The intellectual revival of the eleventh century and the energy that produced the First Crusade carried over into a period of economic growth and tremendous building activity in the twelfth century.
Some medieval historians speak of a “Twelfth-Century Renaissance” because of:
The architectural and other artistic developments
Intellectual energy
Educational advances (centered on dialectics)
Literary work (lyric poetry and courtly romances in the vernacular, as well as philosophical works and compendia of the liberal arts in Latin)
Anticipation of themes in the Italian Renaissance two centuries later
A significant difference from the fourteenth-and-fifteenth-century Renaissance, however, was that the twelfth century still felt a sense of continuity with antiquity, both pagan and Christian, that the later movement, which self-consciously turned away from its immediate medieval past toward the remoter antiquity, did not have.
I. NEW MONASTIC TYPES#
A. Renewed Monastic Vitality#
From the late eleventh through the twelfth century many efforts were made to reform monastic life and many new religious orders were founded. The variety of options in living a religious life that emerged led the broader-minded spirits to voice the slogan “diverse but not adverse.”
Beginning with the mid-eleventh and continuing through the mid-twelfth century, both old and new monastic types saw a huge increase in the number
of conversions to the religious life
of monasteries established
Patrons made the monastic expansion possible; their founding and support of religious houses brought social prestige and spiritual benefits, since the benefactions were credited to their souls’ welfare and the recipients prayed for the patrons. Many almshouses and hospitals were also founded by laymen in the twelfth century and were run by canons and canonesses.
During the twelfth century the distinctions between monks and clergy lessened with a considerable increase in the percentage of monks who received priestly ordination and with the increase in the number of parish and diocesan clergy who lived under a monastic-type rule (“regular” or “canonical” clergy).
Reformers of monastic life (in both older and newer foundations) typically advocated austerity and regularity of life, greater seclusion from the world, silence, and manual labor. The themes of the renewal movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries that continued through the subsequent centuries included the imitation of Jesus Christ, the apostolic life, and the ideal of the primitive church. The rhetoric of religious leaders compared the monastery to paradise, to the garden of Eden, and to the heavenly Jerusalem.
The military orders discussed in connection with the First Crusade were a distinctly new development in monasticism. Hermits and canonical clergy were among the older types that found new expressions in this period.
The Camaldolese were hermits who lived in caves and beat themselves. They began in Italy in 1012, founded by Romuald (d. 1022), with the intention of restoring the primitive ascetic life. Peter Damian became their principal spokesman.
The Carthusians took as their ideal the ancient hermits of Egypt. Beginning in 1084, their founder, Bruno of Rheims (d. 1101), decided to go to the French Alps at Grande Chartreuse (from which their name derives) to establish a colony of German-speaking hermits. Each hermit had independence, but little companies of twelve lived within the hearing of a bell that called them to communal devotions. Going much beyond Benedictine practice, Carthusian asceticism allowed no meat, almost no wine, and cooked meals only twice a week. A strictly contemplative order, the Carthusians took a vow of silence.
The Augustinian (Austin) Canons had their origin in communities of clergy in northern Italy and southern France in the mid-eleventh century who—inspired by the Gregorian reform—lived a common life of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. By the beginning of the twelfth century they had adopted the rule attributed to Augustine of Hippo (compiled from the writings of Augustine to monks and nuns and achieving wide use in the twelfth century). Since they lived by a monastic rule, they were known as regular (from regula, “rule”) canons. They were the official staff of a cathedral or of a church with several priests.
The Premonstratensians began at Prémontré in France in 1120, founded by Norbert (c. 1080–1134), a German from Xanten. They were canons, secular clergy who were virtually monks. They followed, as did other canons regular, the Rule of St. Augustine but with more austerities, such as abstinence from meat. Many women as well as men were initially drawn to the order.
B. Cistercians#
The most important of the new religious movements was the Cistercians, a reform movement within Benedictine monasticism that ended up creating a new order. They took their name from their first house at Citeaux. The founding in 1098 was led by Robert, the earlier founder of Molesme, but his return within eighteen months to his previous foundation left his companions with ambiguous feelings about him.
An Englishman, Stephen Harding (d. 1134), who was a chief mover in the founding of Citeaux, became its third abbot and drew up the nucleus of the community’s rule, the Carta caritatis (“Charter of Love”) in 1119.
Recognizing that there was too much power in the hands of the abbot of Cluny, the Cistercians aimed at decentralization.
The organization provided for the four daughter houses of Citeaux at Morimond, La Ferte, Pontinity, and Clairvaux to govern the houses established by each. With this federal arrangement the abbot of Citeaux was a limited monarch.
There was to be a uniformity of custom and discipline according to the Rule of Benedict.
The Cistercians were critical of Cluny’s wealth, its large and ornate church, elaboration of the liturgy, and easy life with serfs to do the work.
Among the topics Cistericans and supporters of Cluny debated was clothing.
The Benedictines wore black, seeing it as an expression of humility.
The Cistericians saw black as ostentatious and wore undyed white garments to express simplicity and imitate the garments of angels, clothing the Cluniacs considered a mark of pride.
Cluny represented tradition, whereas the Cistercians claimed to go back to the original Rule of Benedict. The new movement gained a large following, but against the new orders the old customs had defenders, like Orderic Vitalis (d. 1142) in his Ecclesiastical History, otherwise notable for its account of the achievements of the Normans.
