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Handbook of Medieval Culture
Volume 1
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Handbook of
Medieval Culture
Fundamental Aspects and Conditions

of the European Middle Ages
Edited by
Albrecht Classen
Volume 1
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ISBN 978-3-11-026659-7
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-026730-3
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-038544-1
ISBN (Set Vol. 1–3) 978-3-11-037760-6
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Cover image: Poitiers Cathedral, Poitiers, France
Photo © Albrecht Classen.
Typesetting: jürgen ullrich typosatz, Nördlingen
Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
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Contents
Volume 1
Albrecht Classen
Medieval Culture—An Introduction to a New Handbook  1
Christopher R. Clason
Animals, Birds, and Fish in the Middle Ages  18
Charlotte A. Stanford
Architecture  55
Frances Parton
Visual Arts  80
Thomas Willard
Astrology, Alchemy and other Occult Sciences  102
Romedio Schmitz-Esser
Astronomy  120
Stephen Penn
The Bible and Biblical Exegesis  134
Daniel Pigg
Children and Childhood in the Middle Ages  149
Ken Mondschein
Chivalry and Knighthood  159
Linda Rouillard
Church and the Clergy  172
Johannes Bernwieser
Cities  187
Lia Ross
Communication in the Middle Ages  203
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VI Contents
Mark T. Abate
Convivencia: Conquest and Coexistence in Medieval Spain  232
Nadia Pawelchak
Medieval Courts and Aristocracy  278
Gerhard Jaritz
Daily Life  301
Hiram Kümper
Death  314
Jan Wehrle
Dreams and Dream Theory  329
Werner Schäfke
Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants  347
David Sheffler
Education and Schooling  384
Gerhard Jaritz
Excrement and Waste  406
Emily J. Rozier
Fashion  415
Jean N. Goodrich
Fairy, Elves and the Enchanted Otherworld  431
Scott L. Taylor
Feudalism in Literature and Society  465
Sarah Gordon
Food and Cookbooks  477
Charles W. Connell
Foreigners and Fear  489
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Contents VII
Marilyn Sandidge
The Forest, the River, the Mountain, the Field, and the Meadow  537
John M. Hill
Friendship in the Middle Ages  565
Paul Milliman
Games and Pastimes  582
Hans-Werner Goetz
God  613
Kriszta Kotsis
The Greek Orthodox Church  628
Eileen Gardiner
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven  653
Cynthia Jenéy
Horses and Equitation  674
Volume 2
Jacqueline Stuhmiller
Hunting, Hawking, Fowling, and Fishing  697
Illness and Death  722
Mark T. Abate
Islamic Spain: Al-Andalus and the Three Cultures  740
Miriamne Ara Krummel

Jewish Culture and Literature in England  772
Oliver M. Traxel
Languages  794
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VIII Contents
Scott L. Taylor
Law in Literature and Society  836
Christian Bratu
Literature  864
Albrecht Classen
Love, Sex, and Marriage  901
Christa Agnes Tuczay

Magic and Divination  937
Alain Touwaide
Medicine  954
Scott Gwara
Medieval Manuscripts  999
Kisha G. Tracy
Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting  1020
Jeroen Puttevils
Medieval merchants  1039
Werner Heinz
History of Medieval Metrology  1057
Richard Landes
Millenarianism/Millennialism, Eschatology, Apocalypticism,
Utopianism  1093
Ralf Lützelschwab
Western Monasticism  1113
Philipp Robinson Rössner

Money, Banking, Economy  1137
Mary Kate Hurley

Monsters  1167
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Contents IX
Karl Kügle
Conceptualizing and Experiencing Music in the Middle Ages
(ca. 500–1500)  1184
Moritz Wedell
Numbers  1205
Rory Naismith
Numismatics  1261
Sarah M. Anderson
Old Age  1281
John A. Dempsey
The Papacy and the Pan-European Culture  1324
Cristian Bratu
Patrons, Arts, and Audiences  1381
Francis G. Gentry
Poverty  1404
Charles W. Connell
Public Opinion and Popular Culture  1419
John Sewell
Religious Conflict  1454
Michael Sizer
Revolt and Revolution  1486
Volume 3
Albrecht Classen
Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Travelers  1511
Daniel F. Pigg
The Rural World and the Peasants  1535
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X Contents
Christina Clever
Saints and Relics  1543
Richard G. Newhauser
The Senses, the Medieval Sensorium, and Sensing (in) the Middle Ages  1559
Charles W. Connell
The Sermon in the Middle Ages  1576
Timothy Runyan
Ships and Seafaring  1610
Ben Snook
Threats, Dangers, and Catastrophes  1634
Ken Mondschein and Denis Casey

Time and Timekeeping  1657
Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages  1680
Graeme Dunphy
The Medieval University  1705
Ben Snook
War and Peace  1735
Ken Mondschein
Weapons, Warfare, Siege Machinery, and Training in Arms  1758

Witchcraft and Superstition  1786
Bibliography  1813
Primary Literature  1813
Secondary Literature  1860
Index of Names  2117

General Index  2149
Index of Works  2222
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Albrecht Classen
Medieval Culture—An Introduction to a
New Handbook*
The European Middle Ages are of great interest and relevance both for scholarship
and the broader readership today, and this perhaps more than ever before. In fact,
they have exerted a tremendous fascination since their rediscovery in the late
eighteenth century, and there is no end in sight as to their continued appeal even
for future generations. Medieval fairs and similar public spectacles always attract
large audiences; most modern novels or short stories with even a slight reference
to the Middle Ages prove to be popular, and the same applies to modern movies
with a medieval theme.1 At the same time current scholarship is moving ahead at
an astonishing pace in virtually all possible fields of human endeavors, activities,
productivity, ideas, dreams, concepts, and organizations utilizing a historical
lens. Hardly any day passes without another study on that time period, that
culture, its peoples, ideas, values, and its social and economic structure and
conditions, appearing in print or in electronic media.2
Any school or university teacher who offers a course on the Middle Ages and
commands at least a modicum of pedagogical skills can count on attracting a
large group of students.3 Public lectures on the Middle Ages can count on being a
* In contrast to all contributions to this Handbook, in this Introduction I am providing the full
bibliographical information, with the book series and the publishers.
1 See, for example, Kevin J. Harty, The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western, and Eastern
European, Middle Eastern and Asian Films About Medieval Europe (Jefferson, NC, and London
1999); John Aberth, Knights at the Movies: Medieval History on Film (New York and London 2003);
see also the contributors to Antike und Mittelalter im Film: Konstruktionen – Dokumentation –
Projektion, ed. Simma Slanicka and Mischa Meier (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna 2005); William
F. Woods, The Medieval Filmscape: Reflections of Fear and Desire in a Cinematic Mirror (Jefferson,
NC 2014). See also the contributions by Francis Gentry, “Harlots, Heretics, and the Highborn:
Modern Visions of Medieval Murder,” wort und wise, singen unde sagen: Festschrift für Ulrich
Müller, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz (Göppingen 2007), 299–316; idem., “Die Darstellung des Mittelalters
im amerikanischen Film von Robin Hood bis Excalibur,” Mittelalter Rezeption, ed. Peter Wapnews-
ki (Stuttgart 1986), 276–95. The topic of medieval themes in modern movies has attracted much
more interest among scholars than can be accounted for here.
2 The large number of book reviews in scholarly journals such as Speculum, Studi medievali,
Mediaevistik, The Medieval Review, Arbitrium, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, and many others
is vivid evidence for this claim.
3 See, for instance, the contributions to Mittelalterrezeption: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germa-
nistenverbandes 45.1–2 (1998). For a special investigation, see Ulrich Müller, “The Modern Recep-
Brought to you by | Stockholms Universitet

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2 Albrecht Classen
success, and exhibitions on medieval art, history, literature, religion, or politics

have regularly opened the gates to huge numbers of interested people, and this
for many decades by now, accompanied by excellent exhibit catalogues that tend
to be well edited for the general reader and for the scholar alike.
The mention of King Arthur and the Round Table continues to arouse deep
fascination, especially in the New World where this royal figure is sometimes
identified as the substitute for many national mythical figures in the Old World.
Camelot and the Round Table, not to forget Excalibur, are iconic in the full sense
of the word.4 Of course, great popularity among the larger audience does not
guarantee the continued serious study of the Middle Ages, as illustrated, for
instance, by the increasing lack of linguistic skills among the present student
generation, which seems to know any of the medieval languages less and less,
not even to mention classical and medieval Latin. But the output of doctoral
theses and master theses worldwide indicates that not everything is lost, as long
as scholars and teachers (hopefully always in one and the same person) succeed
in transmitting the basic knowledge and can motivate the future medievalists to
prepare themselves appropriately for their own research.
In light of these perhaps overly optimistic observations, some medievalists
may want to rest on their laurels and let things stand as they are. We have
excellent reference works available; many texts from the Middle Ages are acces-
sible in good, reliable editions and even in translations into many different
tion of Gottfried’s Tristan and the Medieval Legend of Tristan and Isolde,” A Companion to
Gottfried von Strassburg’s ‘Tristan’, ed. Will Hasty (Rochester, NY, 2003), 285–304; see also the
contributions to Geschichte des Mittelalters für unsere Zeit: Erträge des Kongresses des Verbandes
der Geschichtslehrer Deutschlands “Geschichte des Mittelalters im Geschichtsunterricht” Quedlin-
burg 20.–23. Oktober 1999, ed. Rolf Ballof (Wiesbaden 2003); and to Zurück zum Mittelalter: Neue
Perspektiven für den Deutschunterricht, ed. Nine Miedema and Andrea Sieber (Frankfurt a. M.
2013). American scholars have also paid considerable attention to this basic question, see, for
instance, Teaching the Middle Ages IV, ed. Robert V. Graybill, Judy G. Hample, Robert L. Kindrick,
and Robert E. Lovell (Terre Haute, IN, 1990); Teaching the Middle Ages with Magnificent Art
Masterpieces, Bobbi Chertok, Goody Hirshfeld, and Marilyn Rosh (New York 1999); Perspectives on
Medieval Art: Learning Through Looking, ed. Ena Giurescu Heller and Patricia Pongracz (New York
and London 2010).
4 Andrew E. Mathis, The King Arthur Myth in Modern American Literature (Jefferson, NC, and
London 2002), 2–3: “The quintessential melding of the Arthurian mythos with American politics
came with the presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” One of the major reason for the great
appeal of Arthur might well have been, as Mathis suggests, that this medieval king avoided all the
acrimonious religious conflicts and offered an ideological alternative (140–41). See also Alan
Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack, King Arthur in America (Cambridge and Rochester, NY, 1999).
See now Jeffrey John Dixon, The Glory of Arthur: The Legendary King in Epic Poems of Layamon,
Spenser and Blake (Jefferson, NC, 2014).

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Medieval Culture—An Introduction to a New Handbook 3
languages; many aspects of that time have been discussed most thoroughly from
many different perspectives, often also very controversially, and we can find
numerous lexica and encyclopedias on the Middle Ages resting on the book-
shelves of our libraries, both at universities and in the public.5
Why would we then need another handbook, this one focusing on medieval
culture? After all, the massive Handbook of Medieval Studies, in which many of
the aspects and topics dealt with in the present, new Handbook of Medieval
Culture, find consideration as well, only recently appeared in print.6 But while the
2010 publication intends to outline the history of research, rich and expansive by
itself, addressing primarily scholars in every possible field, the present handbook
wants to deal with more specific topics and ideas relevant both for scholars and
students, both for the general audience and the experts, presenting the content,
discussing what we actually know, and where the critical information can be
found in most recent research literature. We are not covering everything concern-
ing the medieval world, which would water down our efforts once again. Instead,
there are specific foci on important, fundamental issues, ranging from architec-
ture and religious heresies to numbers and weights and human waste.
Robert E. Bjork explains the purpose of his Oxford Dictionary of the Middle
Ages (2010) with the following words: it is “designed to be a resource of first resort
for specialists and non-specialists alike for all key aspects of European history,
society, religion, and culture, c. 500 to c. 1500.”7 Indeed, this proves to be a first
resort, a kind of gateway toward the Middle Ages, providing brief snapshots of
whatever might be of importance in terms of ideas, events, people, objects,
models, or genres. There are also some bibliographical references, but overall,
this dictionary primarily hopes to make available bare-bone information, without
being focused specifically on the critical research behind what we know of the
Middle Ages today. Approached from this perspective, this four-volume tome
answers very conveniently most first-hand questions, and at times also contains
more extensive articles on larger topics. The same applies to many other lexica
and dictionaries on the Middle Ages, which thus serve well as repositories of our
general knowledge about that time period. However, in the present day and age
5 Albrecht Classen, “Survey of Fundamental Reference Works in Medieval Studies,” Handbook of

Medieval Studies, ed. idem (Berlin and New York 2010), Vol. 1, xxv–lxvi.
6 One of the best reference works ever published on the Middle Ages, considering its compact-
ness, excellent illustrations, and depth of information, still proves to be the one by Aryeh Grabois,
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Medieval Civilization (London 1980).
7 Robert E. Bjork, “Introduction,” The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. idem, 4 vols.
(Oxford 2010), vol. 1, ix–xi; here ix. See also the comments by William Chester Jordan, ed. of the
Supplement 1 to the Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York, Detroit, MI, et al. 2004), vii–viii.

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with the internet increasingly making much knowledge available, the time might
come that printed reference works seem to be almost obsolete.
Even the much maligned Wikipedia is gaining in maturity and often provides
good summaries of the latest research.8 Although many scholars continue to scoff
at this online reference work, particularly because of the anonymity and the ever
present possibility that non-peer-reviewed statements could enter the texts, there
are countless examples of excellent, extraordinarily well-researched and well-
written articles available online (and there are bad ones as well, of course, but the
same could be claimed for even the best and most authoritative reference works,
including the Encyclopedia Britannica). Other webpages and databases are not far
behind, as we are in the midst of a true paradigm shift which also affects the way
we approach the Middle Ages, upon which our own modern world has been
constructed.9 In fact, despite the profound changes in cultural history ever since,
identified with, for instance, the Protestant Reformation, the Baroque, the En-
lightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, we continue to be the avatars of our
medieval forerunners, and many of the same questions that had been of prime
importance then are of great importance until today.
It might not be too far-fetched to argue that some of the answers to our own
critical problems rest in the past, even though we certainly always have to
translate ideas and messages from that time period in order to comprehend how
they might work or what they might mean today by means of adaptations,
modifications, and careful transformations. This is not to pursue anachronistic
approaches, or to level all cultural or ideological differences, but traditional
positions based on the assumption of complete alterity certainly mislead us and
also deprive us of a pool of timeless values, observations, ideas, and concepts
that had been developed in the past and stand ready to serve us even today, if
carefully modified and adapted for new conditions and material, political, scien-
tific, or even emotional framework. Our present and future are all grounded in the
past, which serves, resorting to an analogy, as the root system of the tree that
constitutes our own existence. No canopy can survive without the roots that pump
the water from deep down, or the past, up to the top, or the future.10 This finds an
8 A recent example proves this point very illustratively. In doing research on the medieval Irish
prosimetric Buile Shuibhne, I found the article in Wikipedia to be most helpful, with an excellent
bibliography and a remarkable selection of important links to the text edition and an English
translation online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buile_Shuibhne (last accessed on Feb. 21, 2014).
9 Ruth Weichselbaumer, Mittelalter virtuell: Mediävistik im Internet (Stuttgart 2005); Geoffrey
Chaucer Hath a Blog: Medieval Studies and New Media, ed. Brantley L. Bryant (New York 2010).
10 The major proponent of the alterity thesis was Hans Robert Jauss, Alterität und Modernität der
mittelalterlichen Literatur (Munich 1977). See now the contributions to Praktiken europäischer

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excellent illustration in the recently discovered frescoes depicting scenes from the
highly popular pan-European literary material known under the title Josaphat and
Barlaam. Those frescoes were hidden under thick layers of plaster in the Gozzo-
burg (ca. 1250–1275; Gozzo Palais) in Krems, Austria. As much as those impressive
images are now coming back to light (Fig. 1), the true importance of the Middle
Ages in epistemological terms emerges ever more in the present time.
Fig. 1: Scene from Josaphat and Barlaam, Gozzoburg, Krems a. d. D., Austria

(© Benjamin Yuchen, June 2014, with permission).
As I have already outlined in the Introduction to the Handbook of Medieval

Studies, there is a whole slew of comparable reference works available, both in
the format of handbooks or of massive encyclopedias, such as the Lexikon des
Mittelalters and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which certainly deserve highest
recognition for their scholarly thoroughness and comprehensiveness. But scho-
larship is moving forward, and we constantly learn to understand and to appreci-
ate the past in new terms, or in light of other conditions, as documented by new
Traditionsbildung im Mittelalter: Wissen–Literatur–Mythos, ed. Manfred Eikelmann and Udo

Friedrich, together with Esther Laufer and Michael Schwarzbach (Berlin 2013); to Die Aktualität
der Vormoderne: Epochenentwürfe zwischen Alterität und Kontinuität, ed. Klaus Ridder and Steffen
Patzold (Berlin 2013); and to Heresy and the Making of European Culture: Medieval and Modern
Perspectives, ed. Andrew P. Roach and James R. Simpson (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2013).

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books and articles, by conferences dedicated to the Middle Ages, and now also by
the huge efforts to digitize medieval manuscripts and to create online concord-
ances and dictionaries. Particularly considering the truly intensive and impress-
ive research productivity in many different fields, from History to Byzantine
Studies, from Musicology to Art History, from Philosophy to the History of
Mentality, it behooves us to take stock from time to time and to address in as
concrete terms as possible how we actually have to understand past conditions,
events, ideas, texts, images, etc.
We are actually also witnessing a remarkable paradigm shift taking us away
from traditionally narrow disciplinary areas in History, Religion, German Litera-
ture, or Music, to a higher level which we might identify as Cultural Studies, that
is, research fields that pursue the Middle Ages, or even more broadly conceived,
the Premodern World, from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. Both the History
of Mentality and the History of Ideas, not to forget Gender Studies, Masculinity
Studies, and Ecocriticism, to mention just a few areas, have already blazed a path
toward much larger and more comprehensive concepts of medieval society and
medieval mentality. By recognizing both the vast differences between then and
today and realizing, at the same time, the many similarities of both worlds/
cultures do we gain deeper insight into the human conditions and our needs both
to adapt to new environments and to hold on to traditional values and ideas.
Interdisciplinarity is not only a slogan, but a necessity in order to develop new
perspectives and to guarantee the survival of Medieval Studies today.
The recent establishment of the Consortium for the Study of the Premodern
World at the University of Minnesota, with strong support from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, signals that we are not at all in a slump, but at the brink of
the ‘Renaissance’ of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, to use a convenient
pun.11 This might be an exceptionally positive case, but we observe constructive
movement in many other places as well. There are numerous centers of Medieval
and Renaissance Studies (or with another nomenclature) both in North America
and Europe, and also in Australia and elsewhere. Some receive very solid funding,
others might be struggling, but the existence of such scholarly organizations is
highly promising.
Parallel to that development and pushing it further, for the last decade or so I
have organized small symposia at the University of Arizona at which fundamental
aspects of medieval and early modern culture were discussed, such as ‘child-
hood,’ ‘old age,’ ‘love, marriage, and transgression,’ ‘urban space,’ ‘rural space,’
11 http://www.cmedst.umn.edu/assets/doc/Brief_Sketch_of_CSPW_at_UMN.pdf (last accessed

on Sept. 26, 2014).

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‘laughter,’ ‘friendship,’ ‘crime and punishment,’ and ‘East meets West,’ and
‘death and the culture of death.’ Future topics will be, for instance, ‘multilingual-
ism,’ ‘hygiene and well-being,’ and ‘travel.’12 The unique nature of these sympo-
sia, of which there are, astoundingly, nowadays many similar ones at universities
worldwide, consists of their specific framework, bringing together scholars from
many different disciplines who address the same topic from their specific areas of
expertise and so learn from each other. This does not mean that Medieval Studies
would suddenly turn into a sub-field of anthropology, sociology, or linguistics, as
pertinent as all those certainly are as well. Literary texts, historical chronicles,
sculptures, stained glass windows, textiles, depictions of animals in stone, in
paintings, or in literary texts, weapons, musical compositions, foodstuff, archi-
tecture, vehicles, etc. are all individual items and need to be studied with great
care, but certainly not in isolation.
To be sure, they are all embedded in a larger context, and each one of them
reveals remarkable connections with those produced or dealt with in other
cultures and languages. Religious attitudes, types of fear, concepts of monsters,
stereotypes against foreigners or minorities within one’s own society, etc. can all
be studied better if we take a more global approach, i.e., pursue those fundamen-
tal topics in an interdisciplinary fashion, as has been strongly suggested by many
medievalists by now. An intriguing, very recent case proves to be Medieval
Disability Studies, a rather new field that is beginning to attract attention, and
which allows us to combine contemporary concerns with approaches already
pursued in the Middle Ages. It is simply a fact that there were also people affected
by some form of mental and physical disability at that time, and society had to
deal with them. We can now ask what their concepts were and what those might
mean for us today in the ever ongoing quest for alternatives, improved strategies,
and better solutions.13
12 All these symposia were subsequently translated into book publications. Recently the volume
on Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time appeared
in print (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2013). For an outline of this book series and a detailed list of all
titles, see http://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/fundamentals_2 (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014).
13 See the contributions to Transkulturelle Verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen Jahrtausend: Euro-
pa, Ostasien, Afrika, ed. Michael Borgolte and Matthias M. Tischler (Darmstadt 2012); see also the
articles in Cosmopolitanism and the Middle Ages, ed. John M. Ganim and Shayne Aaron Legassie
(New York 2013). Consult further Weltdeutungen und Weltreligionen 600 bis 1500, ed. Johannes
Fried and Ernst-Dieter Hehl (Darmstadt 2010). For an example of how a global approach can be
pursued, see the contributions to Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European
and Heian Japanese Women Writers, ed. Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho (New York and
Basingstoke 2000). For Disability Studies, see now Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe:
Thinking about Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400 (London and New

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But let us focus first on specifically European phenomena. The Crusades and
the Catholic Church were matters shared by virtually all Europeans in the Middle
Ages, at least in the West, the South, the Center, somewhat in the North, and a
little less in the East, depending on where we set the geographical and political
boundaries. But as soon as we turn our attention to more fundamental aspects,
we easily recognize how much we can or must study the Middle Ages from a
global perspective. Courtliness, chivalry, love, desire for sexual fulfillment, fear
of God and fear of death, worries about inclement weather or natural cata-
strophes, the firm belief in the prophetic value of dreams, the deep conviction
that spirituality constitutes the other half of human existence, the dread of the
wild and dangerous forests with their ferocious beasts (wolves or bears), but then
also the delight in the arrival of Spring, the contempt of peasants, the idealization
of tournaments, to mention just a small selection of universal topics, tropes, and
topoi, were all of greatest relevance for most medieval people, and actually
continue to be so in many respects even today.14
Of course, we have to differentiate between the early, the high, and the late
Middle Ages, and it would be very difficult to determine with all the desired clarity
when the medieval world came to an end and when the so-called Renaissance
began, that is, the early modern age. Actually, however, using some basic ‘techni-
cal’ aspects we can identify that transition, or paradigm shift, fairly easily, if we
consider the invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg (ca. 1450), the
fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans (1453) and hence the final disappearance
of the Eastern Roman Empire, the ‘discovery’ of America by Christopher Colum-
bus (1492), the fall of Granada and the complete unification of the Iberian
Peninsula under the Spanish crown, except for Portugal (1492), hence also the
expulsion of the Jews from there (1492), along with the end of the famous
“convivencia,” and finally the Protestant Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther
(1517). But the medieval world continued well into the next centuries, if we
consider structural elements, the history of mentality, material conditions, or the
continuity of feudalism and the aristocratic courts in many parts of Europe. Of
course, that phenomenon can be detected in all other cultural periods as well,
York 2006); eadem, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Conceptions of
Physical Impairment (London and New York 2013).
14 One interesting and for our purposes relevant example would be the recent attempts by
scientists (climatologists) and historians to understand the history of medieval climate, the
changes from a little ice age to the medieval warming period, and reverse; see Wolfgang
Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, trans. Patrick Camiller (2007; Cambridge and Malden,
MA, 2010), 60–120; Richard C. Hoffmann, An Environmental History of Medieval Europe (Cam-
bridge 2014).

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whether we think of antiquity, the Renaissance, the Baroque, etc. Radical changes
or breaks are rather rare, while continuity, transitions, and slow paradigm shifts
are more often the norm than not. Nevertheless, we are still on relatively safe
ground by recognizing the end of the fifteenth century as the fundamental thresh-
old after which increasingly the entire cultural framework and the value system
looked differently.
Naturally, none of these observations represent new insights, and yet we can
soundly claim that our understanding of the Middle Ages has grown exponen-
tially over the last two hundred years, justifying us in taking a much broader view
of that world, extending that time frame of that age down to the seventh or sixth
century, and expanding it to the sixteenth and even seventeenth century. Never-
theless, many debates concerning the periodization, the transition from one
phase to the other, the technological and scientific developments, the connec-
tions between the various cultures, especially the question concerning potential
familiarity between Latin-Europe and the Muslim-Arabic world, the cross-fertili-
zation by European poets and composers, not to mention artists, masons, and
architects who all shared their ideas and understanding among each other, the
relationship between the Jewish and the Christian population, among many other
aspects, continue to escape our epistemological grip and demand ever new
approaches and interpretive endeavors.
The current Handbook of Medieval Culture does not aim at filling the ‘last’ gaps in
our knowledge, or to offer the final details—an impossible task all by itself
anyway. However, it intends to serve as a pragmatic, detailed, precise, and highly
informative, reliable, and trustworthy reference work for all interested in that
culture and age for many different reasons. Anyone attending the international
congresses in Kalamazoo, Michigan, or in Leeds, UK, knows how great the inter-
est in the European Middle Ages continues to be, and that this is a truly global
phenomenon. Publishers could easily confirm that there is an impressively solid
market for scholarly books dealing with the Middle Ages, and academic libraries
are filled with enormous scores of relevant studies on that cultural period.
Research continues, and our understanding of that past world expands consider-
ably at a steady rate because we examine the archival material ever more and
develop new perspectives toward the same material known already for a long
time. Our broadly conceived and yet very detailed new Handbook of Medieval
Culture hence does not constitute an exercise in repeating or digesting the
status quo of our knowledge about the Middle Ages. Instead, it intends to be an
innovative platform for future studies on that world, and a gateway for present
readers who need to gain full information about a specialized topic relevant in
that world, even though I had to make selections and focus only on major issues.

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10 Albrecht Classen
This is a ‘handbook,’ not a ‘lexicon’ or an ‘encyclopedia,’ that is, a broadly-based

work tool for both the experts and for the general reader.
I gladly acknowledge the existence of parallel projects, which are not compe-
titions, but publications pursuing similar goals, each addressing their tasks in
their own, unique fashion. The contributors to A Companion to the Medieval World
(2007/2013), for instance, discuss the early medieval foundations, the population
and the economy, religious culture, politics and power, and technology and
culture. The world of women and the issues of gender are well covered by the
contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe
(2013).15 These are certainly very valuable articles that help us to gain good global
overviews and a solid grasp of the relevant scholarship, but both their scope and
intentions differ in many ways from our Handbook, which intends to be much
more focused in the specific areas and which also offers a considerably different
spectrum of topics concerning the Middle Ages.
I hope that we can even appeal to undergraduate students taking courses in the
Middle Ages. There are good indicators that the relevance of that world and its
culture is increasingly recognized by a growing number of people outside and
within the university. For instance, late in December 2013, The University of
Arizona launched a new Thematic Minor of Medieval Studies, which I had devel-
oped in conjunction with some of my colleagues (especially Prof. Fabian Alfie,
Chair, Dept. of French and Italian). As an explanation how to justify the existence
of this new minor, I wrote online: “A broadly based thematic minor focusing on
the Middle Ages exposes you to many different disciplines in the Humanities,
Social Sciences, Art History, then in the History of Music, Architecture, Philoso-
phy, Language, Religion, etc. You become an expert in variety of areas, and thus
you will be most flexible for the future job market.”16
Prof. Peter Capelli, in the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 15, 2013), almost had this
also in mind when he reflects on the need for students not to specialize too early.17
15 A Companion to the Medieval World, ed. Carol Lansing and Edward D. English. Wiley-Black-
well Companions to History (2007; Malden, MA, Oxford, and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013);
see also A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad
Rudolph. Blackwell Companions to Art History (2006; Malden, MA, Oxford, and Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (London and
New York: Routledge, 2001). The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, ed.
Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
16 http://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/content/new-thematic-minor-medieval-studies (last ac-
cessed Sept. 29, 2014).
17 Peter Capelli, “Why Focusing Too Narrowly in College Could Backfire,” Wall Street Journal
Nov. 15, 2013, see also online at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732413

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Medievalists (and that’s what you will become) will be well trained in critical
thinking, writing, historical research, interdisciplinary approaches, and cultural
awareness, and will also understand the need to know a foreign language.”18 To
get a Major in Medieval Studies accepted by our university administration might
be a monumental task that I would not dare yet to approach, but the future
developments might encourage us to do so. But there are numerous universities
in North America, for instance, where that is already a concrete possibility.
This then brings me back to this new reference work, which carries as its full title:
Medieval Culture: A Handbook. Fundamental Aspects and Conditions of the Euro-
pean Middle Ages. While the previous Handbook of Medieval Studies (2010)
focused primarily on the history of research, the present Handbook intends to
provide basic information on central aspects characterizing the Middle Ages, with-
out ignoring the history of research. These comprise, but are not limited to, such
topics as ‘Animals, Fish, and Birds,’ ‘Architecture,’ ‘Bible and Biblical Exegesis,’
‘Economy,’ ‘Fairies,’ ‘Foreigners,’ ‘Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell,’ ‘Knighthood,’
‘Languages,’ ‘Law,’ ‘Love and Marriage,’ ‘Numismatics,’ ‘Poverty,’ ‘Public Opin-
ion,’ ‘Religious Conflicts,’ ‘Saints,’ ‘Time Measurement,’ ‘Waste,’ and ‘Weapons.’
Although many more topics could have been dealt with, the large number of
specific areas covered in this Handbook already make this work, as I believe, a
very rich resource for its users.
No one can cover everything, especially not to the depth which the articles
here always pursue. In contrast to standard lexica and encyclopedias, everything
presented here is based on thorough and fresh research, as reflected in each
article through direct references to the relevant publications. I had hoped also to
include entries on topics such as ‘Space and Cosmos,’ ‘Islam,’ ‘Family,’ or ‘Baths
and Washing,’ ‘Guilds and Craftsmen,’ and ‘Nutrition,’ but it sometimes simply
proved, quite regretfully, just impossible to get extensive scholarly contributions
in these areas in good time for publication or after years of waiting in vain that
promises to submit such an article would be fulfilled. Those are undoubtedly
important, if not central topics, but there are always limitations which I had to
accept in the long-run while editing this Handbook. However, each piece sub-
9404579016662718868576#printMode (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014); concerning Liberal Arts

and career plans for undergraduates, including majors in Medieval Studies, see David DeLong,
“How Liberal Arts Colleges Can Stop Fueling the ‘Skills Gap’,” Harvard Business Review Feb. 4,
2014; online at: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/how-liberal-arts-colleges-can-stop-fueling-the-
skills-gap/ (last accessed on Sept. 29, 2014).
18 http://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/content/new-thematic-minor-medieval-studies (last ac-
cessed on Sept. 29, 2014).

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12 Albrecht Classen
mitted proved to be of extraordinary scholarly quality, so I can only hope that the
readers will acknowledge the quality of the work altogether and forgive us the
shortcomings in specific areas. Some topics proved to be just too huge, and there
will be, deliberately or simply by default, some imbalance. The topic of medicine,
for instance, or Jewish culture, threatened to transgress all boundaries, so here
we limit ourselves to the situation for Jews in England and the Iberian Peninsula.
Fortunately, there is also an article on the Islamic culture, coupled with a separate
study on ‘convivencia.’ Generally, I granted the individual contributors a fair
amount of flexibility, as long as the relevant research was covered and all the
essential information critically dealt with.
The reader can pursue three different approaches. On the one hand the articles
intend to provide the essential information as detailed as possible. On the other,
each article concludes with a short list of essential readings, of ca. eight to ten
titles. But throughout each contribution, the relevant research is embedded,
inviting the serious scholar to consult the cumulative bibliography in the third
volume. We believe thus to have made it easy for these three types of specific
interests. Both the general reader and an undergraduate student will be, as we
hope, well served, especially because we have also built in an extensive index for
names of people, titles of works, and subject matter (including names of cities,
rivers, mountains, animals, etc.). Both the teacher and the scholar will easily find
the important information and specific reflections on what scholarship has said
about it both in the past and in the present. But the research literature was not to
overshadow the presentation of the basic material, hence the scant references in
parenthesis throughout the texts.
The fact that reference works such as this Handbook are still in great demand
and need to be published over and over again is a very good sign for the well-
being of our research field. We are expanding and are not stuck in a standstill
position. Scholarship also extends its reach into often heretofore little considered
topics, and this Handbook encourages its readers to recognize how much Medie-
val Studies today have gone beyond many previous or traditional disciplinary
boundaries. Literary scholars must know, for instance, essential aspects pertain-
ing to horses, to numbers, to banking, to medicine, fashion, astronomy, and so
forth, and historians of economics, for instance, are well advised to consider the
literary history as the background and framework of their data. A good grasp of
religious and philosophical concepts is as much required for a full understanding
of that world as are insights into natural sciences and games and pastimes
practiced in the Middle Ages.
We all pursue, of course, our specialty, which is just right, since generalists
can only touch on many different issues without ever going into details. Medie-

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val Studies thus emerge as a rather demanding field where the scholars of today
must turn their attention to a vast array of topics all at once. But our own time
and abilities to investigate neighboring disciplines are limited, which requires
that we find help among our colleagues. This is the reason why this Handbook
had been first conceived around 2009 and has appeared in print only now in
2015. Even though the goal to develop into an expert in many different fields of
the Middle Ages will remain utopian for everyone, this reference work will
empower the reader at least to gain a fairly quick understanding of individual
aspects of very different kinds.
The effort to edit such a Handbook really would have required a whole team
of co-editors and other helpers as one commonly reads on the cover page of
parallel scholarly enterprises. That was, alas, not the case with me. I am the sole
editor, and I have worked with each individual contributor so long until the piece
was close to perfection, as I could perceive it, even if this required numerous
rounds of revisions. I have tried to establish uniformity in the structure and the
references, but there are, by default, depending on the individual research field,
slight differences, but those are only formalities and do not concern the content.
The ultimate shortcomings rest with me, of course, but I hope that the reader will
enjoy and profit from the wealth of extraordinarily rich and well-researched
articles highlighting individual features of medieval culture.
After I had finished the Handbook of Medieval Studies in 2009 I was approached
by representatives of Walter de Gruyter with the request to edit subsequently a
Handbook of Medieval Culture. I must be a glutton for punishment to accept the
invitation to take on, once again, such a huge burden in scholarship demanding
years of intensive and often thankless work, but as soon as I realized the true
value of the outcome of our collective efforts for the future, I was extremely happy
about the opportunity to present a second reference work of such a monumental
caliber. It is my great pleasure to express my thanks to the editorial staff at the
Berlin office of the Walter de Gruyter publishing house, especially to Jacob
Klingner, Daniel Gietz, and then Elisabeth Kempf who was the major guiding
force for the critically final stage of getting this handbook into print. I hope that it
will serve Medieval Studies for many years to come, both students and scholars,
and also the general public. Perhaps, to be a little over-optimistic, its publication
could serve as a catalyst for some university administrators to accept the bid for a
Medieval Studies Major in whatever configuration colleagues might conceive of it.
Fortunately, such Majors already exist at Stanford University,19 at the University
19 http://cmems.stanford.edu/ (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014).

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14 Albrecht Classen
of Oregon,20 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,21 at the University

of Virginia,22 at the University of Notre Dame, IN,23 at the University of Toronto,
and at other major North American universities, as far as I can currently tell. There
is, however, much room to grow, and all good and solid contributions to medieval
scholarship can only help in that respect.
I have also to express my great gratitude to the contributors. Every article

included here demanded much intensive work, extensive research, and great
skills in compiling the relevant information in a condensed, compact, and yet
understandable fashion. The authors demonstrated extraordinary passion and
motivation, not only while writing their pieces, but especially when the long and
demanding editing process began. Our format is unusual and was developed
through an extensive trial-and-error process until the publisher and I had figured
out the best system, serving three different types of interests at the same time. I
am particularly thankful for the authors’ patience with my seemingly endless
nagging throughout the entire process which took years to accomplish. At the
end, as I feel urged to emphasize, each piece was most impressive and will
hopefully be a milestone in our research for decades to come.
The Middle Ages are not only simply ‘in’ today, they increasingly reveal their
broad and deep relevance for the postmodern world, providing powerful mes-
sages about epistemology, spirituality, and culture at large, confirming that we
as individuals are historical beings and cannot cut our roots, the Middle Ages, if
we want the present tree of our culture to thrive in the future. No biologist in his
or her sound mind would limit his or her studies to the canopy, the branches,
the trunk, and the leaves, ignoring the roots of a tree. In fact, the very top leaves
depend vastly on their direct connection with the roots so that they can breathe,
pump water, initiate their photosynthesis, etc. When we turn to the Middle
Ages, we study the very roots of our existence, and the more we have available
solid and foundational reference works such as this Handbook, the more we can
trust that the tree of our culture will grow and bloom today and in the future.24
20 http://admissions.uoregon.edu/majors/medieval%20studies (last accessed on Sept. 26,

2014).
21 http://www.medieval.illinois.edu/ (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014).
22 https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/medievalstudies/ (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014).
23 http://medieval.nd.edu/undergraduate-program/curriculum/ (last accessed on Sept. 26,
2014).
24 Bruce Holsinger, The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory (Chicago,
IL, and London 2005), has demonstrated how much virtually all of the major French theoreticians

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After all, there is a direct blood-line, so to speak, between the medieval world
and us today, perhaps best represented by the medieval idea of the Grail, the
Gothic cathedral, the trebuchet, mysticism, the concept of King Arthur, and
courtly love. And today we are the avatars of the Middle Ages!
The well of medieval philosophy, theology, art history, science, medicine, or
literature runs deeply throughout time. Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae
(ca. 525), above all, continues to have profound meaning for all of us and builds a
fascinating bridge between the past and the present.25 There are countless other
examples from the Middle Ages that demonstrate how much history matters for us
today and tomorrow as well,26 and how much medieval culture and literature
continue to have a profound impact on us in the modern world. This is not to
glorify the past and to identify it as an Elysium compared to our modern world in
all of its misery.
The Middle Ages were not an ideal time, and anyone dreaming of a return to
that period as the long-desired alternative to the present world would be deeply
disappointed. By the same token, our own existence, whether in the West or in
the East, is not ideal either, quite far from it. However, studying the Middle Ages
as an early, but still fairly recent stage of Western civilization not really far
removed from us today will allow us to regain access to our cultural, technical,
medical, religious, or physical memory and to comprehend that world as a most
valuable repository of ca. thousand years of human experiences, culture, history,
and social developments.
It thus seems most fitting to conclude with an image that might capture this
sense of (re)birth, of having our roots in that past world, so to speak, and having
grown out of it without having lost our connections. Being fully cognizant of the
significant contributions by the Jewish and also Islamic cultures to the European
Middle Ages, I still want to present here, as a lasting impression, the fantastic
twelfth-century baptismal font of San Frediano in Lucca, the Fonte Lustrale. “The
highlight at the entrance is the huge 12th-century Romanesque baptismal font
(the Fonte Lustrale). It is composed of a bowl, covered with atempietto, resting on
who have launched postmodernism were deeply influenced and shaped by their studies of the
Middle Ages. See also Erin Felicia Labbie, Lacan’s Medievalism (Minneapolis, MN, 2006).
25 For my various classes on the Middle Ages I have developed a textbook that serves my
purposes exceedingly well, Medieval Answers to Modern Problems, ed. Albrecht Classen, rev. ed.
(2012; San Diego, CA, 2013), and I would like to recommend it to my colleagues.
26 I like to express my gratitude to my colleagues Prof. Marilyn L. Sandidge (Westfield State
University), Francis Gentry (Pennsylvania State University), and Sarah M. Anderson (Princeton
University), for their critical reading of this introduction and their good suggestions regarding
some of the contributions.

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16 Albrecht Classen
pillars, inside a circular basin. It is the craftmanship of master Roberto (his

signature is on the basin) and two unknown masters. The basin is decorated
with The Story of Moses by a Lombard sculptor. Master Roberto did the last two
panels The Good Shepherd and the Six Prophets. The tempietto was sculpted by a
Tuscan master, representing the months of the year and the apostles.”27 The level
of artistry in the sculptures on the outer wall of this baptisterium is stunning, and
we can easily realize how much here the so-called “Renaissance of the Twelfth
Century” experienced its triumphant manifestation (Fig. 2). The more we can
learn about that past world, such as through a close study of this almost incom-
parable baptismal font, the more we will also be able to comprehend who we are
today, direct descendants of our medieval predecessors and hence part of the
same human community, and this despite many differences in the perception
and understanding of the world, the mentality, and the cultural framework. The
understanding of the Middle Ages thus creates a foundation for the critical
analysis of ourselves, now and in the future.
27 Susanne Heydasch-Lehmann, Der Taufbrunnen in San Frediano in Lucca und die Entwicklung
der toskanischen Plastik in der 2. Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt a. M. and New York 1991);

Luigi Cortini, Marta Niccoluci Cortini, and Maria F. Vadalà Linari, San Frediano: un culto, un
popolo, una chiesa (Florence 1997); Romano Silva, La Basilica di San Frediano a Lucca: immagine
simbolica di Roma cristiana (Lucca 2010). The quote is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Basilica_of_San_Frediano (last accessed on Sept. 29, 2014).

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Fig. 2: Baptismal font, San Frediano, Lucca (© Benjamin Yuchen, June 2014, with permission).

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Christopher R. Clason
Animals, Birds, and Fish in the Middle Ages
A Theoretical Reflections
The “animal” as object inhabits a unique position between the subjective human
observer and objective nature, for it comprises a part of nature capable of “look-
ing back” at the subject, thus reversing the subject-object relationship on the
biological species level (Oliver 2009, 17–19; Derrida 2008, 3–4). In countless ways
animals are like us and they are different, and so for the human being they
provide a connection to, and a boundary separating us from, the natural world
out of which human life emerges.
Animals have always fascinated human beings, and thus have appeared in
art from earliest times. Prehistoric cave drawings, stone effigies, and wooden
fetishes representing animal figures suggest that early peoples connected animals
with magic and religion. As culture developed, so, too, developed ever more
sophisticated treatments of animals in sculpture, painting and literary forms.
Thus, it is perhaps unavoidable that beasts, fowl, and fish would come to occupy
three important, symbolic, areas in human consciousness, each of which
achieved a particular and profound expression during medieval times:
1) They represent “other,” a part of uncontrollable nature, competitive, fierce,
dangerous, and against which humans need protection. They are competitors, or
even opponents, in the human struggle to survive in an inhospitable environ-
ment. These are the wild beasts that roar, growl, and inspire “us” humans with
fear. They remind us of our essentially mortal selves and contrast with our
spiritual nature that, according to medieval theology, sought to leave behind the
beastly and rise to “higher” realms. In the stated opinions of the earliest Church
Fathers, physical appearance separates beasts from humans, since the later are
made “in the image of God” and beasts are not, a notion that carried through to
the thirteenth-century writings of Albertus Magnus (ca. 1206–1280) and beyond.
Furthermore, church notables such as Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274) empha-
sized the behavioral differences: beasts act bestially, and perform savage and
brutal deeds for no apparent reason—humans, on the other hand, while they can
at times act cruelly and savagely, have grounds for doing so, as a rule. Addition-
ally, Christian philosophers such as Ambrose (ca. 340–397), Augustine (354–
430), and Aquinas cite the human use of “reason” to be the most profound
difference separating homo sapiens from the animal world. This perspective
dominates during the early Middle Ages (Salisbury 2011, 3–4).

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Animals, Birds, and Fish in the Middle Ages 19
2) They represent a part of nurturing nature, which links humans to their

natural origins. The animals are companions, friends of humans, and are con-
nected to human beings, who have domesticated some of them (Kompatscher,
Classen, and Dinzelbacher, ed., 2010, 20–31). We seek them out, and we desire
their presence and their company. They are good omens and give us comfort and
aid. They serve as food, satisfy our needs, and accompany us on our journeys
through life. As a common component of the locus amoenus topos, they help to
restore us to equilibrium and strength (Withers 2010, 98–99). Toward the end of
the medieval period, the common ground that humans share with beasts became
increasingly significant (Salisbury 2011, 81–107).
3) Separate from their significance as creatures of nature, animals obtain,
within a social and historical complex, meanings that are only indirectly depen-
dent upon biological or behavioral observation but rather directly dependent
upon cultural and artistic transmission. Especially during classic times and again
during the Middle Ages, animals assumed symbolic values, acquired through
several lines of both secular and ecclesiastical traditions, that made them unique
among things of the world. Animals rarely appeared in any work of literature, art,
history, philosophy, or science without evincing some added signification or
some nuance of meaning.
The medieval audience normally grasped, immediately and without great
effort, the standard significance of a certain species of beast, fish, or bird; and so
the medieval artist had at her or his command a ready supply of amusing and
didactic images, metaphors, symbols, and allegorical figures that were rife with
sophisticated layers of nuanced significations. For example, when, in the German
Tristan (ca. 1210) of Gottfried von Straßburg, the author creates symbolic associa-
tions of Isolde with a falcon, a massive and very complex tradition of images,
qualities and poems of high love immediately occur to the educated, courtly
reader and color her or his attitude toward the noble lady; furthermore, a boar on
Tristan’s shield marks him as a man of great sexual prowess, reinforcing positive
qualities of power and potency in the audience’s opinion of him as a warrior and
potential ruler as well, while underscoring his destructiveness to King Mark’s
marriage and rule (McDonald 1991; Schleissner 1993, 78; 81–82). While scientific
knowledge regarding animals as objects of nature progressed relatively little over
most of the Middle Ages (Flores 1993, 5–10), certainly no other class of objects
could claim such a rich, powerful and diverse range of psychic significance—and
few that attracted such keen interest from literary and plastic artists (Classen
2012b, 9–13).
Certainly, the defining tendency over the earlier medieval period with regard
to human-animal relations was the marginalization of animals as “other,” in
order to create and to demarcate a human identity that reflected Christian reli-

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20 Christopher R. Clason
gious thinking, particularly important during the era when Church patriarchs
were attempting to consolidate the power of the Church in Europe. Distinguishing
Christian beliefs from those of more nature-friendly, pagan religions, they estab-
lished a qualitative difference between humans and animals: “mankind” was
created in the “image” of God, but the beasts were not; humans possess souls, but
the beasts do not, etc. According to this view, humans ought to view the world of
nature as a revelation of God’s design for the universe (the “book of nature”), a
plan that supposedly supports the infinite wisdom of the creator but objectifies
the flora and non-human fauna of God’s creation. As proof of human superiority,
the patriarchs (the Church Fathers) looked at language, reason, and conscious-
ness as proof that the human “we” should maintain the right and privilege to
exploit animal objects for their own purposes and gain. Therefore, the basic
patriarchal texts tended to emphasize physical and behavioral differences be-
tween beasts and humans (Salisbury 2011, 1–3). This attitude began to change late
in the Middle Ages (by the twelfth century), such that humans started to see
themselves in the context of the animal kingdom, perhaps even to acknowledge
“the animal within” (Leemans and Klemm 2007, 159–61; Salisbury 2011, 7–9).
B Sources
I The Physiologus
Perhaps the most significant literary source for the early medieval understanding
of animals is the Physiologus, a Greek text by an anonymous author in Alexandria
composed in the second century C.E., and translated into Latin sometime in the
fourth century (Gerlach 1971, 432–33; Glick, Livesey, and Wallis, ed., 2005, 528). It
consists of numerous descriptions, tales, and legends concerning a broad variety
of fauna, flora and inanimate nature, transmitted through folklore and eventually
associated, often allegorically, with religious and moral themes. The Physiologus
(so named because many chapters of the original work begin with the phrase
“The Physiologus says…” [George and Yapp 1991, 1–2; Beullens 2007, 131]) was
one of the most popular and widely read books of the Middle Ages, and formed an
important source of influence, if not the very basis, for subsequent works like it,
from Book XII of Isidore’s Etymologies (early seventh century) to the myriad of
bestiaries that flooded especially the later centuries of the medieval period (Flores
1996, ix–xi; Whitney 2004, 103; Resl 2007, 10–12). Translations appear in numer-
ous vernacular languages from the original Greek; and through these transla-
tions, the forty chapters of the original work grew to over one hundred in some of
the translated texts.

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Each chapter generally begins with or makes reference to a biblical verse,

which the author intends to associate in some way with certain observations about
the animal, plant, or stone the chapter is describing. The connections which the
author makes are for the most part allegorical and the characteristics he attributes
to the described creatures are often whimsical or fantastic (Salisbury 2011, 86–87).
For example, the elephant supposedly has no knee joints, and therefore, if it falls, it
cannot arise again (Physiologus 1979, 30–31; Werness 2004, 164–65, Classen 2012b,
11). The panther, the author claims, is a quiet and mild animal with pleasant breath,
which attracts other animals by exhaling a very pleasing aroma (Physiologus 1979,
42–45; Peil 1994, 113; Hassig 1995, 156; Baxter 1998, 49–50; Werness 2004, 315).
Similarly, the whale is said to attract tiny fish with its pleasant breath (Physiologus
1979, 46; Baxter 1998, 80; Werness 2004, 430). Some beasts suffer the misfortune of
strongly negative associations; for example, the wild ass and the monkey, which
the author links to the devil (Physiologus 1979, 38–39). On the other hand, the turtle-
dove represents chasteness and fidelity to one’s mate (Groos 1968, 631–46; Klingen-
der 1971, 342; 376; Baxter 1998, 52; Mermier 2004, 52–53), while other doves (red,
white, speckled, etc.) represent various virtues of Christ (Poeschke 1972, 241–44;
Physiologus 1979, 64–66; Baxter 1998, 53–55; Werness 2004, 143–44).
However, there are a number of medieval associations between animals and
certain behaviors that have endured well beyond the Middle Ages, which one may
credit the Physiologus with popularizing. For example, there have been many
throughout history who have held that the female pelican feeds her young with
her own blood if no food is available for them to eat, a belief which appears in this
work; even today, the pelican is thought of as a good avian parent, although any
biological evidence of this is lacking (Physiologus 1979, 9–10; Peil 1996, 110–11;
Werness 2004, 323–24). Also, a most familiar image, well-represented as a symbol
for Christ ever since the Middle Ages, is that of the phoenix, the fabulous bird who
dies in a conflagration but after three days arises from its ashes, reborn and
renewed; the iconic connection of this classical beast with the notion of Christian
resurrection arises from the pages of the medieval Physiologus (Physiologus 1979,
13–14; Mermier 1989, 69–87).
Through the later medieval centuries Isidore’s Etymologies and the bestiaries
began to exert an ever increasing influence on what was considered “common
knowledge” regarding animals (Rowland 1971, 3–4), which in turn had a con-
siderable impact on new editions of their predecessor, the Physiologus. With
greater numbers of translations of the text, later Physiologus editions grew ever
more distant from the Greek original, and with time became hardly recognizable
at all. Eventually, these changes brought more and different beasts into the text,
thus contributing further to the great and colorful variety of animals appearing in
art and literature (Gerlach 1971, 432–34; Physiologus 1979, xxx).

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II The Bestiaries
The numerous bestiaries that appeared throughout Europe from the twelfth
century on, especially in Latin, French and English, but also in Catalan, Castilian,
and Italian, reveal the many layers of sophisticated meaning that developed in
art, literature, and didactic works over the course of the Middle Ages. In most of
these texts, direct observation of the animal in nature was unimportant; rather,
the bestiaries relied on the authority of texts that preceded them, especially the
Physiologus and classical authors (Benton 1992, 17; Wheatcroft 1999, 141–59;
Glick, Livesey, and Wallis, ed., 2005, 528). However, there were also vast differ-
ences between the bestiaries and the Greek text from almost a millennium earlier
(George and Yapp 1991, 5–6). These compendia of wisdom regarding animals
provided a rich source of symbolic associations, religious allegory, political
satire, and moral and religious instruction, and while they were certainly mod-
eled after the Physiologus they also followed their own multitude of textual,
visual, and oral sources as well (Hassig 1999, xi). For example, sources beyond
the Physiologus for Oxford M. S. Bodley 764, include Hrabanus Maurus’s (ca. 780–
856) On the Nature of Things, Hugh of Fouilloy’s (ca. 1100–1172) The Aviary, and
Peter of Cornwall’s (ca. 1140–1221) Pantheologus, and there were others in addi-
tion (Bestiary 1999, 8).
While illustrations in the Physiologus are rare, many bestiaries were profusely
illustrated, and the visual representations found in them became exemplary for
animal representations in Romanesque and Gothic art (Clark and McMunn 1989,
2–8). Bestiary illustrations include both portraits of the individual animal (usually
in profile, alone, and with some decorative elements) and/or narrative imagery,
in which the beast is performing some activity against a landscape background
(Hassig 1995, 10–12). Often, the illustrations are fanciful and what was drawn only
vaguely resembles the actual beast in nature. Clearly, the importance of the
bestiary was not zoological science and factual accuracy, but rather the transmis-
sion of the beast’s significance and abstract qualities (Flores 1993, 3–44).
III Isidore’s Etymologies, Book XII
Isidore (ca. 560–636), Archbishop of Seville, is regarded as a great link between the
world of classical learning and the Christian-European Middle Ages. Isidore’s
extensive Etymologies provided a summa of the knowledge of his time (the early
seventh century), which he based largely on linguistic derivations. Book XII is
concerned with the animal kingdom: it is one of the two longest books of twenty
composing this massive work. He arranges the world of animals into eight chapters

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(Klingender 1971): domestic and useful animals, beasts of prey, small creatures,
serpents, worms, fishes and amphibians, birds and insects. Each chapter then
attempts to differentiate among various sub-types within a type by analyzing the
name according to characteristics or behavior and rationalizing the naming etymo-
logically. Setting Isidore’s articles apart from other such works is his refusal to
moralize in his stories regarding his beasts: while the beasts and behaviors Isidore
described were often strange or fantastic, he nevertheless resisted falling into
religious allegory like many of the later authors of the bestiaries.
IV The Bible
The Christian Bible mentions over 100 quadrupeds and birds, making the reli-
gious symbolism of beasts and its use as a didactic tool familiar to most devout
medieval Europeans (Glick, Livesey and Wallis, 2005). Of course, the Old Testa-
ment of the Christian Bible remained a primary source for the Judeo-Christian
medieval perspective on nature, and therein one discovers the mandate that
human beings were to dominate animals, use them as slaves, and consume them
as food. In the story of the Fall in Genesis, Satan acquired the form of a serpent in
order to tempt Adam and Eve, and their original sin established the polarity
between culture and nature, fixing humans outside the natural world. Adam
claimed the power and the right to name the animals, but they did not obtain the
privilege to name him. During the great deluge, Noah chose which animals he
would save on board the ark, but the ones left behind to perish in the great flood,
a punishment for human wickedness, had no choice regarding to their fate. When
Abraham’s son Isaac was saved from being sacrificed, a ram was chosen to take
his place to be slaughtered on the altar, and so on. In the anthropocentric
discourse of the Bible, humans dominate their environment and hold dominion
over nature, subjugating the animals and killing them for their own purposes, as
food or sacrifice to their anthropomorphic deity. Judeo-Christians conceived of
the deity they worshipped not in a bestial form (as is the case in many other
cultures, historical periods, and religious contexts) but rather in their own, hu-
man image and likeness. Therefore, in the narrative concerning the Jews’ Exodus
from Egypt, when some Jews chose to worship an image of a golden calf, the
textual tone recording the incident did not merely reveal the act to be erroneous,
but also blasphemous, aberrant, and condemnable, especially because of the
manufactured, “false” deity’s bestial essence.
The beasts of the New Testament, while retaining their nature as objects for
human use, also occupied significant roles as silent witnesses to important events
in Christ’s life, and further became important symbols in the gospel stories,

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miracles and parables. The language of the New Testament was particularly
enriched by the presence of so many animals that color the landscape, while they
concretized abstract concepts and spiritual lessons; the camel, the ass, the
serpent, as well as herds of swine, sheep, the birds of the air, and the fish of the
sea populated the stories and parables reported in the gospels, especially that of
Matthew. And so it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than
for a wealthy man to achieve salvation (Luke 18:25, Matthew 19:24), and Christ
would gather Jerusalem’s children together as a hen would gather its chicks under
her wings (Matthew 23:37). Although the fowl of the air do little in regard to
cultivation and harvesting, the deity still provides for them; after making this
statement, Christ poses the rhetorical question: are not humans much better than
they are (Matthew 6:26)? Elsewhere, Christ warns against casting pearls before
swine, lest they be stomped into the ground (Matthew 7:6); and against false
prophets, who are like ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). The
proverbial flavor of such expressions was already well established in the Middle
Ages and carried forth in the literary and visual arts throughout the period.
V Classical Authors
Among the authors of classical times perhaps the most influential on the medie-
val view of animals were Aristotle and Pliny, particularly upon scholars and
intellectuals. Pliny the Elder’s (23 C.E.–79 C.E.) great contribution to the medieval
understanding of the natural world is certainly his Historia naturalis, which
related much of the knowledge of his time. The entire text amounts to a compen-
dium of scientific knowledge, including the geological, astronomical and biologi-
cal sciences, a significant portion of which is zoological. In it, the factual is often
mixed with the fantastic, but the quantities of information and the number of
species represented are vast. Pliny’s intent is clear: to show how all beasts were
placed on the earth to be exploited by human beings (Rowland 1971, 2). During
the Middle Ages, this material could easily be disseminated into the public sphere
of knowledge, since Isidore’s Etymologies employed Pliny extensively as a source.
Furthermore, Pliny had become broadly known among medieval scholars of
science as well: the Historia naturalis could be found by the ninth century in the
libraries at Corbie, St. Denis, Lorsch, Reichenau, and Monte Cassino, and by the
eleventh and twelfth centuries at many more, such as at Chartres and Oxford
(Healy 1991, xxxvii–xxxviii).
Aristotle (384 B.C.E.–322 B.C.E.) had some influence during the later centuries
of the medieval period (Leemans and Klemm 2007, 161–73), but only after his
“recovery” in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when most of his works were

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translated into Latin ca. 1220, by Michael Scotus (ca. 1175–ca. 1235) (Klingender
1971, 350). Perhaps his most important proponent at this time was Albertus
Magnus (ca. 1206–1280), who in his zoological treatise De animalibus (On Ani-
mals) emphasized Aristotle’s empirical approach to the phenomenal world, ap-
preciating his Greek forebear for his scientific methods and observations; there-
fore, he took pains to pay careful attention to observation and description
(Classen, ed., 2012, 9; Whitney 2004, 148–49). However, the scholastic Albertus
did not merely present ancient philosophy, and as he crafted Aristotle’s work to
his own rhetorical ends, he embellished it and yet argued with his pagan pre-
decessor, and so produced one of the great works of scholasticism (Klingender
1971, 350–51). Albertus’s zoological investigations were clearly intended for an
academic audience and thus did not experience the vast popularity of the Etymol-
ogies, the bestiaries or the Physiologus.
C The Hunt
The hunt provided a regular opportunity for “polite” society to engage with the
natural world, and by the twelfth century had become one of the most significant
courtly pastimes. Indeed, with the rise of feudalism, hunting grew into a ritual
performance of the medieval nobility, a pursuit in which noblemen and women
could bond with one another as privileged members of the elite social class, while
also practicing skills important in warfare, and displaying wealth, physical prow-
ess and power (Werness 2004, 229; Sandidge 2012, 389–406).
The ruling class strictly controlled the space in which its members hunted.
The pursuit of larger animals usually took place in the royal forests, while smaller
game would be hunted in “warrens,” uncultivated areas set aside for this specific
purpose. The authorities punished poachers severely: the penalties included
blinding or emasculation, and even the death penalty was not an unusual out-
come for the most egregious cases. Hunting was a dangerous pastime, and
accidents often occurred during the chase. Nevertheless, women sometimes took
part in many activities associated with the hunt, and participated fully in the
feasting and drinking that marked the celebration of a successful outing. There are
furthermore records of women who took part in the pursuit and killing of game as
well, particularly in falconing (Brault 1982, 357); in the Manessische Liederhand-
schrift (Manesse Songbook, early fourteenth century) in Heidelberg, several images
bear evidence of women falconers, most obviously in the representation of Herr
Werner von Teufen (early thirteenth century) (Codex Manesse, 69v).
Contemporary manuals describing hunting skills and equipment yield a great
deal of information regarding weaponry and tactics, as well as the animals that

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the hunters pursued. Foremost among these is the hunting book composed by
Gaston Phébus, the Count of Foix (1331–1391) (Brault 1982, 360; Stuhmiller 2012,
505–28; see also her contribution to this Handbook on “Hunting, Hawking, Fowl-
ing, and Fishing”). With respect to hawking and falconing, the Holy Roman
Emperor Friedrich II (1194–1250) produced one of the most beautifully illustrated
tomes of its kind, De arte venandi cum avibus (ca. 1250, On the Art of Hunting with
Birds); its great significance as a treatise on hunting technology as well as a
source for visual representations of various avian species is discussed below.
Numerous literary works presented the hunt as a courtly ritual performance
as well as an opportunity for characters to demonstrate their bravery, strength
and skills, and romances often commenced with hunting. In Chrétien de Troyes’s
(late twelfth century) Erec et Enide (ca. 1170), the hunt for the White Stag, a mythic
beast of Celtic origins, begins a sequence of forest adventures involving Arthur,
his knightly entourage, and the youthful Erec (Thiébaux 1974, 108–15). When
Gottfried’s hero, Tristan (ca. 1210), still quite young but well-schooled in the craft
of woodsmen, first arrives in his uncle Mark’s kingdom, his initial adventure
involves a demonstration of his hunting skills, as he instructs a courtly hunting
party in the proper way of dressing and preparing their kill for transport back to
court (Thiébaux 1974, 129–34). Wolfram von Eschenbach’s (early thirteenth cen-
tury) protagonist, Parzival, follows a trail to the Grail that he tracks like a good
huntsman, recognizing and pursuing signs that spur him onward (Thiébaux 1974,
172–76). The hunt plays a most important role in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(late fourteenth century); three consecutive days of hunting include pursuits of a
deer, a boar, and finally a fox–thus giving the tale a particularly English char-
acter, since fox hunting is traditionally associated with the nobility of England
(Thiébaux 1974, 71–88; Yamamoto 2000, 123–31). The lyrics of the troubadours
employ the hunt copiously, as a plot device for moving characters into a natural
setting and as a metaphor for the pursuit of love (Cummins 1988).
The practice of hunting with hounds was termed “venery,” in which the
human participants followed the dogs on horseback or on foot (Smets and van
den Abeele 2007, 61). Hunting parties pursue a great variety of animals: deer,
boars, rabbits, and many other species were the focus of the chase. Hunting dogs,
singly or in packs, were commonly employed for hunting larger game; often, they
were housed in kennels, making them susceptible at times to mange and rabies,
although most hunters recognized the importance of housing their hunting dogs
in hygienic conditions. Falcons and other hawks became the most commonly
employed beasts for hunting smaller game (Friedman 1989, 157–58). Although a
great number of noblepersons engaged in the practice of hunting, the animals
they killed did not constitute a significant protein source for the medieval diet.
Rather, courtiers hunted for sport and recreation, and the experience served an

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important social function by forging bonds among the nobility and affirming their
elite status (Brault 1982, 356–57); the rituals of the hunt, such as the system of
rewards (essentially, body-parts of the slain animal) for the participants who
perform certain services, reinforced rituals of the courtly ethos on the body of
the beast and in the natural environment, away from the court (Yamamoto 2000,
111–13).
D Religion
The medieval mind viewed animal life, like most other aspects of nature, through
the lens not only of the Bible (see above) but also from the vast body of patristic
scholarship, myth and tradition that followed. The violent rupture between hu-
man life and nature that originated in the story of the Fall in the Garden of Eden
carried on into medieval times; thus Augustine maintained that humans occupy a
privileged position above all animals, for “we” possess a soul, whereas “they” do
not. Later, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) would also insist that the beasts are
irreconcilably inferior to humans, but for him it is a question of humankind
having and animals lacking reason. Thus, for the earlier Middle Ages the “bestial”
commonly reflected that which was ignoble, base and evil, to be exploited as food
or for our comfort or convenience, or often to be mistrusted or feared as competi-
tive, destructive or dangerous elements of inclement nature. Of course, notable
exceptions to these attitudes did occur, as for example, in the fables from
antiquity that enjoy popularity throughout the period.
These attitudes evolved gradually but decisively over time, such that during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries stories and tales began to mark a sea-change
in the way humans viewed themselves in relation to the animal kingdom (Salisbury
1994). Primarily responsible were the numerous bestiaries and related texts that
represented animals as especially religious exempla of human behavior, assessed
as good or bad in accord with values assigned through textual and visual associa-
tion. Among the good beasts one could regularly count, for example, the lamb,
resting on its biblical symbolism of purity, as a preferred Old Testament animal of
sacrifice or the New Testament symbol for Christ, the Agnus Dei. Correspondingly,
there were evil beasts as well. Perhaps the most notorious was the serpent, the
reptilian form of the tempter of the Garden of Eden from Genesis 1.
Among spiritually negative beasts, the toad held a special place as a creature
evincing harmful characteristics, its bad reputation arising from both classical
and Christian sources. Furthermore, by medieval times, through conflation and
confusion with its biological cousin the frog (latin rana), the toad (latin rubeta)
had uniquely acquired most of the “evil” qualities ascribed to both species, such

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as being the cause of plagues or the vessel of unclean spirits described in the
Bible, or as sources of poison in Pliny or Juvenal (ca. early second century). Later,
the toad became an emblematic commonplace for the memento mori theme:
generally, it was believed that toads possess teeth, and gnaw at decomposing
corpses or even at the souls of those in purgatory or in hell. Thus, the toad’s
literary and artistic representation as an evil, deadly, and decadent beast, com-
bined with its physical and behavioral characteristics, such as its nocturnal
activity, the sounds it emits, and its often unpleasant appearance and smell,
connected it during the later medieval period with the worst possible associa-
tions, including bubonic plague, witchcraft, and heretical movements (Robbins
1996, 25–47).
A special association regarding the symbolism surrounding the four Evange-
list authors of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, originated early in the
history of the iconography of the Christian Church. These associations stemmed
from three biblical passages: Revelation 4:6–8, Ezekiel 1:4–10 and Ezekiel 10:1,
14–15; each of these enigmatic verses related a vaguely similar, dream-like scenar-
io, in which four winged animal-human entities appeared as part of an apocalyp-
tic vision and brought some news or sang praises to God. Already in the second
century C.E., St. Irenaeus of Lyons (second century C. E.) attempted to match each
of these figures with an evangelist symbolically, linking Matthew with the de-
scribed angelic-human figure, John with the lion, Luke with the ox, and Mark with
the eagle. In this endeavor he was followed by St. Jerome (ca. 347–420) and
St. Augustine (354–430) in the early fifth century, each attempting a different
symbolic configuration of animal-to-evangelist; finally, the distribution suggested
by St. Jerome prevailed, wherein Mark was associated with a lion, and John’s icon
was that of the eagle, while, similarly to Irenaeus’s design, Matthew was matched
with an angel and Luke with an ox. This iconography became ubiquitous in the art
of the Middle Ages (Klingender 1974, 216–37; Werness 2004, 169).
Several Christian medieval saints were also associated with animals. The
mythology surrounding St. Eustace (second century C. E.) was filled with beasts:
various tales involved his vision of a magnificent stag with huge antlers bearing a
crucifix, the kidnapping of his children by a lion and a wolf, and his martyrdom
by being roasted alive inside a bull fashioned out of brass. St. Francis of Assisi
(ca. 1182–1226), the founder of the Franciscan Order, gathered wolves and birds
around him in peace and tranquility, according to the myth, and his simple,
straightforward intimacy with nature reminded all humans during the later Mid-
dle Ages of the omnipresence of divinity. The monastic St. Jerome (347–420) was
reputed to have removed a thorn from the claw of a lion; as a result, virtually all
representations of the saint included a tame lion in the monk’s immediate
presence (Werness 2004, 354–56; Salter 2001, 11–70).

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E Fables
The fable, an important inheritance from classical literature, occupied a unique
position among the didactic literary genres of the medieval period. For the most
part, the genre was an inheritance from classical times, particularly from the
fables of the Greek Aesop (ca. 620–564 B. C. E.), although the most important
of the medieval fabulists tended to change key aspects. For the classical world,
fables provided a means by which the lower classes could criticize the social
order, casting individuals from the upper classes as animals and thus evading
punishment for seditious writing. However, during the Middle Ages it was not
the lower classes but rather the upper classes that produced and read fables;
thus the stories generally tended to support the social status quo (Salisbury
1996, 50–51), and although they offered some social criticisms, their primary
thrust was to praise certain virtues, such as humility and cleverness (Adams
2005, 909).
Growing out of the traditions of the fable, various beast epics became popular
narratives during the later medieval period. Noteworthy were the Latin epic
poems Ecbasis captivi and the Ysengrinus, as well as the widely known Roman de
Renart; each of these tales presented the slyness of the fox and the uncontrollable
desires of the wolf, and often brought in other anthropomorphized animals as
well (Mann 2009, 17–20).
Especially worthy of mention are the hundred three fables of Marie de France
(late twelfth century), which often included animal characters (Salisbury 1996,
50–51). The genre was traditionally a masculine one and transmitted conven-
tional, patriarchal social values; Marie’s fables were unique texts in that they
were produced by a woman, a practically unknown phenomenon in the period
extending from classical times until the eighteenth century (Spiegel 1994, 111).
Social relationships among the fable beasts were sophisticated and courtly, and
so the animals formed bonds and interacted with one another much as humans
would do, according to custom at court (Jauss 1959, 46–47). The social hierarchy
represented in these brief works reflected the natural hierarchy of power, and the
more powerful beasts consistently exploited the less powerful ones (Adams 2005,
908–09). Thus, the predatory beast was superior to its victim in nature; for
example, the wolf had a higher position than the lamb, which was reflected in
forms of address—the wolf addressed the lamb as one of inferior rank, and the
lamb spoke to the wolf as its lord (Mann 2009, 58–59); and the lion cunningly
exploited its position as alpha predator over other animals, tricking them into
doing the work of the hunt but then appropriating for himself all the deer they
had hunted (Adams 2005, 909). The values informing the fable’s moral were
generally those of the court as well, but also present in the broad ethos were

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cunning, suspicion and mistrust, while the most successful characters were self-
reliant and clever (Bloch 2003; Mann 2009, 76; Whalen 2011).
F Heraldry
The term “heraldry” refers to the bold, bright insignias that adorned the shields of
knights, a custom that began in the early twelfth century; animals were almost
ubiquitously present in the emblems and usually occupied a place of primary
iconographic importance (Hartmann 2009, 178–79). The insignia became more
family identifications than purely personal devices, and they were passed from
father to son through generations as a treasured inheritance. The granting of the
familial crest became a ceremony full of symbolism and pride for the family: the
ritual of initiation included a shave and a bath for the young man, who also had
to remain awake and stand watch overnight in preparation for the bestowing of
the heraldic emblem on the following day (Klingender 1971, 451).
The heraldic emblem provided one of the most significant means of identify-
ing knights in battle, since a person under so much armor was otherwise virtually
unrecognizable. Since the emblem often included prominent images of various
birds and beasts, it forged a strong visual identity between the knight and the
animal emblazoned on the shield. Therefore, the emblems provided a highly
visible means for spreading and popularizing certain qualities of specific animals
in a secular context (Page 2007, 41). Essentially, the heraldic practice served to
liberate beasts from their traditional religious connotations, fashioning a new
mythology for various species where the qualities previously known only through
the Physiologus and the bestiaries were replaced with moral characteristics that
related to courtly and knightly virtue. Bravery, strength, and determination were
personal qualities that warriors wished to project, and so lions, eagles, and some
fantastic beasts, such as griffins and dragons, became favorites in heraldic
emblems (Klingender 1971, 452–54). As a result, heraldic beasts tended to be
fierce; additionally, in Arthurian heraldry there were some very unusual beasts as
well (Nickel 1993, 30). Numerous courtly epics described the shields born by
knights as they did battle: very often, the authors mentioned specifically the
animals and then characterized the knight with some of the attributes that the
beasts evoked (Hartmann 2009, 168–76).
The images associated with the authors whose poems were included in the
famous Manessische Liederhandschrift (Manesse Songbook, early fourteenth cen-
tury) carried the heraldic tradition over into literature and forged a visual connec-
tion between poets and animal imagery. Furthermore, heraldic images appeared
in books, bibles, registers, and other documents associated with church records,

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as well as in the very architecture of the churches: one witnessed familial

insignias, for example, in numerous memorials to prominent churchmen and
women as well as on tombs and in crypts that held the remains of socially or
politically important individuals (Hartmann 2009, 152–68).
G Specific Beasts
A great variety of animals appeared in the literature and art of the Middle Ages.
While it is impossible to list all of them in the space allotted here, there are
nevertheless a number of beasts which appeared often, and whose range of
symbolic meanings tended to remain rather constant.
I Wild
Lion
Perhaps the most significant of all bestiary animals, the lion appeared seemingly
ubiquitously in literary and visual works throughout the Middle Ages (Bloch 1971,
112–19). However, although they were reported in Greece as late as the fourth
century B.C.E., the actual beast’s original range had, for the most part, extended
only across Africa, the Middle East, and India, and by the Middle Ages it had
already disappeared from these areas to a significant extent. Nevertheless, medie-
val Europe remained thoroughly familiar and fascinated with lions, and particu-
larly among the earlier manuscripts there was scarcely a bestiary that does
not feature the lion as the first animal. Some actual, flesh-and-blood lions were
known in Europe as well, especially among the royalty: for example, the English
King Henry I (ca. 1068–1135) kept a pride of lions in his royal park, and for over a
century the exhibit was the most popular viewing attraction among the zoological
holdings there (George and Yapp 1991, 47–48).
Medieval culture almost universally recognized special qualities of bravery,
power and pride in the lion. Thus, King Richard I (Coeur de Lion, “Lionheart”) of
England (1157–1199) and Heinrich (der Löwe, “the Lion”), Duke of Saxony and
Bavaria (1129–1195), acquired leonine epithets because of their daring and valor-
ous deeds. The heraldic emblem of the lion became associated with the English
throne and eventually turned into the prominent symbol in the Royal Banner, the
Royal Coat of Arms, and other official symbols of England.
There are abundant medieval literary works in which the lion appears, often
as a major element of the plot or thematic structures. In several, the hero renders

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assistance to the lion, and the lion repays the kindness by serving the hero.
Chrétien’s Yvain (Le chevalier au lion, ca. 1177) rescues a lion that is threatened by
a dragon; as a result, the lion becomes his loyal companion, aids him in his
knightly exploits, and helps him to win back his estranged wife, Laudine. In the
tale of St. Jerome (ca. 347–ca. 420) and the Lion, a male lion with a wounded paw
hobbles into a monastery; although the other monks flee in terror, Jerome greets
the beast without fear, cleans his wound and bandages it. The lion, like Yvain’s
companion, loses his wildness and out of gratitude for the saint’s kindness he
faithfully serves the monks at the monastery (Salter 2001, 11–24).
The lion also acquired negative characteristics in some works, particularly
because its reputation for ferocity inspired paralyzing fear in the medieval human
heart. Perhaps the most famous example occurs in the opening canto of Dante’s
(1265–1321) Divine Comedy (1308–1321): one of the three beasts blocking the poet
from recovering the “path that does not stray,” the lion that appears there has
commonly been interpreted as a bestial representative of sins of violence. Its
presence, along with that of a she-wolf and a leopard, prevents the pilgrim,
thwarted by utter terror, from returning to his life’s path, and thus it initiates the
metaphorical journey he will take through the Inferno, the Purgatorio and finally
the Paradiso.
Boar
While the wild boar did not appear in the original Physiologus, it entered into the
bestiaries late in the twelfth century, where it was considered to be one of the
most savage of all animals (George and Yapp 1991, 74–75). Its evil attributes were
at least partly due to its biblical associations, originating in the Old Testament
Book of Psalms (80, 13), with the Apocalypse and the Antichrist. Its reputation
marked it as fearless and ferocious, capable of killing hunters with its formidable
tusks (Cummins 1988, 96–109); furthermore, it personified the cardinal sin of
Lust, in polar opposition to the virtue of Chastity (Werness 2004, 49). In this
symbolism, the boar was lecherous and gluttonous beyond measure, capable of
feeding on its own young, human corpses, and small children (Rowland 1971,
75–78). It became a familiar animal, even in areas populated by human beings,
and “domesticated” boars could often be found roaming the urban environment,
consuming whatever edible tidbits they might find in streets and garbage dumps
(Rowland 1971, 74–75). At the same time, because of its uncontrollable nature and
appetites, it retained its essential “otherness” to the court, symbolizing an ex-
treme challenge to its rules for decorum and acceptability (Zips 1972, 134–52;
McDonald 1991, 159–78; Schleissner 1993, 81–83; Clason 2004, 285–89).

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Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–ca. 1400) makes use of such negative associations
in “The Knight’s Tale,” where he compares “chivalrous” warriors, locked in
ferocious combat over the favors of a young woman, to boars. The symbolism
here functions appropriately on three levels: boars have a reputation for relent-
less viciousness; they are particularly ferocious during their breeding season; and
finally, they possess a connection to mental disorders as a result of the biblical
tale (Matthew 8: 31–32; Mark 5: 11–13) of Christ casting evil spirits out of a human
and directing them into a nearby heard of swine, who rush into a lake and drown
themselves. Thus, Chaucer implies that courtly love transforms the lover into a
murderous beast, whose ardor is fueled not by noble sentiments, but rather by
lust and madness (Rowland 1971, 78; see now Van Dyke, ed., 2012).
However, very few medieval beasts possessed reputations that were entirely
either good or bad, and even the boar was granted some positive qualities. A few
medieval literary authors sometimes held the boar in special esteem as a fearless
and powerful beast, symbolizing great bravery and strength, but resisting the
narrowness and restriction of courtly rules and regulations. In Gottfried von
Straßburg’s Tristan und Isolde, a boar is emblazoned on Tristan’s shield, associat-
ing him with these qualities; when Tristan’s companion Marjodo dreams of a wild
boar forcing its way into the king’s bedroom, foaming at the mouth and soiling
the royal bed, it is clear that the reference is to Tristan, the destroyer of Mark’s
marriage (Schleissner 1993, 81–83; Clason 2004, 285–89). Research has shown,
however, that Tristan’s linking to the boar was not Gottfried’s invention, but
rather arose from old French traditions (Zips 1972, 139).
The boar-hunt, probably the second favorite to the stag-hunt (Salisbury
2011, 39), provided several medieval authors with plot elements for their epic
works, motivating the heroes’ presence in the woods and supplying the opportu-
nity for an encounter with danger and destiny. In Jean d’Arras’ (late fourteenth
century) Melusine, Raimondin accidentally kills his uncle when attempting to
dispatch a ferocious boar during a hunt. Immediately thereafter he encounters
Melusine, his future bride, for the first time, at an enchanted spring, an event
that moves Raimondin’s future, along with the narrative, into the realm of the
fabulous and supernatural. One of their offspring, Geoffroy à la grand’dent (“big
tooth”) bears a permanent, physical reminder of the parents’ first encounter.
Geoffroy’s huge tooth (resembling a boar’s tusk) as well as his extreme disposi-
tion (exemplified by the horrific deed he commits of burning down a monastery
in anger at a brother, and so murdering a number of monks) indicates that, even
later in life, he has retained several characteristics typical of the beast, as a part
of his familial inheritance (Hahn 2012, 87–108). This account later enjoyed
considerable popularity, such as in Thüring von Ringoltingen’s early-German
Melusine (1456).

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Deer
The deer, perhaps the most important target of the hunt, was one of the most
significant animals of the Middle Ages, and very commonly appeared in works of
art and literature. There are several types of deer that the medieval world distin-
guished from one another: the male deer, or “stag,” also called the “hart,”
possesses prodigious antlers that function as weapons but are shed periodically;
the female deer is sometimes called a “hind,” especially when designating a doe
of the red deer family (Werness 2004, 215). In most areas of Europe, the stag is the
largest hunted animal. Because it is timid but also wily and large, it demands the
utmost of the hunter and the dogs, and therefore hunting it was both a challenge
and a thrill. During the rut, a stag can kill a human being, but at the same time it
is extremely shy and fearful, and medieval authors claimed that the heart of the
stag contains a bone, which alone prevents the animal from dying of terror
(Cummins 1988, 32).
Hunters conducted their chase of the deer par force, following strict rules. The
huntsman spotted the animal and reported back to the assembly of hunters, who
planned the progress of their hunt. The company planted relays of hounds at
strategic points, to be released when the animal was spotted; they gave chase,
exhausted it and surrounded it, holding it captive until the company arrived and
killed the deer with a sword (Hassig 1995, 49). Thereafter a highly specialized
ritual was held in order to break up the beast and carry it back to court—this is a
process of which Tristan in Gottfried von Strassburg’s eponymous romance (ca.
1210) has great knowledge and in which the boy educates Mark’s hunting party.
The dogs were rewarded with bread, blood and chopped intestines (the curee, or
“quarry”) spread out over the now empty deerskin. All the while, the hunters
continuously blew their horns to signal the successful hunt (Smets and van den
Abeele 2007, 61). In the later Middle Ages, the wealthier members of the nobility
developed deer parks and staged massive hunting parties, a phenomenon that led
to massacres of deer in great numbers (Smets and van den Abeele 2007, 62;
Dowling 2012, 384–86; Sandidge 2012, 398–406).
Numerous literary works celebrated the stag as a mythic animal, emblem of
the “chase” for love. Chrétien’s Erec finds Enide while the rest of Arthur’s court
participates in a hunt for a white stag (Thiébaux 1974, 110–12). King Mark is
engaged in a hunt for a large white stag when he discovers the resting place of his
spouse, Isolde, and his nephew, Tristan, in the minnegrotte (love cave) in Gott-
fried’s Tristan; the stag becomes a symbol for the lovers, whose tracks are
mistaken in the morning dew for those of the deer. It is a counterpart to the hart
that the Cornish hunting party slays earlier in the tale. When Tristan schools the
hunters in proper preparation and transport of the kill (see above), he begins to

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ingratiate himself with his uncle’s court. Thus, a deer leads Tristan to Mark, and
its counterpart later leads Mark to Tristan (Schleissner 1993, 86–88).
In Christian art, the mythological symbolisms of the deer were very impor-
tant–for example, the stag did mythic battle with its bitter enemy, the serpent–a
representation of good, purity, and life fighting with evil, corruption, and death
(Werness 2004, 131). According to the bestiaries, the stag/hart pants when it
thirsts for water in the brook, as the soul pants for God (Thiebaux 1974, 41). But
when it discovers a serpent hiding in its lair, it spits water into the passageway
leading to the reptile, forcing the snake above ground; as soon as the snake
emerges, the stag stomps it to death with its hooves (Hassig 1995, 41; Baxter 1998,
52). The bestiaries further claim that the hart is fond of music and listens to it with
its ears up, but with its ears down it is deaf (Werness 2004, 131).
While the nobility occasionally enjoyed deer meat from the hunt, it was
essentially unknown at the table of the peasantry. Venison was considered an
“elite” protein and therefore was afforded only by the rich, particularly in the
later Middle Ages (Dowling 2012, 381). Furthermore, virtually any incursion into
the king’s lands was held to be a major offense and anyone doing so could suf-
fer blinding or other painful and devastating punishments (Yamamoto 2000,
102–05). The major source of protein for the peasant class until early modern
times remained legumes, and was supplemented with cheese, beef, or pork when
it was available, and fish on days when the Church forbade meat (Hammond 1993
[2005], 25–37; Adamson 2004, 30–47).
Fox
During the Middle Ages the fox gained a reputation for “earthiness.” Medieval
authors focused on its body as smelly, repugnant, and polluting, especially with
respect to its habit of defecating and urinating when it was being hunted,
behaviors that were possibly intended to confuse dogs and humans tracking it.
However, the fox also evinced admirable qualities as well, especially with regard
to intelligence, evasiveness, and shrewdness, and so its standing with humans
remained ambivalent and complex (Yamamoto 2000, 56–60).
The Physiologus incorporates the fox’s reputation for cunning as it describes
how it rolls about in red earth so that it appears to be bleeding, and then lies still,
feigning death. Birds then gather around the fox and at the right moment the fox
springs up and catches the unsuspecting birds, and devours them. The fox is then
linked to the devil, who catches human souls in a similar fashion; thus, the
Physiologus firmly establishes the reputation of the fox as “trickster” beast, which
earns it a negative value. Only later, when slyness and shrewdness are more

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highly valued in European culture, can medieval Europe view the fox more
positively (Werness 2004, 184).
One of the most renowned literary beasts of the Middle Ages was the fox
Reynard; stories regarding the clever fox had their origin in the Latin poems such
as the twelfth-century work, entitled Ysengrimus, regarding the perennial struggle
between the wolf and fox (Mann 2009, 44–52). Subsequently, clerical authors
penned the twenty-seven chapters (“branches”) of the French Roman de Renart
between 1170 and 1250, and soon the extremely popular work spread throughout
Europe in many translations and adaptations. (Klingender 1971, 366–68). In the
tale’s social structure, all of the animals are personified as human “types” that
technically belong to a kind of stratified nobility (Gordon 2012, 285–89). Their
actions and personalities clearly appealed to members of all classes among the
reading public, however, since the enormous popularity of the tale cut across all
strata of the literate. The character of the fox contains elements both of the hero
and the villain, but in every situation he is extremely clever and persuasive, and
very skillful as a dissembler and con-artist. Perhaps his most significant attribute
is his supreme mastery of nuance in language and his ability to manipulate the
meanings he conveys (Yamamoto 2000, 62). Thus, in the later centuries of the
Middle Ages when satire became an important literary genre for social and
political criticism, the stories concerning Reynard the Fox became ever more
significant, providing a vehicle for dissent where other, more direct expressions
of disagreement with the status quo could prove to be politically dangerous
(Klingender 1971, 368).
Aesop’s (ca. 620 B.C.E.–564 B.C.E.) fables include humorous and entertaining
views of sly foxes; as one might expect, these qualities come through especially
strongly in the fables of Marie de France (late twelfth century) (e.g., “The Fox and
the Cock”), which also make use of concepts fashioned and spread by the Reynard
material (Mann 2009, 243–45).
In Great Britain, the fox hunt became the most popular form of hunting, and
its practice extended even into the twentieth century. Already in the Middle Ages
the fox was greatly resented, but also somewhat admired at the same time, for its
unflinching determination to rob humans of their domesticated fowl. It did not
timidly remain at a distance but rather audaciously entered human habitations
without hesitation, for example, where chickens were cooped. Its boldness was
remarkable, and therefore the fox hunt empowered the human being to exact
some measure of justice and vengeance. But it was in the hunt that the fox’s
particular wit and skills were most apparent, and this fact perhaps engendered
humans’ respect for it. The medieval hunter knew: if the fox was near its den, it
was very difficult to catch it, since it disappeared quickly below ground at the
slightest alarm, but if the fox was spotted far from the safety of its hole, then the

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chase was on, and it became a battle of wits, physical skills, and endurance on
the part of both the hunter and the hunted. The familiar style of hunting foxes par
force, with a pack of greyhounds or other fast running dogs, was the customary
practice among the nobility in England and France, while elsewhere those who
had been robbed of their geese, chickens and other poultry, dispatched foxes by
employing snares, traps, poisons, or specially bred dogs (Cummins 1988, 141–44).
A detailed description of the fox hunt appears in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(late fourteenth century), marking the third day of a hunt by Sir Bertilak (Cum-
mins 1988, 144–46; Yamamoto 2000, 127–29).
Bear
The bear was worshipped in ancient times as a god and generally revered until
the Common Era, when it begins gradually to lose its status as a regal beast. The
major arbiter in the fall of the bear from its high position was the Christian Church,
which considered it to be dangerous: not merely because it is powerful, swift, and
aggressive, but also as a symbolic entity, because it appears to be a bestial
imitation or effigy of homo sapiens. Standing on its hind legs, the bear acquired an
oddly human appearance; and so, in the minds of the ecclesiastical patriarchs its
posture became blasphemous by seeming to form a grotesque imitation of the
human figure, which was supposed to have been made in the image and likeness
of God. Furthermore, its unrestrained behavior associated it with evil and the
devil. By the advent of the High Middle Ages, the bear’s image as “king of beasts”
was tarnished beyond recovery, and it was replaced by the lion as the most noble
of animals and emblem of kings. By the late medieval period one witnessed bear
spectacles, in which the animals, leashed, muzzled, and chained, were forced to
perform inane tricks and acrobatic stunts, rendering the public image of this once
prodigious beast innocuous and ridiculous (Pastoreau 2007, 89–90).
Wolf
Rapacious and bloodthirsty, possessing strong jaws and a muscular physique, the
wolf, the wild, symbolic inversion of the human-friendly canine (see below), was
universally feared in the Middle Ages, and posed a genuine danger in the forests
and woods of medieval Europe to both humans and their domesticated beasts.
Humans commonly encountered packs of from seven to twenty animals, roaming
throughout a large habitat, including, for example, the entire expanse of Great
Britain and Ireland (George and Yapp 1991, 50–51).

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The wolf was a favorite beast of authors of the fable or the beast epic, often
paired with a fox or another animal or group of animals. The Ecbasis captivi, from
the eleventh century, relates the story of a wolf (with certain, unmistakably
“monastic” features) who, in a framing tale, captures a calf at Eastertime, brings
it back to a cave, and prepares to slaughter it. The monkish wolf explains to his
associates, the otter and the hedgehog, why he fears and hates the fox by
narrating an Aesopian fable, in which the fox outwits the wolf. Animals from
a nearby town come to the aid of the calf and kill the wolf. (Ziolkowski 1993,
153–97; Zeydel, intro. and trans., 1964, 9–11). A later beast epic, the Ysengrimus
(twelfth century), presents several versions of a narrative in which a fox, similarly
to that of the previously described Aesopian fable, “outfoxes” a wolf. Neverthe-
less, the wolf shows himself to be a cunning and duplicitous creature, whose only
flaw is having a more worthy opponent (Mann 2009, 44–52). The wolf in Le
Roman de Renart, Ysengrin, similarly falls victim to the wiles of the fox (Mann
2009, 221–29). The adversarial relationship between fox and wolf continues in
marginalia, such as those found in the Smithfield Decretals of the fourteenth
century. In one such drawing, the fox physician seems to be impersonating a
physician and “ministering” to a wolf, while in an adjacent illustration the wolf
apparently expires while the fox smiles in scorn and derision (Sprunger 1996,
73–74). The fables of Marie de France (late twelfth century) link the wolf with a
variety of bestial companions and victims, for example, the hedgehog, the dog,
and the lamb; in these works the wolf’s most defining characteristic is his cruelty
(Mann 2009, 28–33). In her lais, Marie also narrates a tale regarding lycanthropy,
the metamorphosis of a human being into a wolf; the werewolf of her tale
(“Bisclavret”) displays extraordinary mental skills, befriends a king and finally
bites off the nose of his wife who has rejected him for a suitor because of her
husband’s new and unusual form (Marie de France 1990, 116–33; Salisbury 2011,
144–45).
For Dante (1265–1321), the she-wolf is one of the beasts blocking Dante’s way
back to the straight-and-narrow path of his life at the opening of his Divine
Comedy (1308–1321), and thus represents one of the grand categories of sin in the
Inferno, possibly incontinence.
Snake
Snakes have evinced a plethora of symbolisms since ancient times, especially

relating it to evil (Kemp 1972, 75–81; Rees 1992, 52–57); however, the Physiologus
addresses only four of them, and they are positive. In it one discovers that the
snake sheds its skin (and thus in earlier times becomes a symbol of rebirth and

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resurrection) by fasting, and thus good Christians can cast off old, sinful ways
and be reborn in Christ. Secondly, when the snake drinks it rids itself of its poison,
and like the beast the human being should leave all poison and sinfulness outside
of the church. Because, as the Physiologus reports, snakes fear naked persons but
will bite those who are clothed, so Adam becomes vulnerable to the “serpent”
when he loses his naked innocence and clothes himself in the mortality of a fleshy
body. Finally, since the snake will, in times of danger, surrender its body and
protect its head, so, too, should the good Christian protect his spiritual “head,”
which is Christ (Physiologus 1979, 16–19; Wheatcroft 1999, 146–48; Werness 2004,
381).
II Fabulous
The medieval menagerie included not only real animals but those of the imagina-
tion as well. Literature and art were particularly rich in their representations of
fabulous beasts, sometimes as grotesque variations of existing animals (such as
huge fish, foxes that speak, etc.), but also species for which there were no known
examples in the natural world. Several of these became common in literature and
art and obtained certain standard characteristics (Kirschbaum 1970, 1–4).
Unicorn
The Physiologus and bestiaries described the unicorn, which they called alterna-
tively the “monoceras,” as a smallish beast of the same general size as a kid,
possessing a single horn in the middle of its forehead. It was reputed to be very
shrewd, swift and strong, and thus difficult to hunt. However, the sources
reported that one could effect a capture with the aid of a virgin: the unicorn would
approach the woman and could not help but leap into her lap and embrace her,
whereupon he would be caught. In the bestiaries the unicorn was often associated
with Christ (Physiologus 1979, 51; White, trans. and ed., 1954, 20–21; Gravestock
1999, 127–29).
Among the most striking examples of the unicorn in the visual arts appeared
in the series of tapestries known as the “Unicorn Tapestries” of the Musée de
Cluny in Paris and those in the Cloisters (the medieval branch of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York). The beautifully intricate tapestries were woven
approximately in 1480 and 1500 respectively, and thus arose at the very end of
the medieval period. The former consist of six separate pieces, five of which
allegorize the five senses; the composition of each image arranges a central figure

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of a woman flanked by a lion and a unicorn, with a background of smaller

animals playing amidst trees, flowers and the high lady’s coat-of arms (Gotfred-
sen 1999, 90–103). The latter reproduce a hunt for a unicorn in seven panels:
among the images are scenes of the beast by a fountain, surrounded by a great
variety of animals and birds, as well as a depiction of the standard ruse, to
capture the unicorn with the embrace of a virgin. Although the unicorn is success-
fully hunted and killed, it apparently rises from the dead, because in the last
panel, perhaps one of the most famous and beloved of all tapestries from the
Middle Ages, the unicorn sits peacefully in an enclosure, restrained by a leash
(a “chaîne d’amour”) and resting but very much alive (Freeman and Sipress
1973–1974, 212–14; Gotfredsen 1999, 104–21).
Phoenix
In the bestiary account, the phoenix lives five centuries and then performs a ritual
self-immolation, sometimes with the cooperation of a priest of “Heliopolis.” In
most accounts, it lights either upon a certain tree or a pyre that it prepares for
itself out of sweet-smelling wood and herbs and then sets itself aflame; typically,
after one day the priest discovers a small worm among the ashes, which after
three days becomes a new and fully reconstituted bird. The bestiaries immedi-
ately point to the many parallels between the account of the phoenix’s rebirth and
the biblical story of Christ’s resurrection (Bestiary 1999, 141–43; Mermier 1989,
73–77; Peil 1996, 111–12; Jones 1999, 99–115; Wheatcroft 1999, 148–51).
The phoenix also appears occasionally as a symbolic bird in literary and
visual works. The Latin poem by Lactantius (early fourth century), passages from
the Book of Job, and elements of St. Ambrose’s Hexameron (late fourth century)
combine in a 677 line Anglo-Saxon poem “The Phoenix” from the ninth century
(Heffernan 1988). Chrétien employs the phoenix to suggest death-and-resurrec-
tion symbolism in his Cligés (ca. 1176) (Varty 1983, 195–200). However, despite the
beauty of the phoenix as imagined in some of the speculative descriptions in
numerous classical and late medieval sources (such as Albertus Magnus [ca.
1200–1280]), plastic artists usually render it as a generic, non-descript, and color-
less bird, which medieval Christians would have most likely interpreted as a
symbol for the dogma regarding the resurrection of the flesh (Hassig 1995, 72–83).

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Siren/Mermaid
The Physiologus presents the siren as one of the dangers of the sea that deceives
men and kills them. Sirens possess the form of a human being from the head to
the navel, but then below the waist have the form of a bird; singing a pleasing
song, they charm sailors asleep, then attack them, and tear them apart (Physiolo-
gus 1979, 23; Hassig 1997, 174; 177). By the eighth century there appear variations
of the siren as a creature with the form of a virgin from the head to the waist, but
possessing a scaly tail which she hides in the sea (Hassig 1995, 105).
Narratives regarding other composite, half-woman-and-half-beast creatures
include the tale by Walter Map (ca. 1140–ca. 1210) of Henno-with-the-Teeth in the
“Distincto quarta” of the De nugis curialium (late twelfth century, Of Courtier’s
Trifles), as well as the later medieval tales of the fairy-mistress Melusine, espe-
cially the French versions of Jean d’Arras (late fourteenth century) and Couldrette
(early fifteenth century), and the German translation by Thüring von Ringoltingen
(1456) in the fifteenth century. Here, the heroine’s body presents a periodically
transforming image of woman and then a composite of woman and serpent
(Maddox and Sturm-Maddox 1996, 1–11), leading to a confusion between the
world of humans and that of animals. Occurring in the foundation myth of
Lusignan (as well as other nations of Europe and Asia), the confusion reflects a
crisis of legitimacy as well as a “bestiality” inherent in European culture at the
end of the Hundred Years’ War (Spiegel 1996, 117–19).
Dragon
The Physiologus does not include the dragon, but the mythical beast does appear
in Isidore’s encyclopedia and the bestiaries. The Etymologies, for example, depict
a much different kind of beast than what later becomes the dragon archetype. The
medieval dragon portrayed in these earlier works is reported to be the largest
beast on earth; it lived in fissures between rocks and resembled a very large
snake, somewhat like a boa constrictor. Some authors claimed that it was particu-
larly dangerous to elephants: the dragon was said to inhabit the lands of India
and Ethiopia, and there killed the hapless pachyderms by entangling their legs,
and then constricted their bodies, eventually suffocating them (Isidore 2011, 255;
Bestiary 1999, 182–84).
In the early Middle Ages there appeared a variety of dragons in literary works,
probably as inheritances from more ancient folklore and mythology. Among their
common characteristics were their symbolic association with evil: they were
monstrous and dangerous, and especially in visual art they took a place opposite

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that of a saintly figure or even Christ (Gravestock 1999, 126–27); other details of
their appearance and behavior originated, however, from their ancient origins
(Rees 1992, 57–59; Lionarons 1998, 1–22). Among the best known of the earlier
medieval dragons is the infamous, fire-breathing beast in Beowulf (Lionarons
1998, 23–48), which, before it is slain, manages to wound Beowulf fatally. The
anonymous author alternatively refers to it as dragon, serpent, and worm, the
final appellation recalling the Germanic Lindwurm, a common term for dragon
that suggests its worm-like form and subterranean habitats that echo even into
the modern era.
The dragons of the High Middle Ages began to assume the role of bestial
guardians and psychological barriers, whose purpose was to thwart an indivi-
dual’s progress, either in love or on some adventure. A battle with a dragon
presented the hero with an opportunity to prove valor and strength through
combat, and worthiness to claim a title or prize. Furthermore, some parts of the
dragon’s body possessed intrinsic, magical properties and exerted potent influ-
ences on characters, thereby having great effect on the plot development. In the
Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200), Siegfried slays a dragon, and bathing in the dragon’s
blood renders him invulnerable to any kind of wounding, save for a single,
unprotected spot on his back that his enemies later exploit (Flood 1998, 42–47;
McConnell 1999, 171–84). Tristan’s battle with a dragon in Gottfried’s eponymous
romance (ca. 1210) proves his worthiness as a suitor for Isolde. After slaying the
monster, he cuts out its tongue and slips it beneath his armor to carry it back to
court. Unfortunately, the fumes emanating from the dragon’s tongue are toxic,
and render him unconscious; however, he is soon discovered by Isolde, who
nurses him back to full strength, and at the decisive moment he produces the
tongue, supporting his claim on the princess (Classen 2009, 35–40).
III Domesticated
Dog
During the Middle Ages, “man’s best friend” uniquely straddled the boundary
between the worlds of “culture” and “nature.” In the period shortly after the fall
of the Roman Empire (where some dog breeds were developed as pets), human
kindness toward dogs was rare, especially because Christian patriarchs dictated
that “soulless” animals had to serve humankind in some way if they were to enjoy
the privileges and comforts of domestication; when canines grew old and were no
longer useful, they were often killed to make way for younger dogs who were able
to serve their masters. However, by the thirteenth century there was growing

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evidence that the strict divisions between human and beast were disappearing,
and the treatment of canines in general improved dramatically (Salisbury 1994
[2011], 115–20; Boehrer 2010, 22–27).
Small lap dogs were popular pets among the nobility during classical Roman
times, but during the early Middle Ages disappeared from art and literature. Their
reappearance during the later medieval period, which one can trace emanating
outward from Italy, is striking, and the evolution of breeds became clear in
painting and sculpture. The lap dogs possess especially large eyes and other
features imitative of human children, and thus they became icons and foci of
affection; one might find it natural, then, that such canines would become
metaphors for love and joy in literary works, such as the magical dog Petitcreiu in
Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan (Classen 2007, 78–81; Salisbury 1994 [2011], 119).
The human bond with dogs became especially clear in the performance of the
hunt (see above). Perhaps the key canine link to homo sapiens was their produc-
tion and apparent understanding of language, which they demonstrated espe-
cially during the chase; dogs responded eagerly to the name they were called by
the hunters, giving each animal a unique identity; furthermore, their barking and
yelping during the hunt was said to communicate their contempt for their quarry,
and their baying, which grew particularly loud while the hunters blew their horns
at the conclusion of a successful kill, indicated strong allegiance to their human
masters and their zealous participation in the hunting rituals (Yamamoto 2000,
115–23). In literary works, the acoustic qualities of the dog often identify it as an
individual character, revealing how language does, indeed, break down species’
boundaries; thus, in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Titurel (ca. 1220), the hunting dog
Gardevîaz barks loudly in the forest as it chases down animals wounded in the
hunt, while Tristan’s loyal hound Hiudan does so without uttering a sound,
making him the ideal companion for him and Isolde as they hide from the court in
the minnegrotte (Schleissner 1993, 83–86; Classen 2007, 81).
Often, specific attitudes toward animals could prove to be most ambivalent,
and at times could achieve polar opposite significations. Thus, the late medieval
romances Sir Gowther (mid to late fifteenth century) and Robert le diable (ca. 1250)
present an entirely different view of dogs, communication, and how the central
characters of each tale relate to the beasts. In both tales the character is born
under questionable circumstances, since the devil plays a role in the conception
of each, a fact that determines the characters’ extremely sinful, murderous
behavior. In the case of Sir Gowther, he is commanded by his confessor, the Pope
himself, to keep strict silence and only to accept food from the mouth of a dog
(Salter 2007, 90–92). Robert’s penance lies also in enforced silence, but he must
live with dogs; after numerous adventures in which he shows great valor, Robert
embraces life as a hermit, thus insuring a continuance of his non-communication

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with other human beings Hahn 2012, 87–108). In both situations, the connection
of knights with the dogs identifies the human characters as outsiders, something
less than human. While language serves to connect the animal world with the
human world in some instances, the loss of permission to communicate forces the
human being into liminal spaces, into a kind of exile from humanity (Salter 2007,
93). However, at least in Sir Gowther, there remains a possibility of reintegration.
Gowther exhibits great valor on the battlefield, saving the Holy Roman Emperor
from certain death. For this, the Emperor’s daughter, aware of Gowther’s predica-
ment, rewards him with bread and meat, which she sends to the heroic knight via
a greyhound, whose mouth has been washed with wine. Thus, the dog serves
ultimately as a conveyor of human communication, gratitude and love (Salter
2007, 93–95; Classen 2007, 67–86).
Perhaps the most significant canine characteristic to find its way into the art
of the Middle Ages was loyalty. Numerous stories illustrated the remarkable bond
between human and dog, in which the dog serves the human even though that
service leads to pain or death for the beast, and lends to the animal an additional
measure of “human” virtue. An important example of this was the remarkable
tale of Queen Sibille (ca. 1437), in which a faithful dog reveals the evil deed that a
villainous knight has perpetrated against his master and a queen in his protec-
tion; as the instrument of divine judgment, the good beast ensures that the evil
knight (along with his malicious relatives) is punished justly (Kompatscher,
Classen, and Dinzelbacher, ed., 2010, 261–72).
The primary breeds used in hunting were the greyhound, the alaunt, the
mastiff, and the chien courant (Cummings 1988, 13; Smets and van den Abeele
2007, 61), and were generally distinguished by their typically acute sense of smell
or their speed and agility (Brackert and van Kleffens 1989, 70–72). Beyond these
general categories, each type of dog possessed specific characteristics that hun-
ters employed for different hunting situations. Greyhounds were particularly
popular, since they could be trained to seize and bring down their quarry while
on the run. In many literary works, a typical complement of hunting dogs
included thirty pairs; however, in practice, keeping so many dogs for the hunt
was possible only for the very wealthy, and many hunting packs were assembled
by hunting companions out of several, individual packs of three or four animals
(Cummins 1988, 13–24).
One of the most important concerns addressed in medieval veterinary treatises
is dog care. As one might expect, rabies was a dreaded disease that many such
works discuss extensively, especially those concerning the treatment of humans
who have been bitten by rabid dogs, above all those that roam in the wild. Some
recommend folk remedies; however, implicit in many is the recognition of hope-
lessness in such cases, where death was virtually assured (Cummins 1988, 29–31).

