The Middle Ages is a centuries-old period of the birth, domination and decomposition of feudalism. In Europe it lasted 12 centuries, in Asia even longer. Remnants of the Middle Ages in some countries have not disappeared to this day.
Most of the peoples embarked on the path of feudalism, bypassing the slave system. Their Middle Ages began with the disintegration of tribal relations. Other peoples who survived the slave formation began their medieval history with the traditions of class society and the state. But the essence of the new social order remained the same. Everywhere the transition to feudalism was associated with the subordination of the peasants to the large landowners, who turned the land - the main condition for the application of human labor - into their monopoly property (state, private).
Feudalism marked progress in social development. The peasant allotted with land was interested in the growth of labor productivity, and this interest increased as the development of feudal relations and the weakening of personal and land dependence. The era of feudalism was marked by the flourishing of small-scale commodity production in cities that became the cradle of freedom and centers of culture. Here manufacture was born and new classes of bourgeois society began to take shape. As a result of the development of the commodity-money economy, agrarian relations changed: the peasants were transferred to the Chinsh, in some places capitalist-type farms appeared.
During the Middle Ages, ethnic communities and state formations changed radically. The tribes merged into nationalities, and modern nations began to form from them. Instead of primitive barbarian states and isolated lords, large centralized states were formed on a national or international basis. Culture has risen incomparably. If in the era of the early Middle Ages people were content with the remnants of ancient education and biblical legends about the creation of the world, then by the end of the feudal era a scientific understanding of the surrounding nature began to take shape and the foundations of a materialistic worldview were laid.
The term "middle ages".
Italian humanists - linguists and writers, seeking to revive classical Latin, called the time that separates their century from classical antiquity, the "Middle Ages" (medium aevum). In the XV century. this term began to be used by historians to designate the period of history from the death of the Western Roman Empire to the modern Renaissance. In the XVII century. the division of world history into antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times has already become firmly established in historical science. The concept of "Middle Ages" in humanistic and subsequent bourgeois historiography did not acquire a strictly scientific meaning and chronological definiteness. The initial milestone of the Middle Ages was considered either the deposition of the last Roman emperor (476), then the reign of Constantine (306-337), or the Arab attack on Europe (early 8th century). The end of the Middle Ages was even more arbitrarily dated. For some, this date was the fall of Constantinople (1453), for others, the discovery of America (1492), for others, the beginning of the Reformation in Germany (1517). The character of the Middle Ages is understood in the same contradictory way. Historians of the Enlightenment, following the humanists, assessed the Middle Ages as a time of social and cultural regression, ignorance and obscurantism. The reactionary trends in bourgeois historiography, on the contrary, idealize and modernize the Middle Ages, raising on the shield exactly what the enlighteners condemned - Catholicism, scholasticism, and the corporate system.
Soviet historical science, using the term "Middle Ages" and the traditional periodization of world history according to the three indicated eras, gives them a completely different meaning. We consider the historical process as a natural succession of socio-economic formations: the Middle Ages is the time of the birth, domination and decomposition of the feudal mode of production, which replaced the slave-owning or primitive communal one. The end of the Middle Ages meant the transition from feudalism to a higher stage of social development - capitalism ...
The essence of feudalism. Historians began talking about feudalism in the 18th century, when the bourgeoisie was preparing to storm the "old order". By feudalism, they understood precisely this old order, which contradicted the ideal ideas about "natural rights" and the normal social order. The main features of feudalism were considered: the fragmentation of political power, the absence of civil law and order, the combination of political power with land ownership, the hierarchical structure of society. Although at present the assessment of feudalism in bourgeois historiography has changed significantly, nevertheless, this legal concept remained in force. Historians continue to define feudalism by its external political and legal characteristics, without delving into the essence of economic relations. They consider the main signs of feudalism to be political fragmentation, “dispersal of sovereignty,” vassalage, a hierarchical structure of political power, and corporatism.
Marxist-Leninist historiography sees feudalism as one of the antagonistic socio-economic formations. The basis of the feudal mode of production was the existence of land ownership in the hands of the exploiting class and the allotment of land to direct producers - dependent peasants - who ran independent small-scale farming on it and gave their surplus product to the feudal lords in the form of rent or tax. At the same time, each feudal lord used non-economic coercion, since otherwise he “could not have forced a person who was endowed with land and running his own economy to work for himself”. feudal rent existed in three forms: labor (corvee), food (natural quitrent) and money. In the early Middle Ages, labor rent prevailed in Western Europe. Later, natural quitrent became more widespread. With the development of commodity-money relations, money rent acquired predominant importance: the feudal lords began to curtail the lordly economy, distributing the land to the peasant holdings, which led to the weakening and even elimination of serfdom and its replacement with quitrent obligations of the peasant-holders. This contributed to the growth of the productivity of peasant labor and the stratification of the peasantry. But in some countries the feudal lords expanded their economy and reduced peasant holdings. To cultivate the lordly land, they used hired labor or resorted to the restoration of the corvée duties of the holders.
In feudal society, there was an acute class struggle of the exploited (peasants and townspeople) against the exploiters (feudal lords and the urban elite). This struggle often resulted in grandiose uprisings that shook the foundations of the feudal system. And although the insurgent masses were defeated, their actions nevertheless forced the feudal lords to mitigate exploitation and adhere to the norms of feudal duties established by custom. Thus, popular uprisings played a progressive role in the development of feudal society and its productive forces. During the disintegration of feudalism, the struggle of the masses merged with the actions of the bourgeoisie and ensured the victory of the bourgeoisie in the early bourgeois revolutions.
Feudalism represented a higher stage of social development than the primitive communal and slave-owning system, on the ruins of which it was formed. In contrast to the slave system, in which the direct producer - the slave - was deprived of the means of production and turned into a "talking tool", under feudalism the dependent and serf peasant was endowed with land and runs his own small economy. The peasants showed an interest in increasing the productivity of their labor, since a certain share of the surplus product was used to expand the small peasant economy and improve the well-being of the dependent population. With the development of feudalism, personal dependence weakened and in many cases disappeared, which created new incentives for the growth of the productivity of peasant labor.
No less progressively affected the development of the productive forces and the transition to feudalism from the primitive communal system. The strengthening of individual production and the transformation of small peasant farming into the main economic unit of society contributed to an increase in labor productivity, despite the fact that the peasants began to be subjected to cruel exploitation.
In contrast to the slave system, feudalism represented a universal socio-economic formation, which almost all the peoples of the world went through. But in the development of feudalism in different countries and on different continents there were significant features that were determined by the specific historical living conditions of peoples and the natural geographic environment. I The feudal system developed in different ways among agricultural and pastoral peoples, in countries with a temperate and arid climate, where agriculture required artificial irrigation, in conditions of the decomposition of the slaveholding or primitive communal system. In particular, very noticeable differences were observed in the development of feudalism in European and Asian countries. If in Europe during all periods of the Middle Ages, private feudal ownership of land was predominant and the exploitation of the peasantry was carried out mostly in the form of levying feudal rent, then in Asian countries, in particular in China and India, in the early and even in the classical Middle Ages, the state was widespread. ownership of land and the most important form of exploitation of peasants were state taxes. This also explains the fact that in Europe during the period of the prevailing feudalism, political fragmentation prevailed, and in the East at that time there was a more or less centralized system of government in the form of a despotic monarchy.
Periodization of the history of the Middle Ages. Feudalism in its development went through several stages, each of which is characterized by significant shifts in the economy, social and political system. On the principle of the stage development of society
a Marxist-Leninist periodization of the historical process is being built.
The transition to feudalism did not occur simultaneously in different countries. Earlier, the peoples who survived the slaveholding system entered the path of feudal development, later the peoples in whom feudalism was the first class formation. In the same way, there is no single chronological milestone for the end of the feudal formation for all countries. Some, more developed peoples, put an end to feudalism and embarked on the path of capitalism earlier, others later. The beginning of the Western European Middle Ages, Soviet historians consider the collapse of the slave-owning Roman Empire (5th century), the end - the English bourgeois revolution (1640-1660). In Asian countries with the most ancient civilization- China, North India - the transition to feudalism began somewhat earlier (II-III centuries), but the feudal period in the East as a whole lasted for a longer time (until the XVIII-XIX centuries).