For the Cistercians there was to be a return to Benedictine simplicity.
The wealth of language in the liturgy was pruned so as to leave time for contemplation.
The buildings were to be plain, lacking artistic adornment.
The monks were to engage in manual work.
Instead of serfs, the Cistercians included in their monasteries unlearned lay brothers (conversi) who were fully members of the community except for rights reserved for the priests, but they were willing to employ hired help as well. The lay brothers were not new, but became characteristic of Cistercian monasteries. In their emphasis on self-support the Cistercians pioneered experiments in raising plants and sheep so that they came to have a substantial impact on the economy of northern Europe.
Many Cistercian monasteries were built in the twelfth century, by preference in secluded areas. Their impressive ruins now dot the landscape of France, Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere. From the monastery built for Bernard’s abbey at Clarivaux by Villiers there came a common plan for Cisterican abbeys:
Built around a courtyard, or cloister, the church with a shallow square presbytery rather than an apse occupied the north side
The chapter house and other rooms the east side
The refectory the south side
Guest rooms the west side
A colonnaded walkway surrounded the cloister courtyard
Sleeping quarters for the monks were on the second floor above the chapter house and refectory
The Cistercians designed efficient water mills; their development of conduits and drains made them pioneers in plumbing and agriculture.
There were Cistercian nuns relatively early in the history of the order. The Cistercians gave great devotion to Mary. Although at the beginning the Cistercians cultivated the individual religious life, after a generation they were having an impact on the affairs of the world.
II. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090-1153)#
Bernard was the dominant figure of the first half of the twelfth century, sometimes called “the Age of Bernard.” In Catholic circles he is known as the “mellifluous doctor” for drawing out the sweetness of the Christian life.
Born of noble Burgundian parents, Bernard was recognized as an aristocrat among men. He became associated with Citeaux in 1113, and his success in winning recruits (including four brothers) for the monastery saved the new movement. The growth permitted him to establish a daughter house at Clairvaux, where he was the abbot. The great expansion of the Cistercians in the twelfth century was primarily due to his influence.
Bernard became involved in the wider affairs of church and society. From 1130 to 1153 he was the arbiter of Europe, rebuking kings, clerics, and monks. In the disputed papal election between Anacletus II (1130–38) and Innocent II (1130–43), Bernard favored Innocent, who took shelter in France. Bernard sought the help of the kings of France, England, and Germany and finally carried his point.
One of Bernard’s disciples became Pope Eugene III (1145–53), and he wrote his De consideratione, a work on perfection and the knowledge of God that included a program for the restoration of eccesiastical discipline, to guide him and his successors.
Eugene III organized the Second Crusade (1146–48), and at his urging Bernard made a fervent call for the crusade in a sermon at Vezelay. For his part, Bernard saw the invasions of the Saracens as unjust and hoped to rescue the Eastern churches while also diverting the energies of Western knights from domestic violence to a just war. The failure of the armies of Kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany to cooperate doomed the effort to failure.
Bernard, the last great representative of the older style of Christian education, lived in the theology of the church fathers and was distrustful of human learning. Impatient with Abelard’s rationalism and contention that there were contradictions in the fathers, he became a prime mover in securing the latter’s condemnation at the Council of Sens (1140) and by Pope Innocent II (1141).
Bernard reminded the dialecticians of the need for traditional theology. He appealed to the book of religious experience in addition to the books of nature and of Scripture. Bernard suggested four possible reasons for acquiring knowledge:
To make a name for oneself out of vanity
To sell the information out of a base desire for gain
To help others out of charity
To learn for oneself out of prudence
Among Bernard’s early writings are On Humility, based on Benedict’s rule and discussing three degrees of humility and twelve of pride (human beings always find more fascination in the different ways to sin than in the different ways to be virtuous).
Another is On the Love of God, based on what Bernard thought was an expression by Augustine: “The measure of the love of God is to love him beyond all measure.” He describes the four degrees of love:
The love of self for the sake of self (selfish love)
The love of God for what he gives (mercenary love)
Love of God for what he is (filial love that is true, pure, and just)
Love even of self only for God’s sake (divine love)
Bernard’s greatest work was his Sermons on the Song of Songs, drawing on a long history of Christian spiritual interpretation that allegorized the book as the love between Jesus Christ and the church and between Christ and the human soul. In it he taught that love for the human nature of Christ leads to spiritual love.
The Cistercian influence brought a reform at Cluny under the abbot Peter the Venerable, yet the latter retained a broader view of the place of the arts in the religious life than Bernard allowed.
Bernard objected to the excessive use of art to attract donations from the wealthy and from pilgrims, to the saturation of sensory experience it stimulated, to its expense that took away from relief of the poor, and to its distraction from spiritual meditation by the monks.
Defenders justified the sumptuous artworks as aids to devotion, as being for the honor of God and the saints, as having Old Testament precedents, and as expressing an association between beauty and holiness.
Two temperaments clashed: one appreciative of the arts and delighting in beauty, the other (without rejecting a place for religious art) austere and fearful that the delights of beauty could distract the soul from the things of the spirit. On a personal level, however, Peter and Bernard were reconciled.