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Horse
Due to its unique connection with the culture of “chivalry,” as the animal most
closely associated with the “chevalier,” the horse occupied a unique position
among all creatures during the medieval period (Bumke 2002, 236; see also the
entry by Cynthia Jenéy on the horse in this Handbook). Certainly, no other beast
fulfilled so many important, practical functions in medieval life: as draft animal,
mode of transportation, warrior’s carriage, emblem of wealth and prowess, sym-
bol of fecundity and strength, trusted companion and even, at times, as a source
of food, the horse obtained great importance (Prestwich 2010, 45–47; Bökönyi
1982–1989, 300; Ehrismann 1995, 151–53).
In the execution of medieval war tactics, the horse served the knight in
various, essential ways: despite the encumbering weight of its rider’s armor, it
swiftly carried the knight into battle to inflict major damage upon vulnerable
enemy forces with minimal likelihood of injury to the human or the horse.
Together they functioned as the “tank” of the Middle Ages. When knights spoke
of their horses, they customarily did not identify them by breed, but rather by
purpose or physical attributes, such as training, strength, speed, and agility. The
most sought-after horse was the “destrier,” which is often described as the “great
horse,” held in reserve for the thick of battle. This horse was also important in
jousting, since it was sturdy, broad, and bred specifically for endurance (Kiser
2007, 110). For war and the hunt, the less costly, but lighter, faster, and easier to
ride “coursers” were often preferred. Easiest to ride were the “palfreys,” as were
the “hackneys” and the ordinary “rounceys.” Particularly in epic literary works,
knights bestowed romantic names upon their steeds and endowed them with
elaborate ornamentation; in reality, knights had to protect their expensive and
vulnerable equine investments as best they could with a good coat of mail
(Prestwich 2010, 46). A common passage found in many literary epics (e.g., in
Hartmann von Aue’s (ca. 1165–ca. 1215) Erec and Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan
und Isolde) was the lengthy description of elaborate gear for horses: blanket,
stirrups, straps, saddle cushion, croup, bridle, and headpiece were ornately
decorated with the costliest woven materials, leathers, gem stones and precious
metals. This often allowed poets to develop fantastic ekphrasis. It seems that no
expense was too great for equine decoration, for here the nobleperson could
project wealth and status, making the horse an emblem of rank and reputation
(Bumke 2002, 236–40). Thus, the horse occupied a profoundly significant position
for the nobility, as the beast upon which one had to rely in order to perform the
deeds critical to that class, and so entered both courtly and heroic literature as
well as the pictorial arts as one of the most highly esteemed species among all
animals.

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Nor can the importance of the horse to the lower classes be overstated. In the
eleventh century farmers began to use horses for plowing, although oxen re-
mained the beasts of choice for this heavy chore. Horses became an essential
means of transportation, especially when one was obliged to travel over long
distances. A typical medieval horse could move several times the speed of a
human and so could cover a far greater distance. For medieval merchants trans-
porting goods to market, the horse was indispensable, as a draft animal pulling a
relatively heavy wagon (Bökönyi 1982–1989, 294–95).
H Birds
Birds occupied a special range of significance in the medieval mind that required
a separate category when discussing bestial symbolism. Most birds are capable of
flight, and many common ones also rest upon the surface of (and hunt for food in)
aqueous environments, occupying spaces from which both humans and other
animals are usually excluded. Furthermore, many produce sound, even when
they are unseen. Thus, the avian species were highly significant for audible
imagery in art: for example, the almost ubiquitous melodies of songbirds became
a commonplace, even a cliché, in courtly lyric. Some carnivorous birds also hunt,
and therefore played a particularly important role in courtly rituals of sport and
pastime. Because of its physical skills, beauty and grace, one such bird, the
falcon, became the courtly emblem not only for hunting but also for courtly love:
perhaps the iconic case occurs in Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan und Isolde,
where the falcon turns into the animal symbol associated with none other than
Isolde the Fair, as a free bird of the hunt while still in Ireland, but as one trapped
in the tree of love after she has drunk the potion with Tristan (Schleissner 1993,
78–80). Chrétien’s Erec is identified with a sparrowhawk, as Enide is identified
with a white stag, in an intricate mixing of metaphorical values that mark their
passionate and tumultuous love for each other (Thiébaux 1974, 112–15). Thus,
avian symbolism possessed its own complexities and sophistication, separate
from that of the more earthbound members of the medieval animal world.
Because birds fly, they have long been associated with spirituality, especially
the soul, and related values. During the Middle Ages, other behaviors added into
the mixture of meanings, aligning birds very closely with the sacred. According to
St. Augustine several species were identified with specific Christian symbolisms:
for example, the peacock, because it was claimed to possess “incorruptible” flesh,
became a symbol for immortality; the goldfinch, consuming thorny plants as part
of its natural diet, was linked to thorns and therefore, according to Augustine,
became associated with Christ’s sufferings, especially his crown of thorns; and

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the dove, because of the Pentecostal narrative in the New Testament, became the
most common image of the Holy Spirit (Werness 2004, 46; Webber 1938, 147–52).
Many birds sing, and so they provide an opportunity especially for poets to
give voice to various emotions, ranging from melancholy and sadness to joy and
love. Certain kinds of birds sing in a certain manner that identifies that species
with a specific emotion: for example, larks are happy, crows complain, night-
ingales cry forth their yearning for love, etc. There are several cycles of time (e.g.,
diurnal, seasonal, etc.) for which certain species offer “human” responses: thus,
the nightingale (Pfeffer 1985) sings during the nighttime, the chanticleer wel-
comes the dawn, various songbirds provide the acoustic background to the day-
time; forest birds express in song their enjoyment of the spring and summer
warmth and sunshine, migrating birds mark the changes of the season, and the
complaints of some species (e.g., the “nebelcrâ,” or “hooded crow,” in Walther
von der Vogelweide’s (ca. 1170–ca. 1230) “Diu werlt was gelf, rôt unde blâ” [L. 75,
25, “The world was yellow, red and blue”], which shrieks forth its displeasure
with the abominable winter weather [Clason 2012, 242–45]) correspond to the
typical discomforts humans experience as a result of cold and darkness during
that lengthy, difficult season.
Some literary works presented allegorical treatments of social, religious, and
other issues of the time by employing birds symbolically or metaphorically, or by
letting them comment as representatives of some hierarchy. Perhaps the most
important example of this usage of avian symbolism was Chaucer’s Parlement of
Foules (ca. 1380), in which the poet describes a dream of entering a formal garden.
There, Dame Nature presides over the parliament, where the birds, seated in rank
with the raptors at the top of the hierarchy and the waterfowl at the bottom,
represent the feudal human “pecking order.” Chaucer describes each species as a
summary of characteristics taken from the bestiaries, Aristotle, Pliny, the Physio-
logus, and other folk sources, such that the poem reads like a catalogue of these
traits. The birds are selecting their mates, and each speaks out in a rank-appro-
priate register. But the selection process runs into problems and delays when a
“royal” male eagle disputes with two eagles of lower rank over the rights to woo a
female; all the birds wish to weigh in on the debate, but no clear decision is made.
Nature finally grants the female the right to state whom she selects, but she is
indecisive; however, Nature grants her wish that the three males serve her for a
year, each demonstrating his worthiness to be her lover. Finally, the other birds
can make their selections (Klingender 1971, 373–76).
Recently, developments in ecocritical theory have generated fresh perspec-
tives on the significance of avian song and behavior. New, ‘green’ readings of
literary works have attempted to deconstruct the ubiquitous, anthropocentric
perspective of many former readings of medieval literature (Rudd 2007, 38–40)

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and to relocate the subject from the human to the animal. Thus, in the case of
birds, their singing has become important as communication, as a form of
language that asserts the legitimacy of agency and the status of subject for its
avian source (Kordecki 2011, 1–23).
Specific Avian Species
Raptors: Eagle and Falcon
Birds of prey often appeared symbolically in literary and pictorial art of the
Middle Ages; sometimes, the qualities they represented provide fascinating in-
sights into how the medieval mind understood the animal’s characteristics and
evaluated them. When, for example, in the courtly romance Tristan und Isolde,
Isolde the Fair enters the sexually charged arena of the court, Gottfried von
Straßburg describes her as a falcon and employs images from the discourse of
avian anatomy and behavior in order to convey the profound effect she has on the
men who gaze upon her. Most significantly, Gottfried emphasizes the manner in
which her glances dart back and forth as if searching for prey, recalling the
important role that eyes play in the awakening of courtly love in the noble heart,
and playing upon the falcon’s characteristically acute vision, for which the bird is
renowned. In one of the work’s most significant moments, when Isolde expresses
her love for Tristan for the first time, Gottfried once again refers to her as the
falcon of love (Schleissner 1993, 78–80; Clason 2008, 281–82). Indeed, by the late
medieval period the falcon became one of the most common symbols for love,
already beginning with the famous poem by the Austrian poet Kürenberg (twelfth
century), “Ich zôch mir einen valken” (ca. 1160, “I Reared a Falcon”) through the
late fourteenth-century poetry by Heinrich von Mügeln (ca. 1319–ca. 1380), e.g.,
“Ein frouwe sprach: myn falcke ist mir enphlogen” (Friedman 1989, 158, “A
Woman Spoke: My Falcon has Flown from Me”).
Using falcons for hunting, first documented among Germanic tribes in the
mid-fifth century (Smets and van den Abeele 2007, 59–60), became a widespread
practice among the nobility in the Middle Ages, and a trained falcon became a
most valuable possession (Oggins 1993, 48). While dogs customarily pursued
larger game, such as the stag, various species of hawks and falcons were
employed to catch smaller game (Friedman 1989, 157). Beginning in the tenth
century, members of the nobility as well as their fowlers authored treatises on
falconry, dealing with training techniques as well as medical procedures for the
vast number of ailments that afflict predatory birds held in captivity, and indicat-
ing the authors’ desire to exert human control over nature. Eventually, such

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treatises began to fall into two typical kinds of texts, those which described birds
of prey as one species among all beasts (tending to reiterate what was already
known, with very little original work of value) and those which continued to deal
with the more practical aspects of training, hunting and caring for birds (Oggins
1993, 48–53). The latter contributed a great deal toward a grand shift in perspec-
tive, from considering nature an abstract, philosophical concept for contempla-
tion, to investigating natural phenomena and recording what one finds scientifi-
cally (Salisbury 1993, 8).
A most valuable source for knowledge of hunting birds and raptors in the
medieval period was the treatise credited to the Holy Roman Emperor, Friedrich II
(1194–1250), On the Art of Hunting with Birds (De arte venandi cum avibus), shortly
before 1250. The key to this work, in Friedrich’s own words, was his desire to show
“things as they are” and therefore his reliance upon to his own observations and
experiments. Although the Emperor based his discussions upon his reading of
Aristotle’s writings on animals (recently translated into Latin), he often differed
sharply with his ancient model. Furthermore, the Zeitgeist of the anatomical
method that was being developed at the medical school in Salerno strongly
influenced Friedrich’s writing, marking his text as distinctly anatomical and
descriptive (Whitney 2004, 103–04; Glick, Livesey, and Wallis, ed., 2005, 529;
Klingender 1971, 447–49). It also marked a turning point in how the medieval
mind views animals, no longer through imagination and religious allegory (as
in the Physiologus and the bestiaries), but rather through the lens of scientific
observation (Salisbury 1993, 6–10).
Friedrich was not able to finish this work before his death; his son Manfred,
however, brought the project to a successful conclusion with the help of his
father’s extensive notes. One of Manfred’s manuscripts of De arte venandi, now
held in the Vatican Library (Vatican, Palat. Lat. 1071), was beautifully illustrated
with over 900 drawings that provide an authentic impression of the birds’ appear-
ance. The striking realism with which the illustrations reproduce features of avian
anatomy and behavior irresistibly lead one to conclude that they resulted from
the artist’s first-hand observation and her or his intention to document the
species’ actual appearance as faithfully as possible (Klingender 1971, 447–50).
The eagle customarily resided at the very top of the hierarchy of birds, such
as in Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules (Klingender 1971, 374–75). It was heavily
weighted with symbolism; thus, it became a symbol for St. John the Evangelist,
and in the Physiologus and the bestiaries it plunged into water to renew its fading
vision (Rowland 1971, 17; Ziolkowski 1997, 15; Hassig 1997, 172). Among the
animals shown in heraldic crests, the eagle was perhaps the most common bird,
often associated with the lion, representing courage and strength respectively; for
particular emphasis, the eagle was sometimes depicted with the head of a lion, or

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as a griffin (essentially, an eagle-headed lion) (Klingender 1971, 302–03). In

literature authors employed falcons because of the connections with the hunt, but
eagles also made an appearance from time to time. One of the most significant of
these appearances occurs in the anonymously authored Nibelungenlied (ca.
1200), in which the female protagonist, Kriemhild, has a dream at the very
beginning of the work, wherein she beholds two eagles attack and tear apart a
smaller falcon, a premonition of what her family and courtly associates will later
do to her great love, Siegfried.
The Owl
Various reputations of the owl were already well formed before its appearance in
medieval literature and art. The nocturnal nature of owls, their large, apparently
luminescent or reflective eyes, and their eerie and unearthly hooting (often the
only sign of their presence is acoustic) associated them with darkness, fear, the
unknown, ill-fortune, evil, death, and the like. In some stories, other birds reject
the owl because it is reputedly filthy (Klingender 1971, 365; Hume 1975, 15–17).
This image was compounded by the owl’s parallel but opposite reputation for
wisdom, perhaps arising from the bird’s uncannily human facial structure and
features. In some fables, other animals come to the owl to seek counsel or justice
(Klingender 1971, 364). Thus, the literary-artistic owl evinced a very complex set
of significances, and the medieval mind both welcomed and feared the bird
(Miyazaki 1999, 24–49).
Works such as the poem “The Owl and the Nightingale” (twelfth or thirteenth
century), placed two of the most commonly found nocturnal birds to appear in
literary works into sharp contrast, their symbolic meanings providing an opportu-
nity for the author to explore social, political, religious, and aesthetic issues on
many levels (Hume 1975, 51–118). In this poem of around 1800 lines, the owl
warns against the frivolousness of the nightingale’s love song, which distracts
human beings from gaining heaven; in this case, the animals decide to present
their case to a human arbiter for judgment (Klingender 1971, 365–66).
The Nightingale
As the most cited avian beast in Western European literature of the Middle Ages
(Pfeffer 1989, 89), the nightingale was welcomed by poets as the bird that
represented nocturnal joy, especially that of conjugal love. It migrated to Europe
from the end of April until mid-May, and so its song ushered in the new spring

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after a long winter. While the more earnest owl of the Middle English debate poem
“The Owl and the Nightingale” deems its song frivolous, its association with
lovers’ rendezvous in the middle of the night acquires a dignity of its own that the
songbird knows how to defend from the accusations of the stodgy owl (Hume
1975, 51–65; Klingender 1971, 364–66). In one of the most famous renderings of
that song, Walther von der Vogelweide’s “Under der linden,” (L. 39,11), the refrain
“tandaradei” establishes the nightingale’s song as a kind of language that lovers,
embracing each other during a night of erotic fulfillment, perceive as their avian
companion’s communication with them, a kind of lovers’ “natural” language that
only they and the bird comprehend (Clason 2012, 233–34).
I Fish
Since very ancient times, humans have been fascinated by the sea, especially as
an environment from which they acquire food. Fish have historically played an
important role in the human diet, and the medieval period was no exception. The
status of piscatorial beasts as a food item provided the key to their significance in
religion, literature and art of the Middle Ages.
Fish were carriers of numerous symbolic and thematic associations with the
Christian Bible, especially the New Testament. Best known were the narratives
regarding the recruitment of the apostles, exhorting them to become “fishers of
men” (Matthew 4: 19). Also, the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes
underscored the connection between food, deity and fish (Matthew 14: 13–21).
Fish were not the equivalent of meat—in situations where religious custom and
law required abstinence from the flesh of beasts, fish was permitted as a source of
protein. In any case, on fasting days, including Friday and Saturday (some house-
holds in Great Britain also observed Wednesday fasting), as well as during the six
weeks of Lent (the period before Easter Sunday) and on the vigils of some other
important festivals, such as Christmas Eve, the faithful were permitted the con-
sumption of fish (Dyer 1988, 28). Interestingly, this led to remarkable interpreta-
tions as to what, precisely, constitutes “fish,” since most any animal that swims
in the water qualified for this epithet during much of the Middle Ages. For
example, in some instances waterfowl or even beaver were consumed as “fish”
when meat was forbidden; of course, such practices were soon stopped by
vigilant church officials. In any case, the role of fish as a protein source at times
when the church imposed seasonal or weekly fasts contributed to the growth of
commercial fishing industries and markets (Resl 2007, 5).
In hagiographic narratives fish sometimes come to play a role, particularly as
docile and cooperative companions of the saint during some activity. In a story

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regarding St. Francis (1181–1226), the author praises the saint for releasing caught
fish; in one situation he is given a rather large tench that a fisherman has caught,
and, placing the fish back in the water, Francis prays until it revives and swims
away (Kompatscher, Classen, and Dinzelbacher, ed., 2010, 190–91). Another
story, concerning a St. Wilhelm Firmatus (1026–1103), relates how this holy man,
standing at the edge of a pond, can attract large numbers of fish to himself, and
even remove them from the water, caress them and return them to the pond
unharmed (Kompatscher, Classen, and Dinzelbacher, ed., 2010, 224–25). Clearly,
tales of this type underscored the saintliness of the holy men by revealing their
connection to nature, such that even fish, among the most timid of creatures, felt
safe in their presence.
As one might expect, in many of the medieval zoological works sharks and
rays, as well as dolphins and whales, were usually included under the umbrella
term “fish,” although some works indicated the author’s awareness that warm-
bloodedness, giving birth to fully-formed young, and nursing are characteristics
that distinguish these later mammalian creatures from fish (Szabo 2008). How-
ever, seals and sea lions also qualified in some treatises as fish, merely because
they swim in the sea. The translations of Aristotle’s zoological works, first by
Michael Scotus (ca. 1175–ca. 1235) (from an Arabic text) in the early thirteenth
century, and then later, around 1260, of the same works by William of Moerbeke
(1215–ca. 1286) (directly from the original Greek), reinforced an ancient classifica-
tion of sea creatures into the class aquatilia, which included cetaceans, water-
dwelling mammals and sea birds (Resl 2007, 136–39).
The medieval activity of fishing fell into three categories: subsistence, com-
mercial, and recreational. Many medieval persons fished to feed their families,
and perhaps additionally to provide for their lords’ table (direct and indirect
subsistence, respectively). Commercial catches could be brought to the medieval
market and there sold to consumers. But recreational fishing was also practiced.
Each category dictated its own methodology of fishing, and many of those who
fished developed an intimate, respectful relationship with the ecosystem in which
(s)he pursued this activity (Hoffmann 1997, 5–23).
J Conclusion
As we have seen, the position of animals in the emotional, intellectual and
spiritual attitudes of the European Middle Ages was complex and variable. How-
ever, there can be no doubt that animals were of great interest to all human
beings. During the earlier centuries of the period, beasts were seen to a great
extent as the liminal “other,” particularly under the influence of the early Chris-

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tian Church and its patriarchal philosophers: they claimed that animals had no
soul, and therefore were of a different order than human beings. Beasts accord-
ingly stood at the outskirts of human existence and, although they might imitate
human appearance or behavior, they were subordinate. Animals were part of
creation, made by the Creator to be exploited by humans for their own good and
comfort.
Especially in the twelfth century, however, works of art and literature began
to reflect different attitudes, revealing a closer connection between animals and
humans. In many of the paintings, drawings, sculptures and literary works of the
later Middle Ages, animals began to evince more human characteristics, and were
given human roles, dressed in human clothing or provided the capacity to think
and to speak. They were sometimes integrated into a hierarchy that resembles
human social structures, in a sense completing their integration into human
existence. Most importantly, their anthropomorphic treatment showed human
foibles from a new perspective, such that the genres of the beast epic and the
fable became significant vehicles for political satire and social critique, where
they had not been possible previously.
These later medieval views on animals, birds, and fish also served to reaffirm
a basic principle: that the experience of animals connected human beings with
nature: they reminded us of our origins in the natural world and kept in check the
tendency of homo sapiens occasionally to think that humans were, or even could
be, detached from the natural world. Through observing animals, humans were
reminded of their own animal natures. By seeking out animals where they lived,
humans projected themselves into new environments outside the boundaries
imposed by culture and society. Animals conveyed humans to new and distant
spaces, they inspired and enabled them to perform work and to develop new
technologies that enhance their lives. In these and many other ways, the later
medieval attitude toward animals helped to open the human mind to an aware-
ness and appreciation of nature and the world; the human connection to the
natural world would evolve and become dramatically stronger in the succeeding
years, fostering a new turn toward Renaissance art and Humanistic thought.
Select Bibliography
Classen, Albrecht, ed., Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: The Spatial Turn in
Premodern Studies (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2012).
Classen, Albrecht, “Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: A Significant
Domain Ignored for Too Long by Modern Research?,” Rural Space in the Middle Ages and
Early Modern Age, ed. idem (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2012), 1–191. [= A. Classen 2012b]

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Flores, Nona C., ed., Animals in the Middle Ages: a Book of Essays (New York and London 1996).
Hartmann, Sieglinde, ed., Fauna and Flora in the Middle Ages (Frankfurt a. M. et al. 2007).

Klingender, Francis Donald, Animals in Art and Thought: to the End of the Middle Ages, ed. Evelyn
Antal and John Harthan (Cambridge 1971).
Resl, Brigitte, ed., A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age, paperback ed. (2007; Oxford
2011).
Thiébaux, Marcelle, The Stag of Love: the Chase in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, NY, and London
1974).
Werness, Hope B., The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art (New York and
London 2004).
Whitney, Elspeth, Medieval Science and Technology (Westport, CT, 2004).
Yamamoto, Dorothy, The Boundaries of the Human in Medieval English Literature (Oxford 2000).

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Architecture
A Definition and Brief Historiography

Architecture, of all the arts, shapes the totality of one’s space. It is perceived
through nearly all the senses—sight, sound, smell, and touch. And while it can
bear meaning on many levels, architecture almost always has a fundamentally
practical aspect. It is the mixture of utility, durability and beauty, according to the
Roman architect Vitruvius (ca. 80–70 B.C.E.), that makes architecture. Beauty
being in the eye of the beholder, the parameters of what is rightly considered
architecture have expanded, particularly in the twentieth century and since then
(Brachmann 2014). Scholarly interest in more humble structures has also in-
creased, acknowledging that the homes and work spaces in which people dwelt
also shaped space and experience, often far more consistently, than more formal
and sophisticated structures, such as churches (Coldstream 2002, 23–24).
Scholarly interest in architecture has broadened beyond the historiographi-
cally traditional pursuit of the beginnings of styles. Since the Renaissance, theorists
such as Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) had decried medieval architecture as breaking
from the classical past, and had pointed out the distinct forms of Gothic in particu-
lar in constituting that break. This attitude colored scholarly consideration of
architecture as a whole, leaving the study of most medieval buildings to antiquar-
ians. But by the nineteenth century, architectural studies had justified itself as a
valid discipline primarily through analyzing styles. Scholars organized medieval
architecture by characteristic features, identifying periods ranging from First Ro-
manesque to additional schools like Burgundian Romanesque, from Early Gothic
to High and then Late Gothic. With these categories often came value judgments
such as “undeveloped,” “mature” or “decadent” (see for example Focillon 1963,
vol. 2, 67).
Seeking the origin, development and substance of styles became wound up in
national narratives. Nineteenth-century art historians seized upon what they saw
as the key qualities of their country’s own architecture and therefore essential
character. In France, the leading figure was the restorer and theorist Eugène
Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) who saw medieval architecture, especially
Gothic, as an expression of rational structure, in which a building’s parts
corresponded visually to their function. The Gothic flying buttress was a stellar
example of this, demonstrating the exterior support that allowed fragile, glass-
filled church interiors to stand. In Germany, romantic love for the medieval also
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56 Charlotte A. Stanford
expressed itself through revival and restoration. Monuments like the Romanesque
Speyer cathedral were restored while the massive nave and west towers of
Cologne cathedral, left unfinished since the sixteenth century, were completed
as part of a nationalist drive for unity under Prussian patronage (Lewis 1993).
English art critics like Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) and John
Ruskin (1819–1900) saw in medieval art an expression of the creative genius of
the common laborer and of the intense religious devotion of the period.
Early twentieth-century scholars continued to focus on origins and develop-
ments, often with a strong nationalist bent. Gothic, derided by Vasari for its
northern character, became the focus of much of this scholarship. The art histor-
ian Josef Strzygowksi (1862–1941), for instance, strongly championed the “Aryan
energy” of Northern art, claiming that Gothic’s key features of buttresses, pointed
arches, and rib vaults came from Armenian (“Aryan”) origins in central Asia
(Elsner 2011, 11). Though his wide-ranging expertise led to the founding of such
fields as Armenian art, as well as Islamic, Jewish, and Byzantine art history, his
racist biases left a legacy of political taint to the subject of Gothic nationalism.
After World War II, the discipline had to adopt a new approach to survive,
and found it in the study of intellectual symbolism. Ironically, this approach was
taken by the former Nazi Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984) as well as war émigrés like
Otto von Simson (1912–1993), Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968), and Paul Frankl
(1886–1958); the arrival of these three latter scholars in America invigorated
Medieval Studies there. Sedlmayr’s concept of the church as the embodiment of
the Heavenly Jerusalem on earth and von Simson’s corresponding vision of the
church as a Gesamtkunstwerk shaped a mystical view of Gothic as the embodi-
ment of Neoplatonic light metaphysics. The luminous stained glass windows
supported by rib vaults and pointed arches in a Gothic church were not to be
studied as a collection of fragmented parts but as units of an embracing whole.
Panofsky’s seminal studies on the abbey of St. Denis near Paris were particularly
far-reaching. He saw in the church’s patron, Abbot Suger (ca. 1081–1151), a
driving mind that created a spiritual new style, the physical embodiment of the
age’s intellectual achievements; “there exists between Gothic architecture and
Scholasticism a palpable and hardly accidental concurrence in the purely factual
domain of time and place” (Panofsky 1951, 1).
Such interpretations sidestepped the problematic politics in national narra-
tives, and in the wake of the Second World War greatly appealed to a generation
of prominent architectural historians. At the same time English-speaking scholars
adopted a highly Francophone approach to medieval architecture. The focus on
monuments that were deemed the first or the perfected examples of a system
(such as the abbey of St. Denis, arguably the first Gothic church) often centered in
France, where several prominent schools of Romanesque developed and where

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Gothic first began. Formal analysis of style still could be acute and highly valued,
and scholars such as Jean Bony (1908–1995) continued to pursue this approach.
But others acknowledged that such an approach was subject to many limitations.
Also, focus on architecture as either the study of forms or the reflection of
spirituality ignored many factors, such as economics, patrons’ desires, and very
nearly the whole category of secular architecture. Yet even when patrons were
considered, they had to have their place; Peter Kidson’s classic riposte to Panof-
sky’s work, which pointed out that “patrons … do not normally invent styles,”
reintroduced pragmatism into the far-flung realm of visionary synthesis (Kidson
1987 1).
Focus only on pragmatic rationalism, however, could mean that the study
of medieval architecture was in danger of being reduced to a mere “formalist
positivism [which] offered its topic no heart” (Elsner 2011, 14). This has been
countered recently by more integrative approaches that consider the multivalence
of medieval buildings. Willibald Sauerländer has observed that the study of
medieval architecture is now seen “as part of a semiotic context, of a system of
communication comprising the patron, the artist and the audience” (Sauerländer
1992, 28). The range of topics covering aspects of such a wide issue of context is
enormous, and the publications in the field are more numerous than ever before.
A listing of even some of the most prominent in the field must necessarily be
highly selective, but these approaches include a greater interest in design and
execution (Recht and Le Goff, ed., 1989; Bork 2011a), study of political, economic,
and social conditions (Kimpel and Suckale 1985; Abou-el-Haj 1988; Werckmeister
1988), and studies that break down scholarly subject barriers to consider build-
ings as lived spaces that encompassed multiple arts: sculpture, textiles, furnish-
ings (Raguin et al., ed., 1995; Gajewksi and Opačić, ed., 2007). Archaeological
evidence has been embraced more fully (Grenville 1997) as well as studies that
integrate buildings with landscape (Gilchrist 2005). The Francophone focus,
especially in the English-speaking world, has begun to dissipate; following the
lead of pioneers like Paul Crossley, scholars have begun to examine regions such
as Bohemia (Opačić and Timmerman, ed., 2011), Spain (Karge 1989), and Scandi-
navia (Hohler 1999; Syrstad Andäs et al., ed., 2007).
In the present scholarly climate, individual studies of buildings tend to be
more frequently pursued, and with good reason. The sweeping syntheses are
studies of the past, and introductory texts no longer attempt to fit all buildings, or
even one type of building, into the same explanatory mold. But though it is no
longer enough merely to gaze at buildings and attempt to understand them, what
we see is still critical for our understanding (Sauerländer 1992, 31). Discussion of
material and style therefore remain as valuable as purpose and meaning.

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B Materials
In most times and regions of medieval Europe, the most prestigious material for
architecture was stone. Most churches and fortifications were of stone, or faced
with stone. Dressed stone blocks, known as ashlar blocks (pierre de taille, Quader-
mauerwerk), generally were preferred for their appearance, although rubble stone
was often used in wall cores or for humbler structures. The rise of monumental
stone architecture in western Europe corresponds roughly with the rise of political
stability, such as under the Carolingian rulers, and greater economic prosperity,
in connection with technological developments, such as the heavy plow and
horse collar (Gies and Gies 1994, 44–46). Stone castles and fortifications were
more permanent, durable, and formidable within the local landscape than early
wood and earth construction.
Continuing down the scale of prestige was fired brick. In stone-rich areas
such as Italy, brick was by preference covered with dressed stone. The façades of
great buildings, including the cathedrals of Tuscany, followed this usage, which
derived from Roman times. In stone-poor areas such as the Baltic, brick made
acceptable masonry in its own right from the twelfth century on. By the fifteenth
century, fired brick could be considered a luxury substance, for example in the
development of castles as they began to emphasize living comfort (Brown 1980).
Wood, often utilitarian in use and appearance, could form part of the prestige
class of architecture. Most early medieval architecture in the north appears to
have been of wood. Few such buildings survive, though some of the later Scandi-
navian structures, such as the noted stave churches, provide examples that,
combined with archaeological evidence, give scholars an idea of this early usage
(Conant 1978). The utility and flexibility of wood often partnered with stone. A
great church or hall built with ashlar walls, stone vaults, and lead-covered roof
would utilize large, well-seasoned timbers in the roof beams (and also in the
temporary construction scaffolding). More permanent wood buildings could rival
stone ones even in prestige settings. Great halls often preferred wood ceilings over
stone vaults because of wood’s ability to span large spaces without interior
supports. Skillful carpentry could make half-timbered buildings into significant
status sites too. Much domestic architecture employed this technique, also known
as timber framing, Fachwerk, or colombage, which consisted of heavy beams
linked by mortice and tenon joints, rather than metal nails, with infill between.
The beams often utilized the organic, natural curve of the tree. Splitting curved
limbs in half, the builders could make symmetrical patterns on the house front, as
the timber frame showed vividly against the infill (Fig. 1). Though this infill could
be painted or whitewashed, the stark black-and-white of most half-timber today
is nineteenth-century rather than medieval in appearance (Harris 2004, 3). Infill

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ranged from stone rubble or brick to wattle and daub. Wattle and daub (also
known as cob) consisted of both woven wood strips, usually narrow and flexible
smaller branches, as well as a mixture of clay, loam, sand, dung and/or earth.
Fig. 1: Wealden half-timber house, Canterbury, Kent, fifteenth century. A “Wealden” house is a
timber-framed building in which the recessed central hall is open up to the roof inside and the
forward-projecting two-story chamber blocks at each end are jettied, the whole covered by a
single roof. Photo by author.
Earth as a building material was widely used in partnership with any of the above
materials, and not simply for utilitarian buildings that by now have left only minor
if any traces in the record. The great earthwork ditches and ramparts of castles
could be as impressive and formidable as finely dressed stone walls. Earthworks
in the form of tumuli or barrows, of which the majority of examples are prehistoric,
continued to be built in some northern regions until approximately the tenth
century. As a pagan practice abandoned with the rise of Christianity, however,
they do not figure within the primary frame of the medieval world.
Thatch, which consists of plant stems such as straw or reeds usually bound in
bundles, is more properly a roofing substance rather than an actual building
material. Thatch is highly perishable, and materials which date back to the

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medieval period are to be found only in some archaeological sites (Johnson 2010,
70), but thatch is still used in some traditional areas (such as rural England) and
it is a very old craft if humble in material.
C Categorizing Architecture
I Style
Though style is no longer the only sine qua non of architectural studies, it is
nevertheless useful for general dating and contextualization. Most written work
on architecture still refers in large degree to accepted style categories. During the
medieval period, two major styles developed, at least in church architecture:
Romanesque and Gothic. Terminology, however, is slippery. Though both terms
have been employed for so long that changing them is difficult, they were not used
by contemporaries, and scholars still debate their utility and precision. “Roman-
esque,” for example, has been used as a blanket term for styles that have later
been separately categorized as Lombard, Saxon, Carolingian, and Ottonian, be-
fore the rise of First Romanesque in the tenth century. The key underlying feature
of all of these as well as numerous later Romanesque regional styles is a continuity
with the classical past, its Roman round arches and preference for fine masonry.
Gothic, which began developing in the Paris region in the mid-twelfth century, is
seen as architecture that breaks from this past, or very broadly (and not entirely
correctly) as anything with a pointed arch. Gothic is employed as an umbrella term
for styles as diverse in name as Norman, Perpendicular, and Flamboyant. Despite
the confusion of narrow versus wide application of the terms “Romanesque” and
“Gothic,” both continue to be employed in the literature. Indeed, some scholars,
such as Linda Seidel, have focused on the rich associations in the historiography
of these terms, linking, for example, inventive and intricate Romanesque carving
with the playful forms of popular “Romanz” literature (Seidel 2006).
In the early Middle Ages (ca. 700 through ca. 900), architecture was primarily
of the post and lintel type, and monumental structures in stone were not common.
Building stones tended to be rough and small in size when used at all. Few wood
buildings survive from this period, though archaeological records indicate that
these could be sizeable, some 20 to 30 meters in length with aisle posts utilized to
expand the width of hall structures (Thompson 1995, 23). The Carolingian period
did see the creation of some stone buildings employing more sophisticated
techniques, notably in church architecture. The traditional early Christian basili-
ca church elements consisted of central space (nave), flanking aisles, a semicir-
cular apse extending to the east—the home to the principal altar—with the

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extended width of the transept projecting just below, to form from above the
shape of a Latin cross. To this the Carolingian period added westworks: a tower-
like west block with an entrance and vestibule on the ground level, and a chapel
on the upper story. Though only a few examples of westworks survive (Charle-
magne’s famous palace chapel at Aachen has the remains of a westwork), it was
clearly desirable, as the idealized plan for a monastery, drawn up at St. Gall,
Switzerland, ca. 820, envisions a massive curved western segment to its abbey
church (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Ground plans of idealized monastery from St. Gall, Switzerland, showing church and
cloister (Carolingian, ca. 820), St. Foy, Conques, France (Pilgrimage Roads Romanesque,
1050–1130), and Notre-Dame of Paris (Gothic, 1163–1240 and 1296–1315). At Carolingian St. Gall
the westwork and east apse give both church ends equal emphasis; at Romanesque Conques,
the additive chapels and ambulatory highlighted the cross shape of the building; at Gothic
Notre-Dame the vaults help to integrate the spaces and the blunted transept makes the cross
plan less prominent. St. Gall and Notre-Dame plans after Viollet-le-Duc, Conques after Aubert.
The First Romanesque developed about the tenth century, and Romanesque
proper continued to flourish up through the early twelfth century (and in some
areas later than that). Masonry construction was often brick or brick-shaped stone
in the early years, with dressed stone holding in a core of irregular courses. This
First Romanesque style was often plastered with stucco to seem more smooth
(Conant 1978, 109). Later, ashlar masonry was preferred. Arches were employed
for decoration and function, ranging from blind arcades to arched windows or
openings (Fig. 3). The latter were usually subdivided by columns. Reused Roman
columns were popular in early buildings, but as they became scarce, masons
carved their own, often becoming very inventive with capital design.

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Fig. 3: Pfalz Dankwarderode, Braunschweig, Germany. Palace rebuilt by Henry the Lion
(1129–1195) after 1175 and restored after 1887. Note its German Romanesque features such as
round arches divided by squat columns and fine ashlar stone masonry, especially at the corners,
as well as the external stair that gives access to the main hall above. Its surroundings were
originally fortified. Photo by author.
Though much of this first Romanesque style derived from Italy, especially Lom-
bardy, the development of the interior bay system for Romanesque architecture
proper comes from Northern architecture (Horn 1958). The bay system is com-
posed of repeating vertical units divided by visual elements, such as shafts and
transverse arches (Fig. 4). Bays divide space into repeating volumes. They char-
acterize both Romanesque and Gothic buildings and have their origins in the
vertical posts that divided barns and other domestic wooden structures. In such
buildings the posts connected with open timber beam ceilings, but as Roman-
esque builders became more proficient the ceilings were replaced by masonry
vaults over the church nave and aisles. These vaults could be simple barrel (or
tunnel) vaults, which acted essentially as extensions of the arch, or they could be
groin vaults, formed by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. The
resultant seamed appearance formed an X-shape over the vaulted bay (Figs. 2 and
4). Masonry vaults helped make buildings less vulnerable to fire, provided ex-
cellent acoustic effects, and added to the monumental grandeur of a structure.

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Fig. 4: Nave elevation and west narthex interior of La Madeleine at Vézelay, France (Burgundian
Romanesque, ca. 1104–1132). Note the groin vaults between the striped transverse arches, the
elaborate historiated capitals beneath the arch springing and within the nave arcade arch
facings, and the compound colonettes marking the vertical nave bay divisions. Photo by Jesse
Hurlbut, with permission.

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While Romanesque buildings throughout Europe explored vaulting, additional

developments in France and northern Spain led to what is known as the pilgrim-
age roads church type (for example St. Foy, Conques, Fig. 2). To accommodate the
increasing crowds of pilgrims journeying to visit saintly relics, many of the
churches on the road to Santiago de Compostela, the shrine of St. James the Major
in northwest Spain, began to enlarge their east ends. Apses were extended,
surrounded with a semicircular aisle known as an ambulatory, and small addi-
tional chapels, known as radiating chapels, opened into the ambulatory space.
Paul Frankl’s description for these changes was “additive” architecture; that
is, the chapels formed discrete spaces that stood as self-contained units; by
contrast, Gothic was “integrative,” all its parts combining to form a whole (Frankl,
2000, 10).
Later Romanesque buildings developed a range of vocabularies and forms
within differing regions. Though sharing most key features in common (additive
plans and Roman elements, especially round arches, columns, capitals, and
stone vaulting), different regions tended to develop individual solutions. In gen-
eral, northern Europe preferred relatively simple plans and decoration, with
steeply pitched roofs and heavy stonework as at Mainz cathedral in Germany,
while the south adopted Moslem or Byzantine elements, such as “zebra” striped
stonework or cusped archways, for example in Monreale cathedral, Sicily (Conant
1978, 239–40).
An additional feature shared by most Romanesque styles is the increasing
sophistication in building decoration. Wall painting flourished within the Roman-
esque period. Early stained glass began to make an appearance as well (for
example at Augsburg cathedral, southern Germany). But most distinctive was the
sculptural decoration of buildings. Elaborately decorated doorways and capitals
sported monsters, grotesques and distorted human figures (Fig. 4). St. Bernard of
Clairvaux’s (1090–1153) famous complaint about the extravagant cost of such
“marvelous and deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity” in which “so many
and so marvellous are the varieties of shapes on every hand, that we are more
tempted to read in the marble than in our books,” clearly indicates a fascination
with which the ascetic Cistercian himself struggled (Schapiro 1976, 6–8).
The Gothic style was even more prone to ornamentation. This style arose in
the Ile-de-France region around Paris in the twelfth century and persisted, in one
form or another, throughout the sixteenth century. Its name derives from Italian
Renaissance critics who branded the style barbaric because of its radical break
with past Roman forms. Essential features of Gothic are the rib vault and the
pointed arch; later developments such as flying buttresses and window tracery
are also seen as characteristic of the style. These features formed the building-
blocks for an architecture that was soaringly vertical, and composed of interlock-

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Fig. 5: Nave elevation at Amiens cathedral, France, by Robert de Luzarches, built 1220–1236.
The building interior is divided vertically into bays by thin colonettes that connect to the rib
vaults, while horizontal string courses stretch below the clerestory windows and middle
triforium zone, forming a classic High Gothic “grid.” Photo by author.

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Fig. 6: East end of Notre-Dame cathedral, Paris (1163–ca. 1240 with rebuilding 1296–1315; the
small thin crossing spire and foreground monument are both nineteenth-century additions).
Note the simple tracery in the upper windows between the flying buttress arches (twelfth-century
High Gothic) and the more intricately ornamented, gable-topped windows at the base, forming a
new ring of chapels around the east end (early fourteenth-century Rayonnant additions). Photo
by author.

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ing parts emphasizing the linear treatment of the wall surface. The discrete
sections of the Romanesque church were now bound together into an integrated
whole by the vault’s ribs and their connections to wall responds, thinner mas-
sings and architectural details such as horizontal string courses (Figs. 2 and 5).
The wall mass did not just appear thinner and more elegant, it actually became
so. Relying on the strength of pointed arches and externally supporting but-
tresses, window space could be enlarged. Gothic buildings became showcases for
stained glass: figures and ornament more often appeared in colored light rather
than merely on colored walls. Fine ashlar masonry was also skillfully employed.
The first Gothic church credited with fully assembling rib vaults, pointed
arches, stained glass, and the integrative system in which they were bound
together was the abbey church of St. Denis, rebuilt under Abbot Suger from 1140–
1144. Scholarly attention on buildings following St. Denis has been based, until
relatively recently, primarily on classifications of style (Frankl 2000, 10). Early
Gothic structures experimented with interior organization of piers and vaults, and
the variation between openings and solid masonry. The interweaving of horizon-
tal string courses or other elements with thin colonettes rising vertically and
framing each bay formed differing balances from church to church. From the late
twelfth to the mid thirteenth century a sort of balanced formula of vertical and
horizontal elements coalesced into solutions known as the High Gothic style, seen
in the nave of Amiens cathedral (Fig. 5). A drive for increased interior height led
to the innovation of flying buttresses, arched spans that supported the upper
walls at the levels where the heavy interior vaults rested their weight (Fig. 6). This
allowed for increased window span, showcasing jewel-toned stained glass. The
elegant solutions of High Gothic were long seen by many as the optimal balance
between murality and openness, decoration and restraint.
By the middle of the thirteenth century, Gothic had begun to alter to Rayon-
nant, a name meaning “ray-projecting.” The term derived initially from the
patterns of window tracery—that is, the supporting stonework bars used in
windows (Focillon 1963). Rayonnant buildings also broke up the careful balance
of elements, dark and light, void and solid, that formed the Gothic “grid.”
Previously delineated zones merged into one another when vertical stone colon-
ettes or triangular gables blurred boundaries (Fig. 6). Outside France, Rayonnant
proved popular, being adopted by buildings such as Cologne cathedral. England
borrowed from Rayonnant as well, though there creative tracery and playful
sculptural decoration also combined with innovative ways of shaping space in
the style known as Decorative (Bony 1979). Italy on the other hand shied from the
Gothic integrative approach and the use of external supports including flying
buttresses, and retained much of its historically Romanesque character even
while borrowing characteristically Gothic features, such as stained glass windows

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with pointed arches and rib vaulting, creating a style essentially eclectic (Trach-
tenberg 1991).
By the end of the fourteenth century, Gothic had spread in various manifesta-
tions throughout much of Europe. The building of great churches such as cathe-
drals and abbeys in France and even England had slowed significantly, although
important patronage could still command large-scale structures, such as Char-
les IV of Bohemia’s (1316–1378) efforts with the massive cathedral of St. Vitus at
Prague. Talented architects such as Prague’s Peter Parler (ca. 1330–1397) adapted
rib vaulting forms and played with architectural supports as if they were sculptur-
al elements, culminating in the rioting, twisting forms of Late Gothic and in
Germany, the so-called “Baroque Gothic” (Fig. 7). In France, these forms were
often characterized by flame-shaped tracery, leading to the name Flamboyant.
England preferred drier, more rigid patterns, especially in neatly subdivided
tracery designs. The vertical orientation to these repetitive patterns gave rise to
the name Perpendicular.
Fig. 7: Vladislav Hall, Prague castle, by architect Benedikt Ried (or Rijt, ca. 1450–ca. 1531),
finished 1500. The organic criss-crossed loops of the rib vaults, which run down the walls
without any interrupting capitals breaking their lines, are characteristically “Baroque” Gothic.
The simpler window frames are elements of the classicizing Renaissance. Photo by author.

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Fig. 8: Hall cutaway view with plan, showing king post in ceiling, and upper and lower hall
divisions. Note the solar behind the upper hall and the screens passage and service section
(comprising buttery and pantry) behind lower hall. Image by permission of Richard Harris.

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Fig. 9: Parish church of All Saints, Elston, Nottinghamshire, England. The chancel section at the
right has a characteristically lowered roof; the center and west sections are crenellated (often a
sign of status rather than of military use in the late medieval period, but most likely added here
by nineteenth-century restorers). The extending south chapel (lower center) has Tudor windows
and arches; it also houses the main entrance porch. The offset porch design (on the south, rather
than to the west below the tower) is common for parish churches. The tombstones in the
churchyard mostly date from the eighteenth century onward. Photo by author.
A sober counterpoint to this later Gothic elaboration rose as early as in the twelfth
century, inspired primarily by the mendicant orders. These gave rise to hall
churches, with nave and side aisles of equal height (especially in German exam-
ples like Peter Parler’s Heilig-Kreutz church in Schwäbisch-Gmünd), or squared-
off, plain east ends with few or no chapels (often popular in English churches,
such as the Cistercian Fountains abbey), or timber interior ceilings with vaulting
restricted to a small choir area (common in Italy, as at Santa Croce, Florence).
The Gothic was eventually supplanted by Renaissance ideals, which favored
symmetry and simpler geometrical forms. The complex patterns of tracery and
the intricacies of design were not as easy to grasp visually or intellectually as the
proportion-based system in Renaissance classicism. Robert Bork has recently
argued that the very intellectual challenge of Gothic may well have prompted its
demise (Bork 2011b).

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Though Romanesque and Gothic styles predominated in nearly all church

architecture, most secular architecture did not follow these forms. Timbered
structures formed open interiors made up of bays framed by wooden trusses. The
most common forms were aisles (in which the ceiling was supported both by
innervertical posts and outer walls), post and truss (in which the vertical posts
and walls were identical, making the covered space much narrower) and cruck
(the use of jointed timbers forming a curved shape rather than a strict right angle)
(Harris 2004, 11). Whether employed in an utilitarian barn, prosperous peasant
house, or lordly hall, the timbered structure frequently pursued the goal of
making the interior as spacious as possible. The aisle posts that made a large
expanse feasible also, however, blocked interior view and circulation, and car-
penters devised various solutions to support roof trusses, including king posts
(Fig. 8) and hammerbeams. King posts are vertical posts that brace the upper roof
and sit on a horizontal beam stretching the width of the room below; hammer-
beams are short horizontal posts that are cantilevered in horizontally from the
outside wall, are braced for support, and thus can hold vertical posts extending
up into the roofing system. Westminster Hall in London (1395–1399) was one of
the most noted hammerbeam structures.
Fortified structures such as city walls, bridge towers, and castles, were more
frequently made of stone, and could range from an extremely utilitarian form to a
highly decorated one. Decorative motifs frequently were drawn from either Ro-
manesque or Gothic vocabulary, adding such flourishes as decorative blind
arcades on a building exterior (as at Castle Rising, Norfolk, England, ca. 1138)
to rib-vaulted passageways. One notable military feature, however, is the crenella-
tion or battlement, a rampart along the top of a fortified wall that includes regular
gaps for firing arrows, or, later, guns. Though its origins were in defensive
function, it came also to be a mark of status, as a license to crenellate was required
by royal authority. Crenellation thus reversed the usual pattern of borrowing,
being applied first to military, and only later, to ecclesiastical buildings (Fig. 9).
II Building Types and their Uses

1 Ecclesiastical Architecture
Most of the exempla of traditional Romanesque and Gothic style are derived from
great churches, notably cathedrals and abbeys. Cathedrals were largely urban
structures, housing the throne of the bishop (the cathedra) for the diocese. Abbeys
could be rural or urban, depending on their order, but served their monastic
community, integrating the church with an adjacent cloister (Fig. 2). The cloister

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in turn was bordered by living quarters: dormitory, refectory, library/scriptorium.

Service buildings and guest quarters, important parts of the complex used both
by monastic residents as well as well as their visitors, are less often studied,
though more recently scholars have focused on the study of the monastic complex
as a whole (Kinder 2000; Gilchrist 2005). Traditional orders such as Benedictines
and Cistercians often preferred remote sites in which the abbey complex formed
its own discrete unit in which the community might remain detached even from
pilgrims. Mendicant orders, especially the great preaching orders of the Francis-
cans and Dominicans, usually sited their church and cloister complexes in towns,
in order to draw townsfolk into their great, barn-like naves to hear their sermons
and bury their dead (Bruzelius 2007). Mendicant churches often eschewed great
bell towers and kept their naves relatively plain, but beyond their choir screens,
the choir could surpass the remainder of the church in size and splendor. Their
success in appealing to the local devout, including their ability to draw offerings
away from the parish churches, often led to a rivalry that could be played out in
the architectural realm as well as the social one.
Parish churches served smaller congregations (Fig. 9), but in size and splen-
dor could be as large as their parish’s funds permitted. Indeed in some areas they
rivaled cathedrals in splendor. Organized by neighborhood, parishioners were
expected to attend regular services at their church, as well as be baptized and
buried there. (There was a financial element to this requirement, as fees for these
ceremonies were an important part of the parish priest’s income.) Parish churches
often developed piecemeal according to available finances and changing tastes.
Many structures retain the core of a small nave and chancel structure to which
aisles, towers, higher ceilings, additional windows, and side chapels have
been added (Dyas, ed., 2010). Chapels could be attached to a church, forming a
semiprivate space for their donors. Guilds, families, and wealthy individuals
often founded such chapels, as founding a completely new church required a
more costly license. Many of these chapels were known as chantries, a term also
employed for the endowment funds established to celebrate prayers for their
patrons’ souls (Roffey 2007). Other private chapels could be found in great houses
and castles, or placed in prominent public sites, like bridges or graveyards.
Chapels even could be integrated with large halls, as at hospitals, where the
placement of a chapel at the far end of a row of beds might allow the bedridden
sick to see and hear the spiritually healing liturgy (Craemer 1963).
Large or small, medieval churches shared much the same symbolism. A
church was a house of God, an earthly manifestation of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
The design of the church usually was laid out in the shape of a cross, with the
main altar to the east at the “head” (as at St. Foy, Conques; see Fig. 2). Churches
were sometimes round, patterned after the Holy Sepulchre church at Jerusalem, a

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key Christian monument since the time of Constantine (Krautheimer 1942; exam-
ples include Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel in Aachen, the Romanesque church
of SS. Peter and Paul at Ottmarsheim, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Cam-
bridge, and several churches of the Order of the Knights Templar, as at London).
Whether round, cross-shaped or adapted to some other form by exigencies of site,
history or patron choice, the medieval church and its furnishings joined together
to form a unity just as individuals together made up the body of Christ (Frankl
2000, 14). Furnishings, which so seldom survive into the modern era, were crucial
to the liturgy which was performed within the building. Choir screens, pulpits,
chalices and other plates, monstrances and reliquaries, altar cloths, hangings,
vestments, books, pax boards, and candles all framed the space of the church
proper to create a setting for liturgical devotion.
But the church could also serve numerous other purposes, such as housing
dramatic performances (Frankl 2011, 25), serving as reception sites for city visita-
tions by notables, and as civic centers for seasonal celebration, as in the parish
ales and harvest festivities popular in late medieval times (Burgess 1991, 86).
2 Secular Architecture
Secular building was divided primarily into dwellings and fortifications, though
the two categories could overlap. Little is known of basic housing, as few rem-
nants survive. Archaeological evidence indicates, however, that these were better
built than the flimsy hovels of popular imagination (Johnson 2010, 73). Post holes,
stone fire pits, and drains indicate that walls were usually made of timbers, either
set in earth vertically or on a foundation horizontally, log-cabin style. Thatch was
probably the most common roofing. Houses could be sunk into the ground, with
the roof slanting down nearly to the ground level (the Grubenhaus type). Such
buildings might be unheated, used as work spaces (like weaving sheds) rather
than living quarters. Examples of these structures are best examined through
reconstructions and rebuildings, like those found at the Museum of Northumbria
at Wearmouth-Jarrow (“Bede’s World”) in England.
There was little or no architectural subdivision of space in these simple dwell-
ings, although in a longhouse an internal wall, which usually did not reach to the
ceiling, frequently kept animals to one side while still allowing people to share
warmth with their stock. A drain typically ran down the animal half of the
residence to flush out manure. More sophisticated longhouses might have a
passage corridor between the human and animal residents, with doors on each
end. Barns and byres were often built separately, to house either cattle or grain; the
latter could be raised on short supports to keep rodents from entering the building.

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The center of the house, whether of one room or more, was the hearth fire. A
hole in the roof let smoke out; louvers and gables could help shield the fire below
from rain. Chimneys did not begin to be employed until the twelfth century, and
the central fire remained traditional until very late. As a result, the room below, of
whatever size, was generally smoky.
This open room was the basic hall. The hall had a pattern and a resonance
felt on all levels of society. The owner of the home, regardless of his actual social
status, was lord of the hall; indeed, yeomen halls became increasingly common
in the later medieval period. This “lord” sat at the far end, often on a fixed bench.
Other furniture items, such as benches or tables, were typically moveable.
Though a peasant home would be multipurpose, a hall of status was not usually
used for sleeping or cooking, but for eating and gathering (Thompson 1995, 30).
In Beowulf’s (ca. 1000) Heorot, for example, neither Hrothgar nor his guest
Beowulf actually sleep in the hall, beyond the hero’s first night; it is only the
warriors of lesser status who bunk down inside. The vulnerability of the hall
indicates a social shame and political weakness that draws Beowulf to Hrothgar’s
rescue (Beowulf 2008, 1188, lines 411–414).
An early hall like Heorot was a separate building from other living and service
quarters such as chambers, the kitchens, and storage areas. However, early halls
were often placed on an upper floor above storage areas, sometimes cellars known
as undercrofts. The hall itself would typically be accessed via an outer stairway
which could be defended in case of attack (Fig. 3). In the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200),
for example, control of the staircase is key to the strategy during the fight between
Huns and Burgundians in King Etzel’s hall (The Nibelungenlied 1969, 244).
By the mid-twelfth century the freestanding hall began to merge with the
chamber block, forming the basis of the later medieval house, especially in England
(Blair 1993). To these were added service quarters. The arrangement of these three
key elements could take different forms, but one very common plan was the
location of a private chamber at one end of the hall and service quarters at the other
end (Fig. 8). The chamber, usually well lit (and thus also called a solar) was
frequently placed farthest away from the main house entrance. It was commonly
placed on an upper level with an internal stair access. Heating could be supplied by
a chimney in wealthier households, and the chamber might have its own garderobe
or latrine. At the opposite end of the hall from the chamber, one or more doorways
led to a passage that served as main entrance, and that opened on two service
rooms, the buttery (for drink) and pantry (for bread). Additional service areas such
as the kitchen were usually separate structures located behind the house proper,
to minimize the risks of fire and to keep far away from the latrines for sanitation.
The arrangement of the hall form was one that corresponded to medieval
social hierarchy but it differed according to region and custom. In France there

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was usually an upper story salle over a ground floor or basement equivalent
where servants and lesser folk congregated (Girouard 2000, 42). In England all
classes usually gathered on the same floor, in the same room, with the space
differentiated by increased architectural elaboration. A fixed bench at the far, or
upper, end was often illuminated by a window, and other architectural details
could emphasize the upper half, even down to the orientation of joints between
beams (Johnson 2010, 67). These upper and lower divisions were closely akin to
the clerical chancel and lay nave of the basic parish church (Johnson 2010, 71).
The hall’s location in apposition to the screens passage, behind which buttery
and pantry resided, lent itself to the ceremonial presentation of bread and wine,
especially in more substantial households, which had Eucharistic associations
(Gardiner 2008, 60–61). Indeed, the space of the medieval hall was equated with
communal ceremony. The increasing preference of the wealthy for private com-
fort in a chamber is lamented by William Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1386): “Elyng is
the halle, uche daye in the wyke, / There the lorde ne the ladye, liketh nought to
sytte. / Now hath uche riche a reule to eten bi hymsleve / in a pryvé parloure for
pore mennes sake, / Or in a chambre with a chymneye, and leve the chief halle /
That was made for meles men to eten inne” (Langland 2006, 144, Passus X, ll. 97–
102). By contrast, the old-fashioned liberality of Chaucer’s Franklin also finds
architectural form: “His table dormant in his halle alway / Stood redy covered al
the longe day. / At sessiouns there was he lord and sire” (Chaucer 1987, 29,
ll. 353–55). The abandonment of the hall toward the end of the medieval period
has been linked with the rise of the nuclear family (husband, wife, children,
servants) as well as with changing expectations of, and indeed concepts of,
privacy (Johnson 2010; Ariès and Duby, ed., 1993).
The open space of the hall was not just used for domestic space but also wider
communities. Town halls, market halls, and guild halls were used for business
and commerce, although they could also be used for the same kind of ceremony
held in a private house, only on a larger scale. The larger the hall itself was, the
more necessary internal supports became, although woodworkers could span
large interior spaces with the aid of hammerbeams. In smaller town dwellings, a
residential hall could be turned ninety degrees with its narrow end facing the
street, and accommodating shop space at the entrance. As burgage (that is, town
rental) plots were usually long and narrow, putting service areas in a yard behind
the main house block was more convenient for the dweller. Town house halls
could also be raised to the upper floor, leaving more room for shops or storage
beneath; to increase house size beyond the allotted frontage space, upper stories
were often jettied (Fig. 1). In castles, an upper floor location was generally
preferred for the hall, with vaulted undercrofts serving as secure storage areas
below. The integration of hall and other domestic chambers into castles restricted

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size. In France this corresponded with the multiplication of chambers stacking

vertically into towers; the higher up, the more private the room, and often the
more difficult to access (Girouard 2000, 55).
Castles were both domestic and defensive, though each site design assured
how effective these elements were. Indeed the combination of defense with the
dwelling place of a lord is, in fact, the definition of what makes a castle (Brown
1980, 16).The simplest type of castle consisted of the motte and bailey type, which
probably developed in France before the Norman conquest. An earthwork ditch
surrounded a central mound, the motte, on which a timber fortified structure was
built next to an enclosed courtyard, the bailey. The motte typically held a keep, or
donjon, with living quarters for the lord in residence; it could often be large
enough to contain a hall as well as private quarters and storage. A motte and
bailey castle of earth and wood could be erected fairly quickly to help control a
conquered countryside, acting not only for defense but as a secure site from
which to wage offensive strikes.
Stone began to replace timber by the eleventh century, though all surviving
examples date from the twelfth century onward (Brown 1980). This made castles
more imposing as well as expensive and slower to erect. They dominated the
landscape, or cityscape, as much as great churches did.
Castle design grew more elaborate with the addition of multiple layers of
earthworks and stone walls, and reached its military zenith during the late
thirteenth century. The motte and bailey type fell out of fashion in favor of large
stone keeps, usually fortified with additional curtain walls. Stone towers were
common in Italy, where individual families built tall defensive structures within
blocks of their rivals in the same city; the best preserved example is the Tuscan
town of San Gimignano. Later castles often utilized natural siting such as rocky
outcrops, riverine or tidal marsh locations. Strategic ground was frequently high
ground, especially for German castles, which were slower to develop than in
Normandy and England (Brown 1980, 57). Ashlar masonry could be fitted to rise
from living rock so that attack was made more difficult, and ditches or moats
could be filled with water to deter assault by sapping or mining. Where early
castles may have had a simple palisade, now elaborate outer curtain walls were
added, often strengthened at the corners by towers. In fact this towered wall
complex formed the basis of most crusader castles, which could dispense with the
central keep altogether (Brown 1980, 49).
Popular though the keep was, especially in France, it was still optional as the
hall, chambers and service quarters could easily be integrated within an inner
ward bounded by thick walls (Fig. 10). Shafts along the walls that emptied out-
ward were used for latrines, away from the centrally-defended well. Where sites
permitted, concentric and symmetrical layouts were preferred, often with two or

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even more rings of wall defending the residential interior. The most heavily
fortified section was the entrance, which often boasted a large gatehouse com-
plex. The entryway to a castle bristled with features that were meant to intimidate
as well as serve in actual defense: one or more portcullises blocked the way, while
murder holes (open slots to drop missiles from above) and arrow slits (narrow
vertical slits behind which bowmen could be posted) also protected the opening.
Drawbridges could also be employed. Indeed, many more castles fell through
siege starvation or treachery than outright assault.
Fig. 10: Harlech castle ground plan, Wales. Built ca. 1283 by Master James of St. George
(ca. 1230–1309) for Edward I (1239–1307) to subdue the Welsh, the castle is set on a rocky
outcrop above the sea, which extends to the west. It has no central keep but the gatehouse
contained a suite of residential rooms, and the main hall, kitchen and chapel are placed
along the periphery of the inner ward. Photo by permission of Cadw, Welsh Government
(Crown Copyright).
During the late Middle Ages, castles became less military in function and more
focused on residential comfort. Living quarters were enlarged at the expense of
towers or gatehouses, and additional windows increased lighting but also vulner-
ability. The slow decline of the castle as working fortress was complex and based
on reasons part military and part social (Brown 1980, 61). One factor is that great
lords’ households became less peripatetic and more settled; in early times most

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castles had been left occupied by a skeleton staff for part of the year as their lords
traveled. Swift-moving military raids that bypassed castle territory also rendered
these buildings less of a deterrent in war.
There were other kinds of fortifications besides the personal residence of a
lord and his extended family. Town walls with their reinforced gates and towers
defended an entire community. These fortifications could be as imposing as any
castle and their gateways, often closed at night, could seal up the community
from outside threat. Inside encircling walls, the medieval town tended to have a
complex narrow network of streets, though city centers might have a grid pattern,
usually from the reuse of old Roman fortifications. Towns as a whole tended to
grow in rings, as more and more residential areas near the town needed to be
included within larger fortified walls. Bridges too were part of the architectural
landscape, and could be fortified with towers on either bank, as at the Charles
Bridge in Prague, or built up with commercial shops along their lengths, rather in
the manner of the modern Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The integration of defense,
domicile and worship into various parts of one structure, such as a bridge, is
indeed characteristic of the scope of medieval life (see the contribution on
“Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Travelers” by Albrecht Classen in this Handbook).
D Conclusions
Architecture shaped, and was shaped by, the lives of both rich and poor. People
worked, ate, slept, worshiped, gathered, and were governed all within the frame-
work of building. We know more of elite architecture, which is both better
documented and better preserved, than we do of more humble structures. Both
types of architecture were experienced by a wide range of individuals both inside
and outside their target social class. Indeed, as much of the display of a castle or
cathedral was likely aimed at impressing outsiders as it was in satisfying the
needs and wishes of the upper echelons who regularly used the spaces. Though
these spaces have often changed over the centuries, enough of them remains that
visitors to them in later days can still experience something of the physical milieu
that was formerly created, making architecture unique among the arts.
Medieval architecture continues to survive and even thrive as communities
today restore castles, churches and houses. Nearly every major cathedral and
abbey church in Europe has undergone or is currently undergoing rebuilding
campaigns. Stones and glass leading worn by pollution need replacing or reinfor-
cing; roofs and floors need maintenance; sculpted and painted surfaces need
careful cleaning. Support for such procedures is very expensive (the 1998–2004
restoration of the north spire at Strasbourg cathedral cost an estimated 4.4 million

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Euros) but cultural awareness of the need for preservation has possibly never
been higher. The medieval past may once have been seen as outmoded but now
its appeal gives buildings from this time period a special cachet. The Gothic
Revival movement of the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries restored
much of the appeal of medieval forms—notably such idiosyncratic Gothic features
as crenellations, pointed arches, stained glass, ribbed vaulting, and the mon-
strous but eye-catching gargoyles which served both as rainspouts as well as
emblems of fleeing evil. The Renaissance had rejected these in favor of careful
proportion systems and regular geometries of the classical world. Centrally
planned designs, balanced compositions and classical decorative themes (like
fluted columns, acanthus leaves, egg-and-dart moldings, and dentils) came to the
fore. But with the rise of Romanticism, the idiosyncracies and brilliant inventions
of the medieval period once more captured imaginations. Thanks also to the
attraction of “medievalisms” popularized in today’s cinematic, cyberspace cul-
ture, medieval architecture is a treasured remnant of our past.
Select Bibliography
Brown, R. Allen, Castles: A History and Guide (Poole 1980).
Coldstream, Nicola, Medieval Architecture (Oxford 2002).
Conant, Kenneth, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800–1200, 4th ed. (1959; New
Haven, CT, and London 1978).
Craemer, Ulrich, Das Hospital als Bautyp des Mittelalters (Cologne 1963).
Frankl, Paul, Gothic Architecture, rev. Paul Crossley (New Haven, CT, 2000).
Grenville, Jane, Medieval Housing (London and Washington, DC, 1997).
Krautheimer, Richard, “An Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture,’” Journal of
the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1–33.
Opačić, Zoë and Achim Timmermann, ed., Architecture, Liturgy and Identity: Liber Amicorum Paul
Crossley (Turnhout 2011).
Panofsky, Erwin, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures (Princeton,
NJ, 1946).
Thompson, Michael Welman, The Medieval Hall: the Basis of Secular Domestic Life, 600–1600 AD
(Aldershot 1995).

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Frances Parton
Visual Arts
A Introduction
This essay will give a survey of the range and nature of medieval art from the
fourth century to the fifteenth, with a focus on Western Europe. Medieval art is a
huge subject, and by necessity this can be only an introductory study of what is
now recognized as one of the richest artistic periods of European history. The
twelve hundred years between 300 and 1500, stretching from the late antique era
to the beginning of the Renaissance, are renowned as a period of enormous
regional, cultural, political, economic, and artistic change and diversity. Yet
consistency and history were valued and consciously maintained throughout;
local practice and inherited tradition were of supreme importance on every social
level. By highlighting the nature of these changes, and the desire for continuity
which accompanied them, I will offer one way to explore the tremendous wealth
and variety of art produced during the medieval period, including architecture,
metalwork, manuscript illumination and sculpture.
B Early Medieval Art – The Classical Roman

Inheritance
I Classical Roman and Early Christian Art
An awareness of the significance of the inherited classical Roman past, trans-

mitted via late antique Christian culture, is perhaps the most important key to
understanding early medieval culture, politics and art. A brief outline of Roman
art, both before and after the emergence of Christianity, is necessary to under-
stand the ways this classical, Christian artistic inheritance was received, devel-
oped and exploited by early medieval rulers, artists and patrons.
Roman art portrayed and celebrated the actions and customs which defined
and reinforced Roman culture, all of which were very visual; the social rituals of
the amphitheatre, bathhouse and banquet; religious sacrifices; intellectual rituals
such as public debates. The confrontation and combination of a strong Hellenistic
tradition with indigenous Italian forms developed into an imperial, cosmopolitan,
‘Romanized’ and ‘Romanizing’ style widely adopted across the multicultural

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societies which made up the Roman Republic (Elsner 1998, 1–11). Communication
through images proved an effective way of binding the disparate inhabitants of
the empire together and during the later imperial Roman period the desire for the
accurate, naturalistic depiction of people and events was overtaken by the devel-
opment and proliferation of images which conveyed a message, usually one of
imperial power. The busts on Roman coins spread a familiar and established
motif of authority and unity across wide regions that were linguistically and
culturally diverse. In an architectural and sculptural context, narrative scenes
communicated events and ideas through the repeated use of formulaic images. In
an adlocutio scene, for example, the authority of an emperor addressing his
troops is evident from his raised arm and elevated physical position on a plat-
form; in an adventus scene, the power of an emperor on horseback is commu-
nicated through the submissive and supplicating attitude of those before him.
Detail, individuality, and accuracy were controlled to increase the clarity of the
message portrayed (Nees 2002, 17–27; Elsner 1998, 11–14).
This strong visual, pictorial language of ideas was widely used and recog-
nized across the later Roman Empire; it was an integral part of both secular and
religious life. When the early Christian church developed, springing directly from
existing Jewish practices, emphases and traditions, the new cult (like Judaism
itself) was immediately noteworthy by its reliance on a central text. Roman pagan
religion was local, diverse, polytheistic and tolerant. It was experienced in a
devolved way, through images and myths. In contrast, Christ, the focus of the
new Christian cult, was to be known and experienced through the written word.
Although the total rejection of the worship of images remains a central tenet of
Christianity today, as the new religion spread quickly through Roman society
during the course of the third century its adherents and advocates adopted and
built upon the existing flexible and effective Roman visual language which was
all around them as a way of spreading and interpreting the new faith. An
argument can therefore be made for much continuity during the transition from
the pagan to the Christian Roman Empire, focused around art and the uses of art.
The spread and development of Christianity during the first two or three
centuries C.E., alongside other emerging religious cults such as Mithraism, left
little physical trace and remains opaque and little-known to us today. The earliest
Christian symbols that we know about such as the fish, the anchor, the shepherd,
and the dove, found on personal seals, on tomb paintings, and on carved
sarcophagi, date from the third century onwards, and were borrowed and adapted
from those already in use in the pagan Roman world. Polyvalent, these contem-
porary ideograms were chosen as they were familiar yet open to a range of mean-
ings (Nees 2002, 32–36). A shepherd with his flock had a long Graeco-Roman
history as an image of general safety and salvation, but developed into a clear

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82 Frances Parton
image of a specifically Christian, spiritual kind of salvation. The anchor, used in

Hellenistic and Roman iconography to symbolize a naval victory, could, within a
Christian context, represent a safe harbor, hope, and paradise. They could be
used to communicate increasingly complicated ideas, which often necessitated a
certain amount of interpretation by the viewer. An image of a fish, for example,
was open to a wider range of related meanings; the souls of new believers ‘caught’
by the Apostles; the miraculous fish from the story of Jesus’s feeding of the five
thousand; and finally on an exegetical level, Old Testament miracles like this
prefigured the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, so the fish can also symbolize
Christ’s body and his sacrifice. The image of the fish was often accompanied by
the Greek work for fish, IXθYΣ, which was also an acronymn of the first letters of
the Greek words for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.
Christianity’s emphasis on the written word was also something that was
explored and communicated visually in this period. The didactic stories of the Old
Testament could be conveyed extremely effectively through extended narrative
pictures, and surviving early forth-century tomb paintings from the Roman cata-
combs often show episodes from the stories of Jonah, of Moses, of Susanna and
the Elders (Nees 2002, 36–39; Barral i Altet 1997, 32; Lowden 1997, 25–29). The
relationship between word and image, symbolism, and the idea of different layers
of interrelated meaning, which would go on to become extremely characteristic
aspects of early medieval art and culture, are already present in early Christian art
in this way.
As early Christianity and pagan Roman art co-existed and were interrelated,
the artists who produced these Christian images may or may not have been
Christian themselves. In addition, the overlap between Christian and pagan
motifs means that imagery alone is not always enough to denote whether or not
an object from this period is Christian in character. Some forms of decoration were
particularly ambiguous in this way, such as vine leaves, which remained a
popular pagan Roman type of decoration while also being open to a new Christian
Eucharistic interpretation (Paradise, new life in Christ etc); in many cases, it was
the context and received meaning which denoted a Christian message to the
viewer rather than any distinct or separate style (Lowden 1997, 29; Nees 2002, 38).
II Late Antique Art and the Rise of Christianity
Over the course of the fourth century, following the toleration edicts of the
Emperor Galerius in 311 and the co-emperors Constantine and Licinius in 313,
Christianity grew exponentially. It was adopted as the state religion of the empire
and became fully integrated into late antique culture, both public and private.

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The pagan temples were not officially closed until 396, however, so Christianity
and paganism officially co-existed for most of the fourth century. The increased
status and authority of the new religion was especially evident in an architectural
sense; alongside triumphal arches, the major public monuments of late antiquity,
the fourth century saw the emergence and proliferation of a new kind of large
public building dedicated to communal Christian activity—the Christian basilica
(Stalley 1999, 16–32). Before the early fourth century and the appearance of the
great Constantinian basilicas of Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem, there had
been no specific Christian architecture as Christians had simply gathered in
converted houses or tituli. One such excavated ‘house-church’ survives at Dura
Europos in Syria, decorated with a cycle of wall paintings of Christ’s miracles
(Lowden 1997, 18–21; Nees 2002, 39–40). As Christianity grew in power and
popularity these ‘house-churches’ were replaced with Christian churches of the
kind we would recognize today, which were modelled on a common and dis-
tinctly Roman pre-existing building type, the basilica (Stalley 1999, 16–32; Barral
i Altet 1997, 43–69). Aristocratic families who might have sponsored the building
of a temple or baths in the pre-Christian empire now, following Constantine’s
example, became patrons of the new Christian basilicas. The development of the
basilica from a Roman legal and commercial building, a meeting place, court
house and assembly hall to a center of Christian worship represents the way that
beginning with Constantine’s major new Christian basilicas, much of Roman
imperial culture proved flexible and was consciously adapted to the demands of a
new Christian way of life and way of thinking (Elsner 1998, 3–11). It also under-
lines the significant continuity which, alongside great upheaval and change,
marked the transition from the imperial Roman to the late antique period.
The integration of Christianity into classical pagan life which developed into
a coherent late antique artistic culture was evident in a private, domestic sense as
well as on an imperial, aristocratic, public scale. Continuity between the imperial
Roman and the late antique era is evident in the kinds of people who were
commissioning domestic works of art, and in their reasons for doing so. Wealthy
pre-Christian Roman households had emphasized their learning and education,
their social and financial status by decorating their homes with mosaics and
frescos, usually depicting mythological, hunting or dining scenes, and with high
value objects of great craftsmanship such as fine silver or glass tableware.
Throughout the late antique and into the early medieval period, domestic art
remained a way of creating and displaying status and identity (Nees 2002, 63–74;
Elsner 1998, 44–50; Barral i Altet 1997, 24–25). Piazza Armerina, a residence in
eastern Sicily dating to the early fourth century, sumptuously decorated with
mosaic scenes of hunting and fishing is a prime example of the vitality of private
building during the late antique era and the efforts of wealthy households to

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84 Frances Parton
imitate imperial palaces. Other private villas show clearly the integration of
Christianity into classical artistic culture; the fourth-century mosaic decoration of
the cupola of a surviving mausoleum at the villa of Centcelles on the Iberian
Peninsula combines Christian and non-Christian themes. Silver and glass re-
mained significant luxury materials, and commissioning, owning and using
objects made of these materials were important ways of displaying status
throughout the late imperial Roman and the late antique period. With objects
such as the famous Projecta casket, a forth-century silver marriage gift found in a
hoard in Rome in 1793 decorated with a Christian inscription and mythological
images, or the Lycurgus cup, a fourth-century drinking vessel of opaque green
glass carved with a mythological scene, both now in the British Museum, the
value of the materials and the craftsmanship involved in their production spoke
louder than their iconography in conveying the status of their owners.
Beginning with Constantine’s support of the religion as part of an imperial
programme, Christianity became a major and visible part of late antique identity,
art and culture. Just as the Jewish Old Testament stories were re-interpreted in the
light of the New so that ancient events prefigured those of recent Christian
history, the Roman past was re-interpreted within a Christian framework and
Christianity, expressed through inherited Roman visual symbols and architectur-
al styles, became a fundamental part of late antique public and private life (Elsner
1998, 7–8). The conscious inheritance and utilisation of the Roman Christian past
at the highest social and political levels, the integration of Christianity into every
aspect of life, and the total lack of separation between the religious and the
secular, transmitted via the Late Antique period, would prove the keystones of
early medieval life and art.
III The ‘Germanic’ Period
During the course of the fifth century the political map of the western Roman
Empire changed fundamentally as the authority of the emperors was irreparably
eroded and replaced by that of newly-established regional rulers and Germanic
kingdoms; the Vandal kingdom in northern Africa, the Visigothic in Spain and
southern Gaul, the Ostrogothic in Italy and the Frankish in northern Gaul. ‘Bar-
barian’ Germanic peoples had lived around and within the Roman lands for
centuries; the empire had always been a collection of disparate ‘Romanized’
communities held together from the center. The once wholly accepted idea of
large-scale barbarian population movement and invasion bringing about the fall
of the empire during this period is now widely disputed in favour of a more
nuanced picture of a general de-centralization of power and a period of ethnogen-

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Visual Arts 85
esis—the deliberate, conscious creation of new peoples and territories around

shared cultural ideas and practises rather than ethnic, racial markers (Geary
2002; Pohl and Beaupré 2005). Power became more localized, political centers
proliferated, trading patterns changed, and powerful aristocratic families grew
increasingly independent and established spheres of influence in the countryside
as the wealth and prestige of towns fluctuated. Yet the idea of the restoration of
the Christian Roman Empire, or of particular regimes representing the successor
to that empire, would remain the political refrain throughout the early medieval
period.
When the grave of the Germanic fifth-century Frankish king Childeric (457–
481/482) was unearthed in the seventeenth century at Tournai in modern-day
Belgium, it was discovered that the pagan ruler had been buried in 482 with a seal
ring, complete with a portrait bust and a Latin inscription. Childeric himself may
not have been Roman, Christian, or even literate, but he obviously recognized the
significance of objects like the seal ring in reflecting the inherited Roman basis of
rulership and hoped to exploit this to underscore his own power. In other words,
he used objects redolent of the Roman past to underwrite his own authority.
Theoderic the Ostrogoth (493–526), who married Childeric’s daughter Audofleda
around 493, established a power base around the old imperial city of Ravenna
and presented himself as the restorer of the Roman Empire in late fifth- and early
sixth century northern Italy. Theoderic, who had been brought up as a high-status
hostage at the imperial court in Constantinople, provided circus games in Rome
and constructed an amphitheatre at Pavia, another late imperial capital. He was
also an Arian Christian, and wrote to the pope to ask for trained mosaicists
to be sent to Ravenna to complete in a Roman style the sumptuous decoration of
the basilica he built there, now known as San Apollinare Nuovo (Lowden 1997,
120–24). The tremendous architectural impact of Theoderic’s reign on the city of
Ravenna is still evident today, especially in the massive and strikingly original
domed mausoleum of ashlar masonry he constructed for himself, which still
survives on the outskirts of the city (Barral i Altet 1997, 78; Stalley 1999, 64–65).
During the course of the sixth century, Justinian (527–565), the emperor of the
surviving Eastern part of the Roman Empire, made a concerted effort to re-
conquer several of the Germanic kingdoms of Western Europe. The resulting wars
in Ostrogothic Italy left the kingdom of Theoderic’s successors devastated and
depopulated, but in Ravenna at least the early to mid-sixth century had a major
architectural impact. Christian architecture flourished in the city under Justinian
and the most significant construction of the period, San Vitale, decorated with
sumptuous mosaics in a Byzantine style, would prove a key architectural model
for centuries to come (Nees 2002, 102–04; Barral i Altet 1997, 135–36; Lowden
1997, 127–35). By around 570 a new Germanic group, the Lombards, had estab-

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lished authority across much of the northern Italian peninsula with a capital at
Pavia. The Lombards conquered further areas across the central and southern
parts of the peninsula, reaching the peak of their authority during the eighth
century and leaving only Ravenna, small areas of the southern coast and Rome
and its immediate hinterland under nominative imperial authority. Yet still the
idea of the Christian Roman past, and of Roman imperial authority, based on the
city of Rome and to a lesser degree, on Ravenna, retained an extremely strong
currency in politics and in art. The Merovingian Franks in Gaul, the Ostrogoths
then Lombards in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain; all brought rich Germanic artistic
traditions with them, evident in surviving metalwork and decorative arts. All of
these groups settled in highly Romanized areas, with a rich classical, Christian
past. In architecture especially the combination of Germanic tradition, local
practice and Christian Roman inheritance developed, for the first time, into
national styles (Barral i Altet 1997, 74–75).
IV The Carolingian Renaissance
While the Byzantine, the old Eastern Roman empire, survived in the East, the
seventh and eighth centuries saw the economic basis of the old western Roman
Empire shift away from the Mediterranean towards the north and the establish-
ment and consolidation of the Frankish kingdoms across a large area of western
Europe. Beginning as foederati as early as the fourth century, the Germanic
Franks settled in the north east of Belgium and around the middle section of the
Rhine during the fifth century. Initially pagan, various separate small Frankish
kingdoms were conquered and Christianized towards the end of the fifth and
beginning of the sixth century by Childeric’s son Clovis (481–509), founder of
the Frankish Merovingian ruling dynasty. Clovis’s Merovingian successors con-
tinued to expand and strengthen the Frankish territories of Neustria, Austrasia,
Burgundy and Aquitaine until the mid-eighth century, when rule transferred
from the waning Merovingian ruling family to the powerful and ambitious
Carolingian dynasty under Pepin III (752–768). In later Frankish histories this is
recorded as having been done with the blessing of Pope Zachary (741–752) in
751. The papacy, in a vulnerable position in the Italian Peninsula with regards
to their Lombard, Byzantine and Beneventan neighbours, had long looked to
the Franks for military and political support and Pepin, together with his sons
Carloman and Charlemagne, were anointed by Pope Stephen II (752–757) three
years later in 754.
Whereas the Merovingian rulers had tended to divide the separate Frankish
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a major and tremendously successful military and cultural campaign to expand

and unite the Frankish kingdoms and to mould them into a single cohesive
Roman, Christian and Frankish empire covering most of western Europe north of
the Pyrenees, which, at his death in 814, passed intact to his son Louis the Pious
(814–840). Part of this campaign was a deliberate literary manipulation and
intellectual reworking of the Frankish Germanic past as a Christian narrative
which presented the Franks as God’s chosen people. A significant and lasting
bond was carefully cultivated between the Carolingian rulers and the papacy and
this relationship is a hallmark of the period; Charlemagne was crowned emperor
of the Franks, Caesar Augustus, on Christmas Day in the year 800 by Pope Leo III
(750–816) in Old St. Peter’s, Rome. Charlemagne’s emphatic presentation of
himself as a Christian emperor, a second Constantine, and of his people as the
new Israelites was a fundamental aspect of his reign and those of his successors,
and the significance put upon the imperial Christian Roman past is extremely
evident in surviving Carolingian art and architecture.
Charlemagne saw the Franks as heirs to the Christian Roman Empire. His
ceaseless efforts throughout his reign to revive and emulate the knowledge, the
art, and the authority of antiquity encouraged and directed what is now known as
the Carolingian Renaissance, an immense, earnest, and extremely significant
state-sponsored revival of Classical learning (McKitterick 2008; McKitterick, ed.,
1994; Contreni 1995). Charlemagne’s military support for the papacy in Italy took
him to Rome and to Ravenna, and the Frankish emperor was much affected by
these imperial cities. Although essentially a peripatetic ruler on regular military
campaigns, Charlemagne established his own imperial capital, the Carolingian
Second Rome, at Aachen, the site of natural hot medicinal springs and the old
Roman spa town of Aquae granii. Acutely conscious of his position in the west in
relation to that of the Byzantine Empress Irene in the east, Charlemagne commis-
sioned stonemason Odo of Metz to build a major imperial palace complex at
Aachen, based on imperial Roman and Byzantine models. The palatine chapel,
based on the sixth-century San Vitale at Ravenna, still survives, and makes clear
the strength and focus of Charlemagne’s imperial aspirations and the significance
of Romanitas. Spolia, recycled Roman remains in the form of architectural col-
umns, were brought from Rome and Ravenna to Aachen to be reused in Charle-
magne’s new buildings (Nees 2002, 231; Lasko 1994, 9). The emperor, who had
seen the gilded bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius outside the Lateran Palace in
Rome (now in the Capitoline Museums), which was then thought to be a represen-
tation of Constantine, acquired his own equestrian bronze statue from Theoderic’s
imperial palace at Ravenna and had it transported to Aachen; large scale public
commissions of bronze statuary had strong imperial classical associations. In
addition, although the classical technique of large-scale bronze casting had been

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lost, a bronze casting foundry was established at Aachen and Charlemagne

commissioned sets of bronze doors for his imperial complex, like those of the
Pantheon (Lasko 1994, 10–11). A small Carolingian statuette of a crowned Frank-
ish ruler with orb and scepter (these are now missing), probably made at Aachen
or in the Frankish metalworking center of Metz, survives today in the Louvre
(Barral i Altet 1997, 222–23).
The second significant strand of Charlemagne’s ruling philosophy was his
concept of himself as a Christian ruler, whose power and authority came directly
from God; as a result, Christianity was a fundamental tenet of the Carolingian
Renaissance and the art it produced. Charlemagne’s relationship with the eccle-
siastical ruling elite was key to his rule, and to the development and patronage of
Carolingian art, which was imperially sponsored but often mediated through the
Carolingian bishops and abbots. The Carolingian era was one of great monastic
reform, and under Charlemagne and his successors the major Carolingian mon-
asteries of Metz, Tours, Reims, Lorsch, St. Gall, and St. Riquier developed into
vital centers of reform, learning, teaching and craftsmanship. It was at the
scriptoria of these monastic centers that the writing of Frankish history was
undertaken, and that a new and enduring handwriting style, Carolingian minus-
cule, was developed. It was also from these major monastic production centers
that luxury ecclesiastical texts such as Gospel books and books of Psalms were
commissioned, some directly by the imperial family, some by the aristocratic
ruling class. Surviving deluxe Carolingian volumes such as the Drogo Sacremen-
tary, the Coronation Gospels, the Aachen Gospels, the Codex Aureus of St.
Emmeran, the series of Tours Bibles, and perhaps most importantly, the Utrecht
Psalter produced in the 820s at Hautvillers, illustrate the significant and extrem-
ely influential development of manuscript illumination during the late eighth,
ninth and the early tenth centuries within the context of the Carolingian Renais-
sance before production halted with the Viking incursions. The illustrations of the
Utrecht Psalter, characterized by a calligraphic, energetic quality to the figures’
clothing and an expressive quality to their hands, would prove hugely influential
to later generations of artists and were copied and admired into at least the
twelfth century. Surviving volumes demonstrate the combination of not only a
strong classical inheritance but also the clear influence of insular art. They show
the originality, ingenuity and individuality of the Carolingian period together
with the passion and ability of Carolingian artists for moulding the classical past
into a distinctive, relevant and contemporary Carolingian style.
It was at Carolingian monasteries that surviving Roman secular texts such as
Terence’s plays were sought out, copied and distributed, evidencing the humanis-
tic, antiquarian interests of Carolingian scholars and securing the survival of
many Classical works through to the modern period. Alongside manuscripts,

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monastic workshops also produced imperially, royally and aristocratically com-

missioned high status luxurious artworks of ivory, precious metal, enamel and
carved gems such as reliquaries and book covers together with church furnishings
such as altar frontals. The magnificent carved ivory book covers of the ninth-
century Lorsch Gospels, probably produced by the Court School at Aachen, still
survive today; the front cover in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the back in the
Vatican Museums, and illustrate the skill of the Carolingian artists in achieving a
sophisticated synthesis of classical and Byzantine styles in ivory. Although the
fact that the Franks had stopped being buried with their jewellery by the end of
the eighth century has limited survivals, rare existing pieces of high status
Frankish jewellery such as the mid ninth-century peacock fibula now in the
Altertumsmuseum in Mainz are evidence for a thriving and sophisticated produc-
tion and trade in high value secular Carolingian metalwork. The Carolingian era
was also one of great architectural activity and significance; during the reigns of
Charlemagne and Louis the Pious around a hundred royal residencies, over four
hundred monasteries, and twenty seven cathedrals were constructed; Carolingian
architecture, based on late antique models, displayed a unified style and proved
a lasting and influential part of the renovatio of Classical Christian learning and
culture (Stalley 1999, 37–57).
V Ottonian Art
The imperial idea which so infused the political, architectural and artistic styles
and aspirations of the Carolingian era endured much longer than the empire itself
which, divided amongst Charlemagne’s grandchildren and weakened by violent
and persistent Viking, Magyar, and Muslim attacks, gradually broke up during
the second half of the ninth century. By the early tenth century a ducal family
from Saxony had established itself as the heir to the Carolingian dynasty under
Otto I (762–973), ruling modern-day Germany and Switzerland together with parts
of northern and central Italy. The imperial ideal remained strong and relevant;
Otto was crowned emperor by Pope John XII (955–964) in Rome in 962, and the
desire to re-create Charlemagne’s imperial Roman and Christian empire remained
the constant political refrain of the Ottonian period under his successors Otto II
(967–983), Otto III (996–1002) and Henry II (1002–1025). The intensely Christian,
God-given nature of imperial rule was a fundamental tenet of Ottonian political
philosophy. Like the Carolingians before them, the Ottonian ruling family estab-
lished and maintained strong links with the papacy, building and spending much
time in an imperial palace on the Aventine Hill in Rome. The Ottonians also
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and emulated eastern court rituals. Otto II married a Byzantine princess, Theo-
phanu, in 972, which brought Byzantine influence and artistic models directly to
the Ottonian court.
Like the Carolingian, the Ottonian period was one of major and sophisticated
artistic achievement. More the result of a general royal stimulus rather than a
single imperial ‘Court School,’ Ottonian art, mediated through monastic chan-
nels, combined late antique models, the Carolingian tradition, an insular inherit-
ance and contemporary Byzantine styles to produce a distinctive style with a
strong imperial flavour. This is equally evident in surviving Ottonian works of art
across a range of media from sculpture, such as the wooden Gero Cross at Cologne
cathedral, produced around the 970s, to manuscripts, such as the Gospel Book of
Otto III, produced around the year 1000 and now in Munich, and incorporating a
Byzantine ivory carving and classical cameos and intaglios in its golden cover. As
with the Carolingian era, the Ottonian period was one of great centrally organized
ecclesiastical growth and reform, and monasteries were again the artistic centers
of the empire producing exquisite illustrated manuscripts and luxury church
furnishings in wood, metal and ivory. The most significant monastic scriptoria
were at Fulda, Reichenau, Corvey, and Cologne, each of which produced manu-
scripts with an individual and distinctive approach recognisable within the wider
Ottonian style. This was a time of refined and sophisticated political, liturgical,
and theoretical thought, and Ottonian artists introduced strong ideas of imperial
power and ceremony into their work (Mayr-Harting 1991). Art became an expres-
sion of emperorship. A good example of this is the Aachen Gospels, produced
around 996 at Reichenau and now in Aachen, the frontispiece of which, rather
than the expected traditional image of Christ in Majesty, shows Otto III in a
mandorla being crowned by God himself. By depicting imperial rulership within
such a strongly religious context, Ottonian art explored the philosophical, Chris-
tian moral limitations of that rule; power given directly by God must be exercized
in accordance with His rule.
Architecture was an equally significant aspect of Ottonian art in terms of the
self-representation, ruling philosophy and imperial aspirations of the dynasty
(Plant 2003; see also the contribution on “Architecture” in this Handbook by
Charlotte A. Stanford). The Ottonians were itinerant, or peripatetic, rulers who
employed powerful ritual and ceremony to bolster their authority. The Ottonian
period witnessed an imperially-sponsored boom in ecclesiastical building; the
creation of a sacred space with great ceremonial potential allowed the emperors to
demonstrate their authority in a particular locality. Surviving Carolingian models
and traditions were copied and utilized, such as ‘west works’ (prominent western
entrances opposite the altar in the eastern end) flanked with towers, and radiating
chapels. New features were added and developed, however, such as alternating

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pillar and pier supports and galleries running the length of the nave (Stalley 1999,
53–56; Barral i Altet 1997, 156). Otto I, like Charlemagne, brought architectural
pieces such as columns, bases and capitals from Italy for his new complex at
Magdeburg. Henry II established another ‘Second Rome’ at Bamberg, where he
constructed his imperial capital. Important nunneries were established at Essen,
Cologne, Nivelle, Gernrode and Gandersheim and new cathedrals were built at
Cologne, Mainz, and Worms which looked as their model to the huge, double-
ended Carolingian church of Fulda, itself emulating Roman models such as
St. Peter’s (Stalley 1999, 40–41; Barral i Altet 1997, 181). Royal, aristocratic and
ecclesiastical patrons were of great significance in the creation of such buildings.
Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (992–1022) constructed one of the most important
buildings of the period the church of St. Michael’s, Hildesheim (Barral i Altet 1997,
154–59; Toman 2004, 42–43). Bernward was reputedly something of an artist and
architect himself, encouraging the training of artists in his service and commis-
sioning paintings, mosaics, and metalwork for the richly decorated churches in
his diocese (Stalley 1999, 104; Sekules 2001, 63). In a gesture brimming with
Romanitas, Bernward, who was also Otto III’s tutor and advisor, commissioned a
set of elaborate bronze doors for St. Michael’s, decorated with biblical scenes (see
also the Gniezno Doors, Gniezno, Poland, ca. 1175, and the bronze doors of San
Zeno, Verona, Italy, late twelfth century, both of which demonstrate, close stylistic
and technical parallels).
VI Anglo-Saxon Art
The Anglo-Saxon period in England, stretching from around 600 to the eleventh
century, was an era of immense artistic achievement. Following the withdrawal of
the Roman legions from the British Isles in 410, over the course of the fifth and
sixth centuries Roman power structures, economic systems and the Latin lan-
guage were widely abandoned. In the western and highland areas power fell to
the indigenous Celtic British, who were Christian and spoke regional Celtic
dialects. In the south and east new Anglo-Saxon invaders established themselves,
bringing paganism and their own Germanic language which developed into Old
English. Small groups of aristocratic warriors, tribal war-bands of Jutes, Angles,
or Saxons, gradually coalesced (Higham and Ryan 2013, 70–111). Over the course
of the seventh and eighth centuries, these tribal groupings underwent major and
significant social and cultural changes, and developed into larger Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms, gradually Christianized by proselytizing missions from Rome, the
Frankish kingdoms, from Scottish Dál Riata and from the strong Irish Celtic
Christian community based at Iona. The papal mission to the Anglo-Saxon king-

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dom of Kent, launched by Gregory the Great in 597, established strong links
between Anglo-Saxon England and Rome which would endure throughout the
period. The conversion was royally-led; Gregory’s first carefully chosen target was
Æthelberht, King of Kent (ca. 590–616), whose Frankish wife Bertha was already
Christian. The conversion gave a new cohesion to kingdoms, and opportunities
for elite patronage (Higham and Ryan 2013, 158). The church was associated with
authority, and there was a clear recognition of all that Roman Christianity repre-
sented; the old Roman world of emperors, towns, money, markets, law and
legions, the physical ruins and remains of which were still very much in evidence.
The imperial Roman idea was still strong; several Anglo-Saxon kings claimed
descent from Augustus Caesar himself and intact surviving Anglo-Saxon helmets
show a clear imperial heritage in terms of style. The consciousness of the potency
of this Roman Christian inheritance, a constant refrain in the early medieval
period, was as evident in Anglo-Saxon England as Carolingian or Ottonian Eur-
ope; a particular and deliberate re-use of the physical and ideological attributes
of the Romano-British past was an important part of Anglo-Saxon ethnogenesis in
England (Karkov 2011, 19).
The Anglo-Saxon church, under strong royal and aristocratic patronage which
often entailed significant donations of land, grew wealthy and powerful over the
seventh and eighth centuries, becoming a major patron in its own right. New
churches were built, which needed new furnishings; the production of ecclesias-
tical textiles, books, sculpture and metalwork flourished. Aidan’s mission of 635
brought Irish Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, but in 664 the Synod of
Whitby firmly established the primacy of Roman Christianity. The church brought
literacy, stimulating the production of historical documents and legal records
such as genealogies, histories, law-codes and charters. Secular and ecclesiastical
manuscripts were imported from the Continent and from Ireland to be copied and
disseminated across Anglo-Saxon England. In turn, the newly-Christianized An-
glo-Saxons themselves undertook missionary activity on the Continent, mostly in
what is modern day Germany, establishing new sees and taking their artistic skills
and achievements with them. Trade was revitalized, coinage began to be minted
again in Kent and London, and the new ports of Ipswich, London, York, and
Southampton established urban communities. Continental influence remained
strong; the wealthy Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent was a natural link with the
powerful Frankish kingdoms, importing Frankish wine and Byzantine bronzes
together with the dress jewellery fashions of Gaul and Byzantium, while exporting
slaves and hunting dogs (Higham and Ryan 2013, 163–65).
Learning flourished; in the years after the conversion major schools with
significant libraries were established at Canterbury, Malmesbury, York, Lindis-
farne, and Monkwearmouth-Jarrow where future generations of native Anglo-

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Saxon churchmen were trained, and there were schools for nuns at Barking,
Wimbourne, Bath and Thanet. The famous Lindisfarne Gospels, now in the British
Library, probably produced by a single artist at Lindisfarne around the beginning
of the eighth century, are a prime example of the remarkable standards of artistic
achievement possible at these centers where a mix of classical, Mediterranean
and Celtic influences resulted in a distinctive insular Anglo-Saxon style, also
evident in contemporary metalwork (Karkov 2011, 33–42; Webster and Back-
house, ed., 1991, 110–14). The huge Codex Amiatinus, produced at Monkwear-
mouth-Jarrow before 716 and now in the Biblioteca Mediccea Laurenziana in
Florence, shows this double monastic center in Northumbria to have been equally
significant in artistic terms (Higham and Ryan 2013, 160). The earliest surviving
complete Bible in Latin and the most accurate surviving record of Jerome’s
Vulgate translation, the manuscript is also significant in that its strong Italian
flavour demonstrates the clear influence of the manuscripts gathered by Wear-
mouth’s founding abbot, Benedict Biscop, on his several journeys to Rome which
formed the core of the monastery’s library. Alongside deluxe liturgical manu-
scripts, many other kinds of texts were produced ranging from copies of the works
of Pliny and the Church Fathers to new compositions of history, poetry, philoso-
phy, science and biblical exegesis. Anglo-Saxon scholars like Bede and Aldhelm,
together with Alcuin, who moved to the Frankish Empire to head Charlemagne’s
court school, spearheaded a significant advance in education as well as remark-
able and influential individual scholarship.
The famous ‘Mound 1’ ship burial at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, initially
excavated in 1939 and found to contain a remarkable selection of objects, demon-
strates the degree of artistic skill, the wealth, the kinds of materials and the wide
variety of connections, styles and influences current in Anglo-Saxon England
around the 620s (Higham and Ryan 2013, 133–35; Carver 2005). The ancient and
imported grave goods which surrounded the body ranged from ten large silver
bowls produced in the eastern Mediterranean, two late Roman silver spoons, a
huge Byzantine silver dish, and many Frankish gold coins to a Celtic-style bronze
hanging-bowl. Alongside these were a group of unparalleled metalwork objects,
locally produced, demonstrating the sophistication, distinction, and unprece-
dented technicality of contemporary Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship and metalwork-
ing (Coatsworth and Pinder 2002). They include sword-fittings, a large buckle,
shoulder-clasps, and a set of purse fittings, worked in gold, cloisonné garnets,
millefiori glass and enamel, showing not only great technical accomplishment
but also a coherence and uniqueness of style perhaps suggesting a single maker
or workshop. The wealth of the materials and craftsmanship inherent in these
objects suggests a royal patron, and Redwald of East Anglia (ca. 599–ca. 624) is
the figure usually put forward.