In Soviet historiography, it is customary to divide the history of the Middle Ages into the following three periods: the early Middle Ages - the time of the formation of the feudal mode of production - (5th century, in some Asian countries of the 2nd-11th centuries); the classical Middle Ages - the period of developed feudalism (end of the 11th-15th centuries, in some Asian countries - and the 16th century inclusive); late Middle Ages - the period of decomposition of feudalism and the emergence of the capitalist mode of production (16th-mid-17th century, in the East until the 18th-19th centuries).
During the early Middle Ages, the formation of feudal relations took place - the formation of large land ownership and the subordination of free peasants-communes to feudal lords. Two antagonistic classes of feudal society were formed - the class of feudal landowners and the class of dependent peasants. The economy combined different structures - slaveholding, patriarchal (free communal land tenure) and emerging feudal (various forms of land and personal dependence). These socio-economic conditions determined the nature of the early feudal state. It was relatively unified, and in Asian countries even more or less centralized (with a despotic form of government) and exercised its domination over a personally free population with the help of territorial authorities. Within these states, which united many different ethnic communities, the process of ethnic integration took place and the foundations for the formation of medieval peoples were laid.
The second period in the history of the Middle Ages is characterized by the completion of the process of the formation of feudal relations and the flourishing of feudalism. The peasants were placed in land or personal dependence, and the members of the ruling class were in hierarchical subordination. This led to the collapse of the early feudal territorial organization of state power and the dominance of feudal fragmentation. In the countries of East Asia, where even under developed feudalism, state ownership of land was retained to a significant extent, large state formations with a centralized system of government continued to exist.
As a result of the development of the feudal economy, the rise of cities and the growth of commodity-money relations, the forms of feudal exploitation changed, the serf dependence of the peasants weakened, and a free urban population appeared. Thus, the prerequisites were created for the elimination of feudal fragmentation and centralization of state power. This was also largely facilitated by the ethnic cohesion of the population - the formation of feudal peoples from separate tribal communities. The development of commodity-money relations, the flourishing of cities and urban culture radically changed the face of feudal society. A new ideology was born - humanism, a movement for the reform of the Catholic Church began. The struggle of the popular masses against feudal exploitation intensified, and grandiose peasant and urban uprisings broke out.
The third period of the Middle Ages is characterized by an extreme aggravation of the contradictions inherent in feudalism. The productive forces have outgrown the framework of feudal relations of production and traditional forms of property. In the bowels of feudal society, capitalist relations arose. In some countries (England, Northern Netherlands) direct producers were expropriated. The masses of the people fought against both feudal and capitalist exploitation. All this created the conditions for the completion of the centralization of the feudal states and the transition to absolutism. The rising bourgeoisie went to the battle against feudalism (first in the form of the Reformation, later in an open political struggle) to establish its rule.
The Middle Ages were drawing to a close. A new time was dawning.
History of the Middle Ages and the Present.
The history of feudal society is for us not only academic, but also deep theoretical and scientific-practical interest. Many phenomena in the life of modern peoples and states have their roots in the medieval past - the formation of classes in bourgeois society, the formation of nations and the development of national cultures, the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses, which laid the foundation for the revolutionary traditions of peoples, the struggle for free thought against the spiritual dictatorship of the church, liberation movements against foreign yoke and national oppression, the beginning of the creation of colonial empires, etc. Studying the history of the Middle Ages helps to better understand the present and development prospects for the future.
Remnants of the Middle Ages are still preserved in the world, with which the progressive forces of society are fighting. Remnants of feudalism exist in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, especially in those that have recently freed themselves from the yoke of colonialism. Some medieval traditions - monarchy, estate privileges - have not been eliminated even in such highly developed countries as England and Japan.
On the most important problems of the history of the Middle Ages, an acute ideological struggle is being waged between Marxist and bourgeois historians. Contemporary bourgeois reactionary historiography distorts many phenomena in the life of medieval society; it tries, contrary to historical facts, to prove that private ownership of land and the exploitation of man by man have existed for ages, is silent about the cruel class struggle in feudal society and repeats about the "harmony of social interests." Apologists of modern capitalism argue that the capitalist system has existed for ages, since it supposedly corresponds to human nature. Reactionary historians idealize feudalism, medieval religiosity, and corporate isolation. The struggle against reactionary bourgeois historiography is the most important task of Soviet medieval historians.
§ 1 The concept of "Middle Ages"
One and a half thousand years ago, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, a new era in world history began. In historical science, it is customary to call it the Middle Ages or the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages lasted for a thousand years, until about the 15th century this period of history was replaced by the New Age.
The Middle Ages is a centuries-old period of the birth, domination and decomposition of feudalism. In European countries it lasted for XII centuries, in Asian countries even longer. It should be noted that the remnants of medieval traditions and customs in some Asian countries have not disappeared until now.
The term "Middle Ages" was first coined by Italian humanists during the Renaissance. From the standpoint of the high achievements of the Renaissance culture, the Middle Ages were seen by humanist philosophers as a period of savagery and barbarism. This position has long been rooted in historical science.
Historians of the 17th-18th centuries have consolidated the division of human history into ancient, middle and new. The history of the Middle Ages covers a long period, full of numerous events that have both positive and negative significance for historians.
The history of the Middle Ages is usually divided into three main periods:
1. The end of the 5th - the middle of the 11th centuries - the period of the early Middle Ages. The feudal system is just beginning to take shape as a social system. This is the time of the barbarian and early feudal kingdoms. Christianity is affirmed, in spiritual life the decline of culture is replaced by an upsurge.
2. The middle of the XI - the end of the 15th centuries - the period of the heyday of feudal relations. There is a massive growth of cities, after a period of feudal fragmentation, centralized states are formed. Commodity-money relations are developing. A new form of state emerged - the feudal monarchy. The ideology of early humanism and the culture of the Renaissance are being formed.
3.XVI - XVII centuries - the period of late feudalism or the beginning of the early modern era. This time is characterized by the processes of decomposition of feudalism and the emergence of early capitalist relations. A type of feudal state is taking shape - an absolute monarchy. The 17th century becomes a turning point in the development of rationalism and natural sciences.
§ 2 Transition to feudalism
In the Middle Ages, most peoples embarked on the path of feudalism, bypassing the slave system. Thus, their Middle Ages begins with the disintegration of tribal relations.
Other peoples, having survived the slave formation, began their history of the Middle Ages with the traditions of class society and the state. Nevertheless, the essence of the new social order remained unchanged. In all countries, the transition to feudalism was associated with the subordination of the peasants to the large landowners, who turned the land into their monopoly property.
It should be noted that feudalism at that time marked the progress in social development. The peasant, allotted with land, was interested in increasing the productivity of his labor. The era of feudalism is marked by the flourishing of small-scale commodity production in cities, which become centers of culture. It was here that manufacture was born and new classes of bourgeois society began to take shape.
§ 3 Development of culture
It should be noted that in the Middle Ages, humanity made significant progress in terms of the development of material and spiritual culture.
It was in the Middle Ages that Christianity became one of the largest world religions, exerting a tremendous influence on the development of medieval European civilization, which is its uniqueness.
Of course, when using the term "Middle Ages", many will remember the fires of the Inquisition, devastating epidemics and manifestations of feudal violence. But, nevertheless, the Middle Ages left in the memory of mankind wonderful poetic works, wonderful monuments of architecture, painting, scientific thought.
Among the galaxy of great people whom the Middle Ages gave us are: scientists - Roger Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolaus Copernicus; genius poets and writers - Omar Khayyam, Dante, Petrarch, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Cervantes; outstanding artists - Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Rembrandt.
