1. Chaos and Order in the Renaissance Worldview
The Chain of Being
Chaos and Order in the Renaissance Worldview
The Chain of Being: Chaos and Order in the Renaissance Worldview
Shakespeare 207 (Spring 2002)

2. In the Beginning... Cosmology explained Biblically:
Designed by a benevolent deity
Perfection and lack of change
Perfect order and hierarchy from God down to the most insignificant creature or object
In the Beginning

3. In Principio creatavit Deus caelum et terram....
For Renaissance Christians, the act of creation is an act of imposing organization on raw chaos. For them, orderliness is next to Godliness.
* "In the Beginning, God created heaven and the earth.
In the Beginning

4. The Great Chain of Being
Highest
Creator
beings of both spirit and physical body (humans) below angelic beings.
non-human mammals, fowl, fish, insects
physical bodies and five senses, but lacking reason
animals with fewer than five senses or inanimate bodies (oysters, barnacles, mollusks)
Plant Life, inanimate and lacking in sensory organs (trees, vegetables, shrubs)
Minerals and inanimate objects
Lowest
Chain from highest to lowest.

5. Everything had a place in the hierarchy, and all was well as long as each creature behaved according to its station.
Chain from highest to lowest.

7. The Spheres
Robert Fludd,
"The Great Chain of Being"
1617

8. The Universe as We Know it
In the Beginning

9. Versus the Ptolemaic Model
The Sun
c. CE 90
Earth
The Moon
In the Beginning
Planets

10. So What Went Wrong?
How to explain the existence of unpleasant evil within a world that was thought to have been created as an ordered paradise?
In the Beginning

11. All of creation was bound together
All of creation was bound together. Whatever affected one thing affected other things in the Chain of Being. This was called a “Correspondence.”
“What is below is like that which is above. What is above is like what is below. Thus is the miracle of the One accomplished.”
--Paracelsus
In the Beginning

12. “The Body is a Little World.”
Body is an allegorical chain of being Created in God’s Own Image Set in the very center of creation Given the position of primate over the animals Given both soul and flesh. Immortal, never dying....
In the Beginning

13. Health and Balance Health & happiness = balance of humors / humours
In the Beginning
Health & happiness = balance of humors / humours
Without balance? TROUBLE

14. ...It leads to Disorder in Nature
Animals attacking people, eating their own young, stealing grain or crops, all these were signs of the fallen nature of the earth, and corresponded to breaks in the Chain of Being and disorder within the microcosm.

15. ...And to disorder in the heavenly constellations.

16. Something rotten in the Sublunary Sphere
Most of creation = perfect, uncorrupt. The effects of sin were limited to the earth and its immediate atmosphere, i.e., everything beneath the orbit of the moon. Thus the references in Shakespeare to “the sublunary sphere,” and “everything beneath the moon.” Within this boundary, the nature of the world changed. It began to rot....
In the Beginning

17. Mutability Old Age Death Erosion Disease Rain, Wind, and Weather
“God commanded us that we should not eat the fruit; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.” (Gen 3:3)
Old Age
Death
Erosion
Disease
Rain, Wind, and Weather
Rust and Decay
Entropy
In the Beginning

18. God The Supreme Primate King of Angels (Rex Angelorum)
In the Beginning

19. The King and Nobility
Right to rule given by God, and could only be removed by Him. Believed superior in his virtue, wisdom, grace, and strength.
In the Beginning

20. Ranks = the human chain Ancient medieval model of Three Estates:
Bellatores: Knights and royalty
Oratores: The Clergy, the priests
Labores: farmers and serfs
If those who protect the kingdom do their job, the people will be safe. If those who work the fields do their job, all will be fed. If those who tend to the soul do their job, all will have their spiritual needs met. Refusing to keep one’s place damages the Body Politic, society as a whole.
In the Beginning

21. . . . Ruling over the Fields and Floods
Just as God had authority over all kings, and king had authority over men, lesser men had dominion over animals and plants. Once again, this authority was believed to be sanctioned by the Bible.
In the Beginning

22. Each had its hierarchy.
“And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.” --(Gen. 1:25)
In the Beginning

23. This cosmology permeated earlier medieval society in Western Europe
Any educated person would be familiar with these concepts in the days before the 1600s. …even uneducated peasants would know about the chain.
In the Beginning

24. An Example: Hawking
Consider for example the sport of hawking (hunting small animals with trained birds).
In the Beginning

25. The great chain of Hawking
Each rank in society had a corresponding bird to use.
Emperor: Golden Eagle, Vulture, & Merlin
King: Gyrfalcon (male & female)
Prince: Female Peregrine
Duke: Rock Falcon (subspecies of the Peregrine)
Earl: Peregrine
Baron: Male peregrine
Knight: Saker
Squire: Lanner Falcon
Lady: Female Merlin
Yeoman: Goshawk or Hobby
Priest: Female Sparrowhawk
Holywater clerk: Male Sparrowhawk
Knaves, Servants, Children: Old World Kestrel
In the Beginning

26. To use a bird for the wrong rank was an act not just of poor etiquette, but of subversion. keeping a falcon above one's station was a felony It was an act of rebellion against an inflexible social order. The Boke of St. Albans relates that the typical punishment of cutting off the hands of people who kept birds above their social rank also served as an excellent deterrent to the crime.
In the Beginning

27. Ethical, Political and Literary Ramifications?
Important to know one’s place, and not seek to rise above it through unholy ambition. Equally important to know one’s place, and not to sink below it by neglecting one’s duties. Important to balance physical and animal needs of the body with divine reason.
In the Beginning

28. Regicide: The Worst Act against the order
“If I could find example of thousands that had struck anointed kings And flourish’d after, I’ld not do’t; but [. . .] Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one.” --The Winter’s Tale I.ii King = God’s deputy Overthrow him, and that is tantamount to overthrowing GOD
In the Beginning

29. The result?
The unlawful death of kings always causes disruption in the heavens (stars fall from the sky, freakish storms blow across the country) and disruption in the world of nature (famines, plagues, unnatural activity among the animals, etc.)

30. Killing the King is attacking an emblem of Godhead
Killing the King is attacking an emblem of Godhead. It is worse than even killing a priest. For he has two bodies, and injuring the head of the state is a blow to the entire people.
In the Beginning

31. Explicit Presentatio!
Works Consulted: Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. Richard Green. NY: Macmillan Pub. Co., Douay-Rheims Translation of the Bible. Kantorowicz, Ernst. The King’s Two Bodies. NJ: Princeton UP, Saintbury, George, ed. Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets. NY: Macmillan and Co., Tillyard, E. M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture
In the Beginning
2002 © Dr. L. K. Wheeler