New Ways of Thinking in the Central Middle Ages

A central medieval Renaissance!

12th and 13th-century themes

• Bold attempts to gatherand systematize all knowledge in a field(law, theology, science)

• Certainty in a unified,closed, harmonioussystem

Medieval Cosmology: inherited from the Greeks, unified, harmonious

12th and 13th-century themes

• Transmission ofclassical learningand new ideasthrough sites ofMuslim, Jewish,and Christian contact

12th and 13th-century themes

• Renewed knowledge of and interest in classical Greek thought(especially Aristotle, 384 – 322 BCE)

Aristotle, the systematizer

12th and 13th-century themes

• Focused application ofreason and logic to theworld and to scripture

St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – 1109): Ontological proof of God

• By God we mean the greatest of all possible beings, the one being that it is impossible to conceive of anything else being greater than

• To exist in our minds alone, and not in reality, is a self-contradiction of the very definition of God

• Therefore such a being, since we can conceive of it, must exist in reality and not merely in our minds, for existing in reality is greater than existing only in our minds

Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142)wrote Sic et Non

Peter Lombard (1069 – 1164) Sentences (reconciles apparent contradictions in

reason/scripture)

Peter Lombard’s Sentencesinfluences 4th Lateran Council’s statement on the sacraments

The Debate over Universals:nominalism vs. realism

12th and 13th-century themes

• Focused application ofreason and logic to theworld and to scripture

• Optimistic sense ofthe attainability ofknowledge set forthby God for humanity

7 liberal artsTrivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic

Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music

Gratian’s Decretum (c.1140)The Concordance of Discordant Canons

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)Summa Theologica

Summa Theologica masterful synthesis reconciling Aristotle and Scripture through logic

12th and 13th-century themes

• Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relation-ships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world

12th and 13th-century themes

12th and 13th-century themes

• Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world

(Literature)

What different types of literature emerged in the central Middle Ages?

What themes does Marie de France(c. 1160 - ?) explore in her lais?

12th and 13th-century themes

• Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world

(Music)

12th and 13th-century themes

• Keen, innovative explorations of diverse relationships between humanbeings, each other, and the sensory world

(Art)

Giotto(1266 – 1337)

12th and 13th-century themes

• Bold attempts to gatherand systematize all knowledge in a field(law, theology, science)

• Certainty in a unified,closed, harmonioussystem

Dante

12th and 13th-century themes

• Simultaneous certainty inthe ‘magic’ or miraculousnature of God’s creation…mysticism as an alternativepath to the divine

The Egg of the Universe (Hildegard of Bingen)

12th and 13th-century themes

• Tensions, stress, culturalfractures will weaken these soaring, unified intellectual structures and modes of thoughtby c. 1300