Medieval Arts and Literature

1
Medieval Arts and Literature
2
Music

• Gregorian Chant (Plainchant)
• Established by Pope Gregory I
• Method of enhancing worship
• Monophonic (single, unaccompanied melody line)
• Sung in unison
• One note for each syllable
• Highly conjunct (transitions)
• Subjects
• Psalms or other scriptures
• Accompany the mass

3
The Mass Presentation Order

• Proper (changed daily)
• Introit
• Collect
• Epistle
• Gradual
• Alleluia (or Tract)
• Evangelium
• Offertory
• Secret
• Preface
• Canon
• Communion
• Post-Communion

• Ordinary (fixed)
• Kyrie
• Gloria
• Credo
• Sanctus
• Agnus Dei
• Ite missa est

4
Beyond Plainchant

• Melisma (about 800 AD)
• Featured voices
• More than one note per syllable
• Monophonic
• Organum (about 1000 AD)
• Polyphonic (multiple melody lines)
• Cantus Firmus
• Same text (chants)
• Flourished at Notre Dame
• Perotin
• Motet (about 1200 AD)
• Non-religious
• Addition of words to music
• 2 or more melodies with their own texts
  (derivatives of chants)
• Ars Nova (about 1300 AD)
• Complexity in rhythm with each part having a
  melody and rhythm
• Guillame de Machaut

5
Music Notation

• Guido d'Arezzo
• 10th Century
• Squares on a 4-line staff
• Treble and bass clef
• Music terminology
• Crescendo, forte, etc.
• Notes a to g
• Solimation (do, re, mi, etc)
• Ut, re, mi, fa, so, la
• Taken from a hymn to John the Baptist

6
Troubadour Poetry

• Trobar to sing poetry
• Influenced by Arabs of Spain
• Began in 12th-13th Century
• Audiences were nobles
• Subject was usually love
• Accompanied by lyre or lute
• Established a non-religious music tradition

7
Art in the Late Middle Ages

• Representational
• Depicted from Gods point of view
• 2-dimensional
• Depicted Gods power and authority
• God can see all therefore in art everything was
  obvious and open

8
Art in the Late Middle Ages

• Very little non-religious art
• Crucifixion and Madonna paintings
• Icons
• Doorway to approach God
• Special reverence themselves

9
Art in the Late Middle Ages

• Mosaics of Ravenna
• Frescos
• Decorated Manuscripts

10
Art in the Late Middle Ages

• Giotto (1267-1337)
• Beginning of Realism
• Emotions represented
• Scene presented as it actually might have
  occurred
• Still much symbolism and very little perspective
• Lamentation

11
Art in the Late Middle Ages

• Use of realism
• Beginnings of portraits and landscapes
• Problems for church leaders
• Pagan themes
• Nudity

12
Medieval Literature

• Arthurian legend
• Lived in England in 5th C
• Writings
• Geoffrey of Monmouth (1135)
• Crétien de Troyes (1135-1183)
• Mallory (1469)
• Other knight epics
• German knights (Die Nibelungenlied)
• Siegfried
• Brunhilde
• Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde

13
Courtly Love

• Books were entertaining
• Instructions for proper behavior
• Pure love of a knight for a lady
• Note the relationship to Platonic love

• Rules
• Marriage is no excuse for not loving
• Made public, love rarely endures
• Jealously increases the feeling of love

14
Dante Alighieri

• Life in Florence
• Politics
• Dantes family was exiled
• Returned when their party returned to power
• Guelphs and Ghibilenes
• Blacks and Whites
• Well educated
• Intrigued by astronomy, mathematics, numerology
• Deeply spiritual

15
Dante Alighieri

• Relationship with Beatrice
• Fell in love at age 9
• Married other people by arrangement
• Beatrice died in her early 20s
• Book of poems was dedicated to Beatrice
• Dantes family
• Married his promised wife
• 4 children
• Wife did not accompany when exiled
• Close to his daughter Antonia

16
Dante Alighieri

• Dantes life in exile
• Tried to find ways to regain position in Florence
• Traveled through Italy
• Court intellectual
• Taught and wrote
• Died in Ravenna
• Florences reaction

Ravenna tomb
Florence "tomb"
17
Divine Comedy

• Dantes travel through the afterlife
• Comedy means it starts sad and ends happy
• Divine means perfection
• Epic poem
• Solidified the Italian language
• Combined several writing styles and topics
• Assumed Catholic church was the only truth
• Divided into
• Prologue
• Inferno
• Purgatory
• Paradise

18
Divine Comedy

• Dante lost in the forest
• Spiritual crisis
• Mid-life
• Hell (inferno)
• Worst of the world
• Guided by Virgil
• Upper hell (Vestibule and 5 circles)
• Sins of incontinence
• Several sub-levels
• Lower hell (4 circles)
• Sins of intent and violence
• Several sub-levels
• Exit by going down to the center of the earth