According to Bernard, hymn singing is the highest form of prayer. His own poetry falls below the quality of his prose: He sacrificed meter to the sense.
Bernard’s continuing influence is due to his unique combination of an ascetic and mystical holiness with literary genius. He taught people to deny their inclinations toward the creaturely and sensual and to cultivate a devotional, penitential, and Christ-centered experience of piety.
His spirituality is characterized by an emphasis on progress (the lack of desire to advance in the spiritual life is already a retrogression), on humility, on the love of God, and on devotion to Mary (although he denied the immaculate conception of Mary).
III. OTHER IMPORTANT THINKERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY#
Education before the late eleventh century was more oral than text based. It became more centered on texts in the twelfth century, and this is reflected in a great increase in literary productions.
Important twelfth-century Christian thinkers included Hugh of St. Victor, Otto of Freising, John Gratian, John of Salisbury, Peter Lombard, and Hildegard of Bingen.
A. Hugh of St. Victor (1142)#
In the early twelfth century two schools opened in Paris in addition to the old cathedral school:
St. Genevieve (a collegiate church), set up by Abelard
St. Victor (a house of Augustinian canons), founded in 1108 by William of Champeaux (d. 1121), an extreme Realist, after he was bested in dialectics at the cathedral school by Abelard.
St. Victor’s preserved an emphasis on training in virtues, but entered into the new intellectual foment of the age. Hugh arrived at St. Victor’s about 1115 and became director of studies in 1133. He was said to have come from Saxony, but this may not be correct; the cultural unity of the Middle Ages often makes the place of one’s origin irrelevant.
Hugh and Bernard reflected two different approaches to the cultivation of virtue.
Bernard began with the conscience, the inner state that from beauty of soul leads to outward grace
Hugh emphasized disciplining outward conduct in order to teach the virtuous life.
Hugh attempted to render theology scientific while keeping its monastic character.
Unprepared to distinguish between scientia (knowledge) and sapientia (wisdom), Hugh did not want there to be a wall between the intellectual and the devotional lives. Hugh promoted a well-rounded education, because the liberal arts “paved the way for the mind to penetrate to the full knowledge of philosophical truth.”
Breathing a personal spirit and beauty into his work that is often absent from later Scholastics, Hugh has been called “the heart of God.” His spiritual teachings emphasized prayer and the interior life. He spoke of meditation as the active quest in prayer for the divine love, and spoke of contemplation as the possession of a deep peace that comes from the union in love with God.
Taking account of the views of both Bernard and Abelard, Hugh
modified the spirituality of Bernard by giving an express place to the understanding in his mysticism
rescued the dialectical method of Abelard from the discredit brought on it by respecting tradition and uniting faith and reason
Hugh described “three eyes” with which human beings were created and the effect of original sin on them.
The eye of the intellect that sees God and spiritual reality was totally blinded by the fall.
The eye of reason was partly blinded.
The eye of the flesh was unblinded, but is deceptive in that it sees only the external world.
Hugh also described four stages, each involving three degrees, by which the soul returns to God:
Awakening that involves fear, sorrow, and love
Purgation that includes patience, mercy, and compunction
Illumination that covers thinking, meditation, and contemplation
Union that requires temperance, prudence, and fortitude
Out of Hugh’s numerous and wide-ranging works, special attention belongs to his De sacramentis christianae fidei (“On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith”). It is the first medieval synthesis of theology, and it is Christocentric, being arranged according to dispensations — before and after Christ.
In De sacramentis christianae fidei, Hugh taught the importance of the historical sense of Scripture, but he emphasized the allegorical sense as going beyond the literal. The historical and the theoretical (or contemplative) methods are followed throughout the work.
For Hugh, all the Christian life is sacramental, so the sacraments are innumerable, but he prepared the way for a distinction between sacramental rites and major sacraments, and he expressed the view that sacraments are efficacious signs, not only signifying but also transmitting grace. Every creature is a sensible expression of a divine thought. One moves from the study of the world as well as of the Scriptures to a meditation on the divine.
In the second book of De sacramentis christianae fidei, Hugh gave much attention to the church, insisting on the oneness of the body of Christ.
B. Otto of Freising (c. 1114-58)#
Otto studied under Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor. After being abbot of the Cistercian house of Morimond, he became bishop of Freising in 1138. He helped introduce the study of Aristotle into Germany and participated in the Second Crusade (1147–48).
Otto is notable as a philosopher of history. He dedicated his Chronicon, or History of the Two Cities to his nephew Frederick Barbarossa. In this work he contemplates the failure of the Second Crusade undertaken under such great spiritual leadership. He modifies Augustine’s “Two Cities” by understanding their union in the Catholic Church as the continuation of the Roman Empire.
Otto also wrote a history of the early part of Frederick Barbarossa’s reign.
C. John Gratian (c. 1160)#
Little of the life of John Gratian is known, but it is thought that he was a teacher of law at Bologna and possibly a member of the order of Camaldolese. His fame rests on his Concordantia discordantium canonum (c. 1141), later known as the Decretum Gratiani, in which he brought together the strands of canon law — patristic texts, conciliar decisions, and papal pronouncements.
