essay about the middle ages

Western Civilization in the Middle Ages Essay

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In Europe, the period after the fall of the Roman Empire until 1500 is commonly called the Middle Ages. This period can be characterized both as a period of chaos and instability and a period of a great increase in instability and order. This époque is divided by the scholars into three periods: an early phase, 500-1000; the central, 1000-1300; and the later, 1300-1500.

The following events in the course of the European countries’ development give us a way to state that there was a time of chaos and instability during the period under consideration:

• The decay of the ancient city-state. Existing before as physical and social units, now they have led to the establishment of the isolated rural estate as a typical form of social and economic organization. The economic and cultural unity of the cities was ruined, only some cities survived as ecclesiastical or political centers.
• The decline of long-distance trade. As a result, the individual’s needs depended only on locally produced goods. Large-scale pottery manufacture and other major industries that depended on long-distance trade vanished in many countries.
• Diseases. Assaults from outside Europe carried outbreaks of bubonic plague. As a result, there was a drastic population decline in Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
• The decline of power by the two the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.
• The breakup of the Carolingian Empire. This process was accompanied by the invasions, migrations, and raids of external foes which brought chaos and instability to societies.
• The start of feudalism in Europe in the High Middle Ages.
• The long conflicts during the Late Middle Ages (for example, the Hundred Years’ War) strengthened royal control over the kingdoms, whereas the conditions in which peasantry existed were extremely hard.

The following factors, on the contrary, brought order to the European society:

• The collapse of the centralized state (the Roman Empire). This contributed to the established government of law and social order.
• Conversion of peoples to Christianity. It led to a shift of basic loyalty from the state to religion.
• Explosion in population during the High Middle Ages.
• The first sustained urbanization, which resulted from the military and dynastic achievements of this period.
• The protestant reformation. It formed the shifts in attitude leading to the rise of modern nation-states.
• The rise of strong centralized monarchial states in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, France, England, Russia, and Germany.
• The independence of Switzerland and the Republic of Belgium.
• Carolingian Renaissance. This period of cultural revival is characterized by an increase in literacy, developments in arts, architecture, and other spheres of human knowledge.
• In the High Middle Ages major barbarian incursions ceased.
• The divisiveness of the Catholic Church in the Late Middle Ages undermined papal authority and led to the formation of national churches.

We are inclined to believe that the factors and the events mentioned above should be considered in their complex interconnection, as emphasizing any of them will lead only to a one-sided approach to the problem of the European development after the fall of the Roman Empire up to 1500.

After the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution European society differed from the one it used to be in the Early Middle Ages. Contrary to the Early Middle Ages period when the Catholic Church remained the unifying factor, Europe in 1600 was divided according to the countries’ religious orientations. Religious strife took place within several European states. For example, France suffered from the French Wars of Religion.

Religion remained the main power that influenced the development of the European states: Germany was divided into states according to the principles of the Holy Roman Empire, England was characterized by moderate Anglicanism. Changes in religion we consider to be the most influential for European development.

Feudalism which originates in Europe from the Early Middle Ages was replaced by capitalism as the principal form of economic organization. Therefore, collapse in trade and manufacture for export common for the Early Middle Ages Europe was not typical for Europe of 1600. The rise of modern science and the application of its findings also contributed to the emergence of the new forms of trade and expanding horizons that differed Europe of 1600 from Europe of 500-600.

During the Middle Ages the formation of the Islamic Eastern culture and Asian culture, along with the European culture was characterized by the growth of the productive forces – the usage of the iron tools expanded, artificial irrigation and irrigation engineering were modernized. The main tendency of the historical development of the East as well as of the West was the establishment of feudalism. But the eastern cultures differed from the western ones by the dynamism of the feudalism development. The main reasons that determined the latency of the eastern cultures are:

• The slow break-up of the primitive communal system and conservation of slavery along with the feudal relationships;
• Stability of the communal forms which postpone the differentiation of peasantry;
• Prevalence of the state property and governmental authorities over the landlordism and private property of feudal lords;
• Authoritative power of feudal over a town which impaired the anti-feudal aspirations of the citizens.

These were the main tendencies that distinguished the formation of feudalism in the western and eastern countries.

Feudalism is a system of reciprocal legal and military obligations among members of the nobility during the High Middle Ages. The three main elements of the feudalism system are lords, vassals, and fiefs. The interrelation of these three elements is rooted in the following: a lord-owned land, known as a fief, the possession of this land was granted by the lord to a vassal who, in his turn, should have provided military service to the lord. These three elements fitting together, the obligations and relations between them form the basis of feudalism.

There is no specific start of feudalism in Europe. In its classical form, it occurred around the 10 th century. The causes of feudalism in Europe are as follows:

• Taxation (either by means of feorm-fultum, or danegelt, or gabelle) forced the poorer people to commend themselves to a lord;
• The royal grant of fole-land;
• International war. Kings needed to surround themselves with the help of the army, the members of which were granted the king’s protection.

The height of feudalism in Europe was during the 11 th century, feudalism flourished in the 12th. The decline of feudalism started in the 13 th century and proceeded until the 15 th century. The decline was due to the new processes that replaced the system of land tenure paid for by governmental work.

The troops for war were raised according to the new system that substituted money for land. The latter stopped having the same value in the eyes of the monarch, since then money became a symbol of his power. Vassals preferred to give money to their lords and the lords also preferred money as it enabled them to hire professional troops more disciplined and trained than the vassals. The revival of infantry tactics and the introduction of new weapons made cavalry tactics useless.

Another cause of the decline of feudalism is the increase in communication that took place in Europe. This process broke down the isolated manor houses and assisted the rise of towns. The burgess class emerged.

The Peasant Revolt all over Europe has broken the system of the old economy and started the modern social economy. By 1550, it consisted of the métier system or division of national wealth among small landed possessors on the Continent. In England, feudalism was replaced by “enclosed” agriculture.

In the late Middle Ages, feudal obligations existing between lords and vassals were replaced by agreements based on money payments. The economy developed from an agricultural base to commercial and manufacturing interests.

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1. IvyPanda . "Western Civilization in the Middle Ages." September 14, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/western-civilization-in-the-middle-ages/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Western Civilization in the Middle Ages." September 14, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/western-civilization-in-the-middle-ages/.

Introduction to the Middle Ages

The Lindisfarne Gospels , left: Saint Matthew, portrait page (25v); right: Saint Matthew, cross-carpet page (26v), c. 700 (Northumbria), 340 x 250 mm ( British Library , Cotton MS Nero D IV)

The dark ages?

So much of what the average person knows, or thinks they know, about the Middle Ages comes from film and tv. When I polled a group of well-educated friends on Facebook, they told me that the word “medieval” called to mind Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Blackadder, The Sword in the Stone, lusty wenches, feasting, courtly love, the plague, jousting and chain mail.

Perhaps someone who had seen (or better yet read) The Name of the Rose or Pillars of the Earth would add cathedrals, manuscripts, monasteries, feudalism, monks and friars.

Petrarch, an Italian poet and scholar of the fourteenth century, famously referred to the period of time between the fall of the Roman Empire (c. 476) and his own day (c. 1330s) as the Dark Ages. Petrarch believed that the Dark Ages was a period of intellectual darkness due to the loss of the classical learning, which he saw as light. Later historians picked up on this idea and ultimately the term Dark Ages was transformed into Middle Ages. Broadly speaking, the Middle Ages is the period of time in Europe between the end of antiquity in the fifth century and the Renaissance , or rebirth of classical learning, in the fifteenth century and sixteenth centuries.

North Transept Rose Window, c. 1235, Chartres Cathedral , France (photo: Dr. Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Not so dark after all

Characterizing the Middle Ages as a period of darkness falling between two greater, more intellectually significant periods in history is misleading. The Middle Ages was not a time of ignorance and backwardness, but rather a period during which Christianity flourished in Europe. Christianity, and specifically Catholicism in the Latin West, brought with it new views of life and the world that rejected the traditions and learning of the ancient world.

During this time, the Roman Empire slowly fragmented into many smaller political entities. The geographical boundaries for European countries today were established during the Middle Ages. This was a period that heralded the formation and rise of universities, the establishment of the rule of law, numerous periods of ecclesiastical reform and the birth of the tourism industry. Many works of medieval literature, such as the Canterbury Tales, the Divine Comedy, and The Song of Roland, are widely read and studied today.

The visual arts prospered during Middles Ages, which created its own aesthetic values. The wealthiest and most influential members of society commissioned cathedrals, churches, sculpture, painting, textiles, manuscripts, jewelry and ritual items from artists. Many of these commissions were religious in nature but medieval artists also produced secular art. Few names of artists survive and fewer documents record their business dealings, but they left behind an impressive legacy of art and culture.

When I polled the same group of friends about the word “Byzantine,” many struggled to come up with answers. Among the better ones were the song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” sung by They Might Be Giants, crusades, things that are too complex (like the tax code or medical billing), Hagia Sophia, the poet Yeats, mosaics, monks, and icons. Unlike Western Europe in the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire is not romanticized in television and film.

Approximate boundaries of the Byzantine Empire, mid-6th century (underlying map © Google)

In the medieval West, the Roman Empire fragmented, but in the Byzantine East, it remained a strong, centrally-focused political entity. Byzantine emperors ruled from Constantinople, which they thought of as the New Rome. Constantinople housed Hagia Sophia , one of the world’s largest churches, and was a major center of artistic production.

Isidore of Miletus & Anthemius of Tralles for Emperor Justinian, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532–37 (photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Byzantine Empire experienced two periods of Iconoclasm (720s–787 and 815–843), when images and image-making were problematic. Iconoclasm left a visible legacy on Byzantine art because it created limits on what artists could represent and how those subjects could be represented. Byzantine Art is broken into three periods. Early Byzantine or Early Christian art begins with the earliest extant Christian works of art c. 250 and ends with the end of Iconoclasm in 843. Middle Byzantine art picks up at the end of Iconoclasm and extends to the sack of Constantinople by Latin Crusaders in 1204. Late Byzantine art was made between the sack of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

In the European West, Medieval art is often broken into smaller periods. These date ranges vary by location.

Bibliography

Art and Death in the Middle Ages on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Byzantium from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Icons and Iconoclasm on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Hagia Sophia on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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The Middle Ages

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The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400–1500 ce is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the period between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The period is often considered to have its own internal divisions: either early and late or early, central or high, and late.

Although once regarded as a time of uninterrupted ignorance, superstition, and social oppression, the Middle Ages are now understood as a dynamic period during which the idea of Europe as a distinct cultural unit emerged. During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, political, social, economic, and cultural structures were profoundly reorganized, as Roman imperial traditions gave way to those of the Germanic peoples who established kingdoms in the former Western Empire. New forms of political leadership were introduced, the population of Europe was gradually Christianized, and monasticism was established as the ideal form of religious life. These developments reached their mature form in the 9th century during the reign of Charlemagne and other rulers of the Carolingian dynasty , who oversaw a broad cultural revival known as the Carolingian renaissance.

In the central, or high, Middle Ages, even more dramatic growth occurred. The period was marked by economic and territorial expansion, demographic and urban growth, the emergence of national identity, and the restructuring of secular and ecclesiastical institutions. It was the era of the Crusades , Gothic art and architecture, the papal monarchy , the birth of the university , the recovery of ancient Greek thought, and the soaring intellectual achievements of St. Thomas Aquinas ( c. 1224–74).

It has been traditionally held that by the 14th century the dynamic force of medieval civilization had been spent and that the late Middle Ages were characterized by decline and decay. Europe did indeed suffer disasters of war, famine, and pestilence in the 14th century, but many of the underlying social, intellectual, and political structures remained intact. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe experienced an intellectual and economic revival, conventionally called the Renaissance , that laid the foundation for the subsequent expansion of European culture throughout the world.

Many historians have questioned the conventional dating of the beginning and end of the Middle Ages, which were never precise in any case and cannot be located in any year or even century. Some scholars have advocated extending the period defined as late antiquity ( c. 250– c. 750 ce ) into the 10th century or later, and some have proposed a Middle Ages lasting from about 1000 to 1800. Still others argue for the inclusion of the old periods Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation into a single period beginning in late antiquity and ending in the second half of the 16th century.

Religion in the Middle Ages

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Religion in the Middle Ages, though dominated by the Catholic Church, was far more varied than only orthodox Christianity . In the Early Middle Ages (c. 476-1000), long-established pagan beliefs and practices entwined with those of the new religion so that many people who would have identified as Christian would not have been considered so by orthodox authority figures.

Practices such as fortune-telling, dowsing, making charms, talismans, or spells to ward off danger or bad luck, incantations spoken while sowing crops or weaving cloth, and many other daily observances were condemned by the medieval Church which tried to suppress them. At the same time, heretical sects throughout the Middle Ages offered people an alternative to the Church more in keeping with their folk beliefs.