§ 4 Summary of the lesson
The further the history of the Middle Ages is studied, the more complex and multifaceted it appears. At the moment, historical science does not represent this period as dark years of violence and ignorance. The medieval world appears before those studying it, not only as a natural stage in the development of society, but also as an original, unique era in the history of Europe with a peculiar culture - both primitive and sophisticated at the same time, undoubtedly capable of spiritually enriching a modern person with acquaintance with it.
List of used literature:
- Vainshtein O. L. Western European medieval historiography L., 1994
- Korsunsky A.R. The emergence of feudal relations in Western Europe M., 1979
- Blok M. Feudal Society M., 2003
- Encyclopedia World History M., 2011
- History of the Middle Ages, ed. S.P. Karpova M., 2010
- Duby J. Middle Ages M., 2001
- Le Goff J. Civilization of the Medieval West M., 1997
Images used:
The history of the Middle Ages of Europe covers the period from the 5th to the middle of the 17th century. Within the period, the following stages can be distinguished: a) the early Middle Ages: the 5th - 11th centuries; b) developed Middle Ages: XI-XV centuries; c) late Middle Ages: XVI - mid-XVII century.
The term "Middle Ages" (from Lat. Medium aevum - hence the name of the science studying the Middle Ages, medieval studies) originated in Italy during the Renaissance among humanists who believed that this time was a period of cultural decline, in contrast to the high rise of culture in the ancient world and in new time.
The Middle Ages is the time of feudalism, when mankind made significant progress in the development of material and spiritual culture, and the area of civilization expanded.
The feudal society is characterized by: 1) the domination of large landed property; 2) the combination of large land ownership with small individual farming of direct producers - peasants, who were only land holders, not owners; 3) non-economic coercion in various forms: from serfdom to class incompleteness.
Feudal property (from Lat. - feodum) is hereditary land property associated with compulsory military service. In medieval society, a hierarchy emerges with a large role for personal vassal-feudal ties.
The state went through different stages: the early feudal period was characterized by large but loose empires; for the developed Middle Ages - small formations, estate monarchies; for the late Middle Ages - absolute monarchies.
Feudal law protected the monopoly of land ownership of the feudal lords, their rights to the identity of the peasants, to judicial and political power over them.
Religious ideology and the church played a huge role in society.
Thus, the features of feudal production gave rise to specific features of the social structure, political, legal and ideological systems.
The main features of medieval culture are: 1) the dominance of religion, God-centered worldview; 2) rejection of the ancient cultural tradition; 3) denial of hedonism; 4) asceticism; 5)
increased attention to the inner world of a person, his spirituality; c) conservatism, adherence to antiquity, a tendency to stereotypes in material and spiritual life; 7) elements of dual faith (Christianity and paganism) in the popular mind; 8) fetishizing works of art; 9) the internal inconsistency of culture: the conflict between paganism and Christianity, the opposition of scientific and popular culture, the relationship between secular and spiritual, church authorities, duality of value orientations (spirituality and physicality, good and evil, fear of sin and sin); 10) the hierarchy of culture, in which one can distinguish the culture of the clergy, knightly culture, urban culture, folk, mainly rural culture; 11) corporatism: dissolution of the personal principle of a person in a social group, for example, an estate.
Medieval European culture developed on the ruins of the Roman Empire. In the early Middle Ages, the decline of culture deepened, which took place in late Rome. The barbarians destroyed the cities, which were the concentration of cultural life, roads, irrigation facilities, monuments of ancient art, libraries, there was an agrarianization of society with the dominance of natural economy, commodity-money relations were undeveloped.
The Church established a monopoly on education and intellectual activity for many centuries.
All areas of knowledge were subordinated to church-feudal ideology. With a solid organization and established doctrine at the time of political decentralization, the church also had powerful propaganda tools.
The essence of the ecclesiastical worldview was the recognition of earthly life as temporary, "sinful"; material life, human nature were opposed to "eternal" existence. As the ideal of behavior that ensures the afterlife bliss, the church preached humility, asceticism, strict observance of church rituals, obedience to masters, faith in a miracle. Reason, sciences, philosophy were despised, to which faith was opposed, although certain elements of philosophical and secular knowledge were borrowed from the ancient heritage. The educational system: the so-called "seven liberal arts of antiquity" - was divided into the lower - "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics) and the higher - "quadrivium" (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music of the part). The works of ancient authors were used: Aristotle, Cicero, Pythagoras, Euclid, but within limited limits. The authority of the Holy Scriptures was placed above all sciences. In general, the system of knowledge of the Middle Ages was characterized by the following features: 1) universalism; 2) encyclopedism; 3) allegorism; 4) exegesis (Greek interpretation) - the ability to interpret and give a religious explanation of the Bible.
The universe (space) was viewed as a creation of God, doomed to perish. The geocentric system dominated with various spheres, hell and the abode of God. Each material object was considered as a symbol of the innermost and ideal world, and the task of science is to reveal these symbols. Hence the refusal to study the true connections of things with the help of experience. Symbolism has left an imprint on the entire medieval culture. Words were believed to explain the nature of things. Direct realistic perception of the world in art and literature was often clothed in the form of symbols and allegories.
The feudal-ecclesiastical culture was opposed by folk culture. It was rooted in pre-feudal antiquity and is associated with barbaric cultural heritage, pagan myths, beliefs, legends, holidays. These traditions, preserved in the peasant environment throughout the Middle Ages, were permeated with pagan religious ideas, alien to the gloomy asceticism of Christianity, its distrust of living nature: it was seen not only as a formidable force, but also as a source of life's blessings and earthly joys. The popular perception of the world was characterized by naive realism. The forms of folk art are varied: fairy tales, legends, songs. Folk legends formed the basis of the epic (the Irish epic about the hero Cuchulainn, the Icelandic epic - "the elder Edda", the Anglo-Saxon epic - the poem "Beowulf"). The exponents and carriers of the musical and poetic creativity of the people were mimes and histrions, and since the 11th century jugglers - in France, huglars - in Spain, spielmans - in Germany, roaming all over Europe.
The art of the early Middle Ages has lost many of the achievements of antiquity: sculpture and the image of a person in general have almost completely disappeared; the skills of stone processing were forgotten; in architecture, wooden architecture prevailed. The art of this period is characterized by: barbarization of taste and attitude; the cult of physical strength; flaunting wealth; at the same time, he has a lively, immediate sense of the material, which was especially manifested in jewelry and book making, where complex ornament and "animal" style prevailed. Under primitivism, barbaric art was dynamic, its main means of expression was color. Bright objects created a sense of materiality, corresponding to the barbaric sensual vision and perception of the world, far from Christian church asceticism.
In the early Middle Ages of the 7th - 9th centuries, there was a certain rise in feudal-church culture at the court of Charlemagne (768 - 814) - the so-called "Carolingian Revival", caused by the need for literate people to rule the empire. Schools were opened at monasteries for the laity, educated people from other countries were invited, antique manuscripts were collected, stone construction began, but this rise in culture was fragile and short-lived.
The advanced Middle Ages were marked by significant urban growth and the emergence of universities.
The emergence of cities as centers of crafts and trade marked a new stage in the development of medieval culture. The prerequisites for the growth of cities were the intensive development of commodity production and money circulation on the basis of private property. There was a need for literate people; production has given rise to an interest in experiential knowledge and its accumulation; the townspeople are characterized by an active perception of life, sober calculation, efficiency, which contributed to the development of a rationalistic type of thinking; intellectual needs and interests grew and, accordingly, a craving for secular education. The church's monopoly on education was broken, although the church dominated ideology. Urban schools competed successfully with monastic schools.
