Unit 3: The World in Transition
Chapter 11: The High Middle Ages
25. Tue, Nov 26, 2013
This time we'll try to scrape together the random miscellany that fell together in this chapter — art, literature, architecture, philosophy, theology, and the rest of the intellectual life of the later Middle Ages.
As always, it's useful to try to characterize what makes a work of art or philosophy uniquely characteristic of its time and place, and what marks it as (in this case) mediaeval as opposed to something else. We cannot spend a great deal of time on this question (here, at least) but it's worth considering in the broadest terms.
- We talked already about the driving impulse behind mediaeval visions of law. How is that same impulse reflected in scholastic philosophy?
- The culture of Courtly Love expressed itself through much of the literature of the later Middle Ages. What is this about, and what does it mean? (It's worth noting that the conventions and rhetoric of Courtly Love are by no means universal, and also admit some divergence even by professed adherents of the movement.)
- The textbook's dismissal of mediaeval science and mathematics is reductive and overstated. There was a lot more scientific thought going on than the book suggests.
- The book suggests that performers of vernacular literature in general were called troubadours. This is a highly oversimplified and generally erroneous application of the term. In fact, the troubadours proper were specifically those from the region of France known as Provence (the old Roman Provincia). Even the popular singers in the north of France were generally known not as troubadours, but trouveres. Moreover, it would be entirely mistaken to think of the troubadours as street musicians or the like: almost all the troubadours proper were in fact nobles, at least knights. There were other common performers, but they were not the troubadours. Troubadour culture was extremely specific, confined to the language of Provence (Languedoc), and had very sophisticated poetic forms. You can read more about the troubadours in this Wikipedia article.
- Do you have questions about some of the artistic or architectural terms? Do you understand from the descriptions in the book what a flying buttress is, for example?
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