Jewish scholars and merchants contributed to the religious make-up of medieval Europe as well as those who lived in rural areas who simply were not interested in embracing the new religion and, especially after the First Crusade , Christians and Muslims interacted to each other's mutual benefit. As the medieval period progressed, the Church exerted more control over people's thoughts and practices, controlling – or trying to – every aspect of an individual's life until the corruption of the institution, as well as its perceived failure to offer any meaningful response to the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352, brought on its fracture through the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Early Middle Ages & Pagan Christianity

Christianity did not immediately win the hearts and minds of the people of Europe. The process of Christianization was a slow one and, even toward the end of the Middle Ages, many people still practiced 'folk magic' and held to the beliefs of their ancestors even while observing Christian rites and rituals. The pre-Christian people – now commonly referenced as pagans – had no such label for themselves. The term pagan is a Christian designation from the French meaning a rustic who came from the countryside where the old beliefs and practices held tightly long after urban centers had more or less adopted orthodox Christian belief.

Even though there is ample evidence of Europeans in the Early Middle Ages accepting the basics of Christian doctrine, most definitely the existence of hell, a different paradigm of life on earth and the afterlife was so deeply ingrained in the communal consciousness that it could not easily just be set aside. In Britain , Scotland , and Ireland , especially, a belief in the “wee folk”, fairies, earth and water spirits, was regarded as simple common sense on how the world worked. One would no more go out of one's way to offend a water sprite than poison one's own well.

The belief in fairies, sprites, and ghosts (defined as spirits of the once-living) was so deeply embedded that parish priests allowed members of their congregations to continue practices of appeasement even though the Church instructed them to make clear such entities were demonic and not to be trifled with. Rituals involving certain incantations and spells, eating or displaying certain types of vegetables, performing certain acts or wearing a certain type of charm – all pagan practices with a long history – continued to be observed alongside going to Church, veneration of the saints, Christian prayer, confession, and acts of contrition.

A central concern of the Church, however, was right practice which reflected right belief, and the authorities struggled constantly to bring the population of Europe to this understanding. The problem, though, was that the rites of the Church did not resonate with a congregation like folk belief. The parish church or cathedral altar, at which the priest stood to celebrate the mass and transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, was far removed from the congregation of onlookers. The priest recited the mass in Latin, his back to the people, and whatever went on up there at the front had little to do with the people observing it.

The baptismal font, therefore, became the focal point of church life as it was present at the beginning of one's life (through infant baptism), at confirmation, weddings, and funerals – even if it was not used at all of these events – and most notably for the ritual known as the ordeal (or Ordeal by Water) which decided a person's guilt or innocence.

The baptismal font was often quite large and deep and the accused would be bound and thrown into it. If the accused floated to the top, they were guilty of the charges while, if they sank, they were innocent. Unfortunately, the innocent had to enjoy exoneration post-mortem since they usually drowned. The ordeal was used for serious crimes in a community as well as charges of heresy, which included the continued practice of pre-Christian rites.

High Middle Ages & the Cult of Mary

The tendency of the laity to continue these practices did not diminish with time, threats, or repeated drownings. Just as in the present day one justifies one's own actions while condemning others for the same sort of behavior, the medieval peasant seems to have accepted that their neighbor, drowned by the Church for some transgression, deserved their fate. There is certainly no record of public outcry, and the ritual of the ordeal – like executions – were a form of public entertainment.

How the medieval peasant felt about anything at all is unknown as they were illiterate and anything recorded about their beliefs or behavior comes from Church or town records kept by clerics and priests. The peasants ' silence is especially noted regarding the Church's view of women , who worked alongside men in the fields, could own their own businesses, join guilds, monastic orders and, in many cases, do the same work as a man but were still considered inferiors. As scholar Eileen Power observes, the peasants of a town "went to their churches on Sundays and listened while preachers told them in one breath that a woman was the gate of hell and that Mary was Queen of Heaven" (11). This view, established by the Church and supported by the aristocracy, would change significantly during the High Middle Ages (1000-1300), even though whatever progress was made would not last.

The Cult of the Virgin Mary was not new to the High Middle Ages – it had been popular in Palestine and Egypt from the 1st century onward – but became more highly developed during this time. Pope Gregory I (l. 540-604) established the two poles of womanhood in Christianity by characterizing Mary Magdalene as the redeemed prostitute and Mary the Mother of Jesus as the elevated virgin. Scholars still debate Gregory's reasons for characterizing Mary Magdalene in this way, conflating her with the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8:1-11), even though there is no biblical support for his claim.

Mary Magdalene, linked through her sins to Eve and the Fall of Man, was the sexual temptress men were encouraged to flee while the Virgin Mary was beyond the realm of temptation, incorruptible, and untouchable. Actual human women might at one time be Magdalene and another the Virgin and, whether one or the other, were best dealt with from a distance. The Cult of the Virgin, however, at least encouraged greater respect for women.

At the same time the Cult of the Virgin was developing most rapidly (or possibly because of it) a genre of romantic poetry and an accompanying ideal was appearing in Southern France, known today as courtly love . Courtly love romanticism maintained that women were not only worthy of respect but adoration, devotion, and service. The genre and attendant behavior it inspired are closely linked to the queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (l. c. 1122-1204), her daughter Marie de Champagne (l. 1145-1198), and writers associated with them such as Chretien de Troyes (l. c. 1130-1190), Marie de France (wrote c. 1160-1215), and Andreas Capellanus (12th century). These writers and the women who inspired and patronized them created an elevated vision of womanhood unprecedented in the medieval period.

These changes occurred at the same time as the popularity of a heretical religious sect known as the Cathars was winning adherents away from the Catholic Church in precisely the same region of Southern France. The Cathars venerated a divine feminine principle, Sophia , whom they swore to protect and serve in the same way that the noble, chivalric knights in courtly love poetry devoted themselves to a lady. Some scholars (most notably Denis de Rougemont) have therefore suggested that courtly love poetry was a kind of code of the Cathars, who were regularly threatened and persecuted by the Church, by which they disseminated their teachings. This theory has been challenged repeatedly but never refuted.

The Cathars were destroyed by the Church in the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) with the last blow struck in 1244 at the Cathar stronghold of Montsegur. The crusading knights of the Church took the fortress after the Cathars' surrender and burned 200 of their clergy alive as heretics. The Inquisition, led by the order of the Dominicans, rooted out and condemned similar sects.

Islamic & Jewish Influences

The Cathars were not alone in suffering persecution from the Church, however, as the Jewish population of Europe had been experiencing that for centuries. Overall, relations between Jews and Christians were amicable, and there are letters, records, and personal journals extant showing that some Christians sought to convert to Judaism and Jews to Christianity. Scholar Joshua Trachtenberg notes how "in the tenth and eleventh centuries we hear of Jews receiving gifts from Gentile friends on Jewish holidays, of Jews leaving keys to their homes with Christian neighbors before departing on a journey" (160). Relations between members of the two religions were more or less cordial, in fact, until after the First Crusade (1096-1099).

Jews were forbidden to bear arms and so could not participate in the crusade, which seems to have upset their Christian neighbors whose husbands and sons were taken by the feudal lords off to the Holy Land. Economic hardships caused by lack of manpower to work the fields further damaged relationships between the two as many Jews were merchants who could continue their trade while the Christian peasant was tied to the land and struggled to plant, tend, and harvest a crop.

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The First Crusade had the opposite effect on Muslims who, outside of Spain, had previously only appeared in Europe as traders. The crusade opened up the possibility of travel to the Holy Land, and a number of scholars took advantage of this to study with their Muslim counterparts. The works of Islamic scholars and scientists found their way to Europe along with translations of some of the greatest classical thinkers and writers such as Aristotle , whose works would have been lost if not for Muslim scribes. Jewish and Islamic scholasticism, in fact, contributed more significantly to the culture of Europe than any Christian efforts outside of the monasteries.

The Church's insistence on the absolute truth of its own vision, while condemning that of others, extended even to fellow Christians. The Catholic Church of the West quarreled with the Eastern Orthodox Church in 867 over who had the true faith, and the Eastern Orthodox Church finally broke all ties with its western counterpart in 1054, the so-called Great Schism. This was brought on by the Church's claim that it was founded by Saint Peter , was the only legitimate expression of Christian faith, and should therefore rightly be able to control the policies and land holdings of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Late Middle Ages & Reformation

In the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500), the Church continued to root out heresy on a large scale by suppressing upstart religious sects, individually by encouraging priests to punish heterodox belief or practice, and by labeling any critic or reformer a 'heretic' outside of God 's grace. The peasantry, though nominally orthodox Catholic, continued to observe folk practices and, as scholar Patrick J. Geary notes, "knowledge of Christian belief did not mean that individuals used this knowledge in ways that coincided with officially sanctioned practice" (202). Since a medieval peasant was taught the prayers of the Our Father and Hail Mary in Latin, a language they did not understand, they recited them as incantations to ward off misfortune or bring luck, paying little attention to the importance of the words as understood by the Church. The mass itself, also conducted in Latin, was equally mysterious to the peasantry.

Consequently, the medieval peasant felt far more comfortable with a blending of the old pagan beliefs with Christianity which resulted in heterodox belief. Parish priests were again instructed to take heretical practices seriously and punish them, but the clergy was disinclined, largely because of the effort involved. Further, many of the clergy, especially the parish priests, were seen as hypocrites and had been for some time. One of the reasons heretical sects attracted adherents, in fact, was the respect generated by their clergy who lived their beliefs. In contrast, as Geary notes, the Catholic clergy epitomized the very Seven Deadly Sins they condemned:

The ignorance, sexual promiscuity, venality, and corruption of the clergy, combined with their frequent absenteeism, were major and long-standing complaints within the laity. Anti-clericalism was endemic to medieval society and in no way detracted from religious devotion. (199)

A parishioner could loathe the priest but still respect the religion that said priest represented. The priest, after all, had little to do with the life of the peasant while the saints could answer prayers, protect one from harm, and reward one's good deeds. Pilgrimages to saints' sites like Canterbury or Santiago de Compostela were thought to please the saint who would then grant the pilgrim favors and expiate sin in ways no priest could ever do.

At the same time, one could not do without the clergy owing to the Church's insistence on sacerdotalism – the policy which mandated that laypersons required the intercession of a priest to communicate with God or understand scripture – and so priests still wielded considerable power over individuals' lives. This was especially so regarding the afterlife state of purgatory in which one's soul would pay in torment for any sins not forgiven by a priest in one's life. Ecclesiastical writs known as indulgences were sold to people – often for high prices – which were believed to lessen the time for one's soul, or that of a loved one, in purgatorial fires.

The unending struggle to bring the peasantry in line with orthodoxy eventually relented as practices formerly condemned by the Church – such as astrology, oneirology (the study of dreams), demonology, and the use of talismans and charms – were recognized as significant sources of income. Sales of relics like a saint's toe or a splinter of the True Cross were common and, for a price, a priest could interpret one's dreams, chart one's stars, or name whatever demon was preventing a good marriage for one's son or daughter.

For many years, medieval scholarship insisted on a dichotomy of two Christianities in the Middle Ages – an elite culture dominated by the clergy, city -dwellers, and the written word, and a popular culture of the oral tradition of the rural masses, infused with pagan belief and practice. In the present day, it is recognized that pagan beliefs and rituals informed Christianity in both city and country from the beginning. As the Church gained more and more power, it was able to insist more stridently on people obeying its strictures, but the same underlying form – of the Church trying to impose a new belief structure on people used to the one of their ancestors – remained more or less intact throughout the Middle Ages.

As the medieval period wound to a close, the orthodoxy of the Church finally did permeate down through the lowest social class but this hardly did anyone any favors. The backlash against the progressive movement of the 12th century and its new value of women took the form of monastic religious orders such as the Premonstratensians banning women, guilds which had previously had female members declaring themselves men's-only-clubs, and women's ability to run businesses curtailed.

The ongoing crusades vilified Muslims as the archenemy of Christendom while Jews were blamed for practicing usury (charging interest) – even though the Church had more or less defined that role in finance for them through official policy – and were expelled from communities and entire countries. Pagan practices had now either been stamped out or Christianized, and the Church held significant power over people's daily lives.

The corruption of the medieval Church, however, against which critics and reformers had been preaching for centuries, finally grew too intolerable and general distrust of the Church and its vision was further encouraged by its failure to meet the challenge of the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352 which resulted in a widespread spiritual crisis. The Protestant Reformation began as simply another attempt at getting the Church to pay attention to its own failings, but the political climate in Germany, and the personal power of the priest-monk Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546 CE), led to a revolt by people who had long grown tired of the monolithic Church.

After Martin Luther initiated the Reformation, other clerics followed his example. Christianity in Europe afterwards would frequently show itself no more tolerant or pure in Protestant form than it had been as expressed through the medieval Church but, in time, found a way to coexist with other faiths and allow for greater freedom of individual religious experience.