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The more recent discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard in 2009, buried in the
Mercian kingdom sometime in the seventh or eighth century, eclipsed even the
Sutton Hoo finds in terms of the sheer number of high quality pieces of metalwork
(Leahy and Bland 2009; Higham and Ryan 2013, 173–78). The vast majority of the
several thousand objects which make up the hoard are disparate, separated
pieces of exquisitely wrought war-gear, such as pommel caps and hilt plates,
worked in gold, silver, and cloisonné garnets, making the hoard quite different in
character from the Sutton Hoo grave goods although similar in terms of materials
and techniques. High prestige Anglo-Saxon metalwork, like that of the Stafford-
shire Hoard and Sutton Hoo finds, drawing on Romano-British, Frankish, Celtic,
and Scandinavian styles, techniques and materials, represents a distinctive in-
sular style brought about by the combination of wealthy patronage and potent
artistic models and influences with individual talent and vision. The variety of
burial practices evident across the fifty-six burials at the Sutton Hoo site, ranging
from mound burial with or without grave goods to cremation, testifies to a period
of political and cultural change in the early part of the seventh century when the
Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons was still sporadic, and the competing efforts
of the ruling elite to assert their authority created a demand for luxury goods
(Nees 2002, 109).
The arrival of a new group of invaders from Denmark and Norway, the
Vikings, changed the political and artistic situation significantly. Viking attacks
and demands for tribute first hit Lindisfarne in 793 and became increasingly
wide-ranging over the course of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, spread-
ing from the north of England and Ireland to the south coast and the Frankish
river valleys of the Seine, Rhine and Loire. Viking culture had a huge impact
across Europe, from England in the west to Russia in the east; in Anglo-Saxon
England, it had a devastating effect on the established Christian culture. The
pagan Vikings were interested in portable wealth, much of which was to be found
in churches, and although not the only factor behind the general decline of the
church and monasticism during the ninth century, the Viking depredations of
monasteries, their schools and libraries (often located on rivers and poorly
defended) did have a cataclysmic impact on Anglo-Saxon learning; knowledge of
and composition in Latin declined, manuscript production almost disappeared as
churches, monastic communities and their lands were sacked and abandoned.
The Vikings, initially opportunistic and seasonal raiders, eventually turned into
conquerors and settlers who worked hard to integrate themselves into existing
Anglo-Saxon and Frankish culture, establishing successful Viking kingdoms in
East Anglia and York as well as Normandy. From around 850 the ‘Great Army,’ a
large, unified Viking force undertook a sustained military campaign which,
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kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia over the course of the second
half of the ninth century and established the Viking Danelaw in northern and
eastern England in their place (Higham and Ryan 2013, 232–62).
King Alfred of Wessex (871–899) and his educated Christian elite considered
the Vikings to be the embodiment of God’s wrath on a people which had
neglected its Christian duties. In response, he launched a major cultural and
military reform programme which transformed his rule over Wessex into the first
fully Christian English kingship (Higham and Ryan 2013, 262–70; Backhouse,
Turner, and Webster, ed., 1984, 11). Alfred, nicknamed ‘the Great’ by his biogra-
pher Asser, presented himself and his authority to contemporaries and to poster-
ity in a very astute manner. Like Charlemagne before him, he took a very
particular attitude to the church and to the arts, modelling himself as another
Constantine, as a learned imperial Christian ruler (Pratt 2009). In response to the
continuing Viking aggression, Alfred launched a successful military reorganisa-
tion of Wessex into a system of fortified centers or burghs. In a deliberate move
against the pagan, Germanic, Old Norse, mythological culture of the Viking north
and east, he looked south to the Continent, to Rome and the classical past, and
stressed the significance of Christianity and a vernacular language. Many of his
coins show an imperial-style portrait, a cross and Latin script, emphasising his
Romanitas, Christianity and literacy (Karkov 2011, 107–08). Alfred founded
schools, a monastery at Athelney and a nunnery at Shaftesbury, and made many
major gifts to the church in England and on the Continent. His links to the papacy
and to the Frankish territories were strong; he travelled to Rome twice, and his
father’s second wife was Judith, the daughter of the emperor Charles the Bald. He
worked closely with Continental scholars, instigating a remarkable programme of
education which included personally translating key texts such as Boethius’s
Consolation of Philosophy and Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care from Latin to Old
English, which were disseminated across his kingdom. Many of his manuscript
gifts to the churchmen of his realm were accompanied by beautiful rock-crystal or
glass jewels such as the Alfred Jewel and the Minster Lovell Jewel, both now in
the Ashmolean, Oxford. These jewels, of which around six survive, are widely
believed to be œstels, or book pointers, and again represent Roman, Carolingian
and Christian ideas, materials and designs in a distinct Anglo-Saxon style which
shows a much deeper interest in iconography than the earlier period (Hinton
2008; Karkov 2011, 212–18).
Alfred’s reign instigated a great flourishing of artistic production which
continued under his successors until the eleventh century and the Norman inva-
sion. Royal patronage was a significant part of this period of intense artistic
achievement (which may explain why the reform had much less of an impact in
the north of England) as was the role played by significant Anglo-Saxon church-

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men such as Saint Dunstan, Saint Oswald and Bishop Aethelwold, the last of
whom is said to have been a talented goldsmith himself. The tenth century was
characterized by a monastic reform movement based on the model of Benedict of
Aniane, which had so influenced a previous generation of Carolingian reformers,
as well as the new establishment at Cluny (Higham and Ryan 2013, 311–22). New
or existing ecclesiastical buildings were constructed or re-founded, especially
small local churches, all of which needed furnishing with books, metalwork and
textiles. The reform encouraged a great change in taste and a move away from
flat, linear interlace and pattern led design towards a new focus on classical
models with a new realism and dynamism, channelled through the great Carolin-
gian monastic centers of the Continent such as Aachen, Reims and Metz. Surviv-
ing manuscripts and carving show a clear shift away from an Insular influence
towards a more naturalistic, Continental style. The monastic centers of Winche-
ster and Canterbury were especially significant in terms of late Anglo-Saxon
manuscript illumination and craftsmanship, and it is important to remember that
many forms of artistic production such as ivory and stone carving would have
taken place here, not just the production of manuscripts in the scriptorium.
The ‘Winchester School’ or style of manuscript illumination reached a peak
under Bishop Aethelwold (963–984) with the Benedictional of Saint Aethelwold,
made for the bishop by the monk Godeman. Dating to around the early 970s and
now in the British Library, the Benedictional is full of classically inspired
acanthus decoration and allegorical references together with fleshy, rounded
figures, swathed in drapery and full of action. Particular Carolingian models
proved hugely significant, and it is possible to see the shivery drapery and
frenetic activity so characteristic of the Utrecht Psalter (ca. 820–835) and the
Gospel book of Ebbo of Reims (816–840) playing a clear part in the great develop-
ment of line drawing in late Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, the Utrecht Psalter
arrived at Christchurch Canterbury just before the year 1000 and was copied in
the scriptorium there at least three times over the next two centuries. The influ-
ence of Carolingian minuscule and an increase in calligraphic ideas saw words
separated from each other and individual letter forms becoming clearer and more
regular. Walrus ivory carving, not previously practiced in England, emerged as a
significant part of the ‘Winchester’ style in the later tenth and eleventh centuries.
Surviving sculpture such as the Reculver cross shows a similar appreciation of
classical drapery, and scrolls of acanthus leaves became a popular motif on
monumental sculpture. Acanthus decoration and classical-style figures are also
apparent on the remarkable surviving tenth-century ecclesiastical textiles found
in St Cuthbert’s tomb at Durham Cathedral.
The significance of the Roman, Christian inheritance has been a consistent
feature of this brief analysis of the development of early medieval art. The early

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medieval mental viewpoint was in many ways teleological and retrospective;

rather than an idea of progress and looking forward there was an idea of Christian
society going backwards from the Creation and Resurrection, of degeneration, a
consciousness of impending apocalypse. In this philosophical climate, the past
held a great authority and art held great power. Craftspeople were in a constant
artistic and ideological dialogue with the past and with historical pieces of art,
not only as models but as images or objects which could represent and transmit
anything from political strength and social standing to a religious truth or
spiritual experience.
C Medieval Art – the Influence of the Church

Romanesque Art – ca. 1050–ca. 1250
The constant and deliberate creation and forging of links with the Roman,
Christian, imperial past in terms of politics and the visual arts emphasized in the
previous section culminated with the idea of Carolingian and Ottonian artistic
production developing as imperially fostered and sponsored ‘court styles.’ The
idea of empire and of a classical inheritance was no less important in the post-
Ottonian, post Anglo-Saxon period but the first two centuries of the second
millennium saw the development of a more generally wide-spread artistic style,
historically labelled ‘Romanesque’, which is perhaps more helpfully explored in
terms of ecclesiastical rather than imperial development, patronage and influ-
ence.
The western Christian church reached the height of its authority over the two
centuries that followed the year 1000, during a period of economic prosperity and
political stability. The far-reaching eleventh-century reform movement cham-
pioned by Popes Leo IX (1049–1054) and Gregory VII (1073–1085) built the
foundations for the extraordinary papacy of Innocent III (1198–1216). This was a
time of enormous growth, of new foundations, of far-reaching papal authority
and ambition. The period saw a huge rise in population, and in the number of
people taking part in pilgrimages to holy sites across Western Europe and beyond
to worship the relics of the saints; it also witnessed the beginning of the crusading
movement to reclaim the Holy Lands in the east from Muslim control, with Pope
Urban II preaching the First Crusade in 1095. Despite the centralising power of the
papacy in Rome, however, the western Christian Church was far from homoge-
nous. Monasteries were governed directly by their abbots, convents by their
abbesses, and particular churches or religious foundations could be under more
or less practical local control depending on the balance of power in their locality;

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98 Frances Parton
life in a small foundation established by a powerful aristocrat to memorialize his

family could be quite different to that in a major Cistercian foundation with strong
royal support. Monastic reform was also a significant factor and the emergence
and significance first of the Cluniac movement and later of the Carthusian and
Cistercian orders is representative of the differences inherent within the Church as
a whole. In the previous section on early medieval art, I outlined the degree to
which the secular and the ecclesiastical were intertwined and ultimately became
indivisible in the late antique and early medieval period. During the eleventh and
twelfth centuries it was the interaction not only between the secular and the
ecclesiastical, but also between different ecclesiastical bodies, which played a
vital role in encouraging the production of art. Secular patrons wanting ecclesias-
tical benefit from a particular establishment, together with a growing, wealthy,
competitive and ambitious Church administration promoted the establishment of
new parish churches and new monastic foundations, and it was this immense
ecclesiastical growth which gave the visual arts the opportunity to flourish (To-
man 2007, 7–17; Sekules 2001, 61–62).
The term Romanesque is most often used in an architectural sense and this is
fitting in that the period from 1000 to around 1250 was one of enormous and
comprehensive development in church architecture and church decoration, wit-
nessing not only the emergence of figurative statuary, stained glass, historiated
capitals, ambulatories, and a great profusion of characteristic curved archways,
but also a huge increase in the number of churches, abbeys, monasteries, and
nunneries being built. These new religious foundations were supplied with altars,
shrines, reliquaries, chalices, manuscripts, hangings, vestments and frescoes so
that the term also extends to the huge range of visual arts which flourished
alongside the architectural developments of this period and, responding to the
same aesthetic, shared many similar characteristics. If the expansion of the
Church and monasticism was the major impulse behind the unprecedented
artistic development of this period, the primary source of inspiration for the new
Romanesque style, as the name suggests, was yet again the art of the Roman
Empire and the important Christian centers of Rome, Jerusalem and Byzantium
(McNeill and Plant, ed., 2013). A strong Scandinavian and Islamic heritage was
also a significant part of Romanesque art, and although the style developed
across the whole of Western Europe in a remarkably distinct and cohesive way,
international and regional difference together with local variation were also
marked and important.
The distinctively curved, round-topped Romanesque arch echoed the great
stone structures of the Roman past, the remains of many of which were still visible
across Western Europe; stone vaulting was reliant on the precedents set by
Roman barrel and groin vaults. The shape was not only a structural development

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Visual Arts 99
but also an artistic one, and frequently frames scenes or figures in metalwork,
painted frescoes and manuscripts as well as sculptures. The curved semi-circular
space created above church doors became filled with narrative scenes and devel-
oped into the tympanum, a sculptural frieze which was used to portray a suitably
prophetic biblical scene, often the Last Judgment, as a clear visual message which
aimed to prepare those entering the church for the spiritual experience waiting
within. The external sculpture of the Romanesque church of Santiago de Compos-
tela, one of the most significant and popular pilgrimage destinations of the
period, which spreads outwards from the figure of St. James above the main
doorway and across the western façade, clearly illustrates the didactic nature of
Romanesque art and its ability to portray the fundamental tenets of Christian faith
to the faithful through the medium of sculpture (Toman 2007, 146; 299; Barral i
Altet 1998, 69). Cast bronze doors, baptismal fonts and candlesticks had clear
Classical associations. Other aspects of Romanesque style reveal a more mixed
heritage. Classical scrolling plant decoration incorporated a Scandinavian heri-
tage, an insular influence, and contemporary Islamic tradition. An essentially
Hellenistic tradition of portraying the human form clearly under drapery and with
emotional, expressive hands and gestures, preserved in Byzantine art, was trans-
mitted to Romanesque Europe via Italy.
D Late Medieval Art – the Importance of Secular

Patrons
Gothic Art – ca. 1140–ca. 1500
Similarly to Romanesque, ecclesiastical patronage is usually seen as the major

impetus behind the initial development of Gothic art, the distinctive artistic style
of Western Europe during the late medieval period, but secular patronage was
equally significant. The Gothic style developed in Paris around the 1130s and
again like the Romanesque, is often interpreted as primarily an ecclesiastical
architectural development although the aesthetic is evident in secular structures
and the wider field of decorative arts and beyond. Kings and nobles acted as
significant patrons as well as bishops and abbots, so that the Gothic style is
discernable beyond French churches, cathedrals and chapels, in castles and
colleges across Europe. This was a period and a style especially marked by the
actions, ambitions and patronage of rulers and the aristocracy, by the emergence
and growth of urban centers, craft guilds and a merchant class (Marks and
Williamson, ed., 2003, 272–74), when the making and buying of art was increas-

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100 Frances Parton
ingly concentrated in towns and cities. The emerging knightly class developed a
particular identity and a set of potent and influential ideas based around chivalry
and heraldry, much reflected in Gothic art. Tensions between the spiritual and the
temporal were high; the period saw the rise of the new mendicant orders the
Franciscans and Benedictines, major and influential heresies such as that of the
Cathars and the Hussites, the decline of papal authority, the Avignon papacy and
eventually papal schism.
The famous Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Notre-Dame, Soissons, Amiens,
and Reims were made possible by a series of innovative, related architectural
developments. Beginning with the construction of the abbey church of Saint-
Denis under Abbot Suger in the 1140s a key advance was the pointed arch which
not only gave a more vertical visual impression but could also bear greater weight
and open at a wider variety of widths than a rounded arch. These were harnessed
together with stone rib vaults which distributed the weight of the ceiling to the
ground via columns and piers to construct larger, higher spaces with significantly
thinner walls than had previously been possible, which could then be pierced
with larger windows of colourful stained glass. Both the pointed arch and the rib
vault were a direct result of Islamic influence transmitted to Europe via the
Crusades. Externally, the slightly later appearance of arched flying buttresses to
absorb the outward thrust of the roof made it similarly possible to reduce the
thickness of the exterior framework of the building. The result was an initial series
of early French Gothic churches where these architectural developments com-
bined to create light-filled, spacious interiors which drew the eyes upward in
emulation of the spiritual lift of Christianity.
Gothic art was not confined to ecclesiastical structures or to these particular
architectural developments however, although these ‘classic’ French Gothic
structures have traditionally formed the basis of much historiography on the
subject (Coldstream 2002, 23–30). Gothic style is evident across Europe, from
timber-framed housing to the shape of pewter vessels, from furniture and inlay
work to the decoration on book bindings. Contemporary clothing took on a more
perpendicular aesthetic with pointed shoes and high waistlines accentuating long
slender legs. As the range of media across which Gothic art was practised widened
so did the hallmarks of the style. Painted and sculpted figures and scenes were
enclosed within pointed arches, nature was closely observed and minutely and
elegantly replicated by artists working in wood, ivory and stone, and carved,
drawn or sculpted figures curved into refined ‘S’ shapes full of movement and
expressive with human emotion.

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Visual Arts 101
Select Bibliography
Coldstream, Nicola, Medieval Architecture (Oxford 2002).
Elsner, Jaś, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire (Oxford 1998).
Lowden, John, Early Christian and Byzantine Art (London 1997).
Nees, Lawrence, Early Medieval Art (Oxford and New York 2002).
Sekules, Veronica, Medieval Art (Oxford 2001).
Stalley, Roger, Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford 1999).

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Thomas Willard
Astrology, Alchemy and other Occult
Sciences
A Historical and Conceptual Background

I. The term “occult sciences” was applied in the late Middle Ages to a group of
disciplines dating back to antiquity. Chief among these were alchemy and as-
trology, which were construed respectively to include all things below the moon
in the sublunary or elemental world and all things above the moon in the super-
lunary or heavenly world. Linking these two worlds were the esoteric mathe-
matics and geometry of Pythagoras and Plato (Friedländer 1969, 246–60), both of
which found a popular form in numerology. These practices were sometimes
connected with one another as intellectual magic, chiefly divination from the
stars (astromancy) and the four elements. Pyromancy, aeromancy, geomancy,
and hydromancy sought knowledge of fire, air, earth, and water. Because this
kind of “natural magic” could be hard to distinguish from necromancy or the
other “black arts” a separate entry is devoted to magic.
The term “occult science” was first used in English in the seventeenth century
and owed its early popularity to Cornelius Agrippa’s (1486–1535) De Occulta
Philosophia Libri Tres (“Three Books of Occult Philosophy”), first printed in 1531
but written at least a decade earlier. In these books, Agrippa included knowledge
of the elemental, heavenly, and angelic worlds, adding Jewish Kabbalah to
Christian angelology. A fourth book of demonology was attributed to Agrippa, but
almost certainly spurious. Agrippa used the word “occult” as the opposite of
“manifest,” that is, representing knowledge that was not readily available to the
five senses. Physicians still speak of “occult bleeding” and of “occult diseases”
which require special tests. In the late Middle Ages, before such inventions as the
microscope and telescope, the number of hidden things was vastly greater.
Since antiquity, science was understood to be a part of philosophy, known as
natural philosophy, and the scientist to be a philosopher. In Byzantium, through
which much of the knowledge of the ancients passed into late medieval Europe,
scientists liked to call themselves philosophoi, while avoiding the stigma asso-
ciated with magoi (Magdalino and Mavroudi 2006, 13). Scholars who study
alchemy, astrology, and other forms of natural knowledge in the Byzantine
Empire have found it useful to use the term “occult sciences” as an overarching
term. The same can be applied to these arts in the Islamic world and in the
Middle Ages generally. Like “esotericism,” the term is used now to describe a

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Astrology, Alchemy and other Occult Sciences 103
wide range of approaches to the unknown (Alexandrian 1983; Corsetti 1992;

Faivre 1992, 33–42).
The twentieth century saw considerable scholarly debate about the extent to
which science, especially astronomy, underwent a “paradigm shift” during the
early modern period and the extent to which developments like those in medic-
inal chemistry grew directly out of medieval science (Powrie 2010). Although
there is much to be said on each side of the argument, it should be noted that
astrology and alchemy were not labelled pseudosciences until the nineteenth
century, and were not clearly separated from astronomy and chemistry, respec-
tively, until the late seventeenth century. Throughout the late Middle Ages, the
terms chemia and alchemia were largely synonymous, along with such variants as
alchemystica, which adds the element of mysticism; while almost all serious
astronomers also practiced astrology.
II. A general account of the occult sciences in the Middle Ages must deal with two
“chains”: the chain of being which links God the Creator to the rest of the
creation, stretching from the stars and planets to the minerals underground, and
the chain of tradition linking writers and thinkers to their sources in antiquity and
throughout the ages. The first of these was sometimes identified as the chain of
Homer (catena Homeri) on the basis of a passage at the beginning of book 8 in the
Iliad: Zeus looks down on the squabbling creation and tells the other gods he can
haul them and everything else back into his grasp. The second was sometimes
associated with the “rings” of Plato (annuli Platonici), as Socrates described them
in the Ion (536a–d). There was a kind of magnetic pull that held the rings together
as they reached from the inspired writer back through the poets and muses to the
source of inspiration. It was also known as Kabbalah, in the word’s etymological
sense of “reception” or as “tradition” in the etymological sense of being “handed
down” from one generation to the next. One classic study called it the “secret
tradition” on the premise that knowledge was withheld from the masses and
communicated orally from adept to initiate (Waite 1926). Such knowledge was
“traditional,” although there were different traditions for the different occult
sciences and writers could draw on more than one tradition at a time.
Behind both of these chains, as they were concatenated in the late medieval
mind, was the principle of original revelation. Surely the secret was so great, the
science so powerful, that no mere human could have dreamed it up. Surely it
must have been revealed by God—no doubt to Adam, to help him survive after the
expulsion from Eden, and by Adam to his son Seth, and so on down to Thoth and
to Moses, who was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7: 22). Given
the medieval respect for auctoritas (“authority”), genealogies of knowledge ap-
peared in many books of alchemy and other occult sciences. They had the effect

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104 Thomas Willard
of showing that the science was not demonic and should not be considered
illegal. A late example of this thinking is the treatise De Jure Artis Alchemicae (“On
the lawfulness of the art of alchemy”), written by the Basel lawyer Johannes
Chrysippus Fanianus, a younger contemporary of Agrippa, and included in
several early anthologies of alchemy (Fanianus 1576). One consequence of this
thinking was that occult texts were often misattributed to writers of known
authority. When alchemical texts were known to have been composed by people
with the names of Democritus or Miriam, readers leapt to the conclusions that
they must be the work of the ancient atomist and the sister of Moses, respectively.
Popular medieval texts of alchemy were thus attributed to Plato and Aristotle as
well as to later authorities like Albertus Magnus (ca. 1206–1280) and Thomas
Aquinas (1225–1274; Aquinas 1966). Such attributions were not necessarily frau-
dulent, but often reflected the author’s sense of tradition (Burkhardt 1960).
Also behind the chains was the principle of the unity of knowledge. Alchemy
did not contradict astrology; rather it was astronomia inferiora (the lower astron-
omy). Numerology helped to explain the stages of the alchemical procedure, as
geometrical arrangements helped to explain conjunctions of the planets. As
Michel Foucault suggested, in a close reading of a late medieval text, the world
was legendary in the etymological sense of being there “to be read”—full of
hidden significations (Foucault 1970, 17–45). The Bible supported this view. After
all, “The Heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19: 1); and “As for the earth,
out of it cometh bread … and it hath dust of gold” (Job 28: 5–6). The whole Bible
was taken to conceal secrets of science (Willard 1982).
A final principle, not named until the early modern period but dating back to
antiquity, was that of hylozoism: the principle that all matter is alive. Plato
maintained that the world was a “living creature” (Plato 1961, Timaeus 30c).
Moreover, just as the earth had a soul and intelligence of its own, so did the
heavens (Plato 1961, Timaeus 37a). The planets were “living creatures” (Plato
1961, Timaeus 38e). Like earth, the planets were also globes, which Plato consid-
ered the perfect form, and thanks to a robust mythology that no doubt predated
Plato they had personalities of their own: saturnine, jovial, martial, etc. The
planets became way stations on the soul’s journey to God, as taught in various
mystery religions (Godwin 1981). The Greek mysteries fed into the Judaeo-Chris-
tian tradition through Gnosticism, adding another dimension to thoughts about
the heavens. In learning about the movements of the heavenly bodies, and read-
ing what was “written in the stars,” one learned about the divine aspects of a
creator who made man in his own image. Some Christian astrologers proposed
renaming the zodiac signs after the apostles of Christ, and some Muslim astrol-
ogers suggested doing so after the prophets of Allah. Tradition held, however, and
the ascent to God became associated with the shedding of qualities more often

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associated with pagan deities than with prophets and apostles. As Dante ascends
from the Mount of Purgatory, he passes the heavens of the Mercury, Venus, and so
forth, and at each junction meets souls of people who had problems associated the
pagan deity, such as mercurial pride and venereal desires (Paradiso, cantos 6, 8).
Whether humans first tried to understand fire on earth or stars in the sky is a
matter of debate. But because all animals experience the difference between day
and night, we shall start with the stars.
B Astrology
“Astrology” is the older word, signifying knowledge of the stars. “Astronomy,”
literally “star-arranging,” was coined in later antiquity, probably to indicate the
mapping of stars as opposed to telling tales about the stars and their influences.
The most famous astrologer and astronomer of the ancient world was Claudius
Ptolemy, a Roman citizen who lived in Alexandria, and wrote in Greek, during the
second century C.E. Ptolemy wrote three treatises, of which the first and most
famous was on astronomy. It concerned the structure of the universe—a structure
which is still referred to as the Ptolemaic universe, with the earth at the center, the
constellations at the circumference, and the sun, moon, and five visible planets in
concentric circles around the earth. The second treatise was on the geography of
the known world, and the third was on astrology, reconciling the techniques of
casting horoscopes with the principles of Aristotelian natural philosophy. The first
book, Ho Megala Syntaxis (“The Great Treatise”), was translated into Arabic as the
Almagest and under that title became known in a Latin translation from the
Arabic. The others followed, though with less influence, and the pattern of
transmission from Greek through Arabic to Latin became the norm for transmis-
sion of many scientific and technical works written in late antiquity.
The Ptolemaic world-picture, with its geocentric perspective, was in many
ways better suited to the occult sciences than the Copernican heliocentric model
that later won out. It squared with ordinary human experience, in which the sun
appears to rise in the east and set in the west while the earth stands still and the
heavenly bodies revolve about it. The geocentric model placed the sun at the
center of the universe, midway between the three smaller heavenly bodies (the
moon, Mercury, and Venus) and the three larger ones (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).
In Classical tradition, it allowed philosophers and poets to describe the earth as a
great globe or orb (Plato 1961, Timaeus 33b; Ovid 1977, Metamorphoses, book 1,
line 35). Pythagoreans indeed took the view that the earth revolved around a
central fire (Aristotle 1984, On the Heavens, 2.13; 293a), while others maintained
that there was an infinite number of worlds (Aristotle, Physics, 8.1; 250b). How-

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106 Thomas Willard
ever, Aristotle argued that the logical choice was the model that confirmed what
we see, and astrologers have clung to his view, with only a few concessions to
post-Newtonian cosmology (Grant 2007).
Over time observers realized that it was necessary to make certain adjust-
ments, notably in the dates of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, which seemed
to appear at an earlier date every few centuries. The so-called precession of the
equinox, caused by a gravitational shift of the earth’s axis, has the effect of
making the so-called fixed stars appear to rotate about the earth like the planets
(a name derived from the Greek word meaning ‘wanderers’). Ancient astronomers
calculated that the stars would make a complete rotation once every 36,000 years.
The interval was often associated—wrongly, it turned out—with Plato’s “perfect
year” (Plato 1961, Timaeus 39d). That period, the time that it took the planets to
return to their original alignment, was closer to 26,000 years (Santillana and
Dechend 1969). In either event, the movements meant job security for astrologers,
who had to calculate the positions of the planets on any given day as well as the
slowly changing positions of the constellations. Although Aristotle and other
Greek philosophers taught that the universe was eternal (Aristotle 1984, Physics,
8.1; 250a–252b) and the earth as well (Aristotle 1984, Meteorology, 1.14; 353a),
there was widespread popular belief that it passed through different ages, and
these were easily associated with the twelve signs of the Zodiac. When they came
to power, Christians liked to note that the world had entered the age of Pisces
(Latin “fishes”) with Jesus symbolized by the sign of the fish. Icthus, the Greek
word for “fish,” was taken to be an acronym for Iesus Christos theou uios sotor
(Jesus Christ, son of God, savior). The words became a mantra for Christians
committed to the practice of constant prayer (1 Thessalonians 5: 17).
Although ancient astronomy and astrology reached a kind of culmination in
Alexandria, which became the center of learning in the late Classical world, the
first systematic observations were probably made farther east, in ancient Babylo-
nia. The first star maps were made there in the first two millennia B.C.E., but
historians disagree whether it was there or only in Egypt, and only with the aid of
Greek mathematics, that our duodecimal system began, with its basic divisions of
the heavens into 360 degrees, the year into approximately 360 days, and the day
into twelve 60-minute hours. The first horoscopes were most likely made in
Babylon, with surviving examples at least 300 years older than any written in
Greek. Even then the first Greek horoscopes show the influence of astrologers who
came to the Mediterranean from Babylon and Persia, following the conquests of
Alexander the Great.
Greek astrology reached Rome in the second century B.C.E. During the
political wars in the first century B.C.E., it was used to plan and predict the
assassination of Julius Caesar—made memorable for English audiences in the

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words of Shakespeare’s soothsayer: “Beware the ides of March” (Shakespeare

1974, Julius Caesar 1.2.23)—and to support the claims of the emperor Augustus,
who used his horoscope to show that he was destined to rule. There was wide-
spread popular belief, but also many skeptics; Cicero, for example, questioned
the utility of horoscopes in his treatise De Divinatione (Cicero 1920–23, book 2,
section 44). Perceived as a potentially destabilizing force, astrologers were peri-
odically expelled from Rome, and their rights to predict deaths and other major
events curtailed (Smoller 2000). There was, then, a deeply divided attitude
toward predictive astrology by the time that Christianity became the state reli-
gion, under the Edict of Thessalonica (380 C.E.).
The Hebrew Scriptures took strong exception to divination in general, and in
particular to “the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators” of
Babylon, who “could not deliver themselves from the power of the flame” that
God would unleash on them (Isaiah 47: 13–14). The Book of Daniel scorned
astrologers in particular, showing through a quasi-historical example that all true
foreknowledge is from God. However, the Christian Scriptures shed a positive
light on the “wise men [Greek magoi] from the east” who foretold the birth of
Jesus, the “King of the Jews” (Matthew 2: 1–2). Because it supported their claims,
this story of a star (which may have been Halley’s comet) gave some legitimacy to
astrology. However, such predictions were also linked to the mystery religions
with which Christianity had some similarities, especially Mithraism. Saint Paul
insisted that the Christian’s battle was not really “against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6: 12). These
principalities (archas) seemed to be the Archons of Gnosticism, which were
identified with the planets and which had some influence on both Judaism and
Christianity in New Testament times as well as on the mystery cults that Paul
faced in Ephesus. With the condemnation of Gnosticism, notably by Bishop
Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses (“Against Heresies,” ca. 180 C.E.), as-
trology was officially rejected along with other systems of prediction. It was
regarded as both unnecessary, because Christianity provided a unique system of
prophecy, and heretical, because it challenged the Christian belief in the free will
of the individual believer. It remained for Augustine (354–430) to recall Cicero’s
scorn of auguries (Augustine 1972, 4.30) and to go beyond Cicero in asserting
man’s free will (5.9). By the middle of the sixth century, Christians in Europe were
explicitly forbidden the use of horoscopes (Smoller 2000). There was a steadier
interest in astrology among Christians in the Eastern Church, where there was
readier access to technical manuals from antiquity and, later, to new manuals
produced in the Islamic world. These included texts from pre-Islamic Persia, some
of which carried astrological ideas from India.

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108 Thomas Willard
Of all the Islamic astrologers, Abu Maʿshar al Balkli (ca. 805–ca. 885) was
probably the greatest, and certainly the most influential in the West (Turner
1997). In addition to popularizing the work of Ptolemy, whom he mistook to be a
member of Egypt’s ruling family, he composed influential treatises of his own,
including an introductory account translated into Latin by Adelard of Bath (ca.
1080–ca. 1151) and a treatise on planetary conjunctions and their affects on the
world’s great religions and dynasties (Abu Ma’shar 1994; Albumasar 1489). Alber-
tus Magnus was among the first to make extensive use of Adelard’s translation.
For Albertus, as for his student Thomas Aquinas, the question was how to
reconcile astral influences with human free will. Aquinas addressed the question
in his Summa Theologica (Aquinas 1911, Part 1, Question 95, Article 5) and con-
cluded that divination by the stars cannot be held illicit or inaccurate because
humans lack free will when they let themselves be governed by the passions
rather than their reason. Abu Ma'shar also wrote a popular history of astrology
and its role in predicting the course of history, Kitab al-milal wa-‘l-duwal (“The
Book of Religions and Dynasties”), which was read and cited by scholars like
Roger Bacon (1214–1294) (Abu Ma’shar 2000). In Persia itself and in countries to
its east, Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was arguably more influential than Abu
Ma'shar, on whose work he built. Though he is known in the West for his poetic
quatrains, or Rubaiyat, notably in the English translation by Edward Fitzgerald,
he is also known as the person who reformed the Iranian calendar, as it is still
used, and who presented proofs for the heliocentric view of the universe five
hundred years before Galileo.
Astrologers, like poets, depended on the patronage of noble or royal masters,
and they faced the same occupational hazard. If they said what the saw, rather
than what their patrons wanted them to see, they risked banishment or worse.
Omar Khayyam lost his position as royal astrologer when one ruler died and was
succeeded by a man who did not like his forecasts. Similarly kings often collected
whole bands of astrologers about them, such as Daniel encountered at the court
of Nebuchadnezzar. They were especially taken to the practice of casting nativ-
ities, that is, charts based on the hour and place of one’s birth (Abu Ali Al-Khyyat
1988). One notably large and productive group of astrologers was in Toledo,
during the reign of Alfonso X (1221–1284), variously known as El Sabio and El
Astrológo (“the wise” and “the astrologer”). Alfonso is credited with the so-called
Tablas Alfonsíes, credit he of course shared with the Islamic astrologers and
Jewish translators working for him. These tables were widely used in calculating
the position of the sun and moon relative to the five known planets. Another large
group was gathered in the court of Charles V of France (1337–1380), who, like
Alfonso, commissioned translations of astrological works and amassed a large
library of books on the subject. Astrological calculations even played a role in

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Church polemics during the Reformation, as Catholics and Protestants interpreted

the same astronomical events to support their different causes.
Although astrology had much of the popular appeal in the Middle Ages that it
has for readers of tabloids today, the people who made the calculations and made
the predictions were of a more serious bent altogether. Many were faithful
observers of the heavens, carefully trained in calculations. Indeed, astrologers
were often called mathematicians (mathematici). Even the most scientific of them
were expected to prepare horoscopes and determine auspicious times for impor-
tant events like coronations. Just as their brothers at court, the alchemists, were
usually interested in more than trying to make gold from lesser metals, astrolo-
gers had reason to think there were greater secrets in the heavens than the
outcome of a battle.
C Alchemy
In the same way that the word “astrology” became the ill-reputed accomplice
of the younger word “astronomy,” “alchemy” has come to be known as the
dark past out of which modern chemistry emerged. In fact, the Latin words
alchemia and chemia were practically interchangeable in the Middle Ages,
much as was true of astrologia and astronomia. The word “alchemy” simply
adds the Arabic definite article al to the Greek word khemia. When the distinc-
tion began to take hold, in the seventeenth century, chemistry was understood
to focus on the chemicals themselves, while alchemy was regarded as a cosmic
science, concerned with the relations between chemicals and other orders of
being, whether in the sublunary world or the superlunary one. Chemistry
sought increasingly scientific language, of elements and formulas, while al-
chemy was always a matter of enigmas, depending on metaphoric language and
archetypal imagery.
Like astrology, alchemy has a long history. It was practiced in Babylon
(Eliade 1937), and was brought to Egypt, where it too reached its ancient apogee.
From there it passed into the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, where it was refined
during the first millennium B.C.E. It reached Europe only in the twelfth century,
when the first texts were translated from Arabic. There was a great deal of
confusion over names, for some Arabic texts like the Turba Philosophorum (Gath-
ering of philosophers) put chemical ideas and teachings in the mouths of people
with the names of ancient Greek philosophers like Aristo (i.e., Aristotle) (The
Turba Philosophorum 1896; Plessner 1975). Meanwhile, writings published under
the name Geber included theories found nowhere in the authentic writings of the
alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān (ca. 731–ca. 815)—statements so hard to decipher that

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110 Thomas Willard
the name Geber was said, wrongly though suggestively, to have been the source
of the English word “gibberish.”
Most students of alchemy in the Middle Ages also studied astrology, con-
vinced that there was a vital correspondence between the planets and metals.
They referred to their opus magnum or “great work” as the operatio solis or
“operation of the sun.” Many of them began the work when the sun was in
Aries, and not a few consulted an ephemerides if not an astrologer to determine
the optimal date on which to begin. They believed that the spirit of Mercury or
Venus was present in the metal of that name as well as in the planet. Indeed,
they seem to have entered into dialogue with the substances they hoped to
create—most notably the lapis philosophorum or “philosophers’ stone,” which
could transmute metals and produce powerful elixirs. For alchemical texts
sometimes used the rhetorical device of prosopopoeia, in which the alchemical
philosopher spoke for the stone or another substance, as though it was speaking
to him and revealing its secrets. Alchemists also appealed to the spirits of the
elements or elementals, widely known in medieval folklore: the salamanders
who lived in fire, the sylphs who lived in air, the nymphs or undines who lived
in water, and the gnomes or pygmies who lived in earth. The names were not
standardized until the sixteenth century, with Paracelsus (1493–1542) and Agrip-
pa, but the concepts were present long before.
One major difference between astrology and alchemy in the Middle Ages was
in the relative ease of measuring change. It was easier to measure distances
between heavenly objects, using the naked eye or the astrolabe, first made in
Classical Greece but used extensively in the Islamic world and in medieval
Europe. It was harder to measure changes in metals and other substances as they
were heated and cooled, for one could only observe changes in color or transi-
tions from solid to liquid to gas. The first instrument to measure changes of
temperature in any kind of systematic way, the thermoscope, was invented by
Galileo in the late sixteenth century, and the modern thermometer was invented
by Daniel Fahrenheit in the eighteenth century. Before that, classification barely
went past what Aristotle, who described four qualities of things: hot, cold, moist,
and dry. From these conditions came four elements: fire, which was hot and dry;
air, which was hot and moist; water, which was cold and moist; and earth, which
was cold and dry (Meteorology, 1.3; 399a–341a). It followed that one thing could
be turned into another by altering the qualities, for Aristotle held that all material
things were of a single substance. In the eighth century, Jabir modified Aristotle’s
position by positing the principles of sulphur and mercury as the basis of trans-
mutation (Jābir ibn Hayyān 1923; Kraus 1986, 305–16). However, it remained for
Robert Boyle to propose a sound theory of “mixed bodies” in the late seventeenth
century.

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From the beginnings of their art into the seventeenth century, alchemists took
to discussing the realm of metals by analogy to the vegetable and animal king-
doms. Like vegetables, metals were alive, producing seeds that could be culti-
vated (Eliade 1962, 169–78). Like animals, they could mate and reproduce. From
earliest times, some metals were considered male, others female. Babylonian
metallurgists based the distinctions on color (Eliade 1937). Their Greek and
Egyptian counterparts may have used other criteria. In any event, the classifica-
tions brought the metals into a harmonious, homologous world picture, which
the Middle Ages inherited as a set of cosmic correspondences between the seven
pure metals (gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin, and lead) and the seven
planets in the Ptolemaic system (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn). The associations extended to the deities whose names were attached to
the true planets, while Apollo was identified with the Sun and Diana with the
Moon. Alchemy was thus a cosmological science from the beginning, associated
with astrology and other arts. Because the human being was considered the
epitome of creation, the Microcosm that contained the Macrocosm in miniature,
there were further correspondences between the heavenly bodies and the human
body, which became important to medieval medicine. Moreover, there were
correspondences between the planets or metals and the different parts of the
human body and the parts of the hand, developed in the popular art of palmistry,
also known as cheiromancy. There were even correspondences with the seven
notes on the heptatonic scale in music.
Once metals were considered to be living substances, they were subject to
torture and even sacrifice at the hands of chemists, followed by death and some-
times by rebirth in new bodies (Eliade 2007; Newman 2004). Sometimes they
would be reduced to waste substances, known in the Middle Ages as the caput
mortuum (“dead head”; Abraham 1998, 31). This anthropomorphic view of metals
led to a good deal of mythologizing. Because mercury volatilized when heated, it
really was mercuric, as though it had the powers of Mercury, the gods’ messenger.
Christian alchemists regarded the ascent to heaven as a sign that mercury or the
substance made from it was a sort of chemical Christ (Jung 1968, 345–431). The
medieval penchant for allegory—literally “another way of speaking” about some-
thing, employed even in Christian Scripture (Galatians 2: 24)—prompted alche-
mists to seek clues in all they read. There were thus alchemical interpretations of
Classical authors like Virgil and Ovid (Willard 2006), and extensive use of myths
such as the labors of Hercules and the Argonauts’ quest of the Golden Fleece
(Faivre 1990). Inclusion of the Bible alongside the pagan myths led Church
officials to denounce alchemy as a heresy. Such charges made the “sages” all the
more likely to obfuscate. As a result, alchemy developed an especially elaborate
system of symbolic correspondences (Abraham 1998).

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112 Thomas Willard
The first important texts of Western alchemy are on papyri discovered in

Alexandria in the early nineteenth century and known collectively as the Leiden
Papyri (Berthelot 1885; Caley 1926). Written in demotic Greek and compiled in
Egypt during the sixth century C.E. and perhaps earlier, the texts cover a wide
range of occult practices, including magical rites, but show considerable knowl-
edge of metallurgy and distillation and the equipment involved. A Jewish woman
named Miriam and later called Maria Prophetissima may well be the first chemist
known by name. She is said to have lived in Alexandria, to have taught younger
chemists, and to have invented such apparatus as the still and the water bath
(known as the bain-marie from the Latin balneum Mariae; Abraham 1998, 15). She
is attributed with a number of cryptic sayings—for example, “Join the male to the
female and you will find what is sought.” She is mentioned in the writings of
Zosimos of Panopolis (present day Akhmim), the most advanced of the Byzantine
alchemists (Patai 1994, 81–91). Zosimos, who probably wrote in the fourth century
C.E., described chemical processes in detail, while using analogies from mythol-
ogy and mystery religions, and achieved a memorable style (Lendle 1992).
Arabic alchemy began with the writings of Jābir (Latinized as Geber) in the
late eighth century. Many Arabic texts under his name seem to be the work of an
Islamic sect known as the Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity), who gathered in
Basra in the tenth century (Newman 1991). The Jabirist teachings about the
composition of metals from principles known as sulfur and mercury persisted into
modern times, with sulfur giving metals their color, smell, and flammability while
mercury gave them weight and fusibility. The two-principle theory was based
ultimately on the teaching of Aristotle about vapors arising from the earth
(Aristotle 1984, Meteorology, 2.4; 360a–b), and was eventually supplemented by
Paracelsus with the third principle of salt, representing embodiment itself. It must
be understood that these were principles rather than the modern chemicals
known by these names and represented by the symbols Hg, S, and NaCl. They
were to be found in every substance to one degree or another, and the Arabic
alchemists made many advances in the study of metals and liquids. It must also
be understood that there was intellectual commerce throughout the Islamic
world, and that discoveries from Persia and perhaps points farther east flowed
through Arabia and the Maghrib into Spain and Western Europe. Similarly,
Jabirist texts were studied in Persia, especially by Sufi scholars interested in the
spiritual body and the spiritual world (Corbin 1986).
In 1144, an Englishman who had been translating works of Arabic mathe-
matics and astrology into Latin translated two Arabic treatises on alchemy. They
contained teachings attributed to a Christian hermit who had studied with Ste-
phanos of Alexandria, a philosopher in the court of Heraclius (610–641), to whom
works of Greek alchemy were attributed (Linden 2003, 54–60). According to one

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text, Morienus came to Damascus at the request of Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Muawiyya
(661–704), a prince of the Umayyad Caliphate and the putative founder of Arabic
alchemy (Stavenhagen 1974; Linden 2003, 71–80). Jabir was said to have con-
sulted translations that Khalid made or commissioned. In turn, the translations
that brought the ideas of Morienus to a European audience created a demand for
further texts of what became known as alchemy (literally, the chemistry). These
included treatises by the Arabic alchemist Zadith Senior (Muhammed ibn Umail
al-Tamimi, ca. 900–ca. 960) and the Persian physicians and alchemists known as
Rhazes (Abu-Bakr Muhammed ibn Zakariya Al-Razi, ca. 845–ca. 930) and Avicen-
na (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, ca. 980–ca. 1037; Linden 2003, 95–
98). A collection of sayings attributed to ancient philosophers like Aristotle and
Demoncritus was translated as Turba Philosophorum (“The Crowd of Philoso-
phers”) and became one of the most influential books of alchemy (Ruska 1924;
Plessner 1975).
However, it was Jābir, under the Latin name Geber, who became the most
representative of Arabic alchemists for readers in the West. Many empirical texts
were written attributed to him, either by translators or by writers of new works he
inspired. The followers became known as “Geber’s cooks.” Paul of Taranto, a
Franciscan friar, compiled a group of Jabirist texts under the title Theoria et
Practica (“Theory and practice”), several of which he may have composed him-
self. Attributions to Geber by Western alchemists, like those to Jabir by Brethren
of Purity and others in the East, were not made to conceal the authors’ identity as
to reveal their affiliations and express indebtedness (Burkhardt 1960).
Texts of Latin alchemy tended to include the balance of theory and practice
found in the Theoria et Practica (Ganzenmüller 1938). The theory was usually
much the same, grounded on the principles of Arabic alchemy and, behind those,
the sources in Greek alchemy and philosophy (Principe 2000). The practice,
however, took two different directions. Some writers focused on small discov-
eries: on the apparatus or the process or an alloy or a tincture or, increasingly, a
medicament. Others focused on what they saw as the goal of the art: on metamor-
phosis and the transmutation of metals, including but not limited to the making
of gold and the production of the essential agent of change, variously called their
stone or powder or elixir (the last word from the Arabic al-iksir). Still others
focused on the religious aspect of alchemy as the donum dei (“gift of God”): a
secret revealed only to the most pious. Many of the most celebrated treatises
touched on all of these.
Alchemical texts began to circulate in the names of Great European writers—
Albertus Magnus and Ramon Llull (ca. 1235–ca. 1315) were among the more promi-
nent. Some texts took on explicitly Christian themes, such as the Margarita Pretiosa
Novella (“New pearl of great price”) of Petrus Bonnus (14th century), which drew

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114 Thomas Willard
from a parable of Jesus (Matthew 13: 45–46). They sometimes told personal stories
of long quests for the secret of alchemy, such as that of Nicolas Flamel (1330–1418),
a Paris scrivener who took years to discover the secrets in a manuscript he found at
a flea market (Linden 2003, 123–35); or Bernardus Trevisanus (1406–1490), who
spent his whole inheritance and most of his life in search of the philosophers’ stone
(Linden 2003, 136–40). The hard truth was that no alchemist provided simple step-
by-step directions. Working on the premise that God would enlighten the deserving
person, they wrote riddles and gave misdirections that only the most persistent
student, guided by the most learned elder, could possibly decipher (Coudert 1980).
As a consequence, their prose was ridiculously obscure, but their poetry purported
to contain truths hidden by the veils of allegory. Notable among such poets were
Jean de Meun (ca. 1240–ca. 1305), who continued the dream-vision Roman de la
rose (“Romance of the rose”) originally composed by Guillaume de Lorris in ca.
1230/1240, and the English cleric George Ripley (1415–1490), who wrote a long
poem on the twelve stages or “gates” of alchemy (Ripley 1591).
Ripley’s name became attached to a famous scroll combining verses and
illustrations and reproduced in several countries during the sixteenth century.
Alchemical illustration had begun to flourish during the fourteenth century
(Obrist 1982; Roberts 1994; Roob 2000; Battistini 2004), providing clues about
colors of metals and shapes of equipment in the alchemical laboratory while
developing mythic motifs (Evola 1948; Klossowski de Rola 1973).
D Other Occult Sciences

I. Hermeticism. When the Islamic texts of astrology and alchemy passed into
Europe, during the high Middle Ages, they brought with them the ancient myth of
the Egyptian Hermes, a teacher of great antiquity whose basic message was
summed up in the words of an emerald tablet found atop his miraculously
preserved corpse. The first line of the inscription is commonly summarized in the
words “As above so below” (Ruska 1926; Plessner 1954; Linden 2003, 27–28). The
message was applied to a large body of writing known as the Corpus Hermeticum
(“Hermetic corpus”), recorded only in the early Christian centuries but claiming
great antiquity (Fowden 1986). Indeed, because Hermetic thought was largely a
revelation, passed on from initiatic father to initiated son son, a traditio mystica
soon developed in which every father was Hermes (Egyptian Thoth) addressing
his son That (Sint 1960, 60–61). Before long, Hermes was putative founder of
Egyptian astrology, alchemy, and magic (Festugière 1967; Luck, 1985, 36–37;
61–64; Faivre 1985–1988). The major Hermetic writings reached Europe in 1484 in
the Latin translation by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), providing fuel for the Hu-

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manism of the Italian Renaissance; however, the name of Hermes Trismegistus,

the thrice-great teacher also known as Thoth the ibis-headed scribe of the Egyp-
tian gods, appeared frequently in both Arabic and Latin texts of alchemy. He was
sometimes called Idris in the Arabic texts—i.e., the Islamic counterpart of Enoch
in Genesis 5: 24—and thus identified with a prophet in the Quran (19.57, 21.85).
Arab writers on alchemy gave special veneration to him (Plessner 1954).
The major texts in the Corpus Hermeticum did not reach Western Europe until
the late fifteenth century. However, the Latin Aesclepius was available throughout
the Middle Ages (Hermetica 1992). St. Augustine in his City of God discussed it at
length, claiming that it revealed the truth of divine revelation while exposing the
falseness of the Egyptian religion and of pagan idols generally (Augustine 1972,
8.22–23). The text is cast as a dialogue in which the semi-divine Hermes enlight-
ens Aesclepius and three other students about the nature of the universe and the
place of man within it. The overall message is positive and remarkably close to
what is found in the Bible, including the New Testament. As in the Psalms, God
has made man a little lower than the angels (8: 5) and has made the heavens to
declare His glory (19: 1); as in the Epistles, He has made it possible for man to
know the invisible truths of creation through the things that are made (Romans 1:
20). All this seemed quite remarkable to medieval readers, who thought that
Hermes was almost as old as Moses if not older. It was not until the seventeenth
century that the Hermetic writings were dated to the fourth or fifth centuries
(Yates 1964). Details known only in Byzantium during the Middle Ages were
collected by Macedonian scholar Joannes Stobaeus in the fifth century. The truth
of the matter probably lies somewhere in between, as the writings may well
contain knowledge that was once passed down through oral tradition, from the
adept to the initiate.
II. Kabbalah. The word “Kabbalah,” variously spelt, has the basic meaning of
“reception” or “tradition.” It refers to an oral tradition in Judaism—a tradition
dating back to the Old Testament Apocrypha and the tradition that Ezra hid
seventy books of divinely inspired wisdom for which humans were not ready
(2 Esdras 14: 36–48). Such wisdom was said to form an oral Torah (“instruction”)
that was passed down by enlightened rabbis and that formed a mystical counter-
part to the scriptural commentary in Talmud. The major texts of Kabbalah were
written in Spain during the eleventh through thirteenth centuries—the very time
at which the major texts of Arabic astrology and alchemy were being translated
into Latin, often with the assistance of Jewish scholars whose knowledge of
Aramaic gave them a distinct advantage. However, some of the concepts found in
the earliest of these texts also appear in documents dating back to the sixth
century.

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116 Thomas Willard
Perhaps the most basic concept is that of emanation. The early Sefer
Yetzirah (“Book of Formation”) describes the whole creation as having ema-
nated from a single point in the mind of God (Matt 1994), through a process
which modern rabbis have likened to the Big Bang theory in cosmology. The ten
emanations (sephira) represent the major qualities of God; however, they are
also the qualities of humanity, for they are arranged to form the body of the
primordial man, Adam Kadmon. They also form the tree of life, and the lines
between one emanation (sephiroth) represent the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
in which the Torah is written. The world is thus a physical expression of God’s
Word (dabar) as it was conceived before He said, “Let there be light.” Much of
the work in later books of Kabbalah, such as the Zohar (“Splendor”) attributed
to Moses of Leon (ca. 1250–1305), attempted to work out the connections
between the written Torah and the mystical teachings of God through his
emanations (Zohar 1949).
The possibility of a connection between Scripture and nature had a strong
appeal to Christians, who had long celebrated the parallels between the books of
God and nature (Curtius 1948, 311–326). Christians developed their own Kabbalah
in the later Middle Ages and began studying Hebrew, convinced that they would
then be able to convert the Jews or at least better understand the Hebrew
Scriptures (McGinn 1995). Kabbalistic ideas also appealed to Muslims. In Cordo-
ba, the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi (1165–1240) envisioned three concentric spheres
beyond the fixed stars. He identified the first as starless sky and the others as the
pedestal and throne of God. From these higher spheres, qualities like the Kabba-
listic sephira flowed through the visible heavens, conveying a different divine
name and quality to each of the seven planetary bodies; and from there they
flowed to the earth below. The totality of qualities, as shaped by the planets and
changing through the phases of the moon, made up the complete or cosmic man
(Burkhardt 1950). Meanwhile, realizing that the constellations were moving
through the zodiac signs, as a result of the precession of the equinox, he
estimated the length of each zodiacal age, ranging from 1000 years for Pisces to
12,000 for Aries, or a total of 78,000. More practically, he calculated the length of
the reciprocal positions of the sun and moon, which, he said, repeated themselves
every eighteen years.
Meanwhile, Kabbalism promoted new interest in astrology and especially
alchemy among Jewish scholars (Patai 1994; Scholem 1974 and 2006). For alche-
mists, the ten sephira contained the elements of fire, air, and water; for astrolo-
gers, they contained the four cardinal directions as well as what was above and
below; and for both they contained the concept of the cosmic center. Kabbalism
also sparked new interest in numbers.

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III. Numerology. In their scriptural exegesis, Kabbalists often relied on gematria,

a term that may have derived from Greek geometria. Gematria assigned numerical
values to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and Kabbalists used these numbers
to calculate the meanings of words. If two words with distinct denotations had
the same numerical value, then there was a kind of equivalence between them.
Through Kabbalah, rabbis determined that the “three men” who visited Abraham
in Genesis 18: 2 were in fact the angels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. There was
a similar system in ancient Greek, which, for example, used the first ten letters of
the alphabet to represent the numbers 1–10 and the next nine letters to represent
the numbers 20–100. Christian theologians knew about gematria from the “num-
ber of the beast” (Revelation 13: 18); they calculated the number 666 to represent
KAISER NERON (Emperor Nero), using the values of the letters when they were
transposed into Hebrew.
Most numerology was far simpler. The number 1 represented unity; 2, duality;
3, the Trinity or spiritual order; 4, the cardinal directions or physical order; and so
forth. There were six days of creation and seven days of the week, including the
Sabbath. There were ten commandments and twelve tribes of Israel or disciples of
Jesus, the number 12 being the product of 3x4. Medieval numerology was largely
the legacy of Pythagoras and Plato (Hopper 1938), though it had been popularized
in writings by the Church Fathers. Augustine, for example, wrote that the creation
occurred in six days because 6 is the first perfect number (1+2+3). The study of
number dominated the medieval education in the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geo-
metry, music, and astronomy), the counterpart of the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric,
and logic), and even in the verbal arts numbers figured in such areas as prosody
or versification, which constituted the fourth part of grammar. Astrologers
learned numerology from late Classical works like the commentary on Cicero’s
Somnium Scipionis (“Dream of Scipio”), written by Macrobius in the fourth century
C.E. Their prognostications often relied on numerological associations (Lucas
2003). Alchemists, meanwhile, took clues from the magic square of Jabir al
Hayyam (Laszlo 1996, 30–32). They also drew upon geomancy (Skinner 1980), a
form of divination based on random arrangements on the ground, and not unlike
Chinese feng shui. Here too number was important, as in the weights and quan-
tities of substances they used in their laboratories.

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118 Thomas Willard
E Conclusion
With the advent of printing in the 1450s, texts became more available than ever
before. Within a century, classic texts of astrology were available as well as new
almanacs and ephemerides to assist the makers of horoscopes. Similarly, classic
works of alchemy were issued in Latin followed by texts in the vernacular
languages. Perhaps the first vernacular text of alchemy, the Rosarium Philoso-
phorum (“Philosophers’ Rose Garden”), written in German with Latin sayings
after the model of the Turba Philosophorum, was published in 1550 (Rosarium
Philosophorum 1992). Soon afterwards, anthologies of alchemical texts began to
appear, first in Latin during the sixteenth century, and then in English, French,
and German in the centuries following. Meanwhile, large general studies of
“natural magic,” such as Cornelius Agrippa’s, drew together information from a
wide range of occult sciences, including numerology and divination.
The term “occult sciences” is useful as a reminder that practices as distinct
as alchemy and astrology were ultimately parts of a larger cosmological science
or outlook. This sort of science is often termed pseudoscience today because it
does not display—indeed often flaunts—the criteria of the scientific method,
such as communicable procedures and reproducible results. Alternately, it is
called pre-science because it led the way toward modern scientific methodology
and knowledge. Historians of science have long approached medieval alchemy
and astrology, along with related studies, from the outside, emphasizing what
made them different from the modern counterparts in chemistry, astronomy, etc.
However, the last century has seen increasing efforts to understand them from
inside and thus to recognize how they were explained and taught in times past
and what they did aim to achieve, as well as what they happened to discover
(Powrie 2010).
Meanwhile, some historians of science and technology have challenged the
conventional dating of the Middle Ages. One leading authority has argued that
medieval ideas about magic and experimental science did not die out in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century but persisted up to the Enlightenment in the
seventeenth century and the industrial revolution in the eighteenth (Thorndike
1958). The concept of occult or hidden sciences is not unique to the Middle Ages; it
would persist through later centuries up to the present, just as as it has been traced
back to the beginnings of recorded history. Nevertheless, the sciences of alchemy
especially and astrology to a lesser extent became defined during the late Middle
Ages in ways that have remained fundamentally unchanged in subsequent cen-
turies. In the language of alchemy, the ideas and observations of the ancient world
and the Islamic world may be said to have been tried in the fire of European
experimenters, and to have been transmuted in the alembic of their writing.

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Select Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas, Aurora Consurgens, ed. Mariel-Louise von Franz, trans. R. F. C. Hull and

A. S. B. Gliover (New York 1966).

Corsetti, Jean-Paul, L’histoire de ésotérisme et des sciences occultes (Paris 1992).

Coudert, Allison P., Alchemy: The Philosopher’s Stone (Boulder, CO, 1980).
Ferngren, Gary, ed., The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia
(New York and London 2000).
Klossowski de Rola, Stanislaus, Alchemy (London 1973).
Turner, Howard R., Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction (Austin, TX, 1997).

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Astronomy
A Astronomy, Astrology and the Spread of

Astronomical Knowledge
The clear distinction between astronomy and astrology is a modern one, and
therefore it is impossible to separate them when describing medieval concepts of
the stars and the universe. However, it is possible to distinguish medieval physi-
cal concepts of the cosmos from ideas about divination, which is the main
purpose of astrology. This article only refers to the scientific discourses and their
cultural implications for medieval society (for astrology, i.e., the occult sciences,
see the contribution to this Handbook by Thomas Willard).
In the medieval world view, the universe was an intrinsic part of God’s
creation, and the forces that moved the stars also influenced human existence.
This was particularly true in the Neo-Platonic concept of the world, which was
most influential in high- and late-medieval thought. In contrast, in late antiquity
and the early Middle Ages, Christian thinkers and especially the Church Fathers
criticized the idea that a connection between human life and the stars existed. In
their perspective, such a proposition contradicted the concept of individual free
will, and therefore orthodox Christians rejected any study of the stars that inter-
preted them as having meaning for a person’s life course. St. Augustine (354–
430) reflected on his own experiences with astrology in his Confessions: “By now I
had also rejected the lying divinations and impious absurdities of the mathemati-
cians”; here, the word “mathematicians” refers to astrologers (Augustine 1992, 60
[7, 6]). Looking at the Church Fathers’ position, one could argue that astronomy
and astrology were first distinguished from each other because the early Chris-
tians criticized divination; however, the medieval approach to the stars did not
strictly distinguish astronomy from astrology.
Most influential religious authorities in both the Christian Latin West and the
Muslim-Arab East condemned astrology because foretelling the future contra-
dicted not only the concept of free will, but doubted God’s own ability to intervene
in the course of his creation. On both sides of the Mediterranean, though,
religious reservations did not ultimately have much effect, and during the entire
Middle Ages, astronomical knowledge remained of interest because the stars
provided life guidance and foretold the future. However, the theological problem
was of increasing interest in medieval society, and beginning in the high Middle
Ages, Western theologians reconciled both ways of thinking about the heavens by

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conceiving of a two-layered creation inspired by Platonic ideas (for this, see D

below).
There was also a more practical use of astronomical knowledge. A study of
the stars enabled people to determine time and the change of the seasons, which
meant it was highly useful for pre-modern agricultural production. It is difficult to
grasp the extent of such astronomical knowledge in daily life as it was not related
to written intellectual culture, but to an oral tradition of farmers and rural people.
But there is little doubt that pagan societies in Europe shared an interest in the
stars and especially examined the movement of the sun. The origins of many later
Christian festivities and saints’ days can be traced back to special days in the solar
calendar (McCluskey 1997, 320; McCluskey 1998).
It is much easier to evaluate the intellectual and written discourse on the stars
during the Middle Ages. Astronomy was an integral part of medieval education.
Since antiquity, it was regarded as part of the seven liberal arts. Isidore of Seville
(ca. 560–636) identified it as one of the seven liberal arts, as “the seventh,
Astronomy, that includes the laws of the stars.” Together with Arithmetic, Music,
and Geometry it formed the “quadrivium” (Isidore of Seville 1850, 74 [1,2]). These
four arts were based in mathematics, in contrast to the “trivium” (Grammar,
Rhetoric, Logic), which were based in speech, and therefore they were the
foundations of “science,” in the modern sense of the word. However, in
Boethius’s (ca. 475/480–524) codification of the “quadrivium” in the early sixth
century, astronomy did not play a major role, and thus much of the antique
knowledge was lost. This holds especially true for Greek writings, since the
knowledge of Greek was neither central to the Occidental church nor to learning
in the West in general (Grant 1977, 11–12; Masi, ed., 1981; Hoskin 1997b, 68;
Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b, 68–69). However, the Latin commentary on Ambro-
sius by Theodosius Macrobius (early fifth century), a popular handbook on
astronomy, was available to the medieval Occident (Hüttig 1990). Therein, Pla-
tonic and Pythagorean ideas were explained and became part of the basic astro-
nomical knowledge of the Middle Ages (as to this cosmological model, see C
below).
Older scholarly research tends to stress the scarcity of early medieval astro-
nomical knowledge. In this view, Christians in the West only needed enough
knowledge of astronomy to determine the date of Easter in any given year, so
“some ecclesiastics were therefore needed who could understand something of
the course of the stars” (Pannekoek 1961, 173). This somewhat negative stance
toward early medieval astronomy has been corrected in recent decades by scho-
lars who have focused on this topic in general and on the Carolingian “Renais-
sance” in particular. Recent research has shown that there were two main reasons
for the interest in astronomy. The first one was the wish to master the “computus”

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122 Romedio Schmitz-Esser
and that meant getting the calendar right. This was indeed especially important
for determining the date of Easter, since Easter and the whole complex of
important dates surrounding Easter in the religious calendar such as Good Friday,
Palm Sunday, Pentecost, and the Lent period before Easter, were dependent on
the cycle of the moon. Thus, the determination of the date of Easter became a
complex astronomical problem (Warntjes and Ó Cróinín, ed., 2011; as to its
calculation, cf. Grotefend 1991, 4–8). The second reason for an interest in astro-
nomical knowledge was the worry about the correct times for prayer. In monas-
teries, the correct time for prayer was crucial, since monastic rules like those
attributed to St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480–ca. 560) dictated regular and punctu-
al services in the community’s church. Chapter 43 of the rules states that “as soon
as the sign for the hour of service is heard, you should leave everything that is in
your hands and haste to come together,” since “nothing shall be more important
than the service to God.” In chapter 47, the abbot is ordered to oversee that the
sign for prayer is punctual “so that all can be done at the fixed time” (Die Regel
des heiligen Benedictus 1984, 207–16; 231–32; 234 [chpt. 8–20, 43, 47]). In daily
life, this not only resulted in the search for ways to measure time during the day
by observing the sun, but since some of the prayer times were at night, the stars
and the night sky were important as well (Hoskin 1997b, 71; Hoskin and Gingerich
1999b, 71–72). Since the correct liturgy (and, as part of this, the correct time for
liturgical ceremony) was a major concern of the Carolingian reforms, the interest
in astronomy was especially great in the monasteries. Manuscripts that provided
astronomical knowledge were not only copied, but systematically circulated, in
the Frankish Empire and beyond. They not only provided knowledge to serve
communities’ liturgical needs, but also sparked widespread discussions about the
movements of the stars in general (see section C below). Scholars like the Vener-
able Bede (673/4–735), Alcuin (ca. 730–804), and Notker of St. Gall (ca. 840–912)
engaged in astronomical research. Bede wrote the definitive treatise on the Easter
calculation in 725, thus providing a solution to the problem of this moveable
feast’s date for centuries to come (Borst 1990; Warntjes 2010).
However, the medieval knowledge of astronomy was not nearly as good as it
was in antiquity, since the Greek treatises were not yet translated into Latin. The
situation south and east of the Mediterranean was very different. Since its con-
quest of huge parts of the Byzantine Empire, the Arabic and Islamic world had
shown great interest in Greek astronomy and developed the science still further.
Caliph Harun ar-Rashid (766–809) and his successors sent agents to the Byzan-
tine Empire to buy Greek manuscripts. In Baghdad, a school cared for the transla-
tion of learned texts. Moreover, the spread of Islam to the borders of India
introduced the Islamic world to Indian approaches to astrology, although the
Indian tradition never became as influential as the Greek tradition. Liturgical

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Astronomy 123
calendar problems made astronomy a useful tool in the Muslim world: astronom-
ical knowledge enabled the calculation of the Islamic lunar calendar, helped to
establish daily prayer times, and indicated the direction of Mecca for the daily
exercises of the faithful. Although the Islamic world’s reasons for pursuing
astronomical knowledge were similar to those of the medieval West, the scale and
sophistication of this science achieved a completely different level in the East. In
big cities like Baghdad, Cairo, Cordova, and Toledo, astronomers used tools that
were developed from, and improvements upon, Greek models. Ptolemy’s Alma-
gest (second century B.C.E.), which was translated into Arabic several times
beginning in the eighth century, was discussed and reevaluated on the basis of
own experiences by astronomers such as Muhammad al-Battani (858–929) in the
early tenth century (Berry 1899, 76–81; Hartner 1977; Gingerich 1992a, 45–47; 52;
Hoskin and Gingerich 1997, 52–63; Hoskin and Gingerich 1999a, 51–55). One
astronomer from Baghdad was Ahmad al-Fargani (ninth century); his work Ele-
ments (Jawami) was translated by John of Seville (twelfth century) and again, two
decades later, by Gerard of Cremona (ca. 1114–1187). Gerard helped spread Ptol-
emy’s ideas of an Earth-centered cosmos, and al-Fargani’s work influenced Dante
Alighieri’s (1265–1321) cosmography in the Divina Commedia (Gingerich 1992a, 45;
Dante Alighieri 1999).
When these sophisticated Arabic studies finally made their way into the
Christian West, they had a major impact on Western astronomy. Spain (and, to a
lesser degree, Sicily) were centers for the translation and spread of astronomical
knowledge. One scholar whose work demonstrates this Arabic influence is Ger-
bert of Aurillac (ca. 950–1003), the later Pope Sylvester II, who was very inter-
ested in this science and went to Spain in order to study it. When he returned to
France, he became the head of the cathedral school of Reims (Lindgren 1976;
Borrelli 2008, 68; Montecchio 2011, 23–34). In the first half of the twelfth century,
the influence of Arabic astronomy grew. For example, Adelard of Bath (ca. 1070–
after 1146) went to Spain and translated the astronomical tables of Musa al-
Khwarizmi (flourished 800–47) and the work of Abu Masar (Albumazar; 787–886)
(Suter, ed., 1914; Bliemetzrieder 1935; Neugebauer, trans., 1962; Burnett 1987;
Yamamoto 2007). In the second half of the century, Gerhard of Cremona trans-
lated into Latin works like Ptolemy’s Almagest and the Toledan Tables of Ibn
al-Zarqiyal (d. 1100). First Latin translations of authors like Aristotle (384–322
B.C.E.), Archimedes (ca. 287–212 B.C.E.), and Euclid (flourished ca. 300 B.C.E.)
subsequently spread throughout the West. The Toledan Tables stimulated an
interest in astronomy among scholars, since they predicted the planetary posi-
tions for any given moment in time, predictions that could be verified by direct
visual experience (Mercier 1987). The Alfonsine Tables, compiled in Toledo in
1252 by Jewish and Christian astronomers appointed by Alfonso X (1221–1284),

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which predicted the planetary motions with even greater precision, replaced the
Toledan Tables (Poulle 1984; Gingerich 1992b; some scholars do not believe that
the Alfonsine Tables originated in Spain and believe them to be of French origin;
Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b, 78).
These works were much discussed in the emerging European universities,
especially in Paris. In the universities, there was an effort to improve the status of
the liberal arts in relation to that of theology. The works of Aristotle received
special attention, since they were independent of, but not necessarily opposed to,
the canonical Christian scriptures and therefore opened up fresh perspectives on
science (Hoskin 1997b, 75; Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b, 74–75). Many outstand-
ing authorities on astronomy were members of the new mendicant orders and at
the same time erudite, renowned scholars of theology. Two famous Dominican
friars became especially important for the course of astronomy during the thir-
teenth century: Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–80) and Thomas Aquinas (1224/1225–
1274) referred to Aristotle and Ptolemy in their writings, and Thomas Aquinas
proposed a cosmology that reconciled Aristotelian ideas with Christian theology.
On the British Isles, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon (ca. 1219–ca. 1292) and John
of Holywood (Sacrobosco; thirteenth century) became important scholars with
major interests in astronomy. John, who taught in Paris and died there in 1256,
wrote several short works on astronomy, compiling the astronomical knowledge
of the time into texts for students; his works became most influential in the later
Middle Ages (Pannekoek 1961, 175; Pedersen 1985; Hoskin 1997b, 75–77; Hoskin
and Gingerich 1999b, 75–78).
The next stage of development in the science of astronomy was triggered in
the fifteenth century by the Renaissance interest in learned texts from antiquity.
Greek and Byzantine knowledge about astronomy came to the West. In particular,
the expansion of the Ottoman Turks forced the learned Byzantine elite to flee to
Italy, often with their libraries. The visit of the Greek scholar Cardinal Bessarion
(1403–1472) to Vienna, for example, aroused the interest of Georg Peurbach (1421/
1423–1461) and his assistant Johann Müller of Königsberg (1436–1476) from
Franconia in such texts, and they tried to get a more accurate manuscript of
Ptolemy’s writings by comparing and studying Greek manuscripts. Later, Johann
Müller, better known by his humanistic pseudonym Regiomontanus, established
a learned circle in Nuremberg and became one of the most influential German
astronomers of the time (Zinner 1938). Christopher Columbus (ca. 1451–1506) took
one of Regiomontanus’s books with him on his fourth voyage. He used the book
to predict a lunar eclipse on 29 February 1504, a prediction that helped him to
impress the hostile natives of Jamaica. He told them that the eclipse was a sign
that his God would punish them if they did not provide him and his men with
food. The account, attributed to Columbus’s son Fernando (1488–1539), recounts

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Astronomy 125
the story and concludes that after Columbus prayed to God and the eclipse had
reached its climax, he told the Indians that his God was willing to pardon them:
“From that time forward they were always careful to provide us with what we
needed, continually praising the Christians’ God, because they believed that the
eclipses they had seen in the past were to harm them, and not knowing what
caused them or that they occurred at certain intervals, and believing too that no-
one on earth could know what would happen in the heavens, they were certain
that the Christians’ God must have revealed it to the admiral” (Colón 2004, 223
[chpt. 103]). Astronomy was a handy tool for European expansion, as the knowl-
edge provided by handbooks like those of Regiomontanus could impress at least
some native tribesmen of the Caribbean.
At the end of the century, Copernicus—that is, Niklas Koppernigk (1473–
1543), born at Torun (Poland)—paved the way for radical new approaches to
astronomy. He did not believe that the earth was the center of the universe, but
instead favored a heliocentric model. In his opinion, the universe had multiple
centers of rotation: the moon revolved around the earth and the planets revolved
around the sun (Blumenberg 1965; Schmeidler 1970; Zinner 1988). There is a
scholarly debate regarding whether or not Copernicus was influenced by the
critics of Ptolemaic cosmology by Islamic scholars, namely Ibn al-Shatir (1304–
1375). However, in the light of the immense importance of Arab astronomy on the
medieval West, this may not be the important point here. As Owen Gingerich has
remarked, “the whole idea of criticizing Ptolemy and eliminating the equant is
part of the climate of opinion inherited by the Latin West from the Islam”
(Gingerich 1992a, 55).
Thanks to developments in knowledge and technology in the late Middle
Ages, astronomy increasingly became part of the medieval travel experience
(Schechner 2008). In the nautical sciences, astronomy helped in cartography and
the navigation of ships. Stars had always been important for navigation at sea,
but they became even more important by the late medieval and early modern
epoch. Although instruments like the astrolabe were well known, it was not until
the late medieval period that astrolabes were used on ships (Paselk 2008). In this
sense, the mainly theoretical disputes on astronomy in the high and late Middle
Ages set the foundations for the European expansion of the early modern period.
Astronomical knowledge and instruments were increasingly put to practical use
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The discoveries that resulted from this
practical knowledge of astronomy in turn increased the knowledge about astron-
omy to an extent that would have been unthinkable within the mainly theoretical
discourse of the Middle Ages.

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B Astronomical Instruments
The major contribution of medieval astronomers to modern astronomy was the
invention of astronomical instruments (for a bibliographically rich research over-
view on astronomical instruments, cf. King 2010). These instruments could be as
simple as the viewing pipe (or viewing staff), an instrument that helped the
observer to concentrate on one celestial object at a time. On p. 43, the Carolingian
cod. 18 from the Stiftsbibliothek at St. Gall depicts a monk using such an instru-
ment in his observation of the stars (Zinner 1979, 214–15; Euw 1989, 22–23).
The most important medieval astronomical instrument was the astrolabe.
This instrument is comprised of a disk with a ring on top (so that the instrument
can be suspended), and an observing bar that rotates about a pin in the disk’s
center, used for measuring (Hoskin 1997a; Hoskin 1999). It was widely used by
Islamic astronomers, and many Arabic star names became part of the learned
language of this science in the West. These names were not only transmitted
through written texts, but through the epigraphic writing on the astrolabes
themselves. For example, two astrolabes from the fourteenth century, today at
the Merton and Oriel Colleges of the University of Oxford, carry Latinized Arabic
star names (Gingerich 1992a, 49–51; Gingerich 1993, 81–114). Gerbert of Aurillac,
already mentioned above (see A), certainly encountered the astrolabe in Islamic
Spain and may have introduced it to Christian Europe. In the early eleventh
century, the instrument was known in the West, and Latin scholars like the
monk Hermannus Contractus, that is Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) and
Ascelin of Augsburg (early eleventh century) wrote treatises on its use. It
enabled astronomers in the West to measure the angle between the horizon and
the position of a heavenly body (Zinner 1979, 135–45; Pannekoek 1961, 174;
Hoskin 1997b, 72–73; Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b, 72; Borrelli 2008). Recent
research has scrutinized surviving astrolabes from the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. There is some debate as to whether or not there were Carolingian
forerunners to high medieval astrolabes from the West; if so, astronomy might
have been influenced by an independent, surviving Roman tradition of such
instruments as well as an introduced Islamic one (King 2011; for Renaissance
astrolabes, cf. Turner 2003).
Another instrument was the “old” quadrant, a brass quarter-circle with a
plumb bob. This instrument was first used in Europe in the first half of the
thirteenth century to measure altitudes and was useful as a sundial at any
latitude. It was described in an encyclopedia compiled by the astronomers of
Alfonso X. The Montpellier astronomer Profatius the Jew, Jacob ben Machir (ca.
1236–1304), combined it with the astrolabe (Hoskin 1997b, 80–81; Hoskin and
Gingerich 1999b, 79–80; King 2010, 127–28).

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Astronomy 127
For measuring the distance between two celestial objects, the cross staff was
widely used. The Jacob’s staff was the most common instrument used to measure
the altitude of the sun or a star above the horizon. The latter was invented by the
Jewish astronomer Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344) in the first half of the fourteenth
century (Zinner 1979, 207–10; Goldstein 1977; 1985). This instrument was one of
several that were used by navigators. The “nocturnal” was especially helpful for
navigation. It consisted of two concentric circles: the outer circle had a handle
and was graduated with an annular calendar, and the handle was attached at that
point where two of the stars from Ursa Major (the so called “Guards”) crossed the
meridian at noon. The inner circle rotated freely and was graduated into twenty-
four hours. This instrument could be used for telling the time at night or for
calculating the latitude of the navigator using the position of the Pole Star (Hoskin
and Gingerich 1999b, 80–81).
During the fourteenth century, sophisticated clocks came into use. They
illustrate the close link between time telling and astronomic observation, since
they were often used for astronomical purposes. Richard of Wallingford (ca. 1292–
1336), abbot of St. Albans in England, built one of these astronomical clocks
during the first half of the fourteenth century. It showed the phases of the moon
and eclipses. Several even more complex astronomical clocks followed, like the
famous “astrarium” by Giovanni de Dondi (1318–1389) from the University of
Padua (Zinner 1979, 14–46; Dohrn-van Rossum 1995, 170–75).
In the fifteenth century, several instruments were built on the basis of descrip-
tions found in Ptolemy’s writings. Regiomontanus describes the “triquetrum”
(“Dreistab”), mainly used to measure the altitude of the sun at midday. “It consisted
of a lath about 9 feet long (with two sights to direct it toward a star) which was
hinged at the top of a vertical pole; the lower end was pressed against a second lath,
graduated and hinged at a lower point on the pole; the distance from this point to
the lower end of the first lath indicated its inclination” (Pannekoek 1961, 181–82; cf.
Zinner 1979, 199–202). Another instrument found in Ptolemy, the “armilla,” was
both depicted and built in the fifteenth century (Zinner 1979, 202–03; Pannekoek
1961, 182; Hoskin 1997b, 86–87); however, there is already a depiction of such an
instrument in the Libros del Saber de Astronomía, which was compiled during the
reign of Alfonso X in the thirteenth century (Gingerich 1993, 116–17).
Although there were already observatories in major cities of Asia and the
Arab world like Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Maragheh, Samarkand and Istanbul,
they were not found in the Latin West before the late sixteenth century, when
Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) was active (Berry 1899, 76–8; Hartner 1977; Hoskin
1997b, 81; Hoskin and Gingerich 1997, 55–59; 1999a, 55–58; 1999b, 78). In contrast
to the Islamic world, medieval astronomical devices in Europe were portable and
not permanently associated with given locations.

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C Cosmographic Concepts and Astronomy in

Medieval Culture
Astronomy was a central part of medieval culture. It was not just perceived as a
science, but cosmographic concepts were part of a complex belief system that
included all contemporary knowledge on geography, cosmology, political theory,
and the religious otherworld at the same time. Depictions of the heavens are
therefore common in medieval art, and these depictions could function as sym-
bols of divine and worldly power.
Only a few Christian thinkers offered a cosmography that was consistent with
the Scriptures as an alternative to ancient Greek models of the heavens. The
Byzantine scholar Cosmas Indicopleustes (sixth century) imagined a flat earth
that was situated in a somewhat rectangular cosmos (Doig 1950, 44; Dilke 1987,
261–63; Euw 1989, 3). But such a model could not really supplant the older
concept of a spherical Earth in the center of a spherical universe. The prevalent
geocentric worldview, too, was not uncontested since antiquity, and heliocentric
theories, often ascribed to Heracleides of Pontus (fourth century B.C.E.), were
known to medieval astronomers through the highly influential allegorical work
De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii by Martianus Capella (probably fifth century
C.E.). Martianus describes Venus and Mercury as encircling the sun. From Martia-
nus’ work arose the medieval idea that the sun was the first center of the course of
those two planets, although they were at the same time indirectly circling around
the Earth together with the sun (Hoskin 1997b, 69; Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b,
69–70). In Carolingian astronomy, there were many discussions about the move-
ment of the planets since their erratic movements seemed inconsistent with the
idea of an Earth-centered universe. Fol. 160v of the Ms. Nouv. acq. lat. 1615 of the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris shows some planets moving forward and back-
ward on their way around the Earth to explain these unexpected movements
(Stevens 1999, 678). Such ideas of the planetary movements were widespread in
the Middle Ages and are found in the popular thirteenth-century text Theory of the
Planets, whose author discussed the retrograde motions of planets (Hoskin 1997b,
78–80; Hoskin and Gingerich 1999b, 78). These debates on the planetary move-
ments indicate that the Earth-centered model of the cosmos was challenged
during the Middle Ages and that medieval astronomers were as puzzled by the
erratic appearances of planets as were their forerunners in antiquity.
Despite these well-known contradictions (geocentrical cosmos, but inconsis-
tent planetary movements in regard to this assumption) in cosmographical theory,
the main medieval model of the cosmos was still based on Platonic and Pythagor-
ean ideas: the Earth, itself a globe, lay in the center of many similar spheres; a

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planet was fixed in each of these seven crystalline spheres. Behind them, a starry,
bluish-dark sphere, the sphaira, rotated daily from east to west (cf. Grant 1977, 60–
82). Heaven was thought to be above the sphaira, which was itself identified with
the throne of God, described in Revelations 4:2–3 and 6; Ezekiel 1:26.
In art, both the Earth and the cosmos could be indicated by a sphere or by its
two-dimensional counterpart, a circle. Since both the Earth and the cosmos as a
whole were thought to be spherical, a simple sphere could mean both of them.
This ambiguity became important in the representation of power in the Middle
Ages. The orb became an imperial symbol, first used in the seals of Otto I (912–
973) in the West. (There is one notable Carolingian exception: a statuette of a ruler
with an orb, today in the Louvre. For a summary of interpretations regarding this
object, cf. the critical remarks in Hack 2008.) Most probably, the Ottonian court
copied the Byzantine court, which in turn imitated the late Romans, who had
used orbs as signs of universal power and the rule of the Emperor. In the West, the
Roman kings and emperors, the kings of France (Robert the Pious, d. 1031) and
England, quickly followed the Ottonian example in adopting the orb as a sign of
sovereignty. At first, these orbs suggested that the sovereigns whom they symbo-
lized ruled not merely the earth, but the cosmos, as well. The Star Cloak of Henry
II (973–1024), today in the treasury of Bamberg Cathedral, placed the wearer
virtually in the center of the universe, residing on the sphaira in analogy to God.
But these imperial, cosmic connotations became less prevalent after the first half
of the eleventh century. As a consequence, the orb changed and a ring and
another horizontal division were added to it; now, it represented the “mundus
tripartitus” and became a symbol of earthly (and not universal) power (Schramm
1958; Schramm 1983; Baumgärtel-Fleischmann 1990; Schmitz-Esser 2007).
Cosmography did not merely appear in the insignia of power, but in medieval
architecture, as well. Since every circle or sphere could be seen as a depiction of
either Earth or the cosmos, it is nearly impossible to track all of these architectural
allusions (vaults, apses, balls, windows). In many places, a circle or sphere is
flanked by cosmic iconography. The thirteenth-century window rose of Lausanne
Cathedral shows zodiacal signs, Sol and Luna; the window itself allows celestial
light to enter the sacred space, thereby becoming a perfect symbol of the cosmos
itself (Beer 1956, 48–50). The central vault of the tomb of Galla Placidia (ca. 391/
394–450) is not only covered by stars, but also decorated with a cross flanked by
the four symbols of the Evangelists; the vault thus becomes a representation of
the sphaira, the throne of God, which, according to the Book of Revelation, is
flanked by the tetramorph (Rev 4:6–7). Like the orb, this iconography was a
Christian adaptation of an older model from Imperial Rome. According to Sueton
(ca. 70–after 128), Nero (37–68) in his Roman “Domus aurea” had had a rotating
ceiling installed that depicted the stars of Heaven (Suetonius Tranquillus 1908,

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60 [Nero 31,2]). Cassius Dio (ca. 164–after 229) had remarked that the form of the
Pantheon resembled that of the firmament (Cassius Dio 1961, 135–36 [53,27,2]).
Medieval cosmography was frequently depicted in iconography, and these depic-
tions show the indebtedness that medieval cosmography had to antiquity.
D Microcosmos and Macrocosmos

According to Plato (428/427–348/347 B.C.E.), the cosmos can be compared to a
spindle with eight whorls. Seven of them, representing the planets, circulate in
the opposite direction of the spindle, and the axis of this movement runs through
the eighth whorl–the Earth–which is the center of the universe. In this model, the
spindle itself is the sphaira, fixed with stars. But Plato’s account does more than
provide a metaphor for the erudite pre-modern vision of the cosmos, and his
underlying concept of a connection between macrocosm and microcosm survived
even the loss of popularity of the idea of the geocentric cosmography in the
sixteenth century. Plato writes: “But on every circle stands a siren that partici-
pates in its turn and makes thereby a specific sound. All eight together form a
harmony” (Platon 1973, 617 [book 10]). This Platonic idea of celestial harmony
makes it clear why music, together with astronomy, was part of the mathematical
“quadrivium” (see A above). Translations of Plato were well known in the Middle
Ages (e.g., Beierwaltes, ed., 1969; von Bredow 1972; Leinkauf and Steel, ed.,
2005). In medieval theory, there were three “musics”: the “musica mundana,”
created by the “sirens” in Plato’s metaphor and mirroring the harmony of the
world; the “musica humana,” which is the counterpart of the musica mundana
within the human being; and the “musica instrumentalis” of musical instruments.
The last is the only music that humans can hear (Euw 1989, 24; Naredi-Rainer
1999, 21). These “musics,” particularly the “musica mundana” and “musica huma-
na,” were interconnected, which was the reason for the influence of the stars on
human life.
According to an Aristotelian analogy, the macrocosm, or the course of the
stars, influenced the microcosm, the individual’s life. The microcosm was less
perfect than the cosmic harmony; although originally God made Man perfect, the
Fall alienated Man from this perfect harmony (Braunfels 1973, 46). These both
Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic views became fashionable beginning in the twelfth
century and served to increase the importance of astrology. As a consequence,
theories like the Melothesia Theory influenced the belief systems of the elite (Euw
1989, 25; Holl 1972, 574). According to this theory, every zodiacal sign is related to
a part of the body, starting with Aries (head) to Pisces (feet). A zodiacal man is
depicted in the famous fourteenth-century Très Riches Heures of the Duke of

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Astronomy 131
Berry, today in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol. 14v. The theory recom-
mended that certain types of bodily activities and the medical treatment of
particular body parts be undertaken during the times that constellations were in
particular positions in the sky. It is therefore not surprising that the Physician in
Geoffrey Chaucer’s (ca. 1343–1400) Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400) is said to have
been “well grounded in astrology” and so “he’d found a favorable hour, by means
of astrology, to give treatment” (Chaucer 1998, 11; for Chaucer’s own interest in
the astrolabe, cf. Eisner 1976 and King 2010, 128). The Italian physician Paolo dal
Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482), born at Florence and a friend of Nicholas of Cusa
(1401–1464), had studied medicine at Padua and dedicated a lot of his time to
astronomy. Similarly, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) himself had studied medicine,
as well (Abetti 1952, 54–62). We can see how far things had changed between the
early Middle Ages and the Renaissance when we look into the canons of the
Council of Braga, held in 563, which damned the Melothesia Theory. The Spanish
heretic Priscillian, who believed in the theory, had been executed during the
fourth century (Holl 1972, 574; Reimer and Chuaqui de Reimer 1989).
But the relationship between music and astronomy had more than just
astrological and medical implications, since in a medieval perspective both
shared the same mathematical foundations that made up the cosmos. High-me-
dieval theologians saw in this relationship between music and astronomy the
potential to understand God’s creation in a new way, and as a consequence, many
aspects of medieval culture, such as architecture and painting, were influenced
by these ideas. The underlying principle of the “quadrivium” could be seen in the
connections between its four sciences with numbers. The perfect harmony of
God’s creation was found in numbers and proportions. In music, the intervals and
their mathematical formulae were thought to mirror the same proportions that
determined the movement of the heavens, of planets and stars. From this perspec-
tive, God had created the world twice: first, he created the numbers and the
harmony of proportions as universal principles, and later he created the world
according to these standards. These ideas were in accordance with the writings of
the Church Fathers.
An examination of the number six will provide an illustrative example for this
understanding of numbers. Six was seen as one of the few perfect numbers that
equal the sum of their divisors (excluding the number itself, i.e., 3+2+1=6).
Augustine stated that we cannot say that “six is perfect, because God did all of his
work in six days; rather it took God six days to do all his work, because six is a
perfect number” (Augustine 1845, 301 [“De Genesi ad litteram,” IV,7,14]). Conse-
quently, the measurements of church buildings like Cluny III, the biggest medie-
val church in the West, was built with measures directly referring to perfect
numbers like six, 28 and 496 (Naredi-Rainer 1999, 74–77). Fol. 1r of Cod. 2554 in

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the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, a bible moralisée illuminated around 1250

shows God as “architectus mundi,” measuring the cosmos with a pair of com-
passes whilst creating it (Braunfels 1973, 48; Grant 1996, 83–88). In the twelfth-
century mosaics depicting the Creation in the cathedral at Monreale, God sets the
planets in place and sets their circular path, as well as their speed, around the
Earth within the blue sphaira with its golden stars.
As Nicolas Weill-Parot has shown recently, there seems to be a relationship
between astronomical (or astrological) images that were used for magical pur-
poses and the high- and late-medieval debate on astronomy, in which Scholastic
authors defined a natural, and thus licit, reason for astrological activity (Weill-
Parot 2002). The idea of the two creations and the Platonic-Aristotelian ideas of
macrocosm, microcosm, and universal harmony paved the way back to astrologi-
cal divination, thereby helping to convince early Christians of the value and
orthodoxy of such divination. The lines between intellectual, scientific discourse
and popular belief regarding the interdependence of the cosmic and the human—
in other words, the lines between astronomy and astrology—are never clear in the
Middle Ages.
Medieval people were startled by disturbances of heavenly harmony. Co-
mets were one such sign of disturbance and frequently reported in medieval
accounts. The movements of comets were not explained by the model of the
universe in which planets and fixed stars were thought of as mounted on crystal
spheres. “Stars have this name because they stay, because they always stay
fixed in heaven and do not fall,” explains Isidore. “The stars cannot fall,
because they are—as said before—immoveable, and they [just] move [because
they are] fixed to Heaven” (Isidore of Seville 1850, 179 [lib. 3, cap. 71,3]). Thus
any independent movement of a star was interpreted as a potent divine sign
that was, with the notable exception of the Star of Bethlehem, decidedly
negative. The Roman astrologer Marcus Manilius (fifth century) had mentioned
that comets induce crop failure, epidemics, and war, and even foretell great
defeats like that of Varus (d. 9 C.E.) in the Teutoburg Forest (Manilius 1990, 84–
94 [1,813–926]). Isidore agreed that the appearance of a comet “signifies illness,
hunger or war” (Isidore of Seville 1850, 180 [3,71,16]). The Bayeux tapestry
shows an unusual star in the picture that follows the depiction of the coronation
of Harold (ca. 1020–1066) as king of England, clearly implying that the corona-
tion was not in tune with celestial harmony. The star is not a mere invention of
the artists, since a comet did indeed appear in 1066: in February of that year,
Halley’s Comet was visible in the sky. However, it appeared four months after
Harold’s coronation, not immediately after it; the tapestry changes the chrono-
logy of the story to underline the injustice of Harold’s usurpation of the crown
(Schmitz-Esser 2007, 137–40).

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Astronomy 133
From the medieval perspective, astronomy was more than a science of the
stars; its study touched the very foundations of creation, astronomers asked for
the place of men in God’s “Heilsgeschichte,” and therefore celestial appearances
could even provide political arguments. This was possible because astronomy
seemed to reveal a part of the inner truth of the universe, and by depicting the
heavens medieval artists tried to illustrate the functioning of celestial harmony
and God’s creation.
Select Bibliography
Grant, Edward, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687 (Cambridge 1996).
Hoskin, Michael, ed., The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy (Cambridge 1999).
King, David A., Astrolabes from Medieval Europe (Aldershot 2011).
McCluskey, Stephen C., Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1998).
Naredi-Rainer, Paul von, Architektur und Harmonie: Zahl, Maß und Proportion in der abendlän-
dischen Baukunst, 6th ed. (1982; Cologne 1999).
Turner, Gerard L’Estrange, Renaissance Astrolabes and their Makers (Aldershot 2003).
Warntjes, Immo and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, ed., The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early
Middle Ages: Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables (Turnhout 2011).
Weill-Parot, Nicolas, Les “images astrologiques” au Moyen Âge et à la renaissance: Spéculations
intellectuelles et pratiques magiques (XIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris 2002).
Zinner, Ernst, Deutsche und niederländische astronomische Instrumente des 11.–18. Jahrhun-
derts, 2nd ed. (1956; Munich 1979).

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Stephen Penn
The Bible and Biblical Exegesis
A Introduction: the Medieval Bible

In his Summa Theologiae, the great Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas
described Holy Scripture simply as ‘the Law of the Faith, to which nothing must
be added and nothing taken away’ (Aquinas 1964–75, 2.2., q. 1, art. 9, a. 1). This
concise expression of a fundamental belief, in the form of an orthodox sola
scriptura position, serves to highlight not merely the centrality of Scripture in
medieval culture, but also offers, in a self-conscious echo of the book of Deuter-
onomy, a tacit anticipation of its potential abuses (cf. Deuteronomy 4:2). Copied
in whole or in part more widely than any other educational or literary text, the
Bible was subjected to intense exegetical scrutiny by students, scholars and
ecclesiastics across Europe throughout the medieval period.
In the east, biblical texts were translated into Syriac (the Aramaic language of
the Peshitta, a translation that circulated widely), Coptic (the language of ancient
Egypt, into which the Greek New Testament and the apocryphal Gnostic Gospels
were translated), Ethiopic (Ge’ez), Arabic, Armenian, and Georgian. These trans-
lations sometimes omitted one or more books, often because of their unavailabil-
ity rather than anxiety about canonicity, but occasionally lost texts were uniquely
preserved in these versions, and many included apocryphal books within their
translated canon. Syriac was also the language of the Gospel harmony known in
the west as the Diatessaron, produced in the second century by the Assyrian
writer Tatian, who converted to Christianity during a visit to Rome. The Diatessar-
on became the standard version of the gospels in Syriac Christianity until the
Peshitta translation displaced it in the fifth century. There is general agreement
that the Peshitta drew on the Diatessaron, though scholars are divided as to
whether the Diatessaron also draws on the Old Testament of the Peshitta (Joosten
2001). The original Syriac text of the Diatessaron no longer remains, so most
scholars look to the Arabic translation as the most authoritative available text.
The Diatessaron was also influential in the western church, through a variety of
translations (see below).
Jerome’s Latin ‘Vulgate’ Bible, commissioned by Pope Damasus during Jer-
ome’s visit to Rome in 382, gradually became the authoritative translation of the
medieval Christian church in the west. It was not officially recognized as an
orthodox document until the Council of Trent (1545–1563), at which the expres-
sion editio vulgata, in the sense understood today, was first officially applied to

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The Bible and Biblical Exegesis 135
the translation (Sparks 1970, 518). The term vulgate, therefore, though widely
used as a convenient term, is potentially misleading as a label for the Latin Bible
of Jerome known to medieval readers, or indeed as a term to identify the text that
Jerome worked on. Indeed, Jerome himself used the adjective vulgata in a rather
different sense, to identify the Greek Bible and the Latin derivatives that preceded
his own translation (Bogaert 2012, 69). The Vulgate was preceded by the so-called
Old Latin (Vetus Latina) translations, which relied only on the Septuagint rather
than the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Errors and infelicities inevitably arose
in the extensive process of copying this text, and it was largely due to inconsis-
tencies in the many renderings of identical sections of the scriptural text that
Jerome’s edition was commissioned.
With a sound knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, Jerome was eminently
qualified to offer a new, more accurate translation, and to rectify the pervasive
issues that the Old Latin versions presented. He began his translation by looking at
the Gospels, which he revised from the Septuagint. When he came to the Old
Testament, he again began by comparing the Vetus Latina text to that of the
Septuagint. Increasingly, however, he felt inclined to privilege the Hebrew Old
Testament over the Septuagint. Hence, he produced two versions of some Old
Testament books. The so-called ‘Roman Psalter’ was corrected with reference to
the Septugint, but the later ‘Gallican Psalter,’ which appears in the Vulgate, was
read alongside the Greek Old Testament translations that appeared in Origen’s
Hexapla, a parallel rendering of the Hebrew, the Septuagint and other Greek
versions of the text that survives in only a fragmentary form. A third version was a
new translation prepared according to the Hebrew (generally known as the iuxta
hebraicum version). By the end of his life, he had carefully consulted the Hebrew in
relation to the whole of the Old Testament in the preparation of his final Latin
version. Comparison of the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate reveals a number of
differences, not all of which are explicitly highlighted in the Hexapla. Below is a
clause from Genesis 3:1:
Serpens autem erat sapientior omnibus pecoribus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus.
(Vetus Latina)
[But the serpent was wiser than all of the animals that the Lord God had made.]
Sed serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus. (Vulgate)
[But the serpent was craftier than all of animals of the earth that the Lord God had made.]
Jerome’s translation rests on his interpretation of the Hebrew adjective ‘arum and
the Greek phronimotatos. The Hebrew word is genuinely ambiguous, and can
mean either ‘wise’ or ‘crafty’, but the Septuagint adjective phronimos, of which
phronimotatos is the superlative form, is more obviously suggestive of wisdom (or
prudence), which seems to account for the preference for this interpretation in the

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136 Stephen Penn
Vetus Latina version. Jerome presumably felt that the serpent would be more
fittingly described as ‘crafty,’ which the Hebrew text sanctions. In spite of the
fidelity of his translations, however, Jerome’s innovations were not readily wel-
comed by a church that knew the older Latin translations intimately.
I Germanic
Many vernacular translations of the Bible and of biblical material were made from
the Vulgate, but the earliest of the surviving vernacular versions is a translation
of the gospels from Greek into Gothic, the only member of the eastern branch of
the Germanic languages and also the oldest member of the Germanic language
family. This was produced by Wulfila (Latin Ulfilas) in the fourth century, prob-
ably for Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Though the antiquity of the
Gothic language and its unique script, which Wulfila himself invented (drawing
conspicuously on the Greek alphabet), have made it into something of a philolo-
gical curiosity, its status as the language of the earliest vernacular scriptural
translation (by several centuries) is no less remarkable. The most comprehensive
fragment is the sixth-century Codex Argenteus (Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek,
DG.1), so called because of its predominantly silver lettering. The codex has a
distinctive purple colour, a result of the application of dyes to the fine vellum, a
process that belonged to a broader tradition of prestigious manuscript prepara-
tion that dates from antiquity. What remain of the Codex Argenteus are 188 folios,
of which 187 are held in Uppsala and the other, which was discovered in 1970, in
Speyer Cathedral in Germany. The text is presented in scriptura continua, like the
texts of ancient Greece and Rome, and it is therefore likely that it would have been
read aloud (Murdoch, 2004; Heather 1996; Saenger 1997, 26).
Biblical material in the vernacular was copied in a sporadic manner in
Germany up until Charlemagne became king of the Franks in 768, even though
Christianity in Germany is traditionally seen to date from the baptism of Chlodowig
in 496. The Latin Gospel harmony that survives in the sixth-century Codex Fulden-
sis was influential in early medieval Germany, as its name confirms. It was taken to
Fulda, the sight of an important Benedictine monastery, by Boniface in the eighth
century. The preface to the codex, written by Victor, Bishop of Capua, Italy, tells
how “fortituo in manus meas incideret unum ex quattuor euangelium compositum
et absente titulo non inuenirem nomen auctoris” (By chance a book without a title
came into my hands, made out of the four gospels, but I could not find the name of
an author) (Ranke, ed., 1848, 1; my translation). He concludes finally, after con-
sidering the possibility that this might be the work of Ammonius of Alexandria,
that the most likely source is Tatian. Yet the text is an oblique descendant of

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Tatian’s Diatessaron, drawing upon much material from the Latin Vulgate. The
Latin text of the Codex Fuldensis was translated into the so-called ‘Fulda-Diates-
saron’, a close Old High German rendering of the original document. Beneath are
the Codex-Fuldensis (left) and the Fulda-Diatessaron (right) (Tatian 1872, 67):
In principio erat verbum et verbum In anaginne uuas uuort inti thaz uuort
erat apud deum et deus erat verbum. uuas mit gote inti got selbo uuas thaz uuort.
Hoc erat in principio apud deum. Thaz uuas in anaginne mit gote.
Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine Alliu thuruh thaz gitan inti uzzan sin
ipso factum est nihil quod factum est. ni uuas uuiht gitanas thaz thar gitan uuas.
In ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum. Thaz uuas in imo lib inti thaz lib uuas lioht manno.
The resemblance between the two passages is striking, even if the literary merits
of the latter are arguably few. Indeed, this east Franconian version of the Codex
Fuldensis has been described by Andrew Colin Gow as ‘a wooden, rather literal
translation’ (Gow 2012, 202). But the vernacular translation does illustrate the
influence of the Codex Fuldensis beyond the Latin language in the west. It was
translated into many other vernaculars, including Flemish, Dutch, Italian and
English (Metzger 1977, 20–25).
Old Saxon, the distant ancestor of Low German, was the language of a
number of metrical retellings of biblical material. The first of these, Genesis,
survives in only a fragmentary form (discovered in the Vatican library at the end
of the nineteenth century), but also serves as the basis for the Old English
Genesis B, which preserves in translation some of the most interesting portions
of the text. Parts of the narrative deviate very markedly from the biblical Genesis,
a point that inclined critics to assume that the author of the Old Saxon text must
simply have interpreted the scriptural story imaginatively, but F. N. Robinson
has argued that a likely source is the apocryphal Vita Adae et Evae (Robinson
1906, 390). One departure that has traditionally been identified, and which
survives only in the Old English version, is the representation of Satan not as a
serpent, but as an angel when he addresses Eve. The text itself, however, is not
terribly clear about the form that Satan takes. Certainly, he is a serpent when he
initially attempts and fails to lead Adam into sin, after coiling his body around
the Tree of Death. When he claims to be God’s messenger, Adam tells him, “þu
gelic ne bist/ænegum his engla, þe ic ær geseah” (“you are not like / any of his
angels that I have seen previously,” ll. 538–39) There is nothing very explicit
about the form he assumes when he goes on to address Eve, telling her, “æt
þisses ofetes” (eat of this fruit). He manages to convince her that obedience to
his words will allow her to avoid God’s wrath, but it is not until she speaks to
Adam about what she has done that it becomes clear that she perceives Satan to
be an angel, whatever his actual form is:

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138 Stephen Penn
Adam, frea min, þis ofet is swa swete,

blið on breostum, and þes boda sciene,
godes engel god: ic on his gearwan geseo,
þæt he is ærendsecg uncres hearran,
hefon cyninges: his hyldo is unc betere
to gewinnane þonne his wiðermedo. (655–60)
[Adam, my master, this fruit is so sweet

pleasant in my breast, and this bright messenger
[is] God’s good angel: I see in his dress
that he is our Lord the king of Heaven’s
messenger: it is better for us [to have] his kindness
than his antagonism.] (655–660)
Eve attempts to persuade Adam that he is mistaken, but that the messenger is
willing to forgive him and not to disclose his earlier hostility to the Lord. Prior to
tempting her to take and eat the fruit, Satan had told Eve that he had known the
angels of heaven (“ic can ealle swa geare engla gebyrdo” (583), but had not
himself claimed to be one. The degree to which this particular episode departs
from Genesis therefore remains debatable (especially given that it only survives in
Old English rather than Old Saxon).
The ninth-century Heliand (OSax. healer), a modern editorial title, offers a
retelling of the gospels as an heroic poem in Old Saxon. This draws heavily,
though not exclusively, on the Codex Fuldensis, and hence also loosely follows
Tatian’s Diatessaron. Like the Diatessaron, the Heliand draws its narrative from
across the gospels, and follows John’s chronology. Its opening song tells how four
men were given power from God to produce the gospels, though many others had
wished to record Christ’s work (Heliand, 1–12). There is no close parallel to this in
Victor’s preface, which concentrates rather on the fact that the gospels are not
uniformly concordant, and on the need to arrive at a single narrative that draws
upon all of them. This, of course, was the original purpose of the Diatessaron, but
the Heliand is an heroic poem rather than a theological treatise, so it is hardly
surprising that its author should wish to celebrate the heroic achievement of the
four authors of the gospels, and of their mighty leader (mahtig drohtin), Christ
himself (Heliand, 37). It survives in five European manuscripts, though a sixth
fragment, running from lines 5823–70, has recently been discovered in Leipzig
University Library (Schmid 2007; Pakis 2010, 281–304).
The Frankish monk Otfried of Weissenburg produced the Evangelienbuch or
Liber Evangelium at the end of the ninth century, which resembles a vernacular
Gospel harmony. It owes nothing, however, to the Codex-Fuldensis or the Fulda
Diatesseron, even though its author was educated at Fulda (and was seemingly
familiar with the text of the Heliand). It is arranged into five books, and Otfrid

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labours to explain why the four Gospels should be arranged into a five-book
narrative (Otfrids Evangelienbuch, ed. Erdmann, 1957). The chapter headings
throughout the book are in Latin, and the first chapter (“Cur scriptor hunc librum
theotisce dictaverit” [Why the author wrote this book in German]) is a careful
justification of the decision to relate the narrative of the Gospels in Franconian,
rather than Latin. It contains exegetical material (under the headings Spiritualiter
and Moraliter in chapters 26 and 28 of the first book, and as needed in the four
that follow), as well as the literal vernacular rendering of the biblical story.
As in the early medieval period, the later Middle Ages saw numerous verse
adaptations produced in the Germanic vernaculars. No complete Bible survives
from medieval Germany, though Andrew Gow suggests that because ‘Bible-
centred people’ were being accused of being Waldensians in the later medieval
period, it is not unlikely that such translations would have existed (Gow 2012,
206). The Augsburg Bible of 1350 contained the whole of the New Testament,
whilst the Wenzel Bible (1389), a translation of the Old Testament, was widely
copied and circulated. Recent research suggests that the Wenzel Bible, which
was produced for Wenceslas IV of Bohemia, who was king of Germany from
1376, was possibly composed earlier than 1387, the date recorded in the
explicit.
The most extensive example of Old English translation of the Old Testament
are the late eleventh-century Old English Hexateuch (the first six books of the Old
Testament, from Genesis to Joshua, now held in the British Library, MS Cotton
Claudius B.iv) and the early eleventh-century Old English Heptateuch (the first
seven books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Judges, held in Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Laud Misc 509). The first of these is distinguished by its several
hundred lavish illustrations (Withers 2007). Seven further fragments existed until
the seventeenth century, of which six now survive. The English scholar Ælfric, a
monk in Winchester and then Dorset, who later became the first abbot of a new
abbey in Eynsham, translated significant portions of the Heptateuch, though the
surviving text is clearly the work of more than one translator. He also prepared a
valuable preface to the Book of Genesis, in the form of a letter addressed to his
patron Æthelwærd, in which he describes his anxieties about producing a transla-
tion that might easily be misinterpreted by ignorant readers, who fail to under-
stand the difference between the Old and the New Laws, or even by ungelæredan
priests who do not appreciate the spiritual signification of its words. However, he
is clear that in spite of the spiritual profundity of this text, he will offer nothing
more than the ‘naked’ narrative:
We secgað […] foran to, þæt seo boc is swiþe deop gastlice to understandenne and we ne
writaþ na mare buton þa nacedan gerecednisse. (Praefatio to Genesis, 4, 43–5.)

