Medieval Thought
Modified: 2023-08-11 (2:14 PM CDST)
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Religion was probably the most important difference between then and
now.
- For during the medieval period, religion thoroughly permeated
every aspect of life to a degree almost unimaginable today.
- Yet, at
the same time, daily life contradicted those same religious
principles.
- Violence was endemic and justice uncertain.
- Life was
seen as a temporary state, a trial leading to eternal salvation or
damnation.
- Thus, efforts were few to reform social structures or to
change behavior because, for the blessed, salvation awaited; and, for
the wicked, damnation.
- Religion also stifled creative thought because
God's plan had already been revealed.
- All human explanations had to
account for Biblical truth and for religious dogma.
- The world and
humankind were unique reflections of God's creation.
- The gradual
sense of a loss of uniqueness caused later by Copernicus, Galileo,
and Darwin were still far in the future.
- Throughout the period, evidence of earlier Roman civilization
still stood.
- Early in the period, a belief that the world was in
decline must have been universal.
- Later, however, as new towns grew,
and great cathedrals and castles were built such feelings probably
abated.
- However, our notions of constant and universal progress
would probably have been unrecognizable.
- Instead of progress, stasis
was a hallmark of the period.
- But, some technological change did take
place, slowly.
- For example, the invention of the chimney allowed for
the heating of individual rooms and served to separate the classes
from the great common rooms before, where all huddled overnight
around the only fire.
- Town clocks were built, and changed forever
perception of time.
- In the service of war, metallurgy advanced.
- Socially, the world was highly structured.
- The three estates
consisted of the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of humanity.
- Within each estate, of course, large differences existed.
- The clergy
had a special role given the religiosity of the period.
- Because of their status, the nobility
are our main source of information about the period.
- Comparatively little is known about the daily existence of
peasants, but their lives can probably be safely assumed to reflect
best the stasis of the period.
- Later in the period, as towns and
commerce grew, a middle class developed.
- Jews, excluded from "proper"
occupations, suffered throughout the period.
- Massacres (pogroms), exiles, and
discrimination were both common and viewed as righteous, given the
Jews' alleged role as "Christ killers" and their subsequent refusal
to adopt Christianity. In the same light, the Crusades seemed to make
abstract sense, even though in a practical sense they were no
testimony to Christian principles.
- The universities of the Middle Ages were established to reconcile
philosophy and theology.
- Early on in the history of universities,
many of the religious orders opened houses of study.
- The course of
study at the medieval university was much different than today's
curriculum.
- The trivium, or introductory curriculum, consisted of
three courses: grammar, logic, and rhetoric,
- The quadrivium, or
advanced curriculum, consisted of geometry, astronomy, arithmetic,
and music.
- Books were all produced by hand and were, consequently,
rare.
- Relatively few attended the university, and those came from the
clergy or the nobility.
- The study of law and medicine, the dependent arts, were conducted separately.
So, life was far different during the medieval period than it is
today. Yet, some of its vestiges still remain, such as superstitions
and nursery rhymes. Imagine a field trip to a
medieval village or town. Then imagine the smell of raw sewage
flowing through the gutter in the center of the street, the rigid class structure, the low status of women, and the lives of
children.
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