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Bibliography

• Baker, A. The Viking. Wiley, 2019.
• Barber, M. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. Routledge, 2000.
• Brooke, R & C. Popular Religion in the Middle Ages. Barnes & Noble Books, 1996.
• Cantor, N. F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages. Harper Perennial, 1994.
• De Rougemont, D. Love in the Western World. Princeton University Press, 1983.
• Deanesley, M. A History of the Medieval Church 590-1500. Obscure Press, 2010.
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• Nigg, W. The Heretics. Dorset Press, 2019.
• Patrick J. Geary. "Peasant Religion in Medieval Europe." Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie , Volume 12/2001, pp. 185-209.
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Medieval Art

Summary of Medieval Art

The Medieval age accounts for the thousand-year period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (in 476), and with it the end of the age of Classical Antiquity , and the beginnings of the European Renaissance . Spreading throughout Europe and beyond the category of Medieval art accounts for the emergence of many national movements that, between them, reflected the heritage of the Roman Empire, the iconographic style of the early Christian church, and/or the "barbarian" cultures of Northern Europe. Although dismissed by early historians as the art of the "dark ages", today, Christian and Byzantine art , Anglo-Saxon and Viking art, Carolingian art, Ottonian art, Romanesque art , and Gothic art , have all secured their rightful place as key markers in the timeline of art history.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• It was the 14 th century Italian poet and scholar, Petrarch, who, first labelled the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance of the early 14 th century, as the "dark ages". For Petrarch and his followers, it was a period of intellectual and creative "darkness" that followed the age of Classical learning and enlightenment. Having been written off as a kind of artistic inertia that divided the glorious periods of Classical Art and the rise of the Renaissance , today the period of Medieval art is seen as indispensable in what it tells us about the ways in which religious and secular arts evolved hand-in-hand.
• The Medieval age accounts for the time when Christianity came to dominate progressive European thinking. It saw the rise of universities, the rule of civil law, and many different versions of religious reform. The visual arts, so vital during a period when literacy was reserved for the elite classes, became a key instrument of religious enlightenment, giving rise to the creation of icons, reliquaries, altarpieces, and illuminated manuscripts for church use and for private devotion.
• Medieval art is associated with Christianity and the building of cathedrals and churches, but the period accommodated the rise of a secular (or "earthbound") art too. Indeed, the latter could unify with the Christian church and the sacred arts associated with it. For example, it became commonplace for both Eastern and Western emperors to commission art pieces featuring images of themselves juxtaposed with biblical art. This practice served to highlight the emperors' devotion to God, and to reinforce the belief amongst the people that their divine right to rule on earth was decreed by God himself.
• In a period sometimes referred to as the Migration Period (300-900), large areas of the Western Roman Empire fell to invading forces from the North. These factions brought their own pagan influences to bear on Medieval art. The arts and culture of these migratory groups gave rise to an elaborate decorative style with utilitarian objects and jewelry, often featuring abstract carvings of animal motifs. Northern groups such as the Vikings and the Saxons have left behind a rich arts and crafts legacy in fields including pottery, textiles, woodwork, and metalwork.

Overview of Medieval Art

According to author Veronica Sekules, "the visual arts played a distinctive part in the intellectual history of the Middle Ages, not only as a means of demonstrating the shaping of ideas, but also in highlighting the connections between different branches of learning. [...] there was a number of genres of imagery that had the capacity to draw from these and allude to wider ideas with great subtlety and precision".

Artworks and Artists of Medieval Art

Samuel anoints David

This fresco is one of several biblical scenes painted on a third century Jewish synagogue wall in Dura-Europos, in present day Syria. The scene depicts verses from the Old Testament book of First Samuel in which, following God's choice for a new leader of Israel, the prophet Samuel anoints young David's head with oil pronouncing him, King. The scene itself is characteristic of early religious work from the Late Antiquity period. Figures are depicted as flat forms, without modelling, giving the appearance that their feet are not stood on the ground. There is also a hierarchical aspect to the work in which the most important figures are distinguished. In this case Samuel is depicted as larger than the other figures, while David is wearing a more detailed and brighter, purple colored robe. Nor is the scene without symbolism. As author Fred Kleiner notes, "purple was the color associated with the Roman emperor, and the Dura artist borrowed the imperial toga from Roman state art to signify David's royalty". The work, thought to be one of the earliest examples of Jewish or Christian art in history, was created in the third century CE when those practicing these faiths were still being persecuted. As a result, any form of worship had to be conducted in secrecy. This work was in fact found painted on the wall of a room in the back room of a home that was used as a secret synagogue. Its hidden location indicates that, while forced to do so at great personal risk, early believers were still strongly motivated to express their faith visually. According to Kleiner, "the discovery almost a century ago of the elaborate mural cycle in the Dura synagogue initially surprised scholars because they had assumed that the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-6), which prohibits Jews from worshiping images, precluded the display of figural scenes in houses of worship. It now seems that narrative scenes such as those at Dura were features of many Late Antique synagogues".

Tempera on plaster - Main interior wall of the synagogue in Dura-Europos, Syria

Detail from the Story of Jonah

This scene is one of several on the walls of a Roman catacomb depicting the story of Jonah. In this famous Old Testament story, Jonah rejects God's request to become a prophet. An angry God duly causes a devasting sea storm as fellow mariners throw Jonah overboard in an attempt to quell God's rage. A giant whale swallows Jonah, and while in the beast's belly, he prays to God for three days before the whale expels him, at which point Jonah assumes his calling as a prophet. Here we see the moment the sailors throw Jonah from the ship as a sea serpent (representing the whale) anticipates Jonah's plunge into the water. The narrative is rendered through the simplification of form and minimal detailing that is typical of the earliest Christian works; there is no sense of depth or dimensionality, here, and no proportional harmony between the figures and the ship. This fresco in one of the earliest forms of public Christian art and underlines the fact that, once Christians were able to practice their faith without fear of persecution, the Roman catacombs (hitherto the burial site of earlier Christians) began to be decorated with biblical narratives. Indeed, the practice follows in a long custom of burial decorations that harkens back to tombs of the Ancient Egyptians. This work also reveals a dominant tendency in the art of this period. In early Christian art, Christ was often depicted as either as a teacher or a shepherd. His death was never shown through images of the crucifixion. Rather, references to his "second coming" were symbolized through the parable of Jonah and the Whale; the three days Jonah spends in the whale's belly widely understood as a reference to Christ's resurrection (after three days). The fresco was a fitting subject for a Christian burial space where it supported the belief that Christians would be "reborn" with Jesus in Heaven.

Tempera fresco - Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, Rome, Italy

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassu

An elaborately detailed relief sculpture, this sarcophagus, or stone coffin, features ten different scenes from the Old and New Testaments, each separated by columns. The coffin was made for a wealthy Roman, Junius Bassus, who had converted to Christianity before his death and wanted his final resting place to reflect his faith. Depictions of Jesus are in the middle section of both rows while additional stories include (on the bottom row from the left) a scene featuring Job, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Daniel's trial in the lion's den, and Paul's arrest. On the top row the scenes include Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, the arrest of the apostle Peter, and two scenes of Jesus on trial before his crucifixion. Christ on the bottom row center is shown on his journey into Jerusalem, while on the top row he is shown seated in Heaven surrounded by Saints Peter and Paul. When one looks closely at the relief, it becomes apparent that there is only one instance, in the center scene on the top row, where a figure, Christ, looks directly out at the viewer. He has died and risen from the dead and is now seated in Heaven. The portrayal of a frontal figure like this dates back to depictions of Roman emperors in grandiose scenes where, by staring directly out at the viewer, the emperor's authority was effectively confirmed. The elevation of Christianity as ranking above all other belief systems is visibly reinforced in the depiction of Christ's feet resting on the head of the mythological sky god. Says author Fred Kleiner, "in the upper zone, Christ, like an enthroned Roman emperor, sits above the sky god, who holds a billowing mantle over his head, indicating that Christ is ruler of the cosmos".

Marble - Museum Storico del Tesoro della Basilica di San Pietro, Rome

Suicide of Judas and Crucifixion of Christ

This small ivory plaque, measuring a little more than three by three inches, is rich in detail. On the right, Christ is impaled on the cross. His mother Mary and the apostle John stand on the left, sombre in grief, while on the right a man thrusts his spear into Christ's side to test if he is dead. On the far left side of the plaque another man is facing death: Judas, the apostle, has hung himself from the branch of a tree. Beneath his feet is an open bag of coins which are spilling from the ground; the money he received for betraying Jesus. This work is one of a series of plaques which depicted the death and resurrection of Christ. Each plaque was nailed into the sides of a small box which had utilitarian and devotional uses. It is one of the first works to show Christ's death (rather than allude to it through the parable of Jonah and the Whale). Author Fred Kleiner writes, "In the Crucifixion scene [...] one of the earliest known renditions of the subject in the history of art [...], the Savior exhibits a superhuman indifference to pain. Jesus is a muscular, nearly nude, heroic figure who appears virtually weightless. He does not hang from the cross. He is displayed on it - a divine being with open eyes who will be resurrected, not the mortal condemned to death by Pontius Pilate [...]. The striking contrast between the powerful frontal not suffering Jesus on the cross and the limp, hanging body of his betrayer [Judas] with his snapped neck is highly effective, both visually and symbolically".

Ivory - British Museum, London, England

Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia)

Church building was a dominant aspect of Byzantine architecture, with the Church of Holy Wisdom (or the Hagia Sophia as it is known today) standing as the crowning achievement of its age. Kleiner writes, "In Constantinople alone, [Emperor Justinian] erected or restored more than 30 churches of the Orthodox faith. Procopius, the official chronicler of the Justinianic era, admitted that the emperor's extravagant building program was an obsession that cost his subjects dearly in taxation. But Justinian's monuments defined the Byzantine style in architecture forever after". In building this church, Emperor Justinian was asserting his own faith, the legitimacy of Christianity over all other religions, and the superiority of the Eastern Roman Empire over all other civilizations. Historian Fergus Bordewich describes how, "until the 15 th century, no building incorporated a floor space so vast under one roof. Four acres of golden glass cubes - millions of them - studded the interior to form a glittering canopy overhead, each one set at a subtly different angle to reflect the flicker of candles and oil lamps that illuminated nocturnal ceremonies. Forty thousand pounds of silver encrusted the sanctuary. Columns of purple porphyry and green marble were crowned by capitals so intricately carved that they seemed as fragile as lace. Blocks of marble, imported from as far away as Egypt and Italy, were cut into decorative panels that covered the walls, making the church's entire vast interior appear to swirl and dissolve before one's eyes. And then there is the astonishing dome, curving 110 feet from east to west, soaring 180 feet above the marble floor". The symbolic power of the church continued after the Ottoman Turks conquered the Roman Empire in 1453. The Turks converted the church to a mosque, renaming it the Hagia Sophia . It was at this point that the minarets were added. In 1935, the Mosque was converted into a museum where both Islamic and Christian art were displayed side-by-side. In 2020, the Hagia Sophia was converted back to a mosque.

Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus - Istanbul, Turkey

Justinian, Bishop Maximianus, and attendants

This mosaic is one of two similarly themed works in the apse of the Byzantine San Vitale Church in Ravenna, Italy. Here, Emperor Justinian is shown standing in the center of a group of men wearing a purple robe and holding a bowl used to hold the bread of the Eucharist. On the right side of the Emperor is the Bishop Maximianus dressed in a yellow robe. To the left are other members of the clergy and soldiers in the Emperor's imperial guard. Typical of the art of this period, the way the figures are depicted is rich in symbolism. Justinian is in the center of the work and the dark color of his robe, not only sets him apart from the others, but also links him to Christ (as it is the color he was most often depicted in during this period). Also, a halo surrounds Justinian, which is indicative of how holy figures were depicted at this time. These elements combine to reassert the belief that Justinian is linked to God, and as so, his right to rule is divinely given. This mosaic, and a mosaic of the Empress Theodora positioned directly opposite, are located in the apse of the church by way of a reminder to parishioners that Justinian donated the money to build this church. The faith of the Emperor is reinforced by the fact that both mosaics are positioned directly below the image of Christ sitting atop the world as if in Heaven (in another mosaic positioned at the upper-most section of the apse). This acted as visual confirmation that Justinian is both the ruler of the empire, and a man of God. Commenting on the golden background, author Fred Kleiner states, "the artist placed nothing in the background, wishing the observer to understand the procession as taking place in this very sanctuary. Thus, the emperor appears forever as a participant in the sacred rites and as the proprietor of this royal church and the rule of the western territories of the Eastern Roman Empire". This observation is not without a little irony when one learns that Emperor Justinian and his wife never once visited the church.