The cities grew in connection with the influx of peasants who fled from their masters or were released on quitrent. Medieval cities were small in terms of population; in the XIV-XV centuries those of them, where 20 thousand people lived, were considered large. The population of the cities actively fought for their independence from the feudal lords: the cities were either bought off, or gained independence in an armed struggle. Many cities became communes, that is, they had the right to conduct an independent foreign policy, to have their own self-government, to mint coins, all the townspeople were free from serfdom. In fact, they were city-states that resembled an ancient city-state. The urban population, or the "third estate", became the spiritual leader and the predominant bearer of culture.
With the development of urban culture, secular education, universities appear (from Lat. universitаs - union, community). In 1088, on the basis of the Bologna Law School, the University of Bologna was opened, in 1167 the University of Oxford began to work in England, in 1209 - the University of Cambridge, in France in 1160 the University of Paris was opened. In total, by the end of the 15th century, there were 65 universities in Europe (except for Italy, France, England, universities appeared in Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland). Universities were taught in Latin, which has become the European language of culture. Mutual language and religion created a certain cultural unity in Europe, despite feudal fragmentation and political conflicts. The main faculties (from Lat. Facultas - opportunity) were the junior, where they studied the "seven liberal arts of antiquity," and the older ones, where they studied theology, law, medicine.
In its refined form, spiritual culture was expressed in philosophy. In the course of philosophical disputes, the main directions of medieval scholasticism (from the Latin schola - school) were formed. Two main directions arose: "nominalism" (from the Latin nomina - name), which believed that objectively there are only isolated things accessible to human sensations, and general concepts- "universals" do not really exist, nominalism was the embryo of materialism; "Realism", which believed that only general concepts - "universals" really exist, single things were considered only as a product and an imperfect reflection of these concepts. The main question of scholasticism was the question of the relationship between knowledge and faith. The problem of the relationship between faith and reason was embodied in literature, and in the visual arts, and in music. The religious worldview, as the core of spiritual culture, and the Christian God, as the basis of the moral world of medieval man, determined the subordinate role of philosophy in relation to religion.
Thomas Aquinas (1225/26 - 1274) - the largest scholastic philosopher argued that philosophy and science are the servants of theology, since faith surpasses reason in human existence. He argued that, firstly, the human mind constantly makes mistakes, while faith rests on the absolute truthfulness of God, and, secondly, faith is given to every person, and the possession of scientific and philosophical knowledge, requiring intense mental activity, is available far from everyone.
An outstanding scholastic was Pierre Abelard (1079 - 1142) - a French philosopher, theologian and poet, a bright exponent of free thought, who opposed the extreme forms of both nominalism and realism. His free thinking was based on the priority of reason over faith: "understanding in order to believe." He was declared a heretic with a ban on teaching and writing.
Along with scholasticism in the Middle Ages, there were other areas of philosophy and theology, in particular, mysticism. The mystics rejected the need to study Aristotle and use logical evidence of faith. They believed that religious doctrines are learned not through reason and science, but through intuition, illumination or "contemplation", prayers and vigils. Denying the role of reason in the knowledge of the world and God, the mystics were more reactionary than the scholastics. But among them there were strong democratic sentiments: mystical sects were critical of the feudal system and preached the need to establish a "kingdom of God on earth" without private property, inequality, exploitation. Among the mystics, one can distinguish Bernard of Clairvaux, Johann Tauler, Thomas of Kempis.
In medieval Europe, although slowly, there was a development of science and technology. Thus, Oxford professor Roger Bacon (1214 - 1294), who proceeded from the fact that experience is the basis of knowledge, created "Big Labor" - an encyclopedia of that time. In medieval science, alchemy developed, which expressed the connection between craft, religion, mysticism, magic, occultism. Alchemy preceded the emergence of experimental natural science.
The Arab-Islamic civilization had a significant influence on European philosophy and science, in particular, the works of Al-Biruni (980 - 1048), Ibn Sina (980 - 1037).
In the Middle Ages, inventions were made that influenced the entire future life of society: the invention of gunpowder, paper, printing, glasses, a compass. Of particular importance was book printing, begun in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468), which contributed to the development of national literatures, the unification of spelling and, accordingly, education, science, and culture.
In the XII-XIII centuries, Latin-language literature flourished, in particular, the poetry of the vagantes (from the Latin vagary - to wander). The national literature is developing, in particular, the epic is recorded: French - "Song of Roland", Spanish - "Song of Side", German - "Song of the Nibelungs". Knightly literature is being formed: the secular lyric poetry of the troubadours, glorifying "courtly love" (from Old French - courtier), knightly novels. There is an interest in the personality of a person, his feelings. Urban literature is developing in national languages: for example, the novel about the Fox and the novel about the rose were created in French; the predecessor of the Renaissance in France was François Villon (1431 - 1461). The father of English literature is Jeffrey Chaucer (1340 - 1400), who created a collection of poems in the English vernacular, The Canterbury Tales.
In medieval Europe, the place of art was controversial. Art was seen as the Bible for the illiterate. The main task of art is to strengthen religious feelings, to reveal the images of Scripture, works are usually anonymous. It is not realism that is required of the artist, but the disclosure of the ideas of divine holiness. The transition from the space of the outer world to the inner space of the human spirit is the main goal of art. It is expressed in the famous phrase of Augustine: "Do not wander outside, but enter within yourself." Christian ideology rejected the ideals that inspired ancient artists: the joy of being, sensuality, corporeality, truthfulness, the glorification of a person who realizes himself as a beautiful element of the cosmos - it destroyed the ancient harmony of body and spirit, man and the earthly world.
The most important type of art is architecture, embodied in two styles: Romanesque and Gothic. Romanesque architecture is notable for its massiveness, squatness, its task is the humility of man, suppression of him against the background of the monumental greatness of the universe, God. Since the 12th century, the Gothic style has emerged, the features of which are the aspiration upward, pointed arches, and stained-glass windows. V. Hugo called Gothic "a symphony in stone". Unlike the harsh, monolithic, imposing Romanesque temples, Gothic cathedrals are decorated with carvings and decor, many sculptures, they are full of light, directed into the sky, their towers towered up to 150 m. The ancient temple was considered the place of life of God, religious ceremonies took place outside, and the temple was perceived as a place of communication for the religious community and special attention was paid to the interior decoration.
The main genre in painting was icon painting. Painting acted as a silent sermon, “speculation in colors”. Icons were seen as an emotional connection with God, available to the illiterate, they are deeply symbolic. Images are often deliberately deformed, conventional, there is a so-called reverse perspective effect for greater impact on the viewer. In addition to icons, the visual arts of the Middle Ages are also represented by paintings, mosaics, miniatures, and stained-glass windows.
The basis of musical culture was liturgical singing, praising God in melodies, and then in hymns, combining a poetic text with a song melody. Canonized music -
Gregorian chant - also included chants intended for all services of the church calendar. Another layer of music is associated with the ideology of chivalry (courtly lyrics of the troubadours) and the work of professional musicians-minstrels.
In the developed Middle Ages, applied arts achieved significant success: carpet making, bronze casting, enamel, book miniatures.
In general, medieval art is characterized by: sincere reverence for the Divine, typification, the absolute opposite of good and evil, deep symbolism, subordination of art to extra-aesthetic, religious ideals, hierarchy, traditionalism, underdevelopment of the personal principle, - at the same time, medieval culture does not express a frozen forever the state of man and his world, but a living movement. The dynamics of cultural development is largely determined by the interaction and rivalry of the official and folk cultures. On the whole, medieval culture had integrity; there was an authoritarian value system; dogmatism prevailed; it was characterized by a craving for All-unity ("the city of God on earth") through the existing fragmentation of being; the Christian universality of man was opposed to the narrowness of the national class; along with the renunciation of the world, there was a desire for a violent worldwide transformation of the world. Man began to turn to himself, and not only to God, but in full measure this greatest progressive revolution in the history of mankind took place in the Renaissance, prepared by the Middle Ages.
Byzantium occupied a special place in medieval Europe. At the dawn of the Middle Ages, she remained the only guardian of the Hellenistic cultural traditions. But Byzantium significantly transformed the legacy of late antiquity, creating an artistic style, already entirely belonging to the spirit and letter of the Middle Ages.
