The Middle Ages. Учебное пособие

said that individuals must study the Bible and live Christ-like lives devoted to poverty, prayer, and preaching.

To the Church, Cathars were heretics for questioning the nature of the God, and Waldensians were heretics for believing that they could preach the Gospels. The Church clergy alone, the Papacy insisted, could lead men to salvation. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215, called by Pope Innocent III), declared that salvation came only through sacraments administered by the Church. The council said that the two most important sacraments were the Eucharist and penance (confession), which required the priest as intermediary. So the 1215 Council established a clear set of dogma defining the only acceptable forms of (Catholic) Christian worship.

Ex. 9. Translate the texts.

А. Эпоха Средневековья характеризуется исключительно сильной ролью церкви и высокой степенью идеологизации общества. Монополизировав в обществе культуру, науку, грамотность, церковь обладала огромными ресурсами, подчинявшими ей человека феодальной эпохи. По мнению современного историка Бишока, церковь «была больше чем основа средневековой культуры, она была самой средневековой культурой». Христианство стало важнейшим фактором европейской культурной общности, именно в средние века оно превратилось в одну из мировых религий. Христианская церковь, ее централизация, иерархия и богатство, ее миропонимание, право, этика и мораль — создали единую феодальную идеологию. Христианство в значительной мере и определило отличие европейской средневековой цивилизации от цивилизаций других континентов той же эпохи.

В. Оформление жестко централизованной католической церкви означало лишь создание силы, готовой преследовать инакомыслие. Не менее важно, что эта готовность получала достаточно активное содействие со стороны государственной власти. Она не раз конфликтовала с церковью, но, как правило, не по вопросам борьбы с ересями. Американский религиовед Б. Тьерни отмечает: «В той ситуации, когда единая религия определяла весь образ жизни общества, её отвержение было равнозначно разрыву всяческих отношений со своим сообществом и превращению в некоего изгоя, опасного с точки зрения средневекового человека».

Ex. 10. Fill in the blanks with appropriate words derived from the ones given in brackets.

With the ___________ (convert) of much of England in the sixth and seventh centuries, there was an _____________ (explode) of local church building. English

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monasteries formed the main basis for the church and were often sponsored by local

__________ (rule). Cathedrals were constructed, staffed either with secular canons in the ____________(Europe) tradition or, uniquely to England, chapters of monks. These institutions were _________ (bad) affected in the ninth century by Viking raids and predatory ____________ (annex) by the ________ (noble). By the start of the tenth century, monastic lands, ___________ (finance) resources and the quality of monasteries’ __________ (religion) work had been much diminished.

Ex. 11. Translate the texts and give the principal idea of them.

A.The Roman Catholic Church was the supreme power during the Middle Ages. It was the stabilizing force in everyday life which kept the community framework together. The laws and rules of the land, public policies and governance of the people were all affected by religion during the Middle Ages. Any attempt at threatening Christianity by other religions was met with force and all measures were taken to spread the religion in other parts of the world. The society was superstitious and ignorant and believed in what the religious institutions taught them.

Islam was also shaping up in this era with a wide spread in the religion during this period. Many territories were fought and won in the name of religion. Judaism, which had many setbacks towards the end of the middle ages, also survived the ordeal. Many other small religions also came up in various parts of the world shaping societies. The arts, architecture and teachings of this era bear testimony to this fact.

B.The High Middle Ages was a period of great religious movements. The Crusades had an undeniable religious aspect. Monastic reform was similarly a religious movement effected by monks and elites. Other groups sought to participate in new forms of religious life. Landed elites financed the construction of new parish churches in the European countryside, which increased the Church’s impact upon the daily lives of peasants. Cathedral canons adopted monastic rules, groups of peasants and laypeople abandoned their possessions to live like the Apostles, and people formulated ideas about their religion that were deemed heretical. Although the success of the twelfth century papacy in fashioning a Church that progressively affected the daily lives of everyday people cannot be denied, there are still indicators that the tail could wag the dog.

