History

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High Medieval Civilization (1000-1350)

  • The Revival of Urban Life, Towns, and Commerce (Northern Italy/Flanders)
  • Romanesque and Gothic Cathedrals
  • Scholasticism and the Birth of Universities (University of Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca)
  • Lay Literature: Epics and Courtly Romances (Marie de France)

Monumental Cathedrals in the High Middle Ages

Romanesque (Eleventh Century)

Gothic (Twelfth Century)

  • The Gothic style developed as a result of the application of religion and philosophy to art and architecture.

Medieval Church Architecture

  • I. Romanesque Architecture (Speyer Cathedral, 1030-1060s; Pisa 1060-1100)
  • II. Gothic Architecture: Intellectual Context of the Twelfth Century
  • III. The Material and Social Context

II. Intellectual Context of the Twelfth Century

  • 1. Scholasticism
  • Efforts to apply Logic to Faith/Religion
  • St. Anselm (1030-1109) provides a proof for the existence of God: “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”

Anselm was the abbot of the Benedictian monastery of Bec and later archbishop of Canterbury. Considered by some as the first scholastic, he produced a serious of proofs for the existence of God. His motto was “faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum).”

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  • Thomas Aquinas (1225-74)
  • A Dominican Friar
  • Wrote the Summa Theologica
  • Five Proofs for the existence of God drew on Aristotle’s principles of being

Aquinas Five Proofs

  • First Mover
  • Prime Cause
  • Necessary Being
  • Greatest Being
  • Intelligent Designer

  • 2. Neo-Platonism and Celestial Hierarchies, (Pseudo-Dionysius c. 400s)
  • Abbot Suger c. 1122
  • Emanation (the radiation of God/the Divine)
  • The Choir of St. Denis

Elements of Gothic Architecture

  • Pointed Arch
  • Ribbed Vault
  • Flying Buttress
  • Walls of Stained Glass Windows

III. Social and Economic Context

  • 1. The Cult of Mary and Pilgrimage
  • Relic of Mary’s tunic from the annunciation
  • 2. Guilds and Merchant Guilt
  • Artisan and Merchant Associations to regulate production and commerce
  • “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 19:24