Moreover, of all medieval European art, it was Byzantine that was most orthodox Christian. In Byzantine artistic culture, two principles are fused: magnificent entertainment and refined spiritualism. The East had a significant influence on the culture of Byzantium. In turn, Byzantium significantly influenced the culture of Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. 6.4.1.
By the end of the 15th century, the millennial era of the Middle Ages ended. It is even difficult to list all those achievements in the life of society, in the economy and culture, which mankind owes to the Middle Ages and still uses with gratitude. It was then that many states arose that still exist. Modern peoples with their own languages and national cultures were formed within their borders. The origins of modern urban life and parliamentary democracy, judicial norms and universities date back to the Middle Ages. At the same time, many scientific discoveries and important inventions were made. Machine tools and blast furnaces, cannons and mechanical watches appeared, not to mention such familiar little things as glasses or buttons. The invention of printing has played a particularly important role in the history of mankind.
The era of the Middle Ages was marked by an amazing rise in literature and art. Masterpieces of medieval writers and poets, architects and artists have become an integral part of world culture, influencing you and me.
One of the most important achievements of the Middle Ages was the birth of Europe - not in the geographical, but in the cultural and historical sense of the word. Christianity became the basis of this Europe and the richest culture it created. Having originated in antiquity, Christianity spread throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. It turned out to be like a bridge connecting the Middle Ages with antiquity even when the brilliant Roman culture was perishing under the blows of the barbarians.
In many countries of Asia and Africa, Islam, the third world religion in terms of origin, played an equally important role. On its basis, the Arab civilization was formed - one of the greatest in the history of mankind. And in some countries of East and Southeast Asia, Buddhism, the oldest of the world's religions, played an equally significant role.
The Middle Ages in Europe ended in a completely different way than antiquity. If the Roman Empire perished as a result of internal contradictions and attacks by barbarians, then the transition from the Middle Ages to the New Time, although it was marked in Europe by strong upheavals, was not accompanied by any economic, social or cultural decline. Medieval Europe, having suffered a lot over its thousand-year history, was still firmly on its feet. Moreover, the transition to a new historical era was associated with its further development.
The ability to constantly improve is the most important distinguishing feature of medieval Europe, which it inherited from modern times, and ultimately to modern times. It was this feature that allowed Europe, which in the early Middle Ages lagged behind the most developed countries of the East, gradually in the technical and economic terms, to get ahead, and later use its superiority to establish dominance over other parts of the world. But you will learn about this already from the course on the history of modern times.
The "Middle Ages" is an era that began after antiquity and ended with the onset of the New Age, that is, the bourgeois order, the capitalist economy. The duration of the Middle Ages is about ten centuries. The name was given by the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, who believed that they were reviving the culture of ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The end of the Middle Ages and at the same time the beginning of the New Age is a series of bourgeois revolutions, which began with the uprising in the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century and continued by the revolutions in England (17th century) and France (18th century).
In the last centuries of the period under consideration, the most important processes took place in Western Europe in the sphere of spiritual life: Revival(Renaissance), the results of which were the emergence and formation of European humanism and the revolutionary transformation of artistic culture; religious reformation, creating the "spirit of capitalism"; in the very last, XVIII century, Education, largely shaped rationalism and prepared positivism. All these processes take place in the Middle Ages, completing this era; they are preparing bourgeois revolutions. However, due to their enormous importance, they will be considered separately.
Within the Middle Ages, it is customary to distinguish at least three periods. This:
Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 years (up to X - XI centuries);
High (Classical) Middle Ages, from X-XI centuries to about XIV century;
Late Middle Ages, XIV and XVI centuries.
The early Middle Ages was a time when turbulent and very important processes were also taking place in Europe. First of all, these are the invasions of the so-called vrvars (from the Latin barba - beard), who, from the second century AD, constantly attacked the Roman Empire and settled on the lands of its provinces. This ended, as already mentioned, with the fall of Rome.
At the same time, the barbarians adopted Christianity, which in Rome by the end of its existence was the state religion. Christianity in its various forms supplanted pagan beliefs and religions throughout the Roman Empire; after the fall of the empire, the spread of Christianity continued. This is the second most important historical process that determined the face of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.
The third significant process was the formation of new state entities created by the same "barbarians". On Christmas Day 800, King Charlemagne of the Franks was crowned in Rome by the Catholic Pope as Emperor of the entire European West. The Holy Roman Empire arose. Later (AD 900), the Holy Roman Empire disintegrated into countless duchies, counties, margraves, bishoprics, abbeys and other fiefdoms. However, the processes of the formation of state formations continued in subsequent periods.
A characteristic feature of life in the early Middle Ages was the constant plunder and devastation to which the settlements of Europeans were subjected. From the north, the Scandinavian Vikings constantly made pirate raids. Muslims raided and conquered from the south. From the east, the Magyars, the Hungarians, who relatively recently settled in Eastern Europe, on the Danube, also began to slowly build their state. Fragmented into small estates, Europe lived in constant tension and fear, the threat of robberies and robberies significantly slowed down economic development.
During the classical, or high, Middle Ages, Western Europe began to overcome these difficulties and revive. Since the 10th century, cooperation under the laws of feudalism has made it possible to create larger state structures and collect sufficiently strong armies. Thanks to this, it was possible to stop the invasions. Numerous missionaries brought Christianity to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, so that these states entered the orbit of Western culture.
The onset of relative stability provided the opportunity for a rapid rise in cities and the pan-European economy. Life in Western Europe changed greatly, society was rapidly losing its barbaric features, and spiritual life flourished in the cities. In general, European society has become much richer and more civilized than during the ancient Roman Empire. An outstanding role in this was played by the Christian Church, which also developed, improved its teaching and organization. On the basis of the artistic traditions of ancient Rome and the former barbarian tribes, Romanesque and then brilliant Gothic art arose, and along with architecture and literature, all its other types developed - theater, music, sculpture, painting, literature. It was during this era that, for example, such masterpieces of literature as "The Song of Roland" and "The Novel of the Rose" were created.
The late Middle Ages continued the processes of the formation of European culture, which began in the period of the classics. Thus, the peasants of Western Europe have achieved greater freedom and a higher standard of living for themselves. The former feudal nobility, aristocrats, began to build magnificent palaces for themselves, both on their estates and in cities, instead of castles. The new rich from the "low" classes imitated them in this, creating everyday comfort and an appropriate lifestyle. Conditions arose for a new upsurge in spiritual life, science, philosophy, art, especially in Northern Italy. This inevitably led to the so-called Renaissance, or Renaissance. Along with this, the specific position of the Christian church in medieval society made changes in the Christian religion and church itself inevitable. All this prepared the end of the Middle Ages, the transition to the New Time in Europe as the inevitable result of the development of medieval culture.
The history of the peoples and states of modern Europe began in the era conventionally defined in the historical literature as the "Middle Ages". Since antiquity, the concept of Europe (from the Semitic root Erebus), identified with the geographical definition of "West", has been contrasted with Asia (root Asu), or the East. The term Europe, indeed, encompasses a certain territorial integrity of peoples and states, the history of which reveals the commonality of economic, socio-political and spiritual development. At the same time, the originality of its western part, which was clearly defined precisely at the stage of medieval history, makes it possible to single out Western Europe as a local civilization existing within the framework of a larger civilizational unity, which is Europe as a whole.
The geographical meaning of the concept of Western Europe does not coincide with the historical one and presupposes a coastal strip at the western end of the Eurasian continent, with a mild maritime climate.
Historical concept of Western Europe at the stage of the Middle Ages includes the history of countries such as England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland, the states of the Iberian and Apennine peninsulas, the Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Norway, Sweden, as well as Byzantium, the successor to the Eastern Roman Empire. The border position of the latter country and its enormous influence on the fate of the entire European civilization predetermined the belonging of its history to both the West and the East.