In the study of civil law, Irnerius (late eleventh century) of Bologna had earlier recovered the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Justinian. Gratian had predecessors also in the compilation of legal authorities for the canon law, notably Ivo, bishop of Chartres (d. 1116). By pointing out apparent conflicts in the authorities and laying down principles by which these could be reconciled, Ivo inspired the methodology of Abelard (chapter 20) and anticipated Gratian.
The importance of legal study is reflected in the fact that most of the popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were trained in canon law.
Gratian began the Decretum by distinguishing:
Natural law (which is divine) from usage (which is human)
Moral law from human ordinance
Customs from written ordinances
Natural law from civil laws and the laws recognized by almost all nations
Civil enactments from ecclesiastical canons
Gratian made another distinction between the moral laws and the symbolic precepts in the law of Moses. The latter have been changed.
According to Gratian, ecclesiastical enactments are superior to secular authorities. The written law of the church, in decreasing order of authority, is in:
Scripture
Papal decretals
Decisions of ecumenical councils
Decisions of provincial and diocesan councils
Writings of the church fathers
Former collections of canon law were private, but Gratian’s work—although never receiving formal approval—became (as a sourcebook) the universal basis for the study and practice of canon law. His collection was the first to systematize the material, for his work was not only a collection but also a treatise on canonical science. Thus Gratian sought to give ecclesiastical law the same systematic presentation that civil law had in Justinian’s compilation.
Gratian followed the method of Abelard in arranging the authorities, but he went further in reconciling discrepancies and offering solutions to difficulties.
The Decretum was a counterpart in canon law to Peter Lombard’s Sentences in theology in systematizing the tradition, but the Decretum established itself sooner as a standard text.
Later Gratian’s work was amplified and glossed: about 1215–18 Johannes Teutonicus and others prepared the Ordinary Gloss. The name Corpus Iuris Canonici was given to the whole work in the sixteenth century. With subsequent modifications and revisions (the latest in 1983), it still serves as the basis of the canon law of the Roman Catholic church.
D. John of Salisbury (c. 1115-80)#
John went from his native Salisbury in England to study at Chartres and at Paris under Abelard. As secretary to Thomas Becket and later as his biographer, he shared the archbishop’s exile and was present in Canterbury cathedral when Thomas was murdered during a dispute with Henry II.
In 1176 John of Salisbury became bishop of Chartres and encouraged its school. John was the first important medieval writer acquainted with all of Aristotle’s logical writings. More of a moralist and Christian humanist than a theologian, he defended—in his Metralogicon—the place of reason and dialectics from their critics, who were motivated by love of orthodoxy, exaggerated mysticism, and the excesses of dialecticians.
John was also important as a political theorist, especially his Policraticus. Well acquainted with the Latin classics, he shows the confidence of the Schoolmen in the learning of the past.
E. Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160)#
Born of humble parents in Lombardy, Peter studied at Rheims and at St. Victor in Paris before becoming a teacher of theology at the cathedral school of Notre Dame in Paris. He was named bishop of Paris in 1159. Peter was first a Scripture exegete and then a theologian. His glosses on the Psalms and Paul’s letters, the Magna Glosatura, replaced the Glossa ordinaria on those books and became the most frequently cited work of biblical exegesis in the later Middle Ages.
As with other medieval theologians, Peter was most indebted to Augustine, but he also used John of Damascus, whose work had recently become available in Latin. Peter authored the textbook of scholasticism, Four Books of Sentences, from which he is known as the “Master of the Sentences.” He combined the dialectic of Abelard’s Sic et Non and the mysticism of Hugh’s De sacramentis. Through him the best of Abelard became a part of the medieval church’s heritage.
In spite of some initial opposition, the book was accepted as orthodox by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It came to displace other Summae of theology, and all theologians had to study it for two years. The work continued to be commented on for centuries until replaced in the sixteenth century as a textbook by Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae.
Book I of the Sentences treats the Trinity and the knowledge and will of God.
Book II covers creation, angels, the six days of Genesis 1, the fall, and grace.
Book III discusses the incarnation, virtues, sins, and the commandments.
Book IV presents the sacraments and eschatology.
The distinction in the fourth book between sacramentals (symbolic actions) and sacraments proper contributed to establishing the number of sacraments as seven.
According to Peter, the union of words (verba) and matter or the thing (res) makes a sacrament. The outward act, the sign of the sacrament, was itself effective and the cause of the result of the sacrament, its grace. He fixed the number of sacraments as:
baptism
confirmation
canons (penance)
altar (eucharist)
last altar (extreme unction)—all Christians partake of these five
marriage
ordination
Important in fixing the number at seven was the list of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit going back to the Greek and Latin versions of Isaiah 11:2–3. Peter Lombard identified the Holy Spirit with love, so there are seven conduits through which love flows to human beings.
It was also traditional to allegorize the seven peoples with whom the Israelites had to fight after their deliverance from Egypt as the vices that Christians have to fight, so there were seven sacraments to meet the exigences of life.
F. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)#
Born of a noble family, Hildegard was placed from the age of eight in a convent near Bingen, over which community she became abbess in 1136. Later she built her own convent nearby. From an early age she received religious visions that gave her a sense of being a divinely appointed prophetess. Her prophecies did not offer predictions of the future, but revealed the depths of meaning in the Scriptures.