Mosaic - North wall of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

The Sutton Hoo Purse-Lid

This small piece of ornamental metal design is a cover lid for a Merovingian purse. Seven small plaques are set in the lid to display a rich sequence of geometric and figural patterns. The far left and right bottom plaques feature a man surrounded by two wolves, while in the center two panels show two eagles capturing another animal. Above are three plaques of curvilinear abstract designs. The plaques were formed by tiny strips of metal attached together and filled in with colorful gemstones and pieces of glass, and it is considered a masterpiece of cloisonné design, at which the Merovingians excelled. This work is one of the treasures found with the excavation of a burial ship full of personal treasures from the Sutton Hoo burial mound in Suffolk, England. While only the most important of Merovingian individuals would have been buried in such grand fashion, it is believed by many that this ship, and this leather purse, belonged to a king. Generally, the work can serve as a good example of the importance that art played in the daily lives of the Merovingians since even simple daily items such as belt buckles, pins, and purses became, in their hands, works of aesthetic beauty. More than that, however, this work strongly hints at a symbolic meaning. According to the British Museum, the figural and animal designs on the purse lid, "must have had deep significance for the king and his subjects, but it is impossible for us to interpret them. The wolves could be a reference to the dynastic name of the family buried at Sutton Hoo - the Wuffingas (Wolf's People). Like the eagle, they are a powerful evocation of strength and courage, qualities that a successful leader of men must possess".

Gold, glass, garnet - British Museum, London, England

Cross-inscribed carpet page, folio 26 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels

This highly detailed work on paper is part of an illuminated manuscript called The Lindisfarne Gospels . It is known as a carpet page because the page does not contain any text and was designed solely for decorative effect. The colors are vivid - reds, blues, greens, and gold - adding to the dramatic effect of the page which outlines a large cross in red. Author Fred Kleiner writes, "[the carpet page features] serpentine interlacements of fantastic animals [that] devour each other, curling over and returning on their writhing, elastic shapes. The rhythm of expanding and contracting forms produces a vivid effect of motion and change, but the painter held it in check by the regularity of the design and by the dominating motif of the inscribed cross". It is believed the book was written by a monk named Eadfrith shortly before his death, and includes the four books of the gospel and the letters of Saint Jerome. Carpet pages, named such due to their resemblance to detailed oriental carpets, highlighted the importance placed on art during the Early Middle Ages given that, even with religious books, single pages could be dedicated to stand-alone illustrations (that is, independent of the written text). This work is considered one of the greatest examples of Hiberno-Saxon art, not least, because it shows, as Kleiner writes, "the marriage between Christian imagery and the animal-and-interlace style of the northern warlords".

Tempera on vellum - British Library, London, England

Round Box Brooch

The Vikings conquered lands that are now part of Britain, Ireland, and France. In addition to their legendary maritime prowess, the Vikings were great craftspeople and artisans. Their longships carried a symbolic threat through carved figureheads of menacing sea dragons, while the Vikings' costume wear and amulets typically featured carved animal motifs. Measuring just over two inches high, this box broach is typical of decorative Viking art. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Women on the Scandinavian island of Gotland wore box brooches to secure their shawls at the collarbone; the brooches doubled as a container to hold small objects. This example is decorated with tiny beasts, which inhabit the interlace patterns on the top and sides", while adding that, Viking art generally eschewed "figural decoration in favor of lively patterns based on stylized animals". Vikings produced arts and crafts that were both functional and decorative. This piece confirms their skill at metalworking, as well as the Vikings' penchant for zoomorphic (animal themed) designs. While the 'tiny beast" borders on abstraction, there are four repeated creatures which curve inward, as if rolling itself into a protective ball. Historian Emma Groeneveld says of the broach that it is, "more abstract than [earlier Viking broaches], displaying long, almost ribbon-shaped, curving bodies with intertwining limbs that develop into open loops and tendrils. Their heads are small and shown in profile but have big, bulging eyes".

Copper alloy - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

Equestrian portrait of Charlemagne or Charles the Bald

This bronze sculpture, measuring nine and a half inches high, depicts a man seated on his horse. Wearing a crown and elegant royal robe, most historians believe the figure to be Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor and the man responsible for ushering in the Carolingian Era of Medieval history. This is a rare example of sculpture from the period when the religious art typically took the shape of illuminated manuscripts and small ivory relief carvings. The sculpture also alludes to the influence that Ancient Roman art had had on Charlemagne and the art and architecture of the Carolingian period more generally. This statue is modelled after an early Roman work featuring the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In both statutes the emperor is depicted significantly larger than their horse thereby emphasizing their power (greater even than the magnificent imperial horse on which they are seated) and the their divine right to rule. Of this sculpture, author Fred Kleiner writes, "[Charlemagne] is on parade. He wears imperial robes rather than a general's cloak, although his sheathed sword is visible. On his head is a crown, and in his outstretched left hand he holds a globe, a symbol of world dominion. The portrait proclaimed the renovation of the Roman Empire's power and trappings".

Bronze - Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Otto III enthroned, folio 24 recto of the Gospel Book of Otto III

Derived from a Gospel book, this page features a depiction of Emperor Otto the Third, seated on a throne holding an orb with a cross in his left hand and a scepter in his right. He is surrounded by church clergy and government figures and is placed in front of a building structure supported with columns. Illuminated manuscripts - such as the Gospel Book of Otto III - were a commonplace during the Ottonian period. Here we can see an increased sense of realism in terms of the dimensionality of the figures. There is weight and body behind the imperial robes, while the Emperor's seated position on the throne also appears natural. His entourage is placed in a real landscape setting rather than the "floating" figures typical of early Christian art. This work shows the power of art to serve as a vehicle for political propaganda. The book of the four gospels (of which this page is a part) was commissioned by Otto. While this would confirm his devotion to God, he went further by inserting his own image in the Gospel manuscript. His image reinforces his position as crowned emperor by holding the sceptre and orb. Moreover, the presence of the cross atop the orb, coupled with his positioning on a throne surrounded by his disciples, echoes representations of Christ, and thereby strengthening his divine right to rule. The architecture in this work is also significant. As author Veronica Sekules notes, during this period, "rulers are nearly always shown in some kind of architectural enclosure [...]. In general terms, the representation of architecture, or of architectural features such as fictive niches or arcades as settings for images, suggests status and civilization".

Tempera on vellum - Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Munich, Germany

Detail of Bayeux Tapestry (featuring the "Battle of Hastings Norman Knights and Archers)

While titled the Bayeux Tapestry , this work is in fact an elaborately detailed and decorative work of embroidery. Measuring one foot eight inches high the piece is nearly two hundred and thirty feet long. Sewn into the linen scroll is a series of scenes depicting the history of England, including the Norman victory over the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (referenced in the detail above) which ultimately united present day France and England under a Norman king's rule. It also features scenes depicting the death of Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, his funeral and burial at Westminster Abbey, and the crowning of William as King (all key historical events that led up to the Battle of Hastings itself). This is probably the most famous example of a Medieval tapestry or embroidered work. The embroiderers took painstaking efforts to render incredible details from patterns on clothing and individual elements of architectural structures. The work features more than six hundred figures, 37 buildings, 41 ships and more than 200 animals, many of which are horses. These details combine in the seventy-five scenes that compose the work. Not surprisingly, the history of the Bayeux Tapestry is not without more fanciful stories about its origins. According to author Nora McGreevy, "popular myth holds that Queen Matilda of England and her ladies-in-waiting embroidered the sweeping tableaus, but historians don't actually know who created it". Author Fred Kleiner adds, "the Bayeux Tapestry stands apart from all other Romanesque artworks in depicting in full detail an event at a time shortly after it occurred, recalling the historical narratives of ancient Roman art. [The] story told on the textile is the conqueror's version of history, a proclamation of national pride".

Embroidered wool on linen - Bayeux Museum, Bayeux, France

Virgin of Compassion (Vladimir Virgin)

This icon depicts the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus Christ. Mary, in her familiar dark robe, embraces her son who rest his cheek on hers. As she holds him, Mary looks, not at her child, but out at the viewer. An important Byzantine icon, the work shows the flat, two-dimensional, forms and details typical of the period. The author Fred Kleiner identifies "the Virgin's long, straight nose and small mouth; the golden rays in the infant's drapery; the decorative sweep of the unbroken contour that encloses the two figures; and the flat silhouette against the golden ground" as typical of such icons. However, Kleiner adds that this example is a "much more tender and personalized image of the Virgin. [...] Here, Mary is the Virgin of Compassion, who presses her cheek against her son's in an intimate portrayal of mother and child. A deep pathos infuses the image as Mary contemplates the future sacrifice of her son". By looking out at the viewer, it is as if Mary is asking the viewer to contemplate her son's future sacrifice and death. It is a picture that would be repeated throughout the Medieval and later periods. This work also speaks to the value that was placed on this and similar Byzantine icons. The icon had resided in several churches and devotees believed it had the power to keep people safe, and even bring about miracles. Indeed, it was believed by many Russians that the Vladimir Virgin had helped to save the city of Kazan from an enemy invasion, and later, the country from a Polish invasion. Today the Vladimir Virgin is considered one of the most culturally and historically significant pieces of Russian art.

Tempera on wood - Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Head Reliquary of Saint Alexander

Relics were an important part of the Christian faith during the Middle Ages and pilgrims would often make long and arduous journeys to pray in the churches that housed them. This reliquary, as described by author Fred Kleiner, "[features] an almost-life-size head, fashioned in beaten (repoussé) silver with bronze gilding for the hair. The idealized head resembles portraits of youthful Roman emperors such as Augustus [...] and Constantine [...], and the Romanesque metalworker may have used an ancient sculpture as a model. The saint wears a collar of jewels and enamel plaques around his neck. Enamels and gems also adorn the box on which the head is mounted. The reliquary rests on four bronze dragons - mythical animals of the kind populating Romanesque cloister capitals". Relics of this type needed to be held in containers fitting of such sacred objects and so reliquaries became important objects in themselves. Highly detailed and embellished, this example was created to house the bones of Saint Alexander who was a pope of the Holy Roman Empire between 1061 and 1073. As many believed relics had healing powers, it was important the reliquaries respected this belief. Here, the box on which the head rests, carries images of the personifications of Virtues. As the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Historie describes, "These Virtues crush sin, embodied in the dragon-shaped feet, and lead to holiness, represented by the silver head of the Pope Saint Alexander. This vertical symbolic progression from Evil toward Good reasserts the doctrine conveyed by the enamel decoration on the sides of the case". For the pilgrims coming to pray, most of whom would have been illiterate, both the relic and the reliquary served as a visual reinforcement of the power of God and Christianity in general.

Silver repoussé, gilt bronze, gems, pearls, and enamel - Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Historie, Brussels, Belgium

Notre Dame de Paris

The Notre Dame de Paris ("Our Lady of Paris"), one of the most recognizable cathedrals in the world (and the cathedral of the Catholic archdiocese of Paris, which houses the official chair -"cathedra" - of the Archbishop of Paris), is one of the French capital's most recognizable and visited landmarks, and an exemplar of French Gothic architecture. The towering cathedral had thinner and higher walls than the Romanesque buildings that preceded it, but these proved highly susceptible to stress fractures. Notre Dame is thought to be one of the first buildings in the world to incorporate flying buttresses (arched exterior supports) as a means of surmounting this problem. The long period of construction did, however, mean that the building, with its vast displays of artworks, sculpture, and stained glass, introduced emerging ("post-Gothic") styles such as naturalism. The "first" art historian, the Italian Giorgio Vasari, dismissed Notre Dame as a "barbaric" insult to the austere Romanesque style of architecture that preceded it. It was not a view shared (some 400 years later) by the famous historian E H Gombrich, however. He wrote "the walls of these buildings were not cold or foreboding [as they were in the Romanesque style]. They were formed of stained glass that shone like rubies and emeralds. The pillars, ribs and tracery were glistening with gold. Everything that was heavy, earthy or humdrum was eliminated. The faithful who surrendered themselves to the contemplation of all this beauty could feel that they had come nearer to understanding the mysteries of a realm beyond the reach of matter". Gombrich concluded that the magnificent façade of Notre Dame "is so lucid and effortless in the arrangement of its porches and windows, so lithe and graceful the tracery of the gallery, that we forget the weight of this pile of stone and the whole structure seems to rise up before us like a mirage".

Paris, France

David before Saul, folio 24 verso of the Belleville Breviary

Artist: Jean Pucelle

Jean Pucelle's Belleville Breviary was a religious book that contained the liturgy service for each day including psalms and scriptures to read, and prayers to recite, at specified hours. While the text was important as a devotional book, it was the illustrated artworks included on the pages that make it most impressive. As described by author Fred Kleiner, here Pucelle depicted, "his fully modeled figures in three-dimensional architectural settings rendered in convincing perspective. For example, [in the page seen here] he painted Saul as a weighty figure seated on a throne seen in three-quarter view, and he meticulously depicted the receding coffers of the barrel vault over the young David's head". While illuminated manuscripts had been popular throughout the Middle Ages, it was during the Gothic period that the artworks reached new heights of sophistication. Book of Hours, or private devotional books such as this, were only able to be commissioned and owned by the most wealthy and important; in this case, the Queen of France Jeanne d'Evreux, wife of King Charles IV. The time, effort, and expense involved in the making of such a book reinforces the important role that art played in religious practice during the Gothic period. Moreover, the Old Testament story of David and Saul is set here in earthly surroundings bringing the earth and the heavens into concert. As Kleiner comments, the artist's "renditions of plants, a bird, butterflies, a dragonfly, a fish, a snail, and a monkey also reveal a keen interest in and close observation to the natural world".

