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diocese

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In a church system, the territory over which a bishop presides.

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Nicene Creed

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An ancient Christian creed that was given by the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

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scriptorium

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A copying room in a medieval monastery set aside for the copying of books and manuscripts.

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see

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A cathedral town, or the territory of a bishop in a church system.

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vernacular

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The language of the common people in a region or country.

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Education

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The social conditions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries opened the way for learning.

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Towns were growing, the wealthy merchant class was expanding, the power of the church was enormous, and contacts with other cultures were being made through trade

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Educated people were needed to fill important positions.

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Learning guilds were formed. Loosely formed guilds were called universities, although they had no formal courses and no buildings.

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Later, the first formal universities were established in Bologna, Italy (1158), Paris, France (around 1200), and in Oxford and Cambridge in England in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

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Courses taught at these universities were divided into two areas: (1) the trivium--Latin grammar, logic, and rhetoric--and (2) the quadrivium--arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

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Science and mathematics were advanced primarily by Greek and Arab works brought into Europe at various times.

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Literature and art

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Advances in education and the growth of towns led to new interest in literature and the arts.Much of the literature, drama, music, art, and architecture centered around the Catholic Church.

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Literature was often sung. Minstrels and troubadours traveled from town to town and manor to manor to sing their songs of fair ladies, deeds of knightly valor, and love.

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Social comment in written literature grew with the rise of towns. Long poems, such as The Parlement of Three Ages and The Vision of Piers Plowman, pointed out the corruption and dishonesty in government and the clergy, and the oppression of the poor.

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The Robin Hood legend developed at this time

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because it pictured the poor being championed in their cause against the rich and powerful

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Two of the most important literary men of the Middle Ages were Dante (1265-1321 ) and Chaucer.

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Alighieri Dante was an Italian poet and philosopher.

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His most famous work, The Divine Comedy, an epic journey through hell, reflects man's struggle for salvation.

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Dante is often hailed as the father of Italian literature because he chose to write in his native language rather than in Latin.

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Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) wrote the famous Canterbury Tales, a collection of medieval tales told by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral, an English shrine.

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The tales represent most types of literature being written or sung in the fourteenth century.

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Early medieval drama began in the church and gradually moved outside to the courtyard, and eventually became secular. Most plays dealt with Biblical or religious themes.

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Plays were performed in groups called cycles. These cycles covered the history of salvation from the Creation to Christ's Resurrection and the Last Judgment.

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On religious festival days these plays were performed on wagons,

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which stopped at designated places in the town, presented their plays, and then moved on.

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Most medieval music was composed for the church and was sung in Latin. Plain song or chant was written with simple notation above each syllable.

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Later a more complicated music called polyphony, which wove several melodies together, was introduced.

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Popular music was sung in the vernacular

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and included the songs of troubadours and ancient ballads.

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Medieval architecture was also centered in the church, which was the hub of community activity.

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Early medieval architecture was Romanesque. The late twelfth century saw the rise of the Gothic style of architecture.

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The Gothic style used high, pointed arches, walls filled with windows, and soaring effects.

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Carvings and statues filled the cathedrals inside and out.

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THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

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The story of the Middle Ages is not complete without discussing its most powerful unifying institution, the Roman Catholic Church.

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The church made its power felt among monarchs, nobles, and peasants alike.

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They all feared it and followed its laws and rituals. Nevertheless, trouble sometimes erupted.

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Influence

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Even before the Middle Ages began, the doctrines of the church were clearly stated in the Nicene Creed.

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When the Nicene Creed was written, the main enemy to Christianity was Arianism, which denied that Jesus was fully God.

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In the early 300s an elder named Arius, in Alexandria, Egypt, was teaching that in the beginning the Father created the Son, and that the Son, together with the Father, then created the world.

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The result of Arius' teaching was that Jesus, the Son, was a created being, and not God in any meaningful sense.

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In 325, the Emperor Constantine summoned a council of bishops in Nicea, who produced the Nicene Creed, stating that Jesus is "true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father."

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The church was organized into dioceses and sees headed by clergy and bishops.

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In the major population centers archbishops were in charge.

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Rome was already the acknowledged leader, and the title of pope had been bestowed upon its bishop.