Hildegard combined mystical contemplation and an active itinerant ministry, going on preaching tours and opposing heresies. Her ministry was accepted by Bernard and Pope Eugene III. She was doctrinally orthodox.
Hildegard’s writings include:
Scivias domini (“Know the Ways of God”), an early theological work relating twenty-six visions
Liber vitae meritorum (“Book of Life’s Merits”), another visionary work discussing the virtues and vices and their resultant joys and punishments in the afterlife
Liber divinorum operum (“Book of Divine Works”), an impressive mature work recounting visions of the world and created things
Her visions especially centered on the process of salvation and the last judgment. She accompanied her writings with remarkable drawings.
The letters include correspondence with Frederick Barbarossa, kings, and churchmen. She had diverse interests, writing songs and also writing on natural history and medical texts, notable for their scientific observations.
G. Non-Christian Thinkers#
The twelfth century was a time of intellectual revival not only in Christianity but also in Islam and Judaism, whose thinkers appropriated the full corpus of Aristotle a century before Christian thinkers did in the thirteenth century.
Moses Maimonides (c. 1135–1204), who lived in Spain and then Egypt, in his Guide to the Perplexed created a synthesis of Jewish theology and Aristotelianism that was much admired by Christian thinkers, who undertook a comparable task in the thirteenth century.
The differences between the Arabic philosophers Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037), who followed Plato, and Ibn Rushd (Averroës, 1126–98), who followed Aristotle, paralleled the change in Christian theology that began in the thirteenth century from dependence on Platonism to dependence on Aristotelianism.
Averroës, who represented the peak of rationalism in Islam, became a disturbing influence on Christian intellectual life in the thirteenth century because he developed a philosophical world view independent of theology.
IV. THE CHURCH AND THE ARTS#
A. Romanesque Architecture#
Apart from the Carolingian and Ottonian ages, the period from the late fifth to the eleventh century did not see much building activity in western Europe. Some art historians have applied the term “Romanesque” broadly to developments from the Carolingian age to the twelfth century, but others limit the term to the architecture and decorative arts of the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries.
The time between 1050 and 1350, when the outstanding works of Romanesque and Gothic architecture were produced, has been called a “cathedral crusade.” Eighty cathedrals, not to mention thousands of parish and monastery churches, were built in France alone.
Early Romanesque churches were basilicas, some on an enormous scale, with the addition of towers (usually twin, but sometimes one) on the west end and an ambulatory with radiating chapels around the choir on the east end.
Later Romanesque buildings differed from basilicas in using stone vaulted ceilings instead of flat wood ceilings. The stone vaults and greater size required stronger and thicker columns and walls.
Whereas an ancient basilica carried the view forward to the altar and the apse without interruption, the vaults, subdivided into bays of equal size, gave the interior of the Romanesque churches the appearance of a series of visually distinct but repeated spatial units, each following the other in monumental rhythm. Rounded arches were used not only for the vaulting, but also for upper walls (supported by columns) and for the framework of windows.
Some elements of the Romanesque style continued in use even after Gothic became fashionable in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The great abbey at Cluny at the beginning of the twelfth century could house 400 monks and 2,000 visitors. Its church, built between 1080 and 1230—the largest in Christendom before the construction of St. Peter’s in the sixteenth century—influenced many smaller Romanesque churches.
One of the enduring monuments of Romanesque is the abbey church of Vézelay, Sainte Madeleine (dedicated to Mary Magdalene) in Burgundy, an object of pilgrimage because of the alleged remains of Mary Magdalene, and a major gathering place on the pilgrim road to Santiago Compostela in northern Spain.
The characteristics of Romanesque buildings are solidity, simplicity, and a sense of permanence.
B. Sculpture and Painting#
The facades of Romanesque churches proclaimed the building as “the house of God and the gate of heaven.” Richly sculptured large portals at the entrance became a Romanesque characteristic.
Cluny promoted the theme of Jesus Christ in glory, and this scene became ubiquitous over the door (the tympanaum) of Romanesque churches, where Christ is shown seated in majesty (and/or in judgment) accompanied by figures from the book of Revelation—often the twenty-four elders and usually the four living creatures (symbols of the four evangelists). Like a feudal lord, Christ is attended by his senior vassals, the twelve apostles, below him. Indeed, Christ in majesty was the best known artistic theme in the period from 800 to 1200.
From the twelfth century, when skill had been achieved in the various arts in the West, sculpture was used profusely not only on the outside at the portals of churches, but also inside to ornament column capitals, baptismal fonts, choir screens, and pulpits.
The nature of Gothic architecture allowed for copious use of sculpture to decorate both the exterior and interior of buildings—the Duomo in Milan contains 4,400 statues on the outside and inside. Some of the finest Romanesque sculpture adorned the capitals of columns inside churches and monasteries. The principal Gothic sculptures are statues on the outside of buildings.
Romanesque paintings on the walls of churches and especially in manuscript illuminations reached their height in the twelfth century. Romanesque art was abstract, solemn, and majestic. It discounted everyday life as ephemeral and directed attention to the abiding matters of the spirit. The proportions of bodies were distorted to enhance the massiveness of the depictions. Most figures are short and heavy, and the facial features and folds of garments are indicated by only a few lines.
