Early Medieval Europe

Describes the early phases of medieval Europe, including the Judaic and Christian roots.

1. Early Medieval Europe
Founding of the Church

2. Introduction: The Roots (This
Series)
•Judaism
•Greece
•Rome
•Christianity and Christ Himself
•The Early Theologians

3. Introduction: Fluorescence (The
Next Series)
•Dark Ages
•Feudalism
•The Sociopolitical Structure
•Eve of the Renaissance

4. Roots of Medieval Era: Judaism of
Abraham
•Hebrews: a population in the city of Ur
in Sumeria
•The word is derived from Greek biblia,
which means “book,” hence “People of
the Book”
•Abraham was said to have led his
people out of Ur and migrated
westward to the Fertile Crescent to
settle in Canaan or Israel (see map)
•There he made a covenant with God
(Yahweh): “I will be your God; you will
be my people” (Lower left)
•Hence the expression “The Chosen
People.”

5. Roots of Medieval Era: Judaism of
Moses
•Israelites migrated to Egypt but fell
into slavery as pharaohs tried to expel
last of the Hyksos.
•Under Moses (1300 BCE), departed
from Egypt and headed toward
Canaan
•At Galilee, forged the ideology of
monotheism, the religion of one God
•Also defined a set of ethical and
spiritual obligations
•Agreed to a covenant binding the
community to God in return for his
protection

6. Roots of Medieval Era: The
Decalogue
•The Ten Commandments
governing relations between
humans and God and among
each other
•Framed in the negative, similar to
the Egyptian Book of the Dead
•First Commandment: Thou shalt
not have other gods before me—
devotion to a single God (similar
to a single God Aten among the
Egyptians
•Retribution is threatened (to 3-4
generations) but unspecified
•The trials of Job test his faith

7. Roots of Medieval Era: Judaic
Model of the Universe
•To the Sumerians (and later the Greeks),
the universe was chaotic at the beginning
•Hebrews: the universe was well organized
and planned underpinned by a moral code
•God transcended nature and its
phenomena
•The conception of an ethical monotheism
was to influence Western thought

8. Roots of Medieval Era: Christianity
•Christianity emerged from Judaism but
also Greek and Roman tradition
•It entailed a rejection of the rationalistic
thought of both Greeks and Romans and
trended toward mysticism
•“The Ways of God are mysterious”: Job’s
trials
•Various cults of the mysteries emphasized
sacrifice, death and resurrection

9. Roots of Medieval Era: Judaic
Model of the Messiah
•Roman occupation of Jerusalem sparked a
revolt over their refusal to worship the emperor
and the gods
•The Jews worshipped only God
•Rivalry between the Sadducees, who saw the
Messiah as a temporal leader
•And the Pharisees who saw the Messiah as the
spiritual leader of his flock to salvation
•The monastic Essenes practiced asceticism, a
theme very much in the medieval tradition

10. Christ: His Early Years






•The phases of His Birth and Youth is
summarized on p. 198
•Key events:
•The period prior to birth: the Annunciation
of the Angel Gabriel, the Visitation,
•The Nativity (birth), the Adoration of the
Magi (upper left)
•The Massacre of the Innocents and the
flight to Egypt
•Christ as a youth impressing the Elders
with his wisdom (lower left)
•The Baptism and the Temptation
•The calling of the Apostles
•Miracles, including the raising of Lazarus
•The Transfiguration

11. The Passion of Christ (Last Days)
•Entry into Jerusalem (Palm
Sunday)
•The Last Supper
•Night before the Crucifixion:
agony in the Garden of
Gethsemane, the Betrayal by
Judas’s kiss
•The Trial before Pilate
•The Road to Calvary with the
Cross and Crown of Thorns
•The Crucifixion
•The Entombment
•The Resurrection

12. Roots of Medieval Era: Jesus
Christ and His Teachings
•Little if anything is known about his life
except the birth of the Christ child
•The Sermon on the Mount captures most
of his essential laws, if not all
•Basic theme: pure altruism—”love thy
neighbor as thyself”
•“You must be perfect, just as your
heavenly father is perfect”
•Eschewed wealth: “but lay up for yourself
treasures in heaven, where neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt and thieves do not
break through nor steal”
•Preached the spirit over the letter of the
law

13. Paul the Apostle
•Before Paul, the preaching had been mostly
among Jews
•The Apostle Paul spread the Gospel to non-
Jews: Greeks, Romans, and peoples of Asia
Minor
•Accounts: Saul, a Tentmaker from Taursus,
Asia Minor, experienced a conversion on the
way to Damascus
•After the conversion, Paul committed to writing
14 of the 27 books of the New Testament
•Essence of his preaching: Humankind was born
in original sin by Adam and Eve’s defiance of
God’s command not to each the fruit from the
Tree of Knowledge
•Christ in his death absolved humankind from
this sin
•The condition: to be baptized in Christ.

