The Age of Chivalry (18 page)

Economic expansion in the Mediterranean and northern Italy created new patterns of trade and commerce. Urban centers were therefore drawn to the revived Roman law since it could reflect contemporary realities more readily than the established early medieval codes that were, as in the case of the Lombards' system, rural based. Governments developing a comprehensive territorial bureaucracy were also attracted by a system of laws based on general validity rather than local custom. Roman law also benefited from, and contributed to, the revival of imperialism under successive German emperors who sought to strengthen the Roman tradition and ideology. Frederick Barbarossa was an astute user of its teachings, and he enjoyed the support of the Law School of Bologna when he asserted his rights as a ruler over the towns of Lombardy.

Italian universities diffused the Roman law to France and Spain. Montpellier was well placed to do this since Provence, once a Roman province, retained many features of the classical legal system. The English Crown declared against Roman law, but many of the country's churchmen used Roman legal principles when arguing canon law (so called because it was based on the collections of rules or canons produced by Church councils). Canon law argued for the legal system of a universal Church, and its universality therefore blended well with Roman jurisprudence. Its sources were various, and so in
c
.1140 the monk Gratian of Bologna produced the immensely influential collection of canon law known as the
Decretum
, which systematized and reconciled these authorities. Canon law became a fully independent system and, since it had also absorbed the principles of Roman jurisprudence, it also served as a vehicle for the transmission of the Roman law. Even England therefore observed the influence of this continental system so far as the Church was concerned. Here, however, it was the common law—a system based on custom and precedent—that was the cornerstone of the king's law.

European learning was stimulated by the arrival in the West of the texts describing ancient Greek philosophy and science. Since there had been so few translations into Latin of these works, the chief conduit here was those scholars of Byzantium who had translated the Greek texts into Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic. Many of these translations traveled east to the Persian court, and they also existed in the Byzantine provinces
that fell to seventh- and eighth-century Arab invaders. Those conquests gave a new impetus to translation, since many of the Islamic caliphs were enthusiastic patrons of learning. Arabic translations were therefore made direct from the Greek, as in the case of Ptolemy's
Almagest
(
The Great Compilation
) in 827, as well as from Syriac and Hebrew. The focus was on works in medicine, mathematics, astronomy, astrology and alchemy, with the Arab translators adding their own observations and discoveries to the ancient texts.

A
BOVE
Georgius Pachymeres, a 13th-century Greek historian and writer. Scholars working in the Byzantine empire translated Greek texts into Arabic, which were then translated into Latin for European scholars
.

Until the 12th century there had been little intellectual contact between the Latin West and Arab culture. The multicultural kingdom of Sicily—administered by Arab rulers in the tenth and 11th centuries—saw real cultural synergy, and the Sicilian court employed many Arab doctors and astrologers even after the island's conquest by the Normans. But it was in Spain, with its long history of Islamic occupation from the eighth century onward, that most of the important work was done. Translation from the Arabic versions of the ancient Greek texts took place in the major cities of the peninsula, and that work became especially active in the 12th century with new attention being paid to astronomy and mathematics. From Spain came Euclid and his algebra, as well as the philosophy and science of Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, in forms that changed subsequent European thought. Euclid's
Elements
appeared in a Latin translation from the Arabic in the early 12th century, with his
Data
and
Optics
following a generation later. The arrival of Aristotle's
Physics
, along with his
Meteorology
and
De Caelo
(
On the Heavens
), transformed Europeans' understanding of the natural world. European medicine was revolutionized by the full recovery of the ancient Greeks' literature on the subject, especially so in the case of works by Galen and Hippocrates, and translations from the works of Arab doctors also gained a wide currency.

Some Arabic words were left untranslated, which is why the terms algebra, zero and cipher survive in mathematics, along with almanac, zenith and nadir in astronomy. The translations inspired some independent scientific observation in the West, as can be seen in the work of Albertus Magnus. But their more widespread impact was curricular; the arrival of ancient wisdom in accessible form stimulated arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music—the subjects comprising the
quadrivium
or the mathematical part of the seven liberal arts that were the basis of medieval education.

Ancient Greek science was abstract and deductive rather than experimental, and as such it was seen as a branch of philosophy. This suited the classification of knowledge in 12th-century Europe, and the veneration of Aristotle as the supreme philosopher was a profound feature of the period's recovery of classical Greek thought. Plato's more discursive and literary style had little influence compared with the compact and systematic method of Aristotle, with his many textbooks and manuals fashioned from lecture notes. The universal nature of Aristotle's genius is the background to the development in the 13th century of the system of Thomas Aquinas. By the end of the 12th century, Aristotelian logic had been absorbed into European thought, and the philosopher's
Metaphysics
was translated in
c
.1200, followed by
Ethics
and
Politics
. Aristotle was therefore assimilated within the Christian consensus, though this required a softening of some of his more un-Christian beliefs, such as the teaching that the universe was eternal. With Aristotle, however, there also arrived Averroes (1126–98), his greatest Arab commentator. Averroes highlighted doctrines such as the eternity of matter and the unity of the intellect and, since these teachings denied individual immortality, their impact would stimulate heresy and dissent in medieval Europe.