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140 Stephen Penn
[We say at the outset that this book is exceedingly profound to understand spiritually, and
we write nothing more than the naked narrative.]
Ælfric is clear in his preface that he is keen to adhere as closely as possible to the
Latin of the Vulgate, but indicates also that the different syntactic conventions of
the two languages mean that he cannot always imitate it in its every detail. The
Old Testament translations find their companions in the Old English Gospels (once
known misleadingly as the West Saxon Gospels), which survive in six complete
copies (Liuzza 1994, xvi–xlii). There are also two fragmentary copies, as well as
some that are known to have existed but which do not survive (including Bede’s
Old English translation of St John’s Gospel). Alongside translations into the Old
English vernacular, literary interpretations of biblical books or particular epi-
sodes in the biblical narrative are common in the Anglo-Saxon period. Among the
most extensive of these are Genesis A and Genesis B, the latter a newly discovered
portion of the former (Genesis A 1978; Behagel 1903, 205–40). Other examples
include Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan, The Fates of the Apostles and a series of
poems devoted to Christ. The Dream of the Rood is a dream poem that offers a
depiction of the crucifixion in which Christ’s suffering is transposed onto the
crucifix itself, which addresses the dreamer and tells of its experience. The
Phoenix, a loose translation of an earlier Latin poem by Lactantius, is generally
interpreted as an allegorical representation of the resurrection.
The Wycliffite Bible was the first complete translation of the Bible into the
English vernacular, which was produced in the late fourteenth century and
circulated in around 250 copies, exceeding any other Middle English text. To
place this in perspective, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a popular text, has only
56 complete manuscripts (Seymour 1997, 1). It was accompanied by a lengthy
prologue outlining the need for a Bible in English, and also some important
comments on Wycliffite exegetical strategies, was produced by the followers of
the Oxford theologian and heresiarch John Wyclif in the late fourteenth century.
The author of the prologue remains unknown, though many assume that it was
the heresiarch John Purvey, a close follower of Wyclif (though there is no clear
evidence to support this assumption). It now seems unlikely that Wyclif was
himself personally involved in the translation process, though he may have
participated in the production of this translation of the Bible in a supervisory
role. Indeed, the only name that can be associated with any certainty with the
translation is that of Nicholas Hereford, though even here, the evidence is a
reference in a single manuscript to Hereford as translator of the Bible as far as
Baruch 3:20. William Caxton identified John Trevisa as a translator of the Bible,
though this evidence comes rather too late to be conclusive. What is perhaps
more certain than either of these possibilities is that the Wycliffite Bible was the

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product of more than one translator, and most probably a group of translators
working as a team.
II Romance
The Romance languages served as the vehicles for an equally rich array of
translations, paraphrases and poetic adaptations. The twelfth-century theolo-
gian Peter Comestor (d. ca. 1180), whose name (Latin ‘devourer’) has often been
regarded as a humorous allusion to his voracious appetite for books, made
perhaps the most significant contribution to later biblical translations. A student
of Peter Lombard at Paris, he produced the Historia Scholastica, a Latin histor-
ical biblical paraphrase that was influential in France, England and throughout
Europe, and won papal approval at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (Morey
1993, 6). The text proceeds by presenting a section of the scriptural text and
then paraphrasing it historically, often drawing on other scriptural material
where relevant. It was immensely popular both within and outside the schools,
and fast became a standard prescribed text (Smalley 1984, 178–79). A compar-
able Latin paraphrase is the Aurora of Peter Riga (d. 1209), latterly canon regular
of Reims Cathedral. This is an extensive metrical narrative that he completed
early in the thirteenth century, and which was widely copied (it survives in over
400 manuscripts). The Aurora, unlike the Comestor’s text, generally gives prior-
ity to the spiritual senses, offering a predominantly allegorical commentary.
Nevertheless, we are told in the prologue that the literal sense is the foundation
of all of the others, and the means by which to gain a rapid understanding of
the text (De Hamel 2001, 112). In spite of its popularity, the Aurora was seem-
ingly designed as a convenient way into the Scriptures, and not a resource for
the experienced scholar. The name Aurora (‘daybreak’), as Riga explains, gives
a clear indication of its purpose:
Sicut enim Aurora terminum nocti imponit, principiumque diei adesse testator, sic et
libellus iste tenebras umbrarum et veteris legis obscuritates discutiens veritatis fulgore et
allegoriarum scintillulis micantibus totus refulgeat. (Fragmenta ex Aurora, Patrologia Latina
112, col. 19)
[Just as daybreak forces the night to end and the arrival of the day to be seen, so likewise
this little book brings light by dispelling the darkness of the shadows and the obscurities of
the Old Law with the brightness of the truth and the flickering sparks of allegories.]
Just as the angel said to Jacob after their nocturnal struggle, ‘let go of me, for it is
daybreak,’ (Genesis 32:26), so Peter, we are told, after the struggle and labour that
went into his book, speaks the same words, as if to say, ‘I bring about an end to

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this book, because I have dispelled the darkness and the shadows’ (Aurora, pros.
prol).
The Comestor’s Historia Scholastica was possibly completed by Peter of
Poitiers (d. ca. 1215), who extended it with a compendium of Acts (Smalley 1983,
214). He also produced his own biblical paraphrase, in which he sought to
abbreviate what had been made available by Riga and the Comestor. What he
produced was the Compendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi, which, as its
name suggests, presents biblical history in the form of a genealogical study of
Christ’s ancestry, beginning with Adam. The Compendium was presented as a
kind of family tree, with accompanying biographical sketches. It was often
copied onto parchment rolls rather than codices, for ease of reference, and was
translated into a number of European vernacular languages, including English.
It served partly as an aid to memorisation, as is indicated in the prologue
(Carruthers 1990, 329). Often, this text was copied together with the Comestor’s
Historia Scholastica.
The thirteenth century witnessed the arrival of a significant number of com-
plete, or virtually complete, French vernacular translations. The celebrated Bible
Historiale of Guyart des Moulins (b. 1251), canon and then dean of St Peter’s
church at Aire, was an extended prose translation of the Historia Scholastica, and
also drew on material from the Vulgate. Many of the manuscripts in which it is
preserved are lavishly illustrated. It was completed in 1295 (Robson 1959, 448).
Earlier vernacular Bibles include the Acre Bible, possibly produced for St Louis IX
of France during his visit to Acre (1250–1204), then capital of the Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem, and La Bible Française du xiiie siècle, as it is now known. The latter
is generally regarded as the first complete French vernacular translation of the
Bible, whose existence came to light only after manuscripts of Guyart’s Bible
Historiale had been studied closely, revealing that the Vulgate translations in the
text were not Guyart’s own, but were drawn from an existing translation of two
volumes’ length. This translation also exists in three independent manuscript
copies (Sneddon 1979, 130). It probably originated in Paris, which had become an
important centre of manuscript and codex production by this time. The Acre Bible
is preserved in seven manuscripts, the oldest of which is held in the Bibliothèque
de l’Arsenal (La Bible d’Acre 2006, xvii–xxiv). Some of the later manuscripts
include a series of marginal glosses that seem to have belonged to the original
copy, but which were omitted by the scribe who produced the Arsenal version (La
Bible d’Acre 2006, xxxvii).
Prior to the thirteenth century, vernacular translations generally extended to
one or more scriptural books. One of the great monuments of twelfth-century
scholarship is Li Quatre Livre des Reis, a prose translation of the four books of
Kings (1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, which were grouped together in the

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Vulgate, following the Septuagint). The translation proceeds verse by verse, and
commentaries are appended where they are perceived to be necessary. An exam-
ple is 1 Kings 1 (1 Samuel 1), in which the infertile Anna, one of Elcana’s two
wives, is blessed with a child after praying to God and vowing to dedicate her son
to his worship for the whole of his life. The commentary interprets the story of
Elcana and his two wives allegorically:
L’estorie est paille, le sen est grains; le sen est fruit, l’estorie raims. Cist lives est cum armarie
des secreiz Deu. Plein est de figure et de significance. […] Helchana, ço est la possession
Deu, e signifie le fiz Deu. (Li Quatre Livre des Reis, ed. Curtius, 1911, 5)
[The story is straw, [and] its meaning is the grain; the meaning is the fruit, [and] the story
the branch. This book is like an armoury of God’s secrets. And this is clear in respect of
the figure and its meaning. […] Elcana is in the possession of God, and signifies the son of
God.
The interpretation of Elcana as an allegorical representation of the son of God was

a popular one throughout the medieval period, as was the suggestion made later
in the commentary that his two wives, Anna and Phenenna, represent Holy
Church and the synagogue, respectively. Both of these allegorical readings are
found in the Glossa Ordinaria, the standard scholarly commentary that was itself
assembled in the twelfth century (see Section B, below), in which they are
attributed respectively to Jerome and Gregory.
The most widely copied of the earliest vernacular biblical fragments in
France, as throughout much of the rest of Europe, was the Psalter. Among the
best known of the early translations is the Montebourg Psalter, produced around
1200 and used at the Benedictine monastery at Montebourg in Normandy. This is
a Norman rendering of Jerome’s Gallican Psalter, and is now held in the Bodleian
Library (MS Douce 320). The accents in the text, which occur regularly over
stressed syllables, have been regarded as evidence that it was used in public
readings (Berger 1884, 10). An earlier example is the trilingual Eadwine Psalter,
which was probably composed around 1160 and was based on Jerome’s iuxta
hebraicum translation of the Psalms. It contains a Latin text with Old English and
Anglo-Norman glosses.
In Italy and Spain, vernacular Bible translation developed rather later. The
Italian vernacular Bible emerged from the thirteenth or possibly the twelfth
century onwards, though the earliest manuscripts date from the fourteenth cen-
tury (Foster 1969, 452). Evidence for the early circulation of sections of the Bible is
therefore largely derived from literary sources. Most prominent among these, of
course, is the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri (Leonardi 2012, 269; Hawkins
1993/2007; Kleinhenz 1986). The Bible is the most cited text here, appearing in the
region of 575 times (Kleinhenz 1986, 125). The earliest surviving manuscripts of

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discrete translations (one of books from the New Testament and one of the
Psalter) date from the fourteenth century, though both were translations of
French vernacular renderings, with accompanying glosses (Leonardi 2012, 269–
70). Copies of the Vulgate, needless to say, were made rather earlier, and include
the famous Giant Bibles of the eleventh and twelfth century, many of which were
produced in Rome (Ayres 1994).
In Spain, vernacular translations into Spanish and Catalan appeared from the
twelfth century onwards. Most early Spanish vernacular translations were pro-
duced in the Castilian dialect, and the impulse behind these was the monarch of
Castile, Alfonso X (reigned 1252–1284), widely regarded as the first Spanish
monarch to demand a Spanish vernacular translation of the Vulgate Bible (Ave-
noza 2012, 289; Morreale 1969, 470). The result was a lengthy text, but not a
pandect. Indeed, Alfonso prioritized historical material that could be construed
literally in his General Estoria, a kind of world history based on close biblical
paraphrase, initially of the Old Testament (Avenoza 2012, 289). This was possibly
inspired in part by the Latin Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor (see above),
which the translators are likely to have known. The Hebrew Old Testament was in
several cases translated directly, and the Hispanic Jewish community played a
vital role in this process. Begun early in the twelfth century, and thereby predat-
ing the General Estoria, is the Fazienda de Ultramar. It is preserved uniquely in
the Biblioteca Universitaria de Salamanca (MS 1997; see http://www.lafazienda
deultramar.com/ [last accessed on March 1, 2014] for images of the manuscripts
and a transcription of the text). A later vernacular Bible translated from the
Hebrew is the lavishly illustrated Alba Bible, which was translated by Rabbi Mosé
Arragel de Guadalajara for Don Luis de Guzmán, Grand Master of the Order of the
Calatrava. This is a rare example of a Bible that survived in its entirety (Morreale
1969, 466). Jewish translations from the Hebrew continued throughout the re-
mainder of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but attracted suspicion during
the Inquisition, which began in 1478. Catalan Bibles were subjected to censorship
from an early stage, and none survive from earlier than the fourteenth century.
Early translations, such as that commissioned by Alfons III of Aragon in 1287,
which was translated from a French Bible, do not survive (Avenoza 2012, 301). Nor
does the fifteenth century Valencian version made by Bonifatius Ferrar, except for
a single sheet (the others were deliberately destroyed) (Morreale 1969, 467).
Evidence of a Bible commissioned by Pere IV of Aragon (1319–1287) survives in
later manuscripts. Versions from the fifteenth century mainly survive in fragmen-
tary forms, if at all. A variety of other translated fragments remains in existence
today, as well as a fifteenth-century of a gospelbook, Evangelis del Palau (Aveno-
za 2012, 301–04).

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B Biblical Exegesis
Throughout the medieval period, the Bible was interpreted according to its four
senses: the literal (the historical sense), the allegorical (used to reconcile the Old
and the New Laws), the tropological (or moral) and the anagogic (dealing with the
last things). Medieval exegesis followed the techniques inherited from the Patris-
tic period, just as it prized the Patristic Latin translation of the Scriptures prepared
by St Jerome. The distinction between letter and spirit, or literal and figurative
interpretations of the text of the Bible, was central to Patristic and medieval
exegesis: like many who would follow him, Jerome saw the letter of the text as the
word made flesh (Smalley 1983, 1). But to see beyond the letter, for the fathers and
for medieval readers, was to gain access to the spirit, which, like the human soul,
was eternal and incorruptible. Scripture was produced by human authors and
scribes, who physically committed the words to the manuscript, but scriptural
truths were recorded under the influence of divine inspiration: God was working
through the authors in order to make his word known. To this end, early medieval
exegetes believed that the spiritual senses were to be accorded priority.
The Venerable Bede is now remembered principally as an historian, but his
exegetical work (mainly in the form of commentaries) was regarded as authorita-
tive throughout the medieval period. Bede’s writing sought to expound carefully
the teaching of the church fathers, whose learning he applied diligently to the
study of the Vulgate Scriptures. Indeed, Beryl Smalley goes as far as to suggest
that “the patristic tradition ends with the Venerable Bede” (Smalley 1983, 35).
Bede produced commentaries on a wide range of biblical books, including Mark
and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles, and the Apocalypse (from
the New Testament), and Genesis, Proverbs, and the Song of Songs (from the Old
Testament). This list is far from comprehensive, and it is essential to point out that
not all of Bede’s commentaries survive: the commentaries on Isaiah, Esdras, and
Nehemiah, Kings and Chronicles, and Job, among several other Old Testament
commentaries, have disappeared. Bede is keen to highlight his indebtedness to
the fathers, who are frequently cited. Unsurprisingly, he devoted particular atten-
tion to Jerome, Gregory the Great, and Augustine (his commentary on the Song of
Songs contains extracts from the writings Gregory the Great at the end).
During the Carolingian Renaissance, academic study of the Bible took place
in monasteries and (latterly) cathedral schools. Carolingian exegesis was seldom
original: the fathers and their interpretations were reproduced largely uncriti-
cally. Alcuin, a preeminent scholar of the period, was called to Charlemagne’s
court at Aachen in 782. His work at the Palace School in Aachen, including
personal tuition of the Emperor, transformed educational practice there. His
respect for the fathers is epitomized in the final lines of his poem addressed to

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scribes: “Vel nova vel vetera poterit proferre magister / Plurima, quisque legit
dicta sacrata partum” (Anyone who reads the hallowed sayings of the fathers /
can expound many subjects both old and new; Godman 1985, 138–39). Other
significant exegetes of this period include Hrabanus Maurus, Walafrid Strabo,
Claudius of Turin, John Scotus Eriugena, Haimo, and lastly Remigius of Auxerre.
The latter had some knowledge of Greek.
If the period between the beginning of Charlemagne’s reign as Holy Roman
emperor and the tenth century was a period of exegetical reflection, characterized
largely by a reliance on the hermeneutic insights of the fathers, the twelfth
century can be characterized as the period during which logic made its way into
the analysis of Scripture, and descriptive commentary was supplanted by the
quaestio. Hugh, Andrew and Richard of St. Victor, all of whom studied and taught
at the Abbey of St Victor in Paris, are among the most outstanding exegetes of this
period. Hugh’s Didascalicon de studio legendi is, as its title suggests, a guide to
the reading process. Here, in the last three chapters, he guides his students
through the interpretation of Scripture, suggesting in the second chapter of
Book 5 that Scripture conveys its meaning according to three senses, the histor-
ical, the allegorical and the tropological (he fails to mention to anagogic). He
dwells at length on the second of these, arguing in the third chapter that the
spiritual sense, in which things signify, is the voice of God, whereas the historical
(or literal) sense is merely the voice of men. In Chapter 4 of Book 6, he introduces
an architectural analogy. The foundations of a building, he suggests, unlike the
building itself, may be constructed from stones that do not fit together precisely.
This, he suggests, is often the case with the literal sense: it may contain contra-
dictions or inconsistencies. The spiritual sense, however, like a building, can
have no contradictions. This privileging of the spiritual sense above the literal has
Pauline foundations, as Hugh points out.
The twelfth century also saw the arrival of a standardized biblical gloss,
known today simply as the Glossa Ordinaria. This document, which took the form
of marginal and interlinear glosses (many of which were extracts from patristic
sources), remained authoritative throughout the medieval period. The assump-
tion that it was assembled by Walafrid Strabo (to whom it is ascribed, for
example, in Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina) is no longer accepted. In-
deed, the glosses that constitute this massive document have their origins across
centuries of scholarship. The Glossa Ordinaria arrived in the form of a unitary
sequence of glosses at the hands of the brothers Anslem and Ralph of Laon, but
was significantly improved upon by Peter Lombard’s and Anselm’s student
Gilbert of Poitiers (Swanson 2001). Peter Lombard, of course, produced his own
monumental theological document, the Sententiarum libri quattuor, in the second
half of the twelfth century. This gave rise to many academic commentaries, and

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became a standard theological guide, extending to four lengthy books. It was

structured according to distinctiones, each of which contained several chapters
dealing with a common theological topic. The document proceeds rationally,
drawing its authority from a selection of illustrative scriptural passages, together
with a range of patristic and medieval scholarly authorities.
The exegetes considered thus far were united in their reverence of the spirit-
ual senses of Scripture. With Thomas Aquinas and the tradition of Aristotelian
exegesis that grew out of his work, this position shifted radically. In the Summa
Theologiae, he argues that the literal sense of the Bible is the sense that God, its
divine author, intends. The literal sense, thus construed, contains all of the senses
that a passage from Scripture might have (the three spiritual senses, as well as the
historical sense). Aquinas deals with this issue whilst considering whether one
passage in Scripture can have more than one sense:
Quia vero sensus litteralis est quem auctor intendit, auctor autem sacrae Scripturae Deus
est, qui omnia simul suo intellectu comprehendit, non est inconveniens, ut dicit Augustinus
XII confessionum, si etiam secundum litteralem sensum in una littera Scripturae plures sint
sensus. (Aquinas 1964–1975, 1a.1.article 10)
[Because the literal sense is the sense that an author intends, and the author of Holy
Scripture is God, who comprehends all things together in his understanding, it is not
inconsistent, as Augustine says in the twelfth book of the Confessions, there are more
meanings in one passage, even if [interpreted] according to the literal sense.]
This interpretation of the literal sense necessarily invests it with supreme author-
ity. Whatever the divine author intends must necessarily be most authoritative.
This notion was embraced and elaborated upon by the Franciscan exegete Nicho-
las of Lyra, who argued in his Postilla Literalis that Scripture in fact had a twofold
literal sense (duplex sensus literalis), which encapsulated both literal (historical)
and spiritual significations. Like Aquinas (following Augustine), he insisted that
the literal sense had to serve as the foundation of any argument, and that the
spiritual senses should always be consistent with what is found in the literal
sense. He illustrates this with an architectural analogy: ‘just as a building which
begins to part company with its foundations is inclined to collapse, so a mystical
exposition which deviates from the literal sense must be considered unseemly
and inappropriate’ (trans. Minnis and Scott in Minnis 2010, 268). This principle
was followed in the late fourteenth century by the Oxford scholar and heresiarch,
John Wyclif, who borrowed a term from the fashionable logicians of his day
(whose work he deplored) to argue that all parts of Scripture are de virtute
sermonis true.
For the logicians, to argue that something was de virtute sermonis true was to
suggest that it was literally true according to the immediate signification of the

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words, or the ‘force of the utterance.’ Wyclif turned this expression against them,
interpreting as the sense intended by the divine author, the sense produced by the
inspired human authors of Scripture.
Wyclif was not the last medieval exegete, but his literalistic exegesis was
significant in bringing about the first complete vernacular English translation of
the Bible. Its translators, like Wyclif himself, believed that divine intention could
be communicated no better in one language than another. Implicitly, an accurate
translation of the Bible relied as much upon the grace and inspiration of God as
the product of its original human authors. To this extent, Wyclif serves as a
convenient conclusion of this summary of medieval biblical exegesis, even
though medieval exegesis continued well into the fifteenth century.
Select Bibliography
Ackroyd, P. R. and C. F. Evans, The Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to Jerome

(Cambridge 1970).
Evans, Gillian R., The Language and Logic of the Bible: the Road to Reformation (Cambridge
1985).
Evans, Gillian R., The Language and Logic of the Bible: the Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge 1984).
De Hamel, Christopher, The Book: A History of the Bible (London 2001).
Lampe, G. W. H., ed., The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Fathers to the

Reformation (Cambridge 1969).

Lubac, Henri de, Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l’écriture (Paris, 1959–1964), 4 vols.
Marsden, Richard and E. Ann Matter, ed., The New Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2 (Cam-
bridge 2012).
Metzger, Bruce, M., ed., The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origins, Transmission
and Limitations (Oxford 1977).
Minnis, Alastair, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle
Age, 2nd ed., with a new preface by the author (1984; London 2010).
Morey, James H., Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature (Chicago 2000).
Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (1940; Oxford 1983).

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Daniel Pigg
Children and Childhood in the Middle Ages
A Changing Views of Childhood in the Middle

Ages Among Scholars
When readers encounter texts written during the Middle Ages, they find many
different representation of childhood in the period between the fall of the
Roman Empire and 1500 C.E. Depending on the particular literary and historical
paradigm that scholars use, how these children are viewed can vary widely. A
traditional notion developed in Medieval Studies, following the assertions of
Philippe Ariès Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Règime (1960; Centuries of
Childhood: A Social History of the Family, 1962), asserted that childhood was not
really a separate category for understanding human life in a full sense. A
quotation such as “Henceforth it was recognized that the child was not ready
for life and that he had to be subjected to a special treatment, a sort of
quarantine, before he was allowed to join the adults” (Ariès 1962, 412) suggests
an attitude built on an understanding of childhood during the Renaissance or
early modern period which constructed childhood as a significant category for
perceiving life. From the scholarly work of Barbara A. Hanawalt (1993), James
A. Schultz (1995), Albrecht Classen (2005), Ruth Karras (2003), Nicholas Orme
(2001), and Paul B. Newman (2007), to name just a few, childhood has been
reclaimed as a category of significance for the Middle Ages. Ariès’s stridency
about adults not having emotional expressiveness toward their children based on
the misreading of texts was actually an important catalyst for reconsideration of
what literature, historical records, conduct literature, philosophical and theologi-
cal documents, and material cultural practice as revealed through archaeology
could tell observers.
How to read the evidence has been the source of considerable attention.
Schultz does, however, still support certain aspects of the older thesis: “Middle
High German [MHG] writers regard childhood as a time of deficiency that warrants
little attention for its own sake. At the same time there is much evidence to
support the revisionist critics of Ariès: those who challenge Ariès’s charge of
parental indifference will find vocal allies in MHG parents, who are extravagant
in expressing love for their children” (Schultz 1995, 19). For Schultz, then, it is
important to separate children and childhood in some way. Hanawalt examines a
considerable body of archival evidence, but warns historians in particular not to
use evidence of the raucous behavior of adolescents, particularly court cases

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involving theft and homicide to create the images of the age category (Hanawalt
1993, 8–9).
For scholars such as Classen (2005), Karras (2003), Orme (2001), and Newman
(2007), literary study, informed by the work of social historians, challenges the
understanding of our ability now to write a macro-history on this topic and
instead provide an avenue for understanding the subtle nuances of the topic. In
the midst of these newer methods of study, Shulamith Shahar, working from a
psychological paradigm, finds a good deal of precedents in medieval texts for
some of what we might today call a “psychological awareness” of childhood and
adolescence (Shahar 1990, 1–42). Childhood in the Middle Ages was indeed a rich
and varied experience depending upon geographical location, gender, social
class status, disease, and time period. As Paul B. Newman observes, “adults in
medieval Europe did recognize childhood as a time in which children learned and
developed and that they did not treat children simply as little adults” (Newman
2007, 1). How to separate the boundaries of childhood from adolescence and
adolescence from adulthood can be understood both from the perspective of
biology and development as well as the social construction of roles in society.
Each social class seems to have had different ideas. Shahar notes a tripartite
division of ages that can serve as a basis for understanding childhood, commonly
known to medieval people: birth to age seven (the infant stage), seven to fourteen
or fifteen as the stage of boys and girls, and adolescents beginning around age
fifteen (Shahar 1990, 28). Such a tripartite division finds literary expression in a
Middle English text called The Parliament of the Three Ages. The ages of the
human being are a standard topos of medieval literature.
B The Boundaries of Age

How to determine the parameters of childhood was certainly a question that had
a number of different answers in the Middle Ages, depending if one looks at
medical sources. For those who consult medical sources, the ages of 13, 14, and
15 arise, with some discrepancy between boys and girls as markers for the onset
of typical hormonal changes, but as Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) main-
tained, the processes for both males and females were not complete until
around twenty years of age (Newman 2007, 241). Adolescence meant that
marriage was now a possibility, particularly for girls, and the evidence suggest
a variety of ages from 12 to 18 as normative across various segments of the class
structure. At the same time, it also shows that males married later, and that in
most cases married younger women, particularly if they were a part of the crafts.
While modern medicine might quibble over the ages here slightly, one might

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Children and Childhood in the Middle Ages 151
say this understanding accords well with a modern understanding of the ma-
turation process.
Given the abundance of literature about childhood and adolescence available
and the characterization of adolescence with a lack of discretion, there also seems
to have been some mild awareness that mental growth was not complete during
the childhood and adolescent years. In the early twentieth century, G. Stanley
Hall suggested a date of 30 as the end of adolescence (Hall 1904, 1: 2–56); there is
evidence that the medieval world considered adolescence lasting well into the
20s (Havinghurst and Dreyer 1975, ix). While it might be tempting to end a study
of childhood at an age between 7 and 15, if the motif of protection and education
are important concepts in childhood, some consideration should be given to the
adolescent years. As scholars such as Karras (2003), Hanawalt (1993), and Fitzger-
ald (2007) have shown, there is a rich literature of instruction for the noble classes
and a rich body of evidence for the life of the guilds in cities such as London and
York to demonstrate “parental roles” and “guardianship” extend well into the late
teens and twenties in this social class.
C Childhood and Law

The world of law also attempted to define childhood with respect to punish-
ments, if a person became involved in some kind of crime. Determining what
could be termed an “age of understanding and accountability” suggests differ-
ing results as the Middle Ages progresses. The ages seven and twelve emerge in
legal texts. As Edward James has noted in the Merovingian law code, “boys
under twelve are protected by wergild three times that of an adult Frank, and
that cutting the hair of a long-haired boy (puer criminis), or cutting the hair of a
free girl, is punishable by a heavy fine” (James 2004, 12). The code distinguishes
between a boy and a boy with long hair, and the consensus is that long hair
indicated a free-born status (James 2004, 12). What is more intriguing is that the
wergild assigned a woman who could bear children was three times that of a
young girl (James 2004, 12). While drawing conclusions here would be difficult
and premature, the evidence suggests a higher status for boys than girls, but
understands the procreative abilities of females as a central commodity less in
its future than in its present state. The protected status of childhood moved
quickly to the responsible status of adolescence noted as either twelve or fifteen
in various Frankish law codes (James 2004, 12). They could be officially charged
with crimes and sentenced. In Anglo-Saxon England, a male was considered of
age to serve on a jury at age 15 and at age 12, he was to “swear to keep the
peace” (Orme 2001, 322).

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From the time of King Aethelstan (ca. 893–939) in the 10 century C.E., a male
could be charged with theft of property if he were older than 12 (Orme 2001, 322).
Children as early as the thirteenth century could apparently serve time in prison
for homicide, whether intended or accidental (Orme 2001, 323), except for cases
where the church or crown intervened. Later in the Middle Ages, the age of 14
seems to have become fixed as an age after which a person would have to bear
the full weight of responsibility for a felony (Orme 2001, 324). From these diverse
references across multiple centuries and countries, it seems apparent that age
seven and fourteen are important in establishing the passages of childhood. Even
with these clearly noted age distinctions, Orme notes that “Most people’s adult-
hood, in the modern sense, was postponed until much later. Noble and gentle
heirs did not inherit until twenty-one, allegedly because their military duties
needed greater strength and understanding. In the world of work, apprentices
came out of service only in their twenties, and in that of the Church, clerks could
be made priests only at twenty-four” (Orme 2001, 327). These last observations
suggest just how fraught the educational process for adulthood could be and
precisely how much was expected.
D Birth and Early Years

No doubt the birth of a child produces feelings of happiness along with potential
anxiety. Those feelings are likely transhistorical, but in the medieval world,
problems existed around delivery that complicated matters more directly. Scho-
lars differ on the actual number of infants who died in delivery or shortly after,
with some theories suggesting one in three. At the same time, the number of
mothers who died during delivery might range from one in ten to one in forty
(Newman 2007, 20–21). While some very poor women might have delivered their
children in a hospital, it seems that midwives delivered the majority, with little to
no assistance from a physician. In the midst of a Christian Europe, many of these
midwives were Jewish women (Shahar 1990, 33–45; Newman 2007, 10–22). Some-
times midwives performed emergency baptisms, if the infant was not expected to
live. With a successful birth, godparents would likely present the infant for
baptism often one week after birth, given that women had to be readmitted to the
church formally after the birth of a child (Shahar 1990, 45–51; Newman 2007,
21–35). In Jewish communities, circumcision ceremonies might occur as early as
eight days after birth, but more likely later, either at home or the synagogue
(Newman 2007, 35–37). Depending on the economic fortunes of the family, the
infant would be assigned a wet nurse, if the mother did not nurse her own child.
Nursing itself might continue for up to three years for males, with a typically

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shorter period given to females (Hanawalt 1993, 58–59). The care of infants,
involving such activities as bathing and swaddling, was also functional, for
swaddling was seen as actually contributing to the shape of the newborn who had
little shape and, of course, to keep the body warm (Shahar 1990, 83–90; Newman
2007, 62–66). As can be imagined, the period from birth to age 7, the typical end
of the infancy stage, was not without its own perils. As children began to move
outside the house, their potential for injury increased, and even inside the house,
there was the potential for falling into the cesspits under the houses and drown-
ing (Hanawalt 1993, 28). Medieval homes were probably less “child-proof” than
modern homes. Moving outside the house, however, also provided a space to
introduce children to the world of play and formal education.
E Older Childhood
I Play and Education
If social historians disagree on the role of conduct books and moralizing rhymes
on the daily lives of children, they are united in their consideration of the place of
play in the life of the child during the infant and child stages. These texts do give
significant windows onto the culture of the period, so a popular one is provided
below:
By street or way if thou shalt go

From these two tings thou keep thee fro:
Neither to harm child nor beast
With casting, turning west nor east
(Orme 2001, 131)
On the surface, the lyric seems innocent enough, but it suggests a knowledge that
children do throw things at other children or animals. In doing so, they would
anger either child or animal and might pay significant consequences for the
action. At the same time, the lyric builds in parental advice at a level that the
advice goes with the child even when the parent is not present. That it might have
been memorized is clearly possible.
In a chapter devoted to childhood play, Newman notes a variety of toys made
from wood and other substances, kites, balls, marbles, and dolls; and he also finds
what we might now call leisure activities such as swimming, water jousting,
tennis, football, wrestling, and archery (Newman 2007, 76–95; also noted in
Shahar 1990, 103–05). Clearly, some of these kinds of play and instruments of play
are for older children, and their ability to engage in them would have been related

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to the economic fortunes of the family. It is hardly surprising then that when
children do surface in literary texts, they are often engaged in the world of play.
While it is certainly easy to see the development of play connected with the
improvements in technology in the Middle Ages, there is also ample evidence as
Sally Crawford has shown that Anglo-Saxon (seventh–eleventh century C.E.)
children had toys and games as evidenced by their appearance in burial findings
(Crawford 1999, 139–45).
Education certainly occupies the life of the child as well. That would cer-
tainly begin at home amidst a child’s parents and other siblings, but it would
also involve more “formalized” for some. Certainly educational attainment varied
a great deal, with some never learning basic literacy skills at all to those how
where able to debate in Latin at the university. Where there actual expectations?
At one end of the scale, Hanawalt notes that by 1478 the Goldsmiths of London
would only take as an apprentice a person who could read and write, and that as
much as 40 percent of the London non-clerical male population might have been
able to read Latin (Hanawalt 1993, 82). Such a rate may sound astounding, and
the rate would certainly not be that high in other cities or in the countryside.
Orme suggests that the first “free standing schools” began in the eleventh
century, and that from the early Middle Ages, education to some level would
have been available at local cathedral and monastic schools (Orme 2001, 239–
41). Since there are some liturgical books that include rudimentary instruction in
liturgical Latin, we may assume that there was some expectation of learning
open to many, yet we are certainly not at the early modern period when we find
the beginnings on more compulsory educational expectations. Chaucer’s (1343–
1400) “litel clergeon” of “The Prioress’ Tale” is seven years old and has a primer
from which he is not only learning his letters, but is also learning Latin according
to the tradition of paradigms, while an older student at the school is learning his
Latin through singing, with only the awareness of the sense of the text. Certainly
the average medieval family would never have envisioned their offspring—male
offspring—as future scholars at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Bologna, or Heidel-
berg.
II The World of Work and Apprenticeship
The lure of the city was certainly significant, and there is quite a body of evidence
that social historians can point to with reference to the education of children as
early as fourteen as they move into the structures of apprenticeship. As Hanawalt
observes, “society in the late Middle Ages extended the period of social childhood
for males well into biological puberty and proportionately raised the age of exit

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from adolescence well into biological adulthood” (Hanawalt 1993, 111; Karras
2003, 116–29). In this period of liminal time, Karras notes they were “more than
boys, less than men” (Karras 2003, 129). The charge of the family providing the
male or female moved to the family with whom the person contracted an appren-
ticeship. One size, however, does not fit all in our day or this period. Orme notes a
significant division here related to the economic. In fact, Newman suggests that
as much as 90 percent of the population was employed as servants in agricultural
labor (Newman 2007, 170).The children of the poor thus become servants to
nobles—including working on their estates—but to become an apprentice typi-
cally meant they were “young people of some status and money” (Orme 2001,
312). Work was thus multifaceted and dependent at times on social location as
well as timing. An apprenticeship would last approximately seven years, and then
the possibility of being admitted to the freedom of the city provided significant
prospects for the future. Chaucer’s (1343–1400) “Cook’s Tale” presents an image
of a young man, Perkyn Revelour, whose desire for dicing, gaming, and dancing
destroy his prospects of becoming a master of the craft. The rules of the contract
were quite extensive and certainly intended to curb the behaviors of the adoles-
cent whose judgment was not well formed yet. That experience, of course, lies
well beyond the consideration of childhood, but at the beginning of the experi-
ence, the earliest years were still those most closely guarded by the watchful eyes
of the master and the family of the craft.
F Representation in Literature
Scholarly studies of literary texts in which children are presented are not new, but
a study which focuses on the manner of representation in light of a newer under-
standing of the social, psychological, and cultural dimensions of childhood opens
up the possibility for revisionist thinking. A collection of essays that has served as
a catalyst for further revision of the paradigm of Philippe Ariès is Childhood in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited by Albrecht Classen (A. Classen, ed., 2005).
Many of the essays address children as an historical issue, but for those that
address literary texts some intriguing patterns emerge. Classen’s introductory
essay, in addition to setting up the parameters for the new study, examines texts
such as Floire and Blanchefleur, the Roman de Renart, Mai und Beaflor, Aucassin
and Nicolette, the writing of Hartman von Aue (ca. 1160–ca. 1220), the Hildes-
brandslied, Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376–1445), and several saints’ lives and
suggests the depth of devotion to children and their education and material well-
being across a number of centuries in French and German literature (Classen 2005,
1–65). The relationship between the Virgin Mary and the Christ child can be seen

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156 Daniel Pigg
in a tender way through a study of Frau Ava’s (ca. 1060–1127) Leben Jesu, an early
twelfth century text, by Eva Parra Membrives (Membrives 2005, 87–103). Mary
Dzon’s examination of a selection of Middle English poems about Jesus reflect the
care of medieval parents, perhaps somewhat heightened as in the case of Mary,
but with a Jesus who possesses some childlike perversity (2005, 135–57). In
Hartmann von Aue’s (ca. 1160–ca. 1220) Der arme Heinrich, David Tinsley explores
the representation of a peasant girl who is willing to die in order that her lord can
be saved to suggest children’s ability to understanding suffering and loss as well
as triumph and altruism (Tinsley 2005, 229–46). In her study of the Old French
prose Lancelot, Carol Dover demonstrates the text’s sensitive to the growth in both
physical and mental ways of the young Lancelot and the special connection that
develops with the fairy “mother” who raised him (Dover 2005, 247–63). Such a
study of this topic in one collection cannot be exhaustive, nor can the reference
summaries here. Readers are likely to find a mental awareness among these
children that some might label as “precocious.” At the same time, however, these
scholars have uncovered writers who have tapped into a consideration of the
development of the children’s ethics. While childlike perversity and selfishness
may dominate some presentations, these writers suggest how children may rise
above these classifications.
In the literature of the late Middle Ages in England, childhood figures promi-
nently. In the canon of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we find not only the young
girl who accompanies the merchant’s wife in the “Shipman’s Tale,” the crying
infant of the “Man of Law’s Tale” as well as those of the “Clerk’s Tale,” but also
Virginia who is willing to be sacrificed by the hand of her father to avoid being
corrupted by an unjust judge in the “Physician’s Tale.” In a more studied way
Chaucer presents a detailed presentation of the “litel clergeon” of the “Prioress’s
Tale.” The last of these is one of Chaucer’s most concentrated representation of
childhood at age seven. In this tale, a seven-year old boy, the only son of a poor
widow, is killed by Jews who throw the body into a “wardrobe” used as a place for
waste. His desire to learn O Alma Redemptoris, a hymn in praise of the Virgin
Mary, is presented as an emblem of childlike perversity and play, given that he is
willing to be beaten three times in a single hour. He has forsaken the study of the
grammar lesson in his primer for the grammar of song. A miracle story, “The
Prioress’s Tale” suggests the value of children in society, the deep level of concern
of the mother for her son who does not return home, and the profound lament of
those in the monastic community who prostrate themselves on the ground in grief
for the child’s death. Told as a religious act by the Prioress who describes herself
as a child who has not reached one year of age, “The Prioress’s Tale” is a
significant statement about medieval childhood deeply engulfed in the mire of
anti-Judaism.

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As readers can imagine, a good deal of scholarship has been devoted to the
anti-Semitic issue, but seen through the prism of children and childhood, the
voice of the child emerges as one of playful confidence and obsession with
religious devotion—even one that leads to his death, even if it is unintentional.
Chaucer (1343–1400), however, complicates what appears to be a straightforward
story with a reference to “Hugh of Lincoln,” who was discovered in Chaucer’s day
(1343–1400) to have died through an accident rather than a murder. The pathos of
this story would bring into question the assertive claims of Philippe Ariès. There
are clear parallels between the Virgin Mary and Christ and the widow and her son
in the tale that suggest how deeply the Marian paradigm of child care is written
into the deep structures of the late Middle Ages. This widow cares about her son
and the community even laments his loss. Such a loss of life of a child is also felt
in Pearl, a poem of the Sir Gawain-poet (ca. 1360s). In the poem, the speaker
laments the death of his daughter Pearl whose untimely death has lead him into a
period of inordinate mourning. Through a series of logic-based sequences as
through several exegetical moments in biblical parables, the Pearl maiden—
emblematic of his soul—helps the dreamer to come to terms with the loss.
Represented as the unapproachable maiden, she is included in the train of virgins
of the Virgin Mary, thus reinforcing the connection between the death of a child
and the place of Mary as mother to her child. What these texts taken as a ground
suggest is the powerful feelings of loss and self-reflection that are produced by
the loss of a child.
What seem apparent is that children and their particular ways of being in the
world were of value to their parents and to their society as a whole. That legal
considerations were given to their ability to understanding themselves and their
environment is an indication that the medieval legal system was not filled with
blind unfeeling persons when it came to children and their mistakes. What also
seems clear is that the material history of the period which covers the possibility
of the death of children during the period of infancy and later would have bound
parents and children together in a way that would be reflected in the literature
when children become ill, are injured, or are orphaned. It would be wrong to
conclude that the Middle Ages had a sentimental view of children and childhood
in the way that the nineteenth-century Romantic period writers had about chil-
dren and their understanding, growing out of a neo-Platonic vision of life. At the
same time, the literature does show a level of understanding of children and
others and separates them from the world of the adult, but does not render their
understanding as deficient and unworthy. A balanced approach to reading the
archaeological, historical, archival, theological and literary evidence is signifi-
cant in re-visioning the place of children in the understanding of what it meant to
be human.

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158 Daniel Pigg
Select Bibliography
Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick
(1960; New York 1962).
Ariès, Philippe, Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Règime (Paris 1960).
Classen, Albrecht, ed., Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a
Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality (Berlin and New York 2005). [= A. Classen, ed.,
2005]
Crawford, Sally, Childhood in Anglo-Saxon England (Stroud 1999).
Hanawalt, Barbara A., Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History
(Oxford and New York 1993).
Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe
(Philadelphia, PA, 2003).
Newman, Paul B., Growing Up in the Middle Ages (Jefferson, NC, and London 2007).
Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Children (New Haven, CT, and London 2001).
Shahar, Shulamith, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London and New York 1990).

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Ken Mondschein
Chivalry and Knighthood
A Overview
The self-conception of the medieval ruling elite was that of the professional
warrior. Chivalry, combining the ideas of militia (military service), chivalry (the
physical skills, notably horsemanship), and courtesy (an aristocratic way of life),
was the code by means of which members of this elite related to one another. It
thus had very real political, social, and military repercussions. Emerging from the
confluence of classical values, barbarian culture, and Christian piety, ideas of
chivalry and knighthood raise issues of conduct in war, class and habitus, and
problems of Christian warfare. Though its importance was somewhat downplayed
by the emphasis placed on common experience by the social-historical turn of the
late twentieth century, a new generation of historians is rediscovering the signi-
ficance of the mentalité of chivalry and knighthood for our understanding of
the Middle Ages. The business of knighthood was, after all, the business of
war—“politics by other means” as Clausewitz put it—and is critical for under-
standing not only medieval culture, but understanding the making of modernity.
Historiographical controversies abound. Many scholars have debated the rea-
lity and effect of such an idea, from Johan Huizinga calling it “an aesthetic ideal
assuming the appearance of ethical ideal” and accusing its practitioners as being
out of touch with reality (1919; Huizinga 1924, 58), to Malcolm Vale (1981) and
Maurice Keen (1984) rehabilitating the idea, to Matthew Strickland, in his land-
mark War and Chivalry, arguing that, at least in the Anglo-Norman world, it was
more observed in the breach than the observance (Strickland 1996). More
recently, historians such as Steven Muhlberger (2002; 2005) and Richard Kaeuper
(2009) have used the texts of chivalry to illustrate dynamic conversation within
societies.
To write on such a fraught and significance-laden subject as chivalry is no
easy matter. The sources themselves are difficult to contend with: fantastic
romances, anti-knightly clerical harangues, ideological tracts by knights and
churchmen alike, chroniclers’ accounts that may or may not be filtered through
the lenses of idealism and patronage. Added to this is the fact that the study of
chivalry reaches into many categories of concern to modern historians—power
structures, religious observance, gender, and violence, to name a few. My aim in
this brief article is not to discuss the definition or role of the nobility (for this, see
Nadia Pawelchak’s article on “Courts and Aristocracy” in this handbook), but

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rather to limit myself to the major points made in the scholarly literature and
major issues in the history of chivalry and knighthood. I shall begin with a
historiographical overview, then proceed to discuss secular and religious concep-
tions of chivalry, the transformations of the late Middle Ages, the role of tourna-
ments and deeds of arms, regional variations, and, finally, the afterlife of chivalry
in the early modern period.
B Historiography
Nineteenth-century scholars saw chivalry through the lenses of both romanticism
and historical positivism. While there was never any doubt as to the reality of
such a code, it was seen as a figment of irrational barbarism, a symptom of the
benighted feudal age from which Western civilization would need to awaken. Sir
Charles Oman, for instance, called chivalry an “absurd perversion of the art of
war” (Oman 1885, 125). While writers such as Scott and Hugo and painters such as
Waterhouse, Leighton, and Rossetti might romanticize the days of old when
knights were bold, and certainly chivalry could make for picturesque (or picar-
esque) literary scenes, insofar as the science of war went, a strategy based on
notions of chivalry was seen as a fundamentally unsound idea.
This critical perspective of the military historians was continued in a cultural
vein by Johan Huizinga in his Waning of the Middle Ages (1919 Dutch: Herfsttij der
Middeleeuwen; 1996 The Autumn of the Middle Ages), the Dutch historian elo-
quently argued that late medieval society was a time of decadence and decline.
Whereas the high Middle Ages had been a time of high culture and ideals made
manifest, by the fourteenth century the eloquent language of chivalry and courtly
love was a fair skin concealing a rotten core. In many ways, the sense of decay
and the worthlessness of norms found in Huizinga is typical of post-World War I
thinkers such as Spengler; Huizinga participated in Hegel’s idealistic impulses,
but the dominant theme in his narrative is decline, not progress.
While Huizinga’s pessimism was echoed by Kilgour in his Decline of Chivalry
(Kilgour 1937) and Ferguson’s The Indian Summer of English Chivalry (Ferguson
1960), Malcolm Vale, in his War and Chivalry (Vale 1981), and Jean Flori, in his
L’idéologie du glaive (Flori 1983) did a great deal to rehabilitate the idea of chivalry.
Not only does the idea of jus in bello seem to be a human universal (even if one
more honored in the breach than the observance), but chivalric orders were
integral to the development of the state. Similarly, for Maurice Keen in his seminal
monograph Chivalry (Keen 1984), chivalry was not only the self-conception of the
elite, and thus valuable to study in its own right, but a means through which
Christian ethics could be absorbed into society at large. Amongst its legacies was

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Chivalry and Knighthood 161
that it provided the currency for an economy of honor. For Vale, Flori, and Keen,
chivalry was something real, meaningful, and valuable to later ages.
Matthew Strickland (1996, 19), looking at “chivalry” as overwhelmingly
something that happens on the battlefield, has questioned Huizinga’s assumption
of a golden age. While not disputing the essential utility of a code of chivalry,
Strickland argued that the pragmatic and often savage actions wartime of the
Anglo-Norman aristocracy rendered it a code more honored in the breach than
the observance: “The tensions between ideals of conduct and actual behavior in
war itself were present ab initio in the Anglo-Norman period, if not indeed existing
as a universal paradox within the culture of any warrior aristocracy.”
More recent historians have sought to resolve contradictions by looking more
closely at the ideology and internal logic of chivalry. In his several works, Steven
Muhlberger (2002; 2005; 2012; 2014) has examined tournaments and deeds of
arms as activities integral to the identity and performance of the medieval elite.
Malcolm Vale has identified the lordly court as the locus of advancement as one
of the reasons behind the growth of courtesy (Vale 2001), while C. Stephen Jaeger
has identified its origins with neo-classical virtues in tenth-century German
episcopal courts (Jaeger 1985). For his part, Richard Kaeuper has stressed the
knights’ own role in recognizing and debating the various paradoxes that so
concern modern historians (Kaeuper 1999a) including the religious ideology of
chivalry (Kaeuper 2009). In his forthcoming Medieval Chivalry, Kaeuper will
provide a capstone to his work by emphasizing the practicality of chivalry for its
practitioners and how it affected, and was affected by, the emerging ideals and
institutions of modernity (Kaeuper, forthcoming).
C Secular and Sacred Chivalry

Secular Chivalry
Knighthood emerged from the disorder of the post-Carolingian world. In the tenth
century, Europe was in a state of anarchy: There was no central authority, but
rather local powers claiming legitimacy by building fortresses in a process known
as encastellation. Magnates, exercising “bad lordship,” oppressed, extorted, and
bullied the peasantry. Underlying this was an economic malaise and endemic
violence and feuding between the various local powers. The manner in which
these magnates and their followers fought, as the word for “knight” in most
European vernaculars reveals, was as mounted warriors. This was the Frankish
way of war, developed in the Carolingian era (see “Weapons, Warfare, Siege
Machinery, and Training in Arms” in this handbook). (It is worth mentioning here

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162 Ken Mondschein
that we are speaking of the Anglo-French conception of chivalry, which we will

take as the normative one.)
In its most basic form, we can see the emergence of a code of chivalry as a
series of rational choice decisions amongst the members of this fighting elite: If
you spare my life today, my people will spare yours tomorrow; you can profit from
capturing me, if you trust me to ransom myself. Likewise, in civil life, the feudal
relationship of vassal to lord was essentially one of service. This included perso-
nal service, such as carving at table and pouring wine. In time, this courtesy
(“how one behaves at court”) became an elaborate code of behavior specifying
the ideal behavior of the knight to all he might encounter, friend or foe—the
habitus of the ruling class. Chivalry was, in other words, the self-conception of the
Frankish warrior-elite. To be a miles was not just the profession of soldiering, but
part of ruling-class identity. Thus, while not all knights were high nobles, high
nobles thought of themselves as knights.
However, to take such a reductionist view would be to ignore the ethical and
religious qualities of chivalry. The Transformation of the Year 1000 resulted from
a conflux of factors ranging from agricultural innovation to the institution of
primogeniture to the reform of the Church. For our purposes, the crucial element
in this cultural revival was the Peace of God—the assertion of moral authority by
ecclesiastical leaders, the condemnation of internecine war between Christians,
and the insistence on the idea that the rights of the Church and of non-combatants
should be respected (Landes and Head, 1992; Contamine 1987, 270–77). Not only
was the Christianization of the miles a crucial step in the transformation from
“soldiers” to “knights,” but it introduced the idea that the life of the militia could
be a sanctified one. Chivalric ideology became intimately bound up with religious
service, and fighting could become a path to salvation. So successful was this that
by 1096, Urban II could issue a call for the European nobility and have it received
with mass enthusiasm.
D Knighthood in Christian Society

The discourse of chivalry existed in dynamic relation with other social symbolic
discourses, especially those of the Church. Richard Kaeuper (2009), in his Holy
Warriors, takes a broad synthetic overview of the religious ideology of secular
chivalry, examining how knights appropriated symbols, rituals, and forms of
practice; accepted those ideologies and rituals laid out for them by churchmen;
and invented their own meanings. In short, they exhibited considerable creativity
in formulating an ideology and set of symbols meaningful and useful to their
profession. Chivalry could become a form of lay independence, a way to appro-

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priate and establish norms of belief and practice independent from the Church.
Such analysis brings the study of chivalry into the broad historiography of the
roots of the Reformation and thus, of modernity.
While many of the aspects of this mentality, such as toughness, a taste for the
rigors of the campaign, and a disdain for luxury are to be expected, knighthood
also developed its own ceremonies and symbolism similar to those of the priest-
hood. This can be seen in the late thirteenth-century Rationale divinorum officior-
um (Order of the Divine Office) of Guillaume Durand, Bishop of Metz; the anon-
ymous thirteenth-century L’Ordène de Chevalerie (The Order of Chivalry) and an
allegorical painting in Harleian MS 3244 discussed by Richard Kaeuper (Kaeuper
2009, 1–5); the Catalan mystic and polymath Ramon Llull’s early fourteenth-
century Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria (Book on the Order of Chivalry); the Livre de
chevalerie (Book of Chivalry), and Demands pour la joute, les tournois, et la guerre
(Questions on the Joust, Tournaments, and War) of the French knight Geoffroi de
Charny (ca. 1300–1356); and Christine de Pizan’s early fifteenth-century Fais
d’armes et de chevalerie (Deeds of Arms and Chivalry). These works share a
common interest in the elements of the knightly panoply, and, through these
symbols, the virtues of the knight.
Though the symbols often vary between sources, what we find in common
amongst all is that there is something sacramental about being dubbed, akin to
the sacrament of ordination, and the knight’s equipment participates in this. The
candidate stands vigil, he is cleansed physically and spiritually, and he is girded
with a two-edged sword to administer justice and a white belt for chastity. This, of
course, is chastity within lawful marriage: Medieval writers were concerned about
how nobility is passed on through the generations (Keen 1984, 158–60), and
Geoffroi de Charny even called marriage, that sacrament so key to maintaining
the secular world and continuing a lineage, an “order.” This, in some ways,
foreshadows Reformation thought and gives us an additional example of the
independence lay piety in the Middle Ages.
The writings of these various authors also give us a further anatomy of
ideology. From them, it is apparent that a set of knightly virtues arose not in
opposition to, but in dynamic conversation with, those espoused by theologians.
Virtues such as courage, fortitude, and prowess, or skill at arms, are of course to
be expected amongst military men. Others were aimed at constructing social
difference: Largesse was magnanimity of spirit, the willingness to sacrifice not
just one’s body, but one’s substance, which we can contrast with the ideology of
an elite of commerce. Courtesy was not just etiquette, but literally the culture of
the court—the habitus of the ruling class.
Good counsel, which a vassal owes to his lord, was often considered as a
virtue. This is shown in the concept of the preudhomme, which may be translated

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164 Ken Mondschein
literally as “a trustworthy man” or “man of judgment,” but which carried the

connotation of knightliness. This, as the name implies, had as much a connota-
tion of behavior as of lifestyle: “Car grant difference disoit estre entre preuhomme
et preudhomme,” as Jean de Joinville has St. Louis put it—“there is a great
difference between a preuhomme [man of judgment] and preudhomme [warrior].”
Finally, there was the rather diffuse virtue known as franchise—literally, to
act as a free man (the term for which is, interestingly, etymologically derived from
the “Frank”). This was not just the idea of political enfranchisement—in other
words, lordship—but also that which was concomitant with it—the right to admin-
ister justice and the right to lawful violence. Ultimately, in Scholastic legal theory,
this was derived from the prince. In other words, to wield the secular sword was
to exercise franchise—but this was more than an office, an entire way of being
that encompassed an idea of gravitas. Thus, a single term encompassed both
classical ideas of the state—for the knight, in theory, serves a prince—and Germa-
nic warrior-culture.
E The Military Orders

The military orders were perhaps the most explicit linking of Christianity and
violence. These were, in the most general terms, monastic orders of knights and
their retainers founded to aid in the defense of the Holy Land. Though the Crusader
states were definitively lost by the late thirteenth century, military orders figured
large in the Baltic Crusades of the later Middle Ages and in the struggle against
Ottoman dominance of the Mediterranean in the early modern era.
The first of these orders to be founded, the Hospitallers (also called the
Knights of St. John) actually began in the 1020s, before the First Crusade, in order
to provide aid to sick and injured pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land. Prominent
early orders included the Order of St. James of Altopascio, which may have been
the first order to have a military wing; the Spanish Order of Santiago, and the
Teutonic Knights. The Templars, founded by Hugues de Payens, originated ca.
1120. At the time, Bernard of Clairvaux was preaching a militia Christi to aid the
Holy Land, and the idea quickly gained popularity. The Rule of the Templars,
attributed to Hughes and Bernard, was confirmed in 1129, and firmly established
the knight-monks as a disciplined group of soldiery. The loss of the Holy Land
weakened the rationale for the Knights Templar and, combined with the inordi-
nate wealth the order had acquired, contributed to the rationale for their dissolu-
tion in 1312.
The Crusading orders were marked by their discipline, but more importantly,
they prominently linked military service and service to God. The Christianization

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of the milites was complete: Fighting on behalf of the Church could be seen as
meritorious and even a path to salvation.
F Transformations of the Later Middle Ages

By the end of the fourteenth century, the diffuse lower limit of who belonged to
the chivalric class had become a subject of contention. The realities of the
Hundred Years’ War meant that thousands of armed men claimed the right to
lawful violence and a successful soldier could assemble all of the accouterments
of knighthood, from armor to horses to followers. Likewise, the Black Death
enabled unprecedented social mobility while imperiling the landed class as the
price of grain plummeted, with a corresponding reduction of income from estates.
Much of the discussion hinged on idea the gentilhomme—that is, someone
who literally came from gens, “people” but having the connotation of “good
family.” This amorphous boundary was a zone of anxiety; the general under-
standing was that, much as with the Paston family of Norfolk, only the passing of
generations could distinguish nobility from common ancestry (see “Time and
Timekeeping” in this handbook). It is also true, as Contamine points out, that a
certain stratification took place in England between the high nobility and what
would become the “gentility” such that an earl would be insulted to be called a
mere gentilhomme, whereas in France, to be gentilhomme was unquestionably part
of the noblesse and thus was regarded as having more in common with a count or
baron than this English counterpart (Contamine, 1987). A gen d’armes (man at
arms), even if not a knight, if properly and lawfully clad in full armor, was fit to
contest with even a king on the field of battle. Yet, in civil life, we also see the
lowest rungs of the noblesse—those who could only be called gentilhommes in
France, and, later, the hidalgos or “sons of someone” in Spain—regarded as almost
a parody of knightliness, poor country cousins desperately holding onto claims of
status that, from the point of view of the true grandees, were all but imaginary.
It is also in the late Middle Ages that we begin to see, in association with the
consolidation of modern states, high chivalric orders come into being. Notable
early orders include the Garter in England (1348) and the Star in France (1352),
though most, such as the Order of the Golden Fleece in Burgundy (1430) and the
Order of St. Michael in France (1469), are fifteenth century. The goals of these
orders were rooted in politics—to tie the high nobility to the monarch, and to bind
him, in turn, to them in mutual obligation (Vale 1981). The Duke of Burgundy, for
instance, had to consult with the members of the Order of the Golden Fleece
before going to war. We can thus recognize in them a step toward the creation of
the nation-state and parliamentary government.

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166 Ken Mondschein
G The Role of Tournaments and Deeds of Arms

The origins of the tournament likely lie in late Roman military exercises, filtered
through Carolingian military drill. By the eleventh century, it had taken the form
of nominally friendly battles that nonetheless ranged over hill and dale and often
employed archers and foot soldiers. These rough-and-tumble events strongly
shaded into internecine war and drew condemnation from the Church and secular
rulers alike.
The tournament was also a useful way to gather together the notables of the
land, and thus politically expedient. In time, these activities became more regu-
lated, with accepted rules and often an emphasis on state-theater, such as in the
round tables held by Edward I and his grandson Edward III. Conversely, the earls
who murdered Edward II’s favorite Piers Gaveston used the pretense of a tourna-
ment to organize their forces. As prizes were awarded and other participants
could be captured for ransom, tournaments were also a path to upward mobility:
William Marshal began his career as a successful veteran of the tournament
circuit. In addition to politics, personal aggrandizement, and, of course, combat
training, such events were also an opportunity to evaluate horses under the
stresses of combat and exchange equine breeding stock.
Besides the political and economic uses of tournaments, an argument can be
made that tournaments helped to define class and gender difference. Participa-
tion in a tournament—or one’s ancestors having done so—was prima facie evi-
dence of nobility and of the right to bear a coat of arms. Ruth Mazo Karras, in her
From Boys to Men (2002, 21–66), discusses the performative aspect of the tourna-
ment: In a sense, one only becomes male under the gaze of others, displaying
prowess—skill at arms—in front of both men and women.
Combat-by-convention transformed along with the anxieties and needs of
the knightly class. The early-to mid-fourteenth century tournament as de-
scribed by Geffroi de Charny in the early fourteenth century was still primarily
a mêlée, albeit one that had become civilized, with defined boundaries and
rules. However, Froissart, in his late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century
Chronicles, concentrates more on “deeds of arms” which took the place of
individual combat, interspersing scenes of the destruction of society—the
realities of war—with its reaffirmation, that is, men-at-arms meeting in idea-
lized combat. These encounters were quite different from tournaments proper.
They could be conducted with sharp weapons and were often more antagonis-
tic than agonistic, taking on more the character of judicial duels, or, as with
the Combat of the Thirty in 1351, Homeric contests of champions. Others, such
as the St. Inglevert Jousts of 1390, were troublesome to royal authority, but
helped to reassure both the participants and audience (both first- and second-

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hand) of their common social status despite the reality of war between their
kingdoms. Because they were so troublesome to royal authority—for the issu-
ing of challenges to the English without royal permission bordered on lèse
majesté—the obvious solution was to put them under royal control, with
Charles VI paying the expenses from his own pocket. Thus began the royal,
centralized sponsorship of tournaments that would become the norm over the
next two centuries.
Normative writings on chivalry also give us insights into the elite concept of
jus in bello and an elite concept of war as, ideally, a sort of grand (if potentially
lethal) tournament with expected norms. Charny, in his Questions Concerning the
Joust, Tournaments, and War (Muhlberger 2002; 2014), is very much concerned
with how knights should conduct themselves in the liminal regions of expected
behavior, offering questions, but no answers, to his reader. The central issue in
his questions on the tournament and jousting is interpreting the rules of the
tournament to determine “who gets the horse?,” while many of his questions on
war center on when, and if, someone has broken their word. This at first seems at
odd with the Vegetian nature of fourteenth-century warfare (see my article on
“Weapons, Warfare, Siege Machinery, and Training in Arms” in this handbook).
However, it was a way of negotiating between the realities of war and the
ordained structure of medieval society.
In the same way as the deeds of arms of the fourteenth century resolved the
disorder of the Hundred Years’ War, we can see the class anxiety of the fifteenth
century played out in tournaments. Jousting, with its greater emphasis on indivi-
dual performance and display, began to replace mêlée, though this latter form
continued to be popular—most famously, in the ca. 1460 tournament book of
René of Anjou (1409–1480), who also specifies that if anyone who is not of
unimpeachably gentle descent comes to be lightly beaten by the great princes as
a sort of ritual welcoming into the company. The Burgundian court was particu-
larly famous for its theatrical, allegorical pas d’armes. This form of deed of arms,
sprung from the custom of a knight holding a bridge or gate against all comers, is
attested as early as the eleventh century and probably has Germanic roots. In the
fifteenth century, such deeds took on the form of state theater—though the
combat was no less real or intense.
Noel Fallows, in his excellent Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia
(2010), gives a detailed description of expected behavior in similar events in
fifteenth-century Iberia. Jousting manuals detailed all elements of comportment,
from the manner of riding to the quality and type of armor used to the handling of
the lance. By the fifteenth century, the tournament may thus be called a “martial
performance”: a means of demonstrating, through learned gesture, acquired
taste, and carefully practiced skill, one’s class and status.

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168 Ken Mondschein
René’s sumptuous book detailing plans for a tournament that was probably
never actually held, also shows the decreasing role of and increasingly dependent
nobility, from sponsor of tournaments to arbiter of taste. From the other end of
the social scale, burghers and others whose estates were rising were also becom-
ing increasingly interested in the tournament and martial performance. Early
civic jousts are ill-attested, but probably took place in the Low Countries by the
thirteenth century. By the later Middle Ages, fencing schools were flourishing,
jousts and civic festivals were commonly held in Italian town squares, and several
German cities kept jousting equipment for loan to the sons of the burghers in the
municipal armory. One early sixteenth-century jouster, Walther Marx of Donau-
wörth, Bavaria (1456–1511), even made light of his humble origins by bearing a
helmet crest of three sausages on a spike.
H Regional Variations of Chivalry

The preceding passages referred to the Anglo-French understanding of knight-
hood and chivalry. This was not, however, the only understanding of the concept,
though a case might be made that, as they were a Frankish ideas, they were the
normative one. Nonetheless, substantive variations of ideas of chivalry and
knighthood existed in other parts of Western Europe.
I Chivalry in the Germanic World
The institution of knighthood was different in German-speaking lands. As nobles

were not inclined to take service under other nobles, a class of ministeriales, or
unfree knights, arose in the eleventh century. Such status was passed on in
matrilineal line. These knights could perform valuable administrative tasks,
including holding castles, judgeships, and stewardships, could enjoy high social
rank, and even had vassals of their own. Others found themselves in dire financial
straits and even reduced to banditry. Yet, these ministeriales all shared common
legal status: They were unfree, not able to marry without their lords’ consent, nor,
in theory to pass on their holdings to their spouses and heirs. This last, of course,
was not universal, and ministeriales could and did enjoy both heritable fiefs and
social mobility. Since holding castles and performing a knight’s military role
meant having access to considerable wealth, the status and lifestyle of this
group tended toward that of the nobility of the rest of Europe, and their unfree
status tended to serve the purpose of binding them to their liege lords (Arnold
1985).

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By the fourteenth century, this class had come under two types of stress: the
contraction of the manorial economy, which further bifurcated the divide be-
tween rich and poor knights, and the consolidation of what Arnold calls “more
state-like territorial lordships” (Arnold 1985, 252). Further, the ties of personal
unfreedom had become legally outmoded. Arnold, who interprets the minister-
iales in the light of classical feudal models and state-formation, holds that those
who survived the crisis formed the basis for the Freiherren who “carried over the
ministeriales’ tradition of military and administrative service into the princely
territories and states of early modern and more recent times” (Arnold 1985, 253).
II Chivalry and Chivalric Performance in Italy
Knighthood in Italy was a more malleable idea than in northern Europe, as a

semipermeable membrane existed between those born to the purple of commerce
and those risen from the ranks of the aristocracy. This was complicated by the
omnipresence of successful mercenaries, favored bastards, nobility exiled in
internecine conflict, occasional imperial grand tours, and burghers placed in
charge of communes and endowed with landed estates. As William Caferro points
out, in the late fourteenth century the term “sir” could equally be applied to the
English mercenary John Hawkwood (ca. 1320–1394); Ambrogio Visconti (1344–
1373), bastard son of the ruler of Milan; and Francesco Carmagnola (1380–1432),
son of a cowherd (Caferro 2006, 9). Political events such as the Ciompi revolt of
1378 were likewise accompanied by frenzies of knight-making. Many of these
“knights” were highly unmartial: The fourteenth-century writer Franco Sachetti
(ca. 1335–ca. 1400) tells a comic story of a meek knight who is chosen podestà of
Padua and, to make himself seem more impressive, has a crest of a ferocious bear
made for his helmet. On his journey to the city he has been elected to govern, he
encounters a gigantic and bellicose German knight who happens to carry the
same crest of a bear. Rather than fight, the Italian knight sells his crest at a profit,
and each man departs thinking he got the better of the bargain.
Leonardo Bruni, in his De Militia (1440), called for a reform of knighthood and
cast it in a return to classical values. The knight, in this humanist rendition, was
the defender of the city-state or body politic. But, in fact, most of the performance
of chivalry in Italy took in a conventional form: the splendid pageants of the d’Este
and Visconti were echoed by Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492), and Italian knights
such as Galeazzo da Mantova (d. 1406) took part in deeds of arms with no less
gusto than their northern counterparts. And, while the elite of the communes
liked to imagine themselves as chivalric warriors, mercenaries, including both
scions of noble houses and those of lesser birth, ruled the battlefield.

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170 Ken Mondschein
I Chivalry in Literature
The subject of chivalry in literature, and the chivalric romance, is far too vast a
subject to give a proper account here (see the contribution to this handbook by
Cristian Bratu on “Literature”). Chivalry and chivalric themes can be found in all
genres of medieval literature: history, poetic epics, didactic works, satire, travel
accounts, etc. Certain characters occur and reoccur over the centuries, altered,
from the Chanson de Roland at the very beginning of the formation of the chivalric
ethos to Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (published in 1495) and Ariosto’s Orlando
Furioso (1516–32), written to flatter Renaissance despots. Biblical heroes such as
David were recast in a chivalric light as the Nine Worthies.
Most famous, of course, is Arthur, King of the Britons, who went from a
reference in the ninth-century Historia Brittonum to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fanci-
ful twelfth-century Historia Regum Britanniae, to Chrétien de Troyes’s romances a
generation later. In his train we find agglutinated other characters, such as
Lancelot and Gawain, Catalan stories of the Grail, and Provençal ideas of courtly
love. The German tradition of Minnesang (“love-songs”) began in the late twelfth
century and is best exemplified by works dated from that century such as the
poems and verse narratives of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg,
and Hartmann von Aue. Though the Minnesänger were clearly influenced by
the Provençal troubadours and northern French trouvères, the minnelieder were
clearly designed for a court milieu, matching the importance of courts as centers
for social advancement east of the Rhine (see Albrecht Classen’s contribution
on “Love, Sex, and Marriage”). Similarly, in the late fifteenth century, Thomas
Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur reflects the anxieties of the chivalric class in the rapidly
changing early modern era. In short, what we can say for the Matter of Britain is
what we can say for chivalric literature in general: It bears the imprint of its times.
J The Sixteenth Century and After

Most authorities see the decline of chivalry as brought by the military revolution
and the increasing emphasis on large, state-sponsored infantry armies (Keen
1984). The economic, social, and military justification for the knight was ended;
his modern descendent is the military officer. As for the performance of social role
at sword’s point, factional conflicts and the desire to prove oneself with arms
were channeled into the private duel (Anglo 2001, Neumann 2010). Even as
ritualized tournaments became sundered from military realities during the course
of the fifteenth century, private quarrels became matters carried out in shirt-
sleeves, decried by traditionalists such as the fencing master Pietro Monte in 1509

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as fit for “pimps, blasphemers, and shopkeepers” (Anglo 1989, 266). The private
civilian duel, not requiring a field granted by the ruler, became firmly established
by the Chataigneraie-Jarnac debacle in 1547 and the condemnation of the Council
of Trent in its twenty-fourth session.
Nonetheless, concepts of knighthood and chivalry remained important to
early modern statecraft, and jousts became a de rigueur state ritual. Elizabeth I’s
(r. 1558–1603) official program of propaganda included the Accession Day jousts
and other chivalric spectacles in which the nobility vied for her favor, as well as
literature such as Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene and the works of Philip
Sidney. In ancien régime France, equestrian carousels, jousts, and other state
theater had distinct chivalric overtones (van Orden 2004). In Italy, such efforts
were attempts by regional princely rulers to bolster their images even as they
became increasingly marginalized. For instance, in the 1560s Alfonso II d’Este
attempted—disastrously—to imitate the French show-tournaments in order to
improve the status of his regime and city (Marcigliano 2003). Likewise, Cervan-
tes’s picaresque humor in Don Quixote relies on his readers’ familiarity with
tropes of chivalric literature. Long after the armored knight lost his place of honor
on the battlefield (if he ever held it—see my article in this handbook, “Weapons,
Warfare, Siege Machinery, and Training in Arms”), chivalry as an ideology and a
cultural touchstone remained very much alive in Europe.
Select Bibliography
Huizinga, Johan, Waning of the Middle Ages (1919; Chicago, IL, 1997).
Kaeuper, Richard W., Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry (Philadelphia, PA, 2009).
Kaeuper, Richard W., Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford 1999). [= Kaeuper 1999a]
Keen, Maurice, Chivalry (New Haven, CT, 1984).
Muhlberger, Steven, Charny’s Men-at-Arms: Questions Concerning the Joust, Tournaments, and
War (Wheaton, IL, 2014).
Muhlberger, Steven, Royal Jousts at the End of the Fourteenth Century (Wheaton, IL, 2012).
Muhlberger, Steven, Deeds of Arms (Highland Park, TX, 2005).
Muhlberger, Steven, Jousts and Tournaments: Charny and Chivalric Sport in 14th Century France
(Highland Park, TX, 2002).
Oman, Charles, The Art of War in the Middle Ages (London 1885).
Strickland, Matthew, War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and
Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge 1996).
Vale, Malcolm, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe
(1270–1380) (Oxford and New York 2001).
Vale, Malcolm, War and Chivalry (Athens, GA, 1981).

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Linda Rouillard
Church and the Clergy
There are many ways to analyze and categorize a society: by gender, occupation,
civil status, region, social class, literacy, wealth, education, political association,
and so forth. How did the medievals themselves categorize members of their own
communities? In the late classical period, St. Augustine (354–430), for instance,
classified people according to their status as being married, celibate, or as clerics
(Reynolds 2001, xvii). Adalberon, Bishop of Laon (d. 1030), divided the world into
categories of those who pray, those who fight, and those who work, or the
religious, the knights, and the laborers, a division maintained by his contempor-
ary Gerard of Cambrai (ca. 975–1051) (Duby 1977, 88–89). This article is specifi-
cally devoted to those members of medieval society who prayed, that is members
of what we call the clerical culture. While some definitions of the term “clergy”
range from the learned clerks of minor orders to men who have been ordained
priests, other definitions of the term also include women who have taken formal
religious vows as nuns. This article considers medieval clergy in the wider sense
and will discuss specifically the culture and lifestyle of both medieval religious
men and women in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. While clerics
such as Abbot Alcuin of York (735–804) and Bishop Jonas of Orléans (d. 843)
certainly saw the clergy and the laity as two distinct classes of people, they
nonetheless saw much commonality between the two ways of life, namely in the
call to live a virtuous life pleasing to God (Romig 2010, 42–43). Of course, there
were tensions between secular and ecclesiastical leaders, but numerous also were
the internal tensions of clerical culture, for hierarchy, authority, and prestige are
certainly issues within the Church as well. We find instances of conflict up and
down the different levels of clerical positions: bishop against bishop, pope over
bishops, English or French Church versus the pontiff, mendicant friars against
secular clergy, abbots against bishops, and so forth (Nelson 2001, 578–82; Burns
2001, 539). Boniface the VIII (1235–1303) in his 1302 bull Unam sanctam made his
opinion clear: everyone who expected to be saved was to acknowledge the
supreme authority of the pope (Burns 2001, 542). In the last quarter of the four-
teenth century during the period of the Great Schism, the question then became:
which pope was supreme–Urban VI or Clement VII?
The evolution of the church is a sweeping saga: from isolated groups of
Christians in the first centuries, to persecution, to tolerated religion, to state
religion, the Christian Church of the Middle Ages drew on its Roman legacy in the
development of canon law and in its elevation of a pope reminiscent of Roman
monarchs and emperors (Southern 1970, 25; Kantorowicz 1997, 19). Medieval

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Church and the Clergy 173
iconography depicted these blurry lines between secular power and ecclesiastical
authority. For instance, the crucified Christ with an emperor’s crown was typical
of certain Romanesque crucifixes, referred to as Volto santo. By the same token,
secular powers were often depicted with divine characteristics. For instance, a
miniature in the Aachen Gospels (ca. 975), a product of the Abbey of Reichenau,
depicts the Emperor Otto II with divine iconographic motifs: the encapsulating
mandorla or halo, and the hand of God above the Emperor (Kantorowicz 1997,
61–78).
A Clerical and Secular Conflicts

This clerical imitation of a Roman secular society set the stage for subsequent
ambiguity, tension and conflict. Secular rulers implicated themselves in certain
types of spiritual appointments: from naming priests to their resident churches, to
participating in consecrations of bishops with the symbolic gift of the staff and
ring, powerful laity were often seen by the Church as too active in clerical affairs.
Spiritual leaders who received material possessions and political authority from
powerful laity were thus beholden to their benefactors (Logan 2002, 113–15). The
Church, in its turn, however, could dominate secular powers by imposing excom-
munication on recalcitrant or overly ambitious rulers, effectively withholding
sacraments from everyone of every class in that kingdom, or by supporting a lay
ruler’s adversary (Southern 1970, 20). For instance, in 1075, when King Henry IV
of Germany (1050–1108) attempted to assert his royal authority in the question of
appointments of bishops, Pope Gregory the VII (d. 1085) responded with an
excommunication of Henry and a declaration that the German people were no
longer subject to the monarch. Henry responded by refusing to recognize Gregory
as Pope. In 1077, Henry reversed his position and humbly begged for and received
forgiveness from the Pope, who then promptly supported Henry’s opponent
Rudolph of Swabia. Henry then turned on Pope Gregory once more, and drove
him out of Rome, named a new pope and declared himself now to be emperor
(Logan 2002, 113–15). In short, the relationship between Henry IV and Pope
Gregory VII exemplifies the potential for perpetual conflict when lay rulers were
involved in spiritual appointments, and when the clergy were beholden to the
laity for material wealth and authority.

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174 Linda Rouillard
B Secular Clergy
Medieval male clerical cultures were divided into secular clergy and regular
clergy, the former designating men who lived with and served the public in
parishes, and the latter designating men and women who lived according to
monastic rules (regulae) in abbeys set off from public life for the most part.
Secular clergy was then organized into a regular canonry or Canons Regular,
made up of ordained priests bound by the Rule of St. Augustine, such as the
Victorines whose order survived from the twelfth century to the end of the eight-
eenth century; and secular canonry or Canons Secular, made up of priests who
were not organized around any rule in particular (Logan 2002, 137; 142). Canons
regular were responsible for collegiate churches and cathedrals. Secular canons
lived together in a household, sometimes under a bishop’s watchful eye, as they
carried out their pastoral duties or even missionary functions (Lynch 1992, 209–
10; Logan 2002, 79). In contrast to regular clergy who lived cloistered lives
according to extensive rules or regulae, secular priests lived and ministered in
parishes and were responsible for the spiritual welfare and instruction of their
congregations. Parish priests said mass, administered sacraments and preached
the gospel. John Capgrave (1393–1464) presented St. Gilbert of Sempringham (d.
1189) as an ideal pastoral example: learned, gracious, Gilbert’s parishioners were
said to be distinctive and recognizable, since “he had taught them so well to bow
their backs and their knees to God, and so devoutly to say their beads” (Ross,
McLaughlin 1949, 75). Vicars and chaplains, while ordained priests, typically did
not have their own assignments or benefices (salary), but rather were subject to a
rector (not necessarily a priest) who was beneficed and responsible for a particu-
lar parish church (Thibodeaux 2010, 144–52). Guibert of Nogent (ca. 1055–1124)
described a plan to procure a prebend or a benefice for him through his brother
who was owed money by a nobleman. It was hoped that the said nobleman might
be convinced to give Guibert a canonry appointment in lieu of payment. Guibert
would have been about 12 years old at the time and obviously not even an
ordained priest (Benton 1984, 51). A cousin of Guibert, also owed money by the
same nobleman, attempted to procure the same canonry for him as well; finally,
Guibert’s mother found another position for him with fewer complications
(McAlhany 2011, 18–20).

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C Clerical Orders
In addition, male clerical culture was also divided into minor and major orders
leading up to ordination and priesthood. Members of all these categories, minor
and major orders, were considered to be clerks. Within the category of minor
orders were the positions of porter in charge of church doors; lector who per-
formed some of the readings for the services; exorcist who helped with ceremonial
blessings and the casting out of demons; and acolyte who was allowed near the
altar (Thibodeaux 2010, 142). Within the major orders were subdeacon, deacon,
priest (presbyter), and finally bishop who controlled his diocese (a collection of
parishes), a designated region subject to his authority and decisions. It must be
added, though, that land owners and villagers sometimes constructed their own
churches, independent of the bishop, as were any moneys raised in that church
(Lynch 1992, 14; 38–39).
Clerics at any level, or from any category were subject to the laws and courts
of the Church, but were not subject to secular laws and courts, a decided perk
since Church courts did not use the death penalty. Physical violence aimed at
members of the clergy entailed immediate excommunication, which must have
provided a modicum of protection from rowdy laity (D’Avray 2005, 157; Logan
2002, 166). Additionally, clerical property was exempt from taxes imposed by
secular rulers (Southern 1970, 39). Abbots sometimes even saved criminals from
secular punishment if they entered religious orders (Speed 1997, 69).
D Regular Clergy
Monks were members of the regular clergy. Early monastics of the fourth and fifth
centuries were comprised of isolated hermits as well as coenobites, or monks who
lived together in communities. Initially, these individuals and groups were self-
directed, though bishops eventually asserted their authority over such initiatives.
Monks were not necessarily ordained priests, though the abbot typically was and
hence was able to administer the sacraments to the faithful, monks and laity
included. By the twelfth century, monks were more frequently ordained as priests
(Brooke 2003, 106–07).
Medieval female religious culture had functional designations, if not quite as
stratified a hierarchy as in male clerical houses. At the head of the convent or
monastery was the prioress, or abbess who exercised administrative authority
over activities and monastic properties. Other offices included the infirmaress,
cellaress, wool-mistress, and the porteress as described by Caesarius of Arles’ Rule
(cited in Amt 1993, 226). One category of abbess was that of canoness with such

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176 Linda Rouillard
privileges as the right to own property, if not administer it, and the right to baptize
women. Lest we be too quick to assume the continual and complete subjugation of
nuns to priests and monks, we should remember the Benedictine canoness Hrosvi-
ta of Gandersheim (b. ca. 930), who said of her own abbess: “The authority of the
abbess was supreme; she had her own court; she sent her own men-at-arms into
the field; she coined her own money” (Allen 1985, 254). Of course the abbess in
question, Gerberga (940–1002), was a noble woman with powerful family mem-
bers and material resources at her disposal; but, nonetheless, as an abbess, she
still exerted a formidable authority both within and without her abbey (Bodarwe
2006, 1–4).
Monastic daily life was regulated by the Divine Office, though secular clergy
also followed to a degree this division of time. The Divine Office divided the day
into matins (which occurred in the middle of the night), lauds (shortly after
matins), prime (at approximately 6am), terce (approximately 9am), sext (noon),
none (3pm), vespers (late afternoon) and compline (evening) with accompanying
prayers, assigned psalms, readings and hymns, in addition to daily mass and
meditation (see also the contribution to this Handbook on “Time and Timekeep-
ing” by Mondschein and Casey). In addition, in the segregated space of the
monastery, monks relied on the product of their own labors, making manual work
a foundation of daily life (Burton and Kerr 2001, 107).
Benedictine monks spent a great portion of the day in silence, relying on sign
language for basic communication (Brooke 2003, 72). The Custumal of Syon
Monastery (n.d.) includes some of the following signs that enabled monks to
observe silence and yet communicate their needs when asking for the following:
“Book—Wag and move the right hand, as if turning the leaves of a book. Drink—
Bend the right forefinger and put it on the lower lip. Fish—Wag the hand side-
ways, in the manner of a fish tail. Mustard—Hold the nose in the upper part of the
right fist and rub it. Text—Kiss the back of the left hand and cross the breast with
the right thumb” (cited in Speed 1997, 81).
Monasteries were often known for their bibliographic collections; Saint Gall,
for instance, established in the seventh century, was celebrated for its exemplary
compendium. And indeed, one of the daily tasks of monks was typically manu-
script production; abbeys played a major role in the translation, transmission and
preservation of classic texts, both religious and secular, for clerical and lay use,
as exemplified by Cassiodorus in the Italian monastary of Vivarium (Brooke 2001,
52–53). Examples of some of the more spectacular monastic manuscripts are the
late seventh-century Lindisfarne Gospels (British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV)
copied and translated into Old English by the monk Eadfrith from Northumbria;
the Irish Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58), another gospel manuscript
with luxurious illustrations and decorations, dated from the late eighth century.

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Nuns were equally prolific and celebrated for their manuscript production with
dedicated scriptoria in their convents.
The Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480–547), adapted in large part from
the Rule of the Master, dates from about 530 and is the foundational text for
Benedictine monasteries; it centers on opus dei or works of God, as well as on
vows of poverty, obedience and chastity (Logan 2002, 20; Brooke 2003, 48;
Lynch 1992, 32). It is important to note that Benedict envisaged monks as
individuals engaged in constant regular prayer and religious reading, and as
also responsible for their own material sustenance (Lynch 1992, 32), though
monastic houses often accumulated great wealth and demonstrated consider-
able business affinity (Burton and Kerr 2001, 169). His directives included the
stipulation that the monks choose their own abbot and also allowed for oblates.
Benedictine monks were sometimes referred to as the black monks for the color
of their habits (Lynch 1992, 199).
The Benedictine Order, begun at the monastery of Monte Cassino, was the
main player for about six centuries and also had women followers. St. Benedict’s
sister, Scholastica (ca. 480–542), observed the Benedictine rule in her nunnery
not far from Monte Cassino. Devoted to prayer and governed by a rule of silence,
the Cluniac order, a reformed Benedictine order, was founded by a charter of
William I, Duke of Aquitaine (875–918) who named Berno (850–926) as the first
abbot of the monastery. Peter the Venerable (1092–1156) was one of Cluny’s best
known abbots, appreciated for his promotion of orthodox Benedictine discipline.
Cluny’s original charter created the order as one answerable only to the pope and
not to any local authority. Additionally, the abbot was to be elected and not
appointed. The Clunaic order lasted for nearly 700 years (Logan 2002, 106–07;
Burton and Kerr 2011, 2).
The Carthusian Order dates from 1084 and was a combination of community
life and ermetic life. With the exception of mass and prayers, Carthusian monks
inhabited their individual quarters and worked in solitude, engaged in manual
labor and in manuscript work.
The Cistercians (or white monks), an order founded in 1098 by St. Robert of
Molesmes (1029–1111), attempted to re-assert a more orthodox engagement with
the Rule of St. Benedict. Originating in the Burgundian town of Cîteaux, the order
spread throughout Europe, thanks in large part to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–
1153). Bernard’s Cistercian way life accentuated a literal adherence to the rule of
St. Benedict and to manual labor though later Cistercian monks shifted the more
laborious chores to a category of lay monks or conversi, or “second-class” monks
(Southern 1970, 257; Logan 2002, 140). Generally uneducated, these lay monks
did the bulk of the heavy labor. A class of lay sisters also performed similar
functions for Cistercian nuns (Burton and Kerr 2011, 153).

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178 Linda Rouillard
Bernard in fact stressed the differences between the Cluniac order and his
preferred Cistercian lifestyle: the former, he believed, was softened by its over-
appreciation of the material world, while the latter was more austere and hence,
in his opinion, a more genuine spiritual order (Logan 2002, 140). William of
Malmesbury (1090–ca. 1143) said admiringly of the Cistercians: “Their efforts are
all spent on the adornment of the character and they prefer pure minds to gold-
embroidered vestments” (Burton and Kerr 2011, 20). When the Cistercians were
criticized, it was often for their business acumen and territorial acquisitions, as
exemplified in Walter Map‘s (ca. 1140–1209) sarcastic judgment of the order that
with their agricultural holdings “they have such a reserve of wealth accruing from
their care that they could enter the ark in the same spirit of security as Noah who
had nothing left outside to look to” (Burton and Kerr 2011, 149). Gerald of Wales
(1146–1223) demonstrated more admiration for the Cistercian business sense in
comparison to the Cluniac order, declaring that one need only give Cluny some
land to see it go to waste while Cistercians would turn a forest into a thriving
property (Burton and Kerr 2011, 186).
The Cistercian order, both male and female houses, participated in the fight
against heresy, the mission underlying the Crusades. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for
instance, campaigned for the Second Crusade. Numerous Cistercians preached
against the Cathars in Southern France; Abbot Arnaud Amaury (d. 1225) even led
battalions of knights to battle with the purpose of slaughtering heretics. Nuns
were recruited by the Cistercian order to specifically pray for such military opera-
tions (Burton and Kerr 2011, 197–98).
In the thirteenth century, friars appeared on the scene as new caretakers of
the souls of the laity, challenging and competing with traditional secular clergy.
A hybrid of the monastic orders and the secular clergy, the mendicant friars were
wandering ascetics who lived in poverty, begging for alms, at least in their
beginnings. They eventually challenged the authority of the traditional parish
priests and universities: they taught, preached and pardoned sins (Miller 2010,
243–44). Followers of Dominic de Guzman (1170–1221) and the Rule of St. Augus-
tine were known as Dominicans; part of their preaching mission was devoted to
attacking heretical sects such as the Cathars and the Waldensians (Lynch 1992,
235). Followers of Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181–1226) were known as Franciscans or
Friars Minor. Some Franciscans lived a form of “community-eremetism” (Şeno-
cak 2012, 41), that is they lived in small groups in seclusion, with rotating
responsibility for gathering alms in the public sphere. While the women orga-
nized around Clare Favarone of Assisi (ca. 1193–1253) were prohibited from
wandering the world, or preaching in public, these Franciscan women lived in
communities as the Second Order of Franciscans and strictly adhered to the rule
of poverty.

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The friars’ contributions to the fight against heresies were bolstered by their
university training, both for Dominicans and Franciscans (Şenocak 2012, 18; 147).
Şenocak notes the increasing emphasis by the Franciscan order on requiring that
new admissions be educated individuals. A mid thirteenth-century statute de-
clares: “No one is to be received into our order unless he is a cleric competently
educated in grammar or logic or medicine or canon law or civil law or theology”
(Şenocak 2012, 78). The friars’ public preaching mission, in addition to hearing
confessions, often led to confrontations and conflicts with secular clergy who
keenly felt the competition (Şenocak 2012, 128–29; 149–50). The friars, however,
were protected in large part by the pope (Lynch 1992, 236).
The friars’ perceived determination to live in poverty was in great contrast to
the material wealth accumulated by the Church in general and by particular
churches and abbeys. For instance, an early thirteenth-century Franciscan ser-
mon says: “The means to go to God is poverty, which is proved by the argument
from opposites…If riches are the way to go to hell, then poverty is the way to go to
paradise” (Şenocak 2012, 123). In the twelfth century, Abbot Suger had justified
his stunning expenses for Saint-Denis by professing that contemplation of beauti-
ful material things can lead one to understand the beauty of the divine (Panofsky
1979, 63–67). And yet, even the friars’ organizational mission to live without
riches eventually gave way to the collection of material goods, including books
(Şenocak 2012, 201–08).
E Clerical Education
Educational levels among clerical groups varied greatly, from clerics who thrived
in the cultural and intellectual centers of monastic houses during the reign of
Charlemagne, to individual parish priests who could be virtually illiterate (Lawr-
ence 2001, 661). The eighth-century Bede (ca. 672–735), for instance, concedes
that there are “those clerics or monks who are ignorant of the Latin language”
(D’Avry 2005, 35, from the letter of Bede to Archbishop Egbert). Monastic schools,
often located outside cities, ensured that the members of the cloistered commu-
nity were literate. In addition, they sometimes accepted noble boys for instruc-
tion. By contrast, the secular clergy, most often those from wealthy noble
families, received their education in urban cathedral schools staffed by peripate-
tic and sometimes controversial instructors, such as Peter Abelard (1079–1142)
(Lynch 1992, 243–44). The establishment of the College of Sorbonne by Robert of
Sorbon (1201–1274) was founded in the desire to meld theological studies with
pastoral training in imitation of the mendicants who claimed that their lengthy
university studies made them better ministers to the laity (Şenocak 2012, 154–55).

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180 Linda Rouillard
Indeed, it was the appearance of the friars that undermined the traditional
position of monks as the guardians of knowledge (Nelson 2001, 584). For most
women, the best way to acquire an education was to become a nun, for women
were not admitted to cathedral schools or monastery schools. For instance,
Beatrice of Nazareth (1200–1268), a Cistercian nun at Florival, was sent to another
abbey specifically to learn to write so that she could make copies of manuscripts
at her home abbey (Burton and Kerr 2011, 118). Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), a
German nun and mystic, was widely respected for her knowledge and wisdom, in
addition to her musical compositions and a morality play entitled Ordo virtutum;
Hrothvita (ca. 935–1002), a German canoness, was a playwright, and the abbess
Hilda of Whitby (614–680) was a noted teacher.
Whatever the location, the basic curriculum was the trivium (grammar, rheto-
ric and logic) and the quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, music).
Monastic schools favored traditional approaches while the cathedral schools
presented more innovative methodologies and subjects such as Aristotelian logic,
though the latter schools still remained under the thumb of the bishop. Medieval
universities developed in part to emancipate teachers and students from the
bishop’s authority; while still staffed by clerics as teachers, these new schools
were now, for the most part, self-regulating institutions (Lynch 1992, 246–51).
Religious houses often became repositories for children, offered as oblates or
gifts to God by their parents. Such institutions also served as refuges for children
considered to have no viable future due to other heirs or due to physical deformi-
ties. The sixth-century Caesarius of Arles (ca. 470–542), in his rule for nuns,
stipulated that no girl younger than six or seven would be accepted into a
monastery (Amt 1993, 222). Guibert of Nogent describes his father’s promise that
should his wife safely deliver her child after prolonged labor, he would offer that
child to the Church. Guibert then professes to be glad of his father’s early death
when he was still an infant, for he feared that his father would have eventually
broken his promise, though Guibert more pointedly criticized the practice of
turning children over to the Church at a young age. Religious houses also served
as refuges for husband and wives, mothers and fathers. For instance, Guibert’s
memoirs also narrate his mother’s entry in a monastery at Saint-Germer de Fly
where she lived as a nun, and the disastrous effects this decision had upon him as
a twelve-year old child. Upon hearing that her son was fast becoming a delin-
quent, she prevailed upon the abbot of the monastery at Fly to allow Guibert to
study there, taking advantage of the abbot’s receipt of his benefice from Guibert’s
grandfather. Not long after, Guibert became a monk there (McAlhany 2011, 9, 12,
21, 41–45).

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F Celibacy
One of the distinguishing features of the Roman church was the requirement that
priests be celibate, and by implication that they also be chaste, though both these
initiatives proved gradual and difficult. Pope Siricius (ca. 334–399) had decreed
as early as the fourth century the requirement for priests and deacons to live apart
from their spouses. In the fifth century, Pope Leo I (d. 461) declared that this
requirement applied to subdeacons, too. Priestly celibacy was not definitively
imposed until the eleventh-century Gregorian reform and later articulated by the
1123 First Lateran Council, by the 1139 Second Lateran Council, and outlined by
Gratian’s Decretum in the mid-twelfth century (Baldwin 1970, 337; Thibodeaux
2010, 188). Indeed the numerous articulations of this requirement testify to the
difficulty of imposing celibacy and chastity on priests. Even after the Gregorian
reform, however, there were still outlier priests whose sons sometimes succeeded
them in their church (Lawrence 2001, 660).
The underlying reason for this requirement that priests be unmarried and
sexually abstinent stems in part from the need to distinguish the priestly class,
specifically the secular clergy, from the laity, though celibacy was already a
traditional feature of the monastic orders. By removing ordained priests from the
sexual arena, Gregorian reformers “purified” them from the ordinary, secular life
and created a spiritual elite who were still presented and regarded as virile
warriors, protectors of the Church, and spiritual parents who paternally guided
and directed their children in Christ (Thibodeaux 2010, 6–7, 24).
The obligation of celibacy applied only to the major clerical orders, while the
minor orders of clerics were allowed to marry. The dilemmas that resulted from
this “partial” obligation is exemplified in the story of Abelard and Heloïse (ca.
1101–1164). As a teacher at the cathedral school of Notre-Dame in Paris and as a
canon, Abelard lived in the house of another canon, Fulbert who also employed
Abelard to tutor his niece Heloïse. There ensued a tumultuous affair and a
pregnancy. Abelard’s solution to this situation was to marry Heloïse, keeping the
marriage secret, though, from everyone except Fulbert. When Fulbert made pub-
lic the news of this marriage, Abelard sent Heloïse to stay in a nunnery (though
she did not become at nun until later), not to repudiate her, but rather to maintain
a certain amount of discretion to protect his professional clerical ambitions.
Fulbert, however, interpreted this as abandonment of his niece and charged his
men to punish Abelard by castration. Abelard then entered the monastery at St.
Denis and Heloïse took vows to become a nun (Logan 2002, 155–57).

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182 Linda Rouillard
G Recent Scholarship
The mark of the clergy, tonsure, or the shaving of the crown of the head, is
believed by some scholars to have signified a rejection of masculinity, in addition
to being an outward sign of the cleric’s submission of all his heart and mind to
God. Lay brothers in fact sometimes grew a beard specifically to signify their
different status from monks (Murray 2008, 44). If masculinity is determined by
making war, making love, having children and accumulating wealth, and if the
clergy were required to reject such masculine behavior, how then did medieval
clerics identify themselves as men?
This is indeed one of the most important recent developments in the scholar-
ship on clerical culture: the study of celibacy and its consequential effects on
masculine identity among clerics, and on the lay perception of clerical male
identity. Ruth Mazo Karras for instance, reminds us that chastity or more specifi-
cally virginity, was not the exclusive purview of clerics, for it was certainly
expected of unmarried laity, but obviously only until the day of their nuptials.
Clerics of the major orders were marked by the expectation of perpetual chastity,
though the practical reality was that even though such clerics might remain
celibate or unmarried, they were not always sexually abstinent. Karras cites the
example of a fifteenth-century priest who was known to live with his concubine.
His more serious offense, however, was considered to be his adulterous relation-
ship with a parishioner’s wife (Karras 2012, 53–54).
How then did celibate priests identify themselves as masculine when they
renounced sexual relationships and the establishment of a family line as well as
military prowess? Some research suggests a rhetorical strategy that claimed a
virtual military characteristic: clerics sometimes presented themselves as soldiers
of Christ fighting for the spiritual well-being of the laity and as parents aggres-
sively protecting their charges (Werner 2010, 163; Thibodeaux 2010, 86, 99–100).
They advised crusader knights engaged in just wars; such knights could and
should fight in exchange for forgiveness of their sins. Bernard of Clairvaux’s In
Praise of the New Knighthood explained how military valor could serve God (Holt
2010, 189–90). The Chanson de Roland, the twelfth-century Old French asso-
nanced epic poem, includes numerous lengthy descriptions of Roland and Oli-
vier, engaged in mortal and spiritual combat with the enemy Saracens; and it also
includes descriptions of the Archbishop Turpin who fought, killed, and died
alongside the secular heroes of Charlemagne’s army, a stunning literal example
of a clerical soldier of Christ (Moignet 1969, laisses 95, 108, 121).
Some of the current discussion focused on religious men and women of the
Middle Ages is framed by the modern concept of a third gender which can include
a variety of life circumstances such as celibacy and castration, or more simply

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anyone who does not satisfy the masculine or feminine categories (Murray 2008,
35). It is important to note, however, that medievals did not consign themselves to
a third gender. Rather than embracing asexual images, medieval religious men
and women often embraced hybrid sexual images. For instance, spectacularly
virtuous women were ascribed to the category of virago, or manly women. The
word “abbess” is derived from “abbas” which designates an abbot or a father,
and thus implies a woman-father (Bodarwe 2006, 1). Caroline Bynum Walker’s
scholarship has amply demonstrated the sexually ambiguous images associated
with Christ as savior. The Abbot Guerric of Igny refers to the Holy Spirit as “sent
from Heaven like milk poured out from Christ’s own breasts.” Especially humble
and paternal abbots did not shy away from maternal images for Christ, even
presenting themselves as mother hens to their monks. In an amplification of
Matthew 23:37, one of Anselm of Canterbury’s prayers refers to Jesus as a mother,
then to Saint Paul who in his imitation of Christ also becomes a mother to
Christians. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his position as abbot, regularly portrayed
himself as a maternal, nurturing figure (Bynum 1992, 122).
H Nuns
Like male clerics, nuns were enjoined to remain celibate and chaste, and like their
male counterparts, some women infamously ignored the rule. In the thirteenth
century, Eudes (d. 1275), archbishop of Rouen, visited nunneries in Normandy
and reported on the compliance or lack thereof to this rule. At Villarceaux, in
addition to his discovery of such infractions as eating meat, wearing luxurious
clothing, talking too much, not singing in time and keeping pets, Eudes professed
to be shocked by fornicating and procreating nuns (Amt 1993, 247–48).
For the most part, religious men and women lived separately in their respec-
tive monasteries or convents, though there were double monasteries where men
and women lived in segregated quarters in one abbey. Seventh-century Gaul had
several of these double monasteries, one of the first located in Luxeuil, with
others in Chelles, Jouarre, Faremoutiers, and Remiremont. Abbesses in these
institutions heard confessions, though not with sacramental effect, and adminis-
tered benedictions, practices which still demonstrated a fair amount of respect for
women’s religious authority (Bodarwe 2006, 2). Some of these monasteries estab-
lished co-ed schools and ran scriptoria for the important work of copying of
manuscripts. In seventh-century England, Hilda of Whitby founded a double
convent at Whitby where the monks were in fact subject to Abbess Hilda’s
authority even as they provided the nuns with the necessary sacraments and
rituals. Hilda was also a recognized teacher and several of her male students went

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184 Linda Rouillard
on to be named as bishops (Allen 1985, 253). By the ninth century, however, the
authority of abbesses was seriously curtailed, though in the twelfth-century
double orders or monasteries of Fontevrault in France and Sempringham in
England, the chaplains or canons remained dependent on their female charges in
financial matters. Yet, Simeon of Durham (d. ca. 1130), in his late eleventh- or
early twelfth-century description of a double house at Coldingham, writes that
some of these co-ed monasteries had “changed into resorts for feasting, drinking,
conversation, and other improprieties, those very residences which had been
erected as places to be dedicated to prayer and study” (Amt 1993, 231–32). Double
monasteries in Italy continued with the orders of Humiliati and Humiliatae, from
the twelfth to the fourteenth century when Pope John XXII (1239–1334) deter-
mined that such establishments were taking in women of “ill repute.”
In addition to nuns who lived in an abbey or cloister, there also existed a
group of religious women known as anchoresses, anchorites, recluses or hermits.
These women devoted themselves to a spiritual life without necessarily being
members of an organized order, sometimes living in isolation, though they some-
times chose to live in a convent without taking vows. A variation on this group,
particularly associated with the Low Countries, the Beguines of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries were religious women who lived in the lay community, took
no vows and worked for a living. In general, men and women who wanted to
devote their lives to spiritual devotion without pledging to a closed community,
could become members of Third Orders: as tertiaries they received spiritual
guidance from monasteries and nunneries, but they pursued their religious devo-
tions in the lay world, as for instance the Third Orders of Franciscans (Şenocak
2012, 39).
Together with observing the rule of chastity, religious women were expected
to be obedient and responsive to their religious superiors. Hildegard of Bingen
(1098–1179), however, demonstrated on more than one occasion her own determi-
nation to go beyond mere obedience and do the virtuous thing, the right thing. In
one instance, she refused orders from her bishop to exhume an excommunicant,
resulting in an interdict placed upon her community of nuns by local canons. This
punishment forbade the nuns communion, until the interdict was rescinded by an
archbishop. In another instance, Hildegard refused to be subservient to the abbot
of her Benedictine double monastery at Disibodenberg, insisting on and even-
tually winning the right for her nuns to live in a segregated abbey at Rupertsberg,
rather than be continually subject to the abbot. Her plans to found a nunnery at
Rupertsberg were temporarily frustrated by the abbot who refused to release the
nuns’ dowries, but Hildegard prevailed (Allen 1985, 312; Berger 1999, 1–3). In-
deed, the tendency of the eleventh century was to establish single-sex convents
with an abbess. The twelfth-century Abelard, however, in the rule for female

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monasteries which he wrote at Heloïse’s request, states that nuns should be

“governed by the rule of spiritual men” (Allen 1985, 280), though he acquiesces
that the abbess or deaconess as he called her, should always be consulted on any
matter pertaining to the life of these religious women.
Hildegard of Bingen is also an important example of a formidable, learned
abbess of renown, even within her own lifetime. She was known both for her
scientific writings, spiritual texts, musical compositions as well as for her preach-
ing and sermons. She was praised by Pope Eugenius III (d. 1153); and even
allowed to preach in cathedrals. Hildegard was bold enough to scold Emperor
Barbarossa (ca. 1123–1190) and reproach popes. Of particular importance in
Hildegard’s biography is her experience and interpretation of what is currently
believed to be intense symptoms of migraines: Hildegard vividly described vi-
sions she had, interpreting them as divine gifts that could offer spiritual teachings
which she chronicled in her Scivias (Logan 2002, 176–82).
I Clerical Culture and Art

Monastic orders did not only export religious culture and practice, or offer
prayers: they could also circulate other products such as architectural styles,
calligraphy styles and even agricultural products. For instance, some scholars
credit the Cistercian order with the dissemination of the Reinette Grise apple and
the Warden pear from France to different European sites (Burton and Kerr 2011,
97). On a higher level, Abbot Suger (ca. 1081–1151) of Saint-Denis (a Benedictine
abbey and royal necropolis just outside of Paris), is credited with the introduction
of the Gothic style in northern France, in addition to his diplomatic service to the
French King Louis VI (1081–1137). Renovations of the abbey church of Saint-Denis
contributed to the economic development and enrichment of both the abbey and
the town: these renovations in part improved access to relics which then in-
creased pilgrimages to the church and hence improved revenues for both the
church and its surrounding region.
Woven throughout the centuries of numerous clerical orders, both male and
female, remain the spiritual convictions, devotions, and dedication of genera-
tions: men and women who believed that their faith and their prayers could save
the world. While people of the twenty-first century may have difficulty compre-
hending the medieval traffic in relics, repetitions of formulaic prayers, or the
insistence on celibacy for priests and nuns, we must remember that clerical
culture also commissioned and created some of the greatest inspirational works
of art that we know. One need only open the early thirteenth-century Peterbor-
ough Psalter or examine an illuminated page from the late twelfth-century

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186 Linda Rouillard
Winchester Bible to be confronted with the artistic incarnation of religious belief.

