ART AND CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

1. Visual Arts a. Gothic architecture i. Greatest examples of religious feelings were found in churches ii. Built in the Gothic style 1. Churches were taller and brighter than earlier churches

iii. Advances in engineering 1. Flying Buttress a. Most important advance b. New type of support c. Supported church was from outside i. Allowed for higher ceilings ii. Will give church a more airy feeling d. Allowed for larger windows i. Churches hire artists to create stain glass windows ii. Showed scenes from the Bible or depicted lives of the saints

iv. Churches were decorated inside and out 1. Exterior a. Had statues of saints, kings and figures of the old testament b. Gargoyles i. Craved in the likeness of hideous beasts and served as water spouts to drain water from the roof

2. Interiors a. Number of decorative elements i. Murals were used to depict religious scenes ii. Candleholders, crosses and statues were decorated with gold and precious stones

b. Illumination i. Process of decorating manuscripts with pictures and designs 1. One common technique was to decorate the first letter on the page

c. Tapestry i. Large woven hangings ii. Hung in castles to prevent drafts iii. Showed scenes of daily life or fantastic creatures like dragons or unicorns

2. Literature a. Religious Texts i. Create all sorts of works, from sermons about how people should live to interpretations of passages from the Bible ii. Hildegard of Bingen 1. A nun and medieval poet 2. Wrote dozens of poems and music to accompany them 3. Wrote in Latin

b. Epics and Romances i. Long poems that tell stories of heroes and villains ii. Works differ in their subject matter iii. Often performed by wandering singers called troubadours iv. These poems were written in the vernacular (common language)

c. Major Works i. Geoffrey Chaucer 1. He wrote the Canterbury Tales a. Characters come from a wide rage of social backgrounds b. His descriptions help historians know what life was like for people during the middle ages c. Wrote in English and help spread the language in England

ii. Dante Alighieri 1. He wrote The Devine Comedy a. Book is composed of three parts: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise b. Tells the story of the magical trip he made through the afterlife c. The poet Virgil acts as his guide for part of the trip d. His writing led to the increase of Italian

3. Thinking and Learning a. Alchemy i. People began to conduct experiments ii. Practiced an early form of chemistry called alchemy iii. Gained practical experience in chemical reactions

b. Universities i. Helped increase the flow of Greek learning into Europe ii. Liberal arts 1. Study of Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music iii. Also taught theology, medicine and law

c. Thomas Aquinas i. Taught at the University of Paris ii. Argued that both reason and faith were necessary for understanding truth iii. His approach was called Scholasticism 1. Tried to show that Christian teachings were also knowable and provable through the use of logic

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