The Late Middle Ages

1. The Late Middle Ages

2. The Crusades • 1095: Urban II calls for knights to capture Jerusalem from Muslims • Recover Christian lands • Lasted three hundred years • After 1st Crusade knights killed Arabs and Jews and set up feudal estates • Crusaders created demand for Arab goods • Arabs fueled intellectual revival in Europe

3. The Decline of Feudalism • Crusades fueled conflict between Church and secular leaders • Church used excommunication as tool • Thomas a Beckett • As popes’ power lessened, kings grew in power at the expense of feudal lords

4. The Rise of Towns and Cities • Cities became vital • Cities were crude and filthy but citizens were free from feudal lords • Constitutions guaranteed freedoms • Universities were established • Middle class emerged:

5. Abbott Suger and the Gothic Style • 1085-1151 Rebuilt St. Denis to let light in • Light: analogy to God’s spiritual being • Technical innovation: glass walls • Three elements: Pointed arches,Ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. • Created Gothic framework of soaring lines; metaphor for God’s world.

6. Chartres:1194-1240 • Other cathedrals rose after St.-Denis • Gothic originally termed “French Style” • Chartres surpassed all others: perfection of design, stained glass and sculpture. • Relic: Mary’s tunic • Floor plan: basic Latin Cross but with broader portals on north and south • Still has the all of its original glass

7. Chartres’ stained-glass windows • 22,000 square feet of colored glass • Each depicts a biblical story, life of saint or Christian doctrine • Rose window over each portal: both the sun and Mary, “rose without thorns” • Lancet windows, shaped like pointed arches • Trade and craft guilds paid for and built these windows.

8. Gothic Sculpture • Carved symbols, stories and figures of the Bible used to instruct • West or “royal”portal shows glory of Christ 1. Incarnation of Christ on right 2. Christ King of Heaven and Earth in center 3. Christ Ascension into Heaven • Jamb sculpture: ancestors of Christ, patriarchs, saints.

9. Music and Theater in the Gothic Age • Organum: Polyphony or two or more melodic lines playing simultaneously. Sounded like an organ • Duplum organum: traditional melody sung by the tenor and held. Duplum voice sang more complex melody above tenor.Two distinct melodic lines independent of other.

10. The Notre Dame School • Leading musicians gathered in Paris • Leonin compiled sacred music of the time • Perotin added third and fourth voices • Cantus firmus the complex music of the late middle ages demanded more advanced musical notation and training provided by the Notre Dame School

11. Gothic Theater: From Church to Town • Sacred drama outside church: complexity • Cooperative between church and town • Mystery plays: cycles of plays depicting biblical stories • Miracle plays: lives of saints • Morality plays: struggle of soul between virtues and vices • Vernacular

12. The Universities • Organization of scholars to teach and certify lawyers and clerks • Baccalaureates in theology, law or medicine • No women • Paris: theology faculty • Strenuous day for students • Final examinations oral, during Lent

13. Rediscovery of Aristotle • 1150-1250 Aristotle’s works were re-discovered: “The Philosopher” • Islamic scholars translated and interpreted • Ibn-Sina medical encyclopedia • Averroes: best interpretation of Aristotle • Maimonides: Jew who wrote of the conflict of reason and faith

14. Thomas Aquinas • Synthesized medieval theology and Aristotelian philosophy • Summa Theologica wanted to make a science of faith • Christian philosophy: “Reason does not destroy faith but perfects it” • God reveals himself in works of nature and human reason. Nature leads to God

15. Courtly Love • Code of behavior governing relations between the sexes at medieval courts. • Court of Eleanor of Aquitaine • Paradoxes of medieval society: Marriage not an occasion of fantasy and tenderness. Romance: adulterous longing for forbidden woman • Woman powerful over man