Ink and tempera on vellum - Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France

Peaceful Country

Artist: Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Built in the late Medieval period, the Palazzo Pubblico (1288-1309) in the Italian city of Siena, represents the architectural developments of this period which was marked by an increase in secular structures being built for government or civic use. This detailed wall fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti is part of a larger mural series titled Effects of Good Government in the City and in the Country . It features a countryside view of Siena including all four seasons of agricultural growth and development - from planting to harvesting - in one painting. Peasants are hard at work in the fields with their baskets overflowing with crops, while nobles look down on the scene from a hilltop. In the top left corner of the fresco a personification of security in the form of a winged female hovers, holding out a scroll on which words are written promising peace and security to all that follow the rule of law (which in Siena at this time was administrated by a group called the Nine). The heavy focus on the earth makes it one of the first examples in Western art of a dedicated landscape painting. An important work of late Medieval art, the painting shows the growing value placed on secular themed art that was used to reinforce the validity of ruling powers and the need for individuals to be good, law abiding citizens. Quite literally, here there are words promising security for all who follow the law while the lush landscape, with an abundance of crops, reinforces the promise that all will be well for those who practice good citizenship. The work, and the others in the series which included similar sentiments, was commissioned for the government meeting room in the Palazzo Pubblico and the frescos covered three of the room's four walls. In this way, the fresco also served as a reminder of the responsibilities that the government had to protect its citizens. The notion of good citizenship was one of the many fundamental principles of the Humanist worldview that would come to underscore the looming Renaissance period.

Fresco - Palazzo Pubblico, Seina, Italy

Overview of Movement

Beginnings: the birth of religious art and late antiquity.

The birth of Medieval art can be traced back to the end of the Roman Empire and the move away in the third century from the belief in mythological gods (polytheism) in favor of the worship and adoration of a single God (monotheism). While Christians and Jews had been practicing their faith before this period, these groups could not worship openly without the fear of violent persecution. Those living under the reign of Emperor Nero (54 - 68 CE), for instance, were either subject to public executions, or used as fodder for baying Roman spectators in barbaric Colosseum games. Jews and Christians were thus forced to practice their faith in secret. Hidden in the back of homes, such as in Dura-Europos, a Roman border town (in present day Syria), for instance, one might find a hidden room or chamber filled with frescoes depicting religious narratives. Given the secrecy of such worship, much of the earliest art has been lost.

These religious restrictions were lifted by Roman Emperor Constantine, who ruled between 306 to 337, once he too became a follower of Christianity. Author Marilyn Stokstad writes, "First [Constantine] issued a decree whereby Christians would be tolerated and their confiscated property restored, then he recognized Christianity as a lawful religion". She adds that, in "a crucial pronouncement known as the Edict of Milan, issued in 313 in concert with the Eastern ruler, Licinius, Constantine formalized his earlier decrees. The text of the edict, a model of religious toleration, allowed not only to Christians, but to the adherents of every other religion the choice of following whatever form of worship they pleased".

Constantine's edict accordingly gave rise to an increase in religious-themed art. Mural paintings on the walls and ceilings of the catacombs featured narratives taken from the Christian faith. Religious funerary decorations were also popular, and while sculptural works were more limited, they could also be seen in relief carvings on burial sarcophagi. Another material for works of this period was ivory, with pieces carved of these animal tusks doubling as religious iconography and as a status of wealth.

While the art of Classical Antiquity produced figures of idealized physical beauty, the art of Late Antiquity - a period of transition between Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages (spanning from the late 3 rd century to the 7 th or 8 th century) - and the Medieval Period, relegated aesthetic excellence to a secondary position; ceding to the primary need for the viewer/worshipper to read the biblical parable without aesthetic distractions. Flat in form, Medieval figures lack detailed body modelling or dimensionality beneath their garments, and were typically represented without any sort of anchoring to the ground, giving them the appearance that they were floating. Hierarchical rules were also followed with the most important figures in the narrative depicted as taller and attired in more elaborate and colorful costumes.

Constantine's rule also provided the catalyst for the building of large places for Christian worship. Architects of the period of Late Antiquity moved away from the traditional temple design and instead modified the secular basilica model used in government buildings. According to Stokstad, "in their churches, Christians adapted the basilica form to their own purposes. At the end of the hall a single apse housed the clergy and the altar, while the hall served the congregation. The entrance was placed opposite the apse so that, on entering, the worshipper's attention was immediately focused on the sanctuary". These somewhat basic structures were made worthy of God through their generous interior decoration. Constantine's administration oversaw the building several new churches, the most notable of which, Saint Peter's (c. 319), housed relics of the apostle (St. Peter). Another of Constantine's churches Santa Costanza (337-351) in Rome, was originally built as a mausoleum which was later converted to a church.

Early Byzantine Period (250-842 CE)

In 330, as part of his Eastern expansion, Emperor Constantine founded a new imperial city in Byzantium, naming it Constantinople in his honor. While the Western Empire would fall in 476, Byzantium continued to prosper. Many of the finest examples of early Byzantine art were produced under the rule of Emperor Justinian whose reign began in 527. A formidable military leader and conqueror, Justinian was also a great patron of the arts and did much to spread religious iconography throughout the expanding Eastern Roman Empire. Justinian had a special penchant for church building. In addition to the magnificent church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople (better known today as the Hagia Sophia), he oversaw the building in 547 of another architectural masterpiece, the San Vitale in Ravenna, at that time the capital city of Byzantine Italy. With its striking octagonal structure, topped by a terra-cotta dome, the San Vitale's interior houses the exquisite fifteen mosaic medallions (featuring Jesus Christ and the Apostles) that adorn the triumphal arch.

This period is also closely associated with the production of religious icons. Author Fred Kleiner writes, "from the sixth century on, [icons] became enormously popular in Byzantine worship, both public and private. Eastern Christians considered icons a personal, intimate, and indispensable medium for spiritual transaction with holy figures. Some icons [even] came to be regarded as wonderworking, and believers ascribed miracles and healing powers to them". However, between 726 and 787, a group backed by Emperor Leo III, launched a campaign to destroy all icons in the belief that they had become objects of worship in-and-of themselves (rather than an aid to prayer) and were thus linked to the veneration of false idols. The "Iconoclasts" were Christian fundamentalists who adhered to a literal translation of the Ten Commandments which forbids the making and worship of graven images. A second period of iconoclasm followed between 814and 842, finally bringing the Early Byzantine period to an end.

Middle Byzantine Period (843-1203 CE)

In the period following Iconoclasm, the Byzantine empire was rejuvenated. As part of its new prosperity, Byzantine art and architecture underwent a series of changes. Churches of this period followed the style of Justinian's reign but on a much more modest scale. Art historian Evan Freeman writes, "Monumental depictions of Christ and the Virgin, biblical events, and an array of various saints adorned church interiors in both mosaics and frescoes. But Middle Byzantine churches largely exclude depictions of the flora and fauna of the natural world that often appeared in Early Byzantine mosaics, perhaps in response to accusations of idolatry during the Iconoclastic Controversy. In addition to these developments in architecture and monumental art, exquisite examples of manuscripts, cloisonné enamels, stonework, and ivory carving survive from this period as well".

1054 saw the "Great Schism" between the Eastern Orthodox Byzantium Christians and the Western Roman Catholics (referred to locally as the "Latins" or "Franks"). In 1204, the Italian and French Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, destroying or looting many of the city's art treasures. The crusaders duly occupied Constantinople where they established a new "Latin Empire". Exiled Byzantine elders established three successor states: the Empires of Nicaea and Trebizond in Anatolia, and the Despotate of Epirus in Greece and Albania. In 1261, the Nicaeans regained control of Constantinople from where, under Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, they established the rule of the Palaiologan dynasty. The Crusade had created great enmity between eastern and western Christians, yet out of this conflict came a creative merging of Byzantium and Western European art. Freeman observes that this tendency was particularly evident "in Italian paintings of the late Medieval and early Renaissance periods, exemplified by new depictions of St. Francis painted in the so-called Italo-Byzantine style".

Late Byzantine Period (1261-1453 CE)

Following the recapture of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire continued to reign until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The art of this period would evolve in line with new ideas and tastes. Mosaics were still dominant in church decoration, but frescos became increasingly popular. This coincided with a shift in types of imagery with frescos more amenable to narrative scenes. These scenes carried a new sense of naturalism in the way the contours and movements of the human body were more discernible (under their clothing). Simple landscapes and pastoral settings became common, while architecture also began to be depicted. Buildings tended to be slightly skewed, but painters' awareness of architecture and perspective became more evident as the art evolved.

The 5 th century Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora took its name from its location (Chora) just outside Constantinople's walls. Considered one of the great vestiges of the Late Byzantine art and architecture, the Chora's interior decorations, featuring a spectacular array of frescos and mosaics, were completed between 1315 and 1321 under the direction of the statesman, Theodore Metochites. He later enlarged the ground plan from the original small symmetrical church, into a large, asymmetrical square consisting of three areas: the inner and outer narthex or entrance hall; the naos or inner chapel; and the side chapel, known as the parecclesion (that originally doubled as a mortuary chapel housing eight tombs). The Chora's defining exterior feature consists of six domes, with concave bands originating from their centers. Viewed from the interior, the spaces between the domes' bands depict images of Christ and the Virgin flanked by angels or ancestors.

The Merovingians (481 - 751)

While the Eastern division of the Roman Empire thrived, the Western side fared less well. Military and political conflicts were commonplace and outside civilizations colonized large areas of the Empire. The Germanic tribe known as the Merovingians reigned from the 5 th to the mid-6 th century in an area that today is part of France. Early Merovingian art was small in stature and favored animal imagery. Items such as belt buckles, fibulae, or ornamental pins, and small medallions, were highly detailed and created in the decorative style of cloisonné. In this process, small pieces of metal are soldered in strips with the spaces between filled in with enamel, gemstones and pieces of glass. Several characteristics of these artworks were highly colorful, geometric patterns and interlocking abstracted animal forms.

Many Merovingians treasures have come from excavated burial sites. As was their custom, wealthy and important Merovingian lords were buried in ships filled with their treasures including jewelry, pottery, coins, and medallions. The greatest of the excavated ships was discovered in 1939 in a field in Suffolk, England, under what is now known as the Sutton Hoo burial mound. Treasures included a warrior helmet, weapons, belt buckles, and textiles. The British Museum says of the site, "the interment of a ship at Sutton Hoo represents the most impressive medieval grave to be discovered in Europe". The Merovingians were Christians and built their own churches, too. They copied the late Roman style of basilicas, such as in the Church of St. Martin of Tours, in Yeovil, Somerset, and filled the interior with paintings and other carved decorations. They also built monasteries where monks created highly decorative illuminated manuscripts, with many favoring animal motifs.

The Visigoths (410-716)

The Visigoths were the westerly division of the Goths; a Germanic people that invaded the Roman Empire from the east between the 3 rd and 5 th centuries. Christians, the Visigoths created a kingdom in areas that now belong to Spain, France, and the Iberian Peninsula (the eastern division of the Goths, the Ostrogoths, founded their kingdom in Italy). Art historian Kathleen Kuiper writes, "The [Visigoth] art produced during this period [5 th -8 th century] is largely the result of local Roman traditions combined with Byzantine influences. The effect of Germanic metalworking techniques is also seen in the decorative arts, but the ornamentation of these pieces, most notably a collection of jeweled crowns and crosses known as the treasure of Guarrazar [the site of an important archaeological site in Spain], owes nothing to the Germanic artistic traditions. Instead, plant and animal motifs from the Mediterranean and Eastern traditions are used".

The Visigoths were highly skilled in fine detailing and well known for their small metalwork pieces and jewelry which feature vibrantly colored gemstones and animal motifs, especially the eagle. The architecture of the Visigoths, meanwhile, was smaller in stature than some of the other early Medieval designs, but was distinguished through its fine masonry work. The church of San Juan Bautista, Baños de Cerrato (now in the province of Palencia, central Spain) was erected in 661 by the Visigothic king. Its features include horseshoe arches and square apses which were thought almost unique to the Visigoths at that time. A further characteristic of Visigoth churches were the ornamental sculptures that graced their simple basilican interiors.

The Vikings (793 - 1066)

Landing in Rome in 793, the Scandinavian Vikings were ruthless and brilliant military strategists who went on to conquer lands that are now part of Britain, Ireland, and France. With their great maritime skills, the Vikings dominated through the middle of the 11 th century. The Vikings were great craftsmen and artisans with their iconic longboats used for both travel and funerals. The ships themselves were works of art, with the carved prow and stern often sculpted to resembling snaking sea beasts (some with human heads). Carvings of these ferocious firedrakes, and other types of animal motif, were also carved onto other forms of military transport and amulets.

Viking art favoured materials that could be carved or engraved, such as wood, metal, stone, ivory, and bone. The Vikings also produced pictorial textiles and wall tapestries, and jewelry in the form of brooches and pendants. Of the latter, art historian, Andrea C. Snow writes, "Many objects served practical and symbolic purposes and their complex decorative patterns can be a challenge to untangle. Highly-stylized motifs weave around and flow into one another, so that following a single form from one end to the other can be difficult - if there are end points at all. Imagery was created to communicate ideas about social relations, religious beliefs, and to recall a mythic past. Although many objects served pagan intentions, Christian themes began to intermingle with them as new ideas filtered into the region".