In the first centuries of our era, most of Western Europe was inhabited by Celtic peoples, partly Romanized and incorporated into the Roman Empire; then, in the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, this territory became a place of settlement of Germanic tribes, while Eastern Europe became a place of settlement and historical activity of mainly Slavic peoples.
§ 1. The content of the terms "Middle Ages" and "feudalism" in historical science
The term "Middle Ages" - translated from the Latin expression medium aevum (Middle Ages) 1 - was first introduced by Italian humanists. Roman historian of the 15th century. Flavio Biondo, who wrote "History from the Fall of Rome", trying to comprehend the reality of his day, called the "Middle Ages" the period that separated his era from the time that served as a source of inspiration for the humanists - antiquity. Humanists evaluated primarily the state of language, writing, literature and art. From the standpoint of the high achievements of the Renaissance culture, they saw the Middle Ages as a period of savagery and barbarization of the ancient world, as a time of spoiled "kitchen" Latin. This assessment has long been rooted in historical science.
In the XVII century. Professor of the University of Gaul in Germany I. Keller introduced the term "Middle Ages" into the general periodization of world history, dividing it into antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times. The chronological framework of the period was designated by him by the time from the division of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern parts (ended in 395 under Theodosius I) to the fall of Constantinople under the blows of the Turks in 1453.
In the 17th and especially the 18th century. (the century of the Enlightenment), which were marked by convincing successes of secular rational thinking and natural sciences, the criterion for the periodization of world history began to serve not so much the state of culture as the attitude towards religion and the church. New, mostly pejorative, accents appeared in the concept of "Middle Ages", because of which the history of this period began to be assessed as a time of constraint on mental freedom, the rule of dogmatism, religious consciousness and superstition. The beginning of modern times, respectively, was associated with the invention of printing, the discovery of America by Europeans, the Reformation movement - phenomena that significantly expanded and changed the mental outlook of medieval man.
The romantic trend in historiography, which arose at the beginning of the 19th century. largely as a reaction to the ideology of the Enlightenment and the value system of the new bourgeois world, heightened interest in the Middle Ages and for some time led to its idealization. Overcoming these extremes in relation to the Middle Ages allowed changes in the process of cognition itself, in the ways of comprehending nature and society as a whole by European man.
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. two achievements of a methodological nature, important for the development of historical knowledge, significantly deepened the concept of "Middle Ages". One of them was the idea of the continuity of social development, which replaced the theory of circulation, or cyclical development, coming from antiquity, and the Christian idea of the finiteness of the world. This made it possible to see the evolution of Western European medieval society from a state of decline to an economic and cultural upsurge, the chronological boundary of which was the 11th century. This was the first notable departure from the assessment of the Middle Ages as the era of "dark ages".
The second achievement should be recognized as attempts to analyze not only event and political history, but also social history. These attempts led to the identification of the term "Middle Ages" and the concept of "feudalism". The latter spread in French journalism on the eve of the French Revolution of 1789 as a derivative of the legal term "feud" in the documents of the 11th-12th centuries, which denoted land property transferred for use for the service of a vassal by his lord. Its analogue in the Germanic lands was the term "flax". The history of the Middle Ages began to be understood as the time of the dominance of the feudal or fief system of social relations among the feudal lords - landowners.
A significant deepening of the content of the analyzed terms was provided by the science of the mid - late 19th century, the achievements of which were primarily associated with the formation of a new philosophy of history - positivism. The direction that adopted the new methodology was the first most convincing attempt to transform history into a science proper. She was distinguished by her desire to replace history as an entertaining tale of the lives of heroes with the history of the masses; attempts at a comprehensive vision of the historical process, including the socio-economic life of society; exclusive attention to the source and the development of a critical method of its research, which was supposed to provide an adequate interpretation of the reality reflected in it. The development of positivism began in the 1830s. in the works of O. Comte in France, J. Art. Mill and G. Spencer in England, however, the results of the new methodology in historical research showed themselves later, by the second half of the century. Summarizing the results of the historiography of the 19th century, it should be emphasized that most often, historical thought continued to define feudalism on political and legal grounds. Feudalism was portrayed as a special political and legal organization of society with a system of personal, primarily senior-vassal, ties, conditioned, in particular, by the needs of military protection. Such an assessment was often accompanied by the idea of feudalism as a system of political fragmentation.
Attempts to combine political analysis with social analysis turned out to be more promising. Timid at the end of the 18th century, they acquire more pronounced forms in the works of French historians of the first third of the 19th century, primarily in the work of F. Guizot. He was the first to give a detailed description of feudal property as the basis of senior-vassal ties, noting two of its important features: the conditional nature and the hierarchical structure that determined the hierarchy among the feudal lords, as well as the connection between property and political power. Before the positivists, the social interpretation ignored that layer of direct producers - peasants, through whose efforts the feudal lord realized his property. Historians-positivists began to study such important social structures of feudal society as the community and estates; their analysis, in turn, touched on the problem of the economic and social life of the peasantry.
Attention to economic history led to the spread of a theory that identified feudalism with subsistence farming. The development of market relations in this case was assessed as an indicator of a new, already capitalist economy - an opinion that ignored the fundamental difference between simple commodity and capitalist production and the inevitable change in this type of producer - a small owner for a hired worker. Within the framework of positivism, the socio-economic features of the Middle Ages acted not as defining in the system of feudal relations, but as a given, existing parallel to the political and legal system (feudal fragmentation in the political system, natural economy in the economy). Moreover, attention to socio-economic history did not exclude the recognition of the decisive role of personal ties, which was explained by the psychological characteristics of the people of the Middle Ages. The vulnerability of such ideas was not in their erroneousness, since each of them reflected some side of objective reality, but in the desire of researchers to absolutize them, which interfered with a comprehensive understanding of feudalism.
The development of positivism, with its wide spectrum of vision of the historical process at its economic, socio-political and cultural-psychological levels, as well as the recognition of the laws of historical development, could not fail to direct researchers to the search for unity in a variety of factors. In other words, positivism prepared the first steps of structural or systems analysis.
One of the results of attempts of this kind was the development by the historical science of the 19th century. the concept of "civilization". Of the two most general parameters of historical development - place and time - it emphasized the territorial delimitation of human communities, which retain their special "face" throughout the entire period of existence. Their internal unity was determined by such characteristics as natural conditions, life, customs, religion, culture, historical fate. And although the concept of civilizations included the idea of their transitory nature, the lifetime of each of them was a time of "long duration".
In the XIX century. in historical science, the structural term "formation" also appeared, associated with the formulation of Marxist methodology. This concept, on the contrary, expanded the boundaries of the human community to the scale of the planet as a whole, highlighting the time division of the historical process, where the mode of production and the form of ownership became the unit of reference. The systemic principle in the Marxist understanding links different levels of social development with a single economic dominant. In the Marxist interpretation, feudalism was one of the modes of production, based on the property of feudal lords on land, realized through the medium of a small producer; the fact of the exploitation of the peasant by the landowner was especially emphasized. The monism of Marxist methodology, which was also highly politicized, was not accepted at that time by most researchers. The rigid determinism of the historical process with its subdivision into primary - basic and secondary - superstructural phenomena, indeed, fraught with the danger of its simplified understanding. In Soviet medieval studies in Russia, this danger was aggravated by the sacralization of the Marxist method, which enslaved science. The absolutization of the method violated the comprehensive vision of the historical process, led to an excessive enthusiasm for sociological schemes, which in a sense replaced the analysis of real life.