19
Inferno

• Upper Hell (Incontinence)
• Region Sinners Punishments
• Vestibule Neutrals Run after banners
• Circle I Limbo Virtuous pagans melancholy
• Circle II Lustful Blown forever by storm winds
• Circle III Gluttons Discomfort, all senses
  punished
• Circle IV Hoarders and wasters Push great rocks
  against others
• Circle V Wrathful/sullen Immersed in slime
• Lower Hell, Malice (Violence and Fraud)
• Circle VI Heretics In burning tombs
• Circle VII Violent Lake of boiling blood,
  turned into trees (suicides)
• Circle VIII Fraud (10 levels) Tormented by
  demons, in excrement, etc.
• Circle IX Treason Buried in lake of ice

20
The Circle of Lust

• Love, which permits no loved one not to love,
  took me so strongly with delight in him that we
  are one in Hell, as we were above.
• Love led us to one death. In the depths of Hell
  Caina waits for him who took our lives. This was
  the piteous tale they stopped to tell
• That book, and he who wrote it, was a pander.
  That day we read no further.

21
Divine Comedy

• Purgatory
• Repentance process has begun
• Transitory place
• Guided by Virgil/Cato
• Mountain opposite Jerusalem closer to heaven
• Participation in cleansing
• 10 levelsantechamber, terraces
• 7 deadly sins
• "p" for peccato

22
Divine Comedy

• Purgatory
• Pilgrim moves up the mountain
• Practices virtues to overcome sins
• At each level a p disappears
• Learns how to live a virtue
• The climb gets easier
• River of forgetfulness
• Beatrice becomes his guide Garden
• Cannot understand all things

23
Divine Comedy

• Paradise
• Best of all worlds
• 10 spheres
• 7 correspond to heavenly orbits
• Beatrice represents Christ
• Final guide is Bernard of Clairvaux (Crusader for
  truth)
• Love of humanity moves the sun, moon, etc
• Rise to meet God in the empyrean (by Gustave Doré)

24
Structure of Divine Comedy
Hell The Anteroom of the Neutrals Circle 1
virtuous pagans Circle 2 lascivious
(lustful) Circle 3 gluttonous Circle 4 greedy
and wasteful Circle 5 wrathful Circle 6
heretics Circle 7 violent against others, self,
God Circle 8 fraudulent (ten classes) Circle 9
treacherous (Satan at center)
Purgatory Ante-Purgatory excommunicated,
lazy Terraces 1 proud 2 envious 3 wrathful 4
slothful 5 avaricious 6 gluttonous 7 lascivious
Paradise 1 Moon (Inconstant Faithful) 2
Mercury (Service marred by ambition) 3 Venus
(Love marred by lust) 4 Sun (Theologians) 5
Mars (Just Warriors) 6 Jupiter (Great Rulers) 7
Saturn (Contemplatives) 8 Fixed stars (Church
Triumphant) 9 Primum Mobile (Angels) 10
Empyrean Heavens (Holy Trinity)
25
Numerical Intricacies

• Rhyming pattern (ABA/BCB/CDC)
• Cantos (groups of verses)
• Vertical and horizontal reading
• Rationale for numerology
• Memory
• Made more meaningful
• Intricacies of God
• Other Medieval authors using numerology

26
Numerical Intricacies

• 1 unity
• 2 duality of nature
• 3 trinity
• 4 material universe
• 5wounds of Christ, books of Moses, wise virgins
• 6 completion
• 7 rest, deadly sins, sacraments
• 8 resurrection, baptisms
• 9 angelic order, trinity x itself

• 10 perfection
• 12 tribes, trinity x the world
• 13 evil
• 30 Christ started preaching
• 33 Christs completion age
• 35 apex of life
• 40 days between resurrection and ascension, days
  in wilderness, elder of Israel
• 100 super perfection

27
Numerical Intricacies

• Organization of Divine Comedy
• Overall
• Year 1300 when Dante was 35 (apex of life)
• Sectional
• Hell 9 circles vestibule 10 (perfection)
• Purgatory ante purgatory 7 terraces shore of
  purgatory after purgatory 10
• Paradise 10 heavens
• Cantos
• 1 Intro 33 hell 33 purgatory 33
  paradise100 total (super perfection)
• Tercets3 lines per unit of verse x 10 verses
  33 syllables

28
Divine Comedy Between sections

• Inferno
• 1 water (evil)
• 6 politics of Florence
• 33 stars
• Purgatory
• 1 water (good)
• 6 politics of Italy
• 33 stars
• Paradise
• 1 water (heavenly)
• 6 politics in Europe
• 33 stars