The second half of the eleventh century and the twelfth century saw an unprecedented production of illuminated Bibles throughout Europe. The iconographic repertoire of Romanesque art was quite comprehensive, representing many more biblical scenes than were included in earlier periods.
The most widely copied work in the illuminated manuscripts of tenth-to-twelfth-century Spain was the commentary on Revelation by Beatus (c. 786), one of the opponents of Adoptianism in the Carolingian period, who gave a spiritual interpretation of the ages of human history and of the millennium.
This medieval art continued (as did early Christian art) to borrow models from classical art, but invested the forms with a Christian and contemporary significance.
C. Poetry and Music#
As the Carolingian renaissance of the eighth and ninth centuries saw the development of a new style of handwriting, so in the mid-twelfth century emerged Gothic script.
Lyric poetry was produced from the eleventh and twelfth centuries in southern France by the troubadours, who wrote and sang in the Occitan or Provençal language. This romance and adventure literature spread to northern Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with the trouvères of northern France and poets in Germany.
Vernacular literature could be used for religious purposes, but some of its earliest representatives were primarily secular, although raising religious questions and indeed reflecting the religious spirit of the age by expressing even secular themes in religious language.
The romantic literature made feminine qualities virtues and enhanced the dignity and value of women, but it also reinforced the double standard of sexual morality for men and women.
The poetry of “courtly love” was characterized by:
The abject humility of the lover toward the beloved
The conventions of courtesy
Love for a married person
Love described in religious terms
The theme involved two paradoxes
The worship of love in terms of the Christian cult of the saints (the bed is an altar) that was almost a parody of Christian faith
The portrayal of a man’s subservience to a woman that reversed society’s conventions of male dominance
Although the presence of adulterous love has caught the greatest attention of readers, more striking is the emphasis on conjugal love.
At the height of the medieval development of vernacular poetry stand Chrétien of Troyes (fl. 1165–91) from northern France and the German Gottfried von Strasbourg (fl. 1210).
Chrétien wrote two famous works.
Lancelot approves the hero’s adulterous love for Guinivere but upholds the lady’s moral and social superiority.
Perceval (Le conte du grail) features a celibate hero and is important in the development of the motif of the search for the holy grail, a dish for serving rich food, but in other versions a chalice.
Gottfried wrote Tristan and Isolde, which shows how adulterous passion destroys the lovers psychologically.
Wolfram von Eschenbach (fl. early thirteenth century) in his Willehalm and Parzival (in which the search for the grail becomes the education of the hero) also subverts the theme of courtly love from within the literary genre of romance. He contrasts the enduring joys of marital love with the passing pleasure of extramarital affairs. He celebrates chivalry’s ideal of loyalty, but also offers a Christian criticism of chivalry. He shows sympathy for the heathen by suggesting that God does not punish a person for ignorance and that the good pagan merits God’s grace.
In the early Middle Ages, church music continued to be homophonic (monophonic). Polyphony developed principally in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, although it is attested as early as the ninth century. Manuscripts from the thirteenth century began to denote in addition to the tones the durations (measure) of the notes.
Two types of polyphony may be distinguished:
Descant, in which one or more voices were added note on note to a plain chant melody
Organum, in which one or more voices embellished with many notes each note of the plain chant
In both types the same text was sung.
The organ was the only instrument accepted into liturgical usage, and it was rarely used, being heard mainly at Pentecost and Christmas. Only in the thirteenth century is there clear evidence of the organ being used regularly; it replaced the singing of some liturgical texts in the late fourteenth century.
V. ACTS OF PIETY#
Prayer and penance had provided the religious inspiration for the Crusades.
The Psalms remained the basic standard of prayer. The goal of imitating God led to a greater emphasis on internalizing of devotion. The monastic oratio) disciplines of reading (lectio), meditation (meditatio), and prayer (set the pattern for devotions).
These stages of listening to the Word of God, open dialogue with God, and intimate experience of conversation with him became identified in mysticism with the stages of purification, enlightenment, and union.
The cult of the saints continued to be central in popular piety. The annual saints’ feast days were the occasion for local and regional fairs that combined trade, entertainment, and social gatherings with religious ceremonies and processions. Every illness had its own saint who specialized in its treatment.
Since the fifth century the word sanctus had not been used for all the devout dead—it was limited to official saints. In the age of the martyrs their recognition as saints was a spontaneous response by their fellow believers; then the acknowledgement of local saints became a decision by the bishop.
The first documented canonization by a pope was by John XV in 993 of Ulrich of Augsburg (d. 973). Canonization of saints by bishops and by the pope continued for some time until it became a papal prerogative in the twelfth century. Since possession of relics of saints had not only spiritual but also economic benefits (because of pilgrimage to their sites), the sale and theft of relics became common. Relics occupied the place in piety in the West that icons did in the East as the visual expression of spiritual presence.
Pilgrimage to shrines of the saints continued to be an important expression of piety and act of penitence (often imposed as part of the sacrament of penance), and it was now easier with the return of political stability and increased economic activity. An early version of a tourist’s handbook is the Pilgrim’s Guide from the twelfth century.
Nor is the souvenir trade something modern: Pilgrims purchased pins with emblems associated with a saint to wear on their caps to show the site they had visited.