The monophonic repertoire of Gregorian Chant constitutes an aural legacy of
clerical culture and daily life, along with the development of polyphony begin-
ning with Leonin and Perotin, clerics associated with the twelfth-century Notre-
Dame School. Our legacy from Hildegard of Bingen includes her musical composi-
tions compiled in Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum. Guillaume de Ma-
chaut, fourteenth-century priest and composer, recreated his faith through his
compositions of music for the mass, in addition to his secular compositions.
Bishops organized campaigns to construct some of the most beautiful edifices
ever designed to manifest human faith in a holy being. While there certainly were
political motivations behind ecclesiastical building campaigns, nonetheless, Ro-
manesque basilicas and Gothic cathedrals, along with all the other examples of
medieval art created within and for clerical culture, exemplify a collective belief
in something greater than mere human beings.
Select Bibliography
Brooke, Christopher, The Age of the Cloister: The Story of Monastic Life in the Middle Ages
(Mahwah, NJ, 2003).
Burton, Janet and Julie Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge and Rochester, NY,
2011).
Bynum, Caroline Walker, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley, CA, 1982).
Linehan, Peter and Janet L. Nelson, ed., The Medieval World (New York 2001).
Logan, F. Donald, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages (New York 2002).
Şenocak, Neslihan, The Poor and the Perfect: The Rise of Learning in the Franciscan Order,
1209–1310 (Ithaca, NY, 2012).
Thibodeaux, Jennifer D., ed., Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in
the Middle Ages (New York 2010).

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Johannes Bernwieser
Cities
A Critical Issues
The question, “What is a city?” at first seems to be easy to answer when it comes
to the medieval era in Europe: Densely built, with towers, castles, or churches and
surrounded by walls, the silhouettes of these settlements are noticeably different
from those of the surrounding areas. Often, medieval cities were located at
important traffic intersections, such as rivers or traditional trade routes. Inside
the city walls the inhabitants would form a distinct society with a specific sense
of community and culture, its own legal system, and lively mercantile activity
(Jäschke and Schrenk, ed., 2007). John of Viterbo, who was a jurist in Florence in
the first half of the thirteenth century, points out some of these aspects of cities in
his Liber de Regimine Civitatum (ca. 1228):
The word city (civitas) implies the following: The freedom of citizens (civium libertas) or of
inhabitants (habitantium immunitas); this interpretation is based on the three syllables of
the word civitas: ci stands for citra, which refers to the interior that is surrounded by walls, vi
stands for vim, the military strength of the inhabitants, and tas stands for habitas, referring
to the living space of the inhabitants that is protected against foreigners and enemies (John
of Viterbo 1901, 218).
At the same time, it is important to note that no medieval city was identical to any
other. Each city had its own shapes and its own particular social, political,
judicial, and economic aspects that caused it to develop in a particular way
(Johanek and Post 2004). In order to explore medieval cities in greater depth, it is
necessary to differentiate between formal, regional and chronological aspects. In
the following, three different types of cities shall be discussed: first, Roman cities
from late antiquity in central and southern Europe; second, trading cities from the
early and high Middle Ages, which mainly emerged in Northern Europe; and last,
market towns that developed in Central Europe at about the same time (Brach-
mann 1991; Schwarz 2008). In addition, some basic features of urban life will be
discussed, including how an urban citizenry developed (Schulz 1992) and the
peculiarities of city councils. Finally, living conditions in cities during the early
and high Middle Ages will be explored, including the constant threat of epi-
demics. Urban fringe groups and city chronicles will be the final topics (for a
comprehensive discussion of the medieval city, see the contributions to Classen,
ed., 2009).

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188 Johannes Bernwieser
B City Types
I The City of Late Antiquity
When talking about the city of the early Middle Ages (fifth to tenth centuries)
one usually refers to cities that were founded in Roman times and had endured
the political end of the western Roman Empire (Clemens 2003). Many of these
early medieval cities are located on rivers or coasts, like the southern French
city of Arles (Brühl 1975, 234–44). This settlement, located at the southern end
of the Rhône delta, used to be inhabited by the Celts and was probably founded
by the Greeks. At the end of the second century B.C.E., Arles was used by the
Romans as a military base (Fossae Marianae) because it was close to the sea. In
46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar granted Arles the status of a colonia (Colonia Iulia
Paterna Arelate Sextanorum). However, the rapid rise of Arles began only under
Constantine (306–337), who decided to make the city one of his residences. In
417, Pope Zosimos († 418) made Arles a metropolitan see. In the sixth century,
Arles was conquered by the Frankish kings, who arranged circus games there,
according to the report of Procopius of Caesarea (ca. 500–ca. 565) (Procopius
Caesariensis 2001, 442). Although the Franks took over the Roman prefecture’s
constitution, they moved the prefecture from Arles to Marseille at the end of the
sixth century.
The city’s harbor was of great importance, because it helped the settlement to
become a center of trade, including long-distance trade. Eugen Ewig has referred
to sixth-century Arles as “the gateway to the world” (Ewig 1952, 673). In the
following centuries, the city seems to have lost its prominence. The Carolingian
and Burgundian rulers of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries stayed there
only on rare occasions. However, when Pope John VIII (ca. 852–882) escaped from
Rome in 878, he first went to Arles in order to meet up with Boso of Provence
(† 887) (Grat, ed., 1964, 223). Arles suffered greatly from the invasions of the
Spanish Muslims (737/738, 842) and the Normans (859/860). In the second half of
the ninth century, Arles and its surrounding area were invaded by the Saracens,
who settled down close to present-day Saint-Tropez. In 869, they even captured
Archbishop Roland of Arles (852–869), who was only released in exchange for an
enormous ransom. Other cities of late antiquity are London, Marseille, Genoa,
Cologne, Trier, and Mainz.

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II The Medieval Trading City
Apart from these very old civitates, there are many cities that do not have roots in
antiquity, but were instead founded in medieval times. These cities were usually
trading centers, and in areas where Germanic languages were spoken, their
names are identifiable by the suffix “-wik” (Old High German for “trading place”)
(Schütte 1976). Trading cities emerged in the Early Middle Ages as commerce
developed quickly in Northern Europe, especially in the areas of the Baltic Sea
and the North Sea. The estuaries of navigable rivers, such as the Rhine, the
Scheldt, or the Meuse, were situated along the most important trading routes and
were therefore particularly attractive sites for trading cities. Haithabu (Old Norse
for “place on the heath”), which is today deserted, is one of the earliest settle-
ments of this kind. This city is located close to the River Schlei, on the Jutland
Peninsula and is part of the current administrative district of Schleswig-Flensburg
in northern Germany (Brandt, Müller-Wille, and Radtke 2002). Goods and pro-
ducts were shipped from Haithabu to Scandinavia and the entire Baltic area. Salt,
fish, wheat, timber, metal, flax and fur were loaded onto ships at Haithabu and
transported to Norway, Sweden, and Russia. The city, which probably consisted
of a few shacks at the beginning of the ninth century, rapidly became a flourish-
ing trading post. According to legend, a church was built in Haithabu under the
auspices of the missionary Ansgar of Hamburg-Bremen (ca. 860); soon afterward,
a wall was constructed around the city. Although this city became a popular
destination for Christian merchants, its population was probably mainly pagan.
This is, at least, what the Maghrebi traveler al-Tartushi of Cordoba suggests in his
account dated 950:
In honor of their god, they are celebrating, eating and drinking. Everyone who slaughters a
sacrificial animal has a wooden rack in front of his door where he puts the animal […] so that
everybody can see that this person is honoring their god (Giese, ed., 1988, 43).
The heydays of Haithabu lasted only for a short period of time. It was probably
the siltation of the harbor in the eleventh century which forced larger ships to call
at other ports. Additionally, the raids of the Norwegians and Slavs (1050/1066)
destroyed the city so extensively that it was not rebuilt afterwards. Haithabu’s fate
was shared by a few other important northern European trading sites, such as
Quentovic (dép. Pas-de-Calais), Kaupang (southern Norway), and Birka (west of
Stockholm). Today, none of these sites exist.

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III Market Towns in the European Inland
Normally, market towns developed in the vicinity of already-existing structures

such as Roman settlements, episcopal sees, monasteries, royal palaces, and
castles. They can often be found in northern France, Flanders, the Lower Rhine,
and eastern Germany. One such market town is Bruges, which grew rapidly in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries and became “the international trade center of
Northern Europe” (Peyer 1987, 69). Archeological findings show that Bruges,
which had been a Roman settlement, was well developed as early as the third
century B.C.E. Apparently, in the early Middle Ages, a second settlement was
founded in the immediate vicinity of the original settlement. Sources from the
eighth century identify this second settlement the main site of the pagus Flandren-
sis (i.e., the County of Flanders) (Ryckaert 1983, 742). However, nothing remains
of the old Roman city. It was destroyed in the second half of the third century by
German tribes and the sea flooded its ruins.
Bruges’ rapid rise began in the ninth century, around the time that the a
castrum was built for protection. The marketplace was situated just west of the
oudeburg (today’s “Simon Stevinplein”). As the population increased, the city
grew to the north and east. At the beginning of the twelfth century, the city was so
densely populated that the politically significant People’s Assembly could no
longer be convened in the city center but had to be moved outside of the city to
provide space for every inhabitant. In the thirteenth century, the mendicant
orders moved to Bruges and built hospitals. Franciscans (ca. 1225), Dominicans
(1234), Carmelites (1266), and Augustinians (1276) came to the city. Bruges became
one of the most important centers for the arts in fifteenth-century Europe. Jan van
Eyck (ca. 1390–1441), Hans Memling (1433/1440–1494), and Gerard David (ca.
1460–1523) worked there. The population reached its peak in the fifteenth century
at about 40,000 inhabitants.
C Basic Conditions of Urban Life in the

Middle Ages
I Population growth
One cannot describe the development of medieval cities without also describing
the immense population growth at that time. After the period of the great migra-
tions and the plague of the seventh century that decimated a large part of the
European population, a “demographic revolution” started in the tenth century

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(Bairoch et al. 1988). It is estimated that between the years 300 and 1340, the
population rose from 4 to 9.3 million in Italy, from 5 to 19 million in France, and
from 3.5 to 11.6 million in the Roman-German Empire (including Scandinavia).
Agricultural improvements like the three-field crop rotation system and innova-
tions like the cold-turning plough were responsible for this development (Rösener
1986). Although it is very hard to estimate the population with any accuracy, it is
safe to say that Europe’s population doubled between 1000 and 1400. This
development caused extensive deforestation and led to the expansion of cities. As
with Bruges, mentioned above, cities often outgrew their boundaries. In response,
new neighborhoods were built, existing structures were expanded, and some-
times remote regions were settled.
The greatest influx of people into cities occurred during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. City living became more and more attractive. Everyone who
hoped to improve his living conditions left the countryside and moved to the city
(Nicholas 1997). The biggest cities in medieval times were Paris, Milan, Florence
and Venice. In the thirteenth century between 20,000 and 40,000 people lived in
each of these cities. Bonvesin dela Riva’s (ca. 1240–ca. 1315) work On the Marvels
of the City of Milan illustrates very well how life was in late medieval cities.
Although this text is painting an idealized picture, it gives rare insights into the
life, culture, and proportions of a medieval city:
In regards to housing […] the truth is there before the eyes of those who see. The streets in
this city are quite wide, the palaces beautiful, the houses packed in, not scattered but
continuous, stately, adorned in a stately manner. […] Dwellings with doors giving access to
the public streets have been found to number about 12,500, and in their number are very
many in which many families live together with crowds of dependents. And this indicates the
astonishing density of population of citizens. […] The roofed commons (open to all) neigh-
bors in those squares which are popularly called coperti (roofed arcades) almost reach the
number of 60. […] The court of the commune […] spreads over an area of 66 acres. […] In the
midst of it stands a wonderful palace, and in the court itself there is a town, in which are the
four bells of the commune. […] The city itself is ringed as a circle, and its wonderful rounded
shape is a mark of its perfection. […] Outside the wall of the moat there are so many suburban
houses that they alone would be enough to constitute a city. […] The main gates of the city
are also very strong, and they reach the number of six. The secondary gates […] are ten. […]
The sanctuaries of the saints […] are about 200 in the city alone, having 480 altars. […] (In
honor of the Virgin Mary) 36 churches have been built in the city alone, and undoubtedly
there are more in the surrounding city. […] The steeples, built in the manner of towers, are
about 120 in the city. […] Then there are […] 94 chapels […], six convents of monks, and the
nunneries are eight. […] In the city […] there are ten hospitals for the sick, all properly
endowed with sufficient temporal resources. The principal one is the Hospital of the Brolo,
very rich in precious possessions; it was founded 1145 by Guffredo da Bussero. In it […] there
are […] more than 500 poor bed patients and just as many more not lying down. All of these
receive food at the expense of the hospital itself. Besides them, also, no less than 350 babies

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and more […] are under the hospital’s care. Every sort of the poor people […] except the
lepers, for whom another hospital is reserved […] (Lopez and Raymond, ed., 1955, 61–65).
II Urban Law and “Freedom”
The “boom” of the cities was certainly one of the most important turning points in
medieval Europe’s history. Societies that had been predominantly agricultural
were now becoming urban. This led to the development of an “urban law.” The
most important feature of this law was that every citizen had the right to personal
freedom and the right to own and inherit land (Schwarz 2008). The often-quoted
phrase “city air sets you free” made sure that serfs from rural areas did not have
to suffer from a lack of freedom when mingled with citizens. Free citizens, who
sometimes elected their own judges, formed their own judicial communities. This
community was liberated from the general constitution of the courts and had its
own city district. Due to the fact that in those districts a “higher peace” was
applied, they formed an “island of free law.” This model of “city in a legal sense”
(Planitz 1973) constitutes itself for the first time in eleventh-century northern
Italian cities (Milan, Piacenza), as well as in the Roman-German and Northern
French cities of the twelfth century (Cambrai 1077, Laon 1107/12, and Freiburg im
Breisgau 1120) (Schulz 1992). In the old cities with a bishop residence at the Rhine
and the Danube, this development set in later. Only at the end of the twelfth
century was the struggle of the citizens against the lords of the towns successful.
Thus, local autonomy could develop. This is illustrated by the Charter of Lorris
(dép. du Loiret) of 1155, which was imitated by the charters of many cities:
(1) Everyone who has a house in the parish of Lorris shall pay as rent only 6 pence for his
house, and for each acre of land he possesses in the parish.
(2) No inhabitant […] shall be required to pay a toll or any other tax on his provisions; and let
him not be made any measurage fee on the grain which he has raised by his own labor.
(3) No burgher shall go on an expedition, on foot or on horseback, from which he cannot
return the same day to his home if he desires.
(4) No burgher shall pay toll on the road to Étampes, to Orléans, to Milly or to Melun. […].
(6) No person while on his way to the fairs and markets of Lorris, or returning, shall be
arrested or disturbed, unless he shall have committed an offense the same day. […].
(7) No one […] shall exact from the burgers of Lorris any tallage, tax, or subsidy. […].
(16) No one shall be detained in prison if he can furnish surety that he will present himself
for judgment […].
(17) Any burgher who wishes to sell his property shall have the privilege of doing so […].
(18) Anyone who shall dwell a year and a day in the parish of Lorris, without any claim
having pursued him there […] shall abide there freely and without molestation. (Ogg, ed.,
1908, 328–30).

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III Development of the Urban Citizenry
All of that provides the background for the development of an urban “bourgeoi-
sie.” Modern research often points out that the charter exemplifies a struggle for
“civil self-determination” or “civil liberty.” However, this assumption falls short
of the mark: the overall aim of the citizens was to ensure permanent peace within
the city walls (Oexle 1996). As mentioned above, some cities gained a measure of
autonomy in northern Italy at a remarkably early date, the eleventh century.
During the church reform movement and the so-called “Investiture Controversy”
(eleventh and twelfth centuries) the traditional episcopal lords of the cities lost
their authority. They had been accused of simony and criticized for allowing
priests to marry. Because of their loss of authority, they were no longer capable of
settling intra-city conflicts (Zumhagen 2002), so the inhabitants of the cities took
the initiative. Evidence from different places suggests that at the end of the
eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries, the urban nobility, the
nobiles from the area surrounding the city as well as the non-aristocratic clergy-
and laymen, tried to settle conflicts peacefully in the context of people’s assem-
blies. It seems that the commitment on oath played a central role in these people’s
assemblies. After the debates, a common oath was taken that obliged all parties
involved to uphold everything that had been laid down before (Zumhagen 2002).
Anyone who did not take the oath and did therefore not join the coniuratio, or
even broke the oath he had taken, risked being excluded from the community.
The dissenter usually had his house destroyed and the rubble dumped outside the
city walls.
IV The City Communes
The forms of common decision-making and mutual duty on oath directly led over
to the constitutional municipalities. At the heads of constitutional municipalities
were consuls, who are mentioned from the middle to the end of the eleventh
century. The consuls’ rulings, which originated from arbitral settlement, sup-
ported the community, even without the legitimation of a traditional ruler. The
inhabitants elected consuls on an annual basis and gave them authority by
swearing that they would follow all of their lawful instructions (Schulte 1998). It
is important to point out that the development of municipalities was not the result
of a revolutionary transformation linked to the religious restlessness of the North-
ern French and Lombard cities. It seems that, in many places, municipalities
developed with the blessing of the local bishop. The bishop still claimed sover-
eignty over the city and held his vassals responsible for keeping order (Grieme,

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Kruppe, and Pätzold, ed., 2004). Within this complex the sworn unity led to new
forms that brought order into society. Beginning around the year 1100, certain
local constitutions determined the overall constitution not only in the cities, but
also in rural areas. There were rural communities with their own consuls that
were elected from the classes of both the nobility and peasantry. In other villages,
the local peasant consuls were subordinant to a noble or ecclesiastical lord. How
strange this municipal movement, which was limited to Northern Italy in the first
half of the twelfth century, must have appeared to a nobleman from north of the
Alps, is nicely illustrated by an excerpt from the Gesta Friderici by Otto of Freising
(ca. 1112–1158):
They (the Lombards) are so attached to their liberty that, to avoid the insolence of rulers,
they prefer to be reigned over by consuls than by princes. And since, as it is known, there
are three orders among them, of captains, vassals, and the commons (plebs), in order to
keep down arrogance, these consuls are chosen, not from one order, but from each, and, lest
they should be seized with a greed for power, they are changed nearly every year. From
which it happens that that territory is all divided into cities, which have each reduced those
of their own province to live with them, so that there is hardly to be found any noble or great
man with so great an influence, as not to owe obedience to the rule of his own city. And they
are all accustomed to call these various territories their own comitatus (county), from this
privilege of living together. And in order that the means of restraining their neighbors may
not fail, they do not disdain to raise to the badge of knighthood, and to all grades of
authority, young men of low condition, and even workmen of contemptible mechanical arts,
such as other people drive away like the plague from the more honorable and liberal
pursuits. From which it happens that they are preeminent among the other countries of the
world for riches and power. And to this they are helped also, as has been said, by their own
industrious habits, and by the absence of their princes, accustomed to reside north of the
Alps (Schmale, ed., 1965, 308–09).
D The Council in the Medieval City

The constitutions and institutions of medieval cities were so diverse that only a
few aspects shall be discussed, including the creation of the city council. At first,
the lord of the city and his representatives were responsible for the city’s adminis-
tration. In the high Middle Ages, the citizens of a city could, as described above,
develop their own administration departments; these departments eventually
transformed into city councils (Rigaudière 1993). In the empire north of the Alps,
the earliest council structures can be found in Utrecht (1196) and Lübeck (1201).
The council was a committee of variable size, depending on the city’s population,
whose members belonged to the city’s prominent families. Cities had different
regulations regarding how one became a city councilor and how long one could

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stay in office. In some cities, a councilor could only serve a one-year term; in
others, he would be elected for life. A mayor was at the head of each city council;
the mayor’s period of office could last from a few weeks up to several years. Over
the course of the Middle Ages, the structure of the city council became more
complex. Often, city policy was not discussed in the council itself, but only in
special committees. For the most part, councils were simply named after the
number of members—a “committee of five,” “of nine,” or “of thirteen,” for
example. The councilors always had to attend committee meetings, and one
could be fined for arriving late. The council met frequently, particularly in larger
cities like Nuremberg; at first the council only met three days a week, but later
they met on every workday.
Often the council judged in trials of lower jurisdiction, while high justice and
blood court were not passed on to the classes. Besides the council meetings, the
council had other tasks as well: taking over offices, making lengthy journeys,
commanding the urban contingent, and participating in other boards. Council
members were usually unpaid; only beginning in the fourteenth century do
sources show that attendance money was paid. In return for their service, council
members received free meals and did not have the obligations of ordinary
citizens. Nevertheless, rich families complained about the having to serve on
councils, which was very time-consuming. Due to the great demands placed on
council members’ time, the number of potential candidates remained relatively
small. A simple craftsman who had to live from what he earned simply could not
afford to be a council member.
In the late Middle Ages, city councils typically evolved into authorities that
demanded obedience (Meyer 2009). The citizens’ assembly was increasingly less
politically powerful. Only in times of tax increases or crisis did the council send
for members of the citizens’ assembly in order to authorize its decisions. The city
council regulated ever more facets of medieval life. Among other things, the
council expanded the regulations concerning markets and trading, and controlled
measures and weights. It also established price regulations for basic foodstuffs,
supervised sanitation, inspected meat, coordinated the sale of meat and bread,
and set quality standards for various items sold in the marketplace. The council
also regulated the distance between properties, coordinated fire protection, over-
saw the diversion of water, and regulated the number of buildings that could be
built and the height that those buildings could be. The council was also in charge
of the defense of the city, the construction of city walls, and warfare. The Regula-
tions on the Sale of Meat and Fish enumerates many of the regulations put in place
by the local council. It was valid from 1365 to 1409 in Beverley (Yorkshire). An
excerpt reads:

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Orders as to the butcher’s market: Also, it was ordered, in 1365 […] that no market should be
held for selling meat anywhere in Beverley except in the ancient butcher’s market and in
Barleyholme, fair and market days only excepted.
Of meat kept or sold out of season: Also, it was ordered […], that if a butcher sell, or put out
for sale, meat maggoty or kept beyond the proper time, or dead from murrain, or carrion, for
every time any of them has been duly convicted of any of the crimes or offences aforesaid,
he should pay, without remedy, to the community 6 shillings 8 pence.
Of blood or any tainted matter placed in the streets: Also, it was ordered by the community
that if a butcher or any of his men put offal, blood or any tainted thing in the high streets
[…], everyone so offending is to pay the community 40 pence.
Of the custody of butchers’ dogs: Also, because of diverse complaints made about butchers’
dogs it was ordered […], by the keepers of the town of Beverly, that if any butcher’s dog be
found in the road without a keeper, or if he bite a stranger’s pig or dog, he whose dog
commits the offence should pay to the community 40 pence.
Of meat for sale: […] proclamation was made, […] that every butcher must sell his meat
within four days from the time of killing, or on the fourth day put in in salt” (Leach, ed.,
1900, 28–29).
E Methods of Building and Housing Conditions

in Early and High Medieval Cities
It is not clear how long, or to what extent, Roman stone buildings were used in
the cities north of the Alps. However, it can be said that the knowledge of how to
build stone houses nearly disappeared in the sixth century in this area. Once the
knowledge was lost, experts from southern Europe were consulted whenever
stone buildings were constructed; however, stone was rarely used as a building
material except in the cases of churches, monasteries, and imperial palaces
(Binding 2006; 2010). In suburban settlements, it is likely that simple post houses
were predominant until they were replaced by framing constructions, probably in
the eleventh and twelfth century: Shim-like bricks, which were in parts only
loosely connected to the foundation, protected the sleeper beams better from
humidity and rotting than had the buried posts of the earlier buildings. At first,
tamped clay probably served as a ground floor and the fireplace was elevated just
slightly above the ground. In Lübeck, archaeologists found the remains of a six-
meter-tall building that was probably built in the twelfth century. This structure
seems to have had two floors, so that its inhabitants were no longer forced to
sleep on the cold ground (Dirlmeier 1998). It is possible that the first stone houses
in the cities of the early and high Middle Ages were primarily erected by the lords
of the city, the ministeriales, or the noble upper class. It was very expensive and
difficult to produce bricks and red bricks, so it was not until the thirteenth century
that stone buildings began to shape the cityscape. An early example of a stone

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building is an eleventh-century structure, which was excavated in Münsterhof

Square in Zurich. It had two stone floors and an additional wooden floor. Its
relatively small groundplan of 5.7 by 7.0 meters meant that this three-story
building gave the impression of being a tower. The walls (or a wall) of the top
floor was/were decorated with the oldest known mural in the city. This mural, as
well as a valuable drinking cup, children’s shoes, and other artifacts indicate that
the people living there were of a higher social class (Fuhrmann 2006).
Around 1200 a widespread building activity of an unprecedented intensity
started, not only in the Holy Roman Empire. Open space in cities disappeared
almost entirely in the thirteenth century, and land parcels were now made much
smaller. The closely-spaced buildings could only be enlarged if additional floors
were added, and taller buildings meant that less sunlight could shine into
neighboring houses. In the thirteenth century, the streets had buildings that stood
right next to each other, the classic medieval cityscape. Previously, upper floors
of buildings had been reachable by means of upper entrances or external stair-
cases, but these external stairs vanished. However, there was no clear line of
development from wooden houses to stone houses, because stone houses were
often superseded by half-timbered houses in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries. This indicates that timber was a very popular building material. Bigger
windows, which became more common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries, were probably considered an essential improvement. Not only did the rooms
become brighter, but it also became easier to ventilate them. Closed stoves, which
were used by the middle of the eleventh century, ensured smokeless rooms and
had a positive impact on standards of living. An early example of this invention
can be found in Basel. In the living room of the Basel house there was a closed tile
stove that was heated by the fireplace in the kitchen. Such tile stoves were first
used by the upper class. Their use probably spread from castles to the cities
beginning in the twelfth century (Dirlmeier 1998; Fuhrmann 2006).
Not much is known about the furnishings of the high and late Middle Ages.
The custom of using a large table for shared meals was spreading slowly and
probably was not common until the late twelfth or rather thirteenth century. The
custom may have spread slowly because a table used up too much space. It is
therefore assumed that everyday life mostly took place close to the ground. Stools
and benches, which were fixed to the wall and used for sleeping as well, were the
main seating accommodations. Stoves remained open fireplaces for a long time,
but they were increasingly raised from the ground; a stovetop, which was coated
with clay, rested on a brick or stone construction. Stoves were also moved from
the center of the room to the outer walls, making it easier to build chimneys; this,
in turn considerably improved the kitchen atmosphere. Iron fragments of locks
that belonged to chests in which acquired property was stored are frequently

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found during archaeological excavations. Initially, ceramic vessels and pots with
convex bottoms were used for cooking. Tripod stands and pots that stood on legs
first appear around 1200, and cooking utensils increasingly became flat. At the
same time that urbanization was occurring, craftspeople began to specialize in
their trades, which led to the development of a great variety of shapes of house-
hold appliances (Carlier and Soens 2000).
Supply and waste disposal problems became more and more serious as cities,
and urban populations, expanded (see the contribution to this Handbook by
Gerhard Jaritz on “Waste”). Municipalities solved these problems in very different
ways. It may be true that medieval cities did not live up to modern sanitation
standards, but the image of dirty and stinking medieval cities does not depict
reality and is an invention of nineteenth-century historiography. It is true, how-
ever, that these issues were addressed slowly and in the beginning the authorities
only rarely issued regulations. However, one question must remain open: were
regulations repeatedly proclaimed because they were so successful or rather
because they were rarely obeyed and therefore had to be reiterated?
F Epidemics in Late Medieval Cities

Apart from hunger, cities were constantly threatened by epidemics that were
caused by the dense living conditions. It is very hard to identify which diseases
were responsible for specific epidemics (Jankrift 2003). Thus, three of the most
frequent diseases will be discussed: leprosy, ergot poisoning, and plague, parti-
cularly the plague of 1347–1351.
I Leprosy and Ergot Poisoning
Leprosy has been known since antiquity. It is a disease that takes a wide range of
forms. In the most severe cases, lumps and pus patches appear on the face,
followed by abscesses in the nose and throat. Vital organs are affected later. Facial
lumps eventually merge together, creating the classic sign of leprosy, and changes
in the larynx cause the voice to roughen. Ultimately, the disease can cause
mutilation and loss of sight. It is remarkable, however, that the disease progressed
without any symptoms in 98 percent of all cases. The first leper houses in the
imperial area north of the Alps are documented in the seventh century. Their
number rose notably in the high and later Middle Ages (Rosskopf 2006). The leper
house in Cambridge, UK, is still standing today. The third Council of the Lateran
(1179) completely separated lepers from the remaining population, and separate

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churches and graveyards were even allocated to sick persons. People who were
suspected to be suffering from leprosy were inspected at so-called “leprosy exhibi-
tions.” In Cologne, for instance, sufferers were examined by a committee of three
persons in broad daylight, in order to prevent a false diagnosis. It was not until the
fifteenth century that the responsibility of diagnosis was handed over to the
medical departments of universities. The patients who lived in these segregated
leper buildings formed a kind of confraternity. They lived according to a special
organization and elected a “master leper.” Lepers had possessed the right to beg
since the early Middle Ages, although this right was often subject to regional and
temporal limitations. Alms paid for the upkeep of leper houses, which achieved
significant wealth from these donations and foundations.
“Saint Anthony’s Fire” or “Holy Fire”—that is, ergot poisoning—was caused
by a parasitical fungus that infected the ears of rye and turned their grains black.
It occurred particularly often in the late Middle Ages, when the climate was
particularly humid. When infected grains were used to bake bread or eaten in any
other form, they caused cramps, hallucinations and tissue necrosis that could
ultimately be fatal. The sufferer’s arms and legs turned dark blue or black and
eventually fell off. The cause of this disease, which mostly occurred in times of
hunger and generally affected the poor, was not revealed until the eighteenth
century.
II The Plague of 1347–1351
The recurring plague was certainly the worst event in the later Middle Ages. The
medievals perceived this disease as something completely new and, like so many
other times before, it seemed like an instrument of divine justice to them. The last
pandemic, which historians call the “Plague of Justinian,” returned periodically
as bubonic plague between the years 541–542 and 746–748. However, in the
decades and centuries following the last plague in the eighth century, knowledge
about this epidemic disappeared. It was only in 1894 that the bacterium was
isolated and detected. The germ’s main vectors were small rodents, primarily rats,
but various other animal species (like the rat flea) spread the disease also. With
an increasing number of infections within the population, a mechanism kicked in
that increased the mortality rate by making it possible for the disease to spread
from human being to human being. “Bubonic plague” was carried by rat fleas and
it caused vomiting, circulatory collapse, and changes in vital organs. After some
days, the patient’s lymph nodes swelled up and buboes, which gave the bubonic
plague its name, developed. If these swellings burst, there was a higher chance
that the patient might survive, but once the barrier of the lymph nodes was taken,

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death was almost certain. Although they knew that the disease was highly
infectious, the medievals knew very little about its cause and cure.
The physicians of the late Middle Ages relied on authorities from late anti-
quity, who believed that diseases were the result of a deficiency of one of the four
bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile). By removing some blood
from the patient, the physicians tried to regulate the amounts and relative propor-
tions of these fluids. Emetic agents, laxatives and enemas were supposed to
eliminate foul gases and rotten food from the body. The air in hospital rooms was
cleaned with aromatic fires. Aromatic substances were also put into the masks of
doctors, while hands and faces were fumigated with water mixed with vinegar
(Bergdolt 1994). Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) describes the epidemic of 1348 in
Florence in the introduction to his famous collection of short narratives, the
Decameron, with the following, most dramatic words:
I say, then, that the years of the beatific Incarnation of the Son of God had reached the
tale 1348. The mortal pestilence then arrived in the […] city of Florence. Whether through
the operations of the heavenly bodies, or sent upon us mortals through our wicked deeds
by the just wrath of God for our correction, the plague had begun some years ago in
Eastern countries. It carried off uncounted numbers of inhabitants, and kept moving
without cease from place to place. It spread in piteous fashion toward the West. No
wisdom or human foresight worked against it. The city had been cleaned of much filth by
officials delegated to the task. Sick persons were forbidden entrance, and many laws were
passed for the safeguarding of health. Devout persons made to God not just modest
supplications and not just once, but many, both in ordered processions and in other ways.
Almost at the beginning of the spring that year, the plague horribly began to reveal, in
astounding fashion, its painful effects (Rigg, trans., 1921, 5).
G Fringe Groups and Outsiders

In all the cities of the Middle Ages there was a more or less extended circle of
inhabitants who could not obtain citizenship and were therefore not allowed to
participate in the political decision-making process. Among them were in most
cases clergymen, Jews, journeymen, farm hands, maids, and day laborers. This
phenomenon becomes especially obvious in the case of persons who practiced a
“dishonorable” profession, like executioners, hangmen, knackers, wandering
bandsmen, and gravediggers (Dankert 1979). Often, these people were not al-
lowed to join guilds or visit drinking parlors. Prostitutes occupied a similar
position: while women’s shelters were considered to be an important part of many
cities in the fourteenth century, their reputation considerably worsened in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Moreover, barber surgeons, maids, and bar-
bers often gained a doubtful reputation, too. Abbey sweepers and cleaners of

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Cities 201
latrines—people who performed important tasks for the public good—were con-
stantly in danger of becoming outsiders. Any contact with “dishonest people,”
such as those who removed carcasses, or doing the tasks relegated to “dishonest
people” could make a person “dishonest” or diminish his honor. Science could
not resolve the question of which actions could lead to the label of “dishonesty,”
a status which was normally passed on to following generations. However, it can
be assumed that a person’s prestige was reduced by performing “dirty” services
that were considered reprehensible (Schubert 2005). “Dishonest” people were
also those with physical disabilities or other peculiarities. These people were
constantly at risk of having their social status lowered. This was especially the
case for people who carried visible marks of physical punishment (like a missing
ear, a cut-off nose, a mutilated hand, a gouged-out eye, or a stigmatized fore-
head). They all belonged to a fringe group.
H Urban Historiography
Town chronicles recorded the events and deeds of urban communities. They were
written between the eleventh century and the end of the Middle Ages by clerks,
notaries, members of the mendicant orders, clergy, and burghers. The main
purposes in writing a town chronicle were to increase the honor of the city (honor
civitatis) and to benefit the communal leaders. The intended audience were the
inhabitants of the city, especially the urban elites. The subject was the town as a
place, a legal entity, and a community, as well as its interaction with political
partners and enemies. Urban chronicles were written in towns stretching from
northern Italy to the North Sea, throughout the German lands and in Barcelona,
London, and Riga. The typical author of a town chronicle sought to address both
the needs of his readers (by providing information about specific events, rights,
conflicts, or rhetorical strategies) and of himself (by writing the chronicle, he
could better his own position within the urban community) (Dale, Lewin, and
Osheim 2007).
In the high Middle Ages, towns were often ruled by noble groups (Maire-
Vigueur, 2003). These groups acquired a political culture of their own without
losing their connections to the courts of bishops, kings, and emperors. The
nobility were often patrons of historical writing as well as chroniclers themselves.
For example, Jans Enikel († 1302; perhaps better: Jans of Vienna), the author of
the earliest known Austrian town chronicle, was also a member of the Viennese
patriciate (upper social class of the city population). However, clerks of the urban
chancelleries, notaries, and lawyers serving the city councils (especially in
France, Italy and Spain) were the most common town chroniclers. Their work was

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very intimately linked to the government of their cities, as they usually were
members of the government. Notable examples of such chroniclers include Gott-
fried Hagen (1230–1299) in Cologne, Peter Eschenloher in Breslau, Nicolaus Rüsch
in Mulhouse, and Basel, Bernardo Maragone in Pisa, and Caffaro and his succes-
sors in Genoa. Chronicle-writing also had a very practical aspect: a detailed
knowledge of friends and enemies, prizes, weather conditions, behavior in battles
or at the royal court, the organization of public rituals, and royal acts of grace
could be very useful in day-to-day politics (Schweppenstette 2003).
All events affecting urban life were noteworthy: fires, hailstorms, and floods
damaging the buildings in the city; the settling-down of the mendicant orders,
which changed the religious, social, and cultural life in the town as well as its
architecture; visits of kings, emperors, and popes that secured or heightened the
prestige of the town. In accordance with the rise of humanist practices and
interests, the range of quotable sources became wider as Roman inscriptions, the
topic of the “founding father” became more urgent, and the town, its citizens and
leaders could be praised in even more flowery phrases with an antique model in
mind.
(I would like to express my gratitude to Frieder Dlugosch, Tony Ziegler, and Kevin
Rodgers for their great assistance.)
Select Bibliography
Coleman, Edward, “The State of Research: The Italian Communes. Recent Work and Current
Trends,” Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999): 373–97.
Dale, Sharon, Alison Williams Lewin and Duane Jeffrey Osheim, Chronicling History: Chroniclers
and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (University Park, PA, 2007).
Ennen, Edith, The Medieval Town, trans. Natalie Fryde (1972; Amsterdam 1979).
Jones, Philip, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signora (Oxford and New York 1997).
Kowaleski, Maryanne, ed., Medieval Towns: A Reader (Toronto 2006).
Verhulst, Aadrian, The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe (Cambridge 1999).

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Communication in the Middle Ages
A Introduction: Oral vs. Written Communication

The emphasis of current research on medieval communication rests on its means
of conveying information, in particular the topic of oral versus written method.
The consensus is that medieval society was traditionally oral, and that orality has
affected written production and even literary style. For example, narrative poems
were long and lacked unity of action, as they were meant not to be read silently
but to be recited in episodes, much like modern television series (Chaytor 1950,
58). “[H]eavy reliance was placed on oral transmission even by literate elites.
Insofar as dictation governed copying in scriptoria and literary compositions were
‘published’ by being read aloud, even ‘book’ learning was governed by reliance
on the spoken word producing a hybrid half-oral, half-literate culture that has no
precise counterpart today” (Eisenstein 1983, 7). Some scholars push the influence
of orality as far back as late antiquity. For example, Brian Stock argues that the
early Latin versions of the Bible, “which drew heavily on colloquial usage,
influenced speech patterns among Christian communities […] reflecting in turn
the often low social origins of the converts” (Stock 1983, 22). Popular oral influ-
ence was also felt in techniques of writing, with the introduction of a new cursive
in the third century, the scripta latina rustica, which took its vocabulary, morphol-
ogy and syntax from popular usage, and “adopted new graphic signs to express
the sounds actually spoken” (Stock 1983, 21). Early medieval society was com-
posed of a tiny literate minority and a large majority who only communicated
through word of mouth, in fact through distinct vernacular dialects, as a common
standard language was lacking. However, after the eleventh century society came
to rely increasingly on the written word (Stock 1983, 14, 16, 19). By the late Middle
Ages the process seems to have accelerated: Johan Huizinga attributes the diffu-
sion of prose version of poetic literature in that period to the fact that silent
reading “was superseding recitation” (Huizinga 1924 [1919], 295).
The matter is complicated by the duality of Latin versus vernacular use (and
extremely so in the trilingual atmosphere of England in the fourteenth century), a
fact that has led medieval scholars to propose subcategories with such formula-
tions as “secondary orality,” “vernacular literacy,” and “textuality” (Gellrich
1995, 5–7). While oral communication “remained central to the day-to-day work-
ings of English society, in the form of speeches delivered in parliament, pleadings
in law courts, teaching in schools, and preaching and catechizing in church”

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(Crick and Welsham, ed., 2004, 17), the persistent presence of Latin as the written
language added confusion to communication in general. On the one hand, being
the only language whose grammar was widely available, Latin continued to
represent literacy and make possible “an education in formal disciplines like
Roman and canon law, theology, and from about the time of Abelard, in philoso-
phy.” On the other hand, at least from the eleventh century onward, its identifica-
tion with written tradition was a source of conflict, as it “also opened the door to
controlling fiscal, property, and more general economic relations, which from the
later twelfth century were increasingly written down” (Stock 1983, 26). Latin came
to be seen as “a foreign tongue employed by a minority of clerici” (Stock 1983, 31)
that left its elitist mark even on orality, being the language spoken within
university precincts even outside the classroom (Cobban 1975, 209).
Leaving aside the blurry duality of oral versus written and the controversial
one of vernacular versus Latin, this chapter proposes a simply utilitarian categor-
ization of formal (official) and informal (personal) communication. Both include
oral and written components in Latin and vernacular, and both aimed at convey-
ing information, either for didactic purposes or in order to elicit a certain behavior
from the recipients. Most surviving sources for either category show the flow of
information in one direction only. In some cases this was intentional (for exam-
ple, in charters and manuals), but in other cases this is due to the whim of fortune
(for example, it is quite rare that we possess both sides of personal correspon-
dence). Examples of formal communication include charters and other legal
documents, official letters, manuals (including textbooks), lectures, public de-
bates, and sermons, while informal communication includes autobiographical
narrative, personal letters, and books on personal conduct and self-help for non-
academic readership. This is a partial list only, as it can be argued that art and
literature, official chronicles, gestures, and graphic symbols (especially maps)
also convey information. However, these broad topics are left out, either because
the communication aspect is subordinate to self-expression and tradition, or
because they are discussed in dedicated sections of this volume (for example,
medical texts, navigation aids, and sermons).
B Diffusion: Medium and Delivery

Before the invention of printing a major reason for the limited diffusion of written
communication was its medium. The earliest, wide-spread writing material in the
Middle Ages was parchment, made from animal skins, and the “process to render it
usable was lengthy and costly” (Wigelsworth 2006, 58). The tenth or eleventh
century saw the introduction of a cheaper substitute made from a mixture of linen

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Communication in the Middle Ages 205
rags and water. In the thirteenth century paper mills appeared in Spain and Italy,
and in the fourteenth century in France. But it was not until the fifteenth century
that paper became widespread, thanks to the increased demand associated with
the invention of printing in Europe (movable type was known in China at least since
the eleventh century). Until much later, however, important documents were still
written on parchment, while non-permanent information was still inscribed in wax
tablets as in antiquity (Wigelsworth 2006, 59; Vickery 2000, 59). Some documents
have generated great interest and launched an entire branch of scholarship thanks
to their unusual medium. The so-called “Novgorod birchbark letters” are disparate
documents impressed on birch bark with a stylus (only one was written in ink), first
discovered in 1951 in Novgorod and since then also in other Russian cities, and now
numbering over a thousand. They date from the eleventh through the fifteenth
centuries, when cheap paper started becoming more available, and consist of
private letters and memoranda, contracts, students’ exercises, dispatches to city
authorities, and one intense letter of an eleventh-century lady to her lover. Given
that birch bark was considered a temporary medium, the letters were probably read
and discarded, only to be rediscovered centuries later because the bark, once
stripped and boiled in alkaline water, remained supple and easily preserved in the
muddy layers of the city streets that were paved with successive strata of wooden
planks. As a group, they are testimonies of social mores, economic trends, rate of
literacy, and the evolution of the Cyrillic alphabet (they also include a sample of
ancient Germanic text) (Ianin 1997, 14–40).
After Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1398–1468) and at least four contemporaries
had invented printing with movable blocks in the mid-fifteenth century the
technology spread fast. By 1480 over one hundred towns had printing presses,
and by 1500 the number had tripled, and over thirty-five thousand titles had been
in print. The impact of this invention is still debated. While in the past scholars
thought that “the boundary between ‘script’ and ‘print’ demarcated the barrier
between the medieval and early modern eras” (Crick and Walsham 2004, 3), more
recent studies tend to blur such contrast. Apart from the fact that the first Guten-
berg bibles were extremely costly and still illustrated by hand, the same period
saw “the evolution of increasingly sophisticated systems of glossing and mechan-
isms of reference, including the use of running titles, indexes and tables of
contents [and] an entire hierarchy of cursive scripts […] to facilitate the rapid
copying of sought after texts” (Crick and Walsham 2004, 10). “The highly compe-
titive commercial character” of printing, which catered increasingly to the needs
of a “lay intelligentsia,” also stimulated the introduction of footnotes and dia-
grams (Eisenstein 1983, 21). Another innovation was the separation of words, and
by 1500 modern punctuation and the introduction of page numbers, to facilitate
the use of indexes. The consequences of the “printing revolution” were also not

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immediately obvious as “for a long time print was regarded as a cheaper surro-
gate for manuscripts” and was accompanied by techniques that attempted to
preserve the more intimate and personalized qualities of manuscripts, such as
margin annotations (Crick and Walsham 2004, 10–12; 16; Wigelsworth 2006,
68–69). Even after the invention of the press most books were still manually
produced by scribes, mainly professional copyists paid by the book and working
for private booksellers, who could complete one book every few days upon
request (but booksellers would carry a few popular books, like devotional texts,
in stock). Universities created a demand for standard books, and this, in turn, for
a standard system for producing textbooks known as the pecia system. A proto-
type (pecia) was agreed upon by the faculty and distributed among scribes to
produce as many copies as needed for a particular course. For students who could
not afford a personal copy booksellers would rent out the finished books for the
duration of the semester (Wigelsworth 2006, 64; Vickery 2000, 49; Chaytor 1950,
136; Cobban 1975, 215).
Even after the increased diffusion of texts in the late fifteenth century, it took
a while for libraries to reach previous levels in circulation. Since 4000 B.C.E.
libraries existed in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where books were kept on papyrus
scrolls and clay tablets (the library of Alexandria supposedly held well over half a
million scrolls). With the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, libraries
continued to exist only in the Byzantine Empire, where the library of Constanti-
nople “remained a center for learning until 1453 when the Turks sacked the city”
(Wigelsworth 2006, 64). In the West it is known that Charlemagne (ca. 742–814)
owned a library, which was sold upon his death. Monasteries owned modest
libraries where books were kept within chests and on small shelves, while
cathedral schools offered more diversity and included devotional and philosophi-
cal titles. But the core collections of both libraries were the same: bibles, patristic
authors, devotional manuals, Books of Hours, and Latin grammars, with scientific
works poorly represented. By the fifteenth century book chests had been replaced
by small rooms with entire sections of monasteries dedicated to libraries, parts of
which were public, where books were chained to the shelves to prevent theft
(Wigelsworth 2006, 64–65). Private libraries were also in existence, but they were
usually owned by nobles and their access “was strictly limited” (Chaytor 1950,
108).
A significant aspect of communication is its delivery system, which in the
Middle Ages deteriorated considerably, if unevenly. The efficient public postal
service of the Roman Empire, the cursus publicus, did survive as an effective
institution in the Byzantine Empire at last until the sixth century, while in the
West its survival was more spotty: King Theodoric (454–526) of Italy still main-
tained a system of messenger relays to Spain and the Visigoths in Spain attempted

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to maintain one in the seventh century, but in Merovingian Gaul it worsened

dramatically. Messages, often in duplicate, were entrusted to clergymen, but even
they were not immune from capture by rivals of the sender, a situation that
necessitated various ruses to deliver messages safely. Further, the decline of
literacy was probably also accompanied by the increased use of couriers to carry
oral messages, who were often just servants. A different type of envoy appeared
in the time of Charlemagne. The missi dominici not only carried information but,
being noble, were empowered to act for the monarch as they made their rounds
inspecting conditions and hearing cases” (Leighton 1972, 21). They usually tra-
veled in pairs, a bishop and a count. When central authority declined after the
death of the emperor, however, the institution also declined and messengers once
again became people of lower status, from armed retainers to serfs, who travelled
by foot, boat, or horseback. The Church, which had the most to gain in fostering
communication, and that was the moving force behind the increase in record-
keeping since the eleventh century, “organized congregations to repair roads,
build bridges and hostels for messengers and travelers and thus filled the void left
by the demise of the cursus publicus” (Leighton 1972, 18–20, 42; Stock 1983, 18,
35).
Pedestrian travel was much more common than by horse or light wheeled
vehicle. The messenger “had the right of way and was empowered to make short
cuts across any man’s fields or crops” (Leighton 1972, 62). He carried a spear as
symbol of authority and could use it as vaulting pole to cross small streams and
low hedges. Stilts were used in swampy countries like the lands in Gascony,
Flanders, and the English fen country in Lincolnshire. The roads were unsafe due
to persistent wars and brigandage, and expensive due to the multiplication of
tolls. There are few precise data on the speed of letter delivery: a letter from
London to Rome via Marseille would take approximately a month, the same as it
took in the first century B.C.E., as attested by Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.). During
peacetime, news would take months to cross the continent; during wars and
emergencies less time but still at least days or a week (covering an average of
twenty miles a day). Towns often employed their own couriers, but France had a
central poste royale from the fifteenth century onward and the Empire since the
thirteenth (Leighton 1972, 62, 176–77; Wigelsworth 2006, 67).
A new medieval institution associated with relaying messages was that of
heralds. There is sporadic mention of them as early as the twelfth century, when—
apparently—they were employed by nobles in war thanks to their ability to
recognize combatants completely covered in mail. By the late thirteenth century
they began to have more stable employment and regular pay, and perform official
duties for their masters. At this point, too, there is a firm definition of the
vocabulary of heraldic terms and “a cursus honorum in the herald’s profession

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becomes established, from pursuivant (apprentice) to herald and ultimately to

King of Arms” (Keen 1984, 125, 137). They achieved increasing dignity, reflected in
the elaborate pomp of the ceremonies for their appointments, where they took a
formal oath and received a new name reflecting their heraldic title. By the four-
teenth century heralds accrued more functions: they recorded promotions to
knighthood, noted the names of those who had distinguished themselves in
battle, and identified the dead. Most important, they had achieved “immunity
from hostile action, and therefore acted in war as messengers between belliger-
ents, either to deliver a challenge or to seek a truce.” In tournaments they became
the ultimate arbiters, both to “register prowess” and to “inspect the arms and
crests of all those proposing to take part; and verify from their records that all are
of sufficient gentility in blood to enjoy the privilege of participating” (Keen 1984,
134–38). Because of their neutrality and reliability, heralds came to fulfill another
role in communication: they were the favorite primary sources for chroniclers,
who would then rework the information into complete histories. It is not a
coincidence that the late Middle Ages, the period that saw the ascendance of
heralds, is also when a great part of medieval historical works were written (for
example, Le Fèvre 1876–1881, I: 4; Chartier 1858, xxx; d’Escouchy 1863, 2–3).
C Examples of Formal Communication

I Charters and Legal Documents
Charters served a variety of purposes, but most commonly to transfer property or

rights, and because of their importance are some of the most abundant surviving
medieval documents issuing from royal chanceries. Written in their own unique
script and style and cast in the form of letter addressed “to specific individuals or
to posterity,” they consist of a protocol (or greeting to the recipients), a “corpus or
text, which conveys the purpose of the charter and includes prohibitions and
punishments; and an eschatocol (sometimes called the final protocol), which
includes the names of those present at the issuing of the grant, the date, and a
formulaic ending” (Clemens and Graham 2007, 222–23). These would be followed
by signatures and a seal of authentication. A well-known example is the Magna
Carta, first issued by King John (1166–1216) of England in 1215 and subsequently
re-issued with modifications. Like other medieval charters, it “took the form of a
legal letter, recording agreements that the parties had already made verbally” and
authenticated by the king’s Great Seal (Breay 2002, 34). Its text, originally in
Latin, has circulated widely in modern translations. It is addressed to “his
archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards,

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servants, and to all his officials and loyal subjects” (Breay 2002, 49) and shows
the signs of being put together in haste, as it was the result of concessions
extracted from a weakened sovereign by third parties. Some of its articles were
soon abolished under the reign of John’s successor Henry III (1207–1272), while
others persisted in English tradition to become a set of “constitutional rights.”
Yet, most of its clauses deal with specific—and often long-standing—grievances
of the baronial class rather than with general principles: one clause confirms the
freedom of the Church to elect and appoint its own officials, and about two-thirds
of the rest address royal abuses of feudal custom in the areas of inheritance fee,
wardship of minors, and scutage, while others reflect the fear of barons of being
subjected to arbitrary justice or to the exactions of moneylenders (Breay 2002,
28–29).
Another example is the lesser known Ordonnance cabochienne, issued almost
exactly two centuries later. It is a much longer catalog of two hundred fifty-eight
articles, in French, extracted from the court in 1413 at the height of a popular
revolt in Paris nominally led by a butcher nicknamed Caboche (but with backing
from an aristocratic party). Each article starts with the expression “le Roy or-
donne” [“the king commands”] but the king, the mad Charles VI (1368–1422), had
probably not much of a say in it, just as he was too little in touch with reality to
have been truly responsible for the bankrupt state of his household that prompted
the document. The primary difference from the earlier charter is that it bears the
imprint of its bourgeois origins and concerns. There is no mention of abuses of
feudal rights (which were still practiced and much resented). Rather, the vast
majority of its clauses address budget issues, such as the enormously inflated
royal administration and remuneration of greedy officials. Specific demands are
for transparency in the functioning of the royal treasury and equity in the applica-
tion of the salt tax (gabelle). The largest group attempt to redress injustices (false
arrests, extortions, arbitrary confiscations) and abuses of power (nepotism, mis-
use of per-diem and paid travel, excessive legal fees). Another set addresses the
management of public waters and forests, and here the difference with Magna
Carta is the most striking, as the majority of these provisions rectify the abuses of
royal officials vis-à-vis common people, who were harassed when hunting, fish-
ing, and collecting wood to support their families, and often arrested without
specific charges and then released only after payment of what amounted to a
ransom (Coville 1891, 1–181). The provisions of this document were never enacted,
although they received the praises of contemporary historians (Religieux 1842,
V: 48–52; Jean-Juvénal 1836, 479; 486; Classen, ed., 2009, 447).
Other medieval legal documents differ in two ways from modern ones. First,
they were confined to fewer areas of life, mainly birth, death, baptism, marriage,
terms of service, and transfers of property. And second, they were “suffused with

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oral tradition” as often they merely recorded an agreement that had already taken
place. The new Germanic kingdoms in the West did adapt (vulgar) Roman law,
but maintained the northern tradition of formalism in recognizing the “legal
validity of words, rituals, and symbols.” For example, “in place of the author’s
signature one had a sign, a cross, or simply manumissio, the ceremonial placing
of hands on the parchment.” Another case in point is the ceremony of the levatio
cartae: before a contract was written, “the parchment, pen, and ink were placed
on the land to be sold” so that the very instruments of the contract “became
impregnated with earthly forces […] It was both a legal record and a quasi-magical
object.” The role of legal texts within oral culture became an integral part of
feudalism: “oral features were either translated into written terms—festucare, for
instance, which earlier denoted symbolic traditio, coming to mean ‘to ratify’—or,
like ceremonies of investiture, were framed as verbal ritual within an ever-widen-
ing network of written law” (Stock 1983, 18; 46–49). As written records became
more widespread, the late Middle Ages witnessed a growing body of police and
trial records. For example, Jacques Rossiaud has based his study of medieval
prostitution in great part on a large collection of documents from the archives of
the city of Dijon related to criminal investigations, trials, briefs of pardons, and
sentences dating from the fifteenth century through 1550. And Sue Walker’s
collection of essays on medieval wives and widows in England is largely based on
court records and wills. Among trial records, the most notorious relate to Joan of
Arc ([ca. 1412–1431] Hobbins 2005) and the infamous mass murderer Gilles de Rais
([1404–1440] Bataille 1991), both dating from the first half of the fifteenth century.
Their preservation may be due to being ecclesiastical trials (that of Gilles was
actually a dual trail, but only the records pertaining to the ecclesiastical proceed-
ings are preserved in a state of near completeness). Both documents are in Latin,
including transcription of witnesses’ statements which were originally recorded
in French, so they offer only indirect samples of speech, except for the rare textual
quote (Classen and Scarborough, ed., 2012, 359–402).
II Official Letters
Sovereigns issued a number of official letters other than charters that were often
transcribed inside other texts (such as chronicles). The earliest were in Latin, but
starting from the fourteenth century native languages were most often used,
except by prelates and by princes when the occasion was particularly solemn (for
example, a treaty). Seals played an important part in authenticating correspon-
dence and were of utmost importance in royal letters. As in charters, dating
differed from modern usage, did not follow precise standards, and is therefore

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often ambiguous (dating methods are discussed in Clemens and Graham 2007,
223–25). Their structure, on the other hand, was rather consistent. In general,
when addressing subordinates or civic magistrates within their dominions, they
opened with expressions that we would find surprisingly intimate (such as
“dearly beloved”), and often mitigated gracefully the warnings about “incurring
our displeasure” if the orders were not followed. Most letters reflect an over-
whelming concern with money: for example, sale of new or confirmation of old
civic privileges against payment and requests for forgiveness of loans long over-
due. In some cases the persistent demands of princes met with delicate but
obstinate stonewalling that could turn into overt resistance, witness the series of
lively exchanges between Duke Charles the Bold (1433–1477) of Burgundy and the
Estates of Flanders (a parliament made up of guild leaders) in the 1470s, during
his incessant—and expensive—campaigns against France and the Empire (Ga-
chard 1883–1885, 252–66). A special case of official letter is the papal bull, so
called after the round lead seal (bulla) that authenticated it. Bulls were written in
Latin with a distinct sentence structure based on accent (unlike classical texts)
and are traditionally identified by their first two or three words (for example,
Unam Sanctam). Papal letters represent some of the most ancient medieval docu-
ments, dating from the ninth century, as the papal chancery “was the longest
continuing governmental organization in the Middle Ages” (Clemens and Graham
2007, 230).
Another typical formal communication was the chivalric challenge, whether
sent in writing or delivered orally by a herald (usually both). Princes often
resorted to elaborate personal challenges to set the stage for a dynastic claim or to
declare intent to avenge a family injury ostensibly without the costs and
bloodshed of a true war. While chroniclers apparently took them at face value and
reverently recorded them, they were nothing but posturing and actually never
carried out. However, the custom became pervasive also among the gentry: the
chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet (ca. 1400–1453) opens his voluminous
Chronique in the year 1400 with the account of an ill-fated challenge between an
Aragonese squire and an English knight. Thanks to missed deliveries and cross-
communication, the series of elegant letters specifying the minute details of the
planned duel (location, weapons, and so forth) dragged on for four years, causing
much distress and offended pride on both parts. Despite the actual duel never
taking place, the chronicler devotes over twenty pages to the affair, which was so
scandalous as to prompt the intervention of the king’s sergeant-at-arms in
defense of English chivalry (De Monstrelet 1857–1863, I: 11–31).
The fifteenth century saw the birth of new type of formal letter: the diplomatic
dispatch was inaugurated by Italians, who were the first to keep permanent
ambassadors at the major foreign courts of Europe to monitor their political

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activities and report to their masters (prior to this time ambassadorial functions
had been performed informally by businessmen or clerics). Among the most
significant are collections of dispatches sent by Milanese ambassadors assigned
by the dukes of Milan to the courts of Burgundy and France during the critical
period of rivalry and occasional open conflict between the two states in the
1450s–1470s. The dispatches were sent frequently, often a few days apart or even
daily, and usually were quite brief and “telegraphic” in style. However they reveal
a day-to-day sequence of official and semi-official meetings, private confidences,
or simple gossip, not unlike modern-day journalistic coverage of international
events (an amusing dispatch about a quarrel between the elderly duke of Orléans
and his young wife is recorded in De Mandrot 1916–1923, II: 59).
Other formal letters dealt with business matters (purchase orders and bills,
requests of mediation, or instructions to servants) and testify to a certain degree
of literacy at least among members of the gentry. “The common form of the
letter was to begin straight away with the salutation, suitably couched accord-
ing to the rank of the addressee as either inferior or superior to the writer, and
then to press on with the matter until the end, without breaking it into para-
graphs, and then follow with an indication of the date and place at which it was
written” (Crowford 2002, 7). Letters often were “read aloud to a community or
circulated publicly. They served as legal documents as well as means of perso-
nal communication.” The Paston letters (which will be examined under D–II),
for example, were saved as potential evidence in future litigations (Cherewatuk
and Wiethaus, ed., 1993, 4).
III Public Speeches
Three types of public speeches were the object of extensive practice: university
lectures, public debates, and sermons (the last are discussed in a separate chapter
of the present volume). The university lecture is one of the most originally
medieval communications. It was a component of the comprehensive approach to
learning known as scholasticism, which had adopted the dialectic method since
the twelfth century but reached its mature form only in the thirteenth century,
when the curricula of the famous universities, Paris, Oxford, and Bologna were
formalized (Leff 1968, 120; 125). “Study took the form of the critical evaluation and
discussion of a prescribed corpus of writings by means of the commentary, the
disputation and the question. […] The mastery of a difficult discipline, the sharp-
ening of the critical faculties, the ability to expound logically, the careful diges-
tion of approved knowledge, these were the features of the average university
education. Teaching and learning were innately conservative processes and, at

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the ordinary student stage, questioning was conducted as a form of training

within an accepted intellectual framework” (Cobban 1975, 167). By the late twelfth
century the dialectical form of disputatio became universally practiced and profi-
ciency in it a requirement for graduation in the most important faculties. For
example, in Paris a candidate for the bachelor degree in arts had to attend a
minimum of four years of lectures and do class exercises, but also participate in
public disputations for a further year. To achieve the mastership, beside the study
of additional texts, he had to deliver a lecture in the presence of the vice-
chancellor, commit to lecturing for a further two years, and dispute for forty days.
If successful, he then had to undergo the inception, which consisted of a series of
formal acts (such as attendance to some religious services), among which another
solemn disputation on the night before graduation, followed by the delivery of an
inaugural lecture (principium). The ceremony ended with the new master hosting
his new colleagues at a favorite tavern, where (presumably) a more friendly
discussion could finally take place (Leff 1968, 148–57).
The series of formal disputations for the inception was even more complex for
candidates in theology, especially in Paris, which was the “doctrinal and intellec-
tual nerve center” of Christendom until the late fourteenth century (Leff 1968,
164). All masters and students had to attend, while all other lectures and activities
were suspended. The candidate (inceptor) had to choose four questions, two to be
disputed at Vespers and two at the aula (bishop’s hall) on the following day. The
disputes were presided over by a master and carefully choreographed between
questions, answers, and counter-arguments to continue for days. After success-
fully passing this ordeal, the candidate received his cap (biretta), and gave his
first formal lecture (principium). Once licensed to teach, the master might also
face quodlibeta (free questions) that could be raised by any student and cover a
range of topics. The structure of the quodlibet consisted of the disputatio (the
general debate) and the determinatio (a separate session in which the presiding
master alone drew together the threads of the preceding disputation). There were
also private disputations held in school or religious house by its members, a sort
of practice disputations called collationes (Leff 1968, 165, 168–73; Cobban 1975,
214). It is evident from this complex form of communication distinguished by
extreme formality but also carrying the potential for unruly aggression that the
master had to be completely versed in the texts and be ready to discuss them at
any time and from every point of view. In the faculty of theology the student was
essentially trained to defend the Church from attacks by building a veritable
encyclopedia of quotes, examples, anecdotes, and associating them in the most
disparate ways to create logical constructs. This technique owed much to the
influence of Peter Abelard (1079–1142). In his Historia calamitatum (discussed
also under section D–I) he recalls how enthusiastically the student body received

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this teaching style, before it became channeled into the later rigid curriculum,
and how they attended rival lectures, pitting a teacher against another (Bellows
1958, II: 1–3). The popularity of the dialectic method was reflected in written
debates, dialogues, and disputes that dominated religious literature of the ele-
venth and twelfth centuries, the so-called altercatio or conflictus, usually between
two individuals, but at times among three or more, as in Abelard’s Dialogue
Between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian (Constable 1996, 128–29).
There are several mentions but few examples of public debates preserved in
medieval records. A rare instance is related to one of the most famous criminal
acts of the fifteenth century: the murder of Duke Louis of Orléans (1372–1407),
brother of King Charles VI of France, in 1407, perpetrated by assassins at the
service of the victim’s rival at court, Duke John the Fearless (1371–1419) of
Burgundy. The culprit, who at first tried to hide his deed, eventually confessed,
but brazenly presented it as a necessary political act to protect the royal family
from an unscrupulous tyrant. The chronicler de Monstrelet reports how Master
Jean Petit (ca. 1360–1411), doctor of theology at the University of Paris, delivered
a four-hour long oration in defense of the murderer, attended by lords and faculty
(and later repeated to members of the royal family). Petit, who was not a lawyer,
chose to deliver essentially a sermon on covetousness, filled with erudite biblical
references, using the victim as an example of this sin. His thesis was that the
duke’s mad desire for power had led him to treason and tyranny (for which he
brought specific examples, ranging from the barely believable to the totally
absurd) and that Duke John had rescued the kingdom with a distasteful but
necessary act, not unlike the killing of King David’s rebellious son Absalom.
Tyrants must be killed for the sake of public welfare, and the more powerful they
are the more necessary is their death, in obedience to the spirit, if not the text, of
the law (and to drive home this point, he provided twelve reasons in honor of the
twelve apostles, a well-known preaching technique) (De Monstrelet 1857–1863,
I: 61–81; Guenée 1992, 189–98).
Few pages later the chronicler records the reply on behalf of the widow and
orphans of the victim, delivered at the Louvre in the presence of the dauphin,
from a prepared text, by a monk (who is not explicitly mentioned as the author).
His argument rested on much more solid legal grounds and appealed to contem-
porary views of royal power: it is a main duty of the king to apply impartial
justice, in addition to the moral duty of protecting widows and orphans. Burgun-
dy not only had killed an innocent man out of covetousness for power (turning
the charge of “tyranny” against him), and certainly not for the public good, but
out of jealousy of his powerful rival. To the abstract sermon of Petit the author
responded with a simple and emotional speech, at times evoking the widow and
orphans tearfully begging for justice, at others summoning the ghost of the victim

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to address the king directly. Then the author moved to the practical implication of
not punishing the murder: end of respect for the law, people taking justice into
their own hands, potential for bloody feud and civil war (which became only too
real). He also argued that Orléans was not a tyrant because he did not act accord-
ing to the definition of tyrant found in the fourth chapter of the Ethics by Aristotle
(384–322 B.C.E.). There is a passage of the oration that exhibits a notable critical
spirit, akin to the nascent historicism of the Italian Renaissance, as the author
rejected en bloc the biblical examples of the defense on the ground that customs
mentioned in several biblical passages were not applicable to contemporary
mores (for example, killing by a priest or repudiation of a wife). An analysis of
these two speeches reveals both similarities (the result of scholastic training with
its emphasis on disputatio) and differences in views between the faculties of
theology and law, as the second work revealed rather the “jurist than the theolo-
gian” (Guenée 1992, 203–07).
IV Manuals
The influence of university teaching affected also the way formal textual informa-
tion was conceived and organized. The Compendium ascribed to Bartolomeo da
S. Concordio (ca. 1260–1347) shows how moral philosophy was taught in the early
fourteenth century. This book is actually an extract from the De regimine princi-
pum of the Augustinian friar Giles of Rome (ca. 1243–1316), one of the chief
ancillary texts in use in Paris and around Europe. It drew from Aristotle’s Ethics,
Politics, and Rhetoric, and from De re militari by Vegetius (fifth century?) a
combination not surprising to medieval readers (for example, Christine de Pizan
[1363/65–ca. 1430] also incorporates ethical precepts in her famous military
treatise the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevalerie based on Vegetius). The
chapters of the Compendium devoted to war exhibit a bizarre combination of high
principles and down-to-earth practical advice. They bear titles like “That is useful
for an army to construct ditches and fortified encampments, and how fortified
encampments should be constructed, and what things should be considered
when building these encampments,” “That in war it is useful to bear banners, and
to appoint generals and officers,” “How to stand and fight” (which includes the
chapter of the De regimine titled, “That all those who slash with their swords are
worthy of derision, and that is preferable to stab”). Other sections deal with
virtues and vices, passions, the character of men at various ages and social status,
rules for household management and child rearing. This organization follows
Aristotle’s taxonomy: rule of self (ethics), household (economics), and state
(politics), cast in Christian terms. Sometimes Bartolomeo disagrees with his

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source Giles: for example, where the latter credits philosophers with inventing
Latin so that they could have a broad (latum) idiom, Bartolomeo affirms that it
derived rather from the kingdom of Latini, who in turn took their name from their
ancient king Latinus (Begley and Koterski, ed., 2005, 185–91).
The last argument is illustrative of the medieval obsession with etymologies,
which are ubiquitous in medieval texts and usually wrong. Traces of the platonic
concept that names are the essence of things inspired many medieval etymologies,
and most strongly, the Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX of Isidore of Seville (ca.
560–636). This bias is evident in the technique used to prove a point in most
medieval scriptural commentaries and philosophical texts: the authors string
together a series of quotations from disparate sources, so long as they have in
common a concept or even just a word, in order to prove the truth of an argument.
In the simplest instance the texts are cited integrally, and the association of ideas
is quite evident. But in other cases they are simply invoked, leaving the reader to
recall the full text and thus establish the full meaning of the argument (and
theologians—as already seen—knew those passages by heart). Another expression
of this peculiar reasoning is to replace a foreign term (most often a Hebrew name:
for example Jacob becomes “luctator”) with a translation designed to convey a
meaning that the author believes true, usually based on Liber interpretationis
hebraïcorum nominum by Saint Jerome (ca. 347–420) and Isidore of Seville. Medie-
val writers were so convinced that to discover the nature of a thing one had only to
interpret its name, that they thought it possible (for example) to prove the dogma
of the Trinity from the very name of Jerusalem through a tortuous process in
which one name leads to another (Gilson 1932, 155–69).
This method of thinking went beyond etymologies of biblical places and
personalities, and infected with obvious deficiencies medieval scientific texts, for
example the Speculum maius by Vincent of Beauvais (ca. 1190–ca. 1264), librarian
and tutor of King Louis IX (1214–1270) of France. Conceived as encyclopedia that
covered applied sciences, history, and a dictionary, it actually approached natur-
al science in the form of commentary on the first chapter of Genesis. The value of
medieval scientific manuals is debated: some modern scholars emphasize the
variety of scientific topics covered, yet the majority of scientific texts in use were
translations of Aristotle (both authentic and spurious) primarily by Arab commen-
tators (Leff 1968, 120; 132–36). Some scholars have noted that technical literature
was handicapped before the introduction of printing because of the difficulty of
reproducing tables and diagrams. Only with print “visual aids multiplied, signs
and symbols were codified” and made available to several readers simulta-
neously, thus facilitating the diffusion of scientific scholarship and science (Ei-
senstein 1983, 17, 37, 41). Among the few medieval scientific authors, Robert
Grosseteste (ca. 1175–1253), bishop of Lincoln and first chancellor of the Univer-

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sity of Oxford, wrote original works on sound, heat, color, geometry, comets,
optics, the astrolabe, poisons, and other subjects, which earned him the reputa-
tion among some modern scholars as the “father of scientific thought in England”
and of having influenced the Franciscan Roger Bacon (ca. 1214–1294) toward
practical experiments (Vickery 2000, 45–46). Other critics concentrate on the
quality of the information conveyed and come up with less complimentary judg-
ment. For example, William Brandt finds many faults with the mental process of
medieval authors, from whose writings the natural world emerges as a collection
of discrete objects not organized in any meaningful structure. They are described
through “spurious analogies” that would not always hold (hence the use of terms
such as “at times” or “usually” to qualify statements) or “unfathomable internal
principles.” Attributes of objects appear unique, not related to anything else, and
also impermanent because of the pre-existing belief in a “nature whose essence is
a capacity for spontaneous change.” Thus, they could not explain why light
produces heath, but could only list some circumstances under which it does so,
and had to resort to “pseudo-mechanical explanations,” such as “like attracts
like” to explain physical forces (Brandt 1968, 3; 17–18). In his opinion the Aristo-
telian revival of the thirteenth century changed little, except to add the belief that
the natural state for all bodies is rest and that in order to be moved they need an
external mover. This carried within itself the moral implication that immutability
was a godly virtue, while on the earthly plane everything is possible for things
change into other things without a clear distinction of cause and effect. Inevita-
bly, changeability became associated with moodiness and frivolity (Brandt 1968,
22; 25; 29).
There is more agreement on the quality of medieval manuals dealing with
non-scientific subjects. A particularly successful (and innovative) genre was the
ars dictaminis (or ars dictandi), the rhetorical study and practice of epistolary
compositions. “This field of rhetoric had its roots in Italy where the professional
teacher of epistolography, the dictator, first appeared.” The manual of Alberic of
Monte Cassino (d. 1088), the earliest handbook of ars dictaminis to survive, “lists
the five parts of the letter which became standard in medieval Europe: the
salutatio or epistolary greeting, which articulates the recipient’s social position;
the benevolentiae captatio, which usually consists of a proverb or quotation from
scripture intended to secure the recipient’s good will; the narratio or statement of
particular purpose; the petitio in the form of an argument deduced from premises
established earlier in the letter; and the conclusio. The format derived from the
divisions of classical oration, with the letter adding a formal salutation. Formul-
aries or dictamina, books of sample letters, survive from all parts of medieval
Europe, indicating the popularity of the ars dictaminis at cathedral schools and
universities.” By the thirteenth century such treatises had appeared in Italian

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dialects and in the following two centuries in other languages (French, German,
Czech, and Polish) (Cherewatuk and Wiethaus ed.,1993, 5; Cobban 1975, 221).
Eventually, dictamen became associated with the study of law (at first in Italy) as
the art of drawing up legal documents, and grew with the increased needs for
notaries from the eleventh century onward (Leff 1968, 125).
In the course of the thirteenth century Franciscans and Dominicans entered
the universities in large numbers, and after graduation dispersed into provinces
as preachers, confessors, and teachers in the provincial studia. It is not surprising,
then, that universities taught the art of composing sermons through teaching aids
that would become collectively known as ars predicandi (or ars concionandi). An
early author, Alain de Lille (twelfth century), had listed the various categories of
audiences in his Summa de arte praedicatoria: the faithful, obstinate, minors,
luxurious, poor, rich, soldiers, orators, doctors, prelates, princes, cloistered and
religious men, married, widowed, and virgins, and had recommended diverse
sermons ad status for each. Others followed his lead, even if the categories varied
slightly (Constable 1995, 329). Thirteenth-century manuals advocated using dif-
ferent styles depending on the nature of the audience, laic (extra) or clerical
(intra), using more concrete images for the first and abstract for the second. Once
the orator has decided for an intra or extra argument, he ought to use appropriate
techniques, called claves (keys) to facilitate the understanding and memorization
of scriptural text. For example, reinforcing each argument by discussing the
opposite; presenting and then refuting objections to arguments; resorting to
concurring scriptural sources to buttress an argument; making use of scriptural
metaphors to build ideas, moving from the literal meaning to the allegorical,
moral, or anagogical; and substituting words of a sacred text with others to
produce assonance or even rhyme (a common mnemonic practice [Eisenstein
1983, 34]). Above all, the presentation must allow members of the audience to
come to conclusions on their own, thus reinforcing their convictions, and should
never be allowed to lapse into a scholastic argument, more appropriate for a
university setting (Gilson 1932, 113–14, 118–48).
Subsequent authors, such as Thomas of Chobham (ca. 1160–1233/36), master
at Paris and author of a Summa de arte praedicandi (1210–1215) and Robert de
Basevorn (fourteenth century) who wrote a Forma praedicandi, developed the
precise structure and language of what would be known as the “thematic ser-
mon,” where a main subject (thema), always derived from the Scriptures, would
be interrupted by a brief digression into a different subject (prothema), whose
relation to the thema could appear incongruous, but that served to lead the
audience back to the thema after a propitiatory prayer. Another theoretician, Jean
de Galles (thirteenth century), listed four categories of subjects appropriate for the
sermon: what one must be and do; the duties of preacher and audience to induce

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them to invoke God; the sacred Scriptures themselves, to implore divine light to
enlighten; and direct invocation of God and Virgin (Begley and Koterski 2005,
91–92; Gilson 1932, 99–104). Beside artes praedicandi masters had numerous
other teaching aids at their disposal for developing sermons: the Scripture with its
glosses, collection of biblical reference works such as exampla, florilegia, similitu-
dines, and distinctions (which explained the possible meanings of terms at various
levels, from historical or literal, to tropological, allegorical, and anagogical),
alphabetical lists and topic charts to locate materials, and collections of model
sermons. New techniques made those tools accessible and useful: by the four-
teenth century the development of layouts for both book and page; the adoption
of Arabic numerals; and acceptance of alphabetical order to arrange words and
ideas (a concept that was long resisted on the ground that it would have been
unthinkable to discuss the Filius before Pater or Angelus before Deus just because
the alphabet required it!). Biblical glosses came also to be widely circulated, with
the “lecture-commentary” becoming a source for sermon making. Various types
of annotations appeared in manuscripts to facilitate their use: marginal notes or
headings that indicated the suitability of certain passages for specific sermons;
indexes by subjects; breaking up the commentary and re-transcribing it as subject
matter for sermons “arranged according to the liturgical year” (Smalley, 1960;
Rouse, 1979; cited in Begley and Koterski 2005, 92–95).
Probably the most notorious (late) medieval manual of clerical origin is the
Malleus maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer), a treatise for preachers and eccle-
siastical and secular judges on how to identify and combat witchcraft. First
released in 1486, it was the work of two German Dominicans: Jacobus Sprenger
(1436/38–1495), lecturer, reformer, and administrator, and Heinrich Kramer (Hen-
ricus Institoris, ca. 1430–1505; being the prime author), a preacher, inquisitor,
and rather prolific author (however, the double authorship is disputed). It is
composed of four parts: proof of the existence of sorcery; elements involved in
sorcery (demons, sorceresses, God’s permission); the practice of inflicting sorcery
and how to cure from various sortileges; and judicial prosecution of sorceresses
(investigation, witnesses, when to apply torture, ruses to facilitate confession,
methods of passing sentence, appeals). After the first print several followed
throughout the seventeenth century, but its influence is not clear as it was often
lumped with other treatises on witchcraft (Mackay 2006, 80–103, 148–51, 170–71).
Its style is typically scholastic. It makes heavy use of deductions from disparate
authoritative sources, which “could be combined to reach conclusions that had
little to do with the thought of the works being quoted.” It also displays a
pervasive “intellectual argumentativeness […] ascribable to the methods of scho-
lastic pedagogy, which placed a heavy emphasis on formally structured open
disputation with others.” Therefore much of it is written in the form of the

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“standard quaestio disputata, which begins with an indirect question to which

first is given an incorrect negative answer which the author eventually refutes
[and] it is suffused with arguments in the form of syllogisms, or “presented in the
form of a reply to theoretical question: ‘If it is asked why… then it should be said/
responded that …’” (Mackay 2006, 16, 17, 22–23).
The content of the work is quite informative as to the mentality of the authors,
contemporary scientific knowledge, and legal traditions. For example, in discuss-
ing how witches influence love and hatred in human minds, it conveys some
interesting ideas on dreams; and in the section on protecting people, animals,
and crops from spells it regales the reader with a curious list of enchantments
based upon the authority of Saint Thomas (Mackay 2006, 2: I–VII; II–VI). The
section dedicated to the prosecution of witches is probably the most illustrative of
diverse styles of communication, as it details how to examine witnesses and what
constitutes a valid deposition; how the defense attorney should advise his client;
and how to deal with appeals. In particular, from the chapter devoted to torture
one learns that torture should only be applied when the accused refuses to
confess and must be interrupted for an interval of days to allow the subject the
chance to confess spontaneously (or risk invalidating the proceeding). Finally,
the judge should feel free to lie to the accused to entice confession, for example
by promising clemency: but after a short incarceration to save appearances the
accused should be burnt in any case (Mackay 2006, 2: III–V).
On the political plane, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a period of
augmented princely powers, which caused a growing need to codify both the
behavior of princes and the manners and functions of those serving them. Hence
a veritable flurry of what have come to be known “mirrors for princes” (for
example Christine de Pizan’s Livre de Trois Vertus written in 1405 for a young
princess – see Barnhouse 2006, 13) and “courtesy” or “conduct” books. The most
famous manual of this second type is the L’Estat de la maison du duc Charles de
Bourgoingne, dit le hardy by Olivier de La Marche (1425–1502), which so impressed
King Edward IV (1442–1483) of England that he had a similar one made for his
own household. In this booklet de La Marche describes the composition of the
household of his master the duke of Burgundy (chapel, council, kitchen and
dining, personal wardrobe and chamber), with the relative functions of staff
members. This is a world of men only, rigidly ranked through their specific duties:
maitre d’hôtel, panetiers, sommeliers, garde joyaux, personal physicians, squires,
and so forth. It establishes who eats and sleeps at court and even who is tasked
with fluffing up the duke’s pillow and sleep in the duke’s chamber. The most
peculiar aspect of the handbook is the quasi-religious language that pervades the
exposition of household rituals, especially those surrounding the duke’s meals,
which were choreographed as public spectacle, and therefore managed by high-

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ranking men. These were the panetier, échanson, écuyer tranchant, and écuyer
d’écurie: all four had the same pay and status, because they served the body and
the mouth of the prince, but the panetier was the most important because he
served the bread, which represents the body of Christ, and to underlie his
preeminence, he was assisted by fifty squires in his functions (De La Marche
1883–1888, 11–28). It is to be noted, also, that during special banquets offered by
and for royalty, the usual servers could be replaced by figures of princely rank,
who would be expected to be honored by the choice (see an example in Austin
1888, xii).
D Examples of Informal Communication

I Autobiographical Narrative
Medieval autobiographies were modeled on the Confessions of St. Augustine

(354–430), focused on the interior transformation of the writer rather than on
events of his external life. The two best known were written in Latin by twelfth-
century abbots. One is the work of Guibert abbot of Nogent (ca. 1055–1124), De
vita sua sive monodiarum suarum libri tres written in 1115. Only the first of the
three books contains appreciable autobiographical material, related to his own
childhood as an oblate (vowed to monastic service from birth) in the abbey of
Saint-Germer, where he was subject to Benedictine Rule since the age of thirteen
until the time he was elected abbot of Nogent. Like Augustine the author is
ostensibly engaged in a conversation with God and attempts “introspection but
with less insight” (Benton 1970, 21; 31; 101). Another notable parallel with Augus-
tine is the writer’s open ill will toward his dead father, whom he hardly knew and
who would have “certainly” led him to a life of worldly sin (but he offers no
evidence for this opinion, and in fact makes it clear that his father had vowed him
to the church in exchange for his safe birth) and admiration for his mother, who
alone provided for his upbringing. She placed him under a stern—if unskilled—
tutor who forced him to a harsh life of study apart from other boys his age, to
forestall any potential rebellion on the boy’s part, and who used to beat merci-
lessly his otherwise gifted pupil for not learning fast enough, as he was unable to
admit his own shortcomings as teacher (Benton 1970, 47–48).
The author, however, seems to be more comfortable with less personal topics.
He devotes quite a few chapters to historical trends in monasticism, edifying tales
of conversions of contemporary noblemen, colorful stories of ghosts and demons,
and (usually critical) vignettes of contemporary prelates. This tendency is more
evident as he expands his horizons in Book II with the history of Nogent from

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antiquity, the foundation of its church and small monastery (again based on a
long anecdote), and the deeds and qualities of its abbots, only briefly touching
upon his own tenure (Benton 1970, 119–29). And it culminates in Book III which is
dominated by the account of the revolt of nearby Laon against its bishop and the
murder of the same (in which the narrator’s part is only incidental and not quite
edifying), and an inquiry against heretics in which he took part. In total, the
portion of the memoirs dedicated to matters other than his life is almost twice as
long as the one dedicated to himself. Despite this being considered the first
“comprehensive” medieval autobiography, the work stretches the concept of
“autobiography” or even of “personal confession,” as the author wrote “for the
edification of his readers and to provide material for sermons” (Benton 1970, 7–8;
11). Works like this have led some scholars to doubt that there was a true
autobiography until modern times (Ariès and Duby, ed., 1988, II: 541). As to the
accuracy of some of his anecdotes, it is useful to recall that “oral tales or exempla
were also influenced by rhetoric and used for sermons, and later gathered into
collections of dreams, advice, and miracles (Constable 1996, 128).
Probably the most famous medieval autobiography is Abelard’s Historia
calamitatum, mentioned under C–III. Unlike the previous example, which was
cast in the form of confessio, this work assumes the structure of consolatio, a genre
popular since antiquity. The author ostensibly writes to console a friend through
the example of his own history of conflicts and persecutions that would follow
him wherever he would go and teach. It is notable, however, that no clear
identification of this “friend” has been made, and that the writer never makes
concrete mentions of the other’s alleged misfortunes. Such audience “may be no
more than straw men for public (and self-serving) airing of Abelard’s views”
(Ziolkowski 2008, xlv). The personal confession is limited to an episode of his
adult life, the seduction of his pupil Heloise (ca. 1101–1164) and continuing
relation with her. The author seems far more interested in giving an account of
intellectual life in Paris while venting his frustrations at ex-teachers and rivals, as
he reworks his philosophical and theological positions, synthesizing for the read-
er the contents of his theories, and reliving his dialectic successes for his own
consolation and perhaps to present a positive self-image to posterity. His “auto-
biography” shares with that of Guibert the driving idea of an exemplary life
through confession of its less bright aspects. The genre continued to be popular,
and can be recognized in the early fifteenth century Book of Margery Kempe, an
autobiography apparently dictated to a priest by an English bourgeois woman to
narrate her spiritual awakening and conflicting relations arising from the need to
share her intense religiosity with others. However, unlike the previous works, she
“maintains a third-person narrative, perhaps to import more authority to the book
as issuing from a male writer, or to protect herself from charges of heresy, by not

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presenting herself directly as a figure of authority” (Staley 1996, x–xi). Hers is an

“autohagiography, not yet written from the posthumous retrospect of accepted
sanctity” in which tortures have been replaced by society’s humiliation and
“character assassination” (Windeatt, ed., 2000, 19–20).
A rare example of diary outside literary models is the so-called Journal of a
Bourgeois of Paris (1405–1449). The anonymous author, who was likely a clerk
attached to the University, left a series of entries, in chronological order but
irregular in frequency, on the dramatic political events of the Hundred Years’
War, as partisan violence and rival armies exacted their human and economic toll
on the city. It is difficult to determine who the intended audience was supposed to
be: perhaps it was nothing more than an attempt at recording exceptional events
for his own later use. Public events dominate the entries, often accompanied by
angry commentaries, and reflect the intense partisan spirit of the times that was
shared by the leaders of his city and institution (largely pro-Burgundian and anti-
Orléanist). Whatever his intentions, this is an invaluable source for cultural
history of the late Middle Ages in northern Europe (and also a most believable
one, given its unofficial nature), rich in indelible vignettes of the horror of the
civil wars. He records, for example, that hungry wolves would swim up the Seine
at night under the bridges to snatch the cadavers of those who had been publicly
executed on the previous day and whose bodies were left to rot on the city gates
(Beaune 1990, 172). An emotional passage of this journal provides a rare example
of allegory in non-literary context. In describing the massacre of political prison-
ers during an uprising in 1418, the writer imagines a dialog between the city
provost, flanked by personifications (Pity, Justice, and Reason) urging modera-
tion, while others (Anger and Madness) shout back through the angry voice of the
people (Beaune 1990, 117). This outmoded device, which a modern reader sees as
encumbering communication, provided instead “a reference easily comprehensi-
ble to the allegorist’s audience,” and taken in the sum of its components (dialo-
gue, allegory proper, and symbolism) results “in a form of communication of an
extraordinary complexity and comprehensiveness” (Piehler 1971, 19, 78).
II Personal Letters and Conversation
Recently there has been growing interest in medieval private correspondence,

which, given the volume of material uncovered, scholars tend to collect in
selected works based on some common characteristics of authors. For example, a
particularly rich trove of letters, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of
leaves, has been discovered over a century ago in the Cairo Geniza (an annex of
the synagogue that was torn down at that time) thanks to the Jewish tradition of

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burying sacred writings, but also any texts “on which the name of God was or
might have been written […] in order to preserve them from desecration.” Cur-
iously, this cache includes “a huge quantity of writings of a purely secular
character, such as official, business, learned, and private correspondence, court
records [and] prescriptions” because of the custom of appealing to God even in
mundane correspondence. Most material belongs to the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, when Cairo was the economic center of the country and was written “in
a semi-literate Arabic with Hebrew characters, even if the better merchants were
fluent in Arabic” (Goitein 1973, 3–6).
Another popular category is correspondence of medieval women. An example
is Anne Crawford’s rich collection of letter of women living in England between
the twelfth and the fifteenth century (most in English and others translated from
the original Latin or French). The editor introduces the collection with a descrip-
tion of the physical appearance of medieval letters that were quite different from
modern ones. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages they “were written on parch-
ment, usually a long thin strip in ‘landscape’ shape with a tag on which a seal
could be affixed.” In the fifteenth century paper started to be used, in sheets
usually ten or twelve inches wide and sixteen or eighteen inches long. “This was
a large area to fill, so most correspondents would simply cut off the rest when
they came to the end of their letter. The paper letter could then be folded into a
small oblong packet and fastened by passing a thread or strip of paper through
the folded thickness and sealing the ends. The letter was then superscribed with
the recipient’s name and location, a style which remained in use until the
introduction of the envelopes in the nineteenth century.” As in the case of official
documents, discussed under C–I, dates were rarely precise, often given by refer-
ence to the nearest saint’s day, and if the year was given at all, it was only the
regnal year of the current king. At times it has been possible to date a letter by its
content (specific reference to another letter or to a known event), but often the
date of composition remains guesswork. “Whatever the relationship between
writer and recipient, the salutation was almost invariably formal, and a child
would write ‘my right worshipful father’ and not ‘dear father’ and there was no
place for endearments or even Christian names. […] Women sometimes addressed
their husbands as ‘sir,’ other times as ‘cousin.’ Terms like ‘brother’ and ‘son’ were
used more loosely than today, to indicate a bond of friendship or patronage.” The
line between personal and formal is thus difficult to detect (Crawford 2002, 6–8).
The authors almost exclusively belonged to the aristocracy, and while prob-
ably all could read, some may not have known how to write, as they could rely on
secretaries for that task. It is apparent that many–at least many secretaries–were
familiar with the principles of the ars dictandi discussed under C–IV, especially
where the distinction between personal and formal is blurry, such as the diplo-

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matic missive (ca. 1279 and originally in Latin) in which Eleanor, wife of Prince
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (ca. 1223–1282) of Wales, addresses her cousin King
Edward I (1239–1307) of England to proffer friendship and submission in her own
name and in that of her husband (Crawford 2002, 137). The greatest numbers of
samples belongs to the fifteenth century, and specifically originate from two
families of the gentry, the Pastons and the Stonors. Their subjects are generally
mundane: shopping lists, requests for favors, courtesy calls to solicit news, but
very few deliver personal news of an intimate nature or even idle gossip. Corre-
spondents were often uneasy at “entrusting their secrets to paper” and a letter
often served only as a brief introduction to a confidential messenger who carried
it (Crawford 2002, 67; 5–6). Therefore, the boundary between “speeches and
letters was less clear at that time than is today, since letters were frequently read
aloud to their recipients” (Constable 1996, 128). This may be why there is also a
noteworthy scarcity of love letters. In the entire Paston collection there is only one
letter that can be assigned to this genre, written by Margery Brews to her
betrothed John Paston III (Paston Letters no. 897, Feb. 1477 in Crawford 2002, 93–
94). In it she addresses him as “well-beloved valentine” (in itself a break from the
formal address to relatives and spouses), lingers less on news than on her feelings
(even if expressed with modesty and reserve), breaks into poetry twice, and ends
by signing herself “your own Margery Brews.”
As expected, monastic letters may touch on different topics. “[S]pecial sub-
genres were formed by letters of vocation proposing entry to religious life, letters
of recruitment praising a particular house or order […] and letters of encourage-
ment to monks and nuns whose resolution was weakening” (Constable 1996,
128). However, mundane and practical topics were also common. For example, in
the collection edited by Joan Ferrante and dedicated to correspondence between
women, the majority of letters written by nuns are requests for funds or for
permission to elect an abbess. The few that contain personal advice were
authored by Hildegard, abbess of Bingen (1098–1179) and her younger contem-
porary Elisabeth, magistra of Schönau (1128–64/65), two “scholarly visionaries”
who served as role models for other nuns, and whose advice was widely sought.
Hildegard’s full extant collection numbers three hundred and ninety letters, and
Elisabeth’s (who died younger) twenty-two. Even in such a vast gathering true
intimate subjects are seldom breached: Hildegard did send a revealing letter to a
young protégé, Richardis of Strade, who had apparently helped Hildegard on a
project but was later called away from the monastery to become abbess in her
turn. A distraught Hildegard laments feeling abandoned by her “daughter” and
confesses that her excessive personal attachment had elicited criticism (Ferrante
1997, 18–22).

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Sometimes intimate letters are revealing less as tools of communication than

for the miscommunication they engender. The short but famous series usually
known as “love letters of Abelard and Heloise” (in Latin) are rather an exercise in
“self-definition” arising from the autobiographical impulse that continues Abe-
lard’s own in the Historia calamitatum, discussed under D–I. In these letters
Heloise’s voice is finally heard, as she switches between the roles of lover, wife,
and abbess, and casts Abelard in that of master, father, husband, and brother. In
her first missive she obliquely asks him to share in the responsibility for her loss
of identity. When he replies ignoring her appeals and referring to her only as
“beloved sister in Christ,” she becomes more insistent, hinting at repressed anger
as she suggests that her conversion is not as complete as Abelard’s own, while
asking for his strict but wise advice and encouragement (perhaps to revive their
initial bond between brilliant master and gifted student). After his second non-
committal answer, she finally accepts their changed relationship. Addressing him
now only as spiritual father, she reverently requests of him a history of nuns and
a rule more apt for women than the one envisioned by St. Benedict (ca. 480–543),
to which her monastery adhered (Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, ed., 1993, 64–79).
The French translation of this famous correspondence by Jean de Meung (ca.
1240–ca. 1305), and his misogynist comments that Heloise was admirable for
having “overcome” her female nature through her studies, inspired yet another
type of epistolary, “the humanist epistolary polemic on literary questions” by
Christine de Pizan, through which she argued that culture was universal and
“misogyny represented a fundamental perversion of literary tradition.” With this
collection she followed Petrarch ([1304–1374] who had consciously imitated
Cicero) in what would become the common “humanistic practice of collecting and
polishing her own correspondence.” The rest of her vast epistolary production in
verse and prose “synthesized the […] traditions of vernacular courtly verse and
Medieval Latin dictaminal writing.” Once again, she had models to follow: for her
verse epistles the Heroides by Ovid (43 B.C.E.–17/18 C.E.), the chançons royaulx
by Eustache Deschamps (1346–1406), which addressed a prince always in rever-
ent tone, and Petrarch’s erudite epistola metrica (he wrote sixty-six of them in
1331–1361, addressed to contemporaries and dealing with “specific historical
events”) (Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, ed., 1993, 139–49). Both her verse and prose
epistolary “stress erudition rather than the expression of personal feelings.” This
tendency—as already seen—is present to a varying degree in most medieval
letters. In conclusion, we are left with Giles Constable’s observation that “in the
Middle Ages letters were for the most part self-conscious, quasi-public literary
documents, often written with an eye to future collection and …. They were
therefore designed to be correct and elegant rather than original and sponta-
neous” (Cherwatuk and Wiethaus, ed., 1993, 152–59).

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Perhaps because of the general uniformity, the few letters that do not fit the
mold are particularly striking. Most surprisingly, two were written by highly-
placed fifteenth century men, and reveal a truly intimate side of communication.
The first was penned by the chancellor of Burgundy Guillaume Hugonet to his
wife on the day of his execution, April 3, 1477. He was condemned to be beheaded
by the guilds of Ghent, who had rebelled against the party of his late master the
duke, and who were determined to prevent any influence of his servants on their
new ruler, the young duchess Marie of Burgundy (1457–1482). The letter is notable
for its loving tone and repeated use of terms of endearment, and for the eloquence
with which it conveys both concern for family and personal resignation (the full
text, in old French, is in Duclos 1968, 371–72). The other was sent by the young
Duke Maximilian of Austria (1459–1519), the future emperor Maximilian I, to a
childhood friend describing in tender terms his beloved wife, the same Duchess
Marie of Burgundy, and concluding with a thrilled “she is the most beautiful
woman I have ever seen” (Bartier 1970, 236). This young couple, destined to a
sudden separation by Marie’s premature death, is likely the subject of the least
celebrated, but most authentic, love story of the Middle Ages (Hommel 1959, 134).
The other set of correspondence that defies classification consists of the three
hundred eighty-two extant letters that were dictated by the famous mystic
St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) in the last decade of her life and were devoutly
copied and preserved by her disciples. They form a genre of their own for several
reasons. The author was from humble artisan origins, and yet the missives were
addressed—beside family, friends, and total strangers—also to princes, sover-
eigns, and popes. They were all written in a Tuscan dialect rather than Latin and
share the same “blunt, passionate, concrete” and spontaneous style regardless of
the rank of the addressee (in itself a departure from dictaminal principles). They
have been called, with good reason, “individually tailored sermons,” both be-
cause they seem to be motivated by the need to elicit a reformed behavior,
whether from a wayward brother or a king, and because they are imbued with
orality to a degree not found in most other correspondence. They are rich in
religious imagery, and yet only rarely did the author “give a supernatural or
prophetic flavor to her statements,” while her advice never departed from the
practical (Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, ed., 1993, 96, 101, 105, 110; Noffke, ed.,
1988, 3, 7, 11). Significantly, given the similarities in social origin, gender, and
unlikely political visibility, the same style is reflected in the memoranda dictated
by her near-contemporary Joan of Arc (see examples in Quicherat 1965, vols. 3–4).
Not surprisingly, there is little documentation on conversation, which may be
viewed as the oral counterpart of personal letters and narrative. While eloquence
was appreciated, in this period “there seems to be no real equivalent to classical
or modern discussions of ordinary conversation.” The famous treatise on courtly

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love De amore by Andreas Capellanus (twelfth century) does not belong to this
genre, as its “model speeches” are rather examples of “stylized flirtation” or
“dalliance” mentioned in medieval romances (Burke 1993, 90; 97). Conversation,
according to Roman models (Cicero and Varro [116–27 B.C.E]) applies more
properly to groups of at least three persons, usually at dinner parties. Following
their example even early modern manuals on this topic avoid specifics, and limit
their advice to rules of politeness: keeping subjects light to be discussed without
passion, avoidance of malicious gossip, and “the general and rather vague
recommendation to avoid the extremes of garrulity and taciturnity. […] From the
Middle Ages, all that remains are fragments overheard, tantalizing echoes of
speech conventions of the period.” Formalization of informal talk (so to speak)
does not occur than from the seventeenth century onward with the institutions of
salons and coffee-houses. In Peter Burke’s survey of Early Modern conversation
there is also scant reference to “parlor games,” which did have predecessors
in medieval times, and, most likely, well before then (Burke 1993, 97, 107–19;
Classen 2002).
III Conduct and Self-Help Books
Conduct books are the popular complement to the “mirrors for princes” men-
tioned under C–IV. They are characterized by the tendency to mix lofty religious
and moral concepts with advice of an extremely utilitarian nature. Rather than
being safeguarded in libraries they were kept within private homes and presum-
ably also lent out, thus increasing the chance of being lost (for a estimate of
general manuscript loss see Crick and Welsham, ed., 2004, 55–58). The two best-
known belong to the last decade of the fourteenth century. The Ménagier de Paris
is a manual of good housekeeping written by an anonymous elderly Parisian
bourgeois for the benefit of his inexpert adolescent wife. Throughout the work he
addresses directly both her and two domestics in a conversational tone. The first
part contains general advice on religious duties and good behavior, but then he
addresses practical matters like airing sheets and pillows, removing stains from
clothing, caring for servants and horses (in the same chapter!), and ridding the
house of pests (with a recipe for rat poison). A large section is dedicated to food:
where to buy meat and other foodstuff and how to appraise its quality (there is a
charming little poem on how to judge good cheese), methods to preserve and
cook meat, fish, eggs, casseroles, and soups, and complete menus (he specifically
mentions weekly consumption of princely households) (The Good Wife’s Guide
2009, 49, 55–103, 215–28, 253–339). The departure from modern communication
styles is most evident in this section: while modern recipes follow a fixed format

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(ingredients and dosage, preparation, cooking time, serving), here the author
often digresses from a topic and follows a tangential trend of through. Most
remarkably, two standard components of modern cookbooks, precise doses and
cooking time, are usually absent, as the concept of standard measures was yet
unknown, and the cook (or a substitute) was expected to stand by the fire until
the food was ready.
The other well-known conduct book is the Livre pour l’enseignement de ses
filles du Chevalier de La Tour Landry, a didactic work written by the French knight
Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry (ca. 1320–1391) in 1371–1372 for the instruction of
his daughters on virtuous behavior. The widowed nobleman had apparently
written a similar book for his sons (now lost). This work became the most popular
educational treatise of the Late Middle Ages, and was translated into German and
English (one version by William Caxton [ca. 1415/22–ca. 1492] in 1483). The work
is essentially a long sermon on the proper behavior in private and public and
consistent religious practices, but is enlivened by a simple and entertaining style
that emulates conversational language, and by a wealth of parables, some of
biblical or classical origin and others derived from contemporary life, to illustrate
a point. For example, in one curious tale he talks of a rich lady who spoiled her
dogs by feeding them fancy meats that she should have properly reserved for the
poor. In another he recalls an argument between himself and his late wife on
whether it was appropriate for young ladies to have lovers, and turns the story
into a long cautionary tale of the ever-present danger of seduction for women of
his class (Barnhouse 2006, 3; 8–9; 134; 157–58).
A curious late-medieval self-help genre was the Ars moriendi, a guide for the
common man on how to die in a state of grace even in the absence of proper
confession and absolution. These books became popular after the plague epi-
demics of the fourteenth century and the continuous wars of the following
century contributed to a general sense of the precariousness of life, while the
papal schism of 1378–1417 diminished respect for ecclesiastical authority (Beaty
1970, 38–39). There are about three hundred exemplars of this type in block books
in various languages, all apparently abbreviated forms of an anonymous Tracta-
tus artis bene moriendi. They were translated in various languages and structured
in a way to reach the widest audience including (at least partially) illiterate
people. A typical example addresses five temptations that the dying person must
overcome: disbelief, despair, impatience, pride, and avarice. The bulk of the
booklet consists of five double sets of illustrations, each set accompanied by a
one-page explanation in Latin. The first image of each set is a temptation,
represented by hideous demons that surround the bed on which lies the ema-
ciated figure of a dying man. The second image of each set is an uplifting one of
heavenly rescue, usually dominated by an angel who sends the demons scurrying

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away. Frequently the various figures are shown speaking, with text coming out of
their mouths inside flowing ribbons, like in comic strips. One final plate illus-
trates the last breath of the patient as his soul ascends to heaven (Ars moriendi ca.
1475, 5r–15v; Beaty 1970, 2–3, 10–16). The whole is accompanied by directions for
specific prayers to be recited in the last hour with the help of family and friends,
directed in turn to God, the Virgin, angels, and then martyrs, apostles, confessors,
and virgins. The insistence on litanies and their correct order of recitation, while
representing “one more expression of the ritualizing tendency of the late-medie-
val spirit” (Beaty 1970, 48), presumably served the therapeutic purpose of dis-
tracting the mind from the distressing thought of imminent death.
E Conclusion
Communication has left abundant and varied, if uneven, records of its presence
in the Middle Ages, so that it is possible to draw some general conclusions even
from the limited samples presented here. First, scholasticism—and in particular
its dialectic form of teaching—was so entrenched among educated people as to
permeate both oral and written formal communication (manuals and speeches).
Second, the continuing presence of orality affected the composition of written
texts (for example, the cryptic content of some correspondence destined to be
completed orally). This second point deserves special emphasis: when the written
text was only a mnemonic device for a more complete verbal message, the
comprehension of the text diminishes greatly with the passage of time (as a
parallel, modern readers may consider grasping the meaning of a presentation
developed with a common software tool and isolated from its accompanying live
delivery). And third, what survives likely constitutes a minuscule portion of the
total medieval communication, and not necessarily the most important.
While it is true that many documents and texts considered important at the
time of their issue were stored as safely as possible (for example, in government
archives or libraries), many have been lost due to accidents to those same build-
ings (for example, the library of Alexandria). In other cases the most improbable
repositories have proven to be the safest. For example, the Cairo Geniza (Goitein
1973, 3) or the old streets of Novgorod, where it is estimated that an additional
twenty thousand birchbark documents remain still unrecovered (Ianin 1997, 17).
In all cases, however, the critical factor in the preservation or loss of texts seems
to be the medium on which the original or subsequent copies of the communica-
tion were preserved. As it is true today, its choice was mainly determined by price,
availability, and deliverability (including the ease of hiding a sensitive message).
And as of today, this choice affected the life-span of the text itself, either because

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of its intrinsic properties (such as the short shelf life of cheap paper made of rags)
or because it was associated with an outdated technology (for example, the
abandonment of vellum with the diffusion of printing). The result of these
fortuitous choices may affect—at least in part—future appraisals of a culture, and,
paradoxically, even destine what may be known to contemporaries as an “age of
information” to be labeled in the future as a “dark age.”
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Mark T. Abate
Convivencia: Conquest and Coexistence in
Medieval Spain
A Convivencia: Historiographical Debate and

Historical Subject
Few terms in scholarship on medieval Europe have been as “loaded” as the term
convivencia. With the exception of “feudalism,” so much has never been packed
into so short a word. Literally meaning “living-together-ness,” the term refers to a
historical subject (interrelationships between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in
medieval Spain), an ideologically charged historiographical debate (the making
of the Spaniard and Spanish-ness), and some would argue a historical methodol-
ogy (examination of inter-cultural exchange as a motor for historical develop-
ment). All three meanings were or came to be interrelated.
I Spanish National Identity and Origins of the Debate
Convivencia as a debate and methodology began as an exchange between

Americo Castro (a philologist and literary historian) and Claudio Sanchez-Albor-
noz (an institutional historian). Both were members of the “Generation of 1898”
movement, both were Spanish Liberals, and both became exiles from Franco’s
Spain. The “Generation of 1898” movement made the roots and nature of
Spanish identity the center of national intellectual and political debate. The
Spanish American War, which to some Americans might have seemed to be a
“splendid little war,” was a devastating and humiliating blow to the Spanish
national psyche. With the loss of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico
the tattered remains of the once great Spanish Empire were reduced to a slice of
Morocco, a piece of the Sahara, and the Canary Islands. The movement was also
a belated response to the failure of Spanish Republicanism. Representative
government had become the hallmark of modern states; the First Spanish
Republic created in 1873 lasted only 22 months before conservative forces orche-
strated a royal restoration. Industrial production, that other great marker for a
“great power” at the turn of the century, also lagged in Spain. “What went
wrong with Spain?” became the crucial cultural question for the Generation of
1898.