Historical knowledge of the 20th century has significantly enriched systems analysis, in particular, in relation to feudal society. A decisive impetus to its development was given by the "battle for history", begun in the 30s by representatives of French historical science, who created their own direction around the journal "Annals". Having adopted the most important achievements of nineteenth-century sociology. and, first of all, the recognition of the systemic nature of the world, existing according to its objective laws of development, they at the same time significantly complicated the idea of the complexity of the historical process. The "feeling of the great drama of relativity" characteristic of these historians (in the words of one of the founders of the direction, Lucien Febvre), led them to recognize the plurality of connections - material and personal - within the social system. This attitude broke the mechanical understanding of causality in history and the idea of one-line development, introduced into historical knowledge the idea of unequal rhythms of development of various aspects of the social process. A more complex interpretation of the concept of "production relations" was given, emphasizing their inextricable connection with the components of inquiry, since relations in the sphere of production are built by people who are guided by their own ideas about them. New approaches have returned to history a person, not necessarily a “hero” or creator of ideas, but an ordinary person with his everyday consciousness.
The synthesis of the achievements of world and domestic historical science of the XX century allows us to give a deeper and more complete definition of the concepts of "feudalism" and "Middle Ages", to the characteristics of which we pass.
The worldview of the medieval European and his culture were characterized by such concepts as symbolism and hierarchism.
The Middle Ages created symbolic art and symbolic poetry, defined a rich religious cult and philosophy with extremely complex and subtly developed symbolism, which boils down to comprehending and revealing the symbolic meaning of the surrounding reality. Symbolic acts are accompanied by the registration of legal relations, and most objects of human everyday life are marked with symbolic signs. The hierarchy of society was also symbolic. The entire social order of the Middle Ages is permeated with hierarchism.
According to the ideological guidelines of the Middle Ages, the bodily world has less reality than the spiritual world. It does not exist by itself, it possesses only a ghostly being. He is only a shadow of the truth, but not the truth itself. Salvation of the body is not true salvation. He who is sick in spirit and healthy in body does not have true health. Such health is only apparent: in fact, it does not exist. Things not only can serve as symbols, they are symbols, and the task of the cognizing subject is reduced to revealing their true meaning. For this, after all, creatures were created by God to be symbols and serve to teach people.
This is the sensory foundation on which symbolic perception grows. God has nothing empty, devoid of meaning. This is how a noble and majestic image of the world appears, which is represented by a single huge symbolic system, a collection of ideas, the richest rhythmic and polyphonic expression of everything that can be thought of.
When the era of the Dark Ages ended in the West, the Early and High Middle Ages ended, then the flourishing of sciences and education took place there, fundamental scientific works began to be studied, universities were opened, corporations of scientists arose. With all this, education never played the same role in the Middle Ages as it did in Antiquity. For medieval Christians, the words that the path of education leads to freedom, as it was believed in ancient Greece, would have sounded blasphemous. They knew Christ's call: "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free." But in the same way it was obvious to them that Truth is achieved not by studying Christian doctrine, but by serving God and one's neighbors. God, and in Him and your neighbor, must first of all be loved, and everything else will be added. No matter how much scholarship was revered in the Middle Ages, they always remembered that Christ chose the apostles from among the common people.
Nevertheless, it was the Church that preserved the ancient educational system (trivium and quadrivium), somewhat altering it to fit its needs. So, rhetoric (the art of eloquence), studied in Antiquity to develop thinking, to express one's personality, to achieve a high position in society, in the Middle Ages was a source of legal knowledge and skills in drawing up business documents (letters, letters, letters, etc. .) and was not supposed to serve ambitious thoughts. And, for example, grammar, which was also one of the disciplines of the trivium, was necessary not only for reading, interpreting and commenting on the Scriptures or the texts of the authors recognized by the Church, but also made it possible to get to the hidden meaning of words, the key to which they are.
Medieval symbolism, which pervaded the entire life of people, began at the level of words. Words were symbols of realities. Understanding is knowledge and mastery of things. In medicine, a diagnosis already meant healing, it had to come as a result of pronouncing the name of the disease. When the bishop could say about the suspect: "heretic", then the main goal was achieved - the enemy was named, and therefore exposed.
Nature was also seen as a huge storehouse of symbols. Minerals, plants and animals, symbolizing the images and plots of the Bible, were lined up in a kind of hierarchy: some, due to their symbolic meaning, had an advantage over others. In stones and flowers, symbolic meaning was combined with their beneficial or harmful properties. There was color homeopathy, which, for example, treated jaundice and bleeding with yellow and red flowers, respectively. The animal kingdom was most often seen as a sphere of evil. An ostrich laying eggs in the sand and forgetting to incubate them - such was the image of a sinner who does not remember his duty to God.
Symbolism was used exceptionally widely in worship: from temple architecture to chants and from the choice of building materials to the smallest ornaments on utensils. Thus, the round and cruciform shape of the temples was an image of perfection. In addition, the shape, based on the square, indicated the four main directions that symbolized the universe. The octagonal structure, according to the symbolism of numbers, meant eternity. Thus, the structure of the temple personified the microcosm.
The concept of beauty is reduced by medieval thinking to the concepts of perfection, proportionality, brilliance. The admiration for everything that glitters and sparkles is also associated with the decoration of clothes, which in the 15th century. still consists mainly of equipping it with a myriad of precious stones. They even try to highlight the brilliance with ringing, resorting to bells or coins.
Gray, black and lilac colors were widely used in casual wear. Yellow was worn primarily by the military, pages and servants. Yellow sometimes meant hostility. So, a noble nobleman, dressed together with his entire retinue in yellow, could walk past his offender, letting him know in color that this was being done against him.
In festive and ceremonial clothes, red dominated over all other colors, often in combination with white. These two colors symbolized purity and mercy. Colors also represented a certain hierarchy corresponding to their symbolic meaning.
In general, the brightness and acuteness of life, so inherent in medieval culture, were generated, obviously, by a sense of insecurity. Uncertainty in material security and spiritual uncertainty. This underlying insecurity was ultimately an uncertainty in a future life, a bliss in which no one was surely promised or fully guaranteed by good deeds or prudent behavior. The dangers of destruction created by the devil seemed so numerous, and the chances of salvation so insignificant, that fear inevitably prevailed over hope. It is this fear and the need for complacency that explain the emotions, behavior, and mentality of the people of the Middle Ages. And here the leading role was played by tradition, the experience of the past and predecessors. In spiritual life, Scripture was the highest authority; in theology, they attached special importance to the recognized authorities of the past.
All these characteristic features of medieval thinking and perception of the world - symbolism, hierarchism, adherence to traditions and authorities, the need for self-complacency and oblivion among bright colors, acute impressions, a craving for exaltation and dreams (dreams and visions are also characteristic phenomena of medieval culture) - all this can be seen in the life of all strata of medieval society from bottom to top, no matter how much they, at first glance, may differ.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC LIST
Main literature
Bitsilli P.M. Selected Works on Medieval History: Russia and the West. - M .: Languages of Slavic cultures, 2006.
Gusarova T.P. Institutions of power and positions in Europe in the Middle Ages and early modern times. - M .: Book House "University", 2010.
Zaretsky Yu.P. History of subjectivity. Medieval Europe. - M .: Academic project, 2009.
additional literature
Boytsov M.A. Greatness and humility. Essays on Political Symbolism in Medieval Europe.- Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2009.
V.P. Budanova Goths in the era of the Great Nations Migration. - M .: Aleteya, 2001.
Ivanov K.A. Life of a Medieval City - CD. Producer: New disc, 2007. Issue 9.
Monuments of medieval Latin literature. VIII-IX centuries / under. ed. M.L. Gasparov. - M .: Nauka, 2006.
Huizinga J. Autumn of the Middle Ages. - M .: Ayris-Press, 2004.
When performing tasks on this topic, you need to refer to the materials of the book by S. Samygin, S.I. Samygina V.N. Sheveleva, E. V. Shevelevoy "History": a tutorial for open source software. M .: INFRA-M, 2013, p. 44? 56, 69? 73
1. Define the following terms
2. Give a comparative analysis of the policies of Greece
3. Arrange events in the correct chronological order
A) Peloponnesian War
B) Solon's reforms in Athens
C) the reign of Pericles
D) the reign of Alexander the Great
E) the conquest of Greece by Rome
Write down the answer
6. Arrange events in the correct chronological order
A) Punic Wars
B) the founding of Rome
C) the collapse of the Roman Empire
D) the reign of Octavian Augustus
E) the reign of Guy Julius Caesar
E) the division of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern
G) the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire
Write down the answer
7. Read a passage from the work on the history of Ancient Rome and complete the assignments.
“Octavian achieved the same goal as Caesar. He seemed less capable, was inconspicuous, shy, secretive, he did not have a military talent, like Caesar. The state of affairs itself helped him a lot.
