Seminar: Medieval Time Period

1. Seminar:Medieval Time Period Willy Richard, Stephanie Tidd & Anthony Walters

2. History of Medieval Literature

3. The Middle Ages held the rebirth of literature in the world. • Early books were written and illustrated by monks. • Paper was rare; parchment from lamb skin or calf skin were used for writing. • Students learned to write using wooden tablets, a stylus and green or black wax. • Most books were bound with wooden boards and more elaborate books were bound in tooled leather. • Scholars and poets traveling to the Crusades brought back new writing styles. • Language saw further development, with upper and lower case letters developing with rules for their use.

4. Books were treasured, often kept under lock and key, never accessible to the public. • Someone who would loan you a book was a true friend. • Some people would rent out their books, while others would turn to the book as a valuable item to be pawned. • Christian values pervaded scholarship and literature, especially Medieval Latin literature • Provençal literature also reflected Arab influence • German literature, Old Norse literature, and Middle English literature incorporated the materials of pre-Christian traditions. • The complex currents, vitality, and religious fervor of medieval culture are evident in the classics of Dante and Chaucer.

5. Medieval Novels

6. Yvain • This is a story of a boy who goes out to avenge his cousin’s disgrace after meeting a black knight at a mystical fountain. Yvain kills the knight who was king, then marries widowed queen after his release from prison. Yvain then defeats two knights who sought revenge for the king’s death, and helps reconcile differences between him, the queen and the maid. • Analysis of Yvain: • The attitude was modified by Chrétien to be influenced by sorrow. • It was no accident that adventures all involved rescuing of women from injustice. • Construction based on two factors: • Tradition of dipartite structure in work. • Posing of a problem of conflicting duties which were only resolved by demoralization, recovery, suffering and attainment of balance. • Character of widowed queen; personality is shadowy and character is not examined; responsible for Yvain’s actions.

7. Perceval: The Story of the Grail • A story about a not-so-bright boy who becomes a knight in King Arthur’s court and who seeks out the truth of the Grail and the Bleeding Lance after witnessing them at a ceremony. • Analysis of Perceval: • Since the story is incomplete, it is unfair to make a comparison of quality and structure, but certain points are beyond dispute: • No care from Chrétien particularly for the Grail story; it remained formless. • Chrétien did not succeed in making religion an integral element to his theme. • Grail and Religion: • The story has been assumed to have links with Christianity. • Chrétien skillfully exploits the comic potential of Perceval’s ignorance, but leaves something deliberately unsettling. • Chrétien also uses symbolisms in Perceval, the most important being the sword given to him by the Fisher King.

8. Beowulf • Information on handout

9. Medieval Drama

10. Youth, Hickscorner & Occupation and Idleness • The dramas were written by an unknown author. • They involve misdirected youths who somehow stray into a pattern of moral weakness and are eventually saved. • These three dramas themselves are allegories: • They deal with the universal changes that an average person undergoes. • About how the world can corrupt a person, and how we are eventually saved by God or sometimes by the violence of those who would like others to believe in God. • Personification is given to emotions representing characters to increase significance and importance. • Each drama has various character conflicts.

11. Medieval Music

12. The Gregorian Chant • Also known as plainchant or plainsong, the Gregorian chant is a monophonic melody with a freely flowing, unmeasured vocal line. It is the liturgical chant of the Roman Catholic Church. • There are more than 3000 Gregorian Chants, most of which are anonymous. The opening of Kyrie in Gregorian Notation, from “The Enjoyment of Music, 9th Ed.”

13. Medieval Poetry

14. The Day of Wrath, A Dream of the Rood & A Complaint to His Lady • The Day of Wrath: • This poem has a highly religious backing. It speaks of the Judgement Day, when all men shall be judged by the Lord. • The poem depicts a man pleading for forgiveness in front of the Judge, or in anticipation of the Judgement, he pleads before the Saviour of infinite mercy. • A Dream of the Rood: • Once again, the poem is of a religious nature. This poem related the crucifixion of Christ in the words of the cross. The cross itself is a character in the poem, being personified with emotions. • A Complaint to His Lady: • This poem fits into a less prevalent theme favoured in the Medieval time period- Romance. • The poem fits in the time period because in many cases, if a woman would not accept a man’s love, she would become the target of the man’s anger, which was caused by rejection.