The Anglo-Saxons and Hiberno-Saxons (410 - 1066)

When the Romans left England around 410, factions and tribes fought for dominance of land, before the Angles and the Saxons - The Anglo-Saxons - arrived in England from Denmark, and took over control of vast areas of the country. Hibernian (Irish) monks arrived in England in 635 bringing with them ancient Celtic traditions. The Hiberno-Saxons is the name given thus to the melding of pagan Anglo-Saxon, and Christian Hibernian, cultures. The zoomorphic patterns and bright coloration favored by the Anglo-Saxons interlaced with the curvilinear forms, scrolls and spirals that was the Celtic tradition. This resulted in an elaborate decorative style with artisans employed to produce metal and ivory utilitarian objects dominated by carvings of abstract animal motifs. Hiberno-Saxon church building, meanwhile, is characterized by pilasters, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular-headed openings. While sculptures and large-scale artworks were rare, the Hiberno-Saxon High Cross, made of sandstone and finely carved with religious-themed reliefs, were regularly used to signpost monuments and memorials.

The Christian art that dominated the Medieval period is closely aligned with the production of illuminated manuscripts. Considered one of the greatest treasures of its kind, the Book of Kells was written on vellum (calfskin) pages in calligraphic Latin and features the four Gospels of the New Testament. The book was the work of three Celtic monks based in the Columban monastery on the island of Iona. However, following a deadly assault by Viking raiders, the monks took the book with them when they fled to the newly built monastery at Kells in County Meath, Ireland (where it was probably completed around 800). Historian Martha Kearney writes, "Practically all of the 680 pages are decorated in some way or another. On some pages every corner is filled with the most detailed and beautiful Celtic designs [...] There are many images of animals throughout [...] from exotic peacocks, lions and snakes to more domestic cats, hares and goats. There has been much research into their significance. Some like the goats were presumably part of everyday life but others could have been pagan symbols carried over into the Christian era".

Carolingian Art (800-900)

The Carolingian Empire began in 800, the year Pope Leo III made the King of the Franks, Charles the Great, the first emperor of the Western Roman Empire. It lasted about 100 years. Charlemagne, as he became better known, masterminded successful military campaigns across northern Europe, and launched an intellectual and cultural "golden age" known as the "Carolingian Renaissance" (named after the Carolingian dynasty from which Charlemagne was descended). Charlemagne filled his court with intellectuals and ministers who set about the task of extending the influence of Christianity throughout Europe. His administration launched many educational and cultural initiatives, including improving Latin literacy, inventing a new calligraphic script (Carolingian minuscule), and promoting new forms of art, poetry, and architecture. According to Kleiner, "the 'Carolingian Renaissance' was a remarkable historical phenomenon, an energetic, brilliant renovation of the art, culture, and political ideals of Early Christian Rome".

The Carolingian Renaissance featured a major new building campaign; one that sought to match the great masterpieces of the Classical architecture of the past. Kleiner writes, "For his models, Charlemagne looked to Rome and Ravenna. One was the former heart of the Roman Empire, which he wanted to renew. The other was the long-term western outpost of Byzantine might and splendor, which he wanted to emulate in his own capital at Aachen". Perhaps the greatest contribution to the architecture of the period was the tower structure, as exemplified in the mid-century with the consecration of the Abbey Church of St. Riquier in Corvey, Germany. It offered a much grander entranceway into a spacious church building where altars and even choirs could be stationed. This proved an important development as Carolingian churches were designed to house much larger groups of worshippers, many of whom had undertaken long pilgrimages to holy sites.

Ottonian Art (951-1024)

Following his death in 814, Charlemagne's empire began to slowly crumble. In 936 a dukedom in Saxony (northern Germany) came to power under the rule of Otto I, or Otto the Great, as he became known. Crowned king of Aachen by the pope in 962, the Ottonian Empire (Otto's reign was extended by his heirs, Otto II (r. 973-83) and Otto III (r. 983-1002)), restored the Holy Roman Empire throughout (what are now) Germany, Switzerland, and northern and central Italy. The Ottonians also fostered close ties with Byzantium. Independent scholar Jean Sorabella writes, "The Ottonian revival coincided with a period of growth and reform in the church, and monasteries produced much of the finest Ottonian art, including magnificent, illuminated manuscripts, churches, and monastic buildings and sumptuous luxury objects intended for church interiors and treasuries. Christian iconography predominated, but political imagery was often integrated with sacred scenes".

While there had been a gradual move towards realism and naturalism in Christian figures, Ottonian art is associated with a pronounced emotional depth. In works showing the crucifixion, for instance, Ottonian art was apt to emphasize the agony of Christ's suffering (whereas previously it had been nullified). Sculpture was becoming prevalent, too, with an increase in carved ivory reliefs, elaborate sculpted church doors, and a renewed passion for freestanding sculptures, such as the Gero Crucifix (970), that had not been seen since the age of Classical Antiquity. Ottonian architecture, meanwhile, incorporated many of the distinguishing features that came before it, including a preference for Carolingian westworks (the name given to a monumental western church front constructed in the form of a tower). Saint Michael's in Hildesheim, Germany, for instance, features two transepts, a grand westwork, and additional towers. These churches proved to be harbingers for the design of Romanesque churches.

Romanesque Art (1000-1150)

The Romanesque period began around 1000 and lasted until 1150 (when it evolved into the Gothic). It was the result of the expansion of monasticism, and with that expansion, the building of new churches throughout western Europe. The Romanesque blended stylistic elements borrowed from Roman, Carolingian, Ottonian, and Byzantine art and architecture. Romanesque Art became more realistic and more emotive. Religious themed illuminated manuscripts and mural paintings continued in earnest during the period, while painted icons and ornately-decorated reliquaries, or holders for holy relics, were also created and given prominence in Romanesque churches. The new churches served as key attractions for the thousands of people undertaking pilgrimages to holy sites throughout Europe.

Romanesque churches favored rounded stone arches which harkened back to early Roman architecture. The Romanesque also saw a return to monumental sculpture, with relief sculpture depicting biblical history adorning columns and their massive church doors. The interior walls and ceilings, meanwhile, were ornamented with frescoes depicting vignettes of Christ's life. Key features of Romanesque churches were vaulted stone ceilings, thick walls, and small windows. Towers were also a feature, as were decorative exterior design elements such as pointed and rounded windows. Pilgrimage churches, those which housed the most important relics, were newly built or expanded from their original structures to accommodate larger crowds and religious visitors.

Gothic Art (1150-1450)

The Gothic style covered the period between the 12 th and 15 th centuries. There were many artistic developments during this period. As Kleiner writes, "the great artistic innovations of the Gothic age were, as in the Romanesque period, made possible by the widespread prosperity and favorable climate that Europe enjoyed in the 12 th and 13 th centuries. This was a time of profound change in European society. The focus of both intellectual and religious life shifted definitively from monasteries in the countryside to rapidly expanding cities. In these new urban centers, prosperous merchants made their homes and formed guilds (professional associations)". Gothic architecture attempted to recreate a heavenly environment on earth. Gothic builders developed the use of flying buttresses (introduced to support the building's increased height and weight) and decorative tracery between stained glass windows thus creating interior spaces that dwarfed worshippers and dazzled their senses. Book arts also became a common feature of Gothic art with illuminated manuscripts and small books of prayers (books of hours) commissioned by wealthy patrons for private devotion. While many of the books were created by anonymous artisans, in France some individuals, such as Jean Fouquet, Master Honoré, and Jean Pucelle, began to gain recognition under the collective title: School of Paris.

Paris's iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral is generally agreed to be the definitive example of Gothic architecture. The church's move towards more ornate designs can be seen in the decorative rosette windows and pointed arches, and in the abundance of religious themed art that adorned the interior and exterior walls. While representations of Mary and the Christ child were popular throughout the Middle Ages, in many early depictions Christ is represented less as an infant and more like an adult of reduced size. In the sculpture Virgin of Paris (in Notre Dame) Mary and the Christ child are more natural (or childlike in Christ's case) thus representing a Gothic style that has moved away from the flat and simplified forms of religious iconography of the Late Antiquity, and the Byzantine periods, towards a more naturalistic and sensuous style. This feature is most notable here in the natural way in which Mary's body arches to support the weight of the child she rests on her hip. This natural parental posture would become commonplace during the late-Gothic period.

Late Medieval Art (1200-1400)

While the era of Medieval Art doesn't have a specific end date, it is generally agreed that it was signaled by the start of the Renaissance period . Nevertheless, the years between the end of the Gothic period and the birth of the Renaissance saw a maturity of many of the burgeoning concerns of the Middle Ages such as humanistic learning, naturalism, and individualism. According to Kleiner, "art historians debate whether the art of Italy between 1200 and 1400 is the last phase of medieval art or the beginning of the [Renaissance] of Greco-Roman naturalism. All agree, however, that these mark a major turning point in the history of Western art". Key artists of the period, such as Pisano , Cimabue , and Giotto , rendered religious works with an intense realism and a renewed interest in Classical art . These artists created figures that were fully dimensional and placed in settings that showed a greater sense of spatial depth, thereby pre-empting the work of Renaissance artists who would develop and master the art of linear perspective. Also gone was any need to differentiate the spiritual from the earthy, and in this period biblical scenes often incorporated landscapes as an important part of the narrative itself.

Another influence on the art of this period was the expansion of growing urban centers, such as in Italy which had been broken down into city-states with their own independent governments. Art of this period moved beyond solely religious themes to include secular themes, such as the works to encourage good government. Also popular were morality paintings that warned against sinful behavior. The architectural achievements of the Romanesque and Gothic periods continued in much of the church design during the Late Medieval period. One area of new development, however, was a more focused interest in civic buildings in which government activities could take place, such as Palazzo Pubblico, in Siena, and the Palazzo della Signoria, in Florence. With multiple floors and several individual rooms for various functions, these structures were also built with an eye to protect against invading enemies with towers or campaniles able to double as lookout posts.

Future Developments

The 19 th century was witness to a growing interest in the art and culture of the "dark ages" with a growing impetus to record the period's significant legacy in the fields of art, craft, and architecture. This renewed pursuit can be largely accounted for through the maturation of art history as a serious academic discipline. Art historians looked to date surviving medieval artifacts and worked to piece together a timeline of the numerous, and many overlapping, styles that bridged this vast epoch. The heirs to these early histories have produced a story of art that shows us that the aesthetic vestiges of medieval art have a reach that far exceeds the dawning of the Renaissance age. As historians Simone Celine Marshall and Carole M. Cusack have noted, "The substantial medieval presence within the Modernist aesthetic is exemplified in moments of illumination that deploy religious and mystical traditions to orchestrate insights that are often secular, yet retain something of the religious intensity that brought them into being".

One can locate these traditions, for instance, in the English Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth/early twentieth centuries which demonstrated its debt to the splendour of the illuminated book through their own elaborately engraved printings and typefaces. One might cite, too, the German Die Brucke (The Bridge) group who were directly inspired by the raw woodblock prints of the Middle Ages, while in Russia, artists Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov collected folk textiles and prints, and studied Orthodox Christian icons, to create an aesthetic that was both modern and distinctly Russian. And in his book, Medieval Modern, Art out of Time (2012), Alexander Nagel demonstrates how medieval art has shaped the practice of pioneering modern artists as diverse as Constantin Brâncuși , Marcel Duchamp , Kurt Schwitters , and Robert Smithson . Today medieval art and artefacts is/are highly valued by museums and private collectors, while the era's central position in the timeline of art history provides inspiration for artists to whom the whole of art history is a source of inspiration.

Useful Resources on Medieval Art

• Gardner's Art through the Ages: 16 th Edition: A Global History, Volume 1 Our Pick By Fred S. Kleiner
• How To Read Medieval Art By Wendy A. Stein
• Medieval Art Our Pick By Veronica Sekules
• Medieval Art, Second Edition Our Pick By Marilyn Stokstad
• International Center of Medieval Art - ICMA
• The Medieval Presence in the Modern Aesthetic By Simone Celine Marshall and Carole M. Cusack
• The Story of Art By E H Gombrich
• The Book of Kells: Medieval Europe's greatest treasure? By Martha Kearney / BBC Culture
• Art of the Viking Age By Andrea C. Snow / Smarthistory
• Visigothic art By Kathleen Kuiper / Britannica.com
• St Francis and Scenes from his Life Italian Art Society
• About the chronological periods of the Byzantine Empire By Dr. Evan Freeman / Smarthistory
• Ottonian Art By Jean Sorabella / The Met
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The New Middle Ages

T he past is returning. Any return assumes a preceding departure. Perhaps, though, the past never left, and its absence will turn out to have been an illusion. Certain traits embedded in genes don’t manifest themselves for some time. That doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared, though; they’re simply waiting for the right moment to emerge. That moment—the moment we are at now—could be called a return.