14. Dark Ages: A Terminology Revised
•The term Dark Ages, which cover the years 475-1000 AD, refers to
the Early Middle Ages
•The term is understood in two senses:
•A period in which little is known (dark to us)
•A period in which society was backward, with no significant progress
in the arts or the sciences
•This period follows the
•Because of the pejorative sense of the phrase, the term has
gradually been abandoned
•Now, Early Middle Age or Late Antiquity are preferred
•This was a rich period of religion, folklore, and the arts; the Song of
Roland, the Gregorian chants, and Christian liturgical pages
characterized this era.
•The feudal structure was also established then

15. Roots of Medieval Era: Greece
•Stoicism: ethical view of life and equality
among humans
•Neo-Platonism: A magical union between
individual soul and Ultimate Being, similar
to Platonic ideal of Form of Goodness
•Plotinus, Egyptian neo-Platonist: Union
with the One can only be achieved by
degrees

16. Spread of Christianity: The Roman
Vehicle
•Rome came to be the center for interpretation of
Christianity
•Created dogma, or prescribed doctrine that, once
defined, there could be no deviation
•Created liturgy, the rituals for public worship
•Roman legal system became the basis of church canon
law
•Under Pope Leo, Peter (the Rock) was the first apostle
after Christ and so established the lineage founded by
Him.
•Thus, the papacy was patterned after imperial Rome

17. Rome and Christianity: The Council of
Nicaea
•At the Council of Nice (Iznik) called by Constantine, the
Nicene Creed was adopted in 381 CE
•Pledges belief in variety of miraculous phenomena,
including virgin birth
•The belief in the Trinity (Jesus, God the Father, and the
Holy Spirit)
•A break between Classical rationalism and Christian
mysticism
•Embraces truth and the intuition of truths beyond ordinary
understanding.
•A shift from homocentric classical world view to a God-
centered world view of the medieval period.

18. Christianity: The Dominant Themes
•A divine incarnate as human, but also
•As a human being, a man from Nazareth who is without
sin
•Virgin birth, emphasized in Catholicism as the Immaculate
Conception
•Crucifixion as the sacrifice for humankind’s sin and
redemption
•The crucifixion is an act of grace: a divine favor for the
undeserving
•He leads a sinless life, by example, by parable, by
sermons, and by miracle
•An opposition between the profane (natural, human body)
and the sacred (God, spiritual, soul)
•Antagonism between the profane (physical pleasures and
the human body) and the sacred.

19. Christianity: Human Nature and
Salvation
•Made in the image of God, humans have free will and
the responsibility to find God
•Human nature: many believers assume humankind
was conceived in original sin
•Began with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit
from the Tree of Knowledge after being tempted by a
serpent to do so
•Others believe that living an exemplary life in keeping
to God’s wishes is the key to a heavenly afterlife
•Both schools accept the role of God’s grace as key to
a heavenly afterlife

20. Christianity: Grace as Key to
Salvation
•Only through the grace of God is salvation
possible
•Christianity: only by accepting Jesus as the
savior is it possible to receive grace
•Good deeds alone is insufficient to obtain grace;
they may serve as evidence for having been
saved
•Once saved, a person will lead an exemplary life
for love of God and fellow humans

21. Christianity: Theodicy
•Theodicy: An attempt to explain why the good incur so
much evil in their lives
•Job’s torments are a biblical example
•Explanations comprise:
•An attempt to save others, as exemplified by Jesus'
suffering on the Cross to save humankind
•St. Augustine: Result of the sins committed by Adam and
Eve
•Suffering gives a powerful demonstration of the value of
Christian faith
•Existence of suffering is one of the mysteries of God’s
ways

22. Christianity: Faith and Reason
•Church has held that human reason can lead to truth as
well as Scripture
•Because reason is subject to human error, nevertheless,
faith and scripture are the surest path to truth
•Fideism: view that only through faith can truth and God be
known
•There is a tension between faith and science on matters
where the conclusion conflict
•Roman Catholic Church has decreed that faith and
science are parallel to each other and do not conflict.