16. The Medieval Romance Tradition • Troubadors: lyric poet-singers of Provence • Arabic love poetry of Muslim culture in Spain • Bernart de Ventadorn, Beatriz de Dia • Medieval Romance: long narrative in verse of chivalric adventures and courtly lovers • Arthurian legends • Marie de France

17. Music in the Late Middle Ages • Secular songs in polyphony: Ars Nova • Guillaume de Machaut: sacred motet: polyphonic song form in which the higher voices sang different poetic texts. • Instrument played lower part while voices sang freer upper parts in Latin and French • Secular music, sung in stanzas accompanied by lute; used sharps and flats

18. Dante’s Divine Comedy • The Divine Comedy: three-part poem reflecting his vision of afterlife • Metaphor for pilgrimage through life • Inferno: Vergil, symbol of human reason • Purgatorio: sins are not yet forgiven • Paradiso: Guide Beatrice, his ideal love • Master own nature, submit to commands of human reason and sacred truth

19. Canto XXVIII • The Poets then come to the edge of the Ninth Bolgia which contains the Sowers of Discord. They are walking around the edge of the circle. At one point in the circle stands a demon who hacks at them. By the time they reach him again their wounds are healed and they are hacked anew.

20. Canto XXVIII • Dante distinguishes three classes of Sowers of Discord. First are the Sowers of Religious Discord, then the Sowers of Political Discord and finally is the Sower of Discord Among Kinsmen. One of the Sower of Discord Among Kinsmen they meet is Bertrand De Born. His head is severed and he must hold it up in order to talk to the Poets.

21. Canto XXXIV • The Poets see Satan in the distance beating his great wings which is the source of the icy wind of Cocytus. Around them are the sinners who were treacherous to Their Masters, and this round is named Judecca (named for Judas Iscariot). These sinners lie completely in the ice, their bodies twisted and distorted in every possible manner.

22. Satan • In the middle of Cocytus stands Satan who is fixed into the ice which flow all the rivers of guilt, and as he tries to escape their icy clutches by batting his wings, he just freezes himself more solidly into the ice. He has three faces, and in each of the mouths is a man whom he rips eternally with his teeth.

23. The Pit of Hell • These men are Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. Having seen everything the Poets now climb up Satan himself, and passing the center of gravity they emerge from Hell and begin their ascent of Mount Purgatory.

24. Three-line stanza form: terza rima • Holy number three in 33 cantos of each main section + introductory canto= 100 • Written in the vernacular Italian, not Latin • Uses the device of contrapasso, where the right punishment is given for the sin • Puts historical as well as contemporary figures in Hell: creativity: Renaissance • Paradiso is full of spiritual love. Feeling and intellect guide human toward divine love.

25. Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims • Chaucer poet: entertain circle of friends • Canterbury Tales Journey of pilgrims to Canterbury; each for different reason • Cross section of English society • Irony and insight to human psychology • Wife of Bath • Human comedy: Creativity: Renaissance

26. Reclaiming the Classical Past • Petrarch: continuity between classicism and Christianity: humanism • Sonnet: a fourteen line poem dedicated to Laura who died during plague. • Christine de Pisan: Wrote poetry and made a living of her writings • The Book of the City of Ladies: Goddesses and heroic women

27. Giotto’s Pictorial Revolution • Italy’s merchants and traders commerce with Byzantine empire • Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204 and robbed Byzantine art. • Italian cities: hubs of manufacture and finance • Byzantine influence in gold surfaces: Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned

28. Giotto • Student of Cimabue; revolutionized painting • Madonna Enthroned breaks with medieval style • New volume and vitality for figures • Drapery falls naturally • Throne more believable space • Some medieval characteristics: gold haloes • Inconsistent scale

29. Arena Chapel in Padua • Ancient art of fresco painting (paint applied to wet plaster • Life of the Virgin, Life of Christ, Passion of Christ • Eliminated detail to make scene more emotional and real • Pieta: faces and gestures reflect individual emotional responses • Interest in individuality: Renaissance