ART AND CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

1. Visual Arts

a. Gothic architecturei. Greatest examples of religious feelings

were found in churchesii. Built in the Gothic style

1. Churches were taller and brighter than earlier churches

iii. Advances in engineering1. Flying Buttress

a. Most important advanceb. New type of supportc. Supported church was from outside

i. Allowed for higher ceilingsii. Will give church a more airy feeling

d. Allowed for larger windowsi. Churches hire artists to create stain glass

windowsii. Showed scenes from the Bible or depicted lives

of the saints

iv. Churches were decorated inside and out1. Exterior

a. Had statues of saints, kings and figures of the old testament

b. Gargoylesi. Craved in the

likeness of hideous beasts and served as water spouts to drain water from the roof

2. Interiorsa. Number of decorative elements

i. Murals were used to depict religious scenesii. Candleholders, crosses and statues were

decorated with gold and precious stones

b. Illuminationi. Process of

decorating manuscripts with pictures and designs

1. One common technique was to decorate the first letter on the page

c. Tapestryi. Large woven hangingsii. Hung in castles to prevent draftsiii. Showed scenes of daily life or fantastic

creatures like dragons or unicorns

2. Literature

a. Religious Textsi. Create all sorts of

works, from sermons about how people should live to interpretations of passages from the Bible

ii. Hildegard of Bingen1. A nun and medieval

poet2. Wrote dozens of

poems and music to accompany them

3. Wrote in Latin

b. Epics and Romancesi. Long poems that tell stories of heroes

and villainsii. Works differ in their subject matteriii. Often performed by wandering singers

called troubadoursiv. These poems were written in the

vernacular (common language)

c. Major Worksi. 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 Alighieri1. He wrote The Devine

Comedya. 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. Alchemyi. People began to conduct experimentsii. Practiced an early form of chemistry

called alchemyiii. Gained practical experience in chemical

reactions

b. Universitiesi. Helped increase the flow of Greek

learning into Europeii. Liberal arts

1. Study of Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music

iii. Also taught theology, medicine and law

c. Thomas Aquinasi. Taught at the

University of Parisii. 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

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/building-gothic-cathedrals.html