29
Numerical Intricacies

• Micro organizations
• Beatrice introduced in Canto 30 (10 x 310)
  having 145 verses (72172145) in verse 73 (7
  310)
• In Canto 64 (6 4 10) she states her purpose
• 63 before 1 36 after
• 6 3 1 10 1 3 6 10
• I am that I am Beatrice
• Vergil born in 70 BC
• Announces birth in the 70th verse
• Central canto of entire work emphasizes AMOR
  (anagram of ROMA)

30
Discussion of Divine Comedy

• Dantes journey is like other epics
• Current and universal application
• Political
• We are all like Dante
• Truth is absolute
• Knowledge get us only so far
• Making choices determines our life eternally
  (consequences)

31
Discussion of Divine Comedy

• People are what they do
• Personal responsibility for action
• Models
• Vergil, Beatrice, Bernard of Clairvaux
• Discovered exile was a blessing
• Purpose of the book
• Crusader for truth
• Others could learn from his experiences

32
Francesco Petrarch1304-1374

• Secular writer
• Founder of the renaissance
• Multi-talented Renaissance man
• Self-taught
• Successor to Dante
• Wrote love poems to Laura
• Became widely known and respected in his own time

33
Francesco Petrarch

• Collaborated with Boccaccio (Fiammetta)
• Promoted the classics
• Return to the glory of the past
• Coined the terms Dark Ages and Gothic
• Strong Christian beliefs (but also accepted pagan
  writers)
• Humanism
• Looked to the Classical past because of the
  emphasis on humans and their interactions
• Inspired people to be better
• Supported a liberal (liberating) education

34
Humanism and thinking

• I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
  God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and
  intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
• -Galileo Galilei
• (Said many years later but typical of the ideas
  of the Humanists)

35
Solidifying Middle English

• Chaucer was the key person

36
The Development of theEnglish Language

• Old English (Old Anglo-Saxon)
• Germanic language (Dutch similarities)
• Kenning and word endings (not word order)
• Zustershelpvereniging (relief society)
• Avondsmaalsvergadering (sacrament meeting)
• Alliteration for rhyming
• When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I
  summon up remembrance of things past
  (Shakespeare)
• The fickle finger of fate (Laugh-In)
• Short words with strong consonants
• Latin-based words tend to be polysyllabic and use
  soft vowels
• Nordic influence from about 800AD
• Enriched vocabulary

37
The Development of theEnglish Language

• Middle English (strong French influence)
• French-speaking royalty from 1066
• French language integrated gradually into English
  but often referred to royal-related terms
• Eventually (about 1300) several rule changes
  became accepted which created Middle English

38
Middle English

• Why Middle English occurred when it did (1300)
• England was more interactive with Europe (hundred
  years war, trade, etc)
• Peasant revolt awakened the royalty to the need
  to interact more with the peasants and so a
  common language was needed
• English became the language of the court and the
  peasants adopted the words for prestige and
  economic reasons

39

• ...The English language has three
  characteristics that can be counted as assets in
  its world state. First of all, unlike all other
  European languages, the gender of every noun in
  modern English is determined by meaning, and does
  not require a masculine, feminine or neuter
  article...The second practical quality of English
  is that it has a grammar of great simplicity and
  flexibility. Nouns and adjectives have highly
  simplified word-endings. Nouns can become verbs
  and verbs nouns in a way that is impossible in
  other languages... Above all, the great quality
  of English is its teeming vocabulary, 80 percent
  of which is foreign-born.
• McCrum, et al, The History of English

40
Middle English
Added words from other languages (especially from
French) (Words entered because of class
superiority)

• English (German Origin)
• House (Haus)
• Cow (Kuh)
• Calf (Kalb)
• Swine (Schwein)
• Stool (Stuhl)
• End (Enden)

• English (French Origin)
• Mansion (Maison)
• Beef (Boeuf)
• Veal (Veau)
• Pork (Porc)
• Chair (Chaise)
• Cease (Cesser)

41
Tri-lingual English

• Just as the second estate (nobility) added to
  English, so too did the third estate (clergy)
• The nobility added French words
• The clergy added Latin words
• Example In the marriage ceremony, the husband
  and wife were asked to
• Love (Anglo-Saxon)
• Honor (Latin)
• Cherish (French)
• All three words meant the same thing

42
Middle English
Sound of language changed in part because of the
addition of Parisian French Words in
English (Richness of Dialect)

• Norman used hard c
• Castle
• Cattle
• Cap

• Parisian used ch
• Chateau
• Chattel
• Chapeau

• Norman used w
• Warden
• Wiley
• War

• Parisian used gu
• Guardian
• Guile
• Guerre

43
Middle English

• The interactions of the languages stimulated
  changes in grammar
• These changes were toward simplicity rather than
  preservation of purity

44
Middle Englishand Old English

• Similarities
• Alliteration rhyming
• Short words with strong consonants

• Differences
• Eliminated linguistic gender
• Eliminated declining nouns and adjectives
• Added words from other languages rather than
  making up words (i.e. kenning)
• Sound of the language changed
• A language of word order

45
Middle English
English Eliminated Linguistic Gender

• German Example
• Der Wagen (the car)
• Das Auto (the auto)

• French Example
• La maison (house)
• Le château (castle)

46
Middle English
English Declining of Nouns and Adjectives Example
s from German (like Old English)

• Nominative Case
• The father (der Vater) is old.
• The child (das Kind) is small.

