Chapter 12 lesson 3

How did the Church influence political and cultural changes in medieval Europe?

How did both innovations and disruptive forces affect people during the Middle Ages?

The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a dramatic building of churches in Europe. These cathedrals were built in the Romanesque style. Romanesque churches normally followed the basilica shape of churches built in the late Roman Empire. 

A new style, called Gothic, appeared in the twelfth century and was brought to perfection in the thirteenth. The Gothic cathedral remains one of the greatest artistic triumphs of the High Middle Ages. Two basic innovations made Gothic cathedrals possible.

One innovation was the replacement of the round barrel vault with a combination of ribbed vaults and pointed arches. Builders could now make Gothic churches higher, giving a sense of upward movement, as if the building is reaching to God.

Another technical innovation was the flying buttress—a heavy, arched support of stone built onto the outside of the walls.

Flying buttresses made it possible to distribute the weight of the church's vaulted ceilings outward and down. This eliminated the heavy walls needed in Romanesque churches to hold the weight of the massive barrel vaults

These windows depict religious scenes and scenes from daily life. The colored glass windows create a play of light inside the cathedral that varies with the sun at different times of the day. The Gothic cathedral, with its towers soaring toward heaven, bears witness to an age when most people believed in a spiritual world. 

The university of today, with faculty, students, and degrees, was a product of the High Middle Ages. The word university comes from the Latin word universitas, meaning "corporation" or "guild."

The first European university appeared in Bologna (buh • LOH • nyuh), Italy. Students, men only, came from all parts of Europe to learn law from the great teacher Irnerius. 

The University of Paris was the first university in northern Europe. In the late 1300s, many students and masters (teachers) left Paris and started a university at Oxford, England. Kings, popes, and princes thought it was honorable to found universities. By 1500, Europe had 80 universities.

Students began their studies with the traditional liberal arts—grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Teachers lectured by reading from a basic text and adding explanations. After four to six years, students took oral examinations to earn a bachelor of arts degree and later a master of arts. After about ten more years, students earned a doctor of law, medicine, or theology.

The most highly regarded subject was theology—the study of religion and God. The study of theology was strongly influenced by a philosophical system known as scholasticism. Scholasticism tried to reconcile faith and reason—to show that faith was in harmony with reason

The chief task was to harmonize Christian teachings with the works of the Greek philosophers. Aristotle reached his conclusions by rational thought, not by faith, and his ideas sometimes contradicted Church teachings

In the Proslogion, Anselm of Canterbury, a monastic theologian, made one of the first attempts in the eleventh century to demonstrate how the truths of faith are compatible with reason. In fact, Anselm made an argument to prove by reason the existence of God.

In the 1200s, Thomas Aquinasmade the most famous attempt to reconcile Aristotle with the doctrines of Christianity. Aquinas is best known for his Summa Theologica . His masterpiece followed a logical method of scholarly investigation. Aquinas first posed a question such as, "Does God exist?" He then cited opposing opinions before coming to his own conclusions.

In the late 1260s, at the request of Pope Clement IV, the English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote Opus Majus, an encyclopedia advocating a reformation of all sciences, including logic, mathematics, physics, experimentation, and philosophy. Bacon emphasized the importance of mathematics for the study of philosophy.

Latin was the universal language of medieval civilization. However, in the twelfth century, much new literature was being written in the vernacular— the language of everyday speech in a particular region, such as Spanish, French, English, or German.

The most popular vernacular literature of the twelfth century was troubadour poetry, which was chiefly the product of nobles and knights. This poetry told of the love of a knight for a lady, who inspires him to become a braver knight and a better poet.

Another type of vernacular literature was known as the chanson de geste, or heroic epic. The earliest and finest example of such literature is The Song of Roland, which appeared around 1100 and was written in French. The chief events described in heroic epic poems are battles in which knights fight courageously for their kings and lords. 

 the English author Geoffrey Chaucer used the English vernacular in his famous work The Canterbury Tales. This work consists of a collection of stories told by a group of 29 pilgrims, representing a range of English society, as they journeyed to the tomb of Saint Thomas á Becket at Canterbury, England.