Every time period is defined by certain events, certain aspects of that period’s culture, and certain people. The Middle Ages are not an exception. The Middle Ages lasted from about AD 350 to about 1450. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the western half of the Roman Empire began to fragment into smaller, weaker kingdoms. By the end of the Middle Ages, many modern European states had taken shape. During this time, the precursors of many modern institutions, such as universities and bodies of representative government, were created.
Throughout this incredible time period many great works of art, changes in religion, and horrible diseases shaped history. The Middle Ages are remembered for the impact of Christianity, the fantastic architecture, and the horrible diseases that spread throughout Europe. In medieval England, Christianity was by far the most dominant religion, and the Bible was the most popular book. Religion played an important part in the lives of the people of that time, and was seriously viewed as a pleasurable pastime by the majority. There were approximately 9,000 parishes in medieval England, and each had one or more parish guilds associated with it.
Membership into a parish guild was voluntary, although one was expected to pay an annual fee. Naturally there were more wealthy people than poor in each association, giving each guild a hierarchical structure. Members often spent time praying for those who had passed away recently. Feasts and processions were organized to celebrate religious days, and charity work was encouraged. Each guild was usually formed to honor a particular Saint, and so was named after that Saint, the most popular being The Virgin Mary (Rice 37). The Christian calendar was of great importance to the ordinary folk of medieval England. It gave their lives structure.
The stories and teachings appropriate to each time of year could be shared, and this gave the masses a common purpose for their existence. There were thirty-six separate observances throughout the year, ranging from the circumcision of The Lord on January 1st, to the worship of St. Thomas of Canterbury on December 29th. The large number of days of worship highlights how essential this calendar was in giving people’s lives structure. Also, people would have looked forward to these religious days because it meant no work, which in medieval times could have been extremely strenuous and often dangerous (Rice 46).
Pilgrimage was another area of religion that anybody could undertake. It was very popular and often done spontaneously, and the reasons for setting off on a pilgrimage could vary greatly. Some would do it so they could further themselves spiritually; the visiting of a place of religious importance was given great spiritual value. Many people became pilgrims as a form of self-punishment, going on long and arduous journeys. The end result they were trying to achieve would be the same though, spiritual enhancement. Others would go to places of religious importance to seek a miracle cure for an affliction.
One such place was the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Folk would travel many a mile to drink the water from the shrine, which was supposed to contain some of St. Thomas’ blood, for its alleged healing properties. Wealthy people could afford to go further in their pilgrimage. Traveling to some of the less accessible areas of the world was deemed to be of a greater spiritual value than relatively local travels. Those held in the highest regard therefore were Jerusalem, The Holy Land, and Rome (About 1). The architecture of the Middle Ages can be broken into two main categories.
The Romanesque style and the Gothic style were the two most prominent. Romanesque architecture was the style of the churches of the great Benedictine monasteries. Their most characteristic feature is the round arch. These arches are used for the doors and windows of the church, as well as for the church’s vault, the structure that supports the ceiling. Because the round arches give the vault a tunnel-like appearance, they are often called tunnel or barrel vaults. Romanesque churches are very large and were built with thick stonewalls to hold the weight of the heavy arched vaults.
Inside the church, the walls were decorated with paintings of important religious scenes or events in the lives of the saints. Massive columns leading from floor to vault were decorated with sculptures depicting scenes from the Bible or from other religious texts. Because there were no rugs or tapestries, the sounds of the monks’ prayers echoed from one end of these churches to the other. Outside, at the west end, many Romanesque churches had three portals, or doorways. The central one was the main entrance to the church and was much taller and wider than the other two.
Along the sides of the portals were columns with sculpted biblical scenes. Above each portal was a tympanum, a half circle filled with figures that usually depicted a major event in the life of Christ (Cantor 54). During the 12th and 13th centuries people began to want lighter, more soaring church buildings. These ideas led to the style called Gothic. Churches built in the Gothic style are higher and more compact than Romanesque churches, and they appear lighter even though they are not. Gothic churches use pointed arches rather than round ones, making their vaults seem to soar.
