New Ways of Thinking in the Central Middle Ages

1. New Ways of Thinking in the Central Middle Ages

2. A central medieval Renaissance!

3. 12th and 13th-century themes • Bold attempts to gatherand systematize all knowledge in a field(law, theology, science) • Certainty in a unified,closed, harmonioussystem

4. Medieval Cosmology: inherited from the Greeks, unified, harmonious

6. 12th and 13th-century themes • Transmission ofclassical learningand new ideasthrough sites ofMuslim, Jewish,and Christian contact

7. 12th and 13th-century themes • Renewed knowledge of and interest in classical Greek thought(especially Aristotle, 384 – 322 BCE)

8. Aristotle, the systematizer

9. 12th and 13th-century themes • Focused application ofreason and logic to theworld and to scripture

10. St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – 1109): Ontological proof of God • By God we mean the greatest of all possible beings, the one being that it is impossible to conceive of anything else being greater than • To exist in our minds alone, and not in reality, is a self-contradiction of the very definition of God • Therefore such a being, since we can conceive of it, must exist in reality and not merely in our minds, for existing in reality is greater than existing only in our minds

11. Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142)wrote Sic et Non

12. Peter Lombard (1069 – 1164)Sentences (reconciles apparent contradictions in reason/scripture)

13. Peter Lombard’s Sentencesinfluences 4th Lateran Council’s statement on the sacraments

14. The Debate over Universals:nominalism vs. realism

15. 12th and 13th-century themes • Focused application ofreason and logic to theworld and to scripture • Optimistic sense ofthe attainability ofknowledge set forthby God for humanity

16. 7 liberal artsTrivium: grammar, rhetoric, logicQuadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music

18. Gratian’s Decretum(c.1140)The Concordance of Discordant Canons

19. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)Summa Theologica

20. Summa Theologicamasterful synthesis reconciling Aristotle and Scripture through logic

21. 12th and 13th-century themes • Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relation-ships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world

22. 12th and 13th-century themes

23. 12th and 13th-century themes • Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world(Literature)

24. What different types of literature emerged in the central Middle Ages?

26. What themes does Marie de France(c. 1160 - ?) explore in her lais?

27. 12th and 13th-century themes • Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world(Music)

28. 12th and 13th-century themes • Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world(Art)

29. Giotto(1266 – 1337)

34. 12th and 13th-century themes • Bold attempts to gatherand systematize all knowledge in a field(law, theology, science) • Certainty in a unified,closed, harmonioussystem

35. Dante

36. 12th and 13th-century themes • Simultaneous certainty inthe ‘magic’ or miraculousnature of God’s creation…mysticism as an alternativepath tothe divine

39. The Egg of the Universe (Hildegard of Bingen)

40. 12th and 13th-century themes • Tensions, stress, culturalfractures will weaken these soaring, unified intellectualstructures and modes of thoughtby c. 1300