The Middle Ages Charlemagne

• The Middle Ages was the period of • King of the Franks

European history between 500AD and • First Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
1500AD. 800
• Could not read
• Other names for this period include the Dark • Encouraged scholarship, education,
Ages and the Age of Religion. exploration, innovation, & architecture
• The most common name for this period is • Development of writing in Latin
the Medieval Period. • Opened schools
• Died in 814
• ‘Medieval’ is the Latin term for the ‘Middle
Ages’ (it comes from same word that gave High Middle Ages A.D 900-1300
us Median in Mathematics) • Medieval Drama
Dark Age • Feudalism is main system of economy and
authority
• After the collapse of the Roman Empire • Classical Greek and Roman texts
Europe entered a dark age rediscovered
• Cathedrals are built
• Trade disrupted
• New Philosophy and scientific methods
• Cities declined revolutionize medieval thought
• Most literature written during this time (A.D.
• Common language lost 1100-1300)
• Germanic tribes-controlled Europe Feudalism
• People owed loyalty to family and rulers not • After the death of Charlemagne Europe was
states or law codes ruled by nobles (kings)
• Large territories were difficult to control • Pyramid system that served as:
o Economic system
o Military system
o Social System
The 3 Estates in the Middle Ages
• Warfare was common
Clergy - Latin chiefly spoken, those who pray, • Epics
purpose was to save everyone’s soul • Romance (chivalry)
• Saint’s tales
Nobles - French chiefly spoken, those who fight,
purpose was to protect - allow for all to work in
peace and provide justice
Commoners - English spoken, those who work,
purpose was to feed and clothe all above them