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Convivencia: Conquest and Coexistence in Medieval Spain 233
Who were Spaniards? How and why did they differ from other Western
Europeans? Were Spaniards inferior to other Europeans? If so, how did this
happen, what was the cause, and could it be corrected? The Spaniard became an
“enigma,” a riddle to be solved by the intelligentsia. Spanish national identity
became the preeminent preoccupation of a generation. The search began in earn-
est for Homo Hispanus. Franco and the Nationalists provided their answers to the
question. Two political exiles—Americo Castro in the U.S. and Claudio Sanchez-
Albornoz in Argentina—provided their answers as well and in the process created
the “Convivencia Debate” or “the Polemic of Spanish History” (Gomez-Martinez
1975; Barcia, ed., 1976; Araya 1983; Glick 2005).
While resident at Princeton University in 1948, Americo Castro published his
Spain and Its History: Christians, Muslims, and Jews and ushered in a new period
in the historiography of Spain. Castro’s central thesis, which he elaborated upon
and further developed over the years but never deviated from, was that the
Spaniard (Homo Hispanus) was forged over a period of approximately three
centuries (roughly from the late eleventh to the late fourteenth) through the
comingling and interactions—the convivencia or “living-together-ness”—of Chris-
tians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula. Through contact, conflict, and
cultural cross-fertilization Christians, Muslims, and Jews created a hybrid culture
that came to be known as “Spanishness” and it was this, more than anything else,
which made the Spaniard so different from other Europeans. Seneca, Trajan,
Isidore, and all the Visigothic kings might have inhabited Iberia but they could
not properly be called Spaniards because, simply put, the Spaniard did not yet
exist (Castro 1956).
Language and literature were focal points for Castro’s analyses and his
preferred approach was the case study. This focus was not simply because he was
a philologist and literary historian but because he believed language and litera-
ture were the most accessible windows through which to view the “mesh of
interconnected values” from which the Spaniard became “articulated.” Still,
Castro gave considerable attention to institutions and historical events and was
forging a methodology similar to what today is called the “New Historicism” and
he did so long before Michel Foucault published his first book. Two historical
developments—the Cult of Santiago and the concept of “purity of blood” held by
the Spanish Inquisition—can serve as excellent examples in describing what
Castro meant by convivencia. Both were uniquely Spanish and both were used by
Castro as exemplary case studies in understanding the process.

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234 Mark T. Abate
II Santiago and “Purity of Blood”: Two Examples of Castro’s

Convivencia
Castro saw Santiago—the saint, the cult, and the pilgrimage—as central to Span-
ish identity and as products of convivencia. How did Santiago, a peaceful apostle
and for some the brother of Christ, become the iconic “Moor-Killer” and his shrine
the destination for the greatest pilgrimage site outside of the Holy Land? For
Castro, the Galician location played a crucial role in Santiago’s militarization. In
the wake of the Islamic conquest the northwest remained a tiny bastion of
Christian independence in the peninsula. The need for divine assistance was great
and produced an intense desire for a tangible manifestation of it. Shouts of
Muhammad’s name by Muslim troops gave them a type of unity and confidence
that Christians needed. The militarization of Santiago, Castro believed, was
produced by a cross-cultural appropriation of the Muslim example and the need
for a sort of “counter-Muhammad” to unify Christians. Refashioning Santiago’s
shrine into a pilgrimage site followed through the creation of what can be
considered a “counter-Kaaba.” Today Santiago and Compostela are as Spanish as
tapas; for Castro, however, they originated as transplants from Islam that re-
created, in Christian form, the functional roles played by Muhammad and Mecca
(Castro 1956).
Just as Santiago and Compostela were Christian recreations of Islamic con-
cepts, the Spanish Inquisition owed its distinctiveness, Castro believed, to the fact
that it was a Christian recreation of rabbinical courts. Before the fifteenth century
there was no sense of “purity of blood” in Christian society. Christians, even ones
from extremely distinguished families, intermarried with Jews frequently enough
for it to be no real shock to sensibilities. Penalties were levelled against Christian
women having sexual relations with non-Christian men but this was usually the
case only with repeat offenses. Conversion after the fact, moreover, was an
acceptable remedy because the problem was a religious not a racial one. Spanish
Jews, however, were very much concerned with maintaining and policing the
purity of bloodlines and saw the corruption produced by miscegenation as pollu-
tion. Castro cited responsa and verdicts in rabbinical courts that included such
punishments as facial mutilation for Jewish women convicted of miscegenation.
For Castro it was “not a paradox but an elemental truth” that as more Jews
converted to Christianity, Jewish views on blood and purity first emerged and
then became increasingly more pronounced in Spanish Catholicism. Converts and
descendants of converts retained Jewish scruples about blood yet also wanted to
separate themselves from their Jewish past. Torquemada and several other priests
who manned the apparatus of the Inquisition were of Jewish ancestry. The nature
of rabbinical courts and the Jewish emphasis on blood crossed the cultural

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boundary, was recreated in Christian terms, and became the Spanish Inquisition
with a new found focus on the “purity of blood” (Castro 1956).
III Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz and the “Eternal Spaniard”
The riposte to Castro’s convivencia thesis came from Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz

in 1956 with the publication of his Spain: A Historical Enigma. His thesis, a polar
opposite to Castro’s, was the “Eternal Spaniard” theory: it held that one could
clearly trace the immutable line of “Spanishness” from Seneca to Unamuno.
Influenced by Darwinian and evolutionary theory, Sanchez-Albornoz posited the
existence of a “temperamental inheritance” (herencia temperamental) that was
resistant to external cultural forces. Just as the nature of a frog cannot be
transmuted by proximity to a fox the long-extant nature of the Spaniard could not
be transmuted by proximity to Jews and Muslims (Glick 2005). Detectable influ-
ences of Islam on Spaniards, for example the existence of Arabic loan words in
Spanish dialects, were purely cosmetic and had no substantive cultural effects.
He also questioned how truly “Islamic” Islamic Spain was given the mass conver-
sion of Neo-Muslims (Hispano-Romans who converted to Islam) and their role as
the demographic backbone of the peninsula. It made much more sense to speak
of a “Spanishizing” of Islam than an “Islamization” of Spain. The only significant
influence Islam had on the Spaniard was the Reconquista. Much time, energy, and
resources were expended in trying to expel the Muslim occupational force; this
waste of resources delayed certain aspects of subsequent Spanish development in
comparison to other European societies that did not confront a similar threat
(Barcia 1976; Araya 1983; Gomez-Martinez 1975; Glick 2005).
IV The Transformation of Convivencia
This “Polemic of Spanish History”—the debate on the origins of the Spaniard and
Spanishness—was transformed in the 1970s. Historians from outside Spain with
no vested ideological interest in “Spanishness” began to use and modify Castro’s
convivencia construct for different purposes. In 1969, Thomas F. Glick published
a seminal article, “Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History,”
which began the process of rebuilding Castro’s construct using anthropological
and sociological theory to underscore the value of convivencia as a methodologi-
cal approach to historical cultures and culture creation. Ten years later Glick
published Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages which expanded
the article into a full-blown recreation of convivencia using the social sciences.

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236 Mark T. Abate
R. I. Burns combined intensive archival spadework with social sciences theory to

depict Christian “colonial” societies in creative “symbiosis” with their defeated
Muslim populations—along with a fascinating recreation and application of Turn-
er’s “frontier thesis” for medieval Iberia. With Franco’s death in 1975 the “po-
lemic” lost much of its polemical importance for Spaniards themselves. The idea
of convivencia was now fully cut from its original ideological moorings and free
to float in subsequent scholarship.
B Reconquista and Conquest

I Origins and Nature of Reconquest
Pelayo, a figure drawn from a potpourri of history and legend, begins the begin-
ning of the story of post-Visigothic Christian Spain. Rodrigo, the last Visigothic
King, was allegedly his grand-uncle. When Rodrigo was betrayed and killed, and
the onslaught of the Muslim advance plowed through Iberia, legend has it that
Pelayo retreated to the far north-west of the peninsula with a rump-army and
made a final stand at the Battle of Covadonga. Some, like Oppa the Bishop of
Seville, advised submission and collaboration. Pelayo had none of it. Here legend
became far more important than history. Pelayo and his army won for the day. For
the Muslim chronicler ibn Hayyam, Pelayo’s forces were nothing more than
“thirty barbarians perched on a rock” who were doomed to die. For the soon to
emerge Christian states he was iconic as the great religious patriot who stood his
ground and whose foot marked the toe hold from which the reconquista—the
Christian reconquest of Iberia—would begin.
Whether this centuries-long military movement was a “reconquest” or a
“conquest” has been debated. Traditionally-minded interpretations have consid-
ered the Christian expansion into, and absorption of, territory in Islamic Spain to
be a “reconquest.” Pelayo, mythically or in reality, represented the original
Visigothic polity that was stripped of power and authority in the early eighth
century. A rump Visigothic government formed in the northwest and began a
concentrated response to recover territory from the victors. Whatever territory this
surviving Visigothic polity subsequently gained in the peninsula would constitute
a recovery of land or “reconquest.” Revisionist historians have been much more
sanguine. The movement was a conquest rather than a reconquest because the
populations (and cultural roots) were quite different. The builders of the northern
Christian states did not even speak the Germanic tongue of the Visigoths. The
northern extremities of the peninsula, moreover, were never completely Roma-
nized or Germanized, making their Hispano-Roman-Visigothic pedigree question-

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able. From the revisionist perspective the nuclei of the northern states were
distinct from the Visigoths, were never themselves actually conquered, and thus
could not be agents initiating a reconquest. Reconquest was a concept manufac-
tured a century after the arrival of Islam by the kings of Asturias to justify their
expansion. To meet that need they mingled their lineage with that of the toppled
Visigothic line (Lomax 1978; Fletcher 1987; O’Callaghan 2004).
Conquest or re-conquest, the Christian advance into al-Andalus was not a
unified movement. It was produced by small independent states pursuing their
own interests, states which over time expanded and coalesced with others—
through arms, shrewd marriages, and occasional fratricide—to create larger
states. Larger states, on the other hand, could sometimes split and then later re-
coalesce in different combinations. Leon and Castile, for example, were “unified”
three separate times within a one hundred year period of time. Leon, Castile,
Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia clashed with each other just as much as, if not more
than, the Muslims across the strip of “no man’s land” to the south which served
as the frontier. The collapse of the Cordoban Caliphate in the fitna years and the
emergence of the taifa states made the picture even more complex with a mosaic
of Muslims states (Arab, Berber, and Slav) competing with one another as well.
Alliances of Christians and Muslims against Muslims, or Christians and Muslims
against Christians, could easily occur, not just in the sense of mercenary recruit-
ment but actual alliances between states. Political pressure or military support
could affect affairs of state or succession across the religious divide: a Muslim
state might have “its candidate” in mind for succession in a Christian state and
the reverse was true as well. There really was not much of a religious divide to
speak of in terms of state relations. Balances of power, political gain, and
territorial expansion were the clear driving forces. As Christian states grew
stronger and the balance of power shifted in their favor, financial shakedowns of
taifa states resulted in much gold flowing north. Paria (protection money) was
extorted from taifa states and this, in turn, increased the power of Christian states
in the north and gave them the ability to apply even more military pressure.
Extortion shifted eventually shifted to conquest (O’Callaghan 1975; Lomax 1978;
Wasserstein 1985; O’Callaghan 2004).
The rules of convivencia in Christian Spain were established by a combination
of conquest and diplomacy. Understanding its logic and rules requires some
understanding of the conquest itself. Two excellent examples for understanding
the process of conquest and the foundations for convivencia in the Christian
Spanish kingdoms are Alfonso VI of Castile and James I of Aragon.

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II Alfonso VI: An Example of Conquest Strategy
The career of Alfonso VI of Castile, the conqueror of Toledo and the first great
(re)conquistador, is an excellent early example of the dynamics involved in the
advance to the south. His grandfather Sancho the Great managed to unify Leon,
Castile, Aragon, and Navarre but then divided it among his sons upon his death.
Fernando I, Alfonso’s father, inherited Leon and subsequently absorbed Castile.
He exacted heavy paria payments from taifa and ravaged their countryside when-
ever payment was refused. Upon his death Fernando, too, divided his lands (and
significantly divided paria payment rights) among his sons. When Alfonso was
driven out of his kingdom by his older brother Sancho, the future conqueror of
Toledo was given asylum by that very city. There he enjoyed the hospitality of
king al-Mamun until the death of Sancho. Previously, Sancho had also driven his
youngest brother, Garcia, into exile in the taifa kingdom of Seville. When Garcia
finally returned Alfonso had him imprisoned for life. Alfonso reunified the king-
doms into one polity and became “King of the Spains.” Muslims could be allies
but brothers were always enemies. This was power politics pure and simple
without even a slight indication of anything approximating religious warfare
(Lomax 1978; Reilly 1988; O’Callaghan 2004).
Alfonso’s strategy was quite clear: weaken the taifa states by extracting
exorbitant paria tribute, strengthen his own position with their gold, turn them
against each other when possible, wait until their economies and armies wasted
away, and then absorb them with little trouble. This strategy was by no means
secret: Alfonso’s envoy very clearly explained it to the king of Granada himself. It
was an incredibly effective strategy as well, one which resulted, after the taking
of Toledo, in the request for assistance from the Almoravids. Al-Mutamid, the
King of Seville, summed up the logic well: he “would rather be a camel-driver in
Marrakesh than a swineherd in Castile.” Domination seemed a foregone conclu-
sion at this point; the only real question now was who would dominate or absorb
the taifa states: Marrakesh (the Almoravids from North Africa) or Castile (Alfon-
so’s juggernaut).
Toledo was the natural target for the transition from tribute to annexation.
Strategically it was positioned well on the Tagus. Even greater in importance was
Toledo’s political significance: it was the capitol of the Visigothic monarchy. The
capture of Toledo was not the result of a mass storming and massacre of a hated
religious enemy. Alfonso’s siege of the city was actually requested by al-Qadir—
the new Muslim king of Toledo. Al-Qadir, grandson of the king who gave Alfonso
asylum during his exile from Leon, had to flee Toledo after being deposed by his
subjects. Alfonso and al-Qadir reached an arrangement: Alfonso would put al-
Qadir back on his throne in exchange for hefty tribute payments, control over

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regional fortifications protecting the city, and the understanding that al-Qadir
would eventually surrender Toledo to Alfonso and relocate to Valencia. Alfonso’s
re-imposition of al-Qadir to the throne of Toledo agitated the population even
more. Added to their list of complaints against their king was now the exorbitant
tribute money that had to be extracted to pay off Alfonso. Attempted negotiations
between the Toledan population and rulers of other taifa states to depose al-Qadir
all failed; they, too, were reduced to making tribute payments to Alfonso and so
were in no position to take advantage of the offer. Isolated and with no real
options, Toledo surrendered to Alfonso, after an uneventful siege, on 6 May 1085.
Alfonso took possession of Toledo and a contingent of his troops dutifully
marched east to install and defend, as previously negotiated, al-Qadir as the new
ruler of Valencia.
At the time, the immediate significance of the capture of Toledo would have
seemed to be political (the “reconquest” dimensions of taking the old Visigothic
capitol) and strategic (pushing the Christian-Muslim border from the Duero to the
Tagus and firmly establishing Christian regional hegemony). Intermediate signifi-
cance, from the viewpoint of Granada, Seville, Zaragoza, and Badajoz, would
have been chills down royal backs regarding an imminent end to the paria-
payment relationship. Long term significance, however, surely lay in the fact that
much of the Muslim population chose to remain and live under Christian rule.
Previously, Muslims tended to migrate when faced with such a possibility.
Following the conquest of Toledo in 1085 many Muslims chose to stay. Alfonso’s
terms seemed reasonable and it should be noted that they were drafted in
conjunction with al-Qadir. Muslims wishing to emigrate were permitted to do so
and could take property with them. Muslims deciding to remain would retain their
property and the right to practice their religion in exchange for an equivalent of
the jizya poll tax (which came to be known as “bezant” money). Jews would retain
their existing status. Alfonso appointed a Mozarab as governor. The city’s main
mosque would remain in Muslim hands. The last stipulation was violated without
Alfonso’s knowledge: while the king was away the new archbishop seized the
main mosque and consecrated it as a cathedral. Enraged by this undermining of
his policy, Alfonso planned to take stern measures with the archbishop but the
Muslim population asked him to desist. They did not want the sort of trouble that
such a confrontation would produce for them.
Among his several monikers (including Emperor of All Spain), Alfonso took
the title “emperor of the two religions.” Surely this was in part prompted by his
desire to stake a claim, even if theoretical and in title only, over all inhabitants of
the peninsula. Alfonso was not (nor was anyone in medieval Spanish history) a
representative or advocate of what is today considered tolerance or multicultural-
ism although Muslims and Christians can be found equally both in lists of his

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240 Mark T. Abate
allies and his enemies. Such a split can even be found in his own family history:
some of his most difficult opponents were his brothers but his son, Sancho, was
born from the Muslim princess Zayda hailing from Seville. Papal political and
economic ambitions were a concern; Alfonso, however, responded to Gregory
VII’s claims (rooted in the fraudulent Donation of Constantine) that Spain was the
property of St. Peter with assuming the title of “emperor” of Spain—a not so subtle
rejection of the claim. Other Iberian Christian states gave grudging nods to the
title with, of course, the provision that they were completely independent and
could act as they please in their own states. They were, in other words, amenable
to what we today would call a letter-head change.
III James I: An Example of Conquest Strategy
By the time James I of Aragon conquered Mallorca in 1230 much had changed
regarding the nature of the reconquest. The Almoravids, followed by the Almohads,
broke the momentum of the mid-eleventh century Christian push to the south. The
real age of reconquest was delayed until the thirteenth century. Crusading—in
ideological, judicial, organizational, and financial respects—transformed the re-
conquest in innumerable ways even if territorial expansion and political consolida-
tion were still very much the major driving forces. Just as significant, possibly more
so, were growing royal interests in and uses of Roman law. Roman law, favoring
centralized authority as it did, was an extremely useful tool in attempts to curtail
feudal claims and rights of the aristocratic potentates. The patchwork way in which
Spanish states were coming into existence, moreover, introduced yet more com-
plexity. The Aragonese and Catalans of James I’s kingdom, for example, were of
very different temperaments, had their own legal traditions, and often had different
(sometimes even contradictory) goals (Bisson 1986). All of these issues were influ-
ential in shaping the conquest of Muslims and thus played roles in how subject
Muslims would be integrated into a Christian state.
James I became king at the age of five. A truce with the Almohads made for a
relatively peaceful minority on the border but he learned much (far more even
than most minor royals) during that time about baronial intrigues and internal
challenges to royal authority. At age 17, immediately following the expiration of
the truce, he made a failed attempt to take Peniscola. It did, however, enervate
King Abu Zayd of Valencia enough to make substantial paria payments to James
and, after later being deposed as king of Valencia, to convert to Christianity and
swear homage to James. James’s Aragonese subjects favored a push into Valencia
while his Catalan subjects advocated the conquest of the Balearics. James was
receiving tribute from Valencia while Mallorca was, in addition to being a rival

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Islamic state that was not a source of revenue, a major base for piracy. The causus
belli that prompted the invasion of Mallorca its king Abu Yahya’s rebuff to James’s
demand for Catalan compensation for piracy. After receiving Abu Yahya’s dismis-
sive response James reportedly claimed he was not worthy of the title of king
unless he grabbed Abu Yahya by the beard. Aragonese subjects, who favored
striking Valencia, remained aloof and the invasion was generally organized as a
Catalan venture, although its status as a crusade facilitated much foreign assist-
ance and participation (Burns 1973; O’Callaghan 1975; Bisson 1986; Lourie 1990;
O’Callaghan 2004).
The taking of Mallorca was particularly bloody. Although the only enemy the
Christians faced at sea was the weather, resistance was fierce enough on land.
The capitol (modern Palma) resisted the siege and all attempts at negotiated
surrender collapsed. Failure to negotiate surrender terms and the fact that the city
was secured by storming rather than dealing meant the population was vulner-
able to anything and everything. Wholesale massacre followed. One Islamic
source estimated that 24,000 citizens of the city were butchered on the spot and
that Abu Yahya was tortured to death in captivity (true or not he died shortly after
being taken into custody). Guerilla bands continued to fight in the hinterland but
by and large the island was conquered by May 1230. A majority of the Muslim
population opted to flee when given the opportunity, many of them heading for
asylum in North Africa. Resettlement activities generally replaced them, not
surprisingly, with Catalans. Mallorca was taken by force not diplomacy and this
entailed a wide division of the spoils to the constituencies that took it. Spoils and
rights of conquest were not restricted to seized property. James also had to decide
which legal system would be established in Mallorca. Not surprisingly, he chose
Barcelona law for the conquered island. When the dust settled, Mallorca was a
New Catolonia and the newly constituted population decidedly Christian (Burns
1973; Lourie 1990).
The conquest of Valencia was quite different. It was produced by negotiated
capitulations rather than bloody conquest and resulted in a Muslim dominant
regional demographic. A five month siege of the capitol city resulted in minimal if
respectable terms for the conquered: the Valencian king and his entourage could
leave unmolested, the general population was to be evacuated within five days
taking with them all portable items, general safe passage without search or
seizure was permitted for twenty days, and Muslims were allowed to sell non-
movable goods to the conquerors. Real estate would be apportioned to Christian
immigrants. Outside the capitol, Muslims would negotiate their own variable
terms of surrender which, frequently, were actually quite good. Technically a
“crusade,” the venture was jointly led by a Christian king and a deposed (but
converted) Muslim. Muslim and Spanish Christian troops, augmented by crusa-

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242 Mark T. Abate
ders (mostly from southern France) together plowed the trail into creating a
“Christian” Valencia.
James certainly presided over slaughters and enslavements but usually his
preferred approach was negotiated settlement. Benefits of negotiated settlement
were obvious, so obvious politically that his barons often fought against it and
pushed for direct conquest. Kings gained much more from negotiated surrender
than they did from direct conquest. Negotiations produced much “lordless land”
that would revert, according to Roman Law, to the king. If an area was stormed,
however, feudal rights of conquest created a cacophony of judicial and financial
claims. Although not a zero-sum game per se, kings gained more for negotiated
surrenders and barons profited more and were strengthened by direct conquests.
James had on occasion employed agents to negotiate a Muslim surrender to
himself without the knowledge of his feudal warriors prosecuting the siege.
Negotiations rather than assaults strengthened royal power with, of course, the
opposite being equally true (Burns 1973; Lourie 1990).
Centralization of royal power was an obvious benefit to capitulations. So, too,
was their strategic importance in conquest. Medieval Spanish armies were feudal
armies and hence, generally speaking, seasonal armies. From the moment they
mustered the clock began ticking and, progress or lack thereof notwithstanding,
the term of service eventually ran out on variable timetables. When the clock ran
out service would be withdrawn and armies disappear. If paid more, or convinced
that continued service would benefit them, armies might decide to stay. If not,
they would leave and a strategically strong position could collapse. An example
of how problematic this could be can be found in Fernando III’s siege of Cordoba.
Cordoba, after having negotiated surrender terms to lift the siege, promptly
reneged on the arrangement after learning that the Leonese contingent decided
not to remain as its three month term of service concluded. Pressuring key
positions into negotiated settlements, while bypassing defensive sites dependent
on them, were a brilliant strategy that James knew how to work well. It kept
momentum speedily moving forward, created a virtual critical mass in further
negotiated settlements not requiring force, and left in its wake centers of Muslim
power that would collapse beneath the weight of supply and morale problems.
Finally, negotiated surrenders often made great economic sense to monarchs
like James. Conquest often wreaked havoc on defenses and infrastructure and
both were costly and time consuming to repair. Food stores in protracted sieges
could be reduced to nothing. Cordoba, the former “ornament of the world,”
provides a stark example. Possession of the city had great strategic promise: it
provided a gateway for hegemony in the Guadalquivir valley. The problem with
the newly won prize was the city’s acute food shortage produced by the siege
itself. Financially, the city was a bleeding wound that drove Fernando to the

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papacy, hat in hand, for desperately needed relief. Negotiated settlements (the
earlier the better) resulted in the least amount of destruction and dislocation and
provided for the maximum amount of continued economic productivity. Christian
immigration might always be welcome. Valencia, however, was not Mallorca, and
relatively quick population replacement was by no means feasible. In a region
such as Valencia the bedrock of the economy, at least for some time to come,
would be in the existing Muslim population and making some degree of accom-
modation not only made strategic sense but was an economic necessity.
C Surrender Contracts and the Rights

of the Conquered
The Dhimma contract and the legal constructs Christian states developed to deal
with their Muslim and Jewish subjects shared similarities. The Muslim model
certainly provided much inspiration in devising a means to regulate a religiously
pluralistic society. It would, however, be a gross oversimplification—which would
produce fairly misleading results—to view the latter as nothing but borrowed
versions of the former. Both had the same primary goals and functions: to create
segmented, segregated societies that maximized benefits for the ruling class. The
dhimma arrangement was a concept obviously known to the conquered and thus
could serve as a readily understandable model for negotiating the new relation-
ships. The foundations, justifications, articulations, applications, and enforce-
ment, however, were quite different—as were the cumulative results on minority
communities.
Religious minorities in al-Andalus, through the dhimma arrangement, had
legal protections that were rooted in revelation. Jurists could have different
interpretations on specific points but all agreed that the basic arrangement and
its general features flowed from divine rather than human will. This fusion
between safeguards for minorities and Islamic law created a marked degree of
stability. When some terms were not rigorously enforced or tacitly ignored it
usually worked in favor of dhimmis. Gross violations of basic dhimmi rights
generally occurred only under very weak or very tyrannical rulers, or under
puritanical fanatics like the Almohads. When violations did happen it was usually
justified as a response to dhimmi violations of the contract. Dhimma contracts
were not written out per se between the state and its minorities; the religious
weight behind the arrangement, however, made the contract far more solid and
secure than could any written document. Provisions for exploitation were just as
solid as protections but the system itself was as stable as could be expected.

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244 Mark T. Abate
While the religious roots of the dhimma system made it universal and fairly
resistant to change, the decidedly secular legal arrangements Christian states
made with their religious “minorities” (which in the case of Muslims could often
be the demographic majority) were contingent and subject to modification and
long-term erosion. Conquered communities’ rights and obligations were defined,
piecemeal and subject to variations, through individually negotiated terms of
surrender that were articulated in written contracts and charters. From the con-
queror’s perspective the main objective was to produce as little dislocation as
possible for the population and thereby maintain peak economic productivity.
From the perspective of the conquered the main objective was to maintain their
property and lifestyles as best possible knowing full well that if an agreement was
not reached the results would be expulsion, enslavement, or slaughter (examples
exist for all three). Significantly, once terms were successfully negotiated the
contract was often written out in two copies: one in Arabic to be retained by the
conquered community and one in Latin to be held by the conqueror.
Terms for surrender contracts were not standardized but were the products of
separate negotiation processes. Different communities, therefore, could have
different rules for convivencia. Details varied, sometimes drastically, but surren-
der contracts typically contained common features and areas of concern. Cash
ransoms per person could be demanded. Muslims who wanted to emigrate (and
were capable of doing so) were usually allowed to leave, sometimes with a grace
period during which they could decide to return. Muslims remaining would pay
the besant tax, a poll tax that was similar to, and no doubt inspired by, the jizya.
Crucially important was the right to be segregated in semi-autonomous commu-
nities regulated by their own communal leaders who they themselves would
select. Often they received the right not to have Jews or Christians live among
them and sometimes even the right to deny them access to their neighborhood.
Muslims in Chivert, for example, received a communal wall separating them from
Jews and Christians built at state expense. This might have been more of a
concern in pluralistic urban and town settings than in the rural countryside,
which would often be much more homogenous and segregation probably hap-
pened by default. Muslims could acquire the right not to be moved although at
times, as was the case in the surrender of Tudela, the entire community could be
relocated outside the city walls. The “moreria” itself, the Muslim living area or
neighborhood, could range in size from a single street to an entire village or town
(Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978; Powell, ed., 1990).
Religious organization would undergo little to no change: they would retain
mosques, their qadi and sharia court (even their own jail), a muezzin for the call
to prayer, the right to hold Friday religious services, the right to conduct daily
prayers in the street, and the right to practice marriages and burials in accordance

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with Muslim ritual. In large cities, for example Cordoba, Huesca, Murcia, and
Lisbon, the main mosque needed to be surrendered to the Christians to be
“cleansed of filth” (an ubiquitous phrase), consecrated, and turned into a cathe-
dral (O’Callaghan 2004). Provisions were often made for the religious education
of Muslim youth. Making the pilgrimage to Mecca, water rights for ablution
fountains in mosques, and Muslim maintenance of their own halal butcher shops
—an issue of exceptional importance—were frequently addressed. Particularly
interesting were continuations of tax-exempt status for many religious properties.
Jews experienced virtually no change in the initial transition. They were already
subjugated communities and all that changed at first was to whom they were
subjugated. Continuity seems to have been something that all had some stake in
(Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978).
Economic concessions loomed large. To lubricate the transition, holidays for
major taxes, for one or two years, could be granted to the conquered population.
Existing property rights were acknowledged and Muslims retained full rights
regarding possession and inheritance of property. Sale of property to other Mus-
lims was almost always permitted; property sales to Christians, however, could be
prohibited without royal approval. If the new Christian rulers needed to appropri-
ate certain properties the Muslim owners might be compensated with new proper-
ties, often coming from the land of co-religionists who fled before the surrender.
Limited guarantees of the proprietary status quo ante were offered to those who
had fled through a grace period in which to return and reclaim their property or at
least receive its fair value. Taxes on agricultural products (crop or animal) were
clearly defined. Military service to protect the immediate community was assumed;
any other forms of military service, which clearly had economic ramifications,
needed to be articulated, as did any sort of feudal labor service (if any).
Terms could also be exceptionally harsh, if the land was exceptionally valu-
able or the population particularly distrusted, granting little more than life itself.
The conquest of Minorca is instructive in this (Lourie 1990). We know little about
the conquest itself. It involved a siege but only a short one, just three weeks,
nothing that in and of itself would have prompted draconian measures. The ruler
along with his family and friends (about 200 people) were given free and safe
conduct to North Africa but could take nothing but clothes and bedding with
them—with the exception of books and 50 swords. Men, women, and children
within the castle fortifications could each pay a ransom, within six months, to
prevent their sale into slavery. Those captured outside the fortifications could be
ransomed as well but without the niceties of a six month grade period. They were,
at least temporarily, the immediate property of the king who could rent their labor
or pawn their physical persons as collateral on loans (both of which happened
within a month). There was an expectation that the Muslim ruler would ransom

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246 Mark T. Abate
many of his people although it is puzzling where this money was to come from as
all his assets were seized. Ransomed captives were subjected to full body searches
upon departure to make sure they were carrying nothing of value. Provisions were
made for Muslim women to be searched by women. Beyond that, the terms
essentially end with the guarantee that ransomed women would not be raped or
de-veiled (Burns 1973; Lourie 1990).
An important backdrop to all charters, one that might not have been expli-
citly clear in the beginning, was that all Muslims, in the final tally, were under
royal jurisdiction. Kings directly enjoyed the fruit of the labor of Muslims on royal
lands but they also technically had jurisdiction over urban Muslims and Muslims
living on seigneurial estates. This legal provision, which could roughly be com-
pared to federal law trumping state law, was rooted in Roman jurisprudence and
thus favored central authority over feudal remonstrance and protections of aristo-
cratic privileges. To what extent this royal prerogative was pushed varied by time,
place, and circumstance. The impact on Muslims themselves varied as well: the
exercise of royal prerogative could be advantageous or troublesome depending
on the case. Muslims in any case were seen as both useful and important to
Christian monarchs ruling over them. In the words of the Crown of Aragon,
Muslims were “the royal treasure” and “the servants of our household” (Burns
1973; 1975; Boswell 1978).
D Mudejars
Mudejar is the general term used for Muslim subjects of the Christian states.
Etymologically speaking the term is anything but flattering; it comes from the
same root as the term for “domesticated animal,” which, in the very least,
captures the essential subjugated nature that broadly defined the group and its
experience. Mudejars first came into existence in the eleventh-century push
south. Almoravid and Almohad occupations, however, delayed their true prolif-
eration until the thirteenth century. Historians of medieval Spain often speak of a
“Mudejar” experience or of “Mudejarism” in general terms but it must be remem-
bered that Mudejars, despite the occasional appearance of homogeneity, were a
rather diverse group. Mudejars in Navarre had a different experience than those
in Castile and those Castile had experiences different from those in Valencia. Such
differences were not just cosmetic as they included, for example, such core issues
as daily language (Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978; Guichard 1990–1991; Harvey
1990; Harvey 1992a).
The genesis of Mudejar communities began with conditions far below ideal.
Long before a Muslim community was conquered much of its intellectual and

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administrative elite had usually fled. Many more, at least those who could afford
to do so, emigrated after negotiated surrenders. Some leaders fled, some were
killed, and some converted. Generally speaking those who remained did so
because they had no other choice or because they feared giving up what they had
to start life all over again further south in the peninsula or in North Africa.
Although surrender contracts always made provisions for religious freedom for
Mudejars, most Islamic jurists believed that living under non-Islamic rule was
prohibited. Living alongside non-Muslims was only permissible in an Islamic
state and only in accordance with the terms of the Dhimma contract. Emigration
was incumbent upon all conquered Muslims, if at all possible, to Islamic territory
as quickly as circumstances permitted. Muslim intellectual elites were already in
a state of serious decline due to previous Almohad excesses. The mass exodus of
elites following Christian conquest probably just killed a class that was already
terminally ill.
Mudejar and Moor eventually became synonymous with poverty. Sharecrop-
pers, serfs, and the urban workers are the most common images conjured up
when discussing Mudejars. Like all stereotypes it does not withstand close scru-
tiny. There were prosperous multi-generational Mudejar farmers in Aragon but
they do not seem to have retained such status past the mid fourteenth century. In
some areas prosperous urban merchants survived through the fourteenth century
at least. Mudejars could create and own businesses and enter into business
partnerships with Christians or Jews. The Belvis family, probably the most power-
ful Mudejar family known, provides a notable success story. Very wealthy Mude-
jars in Aragon, they loaned large amounts of cash to the crown, mingled in royal
circles, and had a legal dispensation making them exempt from all Mudejar dress
and service regulations. For the most part, however, the majority of Mudejars did
not even have their freedom by the close of the fourteenth century.
Mudejars, comparatively as a group, were economically and intellectually
impoverished in relation to Jews and Christians. The roots of this reality undoubt-
edly stretch back to the initial years of conquests and the mass hemorrhaging of
members of the political and intellectual elite. The Quran, unlike for example the
Talmud, did not even conceptualize much less address the possibility of the
faithful living under infidel rule. Emigration and resistance were the two sanc-
tioned options. Jews had much more religious flexibility (and historical experi-
ence) regarding such a transition. Jewish communities also experienced no com-
parable migration of elites during the reconquest and their social structure
remained intact. While Mudejars were seen largely as rural and poor, Jews were
generally viewed as urban and prosperous. Jewish intellectual life not only
continued under Christian rule but flourished. Not so with Mudejars. We know of
no great Mudejar poet. We know of no great Mudejar philosopher. We know of no

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248 Mark T. Abate
great Mudejar mathematicians, astronomers, logicians, or even theologians

(Burns 1975; Boswell 1978; Harvey 1990; 1992a).
Mudejars did, however, make an enormous contribution to architectural
craftsmanship and art through the “Mudejar Style.” Construction historically has
often been the grand artistic canvas of the laboring-man and it is not surprising
that it was in this area that Mudejars reached their historical height of expression.
Mudejar style was characterized by the use of simple, low cost, modest materials.
Its ultimate origins were rooted in the ferocious anti-sumptuary tenor of Almohad
religious ideology. Railing against the opulence in lifestyle, art, and architecture
that they found in Spain after conquest, the Almohads launched a campaign of
demolition and whitewashing to remove the physical signs of spiritual laxity that
they believed could be found everywhere. Brick would substitute for marble. The
humble, pure beauty of plaster would replace decadently designed ceramic.
Muslim craftsmen working under the Almohad artistic yolk were innovative and
developed a remarkable ability to create beauty within the confines of simplicity
and modesty. The style survived the withdrawal of the Almohads and as free
Muslims became Mudejars they continued the technique. Emancipated from its
original religious context, Mudejar style flourished and crossed interfaith bound-
aries. Public buildings were constructed in Mudejar style. Mudejar style, however,
was not considered plebeian in any way. Christian aristocrats employed Mudejar
workers to decorate their estates. Palaces would be adorned in Mudejar style. In
addition to constructing mosques, Mudejar craftsmen built churches and synago-
gues. Some of the best surviving examples of Mudejar architecture, in fact, are
synagogues (later transformed into churches). Santa Maria la Blanca and El
Transito (both in Toledo) are outstanding exemplars (Harvey 1990; 1992a; 1992b;
Mann, Glick, and Dodds, ed., 1992).
Mudejar language has been one of the most hotly debated aspects of their
history. One must always be sensitive to the constant shifting of time, place,
purpose, and possible venue of language use. Paucity of evidence is also a major
factor in trying to ascertain the historical realities of mudejar language. The
traditional/linguistic school of thought has argued that Mudejars were Arabic-
Romance bilingual speakers but primarily, and in personal life, Romance speak-
ers. Here this school further breaks down into two views. One group holds that
Romance was the practical day-to-day language of Mudejars and that Arabic was
retained only as a language of religion, scholarship, and officials. Another group
envisions a class-based division: Arabic speaking elites alongside Romance
speaking masses. Yet another group places the linguistic divide along a city/
countryside axis: urban Mudejars were bilingual while rural ones spoke only
Romance. Some have pointed out that chronology is the determining factor in
understanding who spoke what language and when. This “traditional/linguistic

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school” is really unified only in the claim that, for one reason or another,
Romance was the dominant language for Mudejars. Some revisionists, however,
have claimed that the Mudejar population was overwhelmingly one of monolin-
gual Arabic speakers; bilingualism was exceptional, if not idiosyncratic, rather
than the norm. Others have seen geography and demographics as being the
deciding factors: southern regions with Mudejar majorities like Valencia had
Arabic speaking Mudejar populations while northern areas with Christian major-
ities, such as Navarre and Aragon, had Romance speaking Mudejars (Burns
1984).
Evidence regarding the use of interpreters seems to support the last view best.
In 1363, for example, the King of Aragon had to send to Lerida for a translator
because he “heard” there was a Mudejar there who could read Arabic and, as it
turned out, he did not seem to be very good. The emergence of aljamiado—
Castilian or Catalan written in Arabic characters—for religious texts certainly
seems to indicate a mass loss of Arabic in favor of Romance. In the far south the
opposite problem seems to have existed: nearly every town had official transla-
tors to render documents and edicts from Romance into Arabic—which seems to
have been the most commonly spoken language (Boswell 1978; Burns 1984;
Harvey 1990; 1992a; 1992b).
E Aljamas
Corporate identity was something that Christian conquerors, vanquished Mus-
lims, and Jewish bystanders all understood and valued. Conquest resulted in
the designation, or in some cases reaffirmation, of physical space in which
subjected communities could live: for Muslims it was called the moreria and for
Jews, depending on where, it was known as the juderia or call. For segregated
semi-autonomy to work functionally the local Muslim and Jewish communities
needed corporate organizations, not only to regulate themselves but to repre-
sent their interests before the Christian state; such organizations were also
needed to discharge their communal responsibilities to the state such as tax
collection. They would define, direct, and defend the community and provide
the necessary oversight in maintaining communal life and satisfying communal
obligations.

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250 Mark T. Abate
I Aljama Structure
Aljamas, Muslim, and Jewish were these corporate bodies. The best known and
most studied have been the Muslim aljamas of Aragon and Valencia. Their organi-
zation followed a rough model but regional variations, emergent traditions, and
internal as well as external issues arising gave them all their own individual forms
and logic. At the head of an Islamic aljama was usually the qadi who served as
chief administrator. Qadis were religious judges and trustees for charitable organi-
zations and endowments. They were the obvious choice for heading internal
community regulation. Usually from influential families, they had powerful con-
nections within the community and occasionally had some literary talent or
theological training. Judicial, moral, and internal administrative functions were
their focus. The amin was, at least in Valencia, the second ranking position in the
aljama. He was the chief liaison between the qadi and the population as well as
between the qadi and Christian authorities. As chief financial officer, the amin was
the primary tax supervisor, aljama treasurer, customs officer, and also supervised
probate issues and the care of orphans. The amin could also be in charge of internal
law enforcement although that task seems to have been frequently entrusted to
another officer, the alami. The positions of qadi and amin could be held by the
same individual but it was not the norm. Creating the position of amin might have
been partially influenced by its Christian functional equivalent in the bailiff. If the
bailiff did not play a role in the creation of the position at the very least, over time,
it influenced it. In the original surrender contracts Muslim communities were
almost universally granted the right to select their own qadis. By the middle of the
fourteenth-century all but a few of the community qadis were royal appointments
and almost all amins were selected by the state (Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978;
Lourie 1990; Guichard 1990–1991; Harvey 1990; Meyerson 1991).
Adelantati were another tier in aljama officials. There could be two or three
adelantati on a panel but usually four served at a time. Their task was regulating
the internal affairs of the community on the ground. As was the case with the
amins and bailiffs, there was a rough equivalent to the adelantati in the Christian
jurados. Adelantati were elected officials. Although the position was assigned no
salary the post surely provided benefits to the holders. Possessing very little real
power in the community itself, their main official responsibilities were handling
the basic mechanics of fiscal obligations of the aljama to the crown as well as
being the official spokesmen and liaisons for the king. Tax agents and public
relations representatives, they were, in essence, de facto royal agents in the
community and this made them unpopular.
The council of sheiks was the final pillar of Islamic aljamas. How Islamic as
opposed to how Christian the origins of this institution were is open to interpreta-

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tion. Shura, an advisory council and consultative body, was an ancient tradition
in Islam going all the way back to the original community in Medina. Not so
ancient but very present and palpable in the region were the Christian commune
movements and their associated town councils, councilmen, and corporate insti-
tutions jealously guarding their rights against royal or seigneurial encroach-
ments. Some synchronization between the two traditions most likely provides the
best explanation. They were a council of “elders” (better read as important
personages though many were probably elderly) that played a role in delibera-
tions about community matters and recommending actions. The specific me-
chanics on how they functioned seems to have varied place to place. What makes
their true functioning so difficult to ascertain with confidence is the fact that our
Christian accounts of them use their own functional equivalent terms in describ-
ing them. Thus the council of sheiks becomes described as a “commune” and, in
terms of Roman law, a “universitas” (which it certainly was not). Terminological
assimilation, practical as it may have seemed at the time, skews the historical
picture. References to sheiks as “councilmen” and councils or aljamas as a whole
as “communes” or as universitas sarracenorum is probably as accurate as many
equally common cross-faith phrases such as “Sarracen Synagogues” (a very
misleading description of mosques), “Jewish Sunna” (a questionable term for
Jewish law), and referring to Ramadan as the “Pagan Lent.” They all, of course,
have a cross-cultural logic to them but cannot really be described as accurate
depictions. Latin influence, however, went beyond terminological issues. By the
mid fourteenth century many of these councils were composed of elected officials
rather than pure tribal ties.
II Aljama Finances
Financial administration was, after socio-religious regulation, the most important

function of aljamas. Beneath the upper administrative structure of qadis, amins,
alamis, adelantati, and sheiks was a wide array of posts regulated by the aljama
that were necessary for its religious and economic functioning. Salaries and
sometimes retirement pensions needed to be provided. Imams or cantors, for
example, needed to be hired. Religious schooling needed to be provided. Market
inspectors needed to be maintained and scribes retained. Administrative staffs
handling issues relating to property sale and probate management were required.
Meeting payroll requirements could be a difficult challenge for aljamas particu-
larly since their semi-autonomy was not full autonomy regarding fiscal matters.
Levying any new taxes or modifying old ones required royal approval which
could be denied.

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252 Mark T. Abate
More nightmarish than meeting payroll requirements was discharging the

aljama’s tax burden to the Christian state. In addition to royal taxes some aljamas
were even responsible for paying tithes. As the corporate representative of the
community the aljama had the final responsibility in meeting the financial obliga-
tions of any of its members. Individuals could default but not the corporate body.
The aljama, for example, was responsible for payment of poll taxes on any
members who personally could not afford it. The aljama was also responsible for
the delinquent loans or unpaid fines of community members. Aggravating the
problem were the franchitas, exemptions from aljama and royal taxes, monarchs
granted to favored Muslims or Jews that shrank the community tax base. These
were granted to wealthy individuals of importance and, given that most franchi-
tas became hereditary, they compounded the financial problems of aljamas and
surely created class discord within the community. Consequently, aljamas some-
times had to resort to borrowing money to meet their financial obligations to the
state. Pragmatism mediated the damage. Sometimes almost half of the aljamas in
a region could be in default on technical/formal tax obligations. The state needed
recourse to a wide array of fiscal bootstrapping to make things work: deadline
extensions when appropriate, temporary tax remissions (in part or whole) when
needed, pro-rating when prudent. Deals were sometimes struck in which the tax
burden was paid off at one third of the official amount (Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell
1978; Lourie 1990; Guichard 1990–1991; Harvey 1990; Meyerson 1991).
III Aljama Judicial Systems
In functional terms the aljama, like the dhimma community before it, was a
construct that promised to guarantee religious segregation and serve as a bound-
ary-maintaining mechanism to prevent acculturation. Just as a moreria or juderia
might have physical barriers, such as gates or walls, to isolate the neighborhood
and control relations within it, so the aljama was conceived of as a legal and
social barrier that controlled cultural traffic. For Judaism and Islam the most
important expressions of communal identity and its preservation was religious
law. Aljamas were the institutional venues in which the maintenance and en-
forcement of religious law, and thus the protection of communal identity, took
place.
Legal dimensions for the aljamas are thus crucial to understanding their
nature and the shared experiences of their members. Two approaches to aljamas
and law are required to understand their status and functioning: the legal stand-
ing of aljamas themselves as corporate units and the practice and execution of
law within the community and, as needed, across confessional lines. The exist-

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ence of aljamas as semi-autonomous corporate institutions was always predi-

cated on the pleasure and wishes of monarchs. Promises of surrender contracts
aside, all Muslims were legally the property of the king who “technically” could
enslave them for any reason or for no reason at all. Contingent is the most
accurate term in describing any aspect of their legal existence. Muslims and Jews
could generally expect certain rights but also knew these rights could completely
disappear with no warning. In extraordinary conditions (such as war) the entire
functioning of an aljama might be suspended and placed under the direct jur-
isdiction of a royal representative. Particularly after the second half of the
thirteenth century, when original rights from conquest charters had almost com-
pletely eroded, monarchs at times even installed Christian bureaucrats as
aljama qadis. Aljama functioning and status was always contingent on the discre-
tion of rulers and it could be revoked, along with the very physical freedom of
members, at any time. Comparing them to communes or a universitas, then, even
if monarchs themselves occasionally did, is conceptually useless in understand-
ing the institution. Communes and universitas had durable rights that aljamas
themselves never enjoyed. Urban commune members were not conceived of as
the “property” or “treasure” of monarchs who could theoretically be seized as
property.
Sharia and rabbinical courts in aljamas could adjudicate civil cases but
usually not criminal ones. The latter would be handled by the Christian state
through a justicar. Civil cases, providing they were intra-faith, were handled
within the community itself. Qadis and Rabbis, for reasons as moral and cultural
as they might be economic or political, wanted to keep as many cases within the
community as they could and avoid, whenever possible, internal matters being
aired in infidel courts. Neither Jewish nor Islamic jurisprudence had an appellate
division. Extra-cultural appellate hearings emerged in the form of royal courts or
the creation of Christian-initiated chief qadis that served as regional appellate
divisions. In both cases the cohesive force of communal law was compromised.
Aljamas could purchase very specific judicial rights, for example, buying conces-
sions for the right to condemn community women guilty of miscegenation to
mutilation or execution (Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978; Lourie 1990; Guichard
1990–1991; Harvey 1990).
IV Aljama Policing of Miscegenation
Miscegenation provides abundant and illuminating examples of aljamas regulat-

ing members of their communities while trying to maintain legal barriers to
preserve identity. The thriving cross-faith sexual economy was a source of grave

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254 Mark T. Abate
concern for all. All three faiths as communities demonstrated an abhorrence of

miscegenation and took severe judicial measures, which proved largely unsuc-
cessful, to delimit or eradicate it. Numerous individuals obviously did not share
communal disgust for interfaith sexual activity. Miscegenation was also one of
the issues most likely to produce an explosion of violence. Christian attacks on
interfaith sex or marriage began as early as the fourth century and intensified
over subsequent centuries. Jewish attacks on miscegenation were of equal and
sometimes greater ferocity: from Deuteronomy on it was severely condemned and
two of the greatest Jewish intellectuals the peninsula produced, Maimonides and
Nahmanides, both saw it as a clear and unquestionable violation of the covenant.
Islamic legal thought held that Muslim men could have intercourse with and
marry Jewish and Christian women but that Muslim women having relations with
non-Muslim men was prohibited. For Mudejars in Spain, however, the opinion
narrowed considerably into the view that neither males nor females were per-
mitted to have intercourse with or marry non-Muslims (Nirenberg 1996).
Christian states were quite brutal regarding miscegenation cases although
that brutality could sometimes be mitigated by the possibly of financially profit-
ing. Commutations of punishments by mutilation, enslavement, or death into
cash fines occurred although states themselves almost always profited from
enslavements in any event. Power, money, or political connections could circum-
vent law and custom as in the case of Guig, a powerful Jewess moneylender who
served the crown, who procured an official dispensation to live with her Christian
lover. Conversions were a possible means for escaping final punishment. Interest-
ingly, Christian miscegenation with Jews was treated more severely than with
Muslims. In Valencia, for example, the law stated that the punishment for Chris-
tian men fornicating with Jewish women was burning both together while the
punishment for Christian men fornicating with Muslim women was having the
pair whipped naked (again together) through the streets along with the possible
enslavement of the woman. Non-Christian men having intercourse with Christian
women generally resulted in executions or castrations for males and, for first
offenses for the women, loss of property rights—with recidivism being dealt with
by execution. This prohibition extended to prostitutes: the state licensed brothel
in Valencia City, for example, had a gallows outside the door that served as a
reminder to potential Jewish and Muslim customers of the punishment for mis-
cegenation.
Although all three communities—Muslims, Christians, and Jews—had inter-
mural romances and prostitution, Muslim women were by far the most vulnerable
and at the proverbial bottom of the heap. Mudejar communities tended to be the
poorest and particularly impoverished Muslim women were the most susceptible
to sexual exploitation. Muslims, who were a “conquered people” could be en-

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slaved. Miscegenation accusations against them, then, could be great sources of

profit, especially since successful charges of miscegenation against Muslim wo-
men resulted in a splitting of the profits for enslavement between the successful
accuser and the state. Anyone turning in Muslim prostitutes, even their custom-
ers, was in line for financial gain by doing so. Most egregious among recorded
examples was a group of monks at Roda who were using Muslim prostitutes for
sexual gratification and then turning them in to the authorities on charges of
miscegenation so that they could collect proceeds from their enslavement (Burns
1973; Boswell 1978; Nirenberg 1996).
Muslim and Jewish aljamas were extremely vigilant, almost obsessive, with
regulating their communities’ sexual borders. They were not alone in this, how-
ever, as average community members themselves not only took interest but some-
times took action in the patrolling of those borders. In Zaragoza a Jewish woman
who was impregnated by a Christian was murdered by her brothers. In Huesca, a
group of Muslims seized a Jew who frequented a brothel in the moreria, stripped
him naked, and left him in the street. An interfaith riot in Zaragoza broke out over
a Muslim woman who, having been pardoned for sexual activity with both
Christian and Jewish men on the promise not to do so again, was then caught in
the juderia fornicating with Jewish men. Some miscegenation stories from the
royal registers produce a sense of hilarity, for example, the case of a Jew who
found a naked Christian hiding under his wife’s bed and believed the story that
he hired her to mend his pants and shirt and was waiting for the job to be
complete. Some stories are as confusing as they are fascinating, such as a Jew
who poisoned his son because, both having fallen in love with the same Muslim
slave, the son threatened to convert to Christianity if the father would not stop
having sexual relations with her. More often than not, though, the stories are not
amusing and are quite clear and tragic for most of the cast (Burns 1973; Boswell
1978; Nirenberg 1996).
Aljamas policed and prosecuted what they saw as the sexual jungle around
them but actual official punishment of high offenses, particularly those involving
execution, went into the hands of the Christian state. Muslim women convicted by
their aljamas, for example, were handed over to the Christian state which usually
commuted their death penalty to enslavement or collected a hefty fine for those
who could raise it. Jewish women could be subjected to a variety of punishments
but generally not enslavement since, unlike Mudejar women, they were not
conquered people and thus not technically liable to enslavement. The Muslim
aljama of Valencia City purchased from the crown a concession that guaranteed
Muslim women convicted of miscegenation could not have the death sentence
commuted to a fine. Families, though some would inform on inter-faith promiscu-
ity or kill their own offending women for it personally, could often rise to the

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occasion and work toward financial remission. Families were not alone in trying
to pay such fines to spare a Muslim woman about to be executed for miscegena-
tion. In Zaragoza Muslim spectators took such pity on a woman who stood
publicly naked about to be flogged to death that they took up a collection to pay
her fine on the spot. It was these loopholes of mercy that both Muslim and Jewish
aljamas wanted to close down.
The rabbinic tradition in Spain unequivocally condemned miscegenation.
Yehuda ben Asher ben Yehiel, a rabbi from Toledo, not only claimed that any
Jewish man having sexual relations with a non-Jew should be put under the ban
but that it was incumbent upon all Jews to report miscegenation whenever
known. Another community in Castile even defended Jewish prostitutes as a
necessary evil as they gave Jewish men an intra-faith outlet for illicit sex and
therefore curbed miscegenation. Jewish men, however, still only rarely received
any official censure, much less punishment, from the aljama for extra-faith sexual
activity. Not so with Jewish women. Jewish aljamas were exceptionally vigilant—
and generally ferocious and uncompromising—when it came to policing the
sexuality of its women. Punishment could include facial disfigurement and exile.
Jewish aljamas apparently had a widespread problem with poor Jews maliciously
bringing allegations of miscegenation against wealthy Jew to Christian courts.
Muslims, too, could use miscegenation accusations as a legal weapon. Indivi-
duals attacking individuals, and groups attacking groups, through miscegenation
accusations were also common occurrences in Muslim aljamas.
F Mudejars, Jews, and Military Service

Surrender contracts usually exempted the conquered from military service be-
yond the normal expectation of immediate community defense. Like so many
articles of the original surrender contracts, the exemption from military service
eroded under the pressure of state revisionism. Monarchs invoking Roman Law
were trying to transform themselves from first among equals into true sovereign
rulers. The centralizing force of monarchs promoting and applying Roman Law
had profound effects on all political and economic relationships. Mudejar and
Jewish communities were more vulnerable to the encroachments of new royal
laws than were barons or communes but attempts to centralize authority and the
consequent effects were society wide.
Evidence suggests that Jewish military service usually remained localized in
defense of the immediate community but that this was not always the case. Jews
were notable in marching out to defend Toledo against the Almohads in 1197.
Jewish military participation being greater in Spain than other parts of Europe is

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suggested by the testimony of a twelfth-century German rabbi who mentioned

that it was the custom of Jews in Spain to accompany the king to war. Mentions
were occasionally made of Jewish casualties in conflicts. Some Muslim accounts
mentioned the participation of Jews in crusading activity. There is a record of
Jewish archers receiving land grants in 1266 and the inventory of the estate of
Samuel b. Manasseh, secretary to the king, included weapons and armor. Frois-
sart mentioned that Pedro the Cruel made great use of Jews and Muslims in his
war against his half-brother. The mercenary career of Abrahim el Jenet is fascinat-
ing: he was a Jew fighting in a Muslim mercenary band employed by the Christian
king of Aragon. Fascinating as his case is it gives no indication of widespread
Jewish participation in military services to the crown or feudal lords. This could
be due to the much smaller numbers of Jews in Spain in comparison to the
Mudejar and Christian populations. It could also be related to the relative wealth
and political influence of Jewish communities as opposed to Mudejar ones.
Generally speaking, at the grassroots level, military service was something that
one tried to avoid (hence its appearance in original surrender-contracts). Jewish
communities, although they had their fair share of impoverished members, had
much more wealth and political influence than Mudejars. Mudejars ran a much
greater risk of “getting stuck” with military service and hence their prevalence.
Possibly one of the most illuminating pieces of evidence was the way in which the
crown resolved a dispute between Jews and Muslims in Fraga over which group
would march first in the mourning procession for Peter the Ceremonious: Muslims
would march first because they risked their lives in battle for the king while Jews
did not (Burns 1973; Lourie 1990; Nirenberg 1996).
Mudejars, by and large, became fully integrated into the feudal order. From
the land-bound peasantry to military service obligations Mudejars differed little
from their Christian counterparts. Many Mudejars were considered formal vassals
and the term itself was employed in a way that did not differ at all from Christian
usage. Mudejars were even used to fight foreign Muslims. With most of the
Mudejar community being relatively poor, their most common form of military
service was in community militias for local defense. There were, however, the
aljaferias, Muslim units that were permanently assigned to posts and as such
exempt from any other form of military service. The bulk of Muslims rendering
military service to the crown served as infantry or as archers and crossbowmen.
Some fought as separate Mudejar units under a Mudejar commander but most
fought, at least in the early centuries, in fully integrated units alongside Chris-
tians. In Aragon, after a few centuries of such normal military integration a sort of
“separate but equal” approach to military service was adopted: Muslim and
Christian troops would have equal military duties but serve in segregated units
each with their own chain of command. Mudejars did provide cavalry service

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258 Mark T. Abate
which was not negligible. Cavalry was drawn from aljamas although some alja-
mas procured exemptions from providing cavalry service—which indicates how
widespread the practice was. Mudejar potentates were obligated to provide
cavalry as needed although some did so voluntarily beyond obligation. Mudejars
were a major component in the military strength of the state and in this regard
differed little from their Christian fellow subjects (Burns 1973; 1975; Boswell 1978;
Lourie 1990; Guichard 1990–1991; Harvey 1990).
G Mozarabs
The community of Toledo is the most significant for understanding the shift from
Islamic to Christian Spain for Mozarabs. Toledo became a magnet for Mozarab
immigration following its conquest in 1085. Emigration and persecution at the
hands of the Berber dynasties decimated other once thriving Mozarab commu-
nities. Even the community of Cordoba, though it still existed, was weak and in
serious decline. The Toledan Mozarab community, on the other hand, was dense
and its membership was not restricted just to those tracing their lineage back to
Hispano-Roman-Visigothic stock: in the wake of the conquest many Muslims and
even some Arabic speaking Jews converted and became “Mozarabs.”
The main problem in reabsorbing the Mozarab population into Christendom
was, surprisingly, not linguistic but liturgical (O’Callaghan 1975). Mozarabs ad-
hered to the Visigothic rite which, despite its approval in Rome in 1065, was not to
the taste of subsequent papal reformers or consistent with the French influences
spreading from the north across the Pyrenees. Catalonia’s proximity to and
influence by the Franks resulted in an early abandonment of the Mozarabic rite.
Deep in the heart of Castile the situation was much different. Alfonso VI was very
receptive to the idea of liturgical change and bringing Spain into line with
continent-wide customs but he knew popular resistance to this would be signifi-
cant. Tradition has it that he resorted to submitting the issue to trial by combat
with a champion representing each liturgy. When the champion for the Roman
rite was defeated the king then submitted it for trial by ordeal through fire. When
both liturgies were thrown into the fire, tradition has it that the Mozarabic rite
leaped out of the flames and Alfonso kicked it back in saying “Let the horns of the
laws bend to the will of kings.” Whether or not laws bent to the will of kings the
liturgy in Spain would. Awash in Cluniac monks and missionaries promoting the
Roman over Visigothic rite the tiny, weakened Mozarabic communities, with the
notable exception of Toledo, went through the liturgical change. In the Mozarab
chapel at the Cathedral in Toledo, however, one can still today attend the
Mozarabic rite every morning at 8:00 AM.

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Intellectually, the Mozarab community was on the verge of collapse by the

time it was absorbed. Like Mudejars, Mozarabs did not adapt well intellectually as
minorities. This is, of course, based on surviving sources and it is doubtful that
Jews, Muslims, or Latin Christians would have spent much effort trying to pre-
serve Mozarabic texts. Still, there is no evidence of any great Mozarab intellectual.
Learned Mozarabs certainly existed. Some Arabic poetry was composed and some
Latin works copied. The Mozarab author of the Liber denudationis, a polemic work
against Islam, refuted the miracle of Muhammad splitting the Moon based upon
Aristotelian physics. Mozarabs also played a role, even if a modest one, in the
translation of Arabic scientific and philosophical texts into Latin. Intellectually
speaking the community got a significant boost through (re)connection to the
wider Christian cultural landscape.
The greatest potential contribution Mozarabs could have made to Latin Chris-
tendom would be in the understanding of Islam (if only to develop refutations of
higher quality). Arabization and Islamization were two distinct processes but they
could overlap on the edges. Mozarabs (at least the literate ones) retained their
identity but did have significant exposure to Islam. If one were to become literate
in Arabic in the pre-modern world it would almost certainly involve some contact
with the Quran as it was considered the greatest exemplar of the language and a
pedagogical device as well as a revealed text. The Mozarab creation of a Latin
equivalent of the Bismallah in their texts is just one obvious reaffirmation of this
assumption. They also had access to and knowledge of Quranic commentaries and
other important literature. Many Mozarabs knew of kalam (Islamic theology) and
made attempts to create some bridges between it and Latin Christian conventions.
Mozarab polemics against Islam demonstrated a marked degree of knowledge
about the religion in comparison to anything else in Europe and their distaste for
the religion should not be confused with ignorance about it (Burman 1994).
H Intellectual Exchange
The transmission of the Greco-Roman scientific tradition through Spain and into
the rest of Europe is generally considered to be one of the most important events
in medieval intellectual development. It was an important aspect of the “renais-
sance of the twelfth century” and one of the driving forces behind the rise of
universities in the thirteenth century; institutions which, in a manner of speaking,
emerged as workshops for dealing with this information as well as clearing
houses to distribute it. The transmission also provided Europeans with the gen-
eral framework of the universe as they would see it until Johannes Kepler (1571–
1630).

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Most of the fundamental concepts and texts, but certainly not all, that
revolutionized European scientific thinking originated in the East. Spain became
the conduit for transmission for two primary reasons. First, it was part of the
Islamic world and thus had the cultural connections for the reception of the
intellectual products hailing from the East. Second, in Spain the Greco-Roman
tradition was more widely available in an Arabized form and was accompanied
by such brilliant commentaries as those by Averroes. Arabization of the Greco-
Roman tradition was of the utmost importance as it continued and intensified the
Neoplatonizing of Aristotelian thought. Many of the conceptual conflicts and
rough edges of pure Greco-Roman thought that would cause problems fitting into
Abrahamic monotheism were resolved and smoothed in their Arabized versions.
This at least partially explains the primacy of Spain and Toledo for the transmis-
sion of such knowledge as opposed to Sicily and Palermo. Sicily overall had
textual traditions that remained very Greek, in language and context, and did not
exhibit as much of an effort in reconciling Aristotle with Moses as had the Spanish
tradition (Lemay 1962; Peters 1968; Vernet 1975; Lindberg 1978; Glick 2005).
Following the conquest of Toledo and the revelation of the rich intellectual
treasures to be found in Spain, scientifically-minded men from throughout Europe
came to the peninsula. Texts that were known only by title and author, long
thought lost for all time, were now available for the intrepid scholar. Astronomy
and astrology were, all things considered, the most sought after form of knowl-
edge, particularly in the shape of Ptolemy’s Almagest. One of the highest forms of
knowledge in the Middle Ages, astrology in general and the Almagest in particular,
brought Robert of Ketton from England in the 1140s. Together with his collaborator
Herman of Carinthia the pair worked on the Almagest and other treatises. When
Peter the Venerable visited the Ebro Valley (and seems to have been horrified by
the impact of Islam and the heterodoxy it encouraged) he retained the services of
the two to create the first Latin translation of the Quran. Significantly, neither man
was interested in such a project; they were there to work on scientific texts and
had absolutely no interest in Islam or the Quran. Resistance to the project
collapsed under generous remuneration. Ketton’s comfort level and knowledge of
Arabic can be seen in many ways. Possibly the most significant was that, despite
his lack of enthusiasm for the Quran translation project, he used al-Tabari’s
commentary for understanding and translating difficult or contestable issues.
Although not personally interested in the project he was conscientious and this,
combined with his abilities, resulted in a quality product for Peter the Venerable
and the first translation of the Quran in a European language (Lemay 1962;
Kritzeck 1964; Alverny 1982; Burnett 1992; 1997; 2001; Glick 2005).
Translators of texts from Arabic to Latin sometimes worked alone but transla-
tion activity was generally done by teams of scholars, often associated with other

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teams and thus forming a “school.” Usually the translation from Arabic into Latin
was channeled through Romance vernacular such as Castilian or Catalan. One
member of the team would read the Arabic and speak it in Romance while the
other member listened to the Romance and wrote it in Latin. Jews were particu-
larly important in this as they tended to be bilingual or trilingual and comfortable
in both Arabic and Romance. Translation teams often included a Jew, converted
Jew, or Mozarab. John of Seville, the first great translator in Toledo, probably was
a converted Jew himself. Dominic Gundisalvus worked on translations with Abra-
ham ibn Dawud. Plato of Tivoli worked with Abraham bar Hiyya. Gerard of
Cremona worked with a Mozarab named Galippus. Quality of translations varied
not just due to the linguistic skills but also philosophical views on proper means
of translation. Some took a euphemistic approach and translated the concepts as
opposed to the direct words. The other approach, the “verbo ad verbum” ap-
proach, stuck to literal word for word translations. Gerard of Cremona, who with
little doubt was the most prolific translator of his age, is an example of the latter.
Sometimes in reading his work one can have the confused feeling that they are
reading Arabic in Latin script (Alverny 1982; Glick 1992b; 2005; Burnett 1992;
1997; 2001).
The city of Toledo gained a reputation for being the capitol of scientific
knowledge and particularly the magic arts. Toledo’s legacy in astronomy was
particularly strong. In the late eleventh century the qadi Said of Toledo presided
over a project that produced the famous Toledan Tables that synthesized the most
sophisticated mathematics available with new astronomical observations. In the
Middle Ages the line separating science and magic was often thin and sometimes
non-existent (Lemay 1962; Glick 2005). The reputation was a somewhat deserved
one as some translation activity did involve what would be considered black or
demonic magic, particularly astral magic manuals like Picatrix. Arabic was seen
as a language of revealed secrets both natural and supernatural and became
firmly associated with the Toledan tradition. The reputation of Toledo as a capitol
for scientific activity was clinched when Alfonso X centralized the work of
scholars in the city to make efforts more efficient. Alfonso even made provisions
for individual scholars to specialize in research, translation (now into Castilian
rather than Latin), or in the technical editing of manuscripts. The translation team
that Alfonso put together included five Jews, one Muslim convert to Christianity,
four Spanish Christians, and four Italians; the composition of the group itself is
eloquent testimony to the type of cross-cultural effort needed for the tasks to be
completed successfully (Vernet 1975; Burns 1983; Samso 1984; Jimenez 2004;
Glick 2005).
Ranking high among the many important texts channeled through Spain was
al-Khwarizmi’s text on Indian calculations which introduced Europeans to a new

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numerical system that eventually would become the Arabic numeral system of
today. The numeral system in the Middle Ages was widely known as the “Toledan
Numbers” (for numbers, see the contribution to this Handbook by Moritz Wedell).
In particular, it seems that 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 0 in their current forms originally took
shape in Toledo during the translation movement (Lemay 1977). Al-Khwarizmi’s
contribution did not end there: the corruption of his name in Latin into Algoritmi
provided us with the term algorithm. Related to this and of equal importance was
the recovery of Euclid’s Elements which had previously only been known to Latins
in the rather unsatisfactory bare bones translation made by Boethius. This revolu-
tionized geometry as a discipline in Western Europe. Euclid, moreover, became
connected with another translated text of the utmost importance: Aristotle’s
Posterior Analytics. The Posterior Analytics, translated by Gerard of Cremona in
Toledo in 1187, was Aristotle’s great exposition on demonstrable proof—the
closest that the pre-modern world had to a scientific method. Aristotle’s method
of demonstration held mathematics to be a fundamental exemplar for ascertain-
ing proof and Euclid’s Elements came to be seen by medieval scholars as its
clearest expression (Glick 1992b). Numerous other works transmitted through
Spain were of tremendous importance—not least of them Ptolemy’s Almagest—so
numerous that it is impossible to enumerate them concisely.
Jews were central to the intellectual transmission of Arab science to Europe.
Spanish Jews, however, were also important producers and consumers of science
in Spain themselves rather than simply mediators between traditions. While Jews
were serving in translation teams to render the Arabic corpus into Latin or
Romance they were also translating texts into Hebrew and creating a scientific
corpus of their own. Translation and composition in Hebrew was an extremely
difficult challenge before the fourteenth century as it was customary to use
biblical and rabbinic Hebrew rather than spoken medieval Hebrew. This made
translation or composition of technical scientific works a particularly daunting
task. Regardless of the difficulties involved an exceptionally rich Hebrew scienti-
fic corpus was produced. Jewish scientists also translated works into Latin and
even composed original works in Latin as well as Hebrew (Glick 1992b).
Two outstanding exemplars of the Jewish scientific community were Abra-
ham bar Hiyya and Abraham ibn Ezra. Bar Hiyya was a translator who worked
with Plato of Tivoli but he also wrote original works in Hebrew that include a
compendium on mathematics and a treatise on geometry which became, in 1145,
the first scientific work originally composed in Hebrew to be translated into
another language. Abraham ibn Ezra translated works into Hebrew, such as a
commentary on Khwarizmi’s tables, but also composed works in Hebrew includ-
ing three works on mathematics and The Copper Instrument, which was his own
treatise on the astrolabe. Abraham ibn Ezra also composed works in Latin such as

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an original work on astronomical tables and possibly a Latin treatise on the

astrolabe. He took his Spanish scientific training and went on to be an “interna-
tional consultant” of sorts: he traveled city to city abroad synchronizing local
meridians to astronomical tables.
The career of Petrus Alfonsi (1062–1110) is very instructive in revealing the
differential in scientific knowledge between Islamic Spain and Christian Europe
during the early transitional period. He was no Abraham bar Hiyya or Abraham
ibn Ezra. Alfonsi was a converted Jew from Islamic Spain who migrated north to
Aragon and eventually crossed the Pyrenees into France and England. There he
became a great promoter of the Andalusi scientific tradition as well as a great
promoter of his own career through it. His scientific works were greedily received
and he quickly reached the status of an auctor—a great authority. He railed with
pious indignation against the juvenile intellectual traditions he found in the north
and rode a wave of applause that carried him right into a position as the personal
physician to Henry I. The most fascinating thing about his stellar career is that by
the standards of Andalusi science he was only a mediocre scholar even when
performing at his very best. Much of the time he did not fully understand his own
subject and his works were completely corrupted by gross errors. Once better
translations by more qualified scholars began crossing the Pyrenees, Alfonsi’s
scientific work became quickly and utterly obsolete. From then on it was primarily
his polemical works against Islam and Judaism that were considered worth read-
ing—particularly for an understanding of the Talmud and how to attack it. The
fact that a third-rate Andalusi scholar could launch such a successful career in
the north serves as a real foreshadowing of the intellectual impact Spain would
soon have on all Christendom (Tolan 1993).
I Confrontations
I The Importance of Segregation
Aljamas, morerias, juderias, and the entire social system in which they were
embedded were designed to limit, as much as possible, contact between the three
faiths and to regulate such contact when it was unavoidable. Distinctive clothing
was legislated for Jews and Mudejars so that they could always be easily distin-
guished from Christians in the streets. Legislation for men also included beard
length and hairstyles. Attempts were made to ensure separateness and preserve
identities in a variety of arenas ranging from butcher shops to brothels. Social
barriers were considered the foundation of co-existence and even though many
individuals sometimes opted to slip past those barriers for reasons of their own.

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264 Mark T. Abate
The three communities themselves—Jews, Muslims, and Christians—all corpo-

rately believed, however, in the absolute necessity of separateness. Proximity,
they reckoned, did not produce better mutual understanding of one another but
simply provided more opportunities for conflict and cultural contamination.
Crossings of such social boundaries can sometimes be amusing to the modern
reader as, for example, when a scribe in Barcelona complained that a Jewish
sewer was running through his neighborhood and that the smell of non-Christian
waste was offending the local Virgin of the Pine. In the minds of some, then, even
feces needed to be segregated. Sometimes such crossings could be revolting, such
as Christians pasturing pigs in Muslims graveyards (supremely offensive itself on
multiple counts) even after the animals began digging up corpses. Sometimes
they reveal a web of interconnected economic issues such inter-faith uses of
butchers or artisan disputes about competing cross-faith workshops being open
during holy days (Nirenberg 1996). Christian and Jewish traffic into morerias
reveals an entirely different shadow world of inter-faith relations. These usually
impoverished communities became centers for a wide array of low-life and illicit
activities. Christian state official had no authority in morerias and actually could
not even enter them without being accompanied by the local amin unless specifi-
cally charged to do so by the crown. Certainly this made them even more appeal-
ing venues for nefarious pursuits. Poverty produced a relative abundance of
Mudejar prostitutes although numerous of their Christian counterparts were
drawn to the moreria as well (Boswell 1978; Nirenberg 1996). Taverns, despite the
Islamic prohibition on alcohol, were abundant. Gambling was a major activity in
the moreria. A game called tafueries was played in almost all sizable morerias.
Legal for Muslims to play but not for Christians, the proliferation of the game
resulted in the emergence of a new official, the Tafurarius, whose function was to
collect fines from Christians caught playing. Fines from the game were so exten-
sive that they eventually became a significant revenue stream for the crown
(Boswell 1978).
II Ritualized Aggression and Massacre
Holy Week attacks on Jewish communities, an annual ritualized event rooted in

mainstream rather than fringe clerical and popular culture, provide clear and
instructive examples on the social barrier between Jews and Christians. David
Nirenberg, in his tour de force study Communities of Violence, demonstrated how
these attacks were reinforcements of the social barrier more than penetrations of
it. Holy Week attacks on the juderia or call were not pogroms but rituals—
aggressive rituals but rituals with “rules” nonetheless. “Ideally” it would involve

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children under eighteen years of age throwing rocks at the walls of the juderia.
The intent was to intimidate, maybe cause property damage, but not to murder.
The “ideal” could and did on occasion escalate. Adults, usually clerics, might join
the ritual and produce confrontations with the Christian officials assigned to
guard the juderia and make sure the ritual did not spiral out of control. Most of
the physical violence that occurred in the Holy Week attacks was between
Christian officials and the Christian population (usually clerics). When it esca-
lated to the extreme, however, it could result in a sack of the juderia. Serious
injuries, however, were relatively rare. According to Nirenberg the ritual re-
minded all of their differences and served to symbolically reinforce the social
boundary. In so doing, it mimicked but partially vented the violence that could
explode from a desire for vengeance against Jews for deicide (Nirenberg 1996).
Before 1348 religious massacres were not an aspect of Iberian existence. The
one exception—and really only a partial exception due to the convoluted nature
of the events—was the massacre of 337 Jews in the village of Montclus in 1320. The
primary agents were not Spanish locals but French radicals, the Pastoureaux,
who tore a path of destruction through Jewish communities wherever they went.
Some Montclus locals participated in mob looting and at least one played an
active role in the death of Jews but the massacre itself cannot be considered a
“native” occurrence. The machinery of royal justice, moreover, came down very
hard on all who played any role, even a slight one, in anti-Jewish activities during
the tragedy. The moreria of Naval was sacked and looted by the “shepherds” with
some locals also joining in but there were no deaths. Generally speaking most
Jewish and Muslim communities were protected by state officials and the local
populations against the threat. The massacres of Jews in 1348, however, cannot
be blamed on a radical group coming from France. Nor can the massacres of 1391,
the darkest year for Sephardic Jewry before 1492, in which thousands of Jews were
butchered and staggering numbers were forcibly converted. Brutal, vicious, and
destructive as these pogroms were it must also be noted that decades of relative
peace and normalcy separate them (Nirenberg 1996).
III Conversion Attempts
Another notable arena for confrontation was a new approach to missionary efforts
in the thirteenth century. Older polemical approaches to Judaism (and later Islam)
were much more geared toward Christian audiences to reinforce their own faith
and demonstrate its superiority. In these cases, the “Jew” or the “Muslim” was
more often than not a straw opponent to be rhetorically whipped without being
able to strike back. Efforts that genuinely tried to convert Jews were based on

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266 Mark T. Abate
Christian sources which, naturally, were not considered to be legitimate by target

audiences. The Christian “discovery” of the Talmud and access to better informa-
tion about Islam (for those looking for it) helped pave the way for a new approach,
one that had living, breathing opponents rather than straw targets, an approach
that would culminate in public disputations designed to prove the superiority and
truth of Christianity (J. Cohen 1982a).
In theory the approach was designed to convert both Jews and Muslims. In
practice efforts were usually focused on Jews. Judaism was generally considered
by Spanish Christians to be more abhorrent than Islam but this was not the reason
for focusing primary efforts on Jews. Much more likely, the reason lies in the
comparative conditions of Jewish and Mudejar communities. Intellectual life
among Spanish Jews made the transition from Islamic to Christian rule with no
disruption. Brilliant rabbis like Nahmanides were produced by the Jewish educa-
tional system and could be taken on in a public disputation. If an iconic religious
expert were defeated and toppled in public debate, the theory posited, intellec-
tual resistance and then popular resistance would crumble. There were, however,
no Mudejar counterparts to Nahmanides. The Muslim intellectual elite was essen-
tially decapitated by flight and migration during the initial conquest. Another
reason for the focus on Judaism over Islam in practice rather than theory was that
a number of educated Jewish converts took up the cause of attacking their
previous religion. Mudejar communities, just as they had no counterpart to
Nahmanides, had no counterpart to such converts (J. Cohen 1982a).
Converted Jews were often the most dangerous Christian opponents of Juda-
ism in intellectual and theological terms. Already in the early twelfth century
Petrus Alfonsi, in his Dialogi contra Iudaeos, launched a brutal attack on Judaism,
particularly contemporary Judaism, by focusing on the Talmud. After killing Jesus
the Jews broke with the Old Law and created a new one, based on a web of lies, a
web called the Talmud (Tolan 1993). The potentially devastating end game of this
argument was, if not immediately recognized, at least not immediately acted
upon: the Talmud, as post-biblical religious writings, constituted heresy and
could thus open up rabbinic Judaism to Christian machinery for suppression.
Other than bringing attention, sometimes for the first time, to the nature of the
Talmud, Alfonsi’s attack had minimal impact. A century later the Jewish convert
Nicholas Donin waged a campaign, in an entirely new key, on the Talmud as
post-biblical heresy and as a tradition encouraging Jewish blasphemy against
Christianity. In 1240, Donin’s war on the Talmud reached its apex with the trial,
conviction, and burning of the Talmud in Paris. The Talmud was now something
that was receiving significant Christian attention.
The belated Christian “discovery” of the Talmud revolutionized the mission-
ary approach by promising insight into the psyche of the contemporary, living

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Jewish community rather than just a biblical, ossified understanding of their

thought. Converting Jews meant understanding contemporary Jews and that
meant understanding Talmudic scholarship along with contemporary methods of
rabbinic exegesis. The Dominican Ramon of Penyaforte became the dean of a
missionary think-tank dedicated to designing and piloting a new approach to
conversion. The school was to pioneer conversion methods for both Muslims and
Jews. Many of the recruits seem to have been more interested in converting
Muslims but pragmatism steered most toward-dealing with Judaism. Requisite
languages were a must: to debate learned rabbis the sources must be known in
their original language. Extensive training in rabbinic literature was also required
for any chances of success. Penyaforte’s school even licensed graduates for
disputation to ensure that only qualified alumni could appear in public and thus
prevent any counter-productive embarrassments. Pablo Christiani, a converted
Jew originally hailing from a prominent Jewish family in southern France, was
Penyaforte’s initial point man and became the group’s original “Jewish expert.”
The new approach would focus on using Jewish sources and logic to force the
conclusion that Jewish sources themselves supported Christian belief and doc-
trine (J. Cohen 1982a; Chazan 1989).
The grand debut for the new approach was an affair of the greatest magni-
tude: the 1263 public disputation in Barcelona between Pablo Christiani, Penya-
forte’s Jewish expert, and the rabbi Nahmanides, pound for pound the most
knowledgeable and respected rabbi in the peninsula at the time. The deck was
set, so to speak, in that Pablo Christiani could take the offensive against Jewish
principles but that Nahmanides could not directly malign Christian tenets, re-
stricting himself only to logical argumentation based on presented premises. The
result was a sparring match in which Christiani would constantly be on the
offensive with Nahmanides restricted to parries and ducking. Nahmanides, whose
showing was much greater than one would think the circumstances permitted,
consistently fell back on the questionable logic of Christiani’s presentation: all of
his points, in fact the entire agenda for the debate, were predicated upon an initial
Christian premise that itself had not been logically proven or on premises that had
been stripped from their original context. In the end, both sides believed that they
had won the disputation although Nahmanides himself was exiled a few years
later on the charge of writing false and malicious accounts of the event. Ramon of
Penyaforte approached the results of the disputation with characteristic pragma-
tism: the performance was good but it could have been better and the approach
must be tweaked based on the experience (Chazan 1992).
Pugio Fidei, the “Dagger of the Faith,” the most knowledgeable and devastat-
ing attack on Judaism written by a medieval Christian, was textually speaking the
high water mark for the new method in converting Jews. Its author, Ramon

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268 Mark T. Abate
Martini, was not a converted Jew but a Christian drawn to the project of conver-
sion. When he originally joined the Penyaforte School he seems to have been
more interested in the conversion of Muslims than Jews. Practical concerns, as
well as the spectacle of the Barcelona disputation of 1263, steered him toward a
career in anti-Judaism. In 1264, the year after the Barcelona disputation, Martini
began an intensive 15 years of study of rabbinic literature (in its original lan-
guage) and emerged from it with Dagger of the Faith (ca. 1280), a manual par
excellence for attacking Jewish belief. Although written in Latin it only deals with
Hebrew and Aramaic sources. Rabbinic citations were always provided in the
original language with painstaking and very accurate translations. Problematic
terms for interpretation were always addressed and resolved using rabbinic
sources and authorities to insulate the arguments from attack. Martini’s command
of rabbinic literature was sophisticated and extended into understanding the
differences between halakic material (legal and obligatory) and aggadic (non-
legal and debatable)—an understanding and distinction that Pablo Christiani did
not truly grasp and was consistently targeted by Nahmanides (J. Cohen 1982a;
Chazan 1989).
Evaluating the danger of the new approach of this philosophical “dagger”
held to the Jewish communities of Spain is difficult to gauge. Jews, through
involuntary sermons, were exposed to the new logical approach but it is doubtful
that this had much effect. The old story about Jews putting wax in their ears as
they marched to compulsory sermons probably has deep down a solid foundation
in reality. Much more compelling regarding conversion was the increasing vio-
lence visited upon Jewish communities along with converts who ingested the new
approach and plied it upon their former co-religionists. The new sermons and
disputations netted few converts. Massacres and fear of massacre were what
produced significant conversions. Still this explosion of interest in effecting
conversion, as well as the concerted efforts in developing an appropriate metho-
dology to achieve it, demonstrates a growing sense of desire in the Christian
community to be rid of its Jewish (and most likely Muslim) population. Before
expulsions ever even entered the historical equation attempts were being made to
remove, so to speak, the non-Christian population through conversion. The
eventual expulsions of Jews and Muslims, though multi-causal in origin, were
both connected to a growing realization that conversion was no longer viable
(Jasper 2012; with an extensive bibliography).

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J Ferdinand, Isabella, and the Shattering

of Convivencia
I The Converso Issue
Convivencia in all of its aspects essentially came to an end during the reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella. Centuries of coexistence did not end with one act or one
policy and it cannot be completely connected to a specific year, even a year as
significant as 1492. Convivencia came to an end in stages and at different rates for
Jews and Muslims. The end did not begin as a preconceived policy of “purity of
blood” (that idea came later) but was produced by specific sequences of actions,
reactions, and evolving approaches. Ferdinand and Isabella themselves had fairly
different views regarding minorities even though they both welcomed and worked
for conversion in their own ways. Muslims in Isabella’s Castile were given the
option of expulsion or conversion to Christianity while those in Ferdinand’s
realms continued their existence without facing forced conversion or banishment
until after his death.
The collapse of convivencia was a multi-causal event but the Converso issue
and subsequent changes in state approaches to Jews were the most important.
The horrible year of 1391 resulted in the butchering of thousands of Jews in Castile
and the forced conversion of a stunning one-third of the Jewish population. These
forcibly converted Jews, the Conversos, adapted to the new conditions either by
striving for full assimilation into Spanish Christian society or by publicly leading
a Christian lifestyle while privately practicing Judaism. Assimilation, sometimes
supplemented with inter-marriage, could prove very successful for those so
disposed, sometimes leading even to high rank in the church. For example, Juan
Arias Davila, Bishop of Segovia, was of Converso stock. Hernando de Talavera—
Archbishop of Granada, Confessor to Isabella, and the greatest Spanish church-
man of his day—was partially of Converso stock. Ferdinand himself has even been
said to have had some Jewish blood from his mother’s side of the family. Con-
versos truly not interested in either Christianity or substantive assimilation to its
social structure became “Crypto-Jews.” Outwardly and publicly they would live
Catholic lives with children being baptized and adults going to Mass. Privately
within homes and across the community they would practice Judaism and get by
as best they could (Baer 1961–1966; Meyerson 1991; Roth 1995).
For the first decades following 1391 the Converso ssue does not seem to have
been a particularly troublesome one. In the 1440s this began to change and the
Converso issue graduated to crisis. Anti-Converso riots broke out and the sincerity
of conversion became a major issue amidst reconsiderations of what being

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Christian meant. “Judaizing,” falsely professing Christianity and spreading or

reinforcing Judaism by working against the conversion of remaining Jews, be-
came a fear of considerable consequence. Conversos who were “Crypto-Jews”
were technically relapsed heretics and thus fell within the jurisdiction of the
inquisitorial process. The establishment of the inquisition institutionalized the
fear of Judaizing and created the machinery for prosecution and information
collection, “information” that would in turn feed more fears. Castilian laws called
for stricter enforcement in the segregation of Jews. Inquisitors claimed to uncover
a plot in which Conversos and Jews colluded in the crucifixion of a Christian child
and were using necromancy to attack Christianity. Despite the personalities and
excesses of some individual inquisitors, the objective was to sort through Con-
versos to identify and separate the Crypto-Jews who would impede the conversion
of remaining Jews. As was the case with all heresies, Crypto-Judaism was seen as
an infection that would spread unless somehow cauterized. Cauterization of
Judaizing was the nominal purpose of the inquisition from 1478–1483. Trials and
executions began in Seville in 1480. When cauterization came to be seen as
ineffective then amputation through mass expulsion, a measure very much
pushed by the inquisition as an institution, was implemented in 1492. Jews were
given six months in which to sell their property and leave Spain.
II Changes Among Mudejar Communities
Christian suspicions of and animosities toward the Mudejar population were

originally rooted in very different issues. Before the sixteenth century there was
no major population of converted Mudejars who could be suspected of preventing
the conversion of their supposed previous co-religionists. Mudejars, however,
could be and occasionally were a significant military threat in ways Jews never
could be. They were integrated into the feudal order and not all as sharecroppers
and urban artisans: some performed significant military services (Burns 1973;
1975; Boswell 1978; Harvey 1990; Meyerson 1991). There were many more Mude-
jars than Jews. Mudejar foreign connections were not commercial and intellectual
but political and military in nature: their potential foreign allies had armies. Such
external armed threats could help ensure that their rights would not be violated
but it could also increase fear of Mudejars as possible traitors. Mudejars could
have affinity for and be supportive of external threats making them potential fifth
columns. In Valencia, where the Mudejar population was thickest, there were
significant Mudejar revolts from the late 1240s into the 1270s with notable ones
also occurring in 1359 and 1364. Revolts in the 1270s were coordinated with forces
from North Africa and Granada and surely contributed to the sense, and with

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some justification, that a significant part of the population had external loyalties
which could prove strategically disastrous. Attacks on morerias in Valencia
tended to break out during periods of war or impending war with Granada: 1288,
1299, 1309, 1385–1386, 1428, 1455, and other possible attacks on morerias were
quelled by local officials before actually erupting. Rumors about Mudejars profit-
ing from shipping Christians off to foreign slave markets emerged as functional
equivalents to those of Jews conducting anti-Christian activities or the murder of
children.
Muslims in Spain, by the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, had actually become
minorities in real demographic terms. In Valencia the Mudejar population, pri-
marily due to the pressures of Christian immigration, had dwindled to 30% and in
Aragon to 20%. The conquest of Granada, of course, disrupted this long acquired
balance in both numbers and interactions; Castile suddenly had an enormous
population of Muslims and Muslims who had not been acclimatized to Christian
rule over multiple generations. Important in this equation was also the general
decline in power or at least organization unity in North Africa and its comparative
inability to exert much influence on the peninsula. Without a significant threat
from North Africa or a Muslim Granada, Mudejars would be more vulnerable to
pressure and, if they rose to defend themselves, would learn that they were
essentially alone (Meyerson 1991).
The surrender contract for Granada was both reasonable and consistent with
about four centuries of conventional wisdom. Conquered Granadans retained
their religious rights, lifestyle, and their property. Expulsion of Jews, at least at
this point, had nothing at all to do with Muslim policy. Ferdinand and Isabella
were not, as some have believed, immediately trying to construct a form of
Spanish proto-nationalism based on a push for ethnic homogeneity. Ironically
perhaps, Ferdinand and Isabella initially brought in more Muslims rather than
expelling any they already had. When Portugal deported its Mudejar population
in 1497 the monarchs allowed these refugees to resettle in Granada and Castile—
hardly an act consistent with a coherent policy that would include expulsion from
Castile a mere four years later.
The differing personalities of the monarchs themselves are somewhat infor-
mative in understanding how convivencia ended. Isabella was certainly more
puritanical regarding her faith, was less patient in areas of compromise, and more
disposed to using heavy-handed measures regarding conversions. Ferdinand was
much more sensitive to the social, economic, and potential military repercussions
of an aggressive approach to the conversion of Muslims. If this sensitivity ever
slipped his mind, the aristocracy back in Aragon would surely remind him of the
economic devastation and military complications that would undoubtedly arise
from an attempt to forcibly convert Mudejars. Fiscal concerns could, however,

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272 Mark T. Abate
sometimes be trumped by matters of faith: Ferdinand foresaw the economic

damage that would be done by letting the inquisition run roughshod over Con-
versos and Jews but he saw the “Judaizing heresy” as grave enough to run that
risk. There is no reason to think that Ferdinand’s desire for Muslim conversions
was any less sincere than Isabella’s but there was a distinct difference in opinion
on approach and intensity. There is also no reason to think that Ferdinand was
any more well-disposed to Muslims than was Isabella. Beneath his economic and
political pragmatism in dealing with Muslim subjects there was a deep dislike for
the religion. An excellent illustration can be found in Ferdinand’s reaction to
learning that Muslims near Tortosa were using a church on Islamic holy days to
pray together. Enraged, he ordered the cleansing of the church and that all
officials allowing Muslims into a church were to be slapped with a hefty fine.
Muslims entering a church would earn either capital punishment or enslavement.
Ferdinand was also a particularly zealous enforcer of all segregation laws
although it must also be noted that he could be very protective of his Mudejars
when they were threatened (Meyerson 1991).
III From Mudejars to Moriscos
Mudejar policy went through its volte face in Castile (but not in Ferdinand’s
realms) at the very turn of the century. Hernando de Talavera, the Archbishop of
Granada, had been engaged in peaceful missionary efforts based on persuasive
methods working incrementally toward conversions. Talavera’s strategy was to
develop good relations with the ulama, provide financial support for impover-
ished Muslims and those suffering from drought, and to translate Christian scrip-
ture into Arabic. Numbers of converts in these early years were not significant but
neither was the amount of social discord produced by the effort. The arrival in
Granada of the inquisitor Cardinal Cisneros in 1499 began the process of disinte-
gration. Inquisitors were pushing for an expansion of their charge into Islamic
affairs. Isabella seems to have been receptive to his arrival. Ferdinand, however,
had a fairly low opinion of Cisneros himself and a particularly low opinion of his
methods. Ferdinand even quipped that he expected nothing more from Cisneros
as previously he had never even seen a Muslim face to face much less know
anything about them. Ferdinand was concerned that ham-handed aggressive
approaches would recreate the Converso problem within the Muslim population.
One could just as easily describe this fear as common sense or as prophetic.
Cisneros came to Granada for the expressed purpose of dealing with the
Elches (Christians who had converted to Islam). Legally speaking, at least accord-
ing to the surrender contract, this was a violation of terms as it was specifically

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stated that Elches were included in the religious freedom clause and could
practice Islam unmolested. Far more controversial and troublesome, however,
was Cisneros’s extension of his activities to the children of Elches. The issue of
proselytizing to or the pressuring of children always had explosive potential.
Ferdinand understood this himself and, although he was always happy to have a
Mudejar convert to Christianity, he balked when it came to minors asking to
convert if they had living family members; in such cases he thought it best to
allow them to convert only upon reaching their age of majority. Tensions in
Granada increased and the situation exploded through what appears to have
been a botched attempt by Cisneros to take a child from the Albaicin. A young girl
screaming and crowds forming, the fiasco inevitably led to a neighborhood-wide
riot in the Albaicin that was not easily suppressed. Talavera came to negotiate
and was well received in the Albaicin. The approach of Cisneros and Isabella,
however, prevailed over that of Talavera and Ferdinand. The punishment for the
Albaicin rebellion was the choice of baptism or expulsion for the entire popula-
tion. Once news of this spread many Mudejars became convinced that the Chris-
tian state, despite any contractual promises, was bent on a policy of forced
conversion. The Alpujarras erupted into Muslim revolts during 1500–1501 and the
Cisneros approach prevailed in all negotiations ending these hostilities: the
price for peace was baptism or deportation. Capitulation did not always spare
Muslims: in Andarax, after Muslim men had turned in their weapons, an argu-
ment over pillaging produced a confrontation in which the army slaughtered
over 3,000 men and women in the streets. The mosque, where over six hundred
women took refuge, was set ablaze and they were all burnt alive (Meyerson 1991).
The surrender contract for Granada was now deemed null and void due to
this Mudejar revolt and the breaching of the peace. In July 1501 the border of
Granada was shut down to prevent any Muslim migration into it. By September
1501 it was decided that all Muslims in Castile were required to convert to
Christianity or leave the realm. Ferdinand’s fear about replicating the Converso
problem in a Mudejar form was quickly becoming a reality. Talavera’s approach
to nurturing voluntary conversions collapsed beneath the weight of the new
inquisitorial approach. The options, baptism or expulsion, were even narrower
and bleaker than they appear at first glance. Expulsion, as offered in this case,
required leaving one’s children behind in the hands of the Christian state and
essentially abandoning them forever. How “voluntary” such emigrations were
when a requirement was leaving all children behind is extremely questionable. In
1502 the order was finally delivered that Muslims not willing to convert needed to
leave the kingdom and, significantly, the order referenced the danger Mudejars
would present to newly converted Christians of Muslim origin and directly com-
pared the predicament to the Converso problem. It must also be remembered that

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these forced conversions (and essentially they were forced) took place in Granada
and Castile but not in Ferdinand’s ancestral territories. Mudejars in Valencia and
Aragon as well as the tiny amount in Catalonia experienced no compulsory
conversion and continued to exist until the reign of Charles V.
Moriscos is the term applied to those Muslims who were forcibly converted
following the events of 1500. The term, literally meaning “little Moor,” is quite old
and emerged in the middle of the sixteenth century. They should not be confused
with Mudejars who continued to exist to the east in Valencia and to the north in
Aragon. Moriscos were the Muslim equivalents of Conversos, the coming exist-
ence of which Ferdinand himself had almost predicted, and in particular Muslim
equivalents of Crypto-Jews. There is no evidence suggesting that sincere converts
went into the making of the Moriscos community. Muslims, like Jews, did not
legitimately fall under the jurisdiction of the inquisition. Moriscos did, however,
like Conversos, fall under their jurisdiction as they were technically Christians
who were suspected as being particularly prone to relapse. In the words of one
inquisitor who, at least in this respect, recognized the farce for what it was, the
Morsicos were “as Muslim as Algerians.” Attempts by Spanish Muslims to solicit
assistance from North Africa, from Mameluk Egypt, and from the Ottomans all
failed. They were weak and they were alone. In a situation much like that lived
earlier by Crypto-Jews, the Moriscos tried to be as Muslim as they could while
being as Christian as necessary (Meyerson 1991; Harvey 1992b).
Policy made it difficult for these “Crypto-Muslims” to maintain faith and
culture. A series of decrees incrementally circumscribed their lifestyles in ways
that no Mudejars had ever experienced. Arabic script was banned in 1508 although
how well this prohibition was enforced is questionable. In the next decade the
cultural vice tightened to include legislation regarding a variety of areas of what
would seem to be Muslim life ranging from food to public festivals. In some
respects it was similar to the Soviet hujum in Central Asia and the emergence of
“every-day-life crimes” that sought to eradicate Islam by destroying most aspects
of public ritual and behavior. By the 1520s circumcision, halal butchering, Islamic
wedding, and burial customs, were all illegal. Even eating while sitting on the floor
became cause for suspicion. Authorities charged with suppressing Crypto-Muslim
activities were quickly drawn to Moriscos’ homes and developed a particular focus
on women. Women were often seen—and correctly so—as ringleaders in maintain-
ing the strength of private Islam in the home. In trying to reach the young, Jesuits
created schools for Moriscos children. Boys and girls brought into these schools
were thoroughly versed in Christian doctrine. Girls, the future mothers, would
need to nurture their children in the proper faith. Boys if talented enough could
help the Jesuits in their efforts to instill real Christianity among the Moriscos and,
for the most talented pupils of all, a career in the Jesuit order itself was possible.

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Piety among the Moriscos was also severely challenged. Whether or not they
were legitimately Muslims anymore could have been called into question. Islamic
law took a dim view toward Muslims who continued to profess Islam while living
in a non-Islamic state. The status of a Morisco “Crypto-Muslim” would be much
more dubious. Did women running make-shift mosques out of their homes, for
example, constitute a true community? Regarding “Crypto-Muslim” existence
many have pointed out the doctrine of taqiyya, precautionary simulation to avoid
detection, but it is not at all certain how much of the Morisco population even
knew about this doctrine and it is even less certain that, in the eyes of most
Muslims, it would seem applicable to an entire society brought under compulsory
mass apostasy.
In a fascinating and very important request to a mufti in Oran for a fatwa on
their plight, Moriscos were given legal advice that permitted them to simulate
Christian life in almost all respects so long as the believers denied it in their
hearts. Idolatry, wine, pork, abstention from ritual prayer, even denial of faith
was all permissible if absolutely necessary and the act was internally denied.
Moriscos now had a legal warrant for living Crypto-Muslim lives that, in broad
terms, might be somewhat comparable to the Talmud in providing a framework
that eased restrictions of the law to permit a reasonable amount of assimilation…
or at least simulation. In addition to the fatwa from Oran, the Morisco community
sought ritual guidance through the “Segovian Book” or Breviario Sunni by the
earlier mufti of Segovia Ice de Gebir. Moriscos also produced and circulated a not
inconsiderable literary corpus in aljamiado, Romance in Arabic characters, which
went completely undetected by Christian authorities. Due to the prohibition
against Arabic script they were usually hidden but even when aljamiado texts
were found and either impounded or burned they were usually assumed to be
copies of the Quran (Harvey 1992b).
Fairly sharp declines in agrarian and industrial production clashing with a
demographic rebound and inflationary pressure made the Moriscos and Mudejar
predicament even worse. Economic distress had been a dependable companion to
outbreaks of anti-minority sentiments and the friendship emerged robust as ever
in 1519. The Germanias, brotherhoods composed mostly of artisans reacting
primarily to basic issues like food costs, rose in protest and demanded relief and
reform. The movement became radicalized (as such movements often did) and
dedicated itself to overthrowing rather than reforming the system. Primary targets
were those of privilege in the eyes of the Germanias, namely commercial oligarchs
in the cities and the nobility in the countryside. The first two years of the revolt
made little mention of much less focus on Mudejars, even when the threat of
Muslim corsairs on the coast loomed large in the minds of the movement’s leader-
ship. Beginning in 1521 Mudejars became a significant focus. Attacks on them,

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276 Mark T. Abate
surprisingly even those involving forced conversion, were not really religiously
motivated—at least initially. Germanias began attacking Mudejars because of
their ties in the countryside to the nobility that they worked for and sometimes
militarily served. Killing Muslims or converting them (both of which would
financially impact the seigneurs) was seen as a means for economically under-
mining the real opponent which was the nobility. Mudejars, moreover, were often
employed by the nobility in their armies in attempts to suppress the Germanias.
Eventually anti-Mudejar sentiment, which was really anti-nobility sentiment by
proxy, spilled over into the morerias with terrible results (Meyerson 1991; ed. note:
see now the contributions to The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, ed. García-
Arenal and Wiegers, 2014).
K The End of Convivencia

The end of Iberian Islam (Mudejar and Crypto) and with it the disappearance of
the final traces of convivencia in the peninsula, is a tragic but an anticlimactic
story. No new elements were really added to the mix; it was little more than
expansions of previous policies and the replication of earlier events that, with the
exception of tragic losses of life, have almost a bureaucratic drudgery to them.
Ecclesiastical opinions, on theologically questionable but politically uncontested
grounds, validated the forced conversions that produced the Moriscos. Soon after,
in 1526, Charles V extended the conversion or expulsion policy to all remaining
Mudejars and thus demolished the protective barrier that his predecessor Ferdi-
nand maintained between lands held by the Crown of Aragon as opposed to those
that were Castilian. Mudejars thus came to an end as a category of people and
Moriscos status became the only option for Iberian Muslims choosing to stay in
the peninsula. Moriscos, like their Mudejar predecessors, did not all quietly
accept such treatment. Rebellion again emerged in the Alpujarras in 1568 as
Moriscos waged guerilla warfare. Although the rebels managed to persist for
almost two years they all ended up dead, enslaved, or deported. Moriscos con-
tinued to reach out to any foreign power, Muslim or Christian, which might share
a common enemy in Spain and help their plight. Continuously all attempts failed,
whether with the Ottomans or the Egyptians or the French or the English (Meyer-
son 1991; Harvey 1992b).
During the sixteenth century the Morisco problem, like the Converso problem
before it, loomed large in the minds of Spanish monarchs and statesmen. The
general baseline of the story underwent little to no change. In 1602 a royal
committee was formed to study the Morisco question. The final decision to expel
the Moriscos, however, was made seven years later. The delay had nothing to do

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with any scruples regarding the Moriscos population itself and everything to do
with the international scene: Spain’s relationship with France and England and
particularly Spain’s situation in the Netherlands. The final decision to expel the
Moriscos was made on 9 April 1609—the same day Spain secured a twelve-year
truce with the Netherlands. Proper expulsion required a military presence and
even then removal needed to be staggered regionally to create effective time-
tables and deal with possible Moriscos resistance (of which there was surprisingly
little). Within a period of about five years an estimated 272,000 Moriscos (the
actual figure was probably significantly higher) were expelled and ended nine
centuries of a Muslim presence in Spain (Harvey 1992b).
Select Bibliography
Barcia, Jose Rubia, ed., Americo Castro and the Meaning of Spanish Civilization (Berkeley, CA,
1976).
Boswell, John, The Royal Treasure: Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the 14th
Century (New Haven, CT, 1978).
Burnett, Charles, “The Translating Activity in Medieval Spain,” The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed.
Salma K. Jayyusi (Leiden 1992), 1036–58.
Burns, Robert I., Islam under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom
of Valencia (Princeton, NJ, 1973).
Castro, Americo, The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton, NJ, 1956).
Chazan, Robert, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1989).
Cohen, Jeremy, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, NY,
1982). [= J. Cohen 1982a]
Glick, Thomas F., Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, 2nd rev. ed. (1979; Leiden
2005).
Jayyusi, Salma K., ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Leiden 1992).
Lindberg, David C., “The Transmission of Greek and Arabic Learning to the West,” Science in the
Middle Ages, ed. idem (Chicago 1978), 52–90.
Lomax, Derek W., The Reconquest of Spain (London 1978).
Lourie, Elena, Crusade and Colonisation: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Aragon
(Aldershot 1990).
Mann, Vivian, Thomas F. Glick and Jerrilynn Dodds, ed., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and
Christians in Medieval Spain (New York 1992).
Meyerson, Mark D., The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between
Coexistence and Crusade (Berkeley, CA, 1991).
Nirenberg, David, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
(Princeton, NJ, 1996).
O’Callaghan, Joseph F., A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, NY, 1975).