Anselm and Abelard were the chief philosophers of the age, and both pre-date the real impact of Aristotle in the West. Anselm (1033–1109) sought to prove the necessary existence of God, and his use of dialectic showed how faith should also be inquiring. Abelard (1079–1142) was a teacher of dazzling originality, and one who was not averse to being the center of a Parisian personality cult. The orthodoxy of his day defended universals—or general categories—as necessary before the mind could proceed to grasp particulars. Abelard's dissent on this subject led to his condemnation for heresy in 1121 and 1141. His pungent treatise
Sic et Non
(
Yes and No
) was a pioneering work in the development of the dialectical style, since it took evidence from the past on various topics and arranged them as a series of propositions. Abelard's emphasis on the contradictions tended to undermine orthodoxy. The method itself though proved immensely influential in the 13th-century development of the scholastic system, and university teaching of the
trivium
(a division within the seven liberal arts) was therefore slanted toward logic at the expense of its other components: grammar and rhetoric. Theology remained the highest form of knowledge, and when philosophy trespassed on its terrain it was to be condemned—as Abelard had been. Some followers of Averroes in the Latin West tried to advance a doctrine of double truth, with philosophy and theology both being true, but only within their own respective domains. But the Church forbad that escape route out of contradiction. That interdiction is the background to the establishment of a series of inquisitions, or formal investigations into heretical teachings, that began in the 1180s, and whose penalties of death by burning showed that some 12th-century speculation could be dangerous as well as audacious.

History was one of the growth subjects of the 12th century, and a fresh sense of critical inquiry is evident in the vogue for biographies and memoirs that supplemented the annals and chronicles of saints' lives which were the traditional medieval way into the past
.

The
Ten Books of Histories
, written by Gregory of Tours (
c
.538–94), were still being used to provide information concerning the Franks' early traditions and the process of their Christianization as the Gaul of late antiquity mutated into early medieval France. But the hagiographical element in Gregory's work sets it apart from those 12th-century historians and their immediate successors who, while no less devout than Gregory, could nonetheless distinguish between fables and reasonably ascertained fact. This was a great period for the compilation of encyclopedias.
Speculum Maius
(
The Greater Mirror
), written by the Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais (
c
.1190–
c
.1264), is divided into three books that deal respectively with the natural sciences, contemporary forms of applied knowledge such as surgery, agriculture and political science, and world history.

The Englishman Orderic Vitalis (1075–
c
.1142) a monk of the rich and influential foundation at Saint Evroul in Normandy, wrote an
Ecclesiastical History
which, although starting with the birth of Christ, is chiefly remarkable as a work of contemporary history that describes Western European political developments in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Orderic's background led him to take a special interest in the workings of the Anglo-Norman state, and the frequent visitors to Saint Evroul from England, as well as from southern Italy where the monastery had established many daughter foundations, supplied him with the information that lends an international dimension to his work. The Cistercian monk Otto of Freising (
c
.1114–58) authored a
Chronicle
that offers a superb general history in a philosophic vein, and his
Gesta Friderici imperatoris (Deeds of Emperor Frederick)
describes the history of Germany during the investiture contest as the background to Frederick I Barbarossa's election as King of Germany in 1152. Otto discusses the first years of Barbarossa's reign in some detail, and although he was related through his mother to the emperor, who commissioned him to write the book and supplied a preface, the
Gesta
offers a strikingly objective historical narrative. William of Malmesbury (
c
.1080–1143) was a monk of the local Benedictine foundation in Wiltshire, and his
Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the Kings of England)
is a research-based and sophisticated account of the monarchy's development from the mid-fifth century up to the author's own time. A comparable sense of how institutions develop and change is present in the history of the abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris written by Abbé Suger (
c
.1081–1151), who shows great skill in relating the foundation's past to the wider context of early French history.

A statue of Gregory of Tours, sculpted by Jean Marcellin in the early 1850s, stands in the Cour Napoléon of the Louvre Museum, Paris
.

The later period of Capetian rule, from the reign of Philip II Augustus (1180–1223) to the reign of Charles IV (1322–28), saw the French monarchy established as the greatest power in Europe. A regular sequence of male heirs to the throne guaranteed the dynastic succession, and no other family of French aristocrats challenged the Capetian right to rule. The vast territorial acquisitions of the 13th century meant that substantial fiefdoms could be granted to the king's younger sons, and that system of “apanage” softened the blow of primogeniture while promoting the ruling family's solidarity. A generally close relationship with the papacy was an important element in the Capetians' international renown. But the kings were also sustained by their reputation for sacral power. The activity known as “touching for the king's evil” was based on the belief that sufferers of the skin disease scrofula could be cured by a touch of the king's hand. The healing ceremony was a mass phenomenon and testified to the intimate association between the king and his people
.