Naturally enough, the idea of a return of the past isn’t new. Antiquity asserted the cyclical nature of time. Christian civilization rejected that circle, offering the spiral as a model. Yes, events repeat, but on another level, under other conditions. This understanding of the world was expressed by early Christian thinkers who saw Christ as a new Adam and the Virgin Mary as a new Eve. There are a great many such pairs: Melchizedek and Christ, the twelve tribes and the twelve disciples, Israel and the Church.

At the very moment when the past’s departure seems irrevocable, the spiral twists and the return gets its rolling start. We recognize old traits in new occurrences. The spiral can be likened to the DNA helix. Today the helix is turning yet again, and we see emerging from modernity a new Middle Ages.

Nikolai Berdyaev predicted this return in 1923 in The End of Our Time . He described the modern age, which is “colorful and individualistic,” as nearing its end, being replaced by an epoch that is much closer to the “profound and collective” Middle Ages. He saw that a revolution was beginning. (“Revolution begins internally, before it is exposed on the outside.”) Umberto Eco saw it as well, and announced that “our era can be defined as a new Middle Ages.” So what do “the Middle Ages” really mean to us in the present day?

Today, “medieval” is a swear word hurled at anyone we want to accuse of cruelty and ignorance, and so the return of the medieval is a possibility that fills us with dread. This attitude involves a serious misapprehension, but I will not attempt to correct it here. Rather, I will invite the reader into the medieval world, which is admittedly rather quirky. I will do so in terms of the written word, because as a scholar of literature and a writer (an ichthyologist and a fish), my exploration of the medieval and the modern must proceed through an examination of texts. I am not a philosopher capable of taking in the whole, but a philologist concerned with particulars. Even from this limited perspective, we can see that medieval culture constituted a system that was well-constructed and logical in its own way. If it had not been, it could not have worked successfully over the course of many centuries. The duration of the system’s existence speaks to its high stability and fruitfulness.

Medieval writings are fragmentary in structure, a literature of cut and paste, or “cento.” To borrow Nikolai Leskov’s vivid expression, they are like “the patchwork quilts of city women from Orel,” sewn up from scraps of fabrics a seamstress once worked with. What does that mean?

Texts were not so much composed as compiled in the Middle Ages. New texts contained, almost consisted of, fragments of preceding ones. Rather than retell an event, a compiler would just reuse the text from a previous account. The Primary Chronicle , the first Russian chronicle, tells of the death of the “accursed” prince Svyatopolk. In describing the prince, the chronicler combines two fragments from George Hamartolos’s Byzantine Chronicle : One is about the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the other is about Herod. Why did the chronicler borrow those particular fragments? The answer is simple. The prince’s escape and death in a foreign land led the chronicler to the idea of using the text about ­Antiochus, whose death was similar. The fragment about Herod was chosen because the epithet for Herod was “accursed” and so was that for prince Svyatopolk.

In a similar way, hagiographers would include in their texts fragments from other saints’ lives. These fragments were most often borrowed from the lives of saints with the same name. Some parts of the life story of the saint Kirill Novoezersky thus use text from the life of the saint Kirill Belozersky. Such borrowing might seem criminal to the modern mind. How could one person’s biography be supplemented with fragments from someone else’s? A medieval person saw the matter differently. If two saints had the same name—and names aren’t accidental!—then why shouldn’t their fates resemble one another? And why not draw on the one to illuminate the other?

Medieval texts are like Lego sets. They can be taken apart, reconfigured, and combined. This flexibility seems to pose many dangers. What becomes of causation? Extraneous insertions cannot help but ruin the logical procession of events, we think. There is no logic or strict sequence in the representation of actions. The Primary Chronicle in 1067 and 1069 depicts Prince Izyaslav as a villain, using corresponding stylistic devices. In 1073, that very same Izyaslav is described as a victim, this time using hagiographical shadings. As it happens, one particularity of medieval texts is the near absence of what we would consider cause and effect. In these accounts, unlike in contemporary histories, one event doesn’t lead to another. Any new event is in some sense a new beginning. Whereas contemporary historical narration takes as its basic structural unit the event, medieval historical narratives take as their basic structural unit a chronological period: a year in Russian chronicles or a reign in Byzantine ones. One event does not beget another; year follows year or reign follows reign.

H istory of this sort does not need cause and effect. There is no cause-and-effect connection even in ­hagiography, where events are the structural units. Lives of saints consist of small storylines strung one after another along a time-based axis. With rare exceptions, they do not cause one another. Chronology is the foundation of the composition here, too. In both genres, the cause of events is found in the realm of the providential. Take the following example: Ivan scolds Petr. Feeling offended, Petr strikes Ivan. Everything here seems clear from the perspective of contemporary notions of cause-and-effect connections. A medieval person would look at the matter differently, though: Ivan insulted God by offending Petr, thus God punished Ivan through Petr’s hand. In the contemporary interpretation of this incident, the connections are pragmatic and horizontal, but they are providential and vertical in the medieval understanding. Neither cause and effect nor even a strict sense of chronology hindered the medieval scribe when he set out to construct a new text.

The impression may form that a chaos of Brownian motion reigns in the world of medieval texts, but that’s not the case at all. There are certain regular patterns. Which works were preserved unchanged when the text was rewritten? (In scholarship, this is called textual stability.) The answer has to do with religion. The stability of a medieval text depended in large part on its closeness to the Holy Scripture, the primary book in the Middle Ages. The Holy Scripture—the text of texts, standing at the center of spiritual life—had a special fate. Any new manuscript copy of the Holy Scripture was produced by drawing on not one, but two or more manuscripts. The scribe looked after the integrity of the holy text by comparing manuscripts, and correcting possible errors and deviations from the canonical text. At the other end of the spectrum—the end with maximal distance from the sacred—one can see that the texts changed significantly when reproduced. Manuscript copies of Digenes Akritas , a secular Byzantine heroic epic that was translated into Rus, exhibit a very high degree of variation.

To one degree or another, the Holy Scripture set the tone for the majority of medieval compilations. All the loose ends of fragmentary texts found their unity in Scripture. Biblical quotations were natural in any context. The Bible is almost always present, since any medieval text was, no matter what its style, to some degree a continuation or concretization of the Holy Scripture. Characteristic of the priority given to the sacred is an excerpt from The Primary Chronicle that describes the Russian attack on Constantinople that occurred before Russia had adopted Christianity. Borrowed from the Byzantine Chronicle of George Hamartolos, this passage describes the attack with utter disapproval. This passage (and it is important) draws an analogy to pagan attacks on Israel in the Old Testament. In quoting the Byzantine chronicler, the Russian annalist does not make even the slightest attempt to edit a narrative that is unflattering to Russians: A Russian Christian looks at Russian pagans with the exact same disapproval as does a Byzantine Christian. Sacred history trumps national identity.

What mattered most in these texts was not so much who said something but what was said. This was the reason for the rise of “strange speeches” in medieval texts. Villains call themselves villains, people of another faith call themselves faithless, and pagan sorcerers quote the Psalter at length. Because these figures say correct things, no one questions the naturalness of the texts coming from their mouths.

Authorship was unimportant. The name of an ordinary scribe mattered little. What mattered was the text itself and its correspondence (or lack thereof) to truth. The medieval author felt more like a transmitter than an author. This is why medieval writings are, generally, anonymous. The absence of pretensions to authorship made “plagiarism” natural in the Middle Ages. There were exceptions, however. The Church Fathers were certainly significant. Others who had a spiritual or social right to do so signed their work: Kirill Turovsky, archpriest Avvakum, or, say, Ivan the Terrible.

Despite the availability of multiple drafts and versions, as a rule the text in the modern age has a canonical variant determined by the author. In the medieval text, though, each copy is its own version to some degree, just as each copyist is a coauthor to some degree. These medieval versions don’t possess rights of exclusivity, and a new version doesn’t cancel out the old. They exist in parallel. This is because a medieval text is, fundamentally, incomplete. The chronicles, which were continued by many generations of annalists, are a vivid example of this trait. For the Middle Ages, texts were dynamic systems with blurred borders and structure.

Now let’s have a look at things from the perspective of medieval readers. They didn’t “get sick of” their texts, as we do with our own, which can quickly go out of style. Medieval works possessed a longevity that’s inconceivable for an age in which ideas are bound up with innovation and the succession of styles. After being put into circulation, medieval works generally remained there and continued to be copied. Works with thousand-year differences in age could cohabit peacefully within one compilation. The absence of the idea of progress and the retrospective focus of the medieval mind deprived “fresh” texts of an advantage. On the contrary, the advantage went to anything that bore the sheen of the primordial. The medieval reader was pleased to encounter familiar fragments in a new text. Déjà vu was a merit rather than a sin. It was repetition of the indisputable.

The medieval reader read all texts as nonfiction, as “what happened in reality.” Reality was not just what had been but also what should have been. Ancient Russian hagiography offers examples of the ­medieval habit of equating what should be with what was. The life story of the northern Russian wilderness-dweller Nikodim Kozheozersky tells of how this saint, as is customary for hermits, ate only wild plants, an assertion that is not hindered even when the hagiographer announces in the next sentence that he also cultivated turnips for his diet. So, on the one hand, much of what fell within the realm of the “real” would be considered fiction today. On the other hand, anything declared to be invented was completely ruled out. Medieval writing did not recognize what was invented (it was a sin) in any form.

All of these particularities reflect a non-artistic perception of the written word. The concept of artistry in its fullest form is characteristic only of the modern mindset. It is inseparable from the modern idea of progress, under which some artistic achievements are replacing others. An ingenious writer bears the culture forward toward new truths, rather than a humble scribe recalling it to old ones. Despite the presence of elements of artistry—repetition, wordplay, and the like—the aesthetic qualities of medieval texts were not dwelled upon.

I n speaking about literature today, it is common to invoke the philosophy and poetics of postmodernism. Whatever else that term means, the poetics of postmodernism and the poetics of the Middle Ages have much in common. This can be seen first in the fragmentary character of the contemporary text. In the postmodern version, this usually does not involve the actual repurposing of passages from preceding works, as it did in medieval texts. More commonly, allusion, quotation, retelling, and the like are used in a new form of compilation. One special type is the stylistic quotation: We find vivid examples of this in the work of my countryman Vladimir Sorokin. His texts encompass nearly all of Russian literature, from the Middle Ages to the classics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He recreates medieval texts, in an imagined form, in Day of the Oprichnik ; the style of Ivan Goncharov in Novel (also known as Roman ); and the styles of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Andrei Platonov, Vladimir Nabokov, and Boris Pasternak in Blue Lard .

Nothing within postmodernism’s framework impedes textual borrowing. In a certain sense, the postmodern way of thinking frees the text from the burden of being private property, returning it to what Karl Krumbacher called the “literary communism” of the Middle Ages. According to a more classically modern outlook, textual borrowing without reference to the source is plagiarism. This mindset hampered the reception of the work of Mikhail Shishkin, a popular contemporary Russian prose writer. Critics with traditional leanings refused to embrace Shishkin’s borrowings and repurposings. The most negative critical reaction came about because of his use of a fragment from writer Vera Panova’s reminiscences in his novel Maidenhair , which was misunderstood as plagiarism.

In the Middle Ages, quotations circled back to the Holy Scripture, directly or indirectly. Today, the role of super-book is fulfilled to a certain extent by the literary canon as a whole. A quotation becomes a sort of sign, an indicator of belonging to the tradition. Contemporary authors create their texts from literary quotations, in the same way that the medieval hagiographer Epiphanius the Wise weaves biblical quotations into lives of saints.

Despite its rather gloomy shadings, Roland Barthes’s statement about the “death of the author” in postmodern literature is another herald of the medieval’s return. Though the postmodern author, unlike his medieval counterpart, doesn’t refuse to sign the text (and receives, or should receive, royalties), there is a weakening of the authorial element that asserted itself for so long in the modern age. Through his borrowings, the author is to some extent an editor, and expects to be edited in turn. Thanks in part to the internet, a medieval openness and perpetual revisability—something book printing removed during the modern age—has returned to texts.

Strictly speaking, what was invented in modern literature was not really invented. For the most part, it too was a variation on reality. The events the authors thought up were, simultaneously, real. After all, authorial experience has to be based on something. Let’s put it this way: These are events that occurred in another place and another time, that were then transferred to the pages of the literary work. This was reality, structured differently. Reality broken down to its elements and reconfigured—in other words, a conditional reality, or what is conditioned to be considered reality.

As it happens, many current texts seek to reflect unconditional reality. The decision of the Nobel Committee to award the 2015 prize in literature to Svetlana Alexievich, a Russian-language author from Belarus, is symptomatic. Alexievich’s books are seen by many as issue-based journalism and documentary, rather than as art and literature. This is yet another point in their similarity with the Middle Ages, when texts settled smoothly into the nonfiction category. On the one hand, we see a drive toward nonfiction and “new realism,” and on the other, postmodernism’s surreal element. Both reflect a devaluation of the fictive but realistic “reality” offered by modern literature. Once again literature is becoming heterogeneous and, in a certain sense, limitless, as in the Middle Ages. The boundary between fiction and nonfiction , and literature and non-literature, is becoming shaky and plays an ever smaller role in our imaginations.