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Nadia Pawelchak
Medieval Courts and Aristocracy
Introduction
The aristocrats and nobles of medieval Europe were defined by a large category of
people and occupations: land-owners, warriors, knights, ladies, courtiers, and
ecclesiastical leaders. Commonalities that united these various aristocratic iden-
tities were power, legacy, and often materiality. Europe’s upper classes asserted
their identities via the politics, art, religion, music, and literature of their time.
Unlike the peasantry, aristocrats left tangible historical footprints with which
scholars may understand them. The ruling elite of this time cannot be understood
in monolithic terms. Rather, subgroups of nobles and aristocrats existed together
as a complex and malleable “spectrum” in society (Fouracre 2000, 21–23).
The following chapter discusses the simultaneous diversity and commonal-
ities of European aristocrats from the early to late years of the Middle Ages.
Although medieval nobility did not confine itself to a standard definition, collec-
tively speaking, it was distinguished from other groups of people based upon its
land, power, and social and political legitimacy. The status of a noble or aristocrat
transcended material wealth and also existed as an “ideology” in medieval
culture (Juggan 2000, 1). Modern portrayals of medieval nobility latch on to this
ideology and convey it via motifs of the knight in shining armor, the damsel in
distress, the oppressed peasants, all in the midst of a fairytale castle backdrop.
The historical and social complexity of medieval nobles defies this simplistic
ideology.
This chapter also addresses the relationship between aristocrats and courts.
As with the terminology that describes an elite member of society, the meaning of
a medieval “court” refers to diverse social entities. For example, a royal court
often differed from that of a lesser prince or aristocrat. Courts were both itinerant
and localized, depending on geography, one’s status, and time. Despite these
differences, common organizing factors such as economic transactions, official
postings, and political exchanges provided medieval courts with a fluid structure.
Kings, queens, barons, counts, knights, staff, and servants defined and molded
their identities via the courtly scenes. Each participant in this courtly drama had
both personal ambitions and socially-dictated duties to perform. The tension
between individual desires and the delineations of status contributed to conflicts
at court. Conversely, yet simultaneously, medieval courts produced political
alliances, art, literature, music, theology, and other markers of culture.

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Medieval Courts and Aristocracy 279
A Early Medieval Nobles and Rulers:

Redefining the “Barbarian”
The characteristics that classified one as an early medieval noble varied from region
to region. The collapse of the Roman Empire, once a unifying force, led to the
formation of new localized social hierarchies. The methods of achieving “noble”
status thus came to revolve around a culture’s regionally-upheld means of securing
and legitimizing power. For example, continental nobility differed from that of
Anglo-Saxon or Norse regions. How scholars classify noble classes for each region
depends on the type, quality, and quantity of the historical evidence. Evidence
provided by land charters and family records and inventories gives information
about the material status of the elite classes. Legal procedures and issues of
interfamilial heredity of property similarly explain how power and status were
maintained and transferred over decades or centuries (Fouracre 2000, 18–23).
Despite the fact that Rome lost its status as the locus of intellectual activity
after its “fall,” other centers of learning emerged alongside it in the early Middle
Ages. The notion that the Roman Empire “fell” was promulgated by English
historian Edward Gibbon in his The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776).
This belief was also earlier popularized by the Carolingians. Charlemagne and his
supporters were motivated to recall antiquity through the establishment of courts
at Aachen and learning institutions (Hen 2007, 1–3). The notion of the “Carolin-
gian Renaissance” was self-serving for the Carolingians in their quest to discredit
Frankish Merovingians. Although Charlemagne’s court was influenced by ancient
Rome, courts from Byzantium and “barbarian” kings likely also influenced it.
More specifically, the courts of the Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Merovingians existed
as powerful intellectual centers alongside Rome and Byzantium (Hen 2007, 3).
The term “barbarian” represented the “other,” or those who resided outside
the boundaries of culture. This measure of inferiority is subjective and therefore
only true for those who use classical antiquity as a standard for comparison. Hen
argues that early medieval scholarship assessed barbarian culture solely in the
context of religion and the tribes’ likeness to classical culture (Hen 2007, 5). This
methodology existed concurrently with the idea that the Germanic tribes caused
sudden and widespread chaos after their sacks of Rome: ca. 410 by the Visigoths,
by Vandals in 455, and the Ostrogoths in 546. Alfons Dopsch (d. 1953) and Henri
Pirenne (d. 1935) argued that Rome’s decline as Europe’s superpower was gradual
and “continuous” rather than characterized by an abrupt end. In this context,
“barbarian” rulers “saw themselves as part of a Roman continuum” (Hen 2007,
14–15). This newer understanding of Rome and its relationship to the Germanic
tribes helped legitimize early medieval courts as viable intellectual centers.

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In order for the barbarian leaders to attain legitimacy, they had to use
military victories to gain political power and territories. Odoacer was one such
barbarian who “deposed” Romulus Augustulus, Roman emperor of the Western
portion of the empire, in Italy in ca. 476. The eastern Emperor Zeno (474–491)
did not officially protest against Odoacer’s victory from his ruling seat in
Constantinople due to his own military issues. One of Zeno’s problems was a
group known as the Ostrogoths, led by a king named Theodoric (454–526), who
had been raised at the Byzantine court. Zeno believed that by turning Theodo-
ric’s attention on Italy, the Ostrogoths would no longer bother Byzantine terri-
tories. Theodoric led his armies to Italy in ca. 488, giving Zeno the impression
that this was done in his name. Theodoric successfully captured the Italian
peninsula by ca. 489, save for the city of Ravenna. During the Ostrogoth
invasion, Odoacer retreated to Ravenna with his army. They held out for four
years until Ravenna “opened its gates” for Theodoric. To legitimize his power,
Theodoric killed Odoacer and ruled over Italy. The emperor of Constantinople
from ca. 491–518, Anastasius I, supported Theodoric’s claims to the Italian
peninsula so long as Theodoric admitted that Constantinople was “supreme.”
This pact between Anastasius I and Theodoric allowed the Ostrogoth king to
rule from 493 to 526 (Hen 2007, 27–29).
Despite Theodoric’s assertion of political authority over Italy, he ruled in the
tradition of Roman emperors in terms of law, dress, coinage, and public ceremo-
nies. After conquering the peninsula, he worked with Roman aristocrats and
senators to establish “continuity” with the past. As both an Ostrogoth king and de
facto ruler of Rome, Theodoric’s rule over Italy demonstrates the simultaneous
change and continuity of Roman tradition after its alleged fall (Hen 2007, 30–32).
His palace in Ravenna contains a mosaic that features “two allegorical female
figures approaching him–Rome, wearing helmet and holding a spear, and Raven-
na, wearing a mural crown, with her right foot still in the sea and her left foot on
dry land” (Hen 2007, 32–33). This portrayal of Theodoric illustrates the impor-
tance of diplomacy and peace within his court (Hen 2007, 33). The mosaic also
demonstrates Theodoric’s necessary binary identity, that of Ostrogoth and Roma-
nized emperor. His court co-opted the local aristocracy through acceptance and
respect for Roman traditions. Theodoric’s attitude is reflected in the organization
of Ravenna’s architecture and urban design. In the tradition of Roman emperors,
Theodoric commissioned public works, ecclesiastical structures, and imperial
buildings. He made Ravenna the administrative center of Ostrogoth Italy, yet still
paid homage to Rome as an important historical and religious center. He patron-
ized the construction of new buildings in Rome and repaired extant structures as
proof of his respect for antiquity. The architecture in Ravenna reflects both Roman
and Byzantine characteristics, which echoes the hybridity of Theodoric’s reign

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(Hen 2007, 33–38). Modern scholarship on Theodoric suggests that he acted as a

“restorer” of Rome rather than a “conqueror” (Nees 2002, 83).
It would be a mistake to characterize Ostrogoth courts as products of a “Dark
Age” due to their continuation of antiquity and their vibrant intercourse between
Roman and Byzantine architecture. Theodoric encouraged intellectual develop-
ment during his reign. Contrary to traditional images of “barbarians,” Theodoric
may have been educated at a young age in the Byzantine court. He portrayed
himself as a “philosopher king,” who ruled through knowledge and wisdom, and
even ensured that his daughter Amalasuintha (d. 535) received training in classi-
cal languages and perhaps law (Hen 2007, 37–39). The motif of the philosopher
king can be seen in Roman emperors such as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. These
emperors used wisdom and diplomacy in addition to military might to rule. Their
connection to philosophy dates back to classical Greek philosophers. Partially
through its explicit connections to antiquity, the Ostrogoth court remained vi-
brant during Theodoric’s rule. The Roman aristocracy and the king maintained a
reciprocal relationship. While Theodoric gained legitimacy as ruler through their
support, the aristocrats retained status (without political power). The king’s court
attracted scholars from around the peninsula, which made it a locus of cultural
development in the sixth century (Hen 2007, 52–53).
Through his cooperation with local aristocrats, often from the Roman sena-
torial class, Theodoric created a strong, stable, and culturally-productive political
system on the Italian peninsula in the sixth century, though the Ostrogoths were
eventually defeated by a Byzantine army under Belisarius (500–565), appointed
by Emperor Justinian I (ca. 483–565), ca. 535. In the seventh century, the Frankish
King Clothar II (584–629) utilized a similar strategy to become king of the Mer-
ovingians. Clothar II started his rule as king of Neustria in ca. 584. Neustria was
one of three Frankish polities (Neustria, Austrasia, and the Burgundian terri-
tories), each with its own set of nobles vying for power. Clothar embraced the
aristocrats of Francia and permitted them their own courts in exchange for their
acknowledgment of him as the king of the Merovingians. His son, Dagobert I
(603–639), became ruler of Austrasia by his father’s decree. After Clothar’s death,
Dagobert successfully maintained his father’s political rapport with Merovingian
aristocrats (Hen 2007, 94–97). The court culture of the Merovingians thus existed
at the local aristocratic level and with the Merovingian king himself.
Before the existence of Clothar’s royal court, Frankish court culture existed
among the many Merovingian kings and queens. The important Italian poet
named Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (530–603) witnessed the
marriage between King Sigibert (535–575) and Queen Brunhild (543–613) of the
Visigoths in ca. 566. After having enjoyed patronage from this royal couple,
Fortunatus visited the courts of other Merovingian kings and queens, as well as

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aristocrats such as the Duke of Champagne (Hen 2007, 98–99). Fortunatus’s

popularity among the Frankish elite demonstrates the dynamism of Merovingian
court culture. These courts were not only loci of culture, but they also gave an
impetus for cultural “dissemination” by the nobles and courtiers who frequented
them. Culture and patronage became tied to status, which prompted competition
among aristocrats for “reputation and supremacy” (Hen 2007, 99). As such,
aristocratic identity partially relied on one’s ability to patronize courtly activities
and produce tangible, innovative cultural markers.
Under Clothar’s reign, aristocratic courts still retained their local prominence.
The royal court, however, changed from itinerancy to stability when Clothar
established a permanent court in Paris in ca. 613. Dagobert continued with this
tradition. A permanent court encouraged more retainers and courtiers to locate
themselves in Paris throughout the year. Additionally, court culture grew stronger
and more permanent now that its location was no longer transient. One such
example is the court school sponsored by Clothar and Dagobert. In this system,
Merovingian nobles studied at court while the royal court gained educated
advisors and ecclesiastical leaders. Such an arrangement benefited both the royal
court and Merovingian aristocrats. The Parisian court also did not exclude other
elites, as when Æthelburgh (ca. 673–740), an Anglo-Saxon queen, decided
her sons would receive a good education in Dagobert’s court school (Hen 2007,
101–03).
B The Development of Anglo-Saxon Nobility

and Kingship
As with the Merovingians, the Anglo-Saxon nobles and kings had both individual
and royal “courts” that varied by region and century. The early Anglo-Saxon
nobility in the seventh and eight centuries existed as a warrior society of many
kingdoms. The elite of early Anglo-Saxon England were the lords and some of
their retainers. Their status was derived from success in war and conquest. In
exchange for loyal service, a lord would bestow upon his retainers material gifts
won during battle. The amount of power a retainer possessed was often linked to
the amount of favor bestowed upon him by the lord. Physical and symbolic
proximity to a group’s leader also manifested itself through the bestowal of
material items. The economic power of gift-giving was a driving force that fueled
this social structure. In this context, lords and their followers were bound in a
social contract based upon material exchange. Social mobility may thus have
existed due to the dangers that a warrior society presents. Not all warriors were

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successful and not all sons could inherit land. A connection between multiple
heirs and the growth of the Christian Church in this period may be linked (Runci-
man 1984, 3–11).
In the seventh and eighth centuries, the measure of noble status varied from
kingdom to kingdom. Without a single, consolidated power, a stable, standar-
dized system of aristocracy did not yet exist (Keynes 1995, 20). The terminology
for the elite of this period comes from Old English poetry and law books. In the
kingdom of Kent, the term eorl or eorlcund described a landed noble from ca.
600–650. In much of Anglo-Saxon society, the word gesith described both landed
nobles and proven warriors of high status from ca. 650–700. From ca. 750–900
the terms gesith and thegn connoted nobility, yet thegn always implied military
service while gesith did not. By ca. 900–950, a thegn could describe both a
retainer and a lord with an estate (Loyn 1955, 529–32).
The choice of terminology is not conclusive, as the meanings of the words
overlapped in this period. Some scholars believe that the uppermost elite stations
of early Anglo-Saxon society were “static” and hereditary in nature. However, this
rigidity slowly changed with the granting of land through charters. In the tenth
and eleventh centuries, the West Saxon kings began to consolidate power and to
create a more unified notion of “England” (Loyn 1955, 540–49). Ealdorman, a
tenth-century term for a landed noble, was sometimes also used to describe a
military leader. Although the terminology for thegn could describe a variety of
positions, an earl or ealdorman was always someone at the highest ranks of
Anglo-Saxon nobility. Recent scholarship suggests that thegns could become
eorls, yet an eorl required a decent amount of money to maintain his status
(Williams 2008, 19–21). A famous example is Byrhtnoth of Essex, who was killed
by Vikings in ca. 991 at the Battle of Maldon. Byrhtnoth was raised to heroic status
due to his unwillingness to submit to the Viking invaders. The poem The Battle of
Maldon describes the noble’s Christian sacrifice against the heathen Vikings.
Here, it is more nobility of character and status of ealdorman that defines
Byrhtnoth’s elite status than military prowess. After this military loss, the English
paid off the Viking invaders, something Byrhtnoth refused to do (Higham 1997,
22–23).
As Anglo-Saxon kingdoms became more centralized, court life in each king-
dom likewise gained structure. The Vikings invaded England in the late eighth
century, ca. 787, and these invasions continued into the ninth century. Early raids
caused some minor damage, but later ones became more concentrated. Britons
from Cornwall and Vikings joined forces against King Egbert of Wessex’s army ca.
834, yet Egbert successfully defeated the invaders. After ca. 851, the Danes made
a concentrated series of attacks against the Anglo-Saxons and gained some
territories. Following 871, King Alfred of Wessex (849–899) and his brother

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Æthelred, grandsons of Egbert, won victories against the Vikings. Once Alfred
ascended to the Wessex throne in 871, the West Saxon court grew in strength as
Alfred the Great sponsored intellectual pursuits and strengthened his kingdom.
His court biographer, Asser, Bishop of Sherborne (d. 910), wrote Alfred’s Vita in
ca. 893 and praised the king for his wisdom and successes. Outside of his military
victories against the Vikings, Alfred made his royal court a place of education and
cultural production, and he himself translated, for instance, Boethius’s De con-
solation philosophiae into Anglo-Saxon (Peddie 1999, vii–xiii).
Thanks to Asser’s label of Alfred as “The Great,” many scholars recognize him
as the first “king” of England. Matthew Paris’s (1200–1259) writings about Alfred
support those of Asser. Recent scholarship suggests, however, that his grandson,
Æthelstan (r. 924–939), was truly the first “king of England” to rule the Anglo-
Saxons as a monarch (Foot 2011, 2–3). Æthelstan continued in his grandfather’s
tradition to unify the Anglo-Saxons and was successful in taking back North-
umbria from the Danes. Æthelstan also re-established Christianity in territories
where Scandinavian paganism had coexisted with Christianity during Viking
invasions and settlements. In addition to his important military victories, Æthel-
stan was a book-collector, religious and political diplomat, and the holder of a
very large royal court (Foot 2011, 13–15).
Foot’s description of Æthelstan’s court is one of simultaneous permanence
and dynamism. It was filled with both immediate and extended royal family
members, royal and ecclesiastical officials, domestic servants, slaves, courtiers,
retainers and their personal staffs, foreign envoys, and guests, among others. As
with other early medieval royal courts, Æthelstan and his entourage were often
itinerant, or peripatetic. They would travel from royal residence to the villas and
homes of nobles to eat, feast, and exercise justice over the kingdom. Such travels
also permitted the king to maintain control over the nobility and ensure loyalty by
presence. Just as courtiers came to court to obtain power, so the king went to the
nobles to enforce power (Foot 2011, 72–80). The variety of people that attended or
made up this court was sometimes in flux as some had a more permanent
presence than others. Compared to other kings, Foot claims that Æthelstan had a
very large retinue that included bishops, ecclesiastical officials, and foreign
envoys. These envoys brought gifts for the king as diplomatic tools and to curry
favor or influence (Foot 2011, 89–92). Æthelstan’s patronage of Old English poetry
also added a cultured ambiance to the court. The Battle of Brunanburgh describes
the king’s victory over the Vikings, yet the poetic structure bears the character-
istics of contemporary Norse poetics. Still, the poem functions to paint the king as
the “sovereign” over all of Britain. It is unsure if more famous poems, such as
Beowulf, have origins in Æthelstan’s court. The problematic dating of a work such
as Beowulf contributes to the problem of identifying a patron. Despite this ambi-

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guity, the king was a well-known book collector and patron of education, poetry,
and learning in monastic institutions. His court was thus an intellectual center
and producer of culture that lives to this day (Foot 2011, 110–17). Poetry painted
the Anglo-Saxons as heroes of noble character in addition to elite status.
Although poems such as Beowulf first existed as oral tales and were later written
down, themes that glorified the early Anglo-Saxon warrior culture remained
prominent in tenth-century written texts. A cohesive vision of Anglo-Saxon pride
is also the subject of The Battle of Maldon. Byrhtnoth, an aristocrat of the rank of
eorl, gathers his men at the river Pante to defend his shores against Viking
invaders (Clark 1968, 52–59). Although he dies in battle, perhaps due to his
ofermode (pride), the poet celebrates Byrhtnoth’s noble character (Gneuss 1976,
129–31). His selfless, Christian sacrifice is explicitly connected to his martyrdom.
Byrhtnoth and his loyal retainers, despite their military loss, take charge of their
fate and do not retreat in fear or pay tribute to the Vikings. This elegiac poem links
nobility of spirit and character to aristocratic status (Clark 1968, 52–59).
As aristocrats of noble character, there was an obligation to render service or
provide stability of government. This exchange represents a political type of gift-
giving. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the gift-giving culture among the
aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavian territories existed in both
tangible and intangible terms. Wealthy ecclesiastics, earls, and women demon-
strated their simultaneous generosity and piety through the exchange and dona-
tion of luxury items. Although bishops existed in the political world of the church,
scholars suggest that they, like lay aristocrats, were generous “public figures”
(Smith et al. 2001, 569–71). Such bishops did not seek notoriety in the modern
sense of the word. Instead, this practice of gift-giving was simply an expression of
the culture in which they existed. Many bishops, the most famous of them named
Spearhavoc (eleventh century), were considered to be “artisan-bishops.” Spear-
havoc worked as a goldsmith to King Edward the Confessor (1003–1066) of
England (Smith et al. 2001, 572–73). Some scholars suggest that this ecclesiastical
generosity functioned as an important cog in the gift-giving community, and
similarly helped other segments of aristocratic society and community (Smith
et al. 2001, 575). Spearhavoc’s identity as an artisan-bishop illustrates the layer-
ing of occupation at medieval courts.
C Carolingians and Ottonians

As discussed earlier in this chapter, the Carolingian agenda called for aligning
Charlemagne with classical Rome via a “Carolingian Renaissance.” His court
biographer Einard (775–840) is partially responsible for this propaganda, which

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also served the useful purpose of legitimizing Carolingian rule and deposing the
weaker Merovingian dynasty (Hen 2007, 1–4). As with the Anglo-Saxon kings,
Charlemagne’s court biographer painted a heroic vision of his patron. On Decem-
ber 25, 800, Pope Leo III (ca. 750–816) crowned Charlemagne as the first Holy
Roman Emperor. Charlemagne established his capital at Aachen, now in Ger-
many, from where he would rule his empire within Europe. Aachen came to
represent Charlemagne’s power through it self-sufficiency and as the locus of
Carolingian courtly activities. Although Charlemagne’s court was technically still
itinerant, the architecture of Aachen established the city as a veritable capital of
the Carolingian empire. In addition to a palace chapel, Aachen had a basilican
reception hall in the style of Rome, as well as a hunting lodge for recreation.
Einard and Alcuin of York (735–804) described the court as a lively place full of
drinking, hunting, and aristocratic leisure (Nees 2002, 173–75).
As part of Charlemagne’s campaign to create his vision of Rome at Aachen,
the city functioned as a comparandum to imperial Rome itself. From this location,
the king administered policy and culture. Carolingian culture was also codified
through the Caroline minuscule script that aimed for increased through fewer
ligatures on the letter forms (Clemens 2007, 143). Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon monk
and advisor in Charlemagne’s court, joined the monastery of Saint Martin in Tours
in 796. The Tours scriptorium produced a large quantity of written materials that
circulated this script across Europe. Charlemagne’s sponsorship of monasteries
and monastic development testifies to his religious intentions as a royal patron
(Clemens 2007, 143). Before his tenure as Abbot of Tours, Charlemagne appointed
Alcuin as advisor in his royal court beginning in ca. 782. In his letters, Alcuin
strove to find a common ground between his secular duties to Charlemagne and
his personal spiritual needs. Despite Charlemagne’s work in education, law, and
standardization in the Carolingian Empire, Alcuin’s struggle points to the con-
flicted identity of many medieval courtiers and courtly officials (Alberi 2001,
896–901). As a noble, one had duties to the monarch that supported the main-
tenance of one’s title, yet this could, at times, conflict with one’s personal agenda.
In many cases, Carolingian rulers were able to use the nobles to support their
right to rule. At the same time, Frankish nobles also successfully competed
among one another for positions and status. An environment of simultaneous
“cultural homogeny” and fluidity coexisted in this period (Fouracre 2000, 19–23).
The fluidity of courtly life and identity depended on the social rapport
between a ruler and his subjects. This dynamism represents “an active, rather
than passive” culture (Warner 2001, 255). Kings of the Ottonian dynasty (ca.
919–1024) relied upon their audiences to legitimize their power and rule. The
adventus was a ritual where a king would enter or arrive in a location with pomp
and circumstance. Similar to the adventus examples from the Roman Empire, the

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arrival of Ottonian kings at a location reinforced their presence with a compelling

visual performance. As such, the king’s travels from church, palace, and other
locations enforced his power over his territory. His subjects, as witnesses, played
a vital role in this drama when accepting or rejecting the king’s legitimacy.
Monasteries and homes of nobles to which the king traveled functioned as the
setting for this drama. In this context, the itinerant royal court of a king became a
political tool for maintaining control and broadening political relations. Ottonian
writers were likely biased toward reporting this ritual in a manner befitting
Ottonian rulers. This bias created a gap between the factual occurrence of adven-
tus and the “adventus of memory” (Warner 2001, 255–61). Each monastic leader
and noble family thus likely had diverse, personal responses to an adventus
despite any continuity in its received tradition.
D Tenth-Century French Nobility:

General Life and Social Mobility
The nobility in the tenth century was, according to some scholars, a developing
social class rather than a segment of society with an official legal designation
(Fichtenau 1991, 138). Others indicate that the concept and designation of nobilis
differentiates into separate categories: “nobility of spirit” and nobility of wealth.
In Champagne and other areas of France, the possession of land, peasants to
work the land, fortifications and estates, weapons, family, vassals, horses, and
other material goods defined the developing rural aristocracy. The status of an
aristocrat first depended upon his amount of cultivated land and a suitable
number of laborers to harvest the crops. Control over this land was partially
maintained, through the help of loyal vassals, against those who wished to seize
it. Vassals also implicitly marked the status of a lord through their numbers.
When conflicts with fellow aristocrats arose, a lord would often bribe another’s
vassal into his own service. In this scenario, loyal followers functioned as sym-
bols of a lord’s power and influence (Fichtenau 1991, 138–43). In addition to land
and service, other tangible indicators of tenth-century aristocracy included gold,
silver, gems, and other luxury objects. Although the possession of material wealth
signified power, a lord was also expected to reinvest his wealth into his land
instead of “hoarding” money. This mutual exchange between a lord and his
servants represented a social contract in early feudal society. The lord promised
protection, food, and shelter to those who served him. As compensation, a noble
expected loyalty and faithful service (Fichtenau 1991, 142–43). The early feudal
social contract exhibited in the tenth century was potentially stable and codified

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by means of reciprocity. The markers of nobility adopted the need for permanence
in addition to military prowess. As with warrior leaders through plunder and
material goods, land-owning nobles provided those under their protection with a
place of residence. The gifts of this brand of elite thus became more permanent
along with the markers of nobility.
Although this early feudal system appeared to be a simple exchange between
a lord and his subjects, the issue becomes more complex when one attempts to
define the nobilis as a class. According to historical documents from the tenth and
eleventh centuries, the nobilis stood apart from others due to their elite status. On
the other hand, the concept of the nobilitas as an official group with legal stature
did not yet exist during this time. From the ninth century until the twelfth century,
the size and hierarchical type of the nobility increased dramatically. Constance
B. Bouchard argues that the French elite class grew as a result of the “new” type
of nobles that moved up through society after the collapse of the Carolingian
empire. Bouchard posits that the French nobility did not exclusively derive from
the nobles of Charlemagne’s court. Instead, ambitious and capable men earned
their new elite status through success. As such, a complex mixture of old nobility
based on family heritage and new nobility of social climbers defined the eleventh-
and twelfth-century French aristocracy (Bouchard 1981, 501–03). A modern paral-
lel of this dynamic is the coexistence of “old” and “new” money families in
countries around the world. The view of this new type of noble was likely mixed
during its rise. According to the Chronica de gestis consulum Andegavorum, “At
the time of Charles the Bald (823–877), many new and nonnoble men, stronger
than the nobles in goodness and virtue, became great and renowned” (Bouchard
1981, 502). This twelfth-century document praises the value of the “new” men,
while at the same time pointing out their difference from the “noble.” One term
used to describe these new, but tethered, knights was ministeriales (Duggan, ed.,
2000, 172–73). Here, however, the new men possessed nobility of character where
the established nobles might not. Other attitudes regarding the emerging nobles
lean more toward inferiority. Despite these varied attitudes, new nobles came to
define later important families in France. For example, the Anjou family traced its
origins to a forester, while the Capetian kings have a soldier named Robert the
Strong as an ancestor (Bouchard 1981, 502).
The social mobility exhibited by these new nobles added to and redefined the
ranks of the elite by the thirteenth century. Not only did they attain a new status,
but also allegedly a new attitude of nobility, of courtliness. C. Stephen Jaeger
analyzes the “ideas of men” in his study of nobles’ civilization between ca. 939
and 1210. Jaeger suggests that nobles became civilized and mannered due to
government (or courtly) sponsored educational facilities. He argues against the
idea that courtliness arose out of social change, and instead believes that newly

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educated men took it upon themselves to adopt the principles of courtesy. Jaeger
cites the royal court of Otto the Great (912–973), and the cathedral schools of Brun
of Cologne (1030–1101), as the first examples of such educational institutions
(Jaeger 1985, 4–9). Ottonian court chapels served many purposes, among them to
keep the nobility loyal to the king and provide education for the newly-appointed
nobles. A new type of noble called a courtier bishop arose in tandem with lay
aristocrats (Jaeger 1985, 21–25). The courtier bishop acted with loyalty, bravery,
and wisdom. These ideals manifested in both royal and princely courts across
Europe into the twelfth century. Jaeger does not suggest that Ottonian courts
started the trend of the courtier, but rather that this type of noble arose among the
existing aristocracy who themselves acted both noble and ignoble. His study
reinfornces the coexistence of social stratification among nobles and their com-
mon expectation of courtesy from society (Jaeger 1985, 100–09).
E Courts and Rulers in Multicultural Settings

The presence of a “new” type of nobility was especially prevalent in the eight to
tenth centuries in the Iberian Peninsula. In 750, the Abbasids murdered members
of the Umayyad dynasty and relocated the caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad.
Abd al-Rahman I (731–788) was the only Umayyad to escape, and he eventually
established an Umayyad emirate in Cordoba, Spain. He gathered together and
unified Muslims who had been ruling a territory known as al-Andalus since ca.
711. The Umayyads ruled from Cordoba from 750–976 and patronized architecture
such as the Great Mosque of Cordoba (Mikaberidze, ed., 2011, 904). Music,
literature, poetry, and art emerged from the Umayyad royal court. Umayyad
caliphs also sponsored talented people via their court. An Arab singer named
Ziryab (d.850) arrived at the court from Baghdad and composed poetry, songs,
and established a musical conservatory as he gained prominence. Through the
patronage of Abd al-Rahman II (788–852), Ziryab’s work developed into a distinc-
tive Andalusian style (Bisheh 2000, 124–25). In periods of peace, al-Andalus was
known for its tolerance of other religions. The combination of Islamic, Jewish, and
Christian visual motifs created a unique artistic style that remained an influence
in Spain even after the end of the Reconquista in 1492 (Nees 2003, 218). The
Reconquista existed both as a series of historical events and also as an ideal for
Christians in Spain. Between 711, when Moroccan Berbers and Arabs conquered
Visigothic territories, and the Fall of Cordoba in 1013, the Muslims dominated
much of Spain’s territory. After 1013, Christian rulers and armies gradually
claimed Muslim territories for themselves. The final push came in 1492, when
Aragon and Castile captured Granada. Periods of peace and war between Chris-

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tians and Muslims thus existed in flux between the eight and fifteenth centuries.
Scholars debate whether or not this reconquest was an historical ideal. Manu-
scripts from the tenth century such as the Chronicles of Alfonso III demonstrate
that rulers and religious leaders conceived of the Reconquista as an ideology, but
nothing is know of the opinions of “ordinary” people (O’Callaghan 2003, 1–7).
European royalty and nobility had a decisive role in both directing and embody-
ing the ideals of the Reconquista. As a result of their military conquests, they
gained control of land previously owned by Muslim leaders. For example, in 1212,
a group of Christian mercenaries called Las Navas invaded al-Andalus and won
an important victory, for this region would, by the mid thirteenth century, remain
Christian territory by majority. Las Navas were comprised of religious and lay
warriors, many of them Spanish aristocrats. French warriors who had experience
on Crusade may have influenced the Spanish nobility through their aggressive
ideologies. After the battle, successful nobles were granted territories and awards
for their efforts. Gradually, the Spanish aristocracy and its rulers replaced the
Islamic royal courts (Collins, ed., 2002, 23–27).
As in Spain, a change in the noble ranks occurred in eleventh-century Eng-
land. After the Norman Conquest over the Anglo-Saxons, the “invaders” utilized
architecture to solidify their position. The Normans’ construction of castles and
fortresses in England is another manifestation of power, as well as a tool of its
maintenance. The White Tower of the Tower of London, ca. 1077, serves as the first
example of this new trend in architectural patronage by England’s conquerors
(Petzold 1995, 75). The purposes of castles were to hold territory, defend, and
define it as belonging to a king or lord. These structures also left a psychologi-
cally-intimidating imprint upon viewers. Early castles were cold, militaristic struc-
tures rather than luxurious centers for courtly activities. The changes from Anglo-
Saxon to Norman nobility led to cultural changes in political power, language,
and manner of defining authority. Although many scholars mark the Norman
Conquest of 1066 as the physical turning point in England, David Crouch believes
that the social transformation in England was more complex than meets the eye.
Crouch admits that the Norman usurpation of political and aristocratic power
post–1066 was perhaps the historical trigger for social change. He diverges from
other scholars in that he believes it took much longer for this change to be
perceived by an individual who placed him- or herself in this new established
social hierarchy. Aristocrats in England had, whether Anglo-Saxon or Norman,
distinguished themselves as elites due to land, power, and duties of knighthood.
After 1170, and with slow progression to 1230, nobles categorized themselves
according to a new hierarchy where nobility was not defined or based on martial
prowess. From a sociological point of view, individuals and like groups defined
themselves in terms of their relation to others. The results for thirteenth-century

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nobility were hierarchical levels of the aristocratic class encompassing magnates,

knights, and, in the fourteenth century, gentlemen (Crouch 2010, xv–xvii).
Although English nobles defined their identity in relation to other aristocrats,
perhaps the most important relationship one had was with his king. If a noble
possessed the king’s favor, he would be given gifts of money, land, title, power,
and status at court. Aristocrats often relied on a king’s patronage to maintain their
estates and retinue. A noble out of the king’s favor may still own an estate and title,
but may have difficulty maintaining his status. The royal court itself functioned as
the locus of exchange between a king and his nobles. The court had a physical and
metaphorical perimeter through which one with royal favor could enter. Political
and economic transactions, as well as cultural activities, took place inside this
sphere of existence (Bothwell 2008, 2–8). The king’s selection of favorites partially
contributed to the rise and fall of various aristocratic families in medieval England.
In the case of William the Conqueror (ca. 1028–1087), the new king of England
removed from power in 1075 the Anglo-Saxon eorls from Hereford, Norfolk, and
Huntingdon (Bothwell 2008, 58–59). After the Norman Conquest, Norman and
French aristocrats held many of the elite positions that had once belonged to
Anglo-Saxons. The Domesday Book (ca. 1086) discusses the social changes that
took place post–1066. The newly-appointed Normans defined and asserted their
elite status by establishing French as the new language of the elites. Castles and
fortresses enforced Norman geographical ownership of territories. However, de-
spite Norman dominance, intermarriage with Anglo-Saxon nobility occurred at
some level. Norman-French remained the elite language, so the remaining Anglo-
Saxon elites adapted to accommodate this change unlike the rest of the English
population. Post-conquest England thus evolved into an Anglo-Norman that
differentiated itself from Continental France (Green 1997, 2–15).
As with other itinerant medieval courts, the Anglo-Norman kings moved
among various castles, estates, and royal residences. The king functioned as the
center of the court, and his followers as his entourage. William of Malmesbury
(ca. 1096–1143) reported that William the Conqueror wore his crown as a shining
marker of status. This visual example perhaps parallels the Ottonian adventus
ritual. C. Warren Hollister suggests that the psychological impact of the king’s
crown served a dual purpose. First, it reinforced William’s position as king and
conqueror of England. For the audience, the crown reminded them of the king’s
ability to bestow potential favors. Later Anglo-Norman kings abandoned this
tradition due to their “secure” kingship. While formal procedures dictated the
king’s court, feasting and entertainment added an air of informality. Anglo-Nor-
man courts had both regular attendees that traveled with the king and others who
moved in and out of the courtly circle. Those who wanted to gain the king’s favor
followed the official entourage (Hollister 1988, 2–6).

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F Royal Consolidation of Territories and Nobility

After the youngest son of William the Conqueror, Henry I (1068–1135), became the
King of England in 1100, he obtained the title of Duke of Normandy in 1106. This
allowed the Anglo-Norman world to distinguish itself as a political and cultural
entity from that of continental France until 1135, the year in which Henry I died
without a male heir. After Henry’s death, his daughter Matilda (1102–1167) cam-
paigned against Henry’s nephew, Stephen of Blois (ca. 1045–1102), for power over
Normandy, although Stephen lost control to Matilda despite retaining the English
throne. The son of Matilda and Geoffrey V of Anjou, Henry II (1122–1189),
ascended to the English throne and secured Plantagenet interests. The king
maintained his Norman dukedom in 1154 and gained political power in Maine and
Anjou from Geoffrey V. He also gained Aquitaine after his marriage to Eleanor of
Aquitaine (ca. 1124–1204) in 1152 (Grant 2005, 7–8).
As the King and Queen of England, Henry II and Eleanor emerged as major
players in a long and complex history of political relationships between England,
the duchy of Normandy, various polities on the continent such as that of Anjou,
and the Capetian kings of France. Although in terms of “political and adminis-
trative ties” England and Normandy “remained strong” and the duchy functioned
as the proverbial “hinge on which the Angevin Empire swung” in France, Norman
cultural and “legal customs” differed from those in polities such as Anjou (Grant
2005, 7). The qualifiers “Angevin” or “Plantagenet Empire” described not only the
territories, but also the imperial and dynastic ambitions of Henry II. Mark Aurell
posits that Henry’s “‘polycratic’ world was held together by the royal family,” or,
more precisely, the image it put forth despite the political conflicts internal to the
Angevins (Aurell 2007, 1–7).
Just as the English royal family would be plagued with drama amongst
themselves, the Plantagenets faced external political pressures through Henry II’s
marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, which helped reduce tensions with the
Capetian kings after the Queen’s divorce from King Louis VII of France. Although
Eleanor had two legitimate daughters with the French King, she had her marriage
annulled based upon consanguinity “in the fourth degree.” Through this act,
Eleanor and Henry retained her continental properties in southern and western
France and removed them from Capetian control, an act that later exacerbated the
political relations between Richard I (1157–1199), John of England (1166–1216),
and Philip Augustus of France (1165–1223) (Weir 1999, 73–80). Eleanor took an
active political role as Queen of England, whether working with, or against,
Henry II, by participating in Henry the Younger and Richard’s 1173 revolt against
their father. When this revolt failed, Eleanor was imprisoned until 1192 when
Richard I became the official King of England following his father’s death (Per-

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noud 1968, 140–42). Eleanor obtained even more political power when Richard
“The Lionheart” left for the Crusades in 1190 by functioning as regent of England
(Regan 1998, 24–28).
The heroic name of “Lionheart” described King Richard’s military campaigns
against continental France and in the Holy Land. Although his reign was brief,
Richard built several castles, such as Chateau Gaillard, as fortresses that kept King
Philip Augustus of France out of Normandy (Grant 2005, 1–5). The relationship
between the English and French kings was tempestuous, as they allied in 1190 to
fight in the Third Crusade against Saladin’s forces. Despite this temporary unity,
Richard still refused to bow to Philip Augustus’s implied supremacy in Angevin
continental territories. Richard had some success in the Third Crusade when
contracting a treaty with Saladin, yet his critics in England felt he “abandoned”
England in order to pursue personal glory (Barratt 2001, 262–26). Additionally,
Eleanor arranged for and delivered the money for Richard’s “ransom” from the
Holy Roman Emperor in 1191 (Weir 1999, 262–26). Richard’s “unromantic” death in
1199 further weakens the image of the supposedly heroic Crusader king (Gilling-
ham 1979, 1–20). Although Chateau Gaillard fell in 1204 while John was in control
of Normandy, Grant comments that a King’s architectural commissions, especially
fortified ones that held territories, often represent the tangible results of a leader’s
reign and ability to maintain power (Grant 2005, 1–5). Scholars who look for the
“man behind the myth” of Richard the Lionheart often downplay Eleanor’s poli-
tical influence during these years (Grant 2005, 1–5). While Richard was on Cru-
sade, she helped John administer both English and continental interests (Weir
1999, 120–40). After a period of imprisonment, Eleanor spent her remaining days
in Poitiers with her daughter, Marie of Champagne (1145–1198). It is here that she
and Marie, according to Andreas Capellanus (late twelfth-century courtier and
writer), held the ubiquitous “court of love.” The exact nature of this court is
debated among scholars, yet its idealization contributed to the chivalric ideals
that defined aristocratic life in the twelfth century and onward (Plain 2006, 77).
Pairs of lovers and courtiers moved through Eleanor’s court while she remained in
stasis. Her limited political power in later life transformed into a position of power
in the court of love. In the midst of the conflicts between the English and French
monarchies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were also periods of
compromise and peace through diplomacy. The fact that Aquitaine and Ponthieu
were held by the English crown made contact between the rulers of England and
France a necessity. The royal court culture of these two countries thus became
intertwined despite their distinctions.
A distinctive intermingling of court cultures also existed in medieval Ger-
man territories. Benjamin Arnold indicates that the imperial court was well
known among Germany’s other secular and religious leaders, but that it did not

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have much power over their governance. Some states enjoyed autonomy, while
many urban centers and dynastic aristocrats maintained complicated relation-
ships with the reigning emperor. Arnold speculates that Germany’s princes and
bishops “consolidated” their power and maintained distinct identities from the
imperial court. Some of these authorities enjoyed a collegial relationship with
the emperor, in which case each political entity coexisted peacefully. On the
other hand, during periods such as the reign of Emperor Henry IV (1056–1106),
German princes challenged royal authority (Arnold 1991, 1–5). The Holy Roman
Emperors, since the title’s restoration under Otto the Great, possessed an im-
pressive title as the “western Roman” emperor. This secular position allowed
the emperors to distribute certain amounts of wealth and power in Germany and
Italy, yet their actual authority remained shared with other consolidated powers.
The established German aristocracy legitimized their own power through heredi-
tary land and titles. Newer nobles, such as the ministeriales, free knights, and
ecclesiastical heads achieved and maintained status through success (Arnold
1991, 15–20).
Although the German royal court built palaces at prominent locations such as
Aachen, it remained itinerant in the Middle Ages. As the emperor traveled, he had
access to the material wealth of princely and ecclesiastical courts. The emperor’s
hosts provided him with food and board for him and his retinue, as well as
servants and often military support. When the nobles were called to court at a
royal residence, the king displayed his wealth via architecture, consumable
commodities, and a courtly atmosphere. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122–90)
wore a gold diadem that linked him to the Ottonian’s crown-wearing tradition. As
with other medieval royal courts, the German imperial court functioned as an
arena for political show and exchange (Arnold 1997, 158–62). The royal estates
themselves were run efficiently, as already described in the eighth century Capi-
tulare de villis, and usually for the exclusive use of the king (McKitterick 2008,
149–52).
It is important to distinguish between royal courts and those of lesser princes,
as the court cultures of each often varied. England, France, and Germany were the
primary sovereign rulers in fourteenth-century North Western Europe. The politi-
cal machinations between these powers also involved lesser princes and aristo-
crats. In contrast to early European nobility, princes and aristocrats in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries held titles such as counts, dukes, and earls,
among others (Vale 2001, 2–4). Lesser princes and other aristocrats also asserted
their political power by establishing courts (Vale 2001, 3–5). Vale’s study high-
lights the complex web of courts in North Western Europe through a thorough
assessment of “consumable commodities” present in each princely court. The
term “court” is also problematic in and of itself. Some, but not all, princely

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households had courts, while others maintained estates with households. To

clarify, for North West Europe, a court was “not merely the ruler’s household. The
court was greater than the household and was not identical to it. It was the
prince’s environment, both a place, normally of unfixed location, and an assem-
blage of people” (Vale 2001, 31). Positions of court staff, though sometimes
hereditary, were also open for those with talents. This implies that courts could
function as elements of social mobility. Although this definition of a princely
“court” implies high malleability, in thirteenth-century England the amount of
money spent for courtly pleasures and functions was stated in household ordi-
nances. In the fourteenth century, many princes curtailed and moderated spend-
ing as part of reform movements. Some courts were lavish; others more structured
(Vale 2001, 42–43).
G Courtly Love, Leisure, Scholasticism, and

Aristocratic Identity through a Secular Lens
The idea of courtly love may be a modern construction superimposed upon the
fourteenth century, yet the ideals of chivalry are reflected in the secular art of the
period. Ivory luxury items such as combs, mirror cases, and caskets became
popular consumer items among the European aristocracy. Vernacular literature
from the twelfth century and onwards provided inspiration for images and themes
of courtly love. On these objects, richly-dressed men and women engage in games
of chess, melees under castles, hunting, and other aristocratic pastimes. These
leisure activities testify to the ideal activities of noble life. Ivory itself became
available for use after the Crusades of the thirteenth century. Trade between Arab
and European merchants established ivory as a luxury item in terms of its
materiality alone (Randall 1997, 63–66). Although accessible to the noble class
and royalty, ivory remained an expensive item to procure. The decorative carv-
ings on these objects demanded sophisticated craftsmanship due to ivory’s nature
and difficulty in carving. In utilitarian terms, mirror backs and combs were used
for grooming, while secular-themed caskets often held the toiletry items of aristo-
cratic women. Although some ivory objects depict specific scenes from literature,
the visual narratives on most remain ambiguous. Instead, they illustrate idyllic
scenes of aristocrats engaged in leisure activities (Bober 1952, 5).
The spread of literacy among the medieval nobility has ties to both monas-
teries and the University of Paris, with its secular and classical collections. An
increase in book production for private ownership was due to the demand by
nobles and students, as well as the growing popularity of vernacular literature in

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addition to Latin (Backhouse 1997, 123). Both royal courts and individual aristo-
crats commissioned great and expensive manuscripts. Sometimes books were
patronized for private use, or for public use as a status symbol. Oral tales and
songs from troubadours became popular in the courts of France. In the royal
court, poet Chrétien de Troyes (late twelfth-century), wrote Arthurian tales heard
in court and composed Lancelot romances. In the thirteenth century, other French
scribes recorded Chrétien’s tales in manuscripts along with Arthurian variants
(Backhouse 1997, 123). Secular and heroic tales also became popular in Germany.
The Rolandslied (ca. 1170) recounted the German version of the song. German
author Wolfram von Eschenbach (d. ca. 1220) composed the romance Parzival and
the chanson de geste, Willehalm and the anonymous poet of the Nibelungenlied
(ca. 1200), working at the court of Bishop Wolfger von Erla at Passau, describes a
heroic world in epic terms. Minstrels and troubadours are partially responsible for
this exchange of courtly literature as they moved from court to court in Europe
(De Hamel 1994, 146–47).
The royal court in Paris, along with the newly-founded University of Paris,
created a demand for scribes, illuminators, and artists to be located near the
capital. In this context, a court’s luxury items contributed to the urbanization of
certain economic sectors in medieval society (De Hamel 1994, 146–49). The
popularity of vernacular literature, particularly French, among aristocrats led to
an increased production of secular codices. The courts of England also produced
French literature after the Norman Conquest. The works of Chaucer were collected
by Richard II of England (ca. 1367–1400), but there are no large records of English
aristocrats collecting works in Middle English due to the popularity of French
among the elite (DeHamel 1994, 156–58). Popular patrons include King John the
Good (d. 1364), King Charles V (d. 1380), Jean, Duc de Berry (1340–1416), and
Queen Isabella of France (1348–1372), among many others. Famous authors such
as Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) also found patronage in aristo-
cratic Italian courts (Backhouse 1997, 123–25).
The popularity of books among aristocrats in Europe testifies to a rise in
literacy and the economic means to produce them. Books were expensive items
to produce, and the complex and beautiful illuminations and illustrations of late
medieval manuscripts demonstrate the aesthetic value of books as objects. They
could be shown among fellow aristocrats and function as markers of culture and
status. Nobles with extensive libraries conveyed their wealth via consumable
commodities, their scholasticism, and also their cosmopolitan nature with a
wide variety of texts. Certain codices also became means of transporting infor-
mation among European courts. Popular trends, stories, and heroic renditions
of history were shared among the elite. At this level, the ideals of aristocratic
existence supplanted reality through aggrandizement and fiction. The Très

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Riches Heures (ca. 1412) of Jean, Duc de Berry illustrates the patron’s wealth in a
scene from his court. He sits at his table and courtiers vie for his attention. The
folio’s background consists of one of the Duke’s heroic scenes outdoors. In
another folio, peasants work in the fields and appear happy and well-fed. The
wealthy created and portrayed their own realities through court and through
book patronage. After his death, the Très Riches Heures became a pawn in
settling the Duke’s debts rather than immediately passing on to his heirs
(Reynolds 2005, 526–32). In the case of this personal codex, its patron’s personal
ideal of self and his place in society is reflected more accurately than his
existence in reality.
H Gift-Giving Culture and Patronage

The culture of gift giving in the Middle Ages was as diverse as medieval nobility
itself. Early Anglo-Saxon warrior-based cultures relied on the exchange of materi-
al goods to fuel their lord and retainer relationship, to communicate status, and
for political maneuvers. Gifts cemented alliances and ensured compliance from
their recipients. The manner in which people exchanged gifts was as crucial as
the gift itself for purposeful diplomacy. In Germanic literature, a proper and
deliberate exchange of words set the stage for the gift-giving process. In the
Hildebrandslied (copied down early ninth century), Hildebrand and Hadubrand
do not effectively communicate with words. Additionally, a physical gift would
have complicated the situation between the father and son. The result, instead, is
a physical battle (Classen 1995, 1–8). In this context, gifts could act as a proverbial
double-edged sword. What is a gift to one functions as a “weapon” against
another where political alliances are concerned (Buettner 2001, 598–99). The
nature of gifts varied from ecclesiastical postings, promises of marriage, luxury
objects, to architectural funding for monasteries and cathedrals. Marriage con-
tracts between aristocratic families involved the “gift” of another person as well
as money, land, and sometimes political alliances. For feminist critics, women
here became stripped of their personhood and reduced to chattels. The extent to
which this was true depends on time and place, as certain aristocratic women
exercised their own authority despite their limited personal power. Empress
Matilda (1102–1167), daughter of King Henry I of England (1068–1135), worked to
secure a position of power throughout her life despite the efforts of her male
relatives (Beem 2009, 1–6). Wealth and aristocratic status did not always go hand
in hand, so poorer, but titled, families were often motivated to marry into families
with means. The ability to climb up the social ladder existed for aristocrats due to
their access to titles, lands, and potential ties to a monarchy. Marriage also united

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families through legal channels and thus made official political and economic ties
(Duggan 2000, 5–7).
The gift of status came not only through marriage, but also through luxury
items. Luxurious secular objects always communicated the status and sophistica-
tion of the owner, whether the patron kept it for him- or herself, or if it was used
as a diplomatic or persuasive gift. One such object was the Dunstable Swan Jewel,
made in England or France ca. 1400. The object is composed of gold and white
enamel and is one of the only extant livery badges. It shows the nobility of the
owner and perhaps his connection to a king. Scholars speculate that this badge,
which perhaps also functioned as jewelry, is associated with house of Lancaster
of Bohun (Cherry 1991, 24). While the Dunstable Swan is clearly a status symbol,
whether or not it was a diplomatic gift remains uncertain. The Royal Golden Cup,
however, ca. 1380, was a gift from Jean, Duc de Berry, to Charles VI of France to
smooth over diplomatic relations. Later, the Duke of Bedford acquired it, and
Tudor inventories mention it. The addition of Tudor roses suggests that as owners
changed, they desired to personalize it and thus make it more of a personal status
symbol. The original narrative of St. Agnes initially was relevant to the Duc de
Berry’s brother’s Saint’s Day (Robinson 2008, 42). As with aristocratic titles and
lands, a new owner would seek to imprint his or her mark on the object. This link
between identity and materiality is one of the commonalities between medieval
nobles.
While some princely medieval courts embodied political power through
luxury, others integrated Christian piety into their structure. Many aristocrats,
nobles, and royalty supported monasteries through endowments. These endow-
ments could manifest regularly, or as a bequeathal of property after one’s death.
Although the church technically retained control of its properties, its reliance on
the nobility for funding placed some control in the hands of the laity (Barton
1997, 185). In the eleventh-century, nobles from Léon, Castile, and Galicia owned
the property of many religious institutions. As such, they would collect revenue,
make appointments to office, and influence church decisions. By the late eleventh
century, papal reforms by Leo IX (1049–1054) and Gregory VII (1073–1085) led to
some churches gaining control over their affairs. Rather than exploit the church,
a noble should “protect” it. This partially ended the faux-piety of aristocratic
religious patronage (Barton 1997, 185–87).
Medieval courts not only functioned as means for a ruler or aristocrat to
maintain power. They additionally became loci for individuals not of noble birth
to exercise their talents, achieve a reputation, and secure the means to earn a
living. One such famous individual was Christine de Pizan (ca. 1364–1434), born
in Venice to a father who acted as counselor to the city. He was educated at the
University of Bologna, and moved with his family to the Parisian royal court of

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Charles V (1338–1380). During her father’s work as court astrologer, he arranged a

marriage for Christine when she was fifteen years old. Her husband was similarly
educated, but died at a young age. As a widow who needed to support her family,
Christine obtained patronage in Burgundian courts (Cosman, ed., 1989, 27–29).
One such patron was of Isabeau of Bavaria (1370–1435). Christine became a
renowned author in her courtly circle and an embodiment of an independent
medieval woman. Christine’s place at court allowed her to earn a living and
exercise her art. She reciprocated with her queen through a book dedicated in her
honor. This feminine court also became a forum for political critique and dis-
course (Allen 2002, 590). In her Advision Cristine (ca. 1405), Christine created a
personification called Lady Opinion. Through this character and her other writ-
ing, she reflects upon the nature and complexities of opinion. Douglas Kelly
argues that her writings are thus both self-reflective and critical of her time period
(Kelly 2007, 1–3). Many scholars have written about the gender issues of Chris-
tine’s writings, Kelly’s argument elevates Christine’s discursive themes above
gender. The French court provided Christine, a woman of educated by untitled
birth, with the opportunity to elevate her status.
I Final Remarks
This chapter has provided general information about the identities and develop-
ment of medieval nobility and aristocracy. Although a concise definition of
medieval nobility is impossible, people of elite status from Europe shared in the
struggle to maintain their status in a politically tumultuous world. As Fouracre
states, nobility is a “spectrum” (Fouracre 2000, 21–23). Those within that spec-
trum relied on patronage or political support from a powerful ruler. Often, this
patronage occurred within the context of a court, which provided an arena for
courtiers and rulers to assert their powers. This reciprocal power helped fuel the
identity of each participant, yet, at the same time, required him or her to perform
the requisite courtly drama. We have records of how medieval aristocrats lived,
yet these very often reveal an idealized fiction rather than historical reality.
Select Bibliography
Aurell, Martin, The Plantagenet Empire 1154–1224 (Harlow 2007).
Barton, Simon, The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century Léon and Castile (Cambridge et al. 1997).
Crouch, David, The English Aristocracy 1070–1271: A Social Transformation (New Haven, CT, and
London 2010).

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Duggan, Anne J., Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations
(Woodbridge and Rochester, NY, 2000).
Hen, Yitzhak, Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (Hound-
mills et al. 2007).
Jaeger, C. Stephen, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly
Ideals, 939–1210 (Philadelphia, PA, 1985).
Vale, Malcolm, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe
(1270–1380) (Oxford and New York 2001).
Williams, Ann, The World Before Domesday: The English Aristocracy, 900–1066 (London and
New York 2008).

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Gerhard Jaritz
Daily Life
A Everyone Has a Daily Life

On February 25, 1348, Pope Clement VI wrote a letter to the young Charles, “king
of the Romans,” later Emperor Charles IV, in which he referred, among other
things, to the complaints of some German magnates that had reached his ears
(Klicman, ed., 1903, 555–56). They were disturbed about Charles’s dress habits.
According to them, he wore very short and tight items of clothing and enjoyed
tournaments greatly; by doing these things, they claimed, he was not maintaining
the necessary imperial dignity. Clement (who was born Pierre Roger) had been
young Charles’s educator at the French court. In the letter, he emphasized his
paternal affection and his wish to increase the honor of his former pupil. He asked
him to wear wide and long pieces of clothing, to abstain from tournaments, and
to show maturity and dignity in all his activities.
In 1462, during the conflict between Emperor Frederick III and his brother,
Archduke Albrecht VI over the regency of Austria, the emperor, his family, and
their court were besieged in the imperial castle of Vienna by the citizens of Vienna
being on Albrecht’s side. The so-called “Book of the Viennese” (Buch von den
Wienern) by Michel Beheim reports on the siege and the occurring food shortage
in the castle. It refers, in particular, to the problems of the three-year-old son of
Frederick III, who was later to become Emperor Maximilian I. According to
Beheim, Maximilian was used to being served only meat; when meat ran out, he
was given barley and peas. One day, he was again served peas and he reacted by
insisting that he had had enough of them and that they should be taken away:
this kind of food did not suit him and should be given to the enemies:
… dy speiss wer im nit eben,

man solcz den veinden geben. (Karajan, ed., 1867, 128–29)
The two anecdotes above refer to the quotidianity of people who are not usually
included in modern historical studies of medieval daily life. Such studies nor-
mally deal with the lives of burghers or members of the peasantry, and sometimes
of the nobility, but usually not of rulers or members of royal families. A general,
theoretical and methodological overview of the study of the history of daily life
states: “much research and most presentations that deal with the history of every-
day life […] center on the actions and sufferings of those who are frequently
labeled ‘everyday, ordinary people,’ a term as suggestive as it is imprecise. […] In

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researching the history of everyday life, attention is focused not just on the deeds
(and misdeeds) and pageantry of the great, the masters of church and state.
Rather, central to the thrust of everyday historical analysis is the life and survival
of those who have remained largely anonymous in history—the ‘nameless’ multi-
tudes in their workaday trials and tribulations, their occasional outbursts or
dépences (Georges Bataille)” (Lüdtke 1995, 3–4). Such a concentration on the
“nameless” is not and cannot be “central to the thrust” of the research into the
daily life of the Middle Ages. It has to be emphasized that, for Medieval Studies,
everyday life, its repetitiveness and routine touched everyone, rulers as well as
members of the lower classes, which makes manifold comparative approaches
necessary. The analysis of the similarities, differences, and contrasts in the lives
of the distinct members of society are of particular relevance for any research.
Thus, the history of medieval daily life should not solely be seen as a “history
from below” or as (only) a history of the powerless (Jaritz 1989, 15).
B Daily Life and Its Patterns

All the spheres of everyday life are connected with communication that reached
from the local area to ‘international’ contacts and co-operation. Communication
itself has to be seen as both part of, and an influence on, daily life.
In the broader sense, daily life can be seen as a result of the relations and
connections of humans in their routine activities with objects and their attributes.
In a variety of respects, daily life is determined by order and disorder. Many of the
available written and visual sources that present information about quotidianity
offer various evaluations of everyday life. They often either describe an ideal to be
followed or they criticize those who do not observe rules and norms given to
please God and secure social harmony. ‘Neutral’ daily life does not exist in the
sources. The discourses about, let us say, good and bad daily life can often be
recognized as being stated and disseminated in a manner that emphasized the
contrasts between positive and negative realizations to strengthen the message
and didactic effects.
When interested in medieval daily life and its routine, one must concentrate
in tracing and studying patterns in the extant evidence. The patterns’ appearance,
roles, and meanings depend on aspects of space, social order, the languages of
signs, and so on. A historian’s ‘quasi knowledge’ about any individual situation,
activity, object, or quality alone must be seen as meaningless. Significance can
only be recognized if one becomes aware of, and acquainted with, the contempor-
ary contexts, classifications, evaluations, and connotations, and if one is able to
integrate them into one’s analysis. One has to recognize the fact that there were

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different levels and patterns of meaning that operated simultaneously and sup-
plemented each other.
Context-bound patterns of daily life can be seen by analyzing many source
corpora, textual, visual as well as archaeological ones. With the help of last wills,
for instance, one comes across the important, life-influencing, mainly socially
dependent value structures, functions, and esteemed qualities of material objects
like clothing, vessels, beds, jewelry, weapons, books, and so on. Similar patterns
can also be seen through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the contents
of account books. Their contents may range from the type of objects mentioned,
their value, need, and respective contexts, to certain aspects of quality and
esteem offering the basis for a comparative framework. Literary sources also offer
a great deal of information about aspects of medieval daily life and mentality. For
most historical as well as literary sources, it has to be emphasized that the ‘real
fiction’ and ‘fictitious reality’ of the varying daily life evidence from the medieval
past does not mean a loss of information, but, through comparative and purpose-
oriented analysis, may be seen as enrichment.
The recognition and comparison of late medieval patterns of daily life lead to
various conclusions in context with their role and position in the social, socio-
religious, and socio-economic system. This also offers clearer results in cases in
which specific activities and objects were considered to be positive and highly
esteemed by one or more social groups, while for others they were negative and
symbols of vanity. This seems to have been particularly important, regarding
tasks and things that were expensive, new, and fashionable.
Similar results can be attained when comparing the patterns of norms and
patterns of practice in the study of daily life. One of the main outcomes of such
comparative analyses of norm and practice has been the conclusion that one
cannot generalize about whether people accepted, rejected, or followed the mani-
fold laws and rules that were meant to influence daily life. In this respect, one is
also regularly confronted with various types of compromises that determined and
influenced life. A good example of visual norms that were meant to influence the
daily life of their rural viewers are the Sunday Christs that one can find from the
British Isles to Central Europe (Fig. 1; Reiss 2000; Jaritz 1995).
The medieval written and visual sources documenting daily life were over-
whelmingly produced by clerics or men from the literate upper or middle classes
of society; this is also true when the sources document the daily lives of women,
peasants, and paupers. The sources also often deal with exceptional, that is, non-
daily situations, rather than daily life. However, many connections lead from the
‘daily’ to the ‘non-daily’, and vice versa. In addition, there are connections
between everyday life and politics, religion, the economy, the arts and sciences,
and so on, that must be analyzed.

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Fig. 1: Sunday Christ wall painting in the public space of the outer wall of a village church.
It tells the beholder with the help of depicted, mainly agricultural, activities and objects
standing for such, which work or tasks should not be carried out on Sundays or other
Christian holidays. End of the fifteenth c., Saak, Carinthia (Austria), outer wall of the parish
church. © Institut für Realienkunde, University of Salzburg.

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Moreover, one has to concentrate on different kinds and levels of the “simultane-
ity of the non-simultaneous” (Jaritz 2009, 124) in the sources. Certain objects,
persons, situations, and attributes may seem to have a clear closeness to everyday
life, but they may also be secular or religious symbols or metaphors. Such
different phenomena and functions of closeness and their utilization as patterns
of argumentation can be found regularly: as in the use of well-known daily life
objects as visual or literary symbols for the Virgin Mary (for instance, vessel, glass
= immaculate conception; confectionery = sweetness; towel = purity, etc.) (Salzer
1967).
One finds different variants of socially, economically or religiously deter-
mined connotations and evaluations of daily life situations in all types of sources.
They are based on comparison, on constructed differences and opposition. Old
and young, rich and poor, small and large, close and distant, high and low, up
and down, left and right, much and little, clean and dirty, and so on, all of them
are regularly used pairs of difference or opposition that refer to daily life. Didactic
arguments were often constructed with the help of such pairs gathered from daily
life. There are the many instances of patterns of the good and beautiful in the
broadest sense of the word versus the bad and the ugly—always to be seen in their
manifold levels of social, economic, and moral adequacy. In an urban context
these might have been connected with a rather large number of innovations and
improvements: with window glass, roof tiles, the paving of roads (Jaritz 2001),
mechanical clocks (Dohrn-van Rossum 1996), and so on. Such items that in-
creased the standard of living, security, and prestige seem to have played an
important role in a number of other contexts, especially in the early days of their
adoption. They were used as general signs of one’s material success, as well as to
mediate other messages: for instance, the buon governo in a community. Parts of
already existing or just developing ideals of material culture became—in new or
other contexts—explanatory signs for positive, often immaterial and spiritual
aspects of daily life. The opposites of such positively connoted objects were used
to symbolize negative aspects of daily life. The authors or painters regularly
confronted context-bound patterns of different positive ideals versus patterns of
negative deviation from the social order. During the late Middle Ages and in the
sixteenth century one can recognize an intensification of the discussions about
and regulations of such nuisances in the daily life of the people that became more
and more detailed.

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C A Daily Life of Contrasts? Public and ‘Private’

Space, Elites and the ‘People’, Women and Men
Representations of daily life were, as has been noted, always connected with
some sort of value judgment. The “festive” coat was contrasted by a “daily” coat,
the “good” bed by a “bad” bed, and so on. The focus on contrasts influenced
norms and didactics, as well as daily life itself. In this context, one just should
think of the confrontation and polarization of one’s own and others’ lives, the
demand to concentrate more on the spiritual values of daily life than on material
goods exclusively (Fig. 2; Jaritz 2007), or the clash of elite and ‘popular’ culture.
For all these spheres, a context-bound comparison of the different ‘realities’ of the
sources is indispensable as well as a connection of qualitative and quantitative
approaches and analyses, particularly when dealing with types, stereotypes or
topoi, and their usage.
The public aspects of daily life were particularly important, such as public
ceremonies, public meetings, and dress worn outside the home. They became the
regular subject of evaluating descriptions, critique and praise, as well as of
control and laws. Addressing the public, which led to a reaction and assessment
by its members, and following regulations could happen with referring to or
activating all the human senses (Wolgar 2006):
– sight (any public display, dress);

– hearing (noise deemed either pleasant or unpleasant);
– smell (for instance, the stink of latrines or the odor of flowers at the occasion
of the entry of a lord into a community)
– the gustatory sense (gluttony);
– pain.
The more people were affected by such public daily life arrangements, the more
strenuous were the discussions about them, particularly when social, economic
or moral values were at stake. It has to be considered, however, that ‘public’ and
‘private’ space in the context of daily life must be understood as very ambiguous
terms, aspects with different meanings and existing at distinct levels (Austin
1998). The most public spaces of urban communities, that is, the church, the
marketplace, and specific roads, for instance, have to be clearly differentiated
from the public space in monasteries, where more or less nothing was recognized
as private. The influence of such a difference can be found especially in regard to
the given norms of daily life which referred to the material as well as the
immaterial spheres of the respective quotidianities. The urban and territorial

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Fig. 2: Good and bad prayer in daily life. The good and pious, conservatively clad man on the
good, right side of the crucifix (that is, on the left side of the image) concentrates his prayer
and thoughts on the Passion of Christ; the bad and impious, fashionably clad, man on the bad,
left side of the crucifix just pretends to concentrate on the Passion but only thinks of the worldly
joys and material goods depicted behind him. Panel of a Poor Souls-Altar, 1488, Regensburg
(Germany), City Museum. © Institut für Realienkunde, University of Salzburg.
sumptuary laws of the late Middle Ages mainly regulated outerwear, the outer
appearance of houses, and festivities (e.g., Eisenbart 1962; Bulst 1988; Hunt
1996; Killerby 2002; Muzzarelli and Campanini, ed., 2003; Muzzarelli 2009). On
the other hand, the monastic consuetudines, which date mainly from the ele-
venth and twelfth centuries, also regulated the use of underwear, baths, blood-
letting, the necessary procedures for getting into and out of bed, and the
prevention of sinful behavior in these contexts (Zimmermann 1973). In these

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monastic rules, nothing was really ‘private’, not even the privy; everything was
subject to regulation.
In the normative evidence and concerning each of the different ‘public
spaces’, the discourse about aspects of daily life, behavior, and material culture
was extraordinarily rich. This richness is, however, also sometimes true for
chronicles, charters, travel descriptions, religious and secular literature, sermons,
and so on; the discussion could become detailed and heated. Besides general
arguments of status, other religious, social, economic, and national criteria also
played decisive roles in the discourse. Thus, on the one hand, to recognize others
by their outer appearance and to be recognized oneself was, generally, a very
decisive domain of medieval daily life and order.
On the other hand, however, this had to be seen in connection with the
situation that any pieces of outer appearance received their meaning and connota-
tion only in context with the status, position, and function of their wearers as well
as with the occasions and actions when they were used. Without such a context
they could be rather meaningless or very ambiguous. The same piece of dress
might, for instance, in one context have produced a positive image of its wearer,
in another one or with regard to a different wearer, it could raise negative connota-
tions. Without knowing the contexts one might be at a loss to identify something
or do it incorrectly. Altogether, the following aspects must be emphasized:
– The interdependences and contexts of daily public life, behavior, material

culture, secular legal ordinances, and religious discourse are important. The
public use of material objects affected discourses and arguments, and both
the Church and the secular authorities influenced the use of these objects and
determined the laws about them.
– From the religious point of view, but not only concerning the arguments
given by representatives of the Church, the prevention of superbia, that is,
pride and haughtiness, played a relevant role in this respect. Superbia was
one of the capital sins and sometimes seen as the first sin of mankind, the one
that provoked the wrath of God.
– In their respective arguments, the secular authorities not only referred to the
economic and social profit of the communities. They also connected them
regularly with references to sin and to averting God’s wrath and punishment.
Inadequate presentation and gaudiness had to be slowed down and only
adequate presentation ensured and promoted social peace.
– Such discourse, on the one hand, was used in general arguments against
superbia.
– On the other hand, this discourse was also used in arguments against specific
objects, mainly fashionable dress and their form: pointed shoes (Jaritz 2009,

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134–35), ladies’ horned headgear, different types of sleeves, short clothing for
men, and so on.
Other types of luxury goods, such as prestigious furs, expensive cloth, precious
jewels, costly gowns, and so on, were also regularly referred to in the sumptuary
laws, but were not so much connected with any religious discourse. There, the
social and economic elements seem to have counted most.
With regard to the differences between the culture and daily life of medieval
elites and popular groups of society, one can support the thesis that was formu-
lated by Willem Th. M. Frijhoff in the 1980s. He stated that elites of different
character created specific cultural codes of expression and developed them to
status symbols (Frijhoff 1984, 21–28). These cultural constructions and codes they
used were strong and influential (Jaritz 1989, 128–31). In such a way, and at the
same time, areas of unacceptable cultural forms of expression were created which
one attributed to the ‘people.’ Thus, the elites practiced in many regards an
explicit and often well structured “non-popular culture.” Concerning ‘global’ as
well as individual aspects of daily life, this could certainly lead to contrasts which
often became stereotypes and determined socio-cultural assignments and evalua-
tions, for instance:
– good order among the elite versus chaos among the ‘people’;
– the intelligence of the elite versus the ignorance and dullness of the ‘people’;
– the proper faith and piety of the elite versus the magic and superstition of the
‘people’;
– the well-organized feasts of the elite versus the excessive amusements of the
‘people’;
– the festive and well-ordered dancing of the elite versus the doltish jumping of
peasants;
– the meat, white bread, and wine of the elite table versus the vegetables,
brown bread, and water of the peasant and other lower-class table.
Some of these stereotyped juxtapositions have survived into the present day.
However, sometimes one cannot strictly separate the daily-life culture of medie-
val elites and that of the ‘people.’ Ever and again there are conformities and
transfers to be recognized; therefore, one has to use any classificatory terms
carefully (Jaritz 1987).
In this context, it has to be kept in mind, however, that the daily life of the
‘little people,’ their behavior and actions, were rather generally of no interest to
those members of medieval society who were the regular producers of the written
texts or visual representations that serve as our sources. This is particularly true

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with regard to such actions of the ‘people’ that did not deviate from normality. If
they followed the conventions and norms of the social system and their commu-
nities in an accepted way without attracting specific attention, they were ‘people’
often not worth describing or even speaking of. Getting interested in them was
connected with:
– extraordinary or unbelievable phenomena in their lives;

– specific negative actions by them that contradicted the order of the social
system and could threaten stability;
– their role as a good example or model for other members of society.
Therefore, when common people and their quotidianity appear in the sources
they are again not ‘neutral,’ but regularly exceptional. Through this exceptional-
ity, the lower-class people became interesting objects, and as such objects they
and their daily lives found the way into the written and visual source evidence.
The peasant, in particular, was seen as an object to be used as both a bad and
a good example (Jaritz 2002). This way, he and his daily life could become the
basis for didactic messages, motivations, or warnings (see Fig. 3). When he was
used as a good example, he was depicted as one of the foundations of the social
order; all other members of society were dependent on him and his work. But the
peasant was also used simultaneously as both a good and a bad example (Braet
1995; Classen, ed., 2012). He offered the advantageous opportunity to be utilized
as a didactic model based on both the positive and negative connotations and still
be perceived and understood by everybody.
The social determination of gender roles also influenced medieval daily life
and its representation decisively. Again, contrasts and the evaluation of differ-
ence had an important influence. In the male-dominated environment, in which
life took place and the sources that we use were produced, the following aspects
can be recognized as particularly emphasized. They influenced the discourses on
and also the practice of daily life of women heavily, which also led to the creation
of stereotypes:
– the factors of male strength and female weakness, referring to physical as well
as mental areas, as a specific criterion for differentiation. In female religious
communities, for instance, the statement propter fragilitatem sexus could be
emphasized when permitting nuns to pray in the vernacular instead of Latin,
to eat meat, or to possess property (Jaritz 1989, 139). This ‘fragility’ was also
the reason to introduce stricter regulations for the enclosure in female
religious communities than in male monasteries (Gilchrist 1994). Similar
references to female weakness can also be recognized in secular space.

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Fig. 3: A sinful peasant who is not ready for the Last Judgment; he wears clothes that are not
appropriate for his social status, and he still concentrates on his work when he should prepare
himself to meet the Lord. Panel of a winged altar (detail), first quarter of the sixteenth c.,
Kortsch, South Tyrol (Italy). © Institut für Realienkunde, University of Salzburg.

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312 Gerhard Jaritz
– the spheres of non-domestic male and domestic female space. The latter was
connected with childbearing, food preparation, and textile-related activities
(spinning, laundry, mending) (Hanawalt 1998). With regard to food and
textiles, however, one also finds extensions of female activities from the
domestic into the non-domestic sphere (for instance, as retailers, in urban or
rural spinning rooms, etc.).
– the component of male responsibility for the family, the economy, the
finances and functioning of the household in general, only taken over by
widows or by married women on occasions when the husbands were away
from home. However, the temporariness of such situations of female respon-
sibility is regularly stressed.
– The role and influence of the body that is clearly connected with female
space. This led to regular, mostly critical, discourses about women and
morals or women and sexuality.
In all these areas the focus of argumentation can also be recognized in the
emphasis on the woman in her role as object. In this aspect of the discourse she is
close to the peasants and their representation.
D Fuzzy Borders, Quiet Nuances,

and Open Perspectives
The history of daily life in the Middle Ages is an exciting field of research that has
offered a number of important new findings and leads to a better understanding
of medieval women and men of every social status. When recognizing, on the one
hand, the relevance of contrasts, particularly in the given norms and existing
conventions of life style, one also has to be aware, on the other hand, that the
borderlines in practice were not always strict and sometimes represented fuzzi-
ness and only nuances of difference. This also shows leeway and possibilities for
compromise that seem to have determined many areas of medieval daily life.
Such a situation even increases the relevance of comparative approaches in
research and the necessity of various ways of contextualization. Thus, medieval
daily life is no longer a field of historical analysis that merely lives from decora-
tive description and illustration, as it sometimes represented itself in the past. It
has become an important research topic, standing in an indispensable and
mutually stimulating connection with approaches and methods of social, cultur-
al, religious, political, economic, environmental, and art history.

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Select Bibliography
Garver, Valerie, “Everyday Life in Medieval Studies,” Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms –
Methods – Trends, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York 2010), vol. 1, 525–39.
Gilchrist, Roberta, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge 2012).
Goetz, Hans-Werner, Life in the Middle Ages: From the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century, trans.
Albert Wimmer, ed. Steven Rowan (1986; Notre Dame, IN, 1993).
Jaritz, Gerhard, Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit: Einführung in die Alltagsgeschichte des
Mittelalters (Vienna and Cologne 1989).
Lüdtke, Alf, ed., The History of Everyday Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of
Life, trans. William Templer (Frankfurt a. M. 1989; Princeton, NJ, 1995).

Zimmermann, Gerd, Ordensleben und Lebensstandard: Die cura corporis in den Ordensvorschrif-
ten des abendländischen Hochmittelalters (Münster 1973).

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Hiram Kümper
Death
A Introduction: Death and the Medievalists

I Discovering Death: the Late Emergence of a Fundamental
Subject
For the last few decades, the cultural practices surrounding death and dying have
been an extremely prominent subject on medievalists’ agendas. Inspired by
cultural theory, scholars from a variety of disciplines have discovered death and
mankind’s awareness of its own mortality as “first rank generators of culture”
(Assmann 2000, 14).
Until the late 1970s, however, more broad-ranging research on death and
dying in the Middle Ages was relatively sparse, with Alberto Tenenti’s La vie et la
mort à travers l’art du XVe siècle (Tenenti 1983) and Thomas Boase’s Death in the
Middle Ages (Boase 1972) being two noteworthy exceptions. Just as Johan Huizin-
ga had done in his classic The Waning of the Middle Ages (Huizinga 1924, 134–46),
Boase stresses the late-medieval morbid feeling of a “fin de siècle,” the contrast
between the splendor of the here-and-now and the fear of possible torments in the
beyond. Both Huizinga and Boase posit that a major reason for the seemingly
sudden proliferation of death imagery in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
was the fact there was an increase in the actual visibility of death, produced by
the terrible epidemics of the time, such as the Plague. Tenenti, on the other hand,
stresses that a humanist view of life emerged earlier than is usually thought and
that much of late-medieval death imagery was evidence of an intellectual insur-
gency against, or a certain melancholy about the inevitability of dying. Both these
studies, Boase’s and Tenetini’s, can be seen as forerunners of the turn to the
history of mentality that would finally lift death as a prominent subject onto the
tableau of Medieval Studies in the late 1970s.
II Modern Classics: Philippe Ariès and Michelle Vovelle
Thanks to the rising interest in cultural history and the history of mentalities,
death, which is a fundamental experience in all societies and times, was soon
studied by scholars from every discipline. Two foundational studies that particu-
larly revitalized medievalists’ interest in death and its cultural embedding came

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from France: Philipp Ariès’s The Hour of Our Death (Ariès 1981; published 1977 in
the French original L’Homme devant la mort) and Michel Vovelle’s La mort et
l’Occident de 1300 à nos jours (Vovelle 1983). Considerably earlier actually than
these two works of reference, however, the history of death has haunted its
authors and other historians of what came to be called the Annales school (see
Burguière 2009, 163–94; French orig. 2006). Ariès’s and Vovelle’s earlier studies
on the subject of death date back to the 1940s. But it was not until the publication
of Ariès’s The Hour of Our Death that the subject gained wider recognition by an
international scholarly audience from across the disciplines, and even by an
interested public. Even today, Ariès’s monograph is the most frequently quoted
work on the subject of the history of death and dying, even though its broad-
scaled narrative certainly did not fail to attract critics (e.g., Borst 1980; Wilhelm-
Schaffer 1999; for an interesting case-study-test of Ariès’s theses, see Besten
1996). A little later his preliminary studies, including Western Attitudes Toward
Death, a series of lectures that he presented at Johns Hopkins University in 1977,
attracted considerable interest. (One should be careful not to confuse these books
with each other.)
Ariès suggests that Western practices of mourning developed in four over-
lapping stages that mirror the changing cultural attitudes toward death. He begins
his observations with the “tamed death” (mort apprivoisée) of the high Middle
Ages, when death was accepted as an integral and collectively shared part of life,
and the dead occupied a place in the lives of the living (also see B below). This
stage transitioned into a stage in which there was an individualized understanding
of “one’s own death” (mort de soi). According to Ariès, the transition between the
first and second stages was characterized by a rising awareness to prepare for the
final hour, which now felt more horrifying because individual eternal salvation
was at stake. The new intimacy of private life was reflected by more intimate
mourning rites. The stage of the mort de soi is followed by that of the mort de toi,
“the death of the other,” which occurs at the end of the Ancien régime. In this stage,
the death of beloved ones becomes a locus of great affection and its representa-
tions. Death is romanticized and invested with a sentiment that is both morbid and
erotic. Moreover, mourning is relegated to the private sphere. This stage, marked
by the segregation of private mourning and public life then gradually shifts into
the even more rigidly “forbidden death” (mort interdit) of our contemporary age.
The individual vanishes into mass society and talking about death becomes taboo
to a certain extent. Death and mourning are perceived as a disharmonic intrusion
into a life in which the pursuit of (momentary) happiness is the central imperative.
Mourning, Ariès proposes, becomes impossible in this stage.
Though Ariès’s four stages of mourning are seldom utilized as actual structur-
al devices in historical or literary studies of the Middle Ages, his grand narrative

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316 Hiram Kümper
has inspired many scholars across the disciplines. He later supplemented his
best-selling study with a volume on the history of the imagery of death (Ariès
1983). Vovelle’s study has never gained as wide a reception outside academia as
Ariès’s has. Still, his work is recognized as being just as fundamental as Ariès’s to
the scholarly study of death. Vovelle proposes that there was a definite change in
the attitudes toward death that happened as the Baroque culture of the seven-
teenth century changed into the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. At that
point, death changed from the ultimate penance for mankind’s sins into a natural
inevitability. Vovelle sees this change expressed by waning fear in purgatory, fire
of hell, and eternal damnation. Still, as Vovelle goes on to argue, the marked
divide between the discourse of death during the Ancien régime and that of
modern times was not simply due to cultural secularization. Rather, he sees
repeating dialectic patterns throughout the intellectual history of the West. For
instance, there were debates about how to commemorate the dead between those
argued for austere simplicity and those who wished to honor both the dead and
God by pompous displays. Vovelle’s book had all it takes for an inspiring debate
with Ariès’s theses, and indeed, both scholars had debated with each other for
about a decade, until Ariès died in 1984 (for a good summary of this debate, see
Hutton 2004, 113–28). Many of their differences of opinion, however, pertained to
themes and materials from the early modern era, especially the Baroque, so much
of this debate has not reached Medieval Studies. Vovelle’s book has only once
been translated into another language (Italian, La morte e l’Occidente dal 1300 ai
giorni nostri (2003), a fact that may have contributed to his relative obscurity
outside academic circles.
III More Recent Studies on Death in the Middle Ages
Beginning in the late 1970s, research on the cultural context of death and dying
blossomed. This research resulted in a large number of essay collections: Sitto,
ed., 1979; Braet and Verbeke, ed., 1983; Borst, Patschovsky, et al., ed., 1993;
Alexandre-Bidon, ed., 1993; Wenninger, ed., 1998; DuBruck and Gusick, ed.,
1999; Bruce and Marshall, ed., 2000; Walker Bynum and Freedman, ed., 2000—
and these are just the collections that focus more or less exclusively on the Middle
Ages! It also resulted in such a plenitude of single monographs that it must by
now elude any critical bibliographic assessment.
However, two recent monographs that tie together observations from various
disciplinary perspectives are Paul Binski’s Medieval Death (Binski 1996) and
Norbert Ohler’s Sterben und Tod im Mittelalter (Ohler 1994). Both aim to provide
students and general readers with compact and broad overviews. While Ohler

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intends to draw a comprehensive picture that is easily digestible for a general

readership, Binski pays more attention to scholarly debates and bibliographic
references and has also compiled a useful annotated bibliography (Binski 1996,
215–21).
In the last decade, scholars have continued to pay attention to medieval ideas
and practices regarding death and dying. Yet recent articles and essay collections
tend to be increasingly specialized. A number of specific studies shall therefore be
discussed in the following sections.
B Living with the Dead

I Memoria as Culture
To understand medieval notions of death and dying, we must consider the large
extent to which the dead were an integral part of everyday life in the early Middle
Ages (Geary 1994a; McLauglin 1994; Williams 2006). This does not necessarily
mean that stories of ghosts or voices from the after-world circulated, though they
certainly did, and they were not as opposed by the Church as they would be in the
early modern period (Schmitt 1999; Körner, ed., 2002). Many medieval ghost
stories are contained in the collection of exempla, Dialogus miraculorum, written
by the German Cistercian Master of Novices, Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180–
1240). The living did not merely fear (or hope) that the dead might come back for
a visit once in a while. Rather, the dead never really socially left the community.
As Patrick Geary puts it, “Death marked a transition, a change in status, but not
an end…. The dead were present among the living through liturgical commemora-
tion, in dreams and visions, and in their physical remains, especially the tombs
and relics of the saints. Omnipresent, they were drawn into every aspect of life.
They played a vital role in social, economic, political, and cultural spheres”
(Geary 1994a, 2). Otto Gerhard Oexle (1983; ed., 1995) has condensed the idea that
the dead were ever-present to the living into the formula “memoria as culture,”
which has become famous among medievalists.
Especially in the early and high Middle Ages, liturgical commemoration
within the monastic orders helped create spiritual communities across wide
geographic distances. In their necrologies, monks and nuns in their monasteries
and nunneries commemorated not only numerous brothers and sisters of their
orders from all over Europe but also the various benefactors of their institutions.
With the twelfth-century monastic reform, however, this identifying function of
necrologies by and large came to an end (Wollasch 1989). Though the number of
masses celebrated for the dead increased somewhat throughout the later Middle

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Fig. 1: London, British Library, Harley 2915, f. 43v: Last Judgment scene from an English Book of
Hours (ca. 1440/50).

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Ages, the necrologies and confraternity books of these times do not seem to
demonstrate that religious houses identified themselves with supra-regional com-
munities, but rather with local networks. Still, there are illustrative counterexam-
ples to this general trend, even in the later Middle Ages (cf. Geuenich 2011).
On a smaller, more local scale, the concern for proper memoria created new
networks, especially in the cities (Tracy 2009). Mendicants, monastic orders, and
beguines competed for donations pro remedio anime (‘for the healing of the soul’),
while confraternities were concerned with commemorating their deceased mem-
bers (Banker 1988; Jensen 2004). Some even specialised in assisting people during
their last hours. In the sixteenth century, after the Council of Trent (1545–63), the
Societas Jesu (founded in 1540) was especially active in this respect (Ebner 2005).
II Fear of the Afterlife and the Birth of Purgatory
We can only understand the central place that the dead occupied in both medieval
Christian thought and in everyday life by their profound alignment toward the
afterlife. The dreaded uncertainty of what awaits the individual beyond the earthly
existence was amplified even further when the fear of hell became increasingly
more important in early Christian thought (Bernstein 1993). Jean Delumeau (1990)
has characterized the pre-modern West as having a specific type of “guilt culture,”
in which the fear of death and eternal damnation dominates life so much that life
becomes centred on its own end and structured by a series of rituals that are
designed to prepare the individual for that end. Still, for early medieval indivi-
duals the question of afterlife remained rather open during their lifetimes. One
could never really tell if one was welcomed to heaven or condemned to hell. The
long line of deadly sins, however, made hell the more likely place.
Only in the twelfth century then, the two-fold eschatological landscape of
heaven and hell was gradually invaded by Purgatory, an in-between space and
time, a locus for the cleansing and propitiating of the soul. Now, people could
actively work for their own salvations, not only during their lifetimes, but also
through the good deeds and prayers of the bereaved (which the dead might have
secured for themselves during their lifetimes). The now-classic study on the
emergence of the idea of Purgatory is Jacques Le Goff’s famous Birth of Purgatory
(Le Goff 1990; French original 1981). Though considerable criticism was soon
raised against many of Le Goff’s broad assumptions (see, for example, Edwards
1985) and a lot of details have been added to the general picture, his book, for
good reasons, is still cited by virtually any study that engages with the medieval
idea of Purgatory (for more recent accounts of this subject, see Dinzelbacher 1995;
1999; Illi and Haas 1994; Marshall 2009).

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Concerns about individual salvation intensified in the late Middle Ages,

maybe partly because large epidemics, such as the Plague, put death on daily
display (Boase 1972; Esser 1999). Ultimately, we have to consider that for the
medievals, both intellectuals and ordinary people, ideas of death and the afterlife
must have been closely linked with concerns about eschatology, although ideas
and death and eschatology have usually been treated separately by medievalists.
Caroline Walker-Bynum and Paul Freedman have acknowledged that the separa-
tion is counterproductive (Walker Bynum and Freedman, ed., 2000; also cf.
Aertsen and Pickavé, ed., 2002; and Dinzelbacher 1999). In the last few years,
more monographs and collections of essays have dealt with eschatology, espe-
cially ideas of the apocalypse, in medieval times (a Brill compendium on the
medieval apocalypse is about to be published by Michael Ryan in 2015, which will
include an extensive and up-to-date bibliography).
C Thinking Death: from a “Philosophy of Death”

(meditatio mortis) to an “Art of Dying”
(ars moriendi)
I The Patristic Foundation and its Scholastic Heirs
Contemplating the nature of death has a long tradition. Early Christian thinkers
built upon the ideas of their classical forebears, such as Cicero, Seneca, or Epicte-
tus. Some medievals used classical modes of contemplation, such as the etymologi-
cal interpretation of the Latin word mors (cf. Spoerri 1999, 211–25). Others were
more elaborate in their discussions of the nature of death and the process of dying.
Among the most influential early texts on the meditatio mortis are Ambro-
sius’s Liber de bono mortis (PL 14, 559–96), Cyprian’s De mortalitate (CSEL 3.1,
295–314), and the chapter De morte in St. Augustine’s Enarratio in Psalmum 48
(PL 36, 555–58). To get a much broader idea of the range of patristic concepts
concerning death and dying, however, one must check the plenitude of references
to the lemma de morte in the index volumes to the Patrologia Latina (PL 120,
197–212), as a broad-ranging monograph on the subject is still missing.
Most of the patristic texts suggest meditation on death not so much as a
preparation for the last days but rather as a tool for leading a pious life in the
actual present. This idea never vanishes completely from the texts of the later ars
moriendi tradition, although it steps to the background. In the pastoral tradition,
the focus is on caring for laypeople, but the idea of memento mori lives on in the
monastic and the mystic traditions. Illustrative examples of the memento mori

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tradition are the Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem (PL 184, 1199–1306) and
the epistle Ad Romanum Romanae Curiae Subdiaconum (PL 182, 240–41), both
written by Bernard of Clairvaux (ca. 1090–1153) (for Bernard’s concept of death,
also see Pranger 1992), or Bonaventura’s (1221–1274) contemplation on death, De
mortis inevitabili necessitate (III.2 of his Soliloquia).
The general tone of many early Christian texts on death may seem at first
surprisingly positive. Indeed, many patristic writers viewed death as a transi-
tional stage, as some kind of sleep that only bridged the time between life and the
time when all bodies would be resurrected in imitation of Christ. Consequently,
many cautioned their readers not to forget the joyful and victorious experience of
Christ, who had conquered death (see, for instance, Augustine, Confessiones,
IX.12, 29–32, on the occasion of the funeral of his mother, Monica).
From the eleventh century onward, an increasing number of theological
writings began to contemplate on the inevitability of death, the ephemeral char-
acter of this world (contemptus mundi), and the hope for a better afterlife in Christ.
Probably one of the most influential texts of this genre was written by pope
Innocent III (1160/61–1216), De contemptus mundi sive de miseria conditionis
humanae (PL 217, 701–76). However, there were also many such texts in the
vernacular, usually shorter ones, such as the well-known poem Von des todes
gehugede (Ehlert, ed., 1994) by Heinrich of Melk (twelfth century). A late represen-
tative of this literary genre is Bernhard of Siena’s (1380–1444) widely circulating
Speculum peccatorum de contemptu mundi. But this work already breathes the air
of another tradition, the literature of pastoral and lay assistance, which we shall
discuss in the next paragraphs.
II Assistance for the Dying
Certain rites for attending the sick and the dying are known even from the earliest
times. Still, early Christianity does not seem to have developed strict rituals for
this purpose. Only during the early Middle Ages did spiritual assistance became
more ritualized (Paxton 1990). The emergence of rites performed in preparing for
death is probably connected to the shifting attitudes of early Christianity toward
death from confidence to fear. No longer was eternal salvation the first thing that
medieval people associated with death; now, they thought of penance and the
Last Judgment (Fig. 1). Éric Rebillard plausibly attributes this shift in attitudes to
the influence of Augustine and his contemporaries (Rebillard 1994, 18–19; 62–63;
also cf. Cavadini 2000). Philippe Ariès then has pointed to the reflections of this
shift in church architecture (Ariès 1981, 97–101). Extreme Unction became the
heart of the death ritual, and it was accompanied by prayers, psalms, and lita-

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Fig. 2: London, British Library, Royal 11 D IX, f. 152r: Deathbed assistance to a dying bishop.
Scene from a French manuscript of the Decretum Gratian (late thirteenth or early fourteenth
century).

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nies for the salvation of the dying. Consequently, by the twelfth century, rites that
helped people prepare for death had grown considerably (see, for instance, Franz,
ed., 1912, 71–89). The late medieval ordo (‘ritual’) for the visitation of the sick that
was utilized by the English church (Ordo ad visitandum infirmum, printed in
Maskell, ed., 1882, vol. 1, 66–82) provided detailed instructions for the priest not
only regarding the administration of the Sacrament of Penance and the Eucharist,
but also regarding the organization of the street procession that preceded a burial.
By the late Middle Ages then, the quest for salvation increasingly focused on
the believer’s very last moment in the deathbed (Fig. 2). People envisioned the
moment of death as a struggle between good and evil, the latter sometimes
represented in art by demons sitting beside the deathbed. Many late medieval
carvings and manuscript illustrations depict this scene as decisive for the soul’s
salvation. Still, at times it could be difficult to get the assistance of a priest in
one’s very last moment. Therefore, increasingly, laypeople were instructed how to
attend the spiritual needs of the dying.
Among the earliest and most widespread sets of instructions for lay people is
the anonymous Admonitio morienti et de peccatis suis nimium formidanti (PL 158,
685–88), which was attributed to Anselm of Canterbury (ca. 1033–1109) and
hence is often titled simply Quaestiones Anselmi. This short set of questions that
should be asked of the dying person travelled throughout Europe not only in its
original Latin form, but also in various translations and adaptions (Maskell, ed.,
1882, vol. 3, 413–19; Kümper, ed., 2007, 99–101; 116–17; 122–25).
III The Art of Dying (ars moriendi)
The Anselmian questions were taken up by the Parisian chancellor and prominent
pastoral theologian Jean Gerson (1363–1429) in his Médicine de l’âme (Medicine for
the Soul). This work was the third part of his Opus tripartitum, which was written
before 1408 and circulated in both Latin and French (for a facing-page critical
edition, see Gerson 1998; for a useful discussion of this classical text, see Brunelli
1964, Schönberger 2002). Gerson’s ars moriendi, along with its close relatives, the
anonymous Speculum artis bene moriendi and the illustrated Ars moriendi, would
become the most influential treatises on dying of the later Middle Ages.
The Speculum was written ca. 1414/18 and spread rapidly in different manu-
script versions, its dissemination probably stimulated by the Council of Con-
stance. Beginning in the 1450s, various versions and vernacular translations of
the text circulated as incunabulae. There is still no critical edition of the text
because its highly complex textual history makes it hard to determine which text
is the primary one. However, a number of critical editions of individual texts have

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been published (cf. Akerboom 2003). Building upon the Speculum, the incunabula
of the Ars moriendi, which combined text and block-printed pictures, became one
of the bestsellers of the fifteenth century (cf., for instance, Renger 1994). Many
later pastoral handbooks and catechetic writings for lay people, such as Stephan
of Landskron’s (1412–1477) Hymelstrasz or Marquard of Lindau’s (d. 1392) com-
mentary on the decalogue borrow elements or even whole passages from both the
Speculum and the illustrated Ars moriendi that deal with the art of dying well (see
Rudolf 1957 for details of this textual tradition, and Kümper, ed., 2007, for an
anthology of exemplary texts).
The multifaceted texts of the ars moriendi tradition served a double function.
First, they reminded believers of the inevitability of death, so that none would die
unprepared; second, they prepared not only the dying person but also those who
assisted him in his last hours. Consequently, these texts widely circulated also in
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century reform circles. Both Erasmus of Rotterdam (Bie-
tenholz 1978) and Martin Luther (Wicks 1998; Akerboom 2003) devoted extensive
writings to the art of dying well. “Many books have been written … on how we are
to prepare for death: nothing but error, and people have only become more
downcast” (Luther, transl. from Reinis 2007, 1). Luther, however, by this dis-
misses the importance of giving hope to the dying, as is articulated by the late
medieval Speculum-tradition. The transformation in attitudes toward the art of
dying and the literature devoted to this art that happened during the Reformation
has been well-studied in the last few years. There have been intensive studies on
England (Duffy 1992, 313–27; Houlbrook 1998, 147–82; Marshall 2002), France
(Carbonnier-Burkard 2000), Spain (Eire 1995), and Germany (Reinis 2007).
IV The Dance of Death
A fascinating heir of the ars moriendi tradition is the French Danse macabre, an
allegory of the universality of death, just like the (usually quite unallegorical)
earlier medieval memento mori. The term “Danse macabre” first appears in the
fourteenth century in a poem by Jean Le Févre, entitled Le respit de la mort (Le
Févre 1969, 133, ll. 3078–80). In English, it is usually referred to as the “Dance of
Death,” a name that is echoed by most other European languages (Danza della
Muerte; Totentanz; Dodendans).
In the Dance of Death, people from all groups of society dance in pairs along-
side a personification of death, usually a skeleton. The skeleton dances with a living
person and wears clothes that are similar to this person’s clothes. The dancers
usually include emperors, kings, and popes, but the extent of the pictorial program
varies greatly and there also may be craftsmen, labourers, peasants, and women.

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Medieval and Renaissance Dances of Death are preserved in a great number

of different media, from monumental murals to illuminations in misericords,
paintings on wooden panels, and illustrations in printed books (Oosterwijk 2007;
Gertsman 2010). Some of the most prominent and oldest Dances of Death, such as
those in Basel or Lübeck, have been destroyed in the past two centuries. However,
because these pieces have long fascinated researchers and travellers, drawings or
even photographs of the destroyed pictures have usually survived. Consequently,
a large number of exhibition catalogues make available a lot of material in all
different sorts of media (see Collins 1977; Heppe and Knirim, ed., 1982; Mildner-
Flesch and Krüger 1982; Kasten, ed., 1987; Schuster, ed., 1992). Utzinger and
Utzinger (1996) have compiled a comprehensive catalogue of extant and de-
stroyed medieval Dances of Death. One of the most recent studies of the subject
was conducted by Elina Gertsmann (2010); her work is not only richly illustrated
but also includes a good selection of untranslated texts in the original Spanish,
French, English, and German (Gertsmann 2010, 181–252),
According to most scholars, the sixteenth century was a period of transition
for the Dances of Death. Gradually, the straightforward parallel between Original
Sin and the coming of death into the world, so characteristic of the symbolism of
the medieval Dance of Death, begins to vanish. In later depictions, the Dance of
Death becomes only an episode (though certainly an inevitable one) within
the ever-repeating history of mankind that stretches from the Creation until the
Last Judgment (cf. Gertsmann 2010, 161–80). This transition started with Niklaus
Manuel Deutsch’s monumental painting of 1516/19 in Bern (destroyed in 1660)
and came to its peak probably with Hans Holbein the Younger’s Les simulachres &
historiees faces de la mort, cut by Hans Lützelburger and first published in 1538 by
the brothers Trechsel in Lyons.
D Performing and Representing Death

I Burial
We have already mentioned liturgical rites for the bedside assistance of the dying
in the paragraphs above. Processions that took place before the burial were
organized by even more formalized rites (Fig. 3). The three substantial volumes
edited by Hansjakob Becker and his collaborators (ed., 1997–2004) are a helpful
repository of burial and deathbed liturgies from Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and
Jewish traditions. Only few studies, on the other hand, have investigated the role
of music in medieval funeral ceremonies and processions for the dead (Ameln
1989; Heymel 2003).

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Fig. 3: London, British Library, Additional 52539, f. 7r: Funeral scene from an Italian Book of
Hours (ca. 1390/1400).
In contrast to pagan Germanic traditions, Christian tradition dictated that believ-

ers had to be buried in consecrated ground. For a long time, “consecrated
ground” would have meant the walled churchyard, the enclosed area of a mon-
astery, or even the respective church itself (Zadora-Rio 2011, for France). Even in
the later Middle Ages, the local elites chose a burial place as near as possible to
one of the altars of the local church, preferably, of course, the main altar. This
was not only a matter of public display, but it also reflected the deeply religious
demand to be as near as possible to the spiritual power (the virtus) of the saint’s
relics that were deposited in the altar. From the thirteenth century onward, the
rising mendicant orders frequently had to struggle with the urban clergy over
burrial rights (and the fees that could be collected for burials).
It was not until the later Middle Ages that cemeteries were sometimes
detached from their parish churches. These cemetaries were usually located out-
side of the city walls. Population growth and epidemics such as the Plague made
this necessary. Later, the Protestant Reformation and its refusal to venerate the
saints stimulated this process even more. Late medieval and especially early
modern cemeteries would not necessarily have been places of constant mourning
or quiet, inward devotion. According to many contemporary accounts, sometimes
they were rather lively meeting places (cf. Harding 2002, 101–13).

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II Tombs and Epitaphs
Beyond their pragmatic function as mere containers of dead bodies, tombs

have, from the earliest times, expressed people’s attitudes toward to death and
dead bodies. A classic survey of tomb sculpture, From Ancient Egypt to Bernini,
was published by the godfather of iconography, Erwin Panofsky (1964). Despite
its overarching approach, this study remains an inspiring account and is well
worth reading by any medievalist interested in tombs. More recent works in
medieval and Renaissance studies usually focus instead on single tombs or groups
of tombs, such as Philipp P. Fehl’s and Rainer Fehl’s study of the tombs of popes
and princes in St. Peter’s, Rome (Fehl and Fehl 2007) or Marek Walczak’s article
on the Gothic tombs of the Kings of Poland in the Wawel Cathedral in Cracow
(Walczak 2013).
Epitaphs frequently represent an even more complex media of commemora-
tion for the individual (Guthke 2006; Friedrich 2008). Early Christians tended to
anonymize graves by burying the corpses ad sanctos (i.e., near the Saint’s relics).
People gradually began to use epitaphs in the twelfth century, and more inten-
sively from the fourteenth century onward. Often, epitaphs were crafted during
the lifetimes of the deceased. Hence, cultural historians have long recognized
them as important sources for understanding medieval modes of self-represen-
tation. Georg Misch, for instance, begins his well-known literary history of
autobiographical writing with the descriptions of the lives of deceased people
on Egyptian tombstones (Misch 1949, 25). During the late Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, the inscriptions of tombs and epitaphs excessively glorify the
dead.
In the first centuries of the Middle Ages, monumental graves were reserved
for the elites of society: kings, nobles, and high clerics (Spieß and Warntjes, ed.,
2012; Bijsterveld 2011). Their deaths were often cited as exemplars of the art of
dying. With the rise of the medieval city and its political importance, however,
burghers also frequently had themselves buried in monumental tombs. A fre-
quently cited, seminal work on commemorative architecture that spans the period
from antiquity to the nineteenth century is Howard Colvin’s Architecture and the
After-Life (Colvin 1991).
Select Bibliography
Bayard, Florence, L’art du bien mourir au XVe siècle: Etude sur les arts du bien mourir au bas
Moyen Age à la lumièr d’un Ars Moriendi du XVe siècle (Paris 1999).
Binski, Paul, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (New York 1996).