Early Middle Ages A.D 500-900

 Christian church is dominant power in
Europe
 Most Literature was oral
 Stories told through music
 Rise of Christian literature
- heroic Saints
 Charlemagne is first emperor of the new
Holy Roman Empire
Late Middle Ages A.D 1300-1500
 Feudal system begins to weaken
 Church has internal division
 Babylonian captivity
 John Wycliffe urges church reforms in
England
 Black Death ravages Europe (A.D. 1374)
 Many schisms: corruption and internal
arguments (church splits)
 Crusades
Black Death
 Also called the Bubonic Plague
 One of the deadliest pandemics in history
 Killed an estimated 20-50 million people in
Europe
 Increased prejudice of Jews, Muslims and
Lepers
 Modern scientist believe it was spread by
rats and Fleas
Crusades
 A.D. 1096-1270
 Christian church attempted to reign the Holy
Land
 Opened trade routes to the East
 Accelerated development of villages and
cities
Literature in the Middle Ages
 Low literacy rate
o distributed orally (Beowulf and
Nibelungenlied)
o Epics: long narrative poem about a
hero
 Church discouraged literacy
o strict control over knowledge and
education
 Scriptures translated into Latin (Saint
Jerome)
 Charlemagne encouraged literacy and
innovation
 Saint Augustine
 Beowulf is written down (700)
 Medieval drama
 Dante – Divine Comedy
 Chaucer – Canterbury Tales
 Sir Thomas Malory – Morte d’ Arthur
 Trouveres: French poets
o Chasons de geste: “songs of heroic
deeds”
 Chivalry: “chevalier”a military code of
behavior
o Fair to opponents, loyal to Lord,
honorable in all things
o Helped to civilize brutal Middle Ages
 Medieval Romances & Courtly
o love deeds performed on behalf of a
beautiful lady
 Troubadours: French poet-musicians
o Light, graceful lyrics on theme of
courtly love
o Lai: “song”…short stories with fairy-
tale elements
Characteristics of Medieval Literature
Romance
 A narrative in prose or verse that tells of the
high adventures and heroic exploits of
chivalric heroes
o Tells of exploits of knights
o often a supernatural element
involved
Christian Message
 concern with salvation and the world to
come
 no interest in social change, only spiritual
change
o This was true until the late 14th century
o Geffrey Chaucer and Dante Alighieri
signal new thinking, try up-ending
social order
Heroism
• from both Germanic and Christian traditions,
sometimes mingled
o Beowulf
o Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
o Song of Roland
o The Nieblungenlied
Presentations of Idealized Behavior
• literature as moral lesson
o loyalty to king
o chivalry
Use of Kennings
• A figurative, usually compound expression
used in place of a name or noun. Example,
storm of swords is a kenning for battle
Works of Literature
Beowulf
the longest epic poem in Old English, the language
spoken in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman
Conquest. More than 3,000 lines long, Beowulf
relates the exploits of its eponymous hero, and his
successive battles with a monster named Grendel,
with Grendel’s revengeful mother and with a dragon
which was guarding a hoard of treasure.
Le Morte Darthur
Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (The Death of
Arthur), which describes the legendary court of
King Arthur, is one of the great explorations of the
culture of chivalry. It depicts a world of courtesy,
duty and obligation, but it also exposes the dark
underbelly of this same culture.
Piers Plowman
The famous late medieval dream vision Piers
Plowman opens in summer, in the Malvern Hills in
the West Midlands region of England. The narrator
is weary from wandering and he falls asleep beside
a stream. He has ‘a merveillous swevene’ [‘a
marvellous dream’] in which he sees a ‘fair feeld ful
of folk’ [‘a fair field full of folk’].
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight is considered one of the masterpieces of
Middle English literature – a story of knightly deeds,
sexual enticement and wild landscapes. It was
composed in the West Midlands region of Britain at
the end of the 14th century.
The Book of the City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies
(La Cité des Dames) is one of the texts written
during the ‘Querelle du Roman de la Rose’ (the
debate over The Romance of the Rose). The Book
of the City of Ladies is framed as a ‘dream-vision’.
In it, the narrator describes how she was sitting in
her study reading The Lamentations of Matheolus,
a 13th-century tirade against women and marriage.
The Canterbury Tales
Tells the story of a group of 31 pilgrims who meet
while travelling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to
the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. To
pass the time on the journey, they decide to each
tell two tales to the assembled company on the
journey there and the journey home.
The Owl and the Nightingale
The poem describes a debate between two birds
overheard by a narrator – the scenario is a
humorous piece of avian mud-slinging as the birds
quarrel, not always good-naturedly. The text is
characterised by its comic exuberance and
colloquial language.
The Renaissance
Renaissance
 Is a French word meaning “rebirth”
 Begun in Florence, Italy
Medici Family – first attained wealth and political
power in Florence Italy
Renaissance Art – painting, sculpture,
architecture, music, and literature produced during
the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries in Europe
 Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
 The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
 The Last Judgement by Michelangelo
 Primavera by Sandro Botticelli
Famous Renaissance Artists, Scientists, and
Writers
Leonardo da Vinci – Italian painter, architect, and
Inventor
 Mona Lisa
 The Last Supper
Desiderius Erasmus – who defined the humanist
movement in Northern Europe
Rene Descartes – French philosopher and
mathematician. Famous for stating “I think;
therefore, I am”
Galileo – Italian astronomer, physicist and
engineer
Nicolaus Copernicus – mathematician and
astronomer
Thomas Hobbes – English philosopher and author
of “Leviathan”
Geoffrey Chaucer – English poet and Author of
The Canterbury Tales
Giotto – Italian painter and Architect
Dante – Italian philosopher, poet, writer and
political thinker
Niccolo Machiavelli – Italian diplomat and
philosopher famous for writing “The Prince” and
“The Discourses on Livy.”
Titian – Italian painter celebrated for his portraits of
Pope Paul III
William Tyndale – English biblical translator,
humanist, and scholar
William Byrd – English composer known for his
development of the English madrigal & his religious
organ music
John Milton – English poet and historian who
wrote the epic poem “Paradise Lost”
William Shakespeare – England’s “national poet”
& most famous playwright of all time, celebrated for
his sonnets and plays like “Romeo and Juliet”
Donatello – Italian sculptor celebrated for lifelike
sculptures like “David” commissioned by the Medici
family
Sandro Botticelli – Italian painter of “Birth of
Venus”
Raphael – Italian painter. Best known for his
paintings of the Madonna and “The School of
Athens”
Michael Angelo – Italian sculptor, painter, and
architect
 David
 The Sistine Chapel in Rome