• Dative Case
• He gives the father (dem Vater) a book.
• Give the child (dem Kinde) a book.

47
Words for special domains

• Religious (French/Latin-derived)
• Sacrament, prophet, saint, miracle, paradise
• Courtly (French-derived)
• Prince, game, poor, rich, master, court, prison,
  prove
• Lifestyle (French-derived)
• Castle versus timberhall (note kenning)
• Chivalry (from French for horse)

48
Common words versus richness of language

• Anglo-Saxon words are the most common
• But
• French-derived words add richness
• In some important domains of interest such as law
  and politics, the French words are critical

49

• Computer analysis of the language has shown
  that the 100 most common words in English are all
  of Anglo-Saxon origin. These roots are
  important. Anyone who speaks or writes English
  in the late twentieth century is using accents,
  words, and grammar which, with several dramatic
  modifications, go all the way back to the Old
  English of the Anglo-Saxons. There is an
  unbroken continuity from here to there. When, in
  1940, Winston Churchill wished to appeal to the
  hearts and minds of the English-speaking people
  it is probably no accident that he did so with
  the plain bareness for which Old English is
  noted We shall fight on the beaches we shall
  fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
  the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in
  the hills we shall never surrender. In this
  celebrated passage, only surrender is foreign
  Norman-French.
• McCrum, et al, The Story of English

50
English is easy??

• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• The farm was used to produce produce.
• The dump was so full that it had to refuse more
  refuse.
• We must polish the Polish furniture.
• The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the
  desert.
• Since there is no time like the present, he
  thought it was time to present the present.
• The buck does funny things when the does are
  present.

51
English is a crazy language

• There is no egg in an eggplant nor ham in
  hamburger neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
• Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which
  aren't sweet, are meat.
• Quicksand works slowly.
• Boxing rings are square.
• You park in the driveway but you drive on the
  parkway.
• You ship by truck and send cargo by ship.
• Your house can burn up as it burns down.
• You fill in a form by filling it out.
• An alarm goes off by going on.
• When the stars are out they are visible but when
  a light is out it is invisible.
• To shut down your computer you have to hit Start.

52
Language psychology

• French, German and Spanish view their language as
  pure and not to be adulterated
• When new words are needed, they are invented from
  previous French, German or Spanish words
• This practice is like kenning in Old English
• English views its language as something to be
  used and whatever communicates best, regardless
  of origin, is the preferred word

53
Geoffrey Chaucer

• Life
• Son of London merchant
• Good education
• Involved in court life
• Capture and ransomed during 100 years war
• Traveled widely
• Expert in physics, medicine, astronomy, Latin
• Wrote poetry
• Used classical allusions (only known to the upper
  class and royalty)

54
Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales

• Written in Middle English
• Innovative but risky because he wrote for a
  French-speaking class
• Legitimized Middle English
• Similar to how the Bible and Shakespeare
  legitimized Modern English
• Used many dialects
• Rhymed and metered (pentameter)
• Wide vocabulary
• clever phrases
• Basis for other writers

55
Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales

• The General Prologue
• Reading in Middle English gives a feeling for the
  language
• Literary beauty (form)
• Wide angle view of nature
• Moves to specifics of plants
• Then moves to specifics of people

56

• Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of
  Caunterbury
• Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
• The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
• And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
• Of which vertu engendred is the flour
• Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
• Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
• The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
• Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
• And smale foweles maken melodye,
• That slepen al the nyght with open eye
• (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages)
• Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
• And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
• Top ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes

57

• Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury
• When April with his showers sweet with fruit
• The drought of March has pierced unto the root
• And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
• To generate therein and sire the flower
• When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
• Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
• The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
• Into the Ram one half his course has run,
• And many little birds make melody
• That sleep through all the night with open eye
• (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
• Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
• And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
• To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

58
Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales

• Why Chaucer used French terms
• Meter
• Rhyme
• Meaning
• Dialect
• Gave flowery and elevated feeling
• Part of the language by then

59
Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales

• The story
• 30 pilgrims on their way to Canterbury
• Tell tales to pass the time (contest)
• Insights into Medieval life
• Tales related to the person telling the tale
• Knightchivalrous romance
• Millerwife cheating on her husband
• Wife of bathhusbands trying to squelch wives
• Prioresswants to impress people
• Reeveadministrative agent, simpleton
• Canon Yeomandeception

60
Thank You