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ADDITIONAL READING

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by Flocel Sabaté

Thus, the Church guaranteed the worldview, supported the social order and directly influenced the values and fears that guided every-day existence. The fact that

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Christianity is based on books of holy wisdom implies a need for a proper philosophical framework to interpret these. Thus, the progressive weight of stoicism, neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism fashioned the image of medieval Christianity at the start of the Middle Ages, the Early Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages respectively. The transitions were highly significant. Thus, the divide between spiritualists and realists at the end of the 13th century and start of the 14th clearly shows two orientations rooted in philosophical postures. Olivi makes this clear when clinging to a visionary and spiritual Christianity, instead of accepting the influence of a pagan like Aristotle, which he was convincingly opposed to.

In reality, the strengthening of Aristotelian realism contributed to a reinforcement of the confidence that the Church was acquiring through the so-called Gregorian reform at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th centuries. Thus, the coexistence between Muslims and Christians that had characterised the 11th century in the Iberian Peninsula, with the northern Christian kingdoms and counties maintaining diplomatic and political links with the neighbouring Muslim taifes, broke down under the new dictates of the reformed Church.

In the progressive demonisation of the adversary, the explicit aim of the struggle was to fight the infidel. This was a religious, and even spiritual, assumption of armed combat, and was reflected at the outer geographic limits of Christianity, where religion, otherness, feudalism and frontier mixed.

The same treatment given to the infidel should be meted out to the heretic. This was emphasised in the second half of the 12th century, a time of tension caused by the spread of the Cathars in Occitania, thus focusing on social groups inassimilable for the official Christianity.

At the same time, Christianity was adapting to the new intellectual stimuli inherent in the contemporary economic and urban growth, just when a wider vision of the role of humans and their social structure was being sought.

In this context, the predominant introduction of realist thought, instead of neoplatonic idealism, avoided the dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit that had presided over early medieval Christianity and established a relation with the world from a teleological perspective.

Moving away from the earlier mistrust, Christianity now understood that everything in Creation was good, whether these be expressions of the flesh or any element of Creation, as long as they were used appropriately regarding the purpose for which God had created them. Knowledge of divine will, derived from the study of the Christian message as transmitted by the Church, generated confidence in all of Creation. The other inherent and logical side of this same security was the growth of intolerance towards everything that went against the divine will. Sexuality, for

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example, was now interpreted as good if it fulfilled the purpose for which God had created it, namely procreation. In contrast, it was abominable

when it went against this purpose, as was the case of male homosexuality, which thus came to merit the worst and most ignominious of punishments.

In fact, if one knew what annoyed God, this should be avoided, precisely to escape the expressions of his wrath. The succession of bad harvests and natural adversities during the 14th century were interpreted as a clear display of divine wrath. So, once these had occurred, action was taken, so que Déus per la sua mercè nos vuylle aquesta mal temps levar. The causes attributed to the punishment meted out by God tended to be similar. Thus, if these individual sins could unleash divine wrath over society as a whole, the authorities should act to curtail them.

This is the perception of danger with which the inassimilable otherness was regarded. This religious atmosphere could not fail to have a direct influence on popular attitudes and, very importantly, the municipal by laws that limited the activities and even the visibility of the inassimilable minorities, especially the Jews living in towns and cities that were, by definition, Christian.

Jews everywhere were forced to live under worsening conditions, ever more restricted and marginalised socially and health-wise. This process culminated with their expulsion from various European territories at different times. In fact, if the unity of society was to be achieved following the Christian dictate under the fear of God, the Jews were the best example of a minority that was not only inassimilable but also even an enemy of God, who they had attempted to murder with the crucifixion of Christ, an accusation the Christians often used as an insult against the Jewish population.

The evangelic mandate was that the world at the end of time should be one single flock. Thus, the inability to bring the inassimilable minorities closer could become a serious breach of this divine mandate. This was believed especially as there were many events interpreted as heralding the approach of the end of time, as was increasingly spread through the Joachimite ideas which continued to extend from the end of the 12th century.

Thus, the 13th century was a time of attempts to convert the so-called infidels. However, given the duty to unify the faith within a relatively short time span, the question should be considered as Roger Bacon formulated it: it is possible to

envisage the return of the Greek Church, the conversion of the Tartars, but there may be some, like the Muslims, who do not agree with conversion, thus leaving no other option than their destruction.

