Finding a way through the Darkness - Thoughts on the perceptions of the Middle Ages

It has long been disproven that the lives of those in middle ages were ‘Nasty Brutish and Short’ as said by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan, indeed those who study the Middle ages in fact know that it was a time of learning, of beauty and of culture.

The knowledge of the classics held sway through the intellectual community, and even King Henry II was hailed as the Alexander of the West after cementing his conglomeration of territories together when he became King in 1154.  The glories of the past were known to those in the middle ages, and ultimately whether those who lived through these times wanted to recreate the glories of the past or surpass them remains to debate.

What I believe is the greatest injustice in understanding of the middle ages stems from its position between the classical era and the renaissance and enlightenment. The distant past is always seen as sweeping and grandiose, with the ascendant Roman Empire driving the darkness of ignorance back with learning and bureaucracy bringing order to the barbarian chaos surrounding the Roman lands. Henceforth, the Enlightenment looks poorly on the time between their present and the ancient glories, the years of church supremacy and lack of scientific development overlooked to present an enhanced image of the achievements of the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

What is overlooked though is the experience and understanding of those of the middle ages, those people who drove the advances and allowed for the renaissance to happen, those who safeguarded the learning of the past, those who understood it, built on it and developed it.  For it if it was the purpose of the rulers and scholars of the middle ages to mimic the glories of the past, then I would say many succeeded in a limited way and many more failed, but the true development of the middle ages was the use of the past to begin the formation of  individualised identities for the kingdoms descendent from Rome and for scholars to broaden their horizons accordingly.

King Henry II was said to hold a court of learning, each morning was described as time for discussion and learning, although the afternoon was for fun and frivolity. The greatest scholars of the age circled the court of King Henry II, with tutors and physicians from as far afield as Sicily being recorded on the rolls of the court. The investiture conflicts between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperors speaks of a conflict very much about the nature of power in Christendom rather than for actual control of land or territory.  The Sicilian court under the Norman dynasty was seen as the crossroads for learning in Europe with a vibrant mix of Christian, Islamic, Judaic and Greek scholars all present, creating a mixing pot of culture and learning that influence the works and understanding of the medieval mind.

What fascinates me, however, is the medieval idea of their place in the world, medieval maps act as encyclopaedias and histories of what has gone before. The strange creatures that inhabit the edges of the work are those referenced in the voyages of Pliny and the strange and fantastical creatures found in the Old and New Testaments. Strange creatures of humanoid shape but of monstrous character populate the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, of the Caucasus and the eastern lands beyond scope of Christianity.  For all though this wasn’t a dull and ignorant age it was still an age of discovery, places that had never been conquered by the Romans, and the lands beyond Alexander’s great Empire where still beyond understanding, as even the Islamic scholars who travelled the lands to the North and East still spoke of unimagined creatures and sights. This shows that in the middle ages there was an understanding of the past and that they were open to new discoveries, not as is often surmised that it was an age of ignorance, as portrayed by the scholars of the enlightenment.

Therefore, I believe the idea that the insular nature of the Middle Ages, is a misconception springing from the way that Medieval society was developing from the 11^th century onwards. As kingdoms and subsequently cultures were amalgamated and formed into the nation states we know today, there was a need for Kings and scholars to look inwards, to develop laws and social structures. To do this, there was a need to develop historical precedent for these changes. And I believe this is where we can see that places with stronger local identities were able to exist longer and more independently than those with more changeable cultural history and ties. Creating the myth of ignorance and stagnation, as there was no great single-minded empire controlling the Mediterranean basin, or European continent as there had been in antiquity.

Once the Angevin Empire[1] collapsed in the reign of King John, it was easier for the counties and duchies of central and southern France to return to normality as semi-independent vassals of the French King, free from the control of the more centralised Angevin power[2]. Perhaps conforming to the view of stagnation and lack of progress presented by later scholars. After all many feudal lords, did not want more centralised power from their liege lords, it suited them for their ruler to have a light touch; to squabble amongst themselves and build their own fiefdoms free of interference.

However, as England collapsed into a brief civil war at the end of the King John’s reign it still ultimately rejected the ascendance of a foreign prince to its throne in 1217, showing that there was a defined cultural separateness between the former Anglo-Norman nobility of England and the Capetian dynasty based in the Ile-de-France, despite their shared French culturalism. Going forward the development of English culture would not follow the European zeitgeist as closely, although it never more than a few steps distant from its French counterparts, for most of the 13^th and 14^th centuries.

As France and England developed, Germany never seemed to develop in a similar manner as the many local principalities continued to form a loose confederation behind the elected emperor, the centralisation occurring in France and England did not easily take hold in the German states. As the fledging nations of Europe took shape, or as in many cases continued to keep their local and traditional identities it can only be said that although the achievements of Rome, where never truly recreated  in the Middle Ages, stronger more lasting nations and identities where created. No longer was there the threat of Rome leaving, of a new dark age, as the Kingdoms that formed through the middle ages survive today, they have suffered massive upheavals and revolutions but remain. It is not easy being an age that is book ended by two periods that are often seen as greater, but in actuality it is the Middle Ages that carried the torch of antiquity, and that created the landscape needed for the renaissance and enlightenment.

Calum Campbell,

History Teacher &
MA in Renaissance and Medieval Studies, University of Liverpool

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[1] A 19^th century term of the lands held by the English kings in the 12^th Century

[2] However, Normandy had to be heavily garrisoned by Philip II Augustus’ forces for a considerable amount of time as Normandy was not a keen supporter of French royal ambitions by any means.