing the emergence of a "new" Europe.

A characteristic feature of the Middle Ages was the idea of \u200b\u200bclass division of society. The concept of "estate" is given a special meaning and value, since behind this term is the thought of the order established by God. In the medieval picture of the world, the central place was occupied by social groups, which were a reflection of the heavenly throne, where angelic beings made up a hierarchy of “9 angelic ranks” grouped into a triad. This corresponded to the earthly routine - the 3 main estates of the feudal society: clergy, chivalry, people.

In the Middle Ages, a transition began from a slave-owning community of equal, free citizens to a feudal hierarchy of lords and vassals, from the ethics of the state to the ethics of personal service. A significant difference between the medieval community was the lack of personal freedom. In the early periods of the Middle Ages, each person was doomed to fulfill their role as prescribed by the social order. Social mobility was absent, because people did not have any opportunity to move along the social ladder from one class to another, and, moreover, it was practically impossible to move from one city to another, from one country to another. The man had to stay where he was born. Often, he could not even dress as he liked. At the same time, since the social order was viewed as a natural order, people, being a certain part of this order, had confidence in their safety. The competition was comparatively small. At birth, a person fell into an established environment, which guaranteed him a certain standard of living that had already become traditional.

The originality of medieval culture was most clearly manifested in folk holidays, including carnivals, from which the laughter culture was born. This cultural and psychological phenomenon was associated with the fact that people had a natural need for psychological relief, for carefree fun after hard work, resulting in a parody ridicule of the vices of Christian culture. The presence of folk culture represents a worldview opposition to orthodox Christianity.

Can be distinguished the main features of the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages:

· Dominance of the Christian religion;

· Traditionalism retrospective - the main tendency “the older the more authentic”, “innovation is a manifestation of pride”;

• symbolism - the text of the Bible has been the object of reflection and interpretation;

· Didacticism - figures of medieval culture, first of all, preachers and teachers of theology.

· Universality, encyclopedic nature of knowledge - the main advantage of the thinker is erudition (creation of "sums");

· Reflexivity, self-absorption - confession plays an important role;

· Hierarchical nature of the spiritual sphere (the ratio of faith and reason): with the accumulation of experimental knowledge, Augustine's credo “I believe in order to understand, was supplanted by P. Abelard's principle“ I understand in order to believe ”, which essentially paved the way for the development of natural sciences.

Common characteristics of the Middle Ages

A common characteristic feature of the spiritual life of feudal society was the domination of religion in the field of ideology. Various religious teachings - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and their church organizations performed the same function - strengthened the rule of the feudal lords over the people and were "the highest generalization and sanction of the existing feudal system." The huge role of religion in the social life of medieval states also led to its strongest influence on culture and art. In Western and Eastern Europe and in Byzantium, the Christian Church subjugated the school, turned philosophy into a servant of theology, made art and science serve the church. This largely explains the predominantly religious nature of medieval philosophy, literature and art in these countries, as well as the slow development of the natural and exact sciences. This also led to the dominance of ascetic ideals in art, to the expression in it, first of all, of the spiritual principle, which so sharply distinguishes the monuments of medieval art from the monuments of classical antiquity. At the same time, along with the church and secular culture of the feudal lords, a folk culture lived and developed, which found expression in folk epics, legends, songs, in an original and vibrant applied art and other areas of creativity. Folk art served as the basis for the best works of medieval art and literature. Throughout its development, the culture of the feudal world took shape in the struggle between progressive and reactionary forces. In the period when the disintegration of the feudal system began, along with the first sprouts of capitalism, a new worldview appeared - humanism, which served as the basis for the life-affirming culture of the Renaissance.

religious character (the Christian church is the only thing that united the disparate kingdoms of Western Europe throughout medieval history);

synthesis of different types of artwhere the leading place was given to architecture;

orientation of the artistic language to convention, symbolism and small realism associated with the worldview of the era, in which faith, spirituality, heavenly beauty were stable priorities;

emotional beginning, psychologism, designed to convey the intensity of religious feelings, the drama of individual plots;

nationality(in the Middle Ages, the people were a creator and spectator: the hands of craftsmen created works of art, erected churches in which numerous parishioners prayed. The cult art used by the church for ideological purposes was to be accessible and understandable to all believers);

impersonality (according to the teachings of the church, the hand of the master is directed by the will of God, whose tool was considered an architect, stone cutter, painter, jeweler, stained glass painter, etc., we practically do not know the names of the masters who left the masterpieces of medieval art to the world).

As noted above, the face of medieval art was determined by architecture. But in the era of the German conquests, ancient architectural art fell into decay. Therefore, in the field of architecture, the Middle Ages had to start all over again.