Jerusalem held the highest place as an object of pilgrimage, even if fewer people were able to go there than to other sites.
Santiago Compostela (St. James of Campus Stellae, the “field of stars,” already a pilgrim site since the supposed discovery of the sepulcher of the apostle James in 813) in northwest Spain
The shrine of the Three Kings (the Magi, whose relics were moved from Milan by Frederick I) at Cologne
The shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury joined Rome as popular goals of pilgrimage
Many miracle stories circulated about the cures and interventions of the saints and their relics on behalf of the faithful. Ecclesiastical authorities made efforts to control the cults of the saints, but it remained true that popular attachment to relics counted for more than official authentication in establishing a cult.
The cult of Mary became prominent in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux. Evidences of the special devotion to Mary are the large number of miracles attributed to her intercession, the interest in relics (especially clothing) associated with her, the number of churches dedicated to her, and her prominence in liturgical, artistic, and theological developments.
In popular piety, following the lead of Bernard and Francis of Assisi, Mary as a tender and merciful figure concerned with ordinary human needs, with which she was more identified than was the exalted Jesus Christ, found expression in prayers, hymns, and works of art.
Increasingly, however, the theological accent shifted from the earthly mother of Jesus to the virgin mother of God and queen of heaven, evident in the prominence of this theme in later medieval art. From the twelfth century the thought that Mary had been preserved from original sin (the immaculate conception) gained ground, although it was opposed by all the leading theologians before Duns Scotus at the end of the thirteenth century.
Pious activities such as the sacrifice of the mass, veneration of saints and relics, and confession and works of satisfaction in the sacrament of penance came in the twelfth century to be related to a more concrete understanding of purgatory.
The notion of an intermediate place of purging of lesser sins before entrance into heavenly bliss had been around for centuries and was popularized by Gregory the Great, but the scholastic theologians of the twelfth century—in developing the theology of penance—formulated the view that in purgatory were completed the punishments for sins not satisfied by penitential acts in this life.
The doctrine of purgatory was then given classical formulation by Thomas Aquinas, officially defined at the Council of Lyons (1274), and received imaginative expression in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Medieval teaching on good works, in keeping with the love of grouping things in sevens, resulted in classifying seven spiritual works of mercy:
Converting the sinner
Instructing the ignorant
Counseling the doubtful
Comforting the sorrowful
Bearing wrongs patiently
Forgiving injuries
Praying for the living and the dead
These were matched by seven corporal works of mercy (based on Matthew 25:35–36):
Feeding the hungry
Giving drink to the thirsty
Clothing the naked
Giving shelter to the stranger
Caring for the sick
Caring for prisoners
Burying the dead
Welfare was done by the church, not the government, which historically has only recently assumed this responsibility.
Since the priests, monks, and canons were the models of the religious life, there occurred to an extent the “monasticising” or “clericalization” of the laity, as the more devout among the laity imitated the monks and canons in observing the hours of prayer.
VI. CHURCH AND STATE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY#
One of the successful Norman kingdoms developed in Sicily and southern Italy, united in the eleventh century by the victories of Roger I over the eastern empire in southern Italy and over the Saracens in Sicily.
The kingdom reached its height under Roger II, who assumed the title of “king” in 1130, and under William II (1166–89). At the meeting place of the Latin West, the Byzantine East, and the Islamic South and East, this kingdom came to have great cultural significance (along with Spain) in the transmission of new learning to western Europe. The Norman kings were patrons of the arts, still visible in the cathedrals of Sicily.
The second half of the twelfth century was dominated politically by two notable kings—Henry II of England (1154–89) and Frederick I Barbarossa of Germany (1152–90). The period is conveniently bracketed by the dates of accession to office and death of some of the leading figures of the time (1152–53 to 1197–98).
Frederick I Barbarossa became king of Germany in 1152 (emperor in 1155)
Bernard of Clairvaux died in 1153
Frederick’s son, Henry VI, died in 1197
Innocent III became pope in 1198.
Two popes during this half century are particularly notable. Hadrian IV (1154–59) is the only English pope. He was abbot of an Augustinian monastery near Avignon before he became a cardinal bishop of Albano under Eugene III. One of his first acts as pope was to secure the expulsion from Rome of Arnold of Brescia, who was captured by Frederick I Barbarossa (1152–90) and condemned to death. Hadrian required full homage from Frederick before agreeing to crown him emperor (1155).
Frederick I Barbarossa was one of the most notable rulers of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which had come to power with Conrad III in 1138.
Hadrian interpreted the coronation as bestowing a beneficium. The imperial court was enraged, and Hadrian had to explain that he meant “kindnesses,” not “benefices.” In 1157 Frederick added the epithet “holy” (sacrum) to the empire in order to compete with the church’s claim, setting the sacrum imperium alongside the sancta ecclesia and preparing the way for the title “Holy Roman Empire” to be applied to the territories ruled by the emperor.
Alexander III (1159–81) was elected by a majority of the cardinals but was able to defend himself only with the greatest difficulty against an antipope set up by imperial authority. Frederick I Barbarossa took Charlemagne as a model and practically controlled the appointment of bishops, but there was Italian opposition to him. An expedition to Italy in 1166 was unsuccessful due to an epidemic, and the Lombard League of Italian cities defeated him in 1176. By the Peace of Venice, 1177, he recognized Alexander III as pope.
