RENAISSANCE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

Themes

• order and spirit
• renaissances

Environment and Development

• regionalism in "Christendom"
• western Europe: Holy Roman Empire (aka Germany), France, British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland), Iberia (Spain, Portugal), Italian city-states
• northern Europe (Scandinavia): Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland
• eastern Europe and the Balkans: Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria
• beyond: Crusader States; Russia; Byzantium, Ottoman Empire
• Early Middle Ages, circa 500-1000
• High Middle Ages, circa 1000-1300
• Late Middle Ages/the Renaissance, circa 1300-1500

European cultures

• Political order
  • "feudalism" versus centralization: Magna Carta
  • kings and popes
• economic and social
  • "fight, work, pray"
  • urban classes: guilds
  • marginalized groups:
  • women
• religion
  • monasticism: Mont St. Michel
  • saints and relics
  • pilgrimage and crusade: El Camino de Santiago; Holy Land
  • urban lay piety
  • mendicants: St. Francis 1182-1226 Canticle of the Sun; preaching to the birds
  • asceticism and mysticism: Julian of Norwich (1343-1413) Revelations of Divine Love

Renaissances

• renaissance=
• reform movements
• Education: faith and reason
  • early medieval: grammar
  • 12th century:
    • universities, scholasticism
    • Abelard and dialectic
    • Arabic and Jewish learning: recovery of Aristotle
    • Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274
  • late medieval and Italian Renaissance
    • nominalism
    • secularity, humanism, classicism, individualism
    • the "Renaissance man;" Palazzo *
    • rationalism: Machiavelli 1469-1527, Lorenzo Valla 1406-1457
    • the renaissance magus
• Literature and Books
  • court culture: lyric, romance, Arthurian literature
  • Illuminated Manuscripts
    • Celtic and Scandinavian styles: Lindau Book Cover *; Book of Kells
    • Carolingian: Gospel of John *; Christ as Judge, 8th cen. *; Charles the Bald, c. 845 *
    • Romanesque: 12th Century Eadwine Psalter; Louis IX * Peterborough Chronicle *
• Music and Architecture
  • monophonic and polyphonic. Gregorian chant; Hildegard of Bingen; Music of the 14th Century
  • Romanesque:
    • Bari cathedrals, Italy
    • Conques
    • Vezelay
    • St. Gilles-du-Gard
  • Gothic:
    • flying buttresses: Notre Dame, Paris
    • stained glass: Sainte Chapelle
    • sculpture: Bourges*; Rheims *; cathedral *
    • technology: Amiens Cathedral Tour
  • exteriority vs interiority:
    • Abbot Suger of St. Denis and Bernard of Clairvaux [Alt Suger On Administration; Bernard of Clairvaux Apology
    • St. Denis interiors
    • Cistercian interiors
  • castles:
    • Durham Cathedral and Castle Virtual Tour
    • Castles: Castles of Wales
• Italian Renaissance [ArtServe]
  • architecture: domes
  • religious perspectives: Raphael's Christ; Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
  • painting, secularism, and classicism: Raphael's School of Athens; Titian Venus and Adonis
  • sculpture and humanism: Donatello's David; Michelangelo's Dying Slave
  • perspective and worldview: Da Vinci 1452-1519, Last Supper

Conclusions and Comparisons

• the "western heritage"
• renaissance dynamics

Explore!

• Labyrinth (Central clearing house for medieval studies)
• ORB (Online Resource Book for medieval studies)
• Medieval Sourcebook
• NetSerf
• Periodical Historical Atlas
• Earthlore: Gothic Dreams (New Age?)

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