The long war in all areas around the Mediterranean tired most of the people: many were looking for peace and crowded with a strong man, keeping hope for his protection ... The inhabitants of the provinces are used to obeying Rome; they did not care whether the Roman Senate sent them a leader or an army ruler from Rome. The population of Rome itself put up with the ruler who was ready to give him the most.
But Octavian achieved power besides this art and his patience. He did not accept the title of dictator, which was reminiscent of the triumph of Sulla and Caesar; he did not want anything in the title or in the setting for something that would look like a king, so as not to anger the concepts of the Romans and old habits.
By the way, he accepted the title of tribune. At the same time, Octavian always repeated that his main concern was to restore the ancient order in Rome. Octavian called himself a princeps, i.e. the first person in the country.
This meant that he was, as it were, considered authorized by the people for his own power.
He decided not to frighten the population of Italy with army forces: the soldiers were taken away and placed along the borders. Finally, Octavin shared with the old gentlemen, the nobles. In important cases, the prince consulted with the Senate, as consuls did before.
It was assumed that, just as before, the senate would dispose of the ancient provinces: the senate would send governors from its own environment in that direction. The regions were annexed again, the border areas remained for Octavian ... The troops were subordinated to Octavian, the soldiers took the oath only to him. The old name of the army emperor he appropriated to himself alone; it now meant power to the chief.
Emperorcalled him in the provinces.
In his own areas, Octavian sent his own officers and clerks to manage.
The people stopped calling meetings. But the new ruler also had to please the capital's population, as the people's leaders or the Senate used to do. He only took one at his own expense all the expenses that were previously made for the benefit of the people by various persons. The Princeps took over the entertainment device that the people stubbornly demanded ...
At the time when the new order was established, Octavian also assumed the new title of Augustus, i.e. sacred. This title turned into his name: the ruler quite rightly stood above everyone as a supreme being. "
1) Write out the highlighted words and find their definitions
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2) At the time when Octavian came to power in Rome?
__________________________________________________
3) Because of what he managed to strengthen his own power at the end of the victory in civil war?
4) What are the non-specialized features between the monarchy of Octavian and the power of Augustus?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5) What specific elements of the republican system were retained during the principality and because of what?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lesson 4. Europe in the Middle Ages (V? XV centuries)
When performing tasks on this topic, you need to refer to the materials of the book by S. Samygin, S.I. Samygina V.N. Sheveleva, E. V. Shevelevoy "History": a tutorial for open source software.
M .: INFRA-M, 2013, p. 75? 119.
1. Using the map "Great Nations Migration", write the names of the Germanic tribes who settled in the territory of the Western Roman Empire
2. Mark with a "+" the meanings and essence of the Middle Ages
3. Highlight the main stages in the development of the civilization of medieval Europe
4. Arrange events in the correct chronological order
A) the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe
B) the origin of parliament in England
C) communal revolution
D) formation of the Frankish kingdom
E) the creation of the Main States in France
E) the beginning of the Hundred Years War
G) War of the Red and the White Rose
H) Jacquerie
Write down the answer
6. Mark with a "+" the features characteristic of the feudal aggregate of Europe in the X-XV centuries.
| 1.forming large land tenure | |
| 2.agricultural production was based on the labor of small producers, endowed with soil, tools, livestock, household goods | |
| 3. Reduction of acreage | |
| 4. Internal colonization | |
| 5. The decline in the population due to the plague epidemic | |
| 6. The emergence of manufactory production | |
| 7. Expansion of the domestic market | |
| 8. Decline of overseas trade | |
| 9.economic and personal connection between the feudal lord and the peasants | |
| 10.the natural temperament of the economy | |
| 11.the presence of feudal rent: in the form of natural rent and labor or money | |
| 12.Cities and Crafts Growth |
7. The correct sequence of the formation of the political organization of feudal society
A) complete monarchies
B) ruthless countries
C) feudal fragmentation
D) estate-representative monarchies
8. Complete the table. Estates of medieval society.
9. Mark with a "+" the main true statements about cities
| 1. Cities appeared at the intersection of roads, at river crossings, near fortified places | |
| 2. Medieval cities were larger than the cities of the Antique era | |
| 3. Medieval cities were originally subordinate to secular feudal lords and spiritual | |
| 4. The growth of cities was associated with the rise of agricultural, handicraft production, the development of trade | |
| 5. Communal displacement was the reason for the liberation of many cities from the power of the lords | |
| 6. Most of the medieval cities were subject to the king | |
| 7. All residents of the city were considered full citizens, regardless of their property status. | |
| 8. Artisans of the same profession united in workshops, and merchants in the guild |
10. Correlate the dates and events in the formation of Christianity in Europe
Write down the answer
| A | B | V | G |
Secrets of Vastu Shastra. Why is it dangerous to find a Christmas tree on your land plot?
By the end of the 15th century. the millennial era of the Middle Ages is over. It is even difficult to list all those achievements in the life of society, in the economy and culture, which humanity owes to the Middle Ages and still uses it with gratitude. It was then that many states arose that exist now, within their borders, modern peoples with their own languages and national cultures were formed. The origins of modern urban life and parliamentary democracy, judicial norms and universities go back to the Middle Ages. At the same time, many scientific discoveries and important inventions were made. Machine tools and blast furnaces, cannons and mechanical watches appeared, not to mention such familiar little things as glasses or buttons. The invention of book printing has played a particularly important role in the history of mankind.
The era of the Middle Ages was marked by an amazing rise in literature and art. The masterpieces of medieval writers and poets, architects and artists, having become an integral part of world culture, have an impact on you and me.
One of the most important achievements of the Middle Ages was the birth of Europe - not in the geographical, but in the cultural and historical meaning of this word. Christianity became the basis of this Europe and the richest culture it created. It arose-nouveau in Antiquity, Christianity during the Middle Ages spread throughout Europe. It turned out to be like a bridge connecting the Middle Ages with Antiquity even when the brilliant Roman culture was dying under the blows of the barbarians. It was in the Middle Ages that the Slavic countries, including Russia, became the most important constituent part of Europe.
In many countries of Asia and Africa, Islam, the third world religion in terms of origin, played an equally important role. On its basis, the Arab civilization was formed - one of the greatest in the history of mankind. And in some countries of East and Southeast Asia, Buddhism, the oldest of the world religions, played an equally significant role.
The countries of medieval Asia, Africa and America made a huge contribution to the development of the culture of mankind. West and East in the Middle Ages differed in many respects from each other, but there were common features in their development. Their multilateral interaction led to the mutual enrichment of different cultures and contributed to the birth of recognized masterpieces of world literature and art. The medieval East played an important role in the preservation of the ancient heritage, which is so important for the development of Europe. Material from the site
The end of the Middle Ages in Europe was not like the end of the history of the Ancient World. If the Roman Empire collapsed as a result of internal disintegration and under the blows of the barbarians, then the transition from the Middle Ages to the New Age, although it was marked in Europe by strong shocks, was not accompanied by any economic, social or cultural decline. Medieval Europe, having carried over many different shocks during its thousand-year history, was still firmly on its feet. Moreover, the transition to a new historical era was associated with further development.
The ability to constantly develop and improve is the most important distinguishing feature of medieval Europe, which it inherited from modern times, and, ultimately, modernity. Although the East also changed a lot in the Middle Ages, Europe, which had lagged behind it for a long time, gradually managed to get ahead in technical and economic terms, and later used its superiority to establish dominance over other parts of the world.