Under Alexander III occurred the Third Lateran Council (the Eleventh Ecumenical, 1179) that modified the provisions for papal election by requiring a two-thirds vote of all the cardinals to elect a pope.
In England church-state tensions were reflected in the conflict between King Henry II (1154–89) and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury (1162–70).
Thomas had been an intimate friend of the king as his Chancellor and tutor of his son before being elected archbishop at the instigation of the king. Once in office, however, Becket upheld ecclesiastical claims in a dispute over whether accused churchmen were to be tried in royal or ecclesiastical courts.
After continuing conflict the anger of the king led him to utter words taken by four of his knights as authorization to kill the cleric. Thomas was assassinated in his cathedral, the spot still marked in Canterbury cathedral. He was immediately regarded as a martyr and was canonized within two years. Pilgrimages to the site became common and provided the setting for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (written c. 1387).
Toward the end of the century, the Third Crusade (1189–92) was prompted by the Christian defeat at Hattin in Galilee in 1187 by Saladin, who moved on to capture Jerusalem and left Christians holding only a narrow strip of land along the eastern Mediterranean coast.
The Third Crusade involved the most famous names in the crusading enterprise, around whom gathered many popular tales.
Frederick I Barbarossa led a large army across Hungary and the Balkans, but he was drowned crossing a river in Cilicia.
Philip II Augustus, king of France (1180–1223), by founding a centralized bureaucratic state became the architect of the French monarchy.
The reign of Richard I the Lionheart, king of England (1189–99), provided the background for the Robin Hood legend.
Philip and Richard’s armies started out from Vezelay. Their enterprise was hampered by their quarrels, whereas Saladin (1171–93), himself a Kurd, who often comes across as more noble than his Christian counterparts, was able to unite the Muslims. The armistice of 1192 left Jerusalem in Muslim hands but assured Christian pilgrims free access to the city.
The former Crusader states were reduced to a narrow coastal strip from Beirut to Ascalon, known as the Kingdom of Acre, and often administered from Cyprus, which had been conquered by Richard on his way to the Holy Land.
VII. INSTITUTIONAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH#
The basic organizational unit of the church continued to be the diocese, headed by a bishop. The location of his chair (cathedra) identified his church as the cathedral. Under monastic influence, the clergy of the cathedral, known as canons, formed a chapter. Endowments provided their income and gave them considerable independence from the bishop. They, rather than the bishop, had responsibility for the cathedral buildings and their upkeep.
A dean headed the chapter and supervised the material affairs of the church. The chapter included a chancellor, who was its secretary, in charge of seals, and overseer of the school and library; a treasurer, who was responsible for the relics and other treasures and looked after endowments; and a cantor, who arranged religious services and directed the choir.
VIII. SOME DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EASTERN CHURCHES#
The twelfth century saw some significant developments affecting the Greek Orthodox church. The study of canon law was advanced, and two of the most influential commentators on the canons of the Greek church were active:
Johannes Zonaras (twelfth century), who also wrote a universal history
Theodore Balsamon (c. 1140–after 1195)
In monastic history, Christodulus obtained — through the influence of the mother of emperor Alexius Comnenus — possession of the island of Patmos. There in 1088 he established the monastery of St. John that still exists.
The monastery of the Pantokrator, notable for its associated infirmary and home for the aged, was founded in 1136 in Constantinople. At the close of the twelfth century Savas established the first Serbian house on Mount Athos.
The Serbs, who had been converted between 867 and 874, were caught between pressures from Roman Catholicism in Hungary and Croatia and from Greek Orthodoxy in Bulgaria. The Orthodox form of Christianity became firmly established in the late twelfth century, especially through the influence of the monk Rastko (Sava).
If the fifth century was the golden age of Armenian literature, with a revival in the tenth century, then the twelfth century (in the wake of the Crusades) was its silver age. The end of the twelfth century saw the re-creation of an Armenian kingdom in Cilicia, outside the territory of ancient Armenia. This last Armenian kingdom fell in 1375 to the Mamelukes of Egypt.
The Cilician period was a high point of Armenian culture, evidenced by the illuminated manuscripts, the principal surviving representatives of Armenian art, produced during this period. An outstanding example is the Freer Gallery Gospel codex in Washington, D.C.
Medieval Georgia reached its height in the twelfth century. Fittingly for a country converted by a woman and whose first royal convert was a woman, the climax of Georgia’s golden age was under Queen Tamar (1178–1213) of the Bagratid dynasty, which claimed descent from David and Solomon and ruled in Georgia from the eighth to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
A distinctive Georgian church architecture emerged and achieved its greatest monuments in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries Georgia excelled in cloisonné enamel and in gold and silver crafts generally for ecclesiastical objects. Georgian church music had long been polyphonic even though Latin and Greek music was still monophonic.
IX. SUMMARY#
The twelfth century was characterized by a “renaissance” involving many notable achievements in monastic reform, theology, literary productivity, piety, art, and architecture. All in all, the influence of the church advanced in many areas of life—religious, political, and artistic.
Looking back from a later perspective, however, one could say that these accomplishments but prepared the way for even greater accomplishments in the thirteenth century.