Accordingly, if the enemies of the faith could not be assimilated, they had to be marginalised and destroyed to enable society to reach the end of time united. The unifying of society under the Christian dictate, jointly with the fear of an

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anthropomorphised God, led to an inability to tolerate inassimilable minorities and an increasingly Redemptorist religious experience. This had to facilitate personal conversions towards more rigorist customs and a reform of ecclesiastical practices and attitudes, all tinged with anxiety provoked by the conviction that the end of time was nigh.

These stimuli led to a search for new horizons under the fear that the end of time was approaching, with all that it meant being widely announced around the Antichrist. It is understandable, then, that at the end of the 15th century and beginning the 16th, the fear of the end of the world and the discovery of the New World merged into the religious attitude that was taking shape on the new continent, in an agonic and contradictory dynamic that lasted until 1585, just when the religious tensions in Europe hatched a new reality.

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Unit 9

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“Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.”

Robert Anton Wilson

THE CRUSADES

The Crusades were a series of wars by Western European Christians to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Crusades began in 1095 and ended in the midor late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally applied solely to European efforts to retake from the Muslims the city of Jerusalem, which was sacred to Christians as the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was later used to designate any military effort by Europeans against non-Christians.

The Crusaders carved out feudal states in the Near East. Thus the Crusades are an important early part of the story of European expansion and colonialism. They mark the first time Western Christendom undertook a military initiative far from home, the first time significant numbers left to carry their culture and religion abroad.

In addition to the campaigns in the East, the Crusading movement includes other wars against Muslims, pagans, and dissident Christians and the general expansion of Christian Europe. In a broad sense the Crusades were an expression of militant Christianity and European expansion. They combined religious interests with secular and military enterprises. Christians learned to live in different cultures, which they learned and absorbed; they also imposed something of their own characteristics on these cultures. The Crusades strongly affected the imagination and aspirations of people at the time, and to this day they are among the most famous chapters of medieval history.

Ex. 1. Answer the questions.

1.What is meant by the word “the Crusades”?

2.What was the term Crusade originally applied solely to?

3.What was this term later used for?

4.The Crusades were an important early part of the story of European expansion and colonialism, weren’t they?

5.What did the Crusades mean?

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6.Did the Crusading movement include other wars?

7.What were the Crusades in a broad sense?

8.What did the Crusades affect?

Ex. 2. Give the appropriate Russian variant of the words and expressions given below.

1.Holy Land

2.to recapture

3.to be sacred

4.military effort

5.designate

6.undertook a military initiative

7.significant

8.campaign

9.secular and military enterprises

10.impose

11.affect the imagination and aspirations

Ex. 3. Find the synonyms.

Ex. 4. Give the proper translation of the sentences paying attention to the words in bold.

1.The inhabitants have voted overwhelmingly to restore the city’s original name of Chemnitz.

2.Alexius Comnenus resolved to combine Christian Europe, if possible, in a war of extermination against the Turks.

3.No regional crisis has greater potential to affect world peace than that conflict.

4.The Trivium was the real basis of the secular education of the period.

5.The papers left with me do not designate the regiment to which he belongs.

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6.Necessarily the effort to do it consists in a prophecy of consequences.

7.The partition of Africa was designed for the expansion of European markets.

8.The majority of these gems were mounted as rings or as seals of secular and ecclesiastical personages of rank.

9.An inclusive global order must combine economic growth with social development.

10.Solely an armed attack — as distinct from any use of force that is below that threshold — justifies self-defence in response.

11.On the other hand, one might get a great result with no effort at all.

12.Poverty itself is a barrier to risk-taking and enterprise.

13.Yet significant risks existed that called for judicious policies in the largest industrialized countries.

Ex. 5. Combine the letters into the 12 words covering the text.

Ex. 6. Fill in the blanks with appropriate words from the box below.

Numerous social, religious and ……………… factors contributed to the launch of the ………………, but primary among these was Europe’s growing capacity for ………………. Having recently recovered from the ………………, the nations of Europe were able to launch large-scale ………………action for the first time in centuries. European nations had endured several massive ………………from

outside forces. Casualties from these invasions kept the……………… of landowning nobility down. However, after the invasions were repelled, there were more

……………… than there was land to support them. A need to ……………… their territory and acquire more land caused many ……………… to support the Crusades. Ex. 7. Write the summary of the texts.