As in the Middle Ages, the world itself is becoming a text, though the texts vary in these two cases. The medieval world was a text written by God that excluded the ill-considered and the accidental. The Holy Scripture, which gave meaning to the signs that were generously scattered in daily life, was this world’s key. Now the world is a text that has any number of individual meanings that can be documented. Think of the blogger who describes, minute by minute, a day that has passed.

The modern age required, to one degree or another, a repudiation of previous works and previous poetics. The self-image of modern literature rested on an idea of progress that presumed the exchange of one style for another. In the Middle Ages, which did not know the idea of progress, either in public life or in aesthetics, the old and the new were not opposed: New texts incorporated old texts. We see the same sort of symbiosis in postmodern literature, which makes precursor texts a part of itself rather than rejecting them.

The progressive type of thinking that predominated throughout the modern age no longer feels like the only possible way to think. The sense of the end of history has been expressed, both in the extraordinary popularity of dystopias, as well as, paradoxically, in liberal philosophy that does not lack utopian traits (Francis Fukuyama). They are incompatible with the modern age’s progressive perception of the world. This is the most obvious trait that our new epoch shares with the Middle Ages. Any time in the Middle Ages was imagined as a potential last time. Even if periodic expectations of the end of the world are set aside, it was not an accepted thing during the Middle Ages to speak about the future, and certainly not about any sort of bright future. Once again today, the sense of an ending is all around us.

Children often turn out to resemble their grandmothers and grandfathers rather than their parents. The modern age developed an individual element in literature. It distinguished between and isolated texts, authors, and readers. Texts acquired borders, authors acquired individual styles, and readers acquired books from the segments of the market that fit their interests. Today’s phase in cultural development proves, however, that this state of affairs is not the last word. At no point since the Middle Ages has literature so closely resembled medieval writing. It seems that we are entering a time very much in keeping with the Middle Ages, as if in rhyme with it.

To examine the similarity between contemporary life and the Middle Ages, I turned to literary material, since that’s what’s closest to me. Yet literature is only a partial manifestation of a nation’s or culture’s spiritual state. Nikolai Berdyaev divides epochs into days and nights. Days include antiquity and the modern age. They’re colorful and magnificent, and they go down in history as moments of explosive display. The night epochs—such as the Middle Ages—are outwardly muted but profounder than those of the day. It is during the sleep of night that what has been perceived during the day can be assimilated. A night epoch allows for insight into the essence of things and for concentrating strength. We are now entering such a time.

As far as naming the coming epoch, it might be called, with a dose of humor, the Epoch of Renaissance, since it is reviving some qualities of the Middle Ages. Alas, it seems that the name is taken. In my view, the coming epoch’s intent attention to metaphysics, its intent attention not just to the surface reality but to what might lie beyond it, gives cause for calling it the Epoch of Concentration .

Each epoch resolves certain problems. What issues stand before the Epoch of Concentration? I’ll name two, though they’re actually one twofold issue: excessive individualization and the secularization of life. In the modern age, the individual required recognition. Faith required lack of faith so that the believer would have a choice and so that faith wouldn’t be a mere everyday habit. This train gathered speed but didn’t stop. It kept moving even after reaching its station. It now seems to have gone pretty far beyond its destination. The cult of the individual now places us outside divine and human community. The harmony in which a person once found himself with God during the Middle Ages has been destroyed, and God no longer stands at the center of the human consciousness.

The humanism of the modern age takes that the human being is the measure of all things. The same could be said of the Middle Ages, with one correction: The person is the measure of all things, if it is understood that the measure was given by God. Humanism becomes inhuman without that correction. As the rights set down for the individual multiply, a turn is inevitably coming for a right to cross the street against a red light. Because our concept of rights is anti-humane at its core, it activates the mechanism for self-destruction. The right to suicide turns out to be our most exemplary liberty.

If the West is able to move beyond its geopolitical disagreements with Russia and take a good look at the conservative project that’s taking shape in Russia now, it will see one possible future for our common European civilization. Today as ever—contrary to progressive conceits—it is possible for a society to recognize a place for religion and uphold traditional notions of marriage and family. Yet Russia’s attempt to do this will fail if a harsh dictatorship of the majority arises. This would destabilize society no less than, say, the dictatorship of the minority that we can observe at times in the West. If it becomes clear that this is a dynamic, self-regulating system capable of reacting to shifts as they arise, the project can be considered successful.

Be that as it may, social changes in Russia go hand in hand with literary changes, and we can consider them a single process. In that regard, I’m pleased to note that the practice of reading has changed somewhat in Russia in recent years. People haven’t begun reading more but they’ve begun reading, one might say, better: sales of thrillers, romance novels, and fantasy have declined as demand for serious literature has grown.

In conclusion, permit me to mention my own work. I have in mind my novel Laurus , which describes the life of a saint and is written according to the rules of medieval poetics. Translated and sold in around two dozen countries, Laurus is most popular in Russia and . . . the United States. I credit half of this success to Lisa Hayden’s excellent translation. The other half can be explained—yes, yes!—by the similarity of Russia and the U.S.

I came to love the U.S. last year when I visited for the first time: I suddenly realized how alike we are. Perhaps this is the reason for our misunderstandings, since the harshest confrontations involve similarity. These sorts of things, however—and here we can recall the rather complex history of relationships between European countries—have most often ended in mutual understanding, again, thanks to similarities. The fundamental values of our common Christian history that developed over the centuries connect us, although some of these have been forgotten. Will we manage to return to them in what would be, needless to say, a new phase? Perhaps the Epoch of Concentration will give an answer to the question. Everything depends on the degree of concentration.

Eugene Vodolazkin is the author of Laurus. This essay was translated from the Russian by Lisa C. Hayden.

Articles by Eugene Vodolazkin

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Social Life During The Middle Ages

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Power and Identity in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of Rees Davies

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This volume celebrates the work of the late Rees Davies. Reflecting Davies' interest in identities, political culture, and the workings of power in medieval Britain, the chapters range across ten centuries, looking at a variety of key topics. Issues explored range from the historical representations of peoples and the changing patterns of power and authority, to the notions of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ and the relationship between local conditions and international movements. The political impact of words and ideas, and the parallels between developments in Wales and those elsewhere in Britain, Ireland, and Europe are also discussed.

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Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The cult of the virgin mary in the middle ages.

Icon with the Koimesis

Cameo of the Virgin and Child

Adrien Jean Maximilien Vachette [Gold Frame]

Pendant Brooch with Cameo of Enthroned Virgin and Child and Christ Pantokrator

Virgin and Child in Majesty

Enthroned Virgin and Child

• Madonna and Child
• Duccio di Buoninsegna

Shrine of the Virgin

Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa

• The Assumption of the Virgin

Bernardo Daddi (possibly with workshop assistance)

Manuscript Illumination with the Birth of the Virgin in an Initial G, from a Gradual

• Don Silvestro de' Gherarducci

Bust of the Virgin

Virgin and Child

Dieric Bouts

Follower of Rogier van der Weyden (Master of the Saint Ursula Legend Group, Netherlandish, active late 15th century)

Enthroned Virgin

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2001

The Virgin Mary and the Church A mother figure is a central object of worship in several religions (for example, images of the Virgin and Child call to mind Egyptian representations of Isis nursing her son Horus). The history of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ , depends on the texts of the Gospels. Embellishments to her legend seem to have taken form in the fifth century in Syria. The life of the mother of Christ was exceptional: she was born free of original sin (21.168) , through the Immaculate Conception; she was taken to heaven after her death ( 17.190.132 ); and, just as Saint Thomas doubted Christ’s Resurrection, so he doubted Mary’s Assumption. Theologians established a parallel between Christ’s Passion and the Virgin’s compassion: while he suffered physically on the cross, she was crucified in spirit. The Council of Ephesus in 431 sanctioned the cult of the Virgin as Mother of God; the dissemination of images of the Virgin and Child, which came to embody church doctrine, soon followed.

The Virgin Mary in Byzantine Representations The Virgin Mary, known as the Theotokos in Greek terminology, was central to Byzantine spirituality as one of its most important religious figures . As the mediator between suffering mankind and Christ and the protectress of Constantinople , she was widely venerated. The Virgin is the subject of important liturgical hymns, such as the Akathistos Hymn, sung at the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) and during Lent. Narrative artistic representations of Christ’s mother focus on her conception and childhood or her Koimesis (her Dormition, or eternal sleep). Most images of the Virgin stress her role as Christ’s Mother, showing her standing and holding her son. The manner in which the Virgin holds Christ is very particular. Certain poses developed into “types” that became names of sanctuaries or poetic epithets. Hence, an icon of the Virgin was meant to represent her image and, at the same time, the replica of a famous icon original. For example, the Virgin Hodegetria is a popular representation of the Virgin in which she holds Christ on her left arm and gestures toward him with her right hand, showing that he is the way to salvation. The name Hodegetria comes from the Hodegon Monastery in Constantinople, in which the icon showing the Virgin in this particular stance resided from at least the twelfth century onward, acting to protect the city. A later type is that of the Virgin Eleousa, imagined to have derived from the Virgin Hodegetria. This type represents the compassionate side of the Virgin. She is shown bending to touch her cheek to the cheek of her child, who reciprocates this affection by placing his arm around her neck. Byzantine images of the Virgin were adopted in the West. For example, Early Netherlandish paintings such as the Virgin and Child ( 17.190.16 ) by the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend and the Virgin and Child ( 30.95.280 ) by Dieric Bouts reveal an interest in Byzantine representations of the Theotokos.

The Virgin Mary in Western Representations Most Western types of the Virgin’s image, such as the twelfth-century “Throne of Wisdom” from central France, in which the Christ Child is presented frontally as the sum of divine wisdom, seem to have originated in Byzantium ( 16.32.194 ). Byzantine models became widely distributed in western Europe by the seventh century. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who identified her as the bride of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. The Virgin was worshipped as the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven, and Intercessor for the salvation of humankind. This movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals , which are often dedicated to “Our Lady,” and many cities, such as Siena, placed themselves under her protection.

The Virgin Mary in the Later Middle Ages The hieratic images of the Romanesque period , which emphasize Mary’s regal aspect, gave way in the Gothic age to more tender representations ( 1999.208 ; 1979.402 ) emphasizing the relationship between mother and child. The early fourteenth-century Vierge Ouvrante ( 17.190.185 ) from Cologne articulates her role in Christian salvation . When closed, the hinged sculpture represents the Virgin nursing the Christ Child, who holds the dove of the Holy Spirit. Her garment opens up, like the wings of a triptych, to reveal in her body the figure of God the Father. He holds the cross, made of two tree trunks, from which the now-missing figure of Christ hung. The flanking wings are painted with scenes from Christ’s infancy or Incarnation, that is to say, the embodiment of God the Son in human flesh.

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/virg/hd_virg.htm (October 2001)

Further Reading

Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Forsyth, Ilene H. The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Additional Essays by Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Private Devotion in Medieval Christianity .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Art of the Book in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Crusades (1095–1291) .” (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Stained Glass in Medieval Europe .” (October 2001)

Related Essays

• Art and Death in the Middle Ages
• Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages
• The Birth and Infancy of Christ in Italian Painting
• Monasticism in Western Medieval Europe
• Private Devotion in Medieval Christianity
• Arts of the Spanish Americas, 1550–1850
• Botanical Imagery in European Painting
• The Crucifixion and Passion of Christ in Italian Painting
• Early Netherlandish Painting
• Fra Angelico (ca. 1395–1455)
• The Ghent Altarpiece
• Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages
• Italian Renaissance Frames
• Juan de Flandes (active by 1496, died 1519)
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
• Life of Jesus of Nazareth
• The Master of Monte Oliveto (active about 1305–35)
• Painting the Life of Christ in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
• Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Christianity
• Saints and Other Sacred Byzantine Figures
• Stained Glass in Medieval Europe
• Balkan Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Balkan Peninsula, 500–1000 A.D.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 1000–1400 A.D.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 500–1000 A.D.
• Eastern and Southern Africa, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, 1400–1600 A.D.
• France, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Italian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Christianity
• Gilded Wood
• Icon / Iconoclasm
• International Gothic Style
• Medieval Art
• Monasticism
• Old Testament
• Romanesque Art
• Virgin Mary

Artist or Maker

• Antonio del Massaro da Viterbo
• Bouts, Dieric
• Daddi, Bernardo
• Master Heinrich of Constance
• Master of the Saint Ursula Legend
• Rossellino, Antonio
• Vachette, Adrien Jean Maximilien

Online Features

• Connections: “Motherhood” by Jean Sorabella
• Connections: “Perfection” by Barbara Weinberg
• Viewpoints/Body Language: “The Visitation”
• Viewpoints/Body Language: “Virgin and Child in Majesty”