Their windows, also pointed, open up to give more light. Stained glass gives the light a jewel-like glow. Unlike Romanesque churches, Gothic churches do not have walls that bear the weight of the vault. This job is done by the flying buttresses, arches outside the church that evenly distribute the vault’s weight and carry it to the ground. Thus the inside of a Gothic church looks delicate, with light shining through huge windows and without the imposing walls of Romanesque churches, but the outside of a Gothic church looks like a porcupine bristling with flying buttresses.
Even the stained glass looks gray and massive from the outside. In this way Gothic churches express a mystery. On the outside they give no hint of what they will look like within. The churchmen and architects who designed and built these churches intended these buildings to express still another mysterythe wonder of God. Suger, the abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis, got the idea for such a church from the writings of a Christian mystic who went by the name of Dionysus and who wrote at the beginning of the 6th century. Dionysus taught that God was the “Divine light,” the source of all things seen.
Suger built his church so that the light streaming through the sacred stories depicted in his stained glass windows would act like this divine light. He wanted the light’s glow to illuminate the mind of the worshiper and lead him or her to God. The Gothic church building itself was meant to be part of the religious experience (Cantor 65). The Gothic style became popular for city churches, especially large cathedrals. It was first adopted by the cities in the region around Paris, and later cities in the rest of France, England, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, and even central Europe began building cathedrals in the Gothic style.
Since Gothic churches were enormously expensive and took yearssometimes centuriesto build, they were always community enterprises. City guilds raised money to help build them. Some guilds even paid for their own stained glass windows. In turn, church construction created new jobs for city carpenters, stonemasons, glasscutters, and many other workers (About 3) The horrible diseases that struck Europe couldn’t have come at a worse time. Already weakened by continued food shortages, the people of Europe were hit especially hard by the arrival of the Black Death.
The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague that appeared in Italy in 1348 and spread to the rest of Europe by 1350. Due to the fact that fleas carried by rodents transmitted the plague, it was worst in the cities, where many people lived close together and sanitation was poor (Cantor 23). In some cities, the plague killed as many as two-thirds of the population. Every social group suffered, but the rural population and the wealthy, who had less contact with outsiders and who could afford to move to more secluded areas outside the cities, escaped the worst effects.
Outbreaks of plague continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century. The survivors of the plague had to adjust to new conditions. So many people died that a labor shortage developed. Those who remained tried to bargain for more land and better conditions. City workers also demanded higher pay. While these negotiations were successful in some areas, in others lords and kings were able to maintain the status quo (About 2). In England peasants tried to take advantage of the favorable new conditions for workers after the plague, but landlords refused to lower rents or raise wages.
In 1381 various groups of peasants joined together to protest taxes and to argue for more equal treatment. English king Richard II met with the rebels and agreed to their demands. As soon as they dispersed, however, he went back on his promise, and many of the peasants were executed. Nevertheless, the king was unable to prevent the changes started by the plague from continuing, and serfdom ended in England in the 15th century. Because the plague destroyed people and not possessions, the drop in population was accompanied by a corresponding increase in per capita wealth.
A new type of consumer, who preferred variety and luxury, began to appear in both the towns and the countryside. People who were unsure if they would be alive the next day wanted to spend their money on fine foods and luxuries. Many lords and wealthy merchants built churches and commissioned religious art, partly in thanks for being spared the horrors of the Black Death. Some of the artistic styles that developed in this period were very influential later during the Renaissance. Some historians suggest that people who invested in culture in hard times financed the Renaissance (Rice 67).
The impact of Christianity, the fantastic architecture, and the horrible diseases that spread throughout Europe all contribute to the history of the Middle Ages. They helped shape one of the greatest periods in history. The Middle Ages will always be remembered as a time of great accomplishments and horrible struggles. The great architecture still stands today, while the literary works are continuously studied and reflected upon. The Black Death still remains one of the most devastating epidemics that the world has ever seen. The Middle Ages were truly a great period in Europe’s history.