23. The Roman Catholic Church: The
Template for Medieval Ideology
•The Roman Catholic Church is the self-proclaimed oldest
embodiment of Christianity
•The church thus adheres to several doctrines of principle:
•Biblical Interpretation: The Bible is to be interpreted by papal
and bishopric directives (papal infallibility was not declared until
1870)
•Apostolic Succession: The pope and bishops are in a linear
spiritual succession to Christ
•Owing to this belief, their authority carries the same spiritual
legitimacy that Christ conferred upon his apostles

24. The Roman Catholic Church: Dogma
•Several doctrines are to be accepted without question:
•The Gospel of Christ
•The wine drunk and wafer eaten during communion is he literal (not
just symbolic) blood and body of Christ
•Belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary
•Confession: The mechanism for the atonement of sin through
confession
•Saints: Those who have led exemplary lives and have performed at
least one miracle may be canonized as saints
•Grace: The belief that because no ordinary human, however pious,
is worthy of salvation, God freely bestows grace due to his love and
goodness.

25. The Roman Catholic Church: Sacraments
•An observable sign of grace or of the sacred, which include the
Seven Sacraments
•The Eucharist: Observance of the Last Supper
•Baptism: Cleansing in water for admission into the church
•Confirmation: Gift of the Holy Ghost for those already baptized
•Penance: Repentance for sins, such as in confession
•Anointing of the Sick: Last rites for the dying; also known as
Extreme Unction
•Matrimony: Marriage within the church for a lifetime partnership
•Holy Orders: The hierarchical order of the clergy; ordination of
candidates for the clergy

26. The Eastern Orthodox Church
•The Great Schism: The Roman Catholic Church and the
Eastern Orthodox separated in 1054
•Tradition: emphasis on the Greek rather then the Latin
tradition
•Doctrinal differences over
•Icons, which follow a formulaic methodology
•Statues are rejected as idolatry
•Infallibility of the Pope: bishops are the direct descendents
of the original apostles
•Marriage of priests

27. Christian Monasticism: St. Benedict
•Before Christianity, communal sects saw asceticism as an
alternative to decadence of urban life
•St. Basil formed the orders in the Eastern Orthodox churches :
fasting , poverty, celibacy
•First monastery in West founded by St. Benedict in Cassino in
southern Italy
•Monks required to vow poverty, celibacy, and obedience to the
abbot of the monastery
•Obligation including working to free the monastery from
dependence on the outside world
•Calendar created by Dionysius Exiguus marked the birth of
Jesus as Anno Domini (Year of Our Lord)

28. Christian Fathers: St. Augustine of
Hippo
•The most influential of early church
fathers
•Under the influence of Paul and Plotinan,
the neo-Platonist, converted to
Christianity at age 33
•Led a dissolute life of womanizing,
gambling, and fathering an illegitimate
child
•This forms the basis of his personal
account, Confessions
•Argues the existence of three temptations
of one’s lower self: lust of the flesh, lust
of the eyes, and ambition of the world
•The higher self is the love for God

29. St. Augustine’s Influence on
Christian Dogma
•Source: A multivolume set City of God
•The rationalization of evil as the
perversion of good created by God
•Doctrine of the Just War: war as
reprisal for abuse of morality
•History as divinely ordered and
directed toward a predestined end (a
fundamental tenet of Christianity)
•Dualistic model of reality: material vs.
spirit, body vs. soul, earth vs. heaven,
Satan and God,
•This dualistic model pervaded medieval
thought and indeed Western thought
for years to come
•Matter is the matrix in which God’s
message is hidden

30. Christian Fathers: St. Jerome
•Christian educated in Rome
•Translated both the Hebrew Bible and the Greek
texts of the New Testament into Latin
•Thus created the Vulgate, the Latin edition of
scripture that ultimately became the official Bible
of the Roman Catholic Church
•Found the “pagan” beliefs of the classical and
Hebraic literature to form the edifice of the new
faith.

31. Christian Fathers: St.
Ambrose
•Drew on Hebrew, Greek, and Southwest
Asian traditions to formulate Christian
doctrine and liturgy
•Wrote some of the earliest Christian
hymns for congregations
•Reference to God as “Light of Lights”
reflects the cult of Mithras
(Zoroastrianism) and Plato’s analogy of
the Good and the Sun

32. Christian Fathers: St. Gregory
•Elected to the papacy in 590
•Established the administrative
machinery by which all popes
would govern the Church of
Rome
•Sent out missionaries to convert
the population of England
•Extended the temporal authority
of the Church throughout
Western Europe
•Organized the liturgical music of
the early Church

33. Conclusion: The Foundations of
Medieval Society
•Hebraic, Greek, and Roman traditions founded the base
and some of the superstructure of Medieval Europe
•Christianity formed the main superstructure
•However, the Germanic tradition added its own segment
and so also would form part of the Medieval West
•All the themes of the arts, the music, architecture, and the
sculpture of the era would rest on Christianity
•We will look at these in the final segment of these
lectures.