Love & Tragedy in Middle Ages SP 16 intro - LOVE...

LOVE & TRAGEDY IN
MEDIEVAL ITALIAN CULTURE
HUI 235, MW 4-5:20 – Javitz 105 – Prof. P. Carravetta, w. M. Giuia, Spring,
2016 -

THE MIDDLE AGES 1
•
Timeline: 5
th
century to 1450s
•
Geohistorical region:
Mediterranean cultures, southern
Europe, the Near East,
•
End of Roman Empire –
•
Expansion of Christianity in
Southern Europe – Byzantium –
Islam
•
Great Immigrations [“invasions”]
from Western Asia-Eastern Europe
•
Feudalism
•
High Middle Ages - Charles the
Great (800) crowned Sacred
Roman Emperor – Spread of Islam
is added to predominance of
Christianity’s two Churches, Rome
and Byzantium
•
Emergence of different cultures
(by today’s standards, already
trans-national, multi-ethnic, and
subject to the top five percent of
the population.
• Emergence of a secular culture.

CHANGES FROM EARLY TO LATE MIDDLE AGES

MIDDLE AGES 2
•
Mysticism –
•
emphasizes the other life
•
(life is a journey to after life)
•
Life is a valley of tears
•
Renouncement, suffering, sacrifice
• Emphasis on prayer and
contemplation
•
Religious orders –
•
Benedictines,
•
Mendicants, Flagellants
•
Mediterranean impact
•
A vast network of commercial
exchange – ideas, foods,
technologies, and beliefs
(superstitions, traditions) –
• The slow emergence, over two
centuries, of an enlightened ruling
class, the aristocracy , and an
influential merchant class .
• Vassals buy into the noble class
•
11
th
century, we have Courts

MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN

MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN 2

MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN 3

THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
•
Traditionally, Dante was seen as the last to have mystical visions , while
Boccaccio was the one who portrayed the resurrection of the flesh .
•
Portrayal of the spiritual and the mundane
•
Intellectual pursuits: deciding if and how philosophy and theology are
different: from Augustine on to Boethius, St. Benedict, Don Scotus,
Averroes, Maimonides, Thomas Acquinas.

ASPECTS OF HIGH MEDIEVAL CULTURE 1
•
sacred and the profane
•
Art: Sacred Representations
•
heroes
• Saints
•
Bible/Gospel
• Negative Side of social life analyzed
•
Rise of a “moralism” w string of taboos
• The depiction & role of women
•
Importance of clerics and monks.

ASPECTS OF HIGH MEDIEVAL CULTURE 2
•
Augustine: humanistic studies essential to understanding divine things
•
Classical pedagogy re-adapted and structured:
• trivium:
•
Quadrivium:
• Study of Latin: Church & Empire both use it as lingua
franca, prestigious because of both the Roman Tradition &
the Early Christian Tradition (theology, jurisprudence, civil
law); Byzantium cultivated Greek
•
Both Latin and Greek are transformed, giving rise to what
later we call national languages. Dialects share features;
French, Italian, Spanish
•
Discussion, opposition as to whether write in Latin or the
vernacular

THE CRUSADES

THE ITALIAN COMUNE –
13
TH
CENTURY
•
Guelphs and Ghibellines (new urban middle class vs landed aristocracy)
•
Early form of representative government
•
City-states (not: nation-states, which develop 4 centuries later)
• Campanilismo – Bell-Tower patriotism;