15. Emaré, Cunstance & Le Bone Florence of Rome • A common theme through all three poems is women’s power, or lack thereof. In each poem, events in a young woman’s life which are mainly initiated by men, (or evil mothers-in-law), attempt to disempower the woman, but she holds her dignity and gains control at the end of the romance. • In Emaré, when she finds herself stranded in a boat on the ocean, she appeals to the Virgin Mary, which fits with the highly religious period. When Miles intended to rape Florence, she also appealed to the Virgin Mary. In Cunstance, when she a set floating for “days and years”, she prays for help and is protected. • The basic medieval romance plot is as follows: • A ‘good’ woman of high class gets sent out to see by/because of a close relative, usually a father figure. The woman comes ashore, maybe gets married, but is set sailing again through the schemes of a mother-in-law or a rejected spouse. She then arrives somewhere different, where her family eventually gathers.

16. Medieval Art

17. It is easy to see how the art fits into this period, which was heavily religious. • Most of the art found is of a religious nature. • In the first picture, we have a portrayal of the baptism of Christ, painted on the back of a building. • Perhaps, by the beliefs of the people of this time, the painting was to bless the building and those who enter into it. • In the second picture we find yet another portrayal of Christ. • It depicts Jesus with a cross in a circle above his head, almost halo-like.

18. Medieval Life

19. 597 Mission of St. Augustine to England 768 Charlemagne becomes King of the Franks 800 Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of Rome by the Pope 843 Charlemagne's Frankish Empire breaks up 900 Magyars invade Europe 910 Benedictine Abbey of Cluny is founded 936-973 Reign of Otto the Great, king of Germany 987-996 First Capetian king of France 1000 Stephen 1 becomes king of Hungary 1066 Norman Conquest of Britain 1072-1091 Norman armies conquer Sicily 1095-1099 The First Crusade 1139-1185 Alphonso 1 becomes king of Portugal 1180-1223 Philip II Augustus rules France 1190-1227 Conquest of Genghis Khan 1212 Almohads defeated by Christians 1256 Hanseatic League formed around Baltic 1262 Iceland and Greenland come under Norwegian rule 1295-1314 Scottish Wars of Independence 1337-1453 The Hundred Year War 1347 Bubonic Plague or Black Death reaches Europe 1381 Peasant's Revolt in England 1385 Portugal achieves independance from Spain 1417 End of Great Schism in Catholic Church. Medieval Timeline

20. Medieval Culture/Beliefs • The early Christian church and the state were the centers of power during this time. • Most of the surviving art/literature/music is sacred, due to the sponsorship of the Church. • All power flowed from the King, through the Roman Catholic church, causing conflicts between church and state • The culture was shaped by the rising number of monasteries, whose members preserved the learnings of the ancient world and transmitted it to European scholars. • This was an age of violence brought on by religious beliefs, knights embarked on holy Crusades. • The society was male-dominated, but female status was raised by the beliefs in the Virgin Mary, and concepts of chivalry, i.e. kindness to women.

21. Medieval Scholars

22. Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), born in Italy. Moved to Normandy in 1059, entering the monastery of Bec, becoming its prior in 1063 and its abbot in 1078. In 1093 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote the Proslogian, which proposes the ontological argument for God. It demonstrates that the Christian Gospel is rational and can be shown to be rational. • Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142), French theologian who achieved a considerable reputation as a teacher at the University of Paris. His most noted contribution to Medieval theology is his emphasis upon the subjective aspects of the atonement. • High of St. Victor (died 1142) A theologian who entered the Augustinian monastery of St. Victor in Paris around 1115. His most important work is de sacramentis Christianae fidei (On the sacrament of the Christian Faith). It shows the awareness of the new theological debates that were beginning to develop at this time.

23. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-74), Born in Italy, studied at Cologne in 1248, returned to Paris in 1252, wrote Summa Theologica in 1266. The work is divided into three parts: I- God the Creator, II- Restoration of Humanity, III- Bringing salvation on humanity. • Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308) He taught at Oxford and Paris, wrote three commentaries on the Sentences and is known as the “subtle doctor” because of his ability to define things precisely. He was a champion of the theory of knowledge associated with Aristotle, and was a champion of the “doctrine” of the immaculate conception of Mary. • Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1469-1536) is regarded as the most important humanist of the age. Though Erasmus was not a Protestant, he was greatly influential upon Protestantism in a number of ways. One of these was his translation of the Greek New Testament. Secondly, he was able to produce many of the scholarly patristic works, especially those of Augustine. He also wrote the Enchiridion, which became a bestseller, and began reforming echoes at Zurich and Wittenberg. In such influences it is said that Luther hatched the egg that Erasmus laid.

24. The End Any Questions?