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Monasteries had been established, and persecution of Christians was a thing of the past. The Nicene Creed also reaffirmed that there was only "one holy, catholic, and apostolic church."

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The word catholic has two meanings: with a lower case "c," it means world-wide or universal.

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With a capital "C," Catholic refers to the Roman Catholic church.

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No question was ever raised about how to worship or what to believe during the Middle Ages.

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The Catholic Church was God's representative and dictated to people on almost every matter. People lived out their lives without questioning what was told them.

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The church was the center of people's lives. They attended mass, received the sacraments, paid their church taxes, and lived in the shadow of the church all their lives.

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If they did not, they would be punished. If they became heretics, they knew that the Inquisition was ready to seek them out and to punish them.

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The church handed down directives and laws of society to obey. The Peace of God and the Truce of God forbade fighting on certain days, made looting churches and monasteries a crime, made the monasteries havens of safety where no attack was permitted, and provided for punishment if the rules were broken.

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The church grew wealthy through gifts, inheritances, rents, taxes, and fees.

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Struggles

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At times the church created and destroyed kings. Its position was that a monarch or emperor stayed on the throne only so long as the church wanted him there.

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Royalty, of course, thought differently. Most of these arguments were settled by war or threat of war.

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If the monarch was stronger, he won. If the pope was stronger, he prevailed.

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Most of the struggles over the appointment of emperors and kings took place in the Holy Roman Empire.

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One notable argument with King John of England, however, ended with John handing over England as a fief to the pope.

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Another incident in France over the appointment of a French king led to the Avignon Captivity when the papacy was moved to France and French popes were chosen for nearly one hundred years.

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Other disputes arose, such as who was to get a bishop's land when he died. Both the church and the monarch claimed it.

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Bishops were appointed to their sees by the pope, but often a monarch in need of aid with the running of his government would grant a fief to a bishop in return for his help. This struggle went on for years.

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Finally a compromise was arranged in which the pope appointed the bishop and took care of all matters concerning the church, and the government dealt with land and all things concerning the bishop's relationship with the king.

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The church was a unifying force in Western Europe, but in Germany and Italy unification was delayed because of its presence.

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After Otto I a few strong emperors became leaders of the Holy Roman Empire. Germany eventually broke up into many small states, with each governing itself.

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These states backed the emperor in his fights with the popes, and they were desirous that the Holy Roman Empire hold Italian land.

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Italy was divided because the Holy Roman Empire held part of its northern land and the papal lands split the rest of the country in two.

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Germany and Italy were not unified until the nineteenth century,

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and both became a source of trouble to the world because they did not unite when the rest of Europe did.

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Monasteries

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Monasteries appeared very early and developed slowly, but they were probably the most helpful institutions during the Middle Ages. They cared for the people and tried to make their lives easier.

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Through the work of monks in the monasteries the church preserved ancient literature.

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Monks painstakingly copied old manuscripts, spending endless hours in the monastic scriptorium creating beautiful, illuminated manuscripts, many of which were artistic masterpieces

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Thus ancient knowledge was preserved and available to students when universities came into being.

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Besides preserving manuscripts, the monks taught better methods of agriculture, cared for the poor and the sick, and conducted church activities. A traveler was always sure of a safe place to spend the night if he came upon a monastery.

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Toward the end of the Middle Ages, Franciscan and Dominican friars appeared.

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They had no monastery, for they took an oath of poverty. They traveled from place to place teaching and helping wherever they could and trusting in God to provide food, clothing, and shelter.

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Crusades

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The Church ordered the Crusades at the request of the emperor of the Byzantine Empire in the eleventh century.

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Their mission was to recapture the Holy Land and particularly their Holy City, Jerusalem, from the Seljuk Turks.

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The Seljuk Turks were Muslims who had overrun southwest Asia and were beginning to move toward Europe. The Byzantine Empire was too weak to stop them.

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The crusaders were unable to defeat the Turks, although for a short while they did regain Jerusalem.

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More important than the Crusades themselves was the fact that products found in the Middle East and brought back to Europe were most desirable. Demand for these products stimulated trade, which in turn touched off the growth of towns and cities.

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The church grew and prospered after the decline of the Roman Empire

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By 1500 it was the leading power in Europe. Change, however, was near. The start of the Reformation was less than twenty years away.

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