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A.The Crusades were a series of holy wars fueled by two major causes: the Pope’s desire to expand the Holy Roman Empire and the reclamation of the Holy Land. In the 11th century, Christians and Muslims were at odds over the ownership of Jerusalem, a holy site for both Christianity and Islam. The Crusades officially began in the year 1095 after Pope Urban II called for Christians to reclaim Jerusalem. There were eight Crusades in total, and although the reasons for the initiation of each Crusade varied slightly, the overarching themes remained essentially the same. The Pope sought to unite Christians across the continent, and he chose the popular idea of reclaiming the Holy Land as his rallying cause. Although not as frequently cited, the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire was a far more pressing motivation for the Crusades among the political and religious leaders of the day. The wars continued over a period of 200 years throughout the Middle Ages as the empire continued to expand

B.One result of the Crusades was a major shift in the way that the European economy and political attitudes were structured during the 1100s and 1200s. Not only did these conflicts lead to a growing complicity between church and state, but opening the door to the Muslim world also led to shifts in the European economy that would open the door to new wealth. Taking large armies from Europe all the way to the Holy Land required a massive supply line including outposts in the Middle East. The Italian cities of Venice and Genoa flourished by setting up lucrative colonies for trade in the Holy Land as well as parts of the Byzantine Empire that the Crusaders ended up capturing.

Ex. 8. Fill in the blanks with appropriate words derived from the ones given in brackets.

Before the Crusades, the church in the West, as well as the people, took a dim view of __________ (war). However, the calling of crusades indelibly linked the church with __________ (violent), and the necessary __________ (ally) that formed as a result brought religious and political ___________ (lead) into alliances that would not always be healthy. While the Crusades did elevate the prestige and influence of the pope, they also created the precedent of confiscating ___________ (possess) and lands from non-__________ (believe) simply on ___________ (religion) grounds, and using local resources to fund faraway wars stunted ___________ (develop) in Europe.

Ex. 9. Fill in proper prepositions.

The Crusades began …… 1095 and ended …… the midor late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally applied solely …… European efforts to retake from the

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Muslims the city of Jerusalem, which was sacred to Christians. It was later used …… designate any military effort by Europeans against non-Christians.

The Crusaders are an important early part …… the story of European expansion and colonialism. They mark the first time Western Christendom undertook a military initiative far …… home, the first time significant numbers left to carry their culture and religion abroad.

…… addition to the campaigns in the East, the Crusading movement includes other wars …… Muslims, pagans, and dissident Christians and the general expansion of Christian Europe.

Ex. 10. Read the Crusades timeline and find some additional information.

The word “crusade” literally means “going to the Cross”. Hence the idea at the time was to urge Christian warriors to go to Palestine and free Jerusalem and other holy places from Muslim domination. The first crusade was a grand success for the Christian armies; Jerusalem and other cities fell to the knights. The second crusade, however, ended in humiliation in 1148, when the armies of France and Germany failed to take Damascus. The third ended in 1192 in a compromise between English king Richard the Lion-Hearted of England and the Muslim leader Saladin, who granted access to Christians to the holy places. The fourth crusade led to the sacking of Constantinople, where a Latin Kingdom of Byzantium was set up in 1204 and lasted for about 60 years. The Children’s Crusade of 1212 ended with thousands of children being sold into slavery, lost, or killed. Other less disastrous but equally futile crusades occurred until nearly the end of the 13th century. The last Latin outpost in the Muslim world fell in 1291.

Ex. 11. Translate the text.

Крестовые походы (1095–1291) — ряд военных походов на Ближний Восток, предпринятых западноевропейскими христианами для того, чтобы освободить Святую Землю от мусульман. Крестовые походы явились важнейшим этапом в истории Средневековья. В них были вовлечены все социальные слои западноевропейского общества: короли и простолюдины, высшая феодальная знать и духовенство, рыцари и слуги. Люди, принимавшие обет крестоносца, имели разные мотивы: одни стремились обогатиться, других влекла жажда приключений, третьи были движимы исключительно религиозными чувствами. Термин впервые был употреблен историком Мембуром в 1675 г. Название происходит от обыкновения участников похода нашивать на одежду красные нагрудные кресты; при возвращении из похода знаки креста нашивались на

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