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328 Hiram Kümper
DuBruck, Edelgard E. and Barbara I. Gusick, ed., Death and Dying in the Middle Ages (New York
1999).
Geary, Patrick J., Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994). [= Geary 1994a]
Gertsman, Elina, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, Performance (Turnhout
2010).

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Jan Wehrle
Dreams and Dream Theory
A Late Antique Foundations of Medieval Dream

Theory
The discourse surrounding dreams was always concerned with their origins
and significance. The idea that dreams might be mediators of supernatural knowl-
edge or even reveal future events was both ancient and common. Influential
classical philosophers such as Plato (428/427–348/347 B.C.E.) and Aristotle
(384–322 B.C.E.) had been compelled to comment on the subject (Kruger 1992, 18;
Manuwald 1994; Näf 2004, 55–62; Walde 2012).
Medieval dream theory relied heavily on authorities from classical and late
antiquity. Initially, Western scholars relied on a Christian tradition of dream lore,
which later went alongside Neoplatonist teachings. A thorough re-evaluation of
the dream phenomenon took place during the time of high scholasticism, after
the works of Aristotle on natural philosophy, as well as Arab and Greek medical
literature, had been translated into Latin.
Neoplatonist dream lore, as exemplified by the influential writings of Calci-
dius (ca. early fourth century C.E.) and Macrobius (ca. early fifth century C.E.),
attempted to merge earlier, dualistic traditions of dream lore, which had postu-
lated either a physical or a transcendental origin for dreams. The Neoplatonists
devised coherent systems that ranked dreams hierarchically, according to the
amount of “truth” they contained (Kruger 1992, 17–21). Calcidius discusses both
dreaming and waking visions within the wider context of his Commentary on
Plato’s Timaeus. He briefly describes four types of dreams and one type of waking
vision. One of the dreams is the purely mundane dream, while the others are, to
differing degrees, inspired by celestial agents or higher functions of the soul
(Kruger 1992, 24–33; Näf 2004, 168–69). Macrobius takes a similar, but more
comprehensive, approach in his commentary on Cicero’s (106–43 B.C.E.) Som-
nium Scipionis. Cicero’s text describes a dream vision experienced by Scipio the
Younger, which prompted Macrobius to comment exhaustively on the phenomen-
on of dreams. In the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, Macrobius describes five
types of dreams, two being insignificant, three significant. Insomnia are mundane
dreams, caused by distress of the body or the mind. Visa (or phantasma) arise
from imagination, but can manifest themselves as specters or incubi during that
state when one is not fully awake yet not fully asleep, either. These two types of
dreams are counted among the mundane dreams, but touch on the transcenden-

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tal. The somnium is a veridical dream that provides the dreamer with transcen-
dental knowledge, but its meaning is hidden in allegorical form and requires
interpretation. The visio and the oraculum are dreams of truly revelatory nature.
Within the former type of dream, the dreamer sees future events as they are about
to happen; within the latter, a figure of authority appears and reveals future
events to the dreamer (Kruger 1992, 21–24; Macrobius 1970, 9–11; Näf 2004,
169–70). Both Calcidius and Macrobius thus defined what has been called a
“middle ground” of dreaming. Within this middle ground, best represented by
Macrobius’s somnium, dreams contain truth, but in hidden or distorted form.
These kinds of dreams were not considered to have been directly inspired by the
divine. Instead, they were supposed to have been mediated by the higher func-
tions of the soul or by celestial agents; as such, they required interpretation
(Kruger 1992, 19–20; 32–34).
While the reception of Neoplatonist philosophy had a profound impact on
perceptions of dreams during the Middle Ages, the scholastic approach to the
subject was for a long time dominated by a Christian tradition of dream lore. As
the pagan philosophers had demonstrated, questions concerning the origins of
dreams were linked to questions regarding relationships between the human and
the divine, as well as questions about the nature of the soul. Accordingly, the
Church Fathers and their successors were encouraged to comment directly or
indirectly on the phenomenon of dreaming. Christian theologians were conflicted
in their approach to dreams, however. Holy Scripture describes prominent dream
revelations and veridical dreams, including Jacob’s dream of the Ladder (Genesis
28: 10–19), the dreams and dream interpretations of Joseph (Genesis 37: 1–11, 40,
41), and the visions and interpretations of Daniel (Daniel 2; 4; 7–12). In the Liber
Numerorum 12: 6–8, it is announced that God would speak to prophets by
appearing to them in visions or dreams, a statement mirrored by Job 33: 15–16.
Veridical dreams and revelations are known in the New Testament, as well: for
example, the warning to Joseph delivered in a dream in Mattheum 2: 19–2.
At the same time, the Bible explicitly condemns the practice of divination in
Leviticus 19: 26 and Deuteronomy 18: 9–11, warning against false prophets and
deceiving illusions. Ecclesiastes 34: 1–6 explains that dreams are meaningless,
unless they are sent directly from God.
It was especially the equivocal “middle ground” of dreaming that concerned
the Doctors of the Church. They were not willing to rule out a transcendental or
even divine influence on some dreams, but ambiguous dreams of the somnium
type could not easily be accepted as divine visions. Evil influences on ambiguous
dreams could not be ruled out, and, consequently, dream interpretation might be
erroneous and lead to sin. Christians had to observe a fine and not always clearly
drawn line between legitimate dream interpretation and forbidden divinatory

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Dreams and Dream Theory 331
practice (Busse 1994, 52–53; Kruger 1992, 7; 35; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 90–98;
Biblia Sacra Vulgata 2007; see F, below).
The most influential Christian authors on the subject of the dream were
Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.) who discussed the nature of the soul, visions
and dreams in De genesi ad litteram, and Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604
C.E.) by way of Moralia in Iob and the Dialogi.
Augustine’s work outlines a range of dream types that are reminiscent of
Neoplatonist dream lore. Martine Dulaey assumes that both Augustine as well as
Calcidius and Macrobius ultimately relied on the same source: namely, the teach-
ings of Porphyrios (ca. 233–305 C.E.) (Dulaey 1973, 90–92). In his epistemological
writings, Augustine differentiates between three kinds of vision: corporeal, spiri-
tual and intellectual. An external object seen by corporeal vision is translated into
an internal, non-corporeal image that can be experienced by the non-corporeal
soul through spiritual vision. Such spiritual images can be recalled from memory
during sleep. These remembered images can be combined to form new images.
Such “dreamt” images can also be of transcendental origin, however. In this case,
the soul perceives spiritual images which are presented by spiritual agents such
as angels, who “commingle” their spirit with that of the dreamer. Augustine
cautions that spiritual images could also come from demons disguised as angels.
These “angels” might even disclose useful information in what is ultimately a
ploy to deceive their victims. Whether a dream is divinely inspired or not,
intellectual vision is needed to understand and interpret the perceived images.
The ability to interpret dreams is granted only to men who strive for intellectual
and spiritual wisdom. Augustine also discusses the moral implications of dream-
ing. As reason is impaired during sleep, one cannot be made responsible for
things seen or done in dreams or physical consequences of those dreams, such as
nocturnal emissions (see the exhaustive discussions in Dualey 1973; Kruger 1992,
35–56; Näf 2004, 161–64; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 99–103). Attitudes toward noctur-
nal emissions during the Middle Ages are further examined in Wittmer-Butsch
1990, 211–26).
Pope Gregory the Great (540–604) relies on a tradition of Patristic dream lore,
which originated from the considerations of Tertullian (ca. 150–220 C.E.). Patristic
dream lore postulated the existence of three types of dreams: good dreams sent
directly from God, evil dreams sent by demons, and dreams that resulted from
images seen throughout the day. Gregory expands on this system, considering
physical factors and mixed, ambiguous dream forms. He postulates a six-tier
dream classification. According to Gregory, there are two kinds of mundane
dreams, caused by either an empty or a full stomach. Demons can cause deceptive
illusions, and such illusions can also mingle with the dreamer’s own thoughts
(cogitatione simul et illusione). One can receive true, angelic revelations, but these

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revelations can again be mingled with the dreamer’s thoughts (cogitatione simul
et revelatione). Gregory is even more skeptical than Augustine that his fellow men
could correctly discern the origins of dreams. Gregory implies that this ability is
granted only to holy men. Consequently, Gregory goes further than Augustine in
warning against an imprudent belief in dreams and generally discourages at-
tempts at dream interpretation. Gregory’s writings were prominently employed by
Isidore of Seville (ca. 556–636 C.E.), who used both Gregory’s dream lore as well
as Augustine’s epistemological theory in his Liber sententiarum. Isidore again
emphasized the possibility that dreams could be demonic deceptions and ex-
pressed a deep mistrust of dream interpretation. Both Gregory’s dream lore and
Isidore’s very skeptical approach to the dream became doctrine among the
clerical elite and dominated attitudes during the early Middle Ages (Busse 1994,
54–55; Gregory the Great 1979, VIII, 42; Haag 2003, 52–54; Kruger 1992, 35–56; 60;
Näf 2004, 153; 173; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 105–08).
B Dream Theory during the Early Middle Ages

During the Carolingian Renaissance, Western scholars examined the topic of the
dream, but they basically followed the established authorities, Gregory and Au-
gustine. In their comments on the Iconoclastic Controversy and the Second Coun-
cil of Nicaea (787 C.E.), the composers of the Libri carolini (ca. 790 C.E.) insisted
that the truthfulness of supposedly veridical dreams could not be verified, as
dreams were experienced privately and there could be no witnesses to them. They
emphasized the fundamental difference between divine visions and regular dream
experiences and repeated Gregory’s sentiment that the former were granted only
to saints. The examinations of Alcuin (735–804 C.E.) were mainly founded on
questions of morality. His concern was that even meaningless dreams might lead
people to commit sinful deeds. As a consequence, he advised against acting on
dreams, even though he did believe in the veridical nature of some of them.
Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856 C.E.) tried to reconcile Holy Scripture’s contra-
dictory stances toward the dream, but in the end followed Gregory’s authority,
advising that it was better to avoid dream interpretation altogether. The very
popular legend of saint Swithun by the Benedictine monk Ælfric (955–1020 C.E.)
expressed the same sentiment (Busse 1994, 55–56; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 110–14).
Veridical dreams were respected phenomena, however, if they appeared
within the adequate social and religious contexts. Dreams were recorded and
could be interpreted within the spheres of royalty and members of the clergy. In
the Carolingian empire, accounts of dreams were used to chastise royalty and
nobility, read as signs that legitimated one’s deeds, and similar purposes. The

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practice of recording and employing such “political dreams” would continue

throughout the Middle Ages (Busse 1994, 53–55; for an exhaustive discussion see
Dutton 1994 and Hehl 2012; see also below, E).
The dismissive attitude that impeded scholastic occupation with the dream
phenomenon started to change, beginning in the eleventh century, when social
and ideological developments led to a re-evaluation of dreams. The interpretation
of dreams was no longer limited to royalty and clergy, as dreams of laymen and
even women were recorded and analyzed (Busse 1994, 57–58; Le Goff 1977;
Schmitt 1999, 277). The distribution of late antique literature on the subject was
still limited and Gregory’s dream lore remained dominant, although it must be
noted that the Neoplatonist tradition of dream lore was already available in parts
of the Latin West during the early Middle Ages (Kruger 1992, 58–59). Attitudes
toward dreams remained ambivalent; the monk Onulf (ca. eleventh century C.E.)
presented Neoplatonist and Christian dream lore side by side in the Vita Popponis
(ca. 1050 C.E.), recommending the reader to consider the advice of the heathen
philosophers whenever they didn’t contradict Church doctrine (Haag 2003, 52;
Kruger 1992, 68). Adam of Bremen (ca. second half of the eleventh century) was
familiar with the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, but took a deprecatory
stance toward members of the clergy who concerned themselves too much with
dreams (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 127–30).
All in all, scholastic considerations of the dream during the early Middle Ages
appear to have been rare, as a dependency on Gregorian dream lore and an
attitude that saw only holy men or the highest members of the clergy in a position
to ‘safely’ interpret dreams, seems to have been the rule. It has to be noted,
though, that there is much room for additional research concerning early medie-
val assessments of dreams, though the work of Paul Edward Dutton is a notable
exception to the rule (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 103–04).
C Dream Theory and the Twelfth-Century

Renaissance
During the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, there was a distinct scholastic interest
in dreams, spurred by an influx of newly translated Arab and Greek literature into
the West. Neoplatonist philosophy and dream lore became important influences
on medieval scholasticism. This development initially emanated to a prominent
part from scholars, such as William of Conches (ca. 1080/90–1154 C.E.), who are
associated with the intellectual movement represented by the School of Chartres.
William discussed the dream lore of Calcidius both in his comments on the

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Timaeus as well as in De philosophia mundi and the Dragmaticon. William is also

among the early scholars who echoed Aristotelian ideas about the somatic forma-
tion of dreams (Kruger 1992, 64; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 115).
As far as the Neoplatonists were concerned, it was especially Macrobius’s
five–part categorization of dreams that found its way into the medieval discourse
of the twelfth century. John of Salisbury (ca.1120–1180 C.E.) cited the five dream
types of Macrobius in his Policraticus, and expanded on them in one of the most
exhaustive medieval discussions of dreams. John concerned himself with the
basic problem of dream interpretation, the inherent ambiguity of symbolic
images. His conclusive approach has been identified as an early theory of dream
semantics. He pointed out that dream images could have multitudes of meanings,
depending both on how familiar the symbols are to the dreamer, as well as on his
personality (Le Goff 1977, 306; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 134–38).
Macrobius’s dream lore was also widely distributed since it was featured
prominently in the very popular De spiritu et anima (ca. 1170), which was falsely
attributed to Augustine (Schmitt 1999, 278–79).
The early translator of Arab and Greek sources, Adelard of Bath (ca. 1080–
1152 C.E.), adapted Macrobius’s system, but modified it by linking the process of
dreaming to matters of digestion and mental health. Greek and Arab medical
tradition had long employed dream interpretation for medical diagnosis and
regarded physical and psychological factors on the basis of Humorism as major
causes for dreaming. This tradition was introduced to the Latin West by such
works as Gerard of Cremona’s (ca. 1114–1187 C.E.) translation of al-Kindi’s (ca.
800–873 C.E.) Liber de somno et visione, which was in part indebted to Galen (ca.
129–200/16 C.E.). Other important works that connected dream interpretation to
medical diagnosis became available in Latin translation: Algazel’s (ca. 1058–
1111 C.E.) Metaphysics, Avicenna’s (ca. 980–1037 C.E.) Liber canonis, and Rasis’s
(854–925 C.E.) Liber ad almansorem. The Liber thesauri occulti (ca. 1165 C.E.) of
Pascalis Romanus was a compilation of dream lore that quoted not only Macro-
bius and Aristotle, but also the Oneirocriticon of Artemidoros (ca. second century
C.E.) and Achmet’s (653/654–728/729 C.E.) work of the same name, as well as
medical treatises on the dream (Kruger 1992, 68–73).
Neoplatonist and medical dream lore were distributed alongside the well-
established Christian tradition. Honorius Augustodunensis (1080–1154 C.E.) de-
scribed Patristic dream lore, with its three-tier classification of dreams, in his
Elucidarium, a popular catechism that was translated into French and German
during the thirteenth century. The Elucidarium is of special note, as it was one of
the main sources for the Lucidarius, a German summa preserved in 66 manu-
scripts that provided laymen with general and religious knowledge (Haag 2003,
54; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 116, Schmitt 1972, 5).

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The dominant authority on the dream amongst scholars remained Gregory,

however. His thoughts on the subject were contained in two of his most popular
writings, the Moralia in Iob and the Dialogi, which both enjoyed wide distribution.
His six-tier dream classification was furthermore included in the Disticha cantonis,
a common medieval school text. The works of the equally prolific Isidore of Seville
also found wide distribution, further promoting Gregorian and Augustinian teach-
ings about the dream. Both Gregory’s and Augustine’s works were employed as
textbooks at the major schools and universities, such as Paris, and their works
remained foundational well into the fifteenth century (Kruger 1992, 59–62).
Scholars of the twelfth century generally agreed that some dreams might
indeed be divine and beneficial. However, the very skeptical stance taken by the
Christian tradition of dream lore continued to influence the discourse. Thomas of
Froidmont (ca. second half of the twelfth century) described Gregory’s scheme of
dream classification, but recommended that the dreamer disregard his dreams
entirely as he believed that a belief in prophetic dreams was irreconcilable with a
belief in God (Kruger 1992, 83–84). A similar sentiment was expressed by Peter of
Blois (died ca. 1204 C.E.), who saw any attempt to gain knowledge of the future as
a sin, even though he conceded that some dreams might indeed contain truth
(Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 139–40). Such suspicion of dream interpretation continued
well into the late Middle Ages. Penitentiary manuals such as Robert Mannyng’s
Handlyng synne (ca. 1303 C.E.) referred to Gregory and repeated the century-old
advice to leave the matter of dreams to the clergy (Busse 1994, 57).
Scholars and poets also showed a tendency to correlate the moral conduct of
a dreamer with the kind of dreams that he or she experienced. Richard of
St. Victor (died 1173 C.E.) and Alain de Lille (ca. 1116/17–1202/03 C.E.) reinter-
preted Augustine’s teachings in a way that emphasized the relationship between
the dreamer’s moral conduct and state of conscience and his ability to perceive
the truths revealed by dreams. Hildegard of Bingen (ca. 1098–1179 C.E.) explicitly
linked bad moral conduct with a susceptibility to demonic dreams, and good
moral conduct with a susceptibility to angelic dreams. Hildegard was also careful
to point out that her own visions had not appeared in sleep, thus illustrating the
suspicion that dreams were potentially deceptive. She did, however, express the
belief that a soul unburdened by sin could indeed gain transcendental knowledge
during sleep. Her writings on the subjects of dreams and visions are also note-
worthy, as they are among the few works on dreams of that period that rely more
on original thought than on the teachings of late antique authorities (Kruger 1992,
76–78; Schmitt 1999, 279; 281; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 130–33).
Some scholars took a cautious departure from the Gregorian tradition of
disregarding the dream. Adelard of Bath had approached the topic of veridical
dreams quite positively. Scholars such as Peter the Venerable (ca. 1092–1156 C.E.)

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and the German theologian Rupert of Deutz (ca. 1075/80–1129 C.E.) described
veridical dreams that they had experienced themselves (Wittmer-Butsch 1990,
119–26). As a result of his extensive examinations of dreams, John of Salisbury
allowed that dreams could be determined to have value on the basis of moral and
religious considerations. His status as a respected authority not only helped the
distribution of Macrobius’s dream lore, but encouraged educated discussions and
considerations of the dream among members of the clergy. Still, John condemned
dream diviners and regarded the use of dream books as a superstitious practice, a
sentiment that represented the consensus of his educated contemporaries (Busse
1994, 58; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 134–38).
In a summary of the dream theories of the twelfth century, Maria Elisabeth
Wittmer-Butsch states that even though some prominent scholars were convinced
that the soul could indeed gain knowledge from dreams, the majority warned
against a too naïve belief in dream interpretation. This caution was partially
founded on the still ongoing fear of demonic influence on dreams, but scholars
also increasingly pointed to the inherent vacuity of dreams that were caused by
psychosomatic processes, as well as to the polysemy and equivocal nature of
dream images (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 141).
D Dream Theory and High Medieval Scholasticism

The translation of Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy, beginning in the
early thirteenth century, lead to a profound re-evaluation of the dream. Aristotle’s
teachings had already indirectly influenced the dream discourse, but his out-
spoken denial in the Parva naturalia of both the prophetic value and the super-
natural origin of dreams stands in radical contrast to late antique dream theories.
According to Aristotle’s “systematic, naturalistic, and rationalistic analysis of the
world” (Bartlett 2008, 31), dreams are caused by vapors rising in the body during
sleep; these vapors then loosen impressions that the sensory organs have re-
ceived during the day. The central senses become aware of these impressions
during sleep, which leads to the impressions manifesting as dreams. Aristotle also
links the disposition of a sleeper’s body and mind to the qualities of his dreams.
He concedes that dreams might reveal certain truths about a person and might be
related to future events. For example, hidden illnesses might first manifest
themselves in the form of dreams, or dreams might convince a person to act in a
certain way. Aristotle denies that dreams have a transcendental nature and favors
psychosomatic explanations, although he is not willing to completely rule out the
possibility that some dreams could indeed be divinely influenced (Aristotle 1996;
Bartlett 2008, 29–32; Kruger 1992, 83–85; Näf 2004, 60–62).

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Similarly, few scholars were willing to fully deny that some dreams might
have a divine origin, as that assumption would have been incompatible with the
prophetic visions of the Bible and legends of saints. Certain scholars, such as
Boethius of Dacia (died 1284 C.E.) and Adam of Buckfield (ca. 1220–1294 C.E.)
embraced Aristotelian dream theory almost completely, however. Boethius of
Dacia himself extensively analyzed the diverse natural causes of dreams (Kruger
1992, 86–87). In the early thirteenth century, the University of Paris was sentenced
for the heresy of teaching, amongst other things, that raptures and visions were
purely natural phenomena (Busse 1994, 59–60).
A more common approach to the dream during the period of high medieval
scholasticism was an attempt to present the teachings of Aristotle alongside the
established dream doctrine or even merge the two traditions through eclectic or
synergetic methods. Scholars could refer to Gregory, Augustine and Macrobius
whenever a possible supernatural origin of some dreams was discussed and at the
same time employ Aristotle’s teachings to further theorize about psychosomatic
and other explanations for mundane, or internal, dreams. Bartholomaeus Angli-
cus (ca. 1190–1250 C.E.) followed such an eclectic approach in the encyclopedic
De proprietatibus rerum, relying on recently translated authorities such as Galen,
Aristotle, Constantine the African (1017–1087 C.E.) and Avicenna as well as on the
established sources of Christian and Neoplatonist tradition. His approach was
mirrored by other encyclopedists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
including, according to Steven F. Kruger, Ramon Llull (1232–1315 C.E.), Pierre
Bersuire (ca. 1290–1362 C.E.), and Robert Holcot (1290–1349 C.E.) (Kruger 1992,
89–99).
An extensive theory on the subject of the dream was developed by Albertus
Magnus (1193–1280 C.E.) in his commentary on Aristotle’s Parva naturalia and his
treaty De somno et vigilia. This dream theory was then most notably adapted by
Vincent of Beauvais (ca. 1184/94–1264 C.E.) in the Speculum maius.
In his work, Albertus is careful to point out that he examines only the natural
and philosophical properties of dreams. He does not attempt to answer theologi-
cal questions concerning such dreams that were indeed supposed to be divine
revelations.
Albertus agrees with the Aristotelians insofar as basic principles regarding
dream formation are concerned. Albertus therefore regards most dreams as pure
products of the imagination, combinations of memories and physical influences
that act on the soul. As he believes in a psychosomatic source for dream forma-
tion, he recognizes that many dreams of supposedly supernatural nature are
instead rooted within the self. Albertus further argues, however, that some
dreams may indeed reveal knowledge of future events. According to him, “beings
of the highest order” move the celestial bodies, and these celestial bodies, in turn,

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exert influence on humanity by way of their light. This influence is transmitted to

the soul by way of the body. The soul is much more receptive to celestial
influences during sleep, and then interprets these celestial influences in the form
of metaphorical images. In an approach that is somewhat indebted to the work of
Moses Maimonides (ca. 1135/38–1204 C.E.), Albertus develops a ten-tier system of
dreams that describes the range of possible combinations of physical and celes-
tial influences on the dreamer.
His dream theory interestingly led to a certain recognition of men who were
able to interpret metaphorical dreams via astrological and other means, although
he himself cautioned that, when interpreting dreams, the psychosomatic causes
for dreaming always had to be accounted for. Albertus furthermore warned
against unreasonable dependence on dreams, citing the dangers of interpreting
pure coincidence or self-fulfilling prophecies as divine influence. Dream images
were caused by the fundamental principles that moved the world, not by the
future events themselves. True divination, in the sense of the determination of a
causal connection between dreams and future events, was therefore impossible;
dream images, if interpreted as metaphors, could only hint at possible truths
(for an exhaustive discussion, see Slenczka 2012, 143–60. Also see Kruger 1992,
99–113; 119–22; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 143–50. For Maimonides’s and other Jewish
scholars’ work on the dream, see Lehnardt 2012.).
In contrast to his mentor Albertus, Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274 C.E.) took
a somewhat distrustful and more traditional approach to the dream. In his Summa
theologiae, he comments on dream interpretation while dealing with the topic of
superstition. He sees dream interpretation as an attempt to gain knowledge of the
future and therefore thinks it illegitimate hubris.
Thomas acknowledges instances in which God made knowledge available
through dreams, as he did in biblical revelations. Thomas was concerned with
the difficulty of differentiating between divine revelations and meaningless
dreams, and he was even more fearful of the influence demons could have on
dreams however, through spiritual images. In the Summa contra gentiles, Tho-
mas recommends the reader to only pay attention to dreams that have a clear
message and that encourage ethical conduct. Thomas also recognizes the influ-
ence that external factors such as stars or the weather can have on the forma-
tion of dreams, although he is careful to emphasize that celestial bodies can not
influence the free will of an individual (Slenczka 2012, 139–40; Wittmer-Butsch
1990, 150–52).
The impact of Aristotelian thought changed medieval dream lore, and the
rather benevolent deliberations of Thomas Aquinas and especially Albertus Mag-
nus may have allowed the development of more sophisticated and open-minded
considerations of the dream phenomenon (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 153).

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From the perspective of natural philosophy, the examination of a dream

could be detached from any theological concerns. Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320/25–
1382 C.E.) regarded dreams as psychological phenomena. When John Travisa
(1342–1402) translated and commented on Bartholomaeus’s De proprietatibus
rerum, he argued that the individual should have the authority to interpret one’s
dreams. The individual significance of dreams had come to the foreground,
diminishing the Church’s authority in interpreting and assessing dreams. Aris-
totelian theory did not, however, replace the dream lore of late antiquity.
Boccaccio (1313–1375 C.E.) consciously decided to ignore Aristotle’s teachings
about dreams and continued to rely on the established authorities, Augustine
and Macrobius (Kruger 1992, 98–99). Petrarch (1304–1374 C.E.), himself not a
believer in the veridical properties of dreams, still considered both Calcidius
and Macrobius as authorities on the subject and reflected the plurality of
opinions on the nature of dreams. In the fifteenth century, William of Vaurouil-
lon (ca. 1390/94–1463) employed both Christian and Neoplatonist dream lore in
the Liber de anima (Busse 1992, 62–64; Kruger 1992, 59–64; 86–89; 118–19;
Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 162–63). Late medieval scholars were familiar with various
theories and could draw from an extensive discourse on dreams. During the
period of high medieval scholasticism, the topic of the dream had become both
vivid and accessible.
E Dreams and Literature

The notable interest in dreams that one can infer from the number of scholastic
considerations is mirrored by the prominent role dreams take in medieval litera-
ture. A. C. Spearing explains the appeal of the dream as a literary device in this
way: “Many of the themes, genres and conventions of medieval literature—
romance narrative, allegory, debate among symbolically embodied principles,
religious revelation, and so on—are non-realistic. They belong to the world of the
mind, could not be part of anyone’s objective experience, and might therefore
appropriately be framed in dreams” (Spearing 1976, 2).
The use of the dream as a framing device was especially popular during the
late Middle Ages. Kathryn L. Lynch names the period from the twelfth through the
fourteenth century “the Age of the Dream Vision.” To some modern scholars, the
dream frame defines its own distinct genre of medieval literature, the “dream
poem” (exhaustive: Lynch 1988; Spearing 1976). It is, however, important to note
that the literary dream visions of the Middle Ages developed from a long tradition
of both classical as well as Judeo-Christian vision narratives (Spearing 1976,
6–23).

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A prominent topic in classical literature was the journey to the afterlife, such
as in Virgil’s (70 B.C.E.–19 C.E.) Aeneid. While Aeneas’s journey to the underworld
is physical, classical literature also knew purely “spiritual journeys,” as in the
Somnium Scipionis, which of course employed a dream as a framework for the
journey. Similar to these classical “otherworldly journeys,” one finds near-death
acting as a ‘gateway’ to transcendental places, to a locus amoenus or to a place of
punishment, already in late antique Christian and early medieval visionary litera-
ture (Spearing 1976, 6–11).
In the Dialogi, Gregory the Great describes an allegorical vision of a mortally
wounded soldier, who then returns to life. In his Historia ecclesiastica gentis
anglorum, Bede (ca. 672/73–735 C.E.) retells the Vision of Drycthelm. Drycthelm,
while lying seemingly dead, is granted a vision wherein an angel takes him to
Hell and the Earthly Paradise, successfully admonishing him to mend his ways in
order to avoid damnation. Walafrid Strabo (ca. 809–49 C.E.) put to verse the
Visio Wettini. The monk Wetti, lying on his deathbed, is led through the under-
world by an angel, observing the punishment of sinners. Amongst the tormented
sinners, Wetti observes Carolingian officials, members of the clergy, and even
Charlemagne himself, who must suffer contrapassio punishment for their sins,
before they are forgiven (Dinzelbacher 1989, 40–41; 52–53; Spearing 1976, 11–16).
While visions experienced during near-death-experience are not technically
dream-visions, they defined and shared the conventions of the genre.
Literary dream visions of the high Middle Ages were also influenced by a
tradition of philosophical personification allegory, masterfully exemplified in as
in De consoliatione philosophiæ by Boethius (ca. 480–524/25 C.E.), which became
one of the most widely distributed and influential secular works of the Middle
Ages. The prosimetrical work takes the form of a dialogue between Boethius’s
lyrical self and the personification of philosophy. The Lady Philosophy appears
not to a dreaming, but a desperate Boethius, in a way reminiscent of the author-
itative oraculum of Neoplatonist dream lore (Spearing 1976, 18–24).
Peter Dinzelbacher’s seminal work makes apparent the significance of vision
narratives for medieval literature. He identifies over 225 spiritual visions written
down between the sixth and the fifteenth centuries. Of these, a majority of
70 percent was written down after the beginning of the twelfth century. The most
popular of these vision narratives was the Visio Tnugdali, which was written down
in Latin around 1149 and had been translated into fifteen languages by the end of
the fifteenth century (Dinzelbacher 1981, 13–28; 39–45; 1989).
It has to be noted that Dinzelbacher’s listing does not differentiate between
dream visions and ecstatic visions (see Haag 2003, 20–26 for an excellent discus-
sion of this issue). The question of whether or not texts that use the dream as a
framing device indeed constitute a genre of their own is not without controversy.

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Themes commonly associated with dream visions or dream poems are also ex-
plored in works that render their narratives in ecstatic visions or make do without
any apparent framing device. The use of the dream as framing device still
shouldn’t be dismissed as merely an accidental use of a literary convention, as “a
poet makes choices among conventions for specific reasons […]” (Lynch 1988, 3;
4–11). The dream form gains even more significance, as some medieval poets have
their narrators explicitly refer to the literary tradition of the dream vision or reflect
on scholastic dream discourse. The most influential dream poem of the Middle
Ages, the Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris (ca. 1230–1240 C.E.)
and finished by Jean de Meun (ca. 1260 or 1270), explicitly puts itself in the
tradition of the Somnio Scipionis and reflects the significance of dreams on the
basis of Macrobius’s Commentary. The dream poems of Geoffrey Chaucer (ca.
1343–1400 C.E.) demonstrate his profound familiarity with both classical and
Christian traditions of visionary literature and dream lore. Chaucer provides a
humorous but learned discussion of the dream in House of Fame, while the
dreamer in Parliament of Fowls falls asleep while reading the Somnio Scipionis.
The dream vision is used as a framing device also in the Book of the Duchess and
the Legend of Good Women. William Langland (ca. 1332–1386 C.E.) employed the
dream vision as framing device in Piers Plowman. The protagonist of the Pearl
(ca. late fourteenth century) experiences a dream vision, as does the protagonist
of Boccaccio’s Il Corbaccio (ca. 1355). The Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri
(ca. 1265–1321 C.E.) is a recursion to classical journeys to the afterlife—it is, after
all, Virgil himself, who leads the protagonist through the underworld—and not
framed within a dream, but masterfully employs the conventions of the genre
(Busse 1994, 61–62; Kruger 1992, 130; Spearing 1976, 3–5; 24–40; 48–110).
Apart from their use as framing device, dreams are also a common motif in
epic poetry. Within their enclosing narratives, these literary dreams foreshadow,
warn, promise, and instruct. They can provide structure to a narration, offer
psychological insights into characters, or hint at the metaphysical machinations
of fate. They are usually symbolic, and often their meaning becomes apparent to
the dreamer only after they come true. Some notable literary dreams of this kind
are, for example, Herzeloyde’s and Parzival’s dreams in Wolfram von Eschen-
bach’s Parzival (ca. 1205 C.E.) and Kriemhild’s dreams of the hawk and later of the
boar in the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200 C.E.; cf. Dinzelbacher 1981, 40–42; Classen
1992, 19–23). We even find important dreams in such fifteenth-century prose
novels as Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken’s Herzog Herpin (1437 C.E.) where
God sends a messenger to King Charles informing him that he must stop persecut-
ing his presumed enemy, Herpin, who is really the legitimate heir to the Dukedom
of Berry and deserves to be acknowledged by the rather foolish and irrational
French king.

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342 Jan Wehrle
The dream is also an important motif in Old Norse literature. Dreams feature
in all of the three original Old Norse genres of Eddic poetry, Skaldic poetry, and
Saga, with the clear majority encountered in the latter. Together, the historio-
graphic saga genres, that is: Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), Sagas of
Bishops (Biskupasögur), Sturlunga saga, as well as the Kings’s sagas collected in
the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson (1149–1241 C.E.), feature around 300 dreams
(Jónasson 1986, 470). This doesn’t include the many dreams encountered in the
more fantastic saga genres.
In general, the dreams encountered in Old Norse literature share the func-
tions of those found in continental literature. They predict the fate of a character
or his or her descendants, they warn of impending harm (or predict it, at least),
they provide counsel through figures of authority, and they provide religious
revelations or visions of events that transpire far away. Dreams are also used to
justify political claims to power, as for example the dreams of the Norwegian king
Sverrir Sigurðarson (ca. 1145/1151–1202 C.E.), recorded in the Sverris saga, which
was composed under close supervision of the king himself.
The dreams of Old Norse literature stand out as they are, to an extent,
detached from the Christian and classical traditions that are reflected in continen-
tal, courtly literature. Alongside Christian imagery and concepts, they often
feature images and concepts associated with pagan and heathen belief, such as
family fetches or guardian spirits. As the Sagas of Icelanders describe a social
class unique in medieval Europe, the free farmer (bóndi) and chieftain (goði), they
offer a very interesting insight into dreams as they are experienced outside the
spheres of church and nobility (Jónasson 1986; Lönnroth 2002; Schmid 2012).
The dreams of Old Norse literature should not, however, be regarded as an
isolated phenomenon. Continental doctrine, scholasticism, and literature were
known and reproduced in Iceland. The Gregorian influence on Icelandic depic-
tions of dreams has long been apparent, and the dreams recorded in the sagas of
bishops and kings draw heavily from Latin hagiographic and historiographic
literature, in turn influencing saga literature as a whole (Boyer 1973; Roberts
2006; Turville-Petre 1972; 1968).
Still, Old Norse literature is unique in its combination of continental and
original traditions, for which Gísla saga Súrssonar (ca. thirteenth century
C.E.) is a prominent example. It retells the life of one of the most famous Icelandic
dreamers, Gísli Sursson (ca. tenth century C.E.). Throughout his life, Gísli dreams
of two women, one good and one evil. The good dream woman consoles Gísli and
urges him to lead a good life, the evil one terrifies Gísli and predicts his violent
end. The dreams are recounted both in prose, as well as in skaldic verse, which
predate the Saga. The dreams of Gísli demonstrate a fascinating amalgamation of
Christian ethics, pagan imagery, and original, artistic thought (Langeslag 2009).

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F Dream Books
Belief in divination was regarded as pagan superstition, and, as such, was
attacked by both worldly and clerical authorities. This was especially true in the
early Middle Ages, when attempts to establish Christian doctrine met with rem-
nants of heathen culture. Pope Gregory II (669–731 C.E.) issued a decree that
explicitly instructed his bishops in Bavaria to inform the populace about the
vacuity of dreams and auguries. The Admonitio generalis of Charlemagne’s reign
went so far as to decree that all kinds of divination should be punished with
death. At the Council of Paris (829 C.E.), mantic practices, among them dream
divination, were explicitly condemned as being of heathen origin. In contrast to
Charlemagne’s draconian policy against diviners, the Council of Paris decreed
that the punishment for such activities should consist of a maximum of five years
of poenitentia publica (exclusion from the church), while pointing out that
heathen practices of the kind were still quite common. As time went on, the
hostile assessment of dream divination did not change: all divination remained
forbidden by canon law, as outlined in the Decretum Gratiani (ca. 1140 C.E.)
(Kruger 1992, 11–12; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 108–10).
In spite of such laws and statutes and all theological concerns and admoni-
tions, an interest in dream divination appears to have been both common and
widespread during the Middle Ages. Scholars dealing with the dream phenomen-
on often lamented the superstitious beliefs that were common among the popu-
lace or even their own peers. A more manifest indication of the popularity of
dream divination even among the literate classes is the high number of preserved
manuscripts of so-called “dream books.”
Dream books were intended to be used as manuals for the divinatory inter-
pretation of dreams. They are traditionally classified into three different types,
according to the methods of divination that are employed: “dream chancebooks”
(also known as “dream alphabets”), “dreamlunars,” and, most popular, the
“dream book” proper. The late Middle Ages saw the emergence of a fourth kind of
dream book, the “physiological dream book” (Fischer 1978, 26–27).
Dream chancebooks link possible meanings of dreams to the letters of the
alphabet. In order to interpret his dream, the dreamer is supposed to speak a
prayer, open a book at random, pick the first letter of the page he or she opened,
and then use the chancebook to find the significance of his or her dream. Some
chancebooks, circulated under the name of Somnile Josephi, require that the
dreamer use the Bible for this divinatory process.
Dreamlunars link the significance of dreams to the phase of the moon in
which the dream occurred; some of them cite biblical events related to lunar
phases. In many codices, a dreamlunar is paired with a dream book proper

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344 Jan Wehrle
(Martin, ed., 1981, 13–15). Neither chancebooks nor lunars address the actual
content of dreams in any way; their methodology, in fact, is shared by a wide
variety of texts dealing with divination of all kinds, not only dream divination
(Fischer 1978, 26–27; Kruger 1992, 7–9).
In contrast, the dream books proper address the contents of dreams and
provide interpretations linked to things seen or experienced during dreaming.
As these books offer only one fixed interpretation for each dream image, how-
ever, they are as “rigid and mechanical” as the chancebooks and lunars (Kruger
1992, 9).
The dream books proper descended from the work of Artemidoros, who
compiled older traditions of dream lore in his Oneirocritica during the second
century C.E. The most popular and widely distributed of all dream books was
called the Somnia Danielis. This compilation was translated into Latin (probably
in seventh-century Gaul, but no later than during the ninth century) from a
fourth-century Greek version. Latin versions of the Somnia Danielis are preserved
in more than 80 manuscripts that originate from all over Christian Europe and
date from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. Vernacular translations of the
Somnia Danielis were sometimes rendered in poetry, as in the English A bok of
sweuenyng. Verse renderings of the Somnia Danielis are found in Old and Middle
English, Welsh, Irish, Italian, Old French, Old Icelandic, and Early New High
German texts. Dream books were more widely available after the introduction of
the printing press, in a tradition still ongoing (Fischer 1978, 25; 28; Martin, ed.,
1981, 1–2; 13–62; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 177–81).
The dream books proper were often prefaced by a statement that reminded
the reader to consider, when attempting to interpret a dream, the lunar phase
during which the dream occurred, as well as the “class, sex and astrological sign
of the dreamer,” although the interpretations listed in the dream books did not
take these circumstances into account (Fischer, ed., 1982, 7). Like the Somnile
Josephi, the Somnia Danielis sought association with, and legitimation within,
Christianity through its title and a short preface which link it to the eponymous
biblical figure.
The dream interpretations of the Somnia Danielis were written in prose, and
topics were catalogued alphabetically. For dreams related to birds, for example,
one would find a list of interpretations under the headword “Aues.” According to
this entry, fighting birds signified anger, approaching birds signified personal
gain, dying birds signified loss, and so on (Fischer, ed. 1982, 33).
Since the Latin versions of the Somnia Danielis listed their headwords alpha-
betically, some vernacular translations kept the Latin headwords. Other vernacu-
lar translations translated the headwords, but kept them in their original order
(Phillips 2000, 42–43).

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The headwords and associated interpretations were taken from classical

dream topoi, only marginally expanded with some Christian imagery (Philips
2000, 247). Errors during the translation or copying of manuscripts often led to
differing dream interpretations, and the Somnia Danielis was, in general, subject
to “variations, misinterpretations, rationalizations, additions, and omissions,” as
Stephen Fischer puts it. Helen Phillips names one example: to dream that one is
eating a specific item is supposed to signify that one will come to harm in the
future, but the item in question is different in different Latin manuscripts, ranging
from thistles (carduos, cardones) to coals (carbones), hinges (cardines), or meat
(carnes) (Fischer 1978, 26; Phillips 2000, 241–43).
The physiological dream books fall into another category than the divinatory
dream books, as they were intended as manuals for medical diagnosis and were
based on Aristotelian dream lore. The genre of physiological dreambooks in-
cludes the works of Rasis and Pascalis Romanus (see above, C), as well as the
treatise Expositiones visionum que fiunt in somnis ad utilitatem medicorum non
modicum, probably composed by one William of Aragon (ca. fourteenth century
C.E.) but attributed to both Albertus Magnus and Arnald of Villanova (ca. 1235–
1311) (Fischer 1978, 29; Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 173–74; 182–84).
The popularity and wide distribution of divinatory dream books tell us much
concerning medieval attitudes toward dreams. For most of the time from the early to
the late Middle Ages, it must have been members of the clergy who copied, adapted,
and distributed these texts. This implies that the ostensibly strict Church doctrine
relating to superstition and divination was neither thoroughly enforced, nor fully
internalized, by the clergy. The Decretum Gratiani explicitly condemned the con-
sultation of the Somnia Danielis and pointed out that the book was falsely attrib-
uted to the biblical prophet; this condemnation apparently had little effect (Kruger
1992, 12–13). Even leaving aside official Church prohibitions, divinatory dream
books were in conflict with the learned medieval discourse on dreams. Scholars
open to dream interpretation emphasized the polysemy of dream images as well
as the necessity of considering the psychological and physical circumstances of
the dreamer. The simple linkage of sign and meaning in the Somnia Danielis did
not fit easily within this rather intricate scholastic discourse. Nevertheless, dream
books were copied and consulted by members of the same social class which
furthered the learned approach toward the subject. Maria Elisabeth Wittmer-
Butsch has pointed out an interesting discrepancy between the wide distribution
and large number of extant copies of the Somnia Danielis and the fact that there is
no documentation of its use during the Middle Ages (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 101).
The physiological dream books of the late Middle Ages represented the
scholastic discourse of their time better than their divinatory counterparts, as they
were rooted in Aristotelian dream lore. It was, however, the divinatory dream

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346 Jan Wehrle
books that were most widely distributed and most popular. They continued to be
circulated after the introduction of the printing press (Kruger 1992, 11).
Noteworthy authorities were sometimes at odds over whether or not dream
books were under certain circumstances allowable. John of Salisbury disapproved
of dream books, while Albertus Magnus took a benevolent stance at least toward
astrological dream interpretation, which, Maria Elisabeth Wittmer-Butsch argues,
also includes the use of dreamlunars (Kruger 1992, 14–16; Wittmer-Butsch 1990,
184–88).
Some theologians were compelled to counteract the superstitions associated
with belief in dreams or astrology. Augustinus Triumphus (1243–1328 C.E.) took
an exceptionally radical stance against visionary dreams, stating that communi-
cation between man and God by way of dream visions had not occurred since the
Christ’s death brought salvation to mankind. “Dream visions” were therefore
much more likely to be temptations of the devil. Jacopo Pessavanti (ca. 1302–1357
C.E.) pointed out that astrological and medical dream interpretation was prone to
error, and described mantic dream interpretation as a sin akin to the practice of
magic or necromancy. Later, Nicolaus Magni (ca.1355–1435 C.E.) expressed simi-
lar sentiments in the initially very popular Tractatus de supersticionibus (ca.
1405), which could be regarded as a precursor to the infamous Malleus Maleficar-
um (ca. 1486). In their very hostile assessment, these condemnations represented
not only a fallback to the early medieval rejection of the occupation with the
dream, but may be argued to anticipate the witch hunt obsessions of the early
modern period, as well (Wittmer-Butsch 1990, 156–61).
Dream books thus demonstrate further the ambiguity of medieval attitudes
toward the dream. Neither Christian doctrine nor natural philosophy could quell
the allure of dream divination; a fascination which seems to have continued well
unto this day and clearly signals how ancient pagan concepts have managed to
survive even in spite of religious opposition and remained a part of everyday life.
Select Bibliography
Dutton, Paul Edward, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln, NE, and London
1994).
Gerok-Reiter, Annette and Christine Walde, ed., Traum und Vision in der Vormoderne (Berlin 2012).
Haag, Guntram, Traum und Traumdeutung in mittelhochdeutscher Literatur: Theoretische Grund-
lagen und Fallstudien (Stuttgart 2003).
Kruger, Steven F., Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge 1992).
Spearing, A. C., Medieval Dream-Poetry (Cambridge 1976).
Wittmer-Butsch, Maria Elisabeth, Zur Bedeutung von Schlaf und Traum im Mittelalter (Krems
1990).

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Werner Schäfke
Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants
A History of Research
Since concepts of dwarves and gargantuan beings (giants) can be found in texts
of courtly, heroic-epic, and mythic character, they have been primarily under-
stood by most researchers as mythical beings, and only secondarily, after a
process of Literarisierung (turning into literary figures), as stock character types.
Since much comparative research on medieval Europe was based on recon-
structing an assumed common Germanic culture within a historical-comparative
framework, literatures that were not expected to have a link to Germanic
mythology have been neglected in the overall research on those beings. E.g.,
Celtic literature was not considered a fruitful field for researching dwarves or
giants (the only work on Celtic dwarves is Harward 1958; a discussion on the
existence of proper giants is given in Ciklamini 1961, 284–91), but instances of
these stock character types in Old French literature were understood as links
to their Germanic counterparts (Wohlgemuth 1906; Lütjens 1977 [1911]; Ah-
rendt 1923), since Old French Arthurian romance was thought to preserve rem-
nants of Germanic mythology regarding dwarves (Lütjens 1977). Also, texts that
more clearly have a “literary” character—and thus were regarded as of less value
for the reconstruction of “true” mythology—were less researched. The bulk of
mythological research on these beings concentrates on their occurrences in
Eddic lays and on onomastic material. But since dwarves and giants are found
in abundance in Arthurian romance, they were given a fair deal of attention in
literary studies in turn (Wohlgemuth 1906; Lütjens 1977; Ahrendt 1923). Even
more frequently, however, dwarves and giants feature in literature that is
derivative of Arthurian romance and characterized as “fairytale-like,” e.g., aven-
tiurehafte (aka märchenhafte) Dietrichsepik, Spielmannsepen and fornaldarsǫgur.
Dwarves and giants in those texts, however, were mostly researched regarding
their Stoffgeschichte and less examined in their overall role in the narrated
worlds, since these texts were considered by literary critics to be of low artistic
value. After the 1960s, the turn from literary criticism to a less evaluative and
more scientific literary studies led to a new interest in those stories. Thus, most
research on dwarves and giants in those texts was conducted by historical-
comparative Germanic philology that assumed that the only value of these late
texts lies in preserving some “true,” albeit disconnected common Germanic
features of those beings.

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348 Werner Schäfke
The literature held in highest esteem for the prospects of research on “lesser
beings” of common Germanic mythology were texts containing Old Norse myths,
especially Eddic poems and the Prose Edda (first half of the thirteenth century,
citing older poetry) as well as Heldendichtung, which includes the Nibelungenlied
and Vǫlsunga saga (late thirteenth century), but excludes the far better attested
genres of Bridal Quest Romances, e.g., late medieval Icelandic romances (aka
indigenous riddarasǫgur or lygisǫgur [“lie sagas,” i.e., non-factual sagas]) and
Middle High German Spielmannsepik. Old Norse mythology was thought to pro-
vide the clearest picture of Germanic dwarves, even though the opinion has
gained acceptance that works such as the Prose Edda (aka Snorra Edda) do not
simply preserve ancient Germanic myth. Especially the Prose Edda shows a high
degree of systematization, as it is not a mythology per se but a Gattungspoetik
(poetics of a specific genre) for Skaldic poetry written in Christian times that
supplies the mythological knowledge needed to use metaphorical system of that
genre. Old Norse mythology thus appears (a) more systematic, and perhaps more
consistent than ancient Germanic myths ever were (Maier 2003, 41–46), and
(b) shows significant parallels to classical and Christian traditions that are re-
garded to be the product of syncretism (See 1988). The same goes for Germanic
Heldendichtung. Even though Middle High German works such as the Nibelungen-
lied (ca. 1200) are older than the oldest extant versions of Old Norse fornaldarsǫ-
gur (mainly fourteenth to fifteenth c.) and Eddic poems (mid-thirteenth c.), both
convey their pagan-heroic matter at times when their respective literatures had
already been strongly influenced by courtly culture (Müller 2009). While this
survey presents the research on dwarves and giants within the boundaries deli-
neated by previous research, i.e., Old French, Middle High German, and Old Norse
literature (with a peak in Celtic literature), it attempts to supply a synchronic
ordering of the material based on the literary-historical development of the genres
the discussed literary characters are found in. Statements on the diachronic
development of dwarves and giants as mythical entities that were later incorpo-
rated into literary texts will be discussed critically below.
B Dwarves
In the research tradition, it has been established that dwarves are elements of
Germanic mythology that were introduced into Arthurian romance and later fairy-
tale-like narratives. Research on dwarves is usually interested in only one of those
kinds of sources, either mythological or literary. Most of the research was con-
ducted when either Romantic ideas of a common Germanic mythology were still
active (ranging from Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythology in the nineteenth century

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Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants 349
to Lotte Motz’s extensive work in the 1970s to 1990s), or where the history of

motifs and matters was a key concern of literary studies (Harward 1958; Lüt-
jens 1977 [1911]; Wohlgemuth 1906). While research on dwarves of Arthurian
romance and its follow-up genres limits itself to those genres, research on Germa-
nic dwarves sometimes include these “later” texts as well, as they are often
judged to preserve some “traditional” elements that can help to reconstruct the
common Germanic dwarf. It is never debated that there is no evidence for
Common Germanic dwarves because it never existed. It is obviously assumed that
the Common Germanic dwarf is unattested by any sources by mere chance.
Looking at the history of research on dwarves, it comes as little surprise that
they are either researched as mythological beings whose inclusion in medieval
folk belief is a debate going on for more than 135 years (e.g., Grimm 1992 [1875];
Gould 1929; Reichborn-Kjennerud 1934a; Motz 1973; 1993b; Battles 2005), or as a
literary stock character type (Boor 1924; Lagerholm 1927; Jakobsson 2008;
Schäfke 2010). Furthermore, it is also debated whether the dwarves in literature
are more or less identical with the dwarves of ancient or medieval Germanic or
Nordic folk belief (e.g., pro: Gould 1929; Reichborn-Kjennerud 1934a; Motz 1973;
rather contra: Battles 2005; clear contra: de Boor 1924; Lagerholm 1927, XXXVII).
Characters that are to be considered “Germanic dwarves” or “courtly dwarves”
are both found in Celtic, Old French, Middle High German, and Old Norse litera-
ture. Since the Germanic dwarf is found in Old Norse myths and features in Old
English literature most prominently in magico-medical treatises, it is assumed to
have been an element of common Germanic mythology, and that it has a root in
folk belief. In these contexts, the concepts of the dwarf and the elf show similar-
ities, hence the nature of the belief in them remains largely a product of the
historical-comparative method. Old French dwarves, nains, are thought to be
basically amalgamates of common Germanic tradition and Celtic dwarf-like char-
acters, the latter becoming known in Old French literature through Celtic Arthurian
legends that were re-interpreted with the rise of courtly literature (Wohlge-
muth 1906). While the stock character type of the courtly dwarf was obviously
transferred along with courtly romance from Old French literature to the Germanic
literatures, it is in some cases not entirely clear what characteristics of dwarves are
to be considered “truly” Germanic (i.e., common Germanic) and what to be courtly
innovations—a question that is only troubling when trying to reconstruct some sort
of historical archetype of a dwarf of an assumed common Germanic culture.
However, recent research still approaches dwarves from a diachronic per-
spective scrutinizing their characteristics as elements of common Germanic myth
and cult, and their medieval literary afterlife (Battles 2005). Following a never
ceasing interest in the history of literary motifs and matters, most recent research
has continued to illuminate the ways by which this stock character type was

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350 Werner Schäfke
transferred among European literatures, this time using cognitive semantics

(Schäfke 2011). However, the diachronic perspective has sometimes been
switched to a typological and rather synchronic one, re-evaluating what the base
characteristics of dwarves are (Jakobsson 2008; Schäfke 2010; 2012), as much of
earlier research was still heavily indebted to Grimm’s view of dwarves and judged
eclectically what was typical, e.g., dwarves being vengeful (pro: Lecouteux 1981,
372; Halvorsen 1958, 378; Motz 1993a, 623; moderating: Motz 1977, 48; Motz 1983,
110, 112 et passim), which they rarely are (Schäfke 2010, 266–67, fn. 249), and
even keeping the lid on literary evidence on female dwarves, the assumed lack of
which inspired tragical-comical fictional concepts of single-gender dwarf socie-
ties in Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring and Pratchett’s Discworld novels. Elaborating on
this example, Lotte Motz states that “the race of dwarves does not encompass
women” (cf. Motz 1993a, 623; Motz 1993b, 84–96), leading up to a Festschrift
article dedicated to her memory that asks “What Happened to Female Dwarves?”
(Liberman 2002). It is clear what happened: research willfully ignored them.
Dwarves are found in the heroic epics of Old French, Middle High German,
and Old Norse literature, in traditional Celtic literature, and in the Arthurian
romances of all medieval literatures. As Celtic dwarves are usually researched as
part of the Arthurian tradition, they are used for confirming literary historical
theories about the spreading of the Arthurian matter throughout national litera-
tures. As Celtic dwarves show characteristics that are, at least in part, also found
with Old French, Middle High German, and Old Norse dwarves, they are regarded
as their direct or indirect predecessors. As Arthurian romance is considered to
stem directly from Celtic tradition, Celtic dwarves had a direct impact on Old
French nains. As laid out below, Old French dwarves are either considered to be
influenced by common Germanic (mythological) dwarves, or the other way
around. Both opinions can be found in older German scholarship, so those
contradicting opinions cannot clearly be attributed to nationalist tendencies in
the writing of literary history, but are purely depending on Romantic axioms of a
pre-literary and thus thought-to-be mythological concept of dwarves pre-existent
to high medieval Old French and Middle High German literature. The scant
contemporary data on this rather independent concept is discussed below under
the label “Common Germanic and Ancient Nordic dwarf.” It is, however, difficult
to draw clear lines between Celtic dwarves and dwarves in Arthurian and heroic
tradition in other literatures, as Celtic dwarves in non-Arthurian texts are already
influenced by Celtic dwarves in Arthurian texts (Harward 1985, 20), just as all
other dwarves (except the ancient Nordic and Old English dwarves). When
abandoning neo-grammarian thought patterns that demand linear traditions, and
when regarding medieval European literature as so strongly interlinked as Stoff-
geschichte shows us, dwarves rather allow the conclusion that medieval European

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literatures borrowed character types, matters, and plots back and forth and
contacts between single “national” literatures were not confined to discrete
points in time and need not be unilateral. From the dwarf perspective, it seems
futile to raise national boundaries between medieval literary traditions with the
advent of courtly romance.
It is possible to establish clear dwarf motifs (e.g., the “grateful dwarf,” the
“dwarf smith” etc.). Many of the numerous instances of those motifs show strong
parallels that imply direct intertextual relationships, so it is often not possible to
judge which one of the texts is the one borrowing and which one lending or if they
both use a common stock motif. Only a fraction of medieval literature is extant
and, regardless of direct borrowing, medieval readers possessed an abstract
knowledge about stock motifs (Schäfke 2012). The following survey thus presents
dwarves (and later giants as well) sorted by their literatures (even though courtly
literature and the dwarf motif in particular show that national and/or language
boundaries are truly a relic of nineteenth-century research tradition), albeit only
dealing with the canonical literatures of France, England, Germany and the West-
Nordic countries. In the following the dwarf’s most distinctive features regarding
their appearance are being described, including their appearance, their habitat
and the motifs they appear in, also provided are an etymological discussion of the
language’s respective appellative for “dwarf” and of the dwarves’ personal names
and further onomastic material related to dwarves.
I Celtic leprechauns
The entities corresponding to dwarves in medieval Celtic literature are called

leprechauns. Harward (1958) includes later folklore in his study on dwarves in
Celtic tradition and Arthurian romance, as is usual in this line of research, just as
it is in research on Germanic dwarves, and thus also counts the Morganed and the
korrigans as dwarves. The former are supposed to be a little, handsome pagan
people the inhabitants of the Isle of Ouessant believed in since the last half of the
nineteenth century. The latter are an entity of early nineteenth-century Breton
folk belief. They are mischievous, hideous, small, black creatures with super-
natural powers that sometimes dwell underground.
Harward (1958, 19) summarizes that Celtic dwarves are, apart from being tiny
in size, either very beautiful or ugly. They thus show characteristics common to
dwarf character types in all the other medieval European literary traditions
examined here, and might well be their literary predecessors. Usually, single
literatures only show one trait apart from the diminutive size. Old French nains
and Old Norse dwarves are exceptionally ugly, even though in slightly different

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352 Werner Schäfke
respects. Middle High German dwarves are handsome, corresponding with their
predominant function as kings and knights which the other literatures do not use.
Celtic dwarves show a range of personal traits that are partially well known
from the other dwarf types. They are strong, just as Middle High German dwarves
(contrary to most Old Norse dwarves), they have clairvoyance, as is known from a
number of Old French nains, and are skilled in musical performance to such a
degree that they can charm the listener. They ride small steeds like Middle High
German dwarves and some Old French nains, unlike all Old Norse dwarves. Their
immortality is only matched by the longevity of the dwarf in the extant Latin
translation of the lost Middle High German epic Ruodlieb (late twelfth century).
Celtic dwarves live in various locations, which again are found to certain
degrees in the other literary dwarf traditions discussed here. They live on islands,
underground or under lakes or seas. They do not appear as sole individuals as in
Old Norse tradition but rather form kingdoms as in Middle High German tradition.
Their courts are numerous and the kings wealthy, possessing magical objects and
magical weapons.
Various roles, supportive as well as antagonistic, again found in the other
traditions, are filled by Celtic dwarves. Characteristically they can be “gracious
host, combative opponent, truculent servant, supernatural helper, abductor, seer
and betraying spy” and are associated with magic items (Harward 1958, 120).
II Old French Dwarves
There are two types of Old French dwarves, nains, and larrons, that are human
with dwarf-like characteristics. The Old French nain (from Latin nanus; Pi-
coche 2002, 375) signifies a supernatural being very similar to the Germanic
dwarves. The relation between the nains of Old French and the (ge)twerc of
Middle High German literatures has been debated in the early monographs on Old
French and Middle High German dwarves in Arthurian romance and heroic
legend during the beginning of the twentieth century (Wohlgemuth 1906; Lüt-
jens 1977), but rarely thereafter (Harward 1958). Wohlgemuth (1906, 98–99; 107)
argues that Old French nains adapted individual features from the common
Germanic dwarf but were also significantly influenced by real “court dwarves.”
Lütjens (1977, 6–15) shows traces of the Old French concept of nains in a number
of Middle High German texts, but also notes the differences between the typical
Middle High German concept and the Old French one (Lütjens 1977, 68). He
rejects the idea that “court dwarves” influenced literary dwarves (Lütjens 1977, 5).
Both Lütjens (1977, 5) and Harward (1958, 21–27) consider the evidence for medie-
val “court dwarves” too scant to derive a custom that could have influenced the

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concept of dwarves in courtly literature. Based on a number of individual ana-

lyses of dwarves in Old French literature, Harward (1958, 21–27) argues that the
concept of Old French dwarves is influenced by Celtic models (cf. Wohlge-
mut 1906, 105–07).
The distribution of nains and larrons varies greatly by genre. There are no nains
to be found in the Chansons de geste, only larrons. But nains feature in abundance
in Arthurian romance, where they constitute a strongly conventionalized stock
character type. Nains thus seem to be a courtly innovation (Wohlgemuth 1906, 96).
Vice versa the larron, which is rather a human with dwarf-like characteristics, is
mostly found in the Chansons de geste. Here he is usually associated with the
Christian side of the literary ensemble, and can rarely be found on the Saracen
side. Corresponding to that, jaiants, the Old French giants, are usually found on
the Saracen side in the Chansons de geste, as they form more demanding enemies
in combat. Just as larrons, they are again rarely found in Arthurian romance.
Wohlgemut (1906) establishes three types of dwarves, both in the Chansons de
geste and in courtly romance, which he calls “shrunken humans” (“verkleinerte
menschen”), “humans with traces of elfish nature” (“menschen mit spuren el-
bischer natur”) and “true nains” (“wirkliche nains”).
1 Larrons
Larrons are of human nature but show extensive dwarf-like features. Among the
larrons Wohlgemut (1906) counts Maugis (Maugis d’Aigremont, Renaus de Mon-
tauban), Basin, Serveins, and Malaquin (Jehan de Lanson), Fourchier (Girart de
Roussillon), Gebitus (Boeve de Haumtone), Espiet (Maugis d’Aigremont), Galopin
(Elie de St. Gille), Picolet (Bataille Loquifer), and Maubrun d’Aigremolée (Fiera-
bras) as well as Auberon (Huon de Bordeaux), Malabron (Gaufrey, Renaus de
Montauban), and Cramelin (Galiens li Restorés). With the exception of Auberon
(Huon de Bordeaux), Pippin, and Seguçon/Seguiton (Auberi le Bourgoing), how-
ever, larrons are never called nains, and the cases above might be influenced by
courtly literature (Wohlgemuth 1906, 83–85). Wohlgemuth (1906, 89) believes
the thieving larrons to preserve a trait of the Common Germanic dwarf (contra:
Lütjens 1977, 102).
Larrons are mostly found in the Chansons de geste and mostly belong to the
Christian side, unlike jaiants that are most often found among the Saracens. Only
the larrons Picolet, Gebitus, Maubrun d’Aigremolée, and Agrapars are Saracens
(Wohlgemut 1906, 96). The paragon of the larrons is Maugis d’Aigremont. He robs
various ladies, a treasure, and enemies’ weapons. He is also able to unlock any
door, and thus to break in or to escape from any place. Maugis, however, does not

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354 Werner Schäfke
appear as a larron but as a human in his “spin-off” Maugis d’Aigremont. Other

notable larrons that are considered by Wohlgemuth (1906, 90) to be based on
Maugis are Basin and Malaquin (Jehan de Lanson), Perdigon (Garin de Mont-
glane), and Fourchier (Girart de Roussillon). Such larrons need not be considered
vile in their texts, as they might only rob the rich, leaving peasants and travelers
in peace. There are a number of Saracen counterfeits of Maugis in other Chansons
de geste: Maubrun d’Aigremolée (Fierabras), Picolet (Bataille Loquifer), and Gebi-
tus (Boeve de Haumtone).
Maugis, Malabron, and Maubrun are lecherous, thus showing a vague resem-
blance to the quite frequent Middle High German dwarf kings who abduct virgins
to their hollow mountain homes. Larrons are fast, such as Auberon (Huon de
Bordeaux, Malabron (Gaufrey), Maugis (Renaus de Montauban), and Galopin (Elie
de St. Gille). Galopin is even able to stride alongside of a knight on horse. This
very feature is also known from the dwarf Lepus walking beside the mounted
eponymous protagonist in the Old Norse Gibbons saga. Malabron, Maubrun
d’Aigremolée, and Galopin are capable swimmers. Auberon and Malabron know
how to prophesy, just as the nain in Tristan and Lepus in Gibbons saga. Only
Galopin, however, owns a treasure. This feature is well known from Middle High
German narratives as well as the Old Norse Vǫlsunga saga and related texts,
where the dwarf Andvari curses the treasure the god Loki extorts from him.
Malabron (Maugis d’Aigremont, Renaus de Montauban) and Maugis (Huon de
Bordeaux, Fierabras) can shift their shapes, just as a number of dwarves in Old
Norse sagas do. In the Old Norse sagas and also the rest of Old Norse literature,
however, shape shifting occurs frequently in both courtly and heroic contexts and
this ability is not limited to dwarves but rather a usual power of magic users.
2 Nains
Wohlgemuth (1906) counts three groups of nains in the Chansons de geste, none

one of them being actual nains. First, there are characters insulted as nains. These
are Pippin (Ogier de Danemarche), Seguçon/Seguiton (Auberi le Bourgoing) and
Charlemagne (Girart de Roussillon). Then, there is Auberon in Huon de Bordeaux,
who is called a nain. The fact that Auberon is called a nain is explained by
Voretzsch (1900) with courtly influences on heroic epic. Lastly, there is an un-
named nain in Macaire, called Segonçon in a later prose version of the text,
perhaps alluding to above named Seguçon with whom he shows similarities. He,
however, also shows similarities to the nain Frocin in Béroul’s version of the
Roman de Tristan, and thus seems not to be an element native to heroic epic
(Wohlgemuth 1906, 95). The small human Agrapars in Aliscans is counted by

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Wohlgemuth (1906, 96) to the “shrunken humans” type of dwarves. He shows

that the Saracen Agrapars indeed looks like a miniature Saracen jaiant.
In courtly romance, however, nains are a highly conventionalized stock
character type (Wohlgemuth 1906, 98). They usually appear in the service of
knights or ladies, and are riding horses. Their services include saddling horses or
transporting hunting equipment. They also appear to be bad singers (Wohlge-
muth 1906, 103) in Durmart le Galois. The nain in Béroul’s Roman de Tristan is
also able to foresee the future, but, unlike the larrons Auberon and Malabron,
does this by means of astrology (Wohlgemuth 1906, 101). Humans with traces of
elfish nature are rarely found in the courtly romances (Wohlgemuth 1906, 103).
There are three cases. One is Guivret (Erec), who carries the by-name le petit (“the
small”), and is attributed as a helper by Erec after having been overcome in a
fight. While this motif shows resemblance to Auberon (Wohlgemuth 1906, 103), it
has also been made use of to a great extent in Old Norse literature—with troll
women (cf. Schulz 2004, 211–13). Another case is Bilis (Erec), who might rather
count as an atypical nain, since he is a dwarf king, a feature uncommon with
nains, but very common with Middle High German dwarves. Lastly, Wohlge-
muth (1906, 104) names Druidain (Vengeance Raguidel), a misshapen human,
possessing typical nain features, such as a hunch and a short torso. He is, unlike
the otherwise ugly nains, beautiful and strong.
Habicht (2010) characterizes the dwarves of Old French and Middle High
German courtly romance as being magical creatures to a considerably lesser
degree than their counterparts from heroic epic. She explains this as part of the
adaption of the character type to the new genre’s poetic system. Dwarves then
become more strongly associated with artistry. They function as intra-diegetic
narrators and thus mirror the extra-diegetic narrator of courtly romance. By this,
dwarves become carriers of meta-fictional discourses. The stock character type
thus becomes a vehicle of discussion e.g. re-categorization of the wondrous Other
as the heathen Other.
III Common Germanic and Ancient Nordic Dwarves
As stated above under section A. and the introduction to section B., researchers
have often attempted to reconstruct a common Germanic dwarf as an entity of
folk belief. There is, however, no common Germanic evidence, and reconstruction
of a common Germanic concept of “dwarf” has to rely on the historical-compara-
tive method. As onomastic evidence forms the most extensive data on dwarfs, it is
used most extensively in the search for a common Germanic dwarf. Onomastic
evidence includes the appellative “dwarf,” place names including this lexeme,

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356 Werner Schäfke
and all the proper dwarf names. The historical-comparative research rarely
acknowledges that the proper dwarf names in their analyses are high and late
medieval Old Norse creations, and thus rather inform us about high and late
medieval Old Norse concepts of dwarves.
Researchers of mythology and pagan beliefs, however, have also included
material from clearly literary sources. The hypothesis that dwarves as we know
them from literary texts are also elements of folk belief, has been doubted early in
research history, and their nature as being literary stock character types has been
pointed out (Boor 1924, 544–57; Lagerholm 1927, XXXVII). This hypothesis is
supported by recent analyses (Schäfke 2010; 2012). This view against using lit-
erary data on dwarves in research on dwarves as entities of pagan belief or folk
belief, however, has not gained currency in recent mythological research (cf.
Battles 2005).
The oldest, yet rarely discussed attestation of a Germanic concept of “dwarf,”
in a context linking it to pagan belief, is an Ancient Nordic runic inscription on a
cranial fragment from Ribe (cf. section B.III.2). As the ancient Nordic period is,
unlike medieval Germanic literatures, a pre-literary period of sorts, from which
we know only short runic inscriptions, the evidence it bears is more likely non-
fictional, and thus can in certain cases allow to be interpreted as a source for
pagan beliefs.
1 Onomastic Evidence
Onomastic correspondences between German and Nordic mythology have led

several researchers to the conclusion that there must have been a Common
Germanic mythological entity, if similar characters appear in German as well as
Nordic myth (and their literary derivatives) and have cognate names (Grimm 1992
[1875], vol. 1, 9; Meid 1992, 498).
a Appellatives
In accordance to the thesis of identity of etymology and the date of the concept
denoted by the lexeme in question, a number of researchers have assumed that
because Middle High German (ge)twerc and Old Norse dvergr are etymologically
linked, there must have been a Common Germanic concept of dwarf. While it is
uncertain whether a PIE cognate existed (pro: Walde and Pokorny 1973, s.v.
“dhu̯ ergh-”; contra: Vries 1977, s.v. “dvergr”), cognate appellatives are extant in
a number of old Germanic languages, namely: Old High German (gi)twerg, Middle
High German (ge)twerc/querh, Old Saxon gidwerg, Old English dweorg, Old Norse

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dvergr, Old Frisian dwerch, and with zero Ablaut for female dwarves in Old Norse
dyrgja (Kluge and Seebold 2002, s.v. “Zwerg”). According to researchers who
believe in the congruency between etymology and mythology, the lack of a Gothic
word for dwarf has been dismissed as “accidental” (Helm 1953, 101), concluding
that the concept denoted by this cognate must have been common Germanic
(Battles 2005, 32 and 70).
The uncertain etymology even has been misused as an argument for the old
age of a common Germanic concept denoted by the noun (Helm 1953, 101). For
the PIE cognate Walde and Pokorny (1973, s.v. “dhu̯ergh-”) propose the meaning
“Trugwesen” supported by the meaning of Old Irish dvarás “female demon.”
Considering dwarves “deceptive spirits,” however, might seem unsatisfying to
researchers bent on the reconstruction a common Germanic mythology, as there
are no such beings with corresponding narratives attached to them. Thus, re-
search has concentrated on the rich material of proper names of dwarves, most of
which stem from Old Norse myth (i.e., Eddic lays) or high medieval Old Norse
mythography of various types (i.e., the Prose Edda).
b Place Names
Place names containing the element “dwarf” are known from Germany and
England (Battles 2005, 33), Denmark (Boor 1924, 544), Norway, Iceland, and the
Orkneys (Reichborn-Kjennerud 1934a, 282–88). These place names associate
dwarves with mountains and caves. The two English place names including the
element “dwarf,” however, simply refer to dwarf dwellings (English Dwarraden
and Dwerryhouse; Battles 2005, 33), and can well stem from Scandinavian influ-
ence as they are place names in northern England (Battles 2005, 33).
c Proper Names
Based on the study of their proper names, dwarves have been characterized as
(1) the spirits or souls of the dead or the living dead, (2) Carnival and Yule
demons, and (3) megalithic people encountered by the Germanic tribes as they
migrated to Europe. As the proper names in question stem from Old Norse
literature, Gould (1929, 965) proposed that the concepts one might reconstruct
from the semantic fields these names are thought to form might not be older than
the twelfth century, and thus might even be imported from outside of Scandinavia
(Gould 1929, 967). This hypothesis, however, has never been discussed by the
interpreters of dwarf names as sources for Germanic pagan beliefs. Instead,
Gould’s subsuming of dwarf names of various meaning under the portfolio of
death has been challenged by later, equally speculative analysis (Motz 1973).

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358 Werner Schäfke
Since many Old Norse dwarf names contain the element alf- (post-classical
Old Norse álf-), Grimm (1992 [1875], vol. 1, 366–76) concludes that dwarves and
elves are closely related mythological concepts. Based on this hypothesis, he also
proposes that dwarves with names that are synonyms for “dead body” rather
testify of the concept of elves as the dead or the souls of the dead in common
Germanic mythology (Grimm 1992 [1875], vol. 3, 129). Gould (1929, 967) restricts
his similar conclusion to Old Norse mythology. He states, based on the same plus
some additional onomastic data that “the dwarves are also draugar,” i.e., one of
the types of the undead in Old Norse literature which are usually regarded as
entities of Nordic pagan belief. Gould, however, also subsumes names that denote
professions under the death portfolio, as he interprets them as denoting activities
of the living dead or the deceased when they lived, and thus abandons Occam’s
razor for good.
Motz’s arbitrary arguments on common Germanic dwarves are rather out-
landish and show the late flowering of the historical-comparative method in
cultural studies shortly before its abandonment caused by the advent of structur-
alism in the early 70s. Motz (1973) connects dwarf names like Litr “the colored” to
Carnival and Yule traditions mostly from the nineteenth century and later, pro-
posing that both are common Germanic tradition, and disregarding that it is
commonly accepted that Carnival traditions changed often and varied greatly
locally, and that the early modern traditions do not continue medieval ones. Most
importantly, those traditions were created as contrafacta to contemporary social
conditions (Kühnel 1989).
Twenty years later, Motz (1993b) induces from various dwarf names, and the
fact that, like pagan altars, dwarf habitats are situated in forest clearings (Motz
1983, 102–03), that dwarves are in fact literary remnants of the megalithic culture
encountered by the ancient Germanic tribes as they moved to Europe. According
to Motz, dwarves, then, are remnants of megalithic “craftsmen-priests-astrono-
mers” and the dwarf stones are megalithic boulders. Despite the topical function
of wooden clearings as places of encounter in the Old Norse saga genres Motz
finds her dwarves in, the temporal distance between thirteenth- to sixteenth-
century sagas and the migration of Germanic tribes to Europe many centuries
B.C.E. make this conclusion rather arbitrary (cf. VI.2.a)).
2 Runic Evidence
Runic inscriptions are shunned even by recent research that follows in Grimm’s
footsteps (e.g., Battles 2005), even though these inscriptions form the material
most close to any common Germanic mythology in respect of the periods it stems

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from. There is, however, one runic inscription from the Ancient Nordic period that
contains the word dwarf, a cranial fragment from Ribe, Denmark, with an
inscribed healing charm, dated 717–730 (Marold 2003, 403–17). Ribe was founded
as a planned market place with sea-trade connections to northwest Europe, Frisia,
England, and Dorestad (Bencard, Bender Jørgensen 1990, 145–68). Slightly vary-
ing transliterations have been suggested due to two runes that are not easily
readable, but the transliteration by Stoklund (1996, 202–09) has now been ac-
cepted (Marold 2003, 404–17). The “[hole]” in the transliteration denotes where a
hole was bored into the cranial fragment, most probably at the time the inscrip-
tion was cut:
ulfuʀA ukuþinA ukH utiuʀ'H iA lbburiisuiþʀþA iMA uiA rkiA uktuirkunin [hole] buur
Ulfurr ok Ōþinn ok Hōtiwʀ. Hjalp buri es wiþr þæima wærki. Ok dwerg unninn. Bōurr.
“Ulfurr and Ōðinn and High-tiuʀ. Help is by the borer against this pain, and the dwarf is
conquered. Bōurr.”
It has now been commonly accepted that the inscription is a healing charm
(Marold 2003; Düwel 2008, 89). The fact that the inscription was inscribed in a
cranial fragment allows for the association of trepanation as an archaic cure for
headaches (Kabell 1978; Mørup 1989; Grønvik 1999; Marold 2003). Since the hole
in the cranial fragment was drilled from the inside out, it cannot, however, be the
result of an actual trepanation (Marold 2003, 409). Also, the hole was not made
while the person, to whose cranium the fragment belonged, was alive (Grønvik
1999, 103). Furthermore, the hole shows no signs of wear, i.e., as from use as an
amulet, which means that the cranium fragment probably very soon ended up in
the layer of cattle dung that covered the market place where it was found
(Stoklund 1996, 202). The disposal was probably part of a magical ritual, where
the disease was disposed of through the analogical act of disposing of the object
carrying the healing charm (Stoklund 1996, 204), following a ritual trepanation of
the cranial fragment, which by analogy stands for the trepanation of the skull of
the subject of the healing charm.
As the inscription is interpreted as referring to a male or female (Grønvik
1999) dwarf, it can be concluded that the dwarf is conceptualized as a disease
agent responsible for a disease that results in headaches (Moltke 1985, 360;
Stoklund 1996, 206; Grønvik 1999, 114; Marold 2003, 408–10). Marold (2003,
409–10) points out that dwarves are considered disease agents in modern Norwe-
gian folk belief according to Reichborn-Kjennerud (1934a, 285–88). In another
article, Reichborn-Kjennerud (1934b) also shows that modern folk belief appears
not to be influenced by the dwarves of Old Norse literature. Furthermore, the
function of the dwarf in the inscription in the cranial fragment seems compliant
with the function of dwarves as disease agents, diseases, or as mere symptoms of

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360 Werner Schäfke
diseases in Old English medical charms, and an Old English plant name. This
supports the interpretation of the inscription mentioned above and makes Old
English dwarves the literary successors of Ancient Nordic dwarves (cf. IV). This,
in turn, underlines Reichborn-Kjennerud’s finding that other Germanic dwarves
from Middle High German and Old Norse literature are derivatives of various
types of courtly literature, including innovative refashioning of their role within
indigenous Middle High German and Old Norse literary traditions. As Reichborn-
Kjennerud (1934b, 141) notes, it remains, however, a desideratum to comprehend
how modern dwarf traditions in the other Scandinavian countries are related to
medieval literary and non-literary traditions of dwarves.
Contrary to this interpretation, Battles (2005, 74) concludes that dwarves
have the power to influence human health in Middle High German and Old Norse
traditions as well. He interprets motifs of dwarves as healers as remnants of the
function of dwarves as disease agents, diseases or disease symptoms. However,
he uses this assertion to bolster his point that, together with the Old English
dwarves that were obviously believed to influence people’s health negatively, this
represents a common Germanic dwarf trait, in agreement to the explicit aim of his
article, which makes this far-fetched analogy of dwarves supplying the hero with
healing salves and roots and dwarves causing headaches suspicious. Even
though it seems possible to deduce that the trait of dwarves being connected to
disease (vs. dwarves influencing human health both positively and negatively!) is
ancient Nordic, it is impossible to state that it was Common Germanic, too.
IV Old English dweorgas
In Old English literature and culture, dwarves (dweorgas, sg. dweorg) are confined
to medical treatises and healing charms, and a plant name. In addition, there are
a two English place names (see III.1.a), which may stem from Scandinavian
influence, and probably pertain to dwarf habitats. In the very restricted distribu-
tion outside of epic texts, Old English dwarves show a remarkable similarity to the
dwarf on the cranial fragment from Ribe. Both the data on Ancient Nordic
dwarves (one runic inscription) and the data on Old English dwarves (four healing
charms, a medical recipe, and one plant name) are extremely scarce. It seems,
however, probable, that Old English dwarves continue the function of Ancient
Nordic dwarves. Furthermore, if one assumes that the ancient Nordic dwarves’
function was limited to that of the Ribe fragment and if one assumes that Old
English epic texts featuring dwarves are lost, one could conclude that all the
dwarves showing Arthurian characteristics would be more or less an innovation
from High Medieval courtly and heroic fiction. Only the Old Norse mythic dwarf

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(VI.1) would then remain a joker in the pack, its sources entirely obscure, as they
are not linked to Scandinavian pagan belief instead.
1 Healing Charms and Recipes
There are four extant charms and a medical recipe against a “dwarf” (Battles
2005, 33–82): three charms are found in Lacnunga (ca. 1000) Metrical Charm 3
“Against a Dwarf” (Dobbie 1958, 121–22), Prose Charm 13.2 “Wiþ dworh” (Storms
1974, 305–36, no. 78), and “Writ ðis ondlang ða earmas wið dweorh” (in two
versions) (Grattan, Singer 1952, 158, nos. 87 and 88). The fourth charm is “Dweorg
onweg to donne” in the Medicina de quadrupedibus (eleventh or twelfth c.; de
Vriend 1984, 266–67). The medical recipe is found in the Peri Didaxeon (twelfth
century; Löweneck 1970, 30–31).
The meaning of Old English dweorg in the individual charms, however, is much
debated (cf. Battles 2005, 33–35). They are sometimes thought to refer to “fever”
(Geldner 1907, 9–10; Cameron 1993, 10; 152–53), or thought to have a whole spec-
trum of meaning ranging from “disease agent” and “disease” to “disease symptom”
(Thun 1969, 386–96). Battles (2005, 34) sees the translation of a passage in the
collection of medical recipes Peri Didaxeon as indicating that dweorg means a
disease agent, causing the symptom of shivering fits. The Peri Didaxeon translates
“interdum et febriunt” with “hwile he riþaþ swilce he on dweorge sy” (Löweneck
1970, 30–31; “at times he shakes as if from a dwarf,” translation by Battles 2005,
34). He concludes that the translator would regard shivering fits as a symptom of a
dweorg rather than a fefor, which would be the regular translation of Latin febris.
From the fact that “Dweorg onweg to donne,” in the Medicina de quadrupedibus,
corresponds to the Latin ad verrucas, “against warts,” Battles (2005, 34) concludes
that dwarves were believed to be agents of various diseases, not only fever (or
shivering fits). As there is only such limited evidence of Old English dwarves, it is
impossible to reconstruct any coherent semantics of the word, or even multiple
semantics for different beliefs in dwarves at different places and times. But the
data shows that the general shape of the concept(s) of dwarves in Old English
culture correspond to the dwarf in the inscription on the cranial fragment from
Ribe and not to the dwarves found in any of the other literatures dealt with here.
2 Plant Name
Mentha pulegium has the ominous Old English name dweorgedwos(t)le “dwarf
dwos(t)le” (with side forms; Bierbaumer 1976, 35). As the meaning “little

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362 Werner Schäfke
dwos(t)le” can be ruled out due to the late use of “dwarf” in compound appella-
tives denoting miniature versions of another entity (Battles 2005, 35, fn. 30), the
plant name obviously is somehow connected to the concept of Old English
dwarves. Mentha pulegium is often mentioned in medieval English medical
recipes for treating diseases that were connected with elves or other demonic
disease agents (Jolly 1996, 135). As healing plants are often named after the
disease they are used to combat (Storms, ed., 1974, 168), or the disease agent that
causes the disease in question (Battles 2005, 35), the Old English name for
Mentha pulegium and its inclusion in English medical recipes indicates the same
underlying concept of dwarves as in the medical charms. It cannot, however,
further clarify the semantics or the concept of Old English dweorg.
V German Dwarves
1 Old High German (gi)twerg
There is little Old High German material on dwarves. Traces of dwarves are
exclusively found in glosses, and thus there is little information on dwarves
before the advent of courtly romance in Germany. The Old High German appella-
tive for dwarf, (gi)twerg (with numerous side forms) which is cognate with the
Middle High German appellative for dwarf, is solely found in glosses. It glosses
Latin codrus, comicus, eridii, homullus, homuncio, homunculus, nanus, parvus,
pumilio, Pygmaeus, and tuber. The diminutive gitwergilîn glosses Latin Pygmaeus.
The common characteristic of Old High German and Middle High German dwarves
thus seems to be small size, but there is little more that can be said about Old
High German dwarves based on the glosses.
2 Middle High German (ge)twerc
Middle High German dwarves (twerc or getwerc) are most often found in the
fairytale-like epics, especially the “märchenhafte” or “aventiurehafte” sub-group
of Dietrichepik. There are a number of dwarf episodes in Arthurian romance, and
Battles (2005, 55) regards the dwarf episode in Hartmann’s von Aue Iwein as the
most popular one that also influenced the various pieces of the fairytale-like
Dietrichepik. Just as with Old French Chansons de geste, dwarves rarely appear in
“historico-epic” texts such as the “historische” Dietrichepik. This distribution of
dwarves is also true for Old Norse texts, where dwarves are solely found in late
medieval Icelandic romances (aka indigenous or original riddarasǫgur, Märchen-

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sagas, or lygisǫgur), and the more adventurous Viking and Adventure sagas, a sub-
group of the fornaldarsǫgur. In the more heroic sub-group of the fornaldarsǫgur,
Old Norse dwarves only feature in Vǫlsunga saga that treats the Nibelungen matter.
a Appearance and Habitat

Lütjens (1977, 69–72) differentiates three types of dwarves by their appearances:
the Nibelungen dwarf, the Ortnit dwarf, and the chivalric dwarf. He assumes that
the Nibelungen and the Ortnit dwarf preserve Common Germanic features, and
that the chivalric dwarf is a younger development that superseded the other two
types (Lütjens 1977, 70). Battles (2005, 64) argues that the Ortnit dwarf is an
amalgam of the Common Germanic dwarf and the noon demon.
The rare Nibelungen dwarf is small in size and has the appearance of an old,
bearded man. The only other extant Nibelungen dwarf is found in the Dresdner
Heldenbuch version of Wolfdietrich B. The Ortnit dwarf, on the other hand, is
small in size due to his likeness to a child. The numerous chivalric dwarves are
not described in respect to age. Their small size is compared to the size of a child,
but unlike the Ortnit dwarf they are not mistaken for a child (Lütjens 1977, 71).
Chivalric dwarves are equipped like knights and show knightly conduct. Much
unlike Old French nains and Old Norse dvergar, Middle High German dwarves are
not ugly. The only exception is the allegedly conservative Nibelungen dwarf
(Lütjens 1977, 72).
The habitat of the Middle High German dwarf is a hollow mountain that might
be situated in woods, as a part of The Wilderness, the semanticized space of the
aventiure. A similar habitat is found in Old Norse literature where the dvergar live,
nearly without exception, under boulders (never inside mountains or hills, how-
ever) that are most often located in clearings. Inside his hollow mountain, the
Middle High German dwarf might rule over an entire kingdom of dwarves, featur-
ing much splendor. The association with the wild space of the aventiure is in some
texts extended to the dwarf kings also ruling over giants who serve in their armies.
b Motifs
Lütjens (1977, 94–104) differentiates three motifs by the relation of protagonist
and dwarf: animosity, friendship, and the avoidance of the hero by the dwarf. All
three of these are known from Old Norse literature, even though the first one is
rarely found there. Animosity between the dwarf and the protagonist stems
both in Middle High German and in Old Norse literature from the dwarf having
abducted a virgin (Lütjens 1977, 103), or, in the case of Laurin (thirteenth century),
in the hero deliberately thrashing the dwarf’s estates.

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364 Werner Schäfke
The most common motif, however, is that of the friendly dwarf, serving as an
advisor or donor character (Lütjens 1977, 98). There are three instances of dwarves
equipped with magic healing plants (Hürnen Seyfrid, the Dresdner Heldenbuch
redaction of the Eckenlied, and Seifrid de Ardemont), and two instances of dwarves
supplying the protagonist with a magic plant for other purposes. When Middle
High German dwarves fight (sometimes against the protagonist, sometimes at his
side), they fight with melee weapons, or wrestle. If they help the protagonist, they
are usually related to him. This type of relationship is utterly unknown in Old
Norse literature where dwarves form a distinct race and, while being physically
able to have sexual intercourse with women, never beget children with them.
Instead, Old Norse dwarves are sometimes the foster parents of the protagonists
they support. The Middle High German dwarf might also help the protagonist out
of gratitude, if, for example, he fell victim to a giant or a dwarf kingdom got
usurped by one, and the protagonist subsequently came to his rescue.
There are only four instances of thieving dwarves in Middle High German
literature. This trait is thus considered by Lütjens (1977, 102) and Lecouteux
(1981, 372) not to be common Germanic. They argue against Wohlgemuth (1906,
89) who stipulated that thieving Old French larrons preserved a Common Germa-
nic feature (see above). While the dwarfish trait of invisibility is often considered
to be Common Germanic, Battles (2005, 79) states that this motif can only be
found in Middle High German texts. The “vengeful dwarf” or treacherous dwarf
that is a rare motif in Old Norse texts is also rarely found in Middle High German
literature. In the Nibelungenlied, the dwarf Alberich wants to avenge his masters
on Siegfried who killed them. By overcoming the dwarf, Siegfried attributes him
as his true servant. In Laurin, the eponymous dwarf king drugs Dietrich and his
companions at a feast, after he invited them to his kingdom in the aftermath of a
first melee he lost that ensued when Dietrich and his fellows thrashed his locus
amoenus. Laurin is eventually killed, and in Walberan, a sequel of sorts, the
eponymous dwarf king moves his invisible armies against Dietrich von Bern in
order to avenge Laurin.
The dwarf motif changes from high medieval to late medieval Middle High
German literature. In fifteenth-century romances and ballads, dwarves are solely
found as threatening representatives of the monstrous Other. Interaction with this
sphere results in catastrophe for the human individual, even if the alien being in
question, e.g., a dwarf, does mean no harm (Classen 1999). One could consider
this development from supernatural helper (or enemy) to dooming encounter to
have been enabled by the function of Middle High German dwarves as vehicles of
meta-fictional discourse in courtly romance (cf. B.II.2). The re-categorization of
the ambiguous, wondrous Other as the negatively connoted heathen Other (Ha-
bicht 2010) could well be an intermediary step toward the dwarf as representative

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of the sphere of monstrous. Habicht (2010, 238–39) underlines the dire conse-
quences of Ortnit’s interaction with his dwarf father, which shows a global
structural similarity to Volkslied no. 131 in the Heidelberger Liederhandschrift Pal
343 in which a young lover’s interaction with a dwarf ultimately results in her and
her lover’s tragic deaths (Classen 1999, 364–65).
VI Old Norse dvergar
ON dwarves (dvergar, sg. dvergr) are mostly found in genres that are commonly
characterized as “fairytale-like.” More accurately, they are found in genres that
show a strong connection to Nordic heroic matter and Arthurian romance, the
fornaldarsǫgur and the Märchensagas (aka indigenous/original riddarasǫgur, or
lygisǫgur). Eddic lays and the manual on Skaldic poetry, the Prose Edda, feature a
number of dwarves in mythological and heroic-legendary narratives that are
partially also known from fornaldarsǫgur and deal with the same matter. Beyond
that scarce data of briefly mentioned dwarves, numerous dwarf names are extant.
The distribution of dwarves is thus reminiscent of that in Old French literature
and Middle High German literature. These literatures do not boast extant “mytho-
logical” texts such as the Poetic Edda, a collection of lays in Eddic meter partially
dating back to the ninth century, and the Prose Edda that conveys a systematized
mythology as part of being an introduction to Skaldic poetry which is highly
reliant on the knowledge of Nordic myths. There are also dwarves in fornaldarsǫ-
gur featuring Eddica minora, i.e., Eddic lays that are not preserved in the Poetic
Edda’s collection, and there is a single dwarf in Sneglu-Halla þáttr, a short prose
narrative interwoven with Kings’ sagas. This dwarf, Túta, might actually have
been inspired by historical court dwarves, as he is a historical king’s retainer, and
does nothing a typical dwarf does in a saga, but has the typical appearance of a
regular saga dwarf (Schäfke 2010, 210–11; 214–15, fn. 47), except for being clad in
armor on one occasion. He is thus partially reminiscent of the chivalric dwarves
of Middle High German literature (Schäfke 2011, 201–02). His special status is
apparent, as he is only compared to a dwarf in size, and no actual dwarf in the
Morkinskinna version of Sneglu-Halla þáttr. In the Flateyjarbók version, however,
he is denoted as a dvergr.
There appears to be no genetic bond between Middle High German and Old
Norse dwarves going back to a Common Germanic dwarf. Also, Middle High
German dwarves seem not to have influenced Old Norse dwarves synchronically
through Arthurian romance or Dietrichepik (Schäfke 2011). Neither of the two
literary traditions preserves features of the ancient Nordic dwarf outlined above
which shows similarities to the dwarves found in Old English healing charms.

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366 Werner Schäfke
However, while they differ from Middle High German dwarves, Old Norse dwarves
show similarities to Old French nains. Thus, unlike Middle High German dwarves
that mainly are beautiful knights, Old Norse dwarves are ugly like Old French
nains. There are subtle differences in the exact descriptions between Old French
and Middle High German dwarves. In addition, literary dwarves, i.e., saga
dwarves, have little in common with the mythic dwarves that feature in Eddic lays
and the Prose Edda, and do not show any resemblance to ancient Nordic dwarves.
That leads to a conclusion which is far removed from neo-grammarian thinking
patterns: Old Norse saga dwarves are not a fusion of mythic dwarves and con-
tinental Arthurian dwarves, they are an innovation triggered by the translation
and creative reception of Arthurian romance. There are motifs resembling Old
French or Middle High German dwarf motifs, such as dwarves abducting women
or endowing the protagonist with magic items, but the stock character type of the
Old Norse dwarf shows its very own individual traits that are highly conventiona-
lized, similarly to the way the traits of Old French and Middle High German
dwarves are. This hypothesis is bolstered by the young age of Old Norse dwarf
names (cf. Gould 1929, 965; cf. section B.III.1 above).
1 Mythic Dwarves
There is only scarce data on mythic dwarves, i.e., dwarves in texts containing
myths or re-telling myths in a mythographical manner. However, there are plenty
of dwarf proper names in mythic texts, their number being stated by Motz (1973,
100) as 195 tokens, i.e., names and name variants in the list compiled by Gould
(1929). The following overview groups dwarves by their function in the texts, as
suggested by Jakobsson (2005). For a discussion of all instances of dwarves in
these genres, see Battles (2005). Dwarves have three functions in mythic texts.
They have aitiological functions, feature as actants in two further non-aitiological
myths, and are related or are identified with other mythic groups. Lastly, there are
two extensive lists of dwarf names. One can be found in Vǫluspǫ́ (st. 10–16), and
is referred to by the modern name “Dvergatal.” The other one is called the Dverga
heiti in the Nafnaþulur. Their use in the history of research is discussed above
under section B.III.1. Gould (1929) and Motz (1973, 112–15) have provided compre-
hensive collections with etymologies and translations.
a Aitiological Functions
Dwarves are mentioned in the creation of the world in different functions in the
Eddic lay Vǫluspǫ́ and in the Prose Edda. They brewed the mead of poetry in the

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myth explaining how Óðinn acquired the domain of poetry and thus became
patron of the poets, and just like Æsir (one of the two groups of gods in Old Norse
myth) and Jǫtnar (a type of giant) they possess knowledge of runes (Hávamǫ́ l,
st. 143).
In the Prose Edda’s account of the creation of the world, dwarves grow as
maggots inside the flesh of the primeval Giant Ymir (Gylfaginning, ch. 14) out of
whose body the world is shaped, and are thus an emergent species like the gods
and giants, unlike humans. Ymir’s braincase is set over the world forming the
celestial dome, which is held up by four dwarves, named after the directions
of spatial orientation: Vestri, Austri, Suðri, and Norðri (Gylfaginning, ch. 8). In
Skaldskaparmǫ́ l (ch. 23) two Skaldic metaphors (kenningar, sg. kenning) for the
celestial dome refer to this function. The kennginar are “dwarf’s burden” (byrðr
dverganna) and “helmet of West, East, South, and North” (hjalmr Vestra ok
Austra, Suðra, Norðra). The name Norðri is also used by the tenth-century poet
Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskald in his poem Óláfsdrápa (erfidrápa, st. 26,3; ca.
1001) and Austri in one of his lausvísur (st. 5,4).
In Skaldskaparmǫ́ l (ch. 35–39) Loki cuts off Sif’s hair. In order to avoid
punishment by Sif’s husband Þórr, he travels to the svartalfar to have them forge
a golden wig for her. When he arrives, he meets two dvergar and has them smith
the hair and another five items that are given to five gods, and are their respective
attributes known from various other Eddic lays and the Prose Edda.
b Non-Aitiological Myths
Only three dwarf characters can be found in non-aitiological mythic texts (Jakobs-
son 2005, 57), Alvíss in the Eddic lay Alvíssmǫ́ l, Litr in the Prose Edda’s recount of
the myth of Baldr’s death, and Andvari in the Prose Edda’s explanation of the
kenning for otrgjǫld, which recounts part of the Nordic Nibelungen matter
(Skaldskaparmǫ́ l, ch. 39).
The frame narrative of the gnomic poem Alvíssmǫ́ l uses the “unwanted
suitor” motif in combination with the “battle of knowledge” motif which is also
known from other gnomic Eddic lays. The dwarf Alvíss fulfills the function of
the unwanted suitor of the daughter of the god Þórr (i.e., Thor) for a wife. Þórr
will allow the marriage, if he can overcome him in a battle of knowledge. This
leads to a series of questions by Þórr which are answered by Alvíss by giving
lists of Skaldic synonyms (heiti) for various nouns of the prose register. The
poems end with Þórr telling Alvíss that the sun now rises, which is interpreted
as a second ending-condition (other than Alvíss being unable to answer one of
Þórr’s questions), even though such a condition is unknown from other battles
of knowledge. Many, scholars posit that the dwarf turns to stone as the rays of

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368 Werner Schäfke
the sun touch him, but the lay does not convey this information. There is,
however, additional circumstantial evidence that indicates that dwarves were
thought to be heliophobic in one way or another. First, there is the epithet
dagskjarr (“day-shy”) of the dwarf in mythical Ynglingatal (st. 2,1) who is, in the
prose surrounding Ynglingatal in Ynglinga saga, met at sunset by King Sveigðir
at the dwarf’s abode. Second, in the saga motif of the “extorted dwarf,” dwarves
are always chanced upon by the protagonist at night time (Schäfke 2012). The
only exception to that rule, interestingly, is found in the one instance of the
motif that is closest to mythical matter: Vǫlsunga saga (cf. Acker 2002, 219).
Furthermore, there is no reason to regard Alvíss as a draugr (‘revenant,’ see
Battles 2005, 38), as he is only teased for having spent the night with a corpse,
and is not one himself.
A scene, for which no widely-accepted motivation has been reconstructed, is
the death of the dwarf Litr at the funeral of the god Baldr. As Þórr hallows Baldr’s
funeral pyre with his hammer, Litr, who had not been mentioned earlier in the
text, runs before his feet and gets kicked into the funeral pyre where he dies.
Various interpretations have been offered, the most sensible up to now are that
Þórr got angry due to an apparent interruption of the funeral rite (Williams 2003,
90), which fits the aggrieved emotional state the entire universe is in after Baldr’s
untimely death, or that the short intermezzo is an aitiological myth for the color
of fire (Williams 2003, 91–94). The latter explanation lacks a marking of this
episode as such, as could be expected by the Prose Edda’s usual narrative framing
of such myths (Jakobsson 2005, 63–64 with further literature).
c Relation to Other Mythic Groups

Lastly, dwarves are referred to as an ætt (“race, kin,” pl. ættar) in relation to other
ættar such as the Æsir and Norns in Fáfnismál (st. 4–6). This kind of information is
also related in Gylfaginning (ch. 15) of the Prose Edda. In the systematizing mytho-
graphy of the Prose Edda, dvergar are also related to alfar (“elves,” sg. alfr; later
álfr, pl. álfar) because they are identified with a sub-group of elves, the svartalfar
that live in alfheimar (“home, world of elves”) in Gylfaginning (ch. 34) and Skalds-
kaparmǫ́ l (ch. 39). They are never identified with døkkalfar (“dark elves”), who are
mentioned as one of two kinds of alfar along with the ljósalfar (“light, bright
elves”) as the inhabitants of alfheimar in Gylfaginning (ch. 18). It remains an open
debate whether it is correct to assume that svartalfar are identical to døkkalfar or
not (pro: Golther 2000 [1895], 116; Simek 1998, 729–30, Jakobsson 2008, 192; con-
tra: Grimm 1992 [1875], vol. 1, 368; Schäfke 2010, 232–33). As this question is a
loose end, it also remains open what insights can be gained by reaching any
conclusion, other than bolstering the assertion that dwarves are associated with

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the subterranean, since døkkalfar are, too (pro: Motz 1983, 98; contra: Schäfke
2010, 232–35).
2 Saga Dwarves
Dwarves feature in abundance in the fornaldarsǫgur and the Märchensagas. These

genres are prose texts composed in Iceland mostly in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, and up until the eighteenth century with individual even later texts.
The Märchensagas are considered an amalgam of the translated Old French
Arthurian romances and the indigenous fornaldarsǫgur that treat Germanic, and
more specifically Nordic heroic matter. In the fornaldarsǫgur, dwarves feature
prominently in only two of its three sub-groups, which are more “fairytale-like,”
less tragic, and thus thought to be younger (and less worthy of individual atten-
tion): the Viking and Adventure sagas. In the fornaldarsǫgur sub-group of
“heroic-legendary” sagas, which is regarded as the oldest one and is the most
tragic in tone, there is only one saga in that group that treats the Nibelungen
matter, Vǫlsunga saga, and features a dwarf, Andvari by name.
a Appearance and Habitat

The appearance of saga dwarves is strongly conventionalized. Schäfke (2010)
reconstructed patterns of features that are named in the description of a dwarf’s
appearance in relation to the description’s length: small size, ugliness, body
deformity. These Dwarves are unlike all types of Middle High German dwarves
discussed by Lütjens (1977) (Schäfke 2011). They share, however, ugliness as a
common feature with Old French nains. The specific bodily features that make
them ugly are, however, different. While Old Norse dvergar are disproportional,
e.g. with long arms and short legs, a short abdomen and an oversized head, Old
French nains are hunchbacked or have humps.
The most distinctive difference between Eddic dwarves and saga dwarves is
that saga dwarves do not live underground. Some participate in “earth diving,” a
feature they share with giants and trolls such as the demonic Grím-Ægir in Gǫngu-
Hrólfs saga (fourteenth c.), or know about secret underground passages (e.g., in
Gibbons saga), as do their Middle High German counterparts, or even emerge from
rock slides; but saga dwarves are not subterranean creatures.
Saga dwarves live in boulders that sometimes have house-like features such
as doors, and in some cases they live in poor huts, or at the courts of kings. The
latter is characteristic for the dwarves of the fornaldarsǫgur tradition. While
dwarves sometimes live with families which includes female dwarves (dyrgjur, sg.

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dyrgja) and dwarf children (dvergsbǫrn, sg. dvergsbarn), they never form king-
doms like Celtic or Middle High German dwarves. They sometimes are subject to
human kings, if they live in their domain’s forests, or work as smiths at their
courts, e.g., in Norna-Gests þáttr (thirteenth c.) that contains a re-telling of the
Nordic tradition of the Nibelungen matter (Schäfke 2010, 220–99).
Dwarves’ boulders are situated in the topical places of encounter in the space
of aventiure in the fornaldarsǫgur and Märchensagas. These abodes are thus
happened upon by the protagonist in wood clearings, or at coasts or on islands
when they travel the seas (in fornaldarsǫgur where the protagonists often are
Vikings) or when travelling by horse (in Märchensagas where protagonists are
almost always princes). Other entities encountered in such locations are e.g.,
dragons, berserker packs, other knights, or troll women. Furthermore dwarves
appear in a number of motifs troll women appear in, so they in some respects
form a common paradigm in the fornaldarsǫgur and Märchensagas (Schäfke 2010,
225–99). As noted under section B.III, Motz’s (1983, 102–03) theory that dwarves
are in fact megalithic priest-smiths as their stone abodes are situated in clearings
just like megalithic monuments, instead appears to be a literary convention of the
Late Middle Ages (Schäfke 2010, 231–32). An interesting, but probably meaning-
less and accidental parallel to Middle High German dwarves that can be attribu-
ted to the length of the respective descriptions is that dwarves’ abodes are
described as being next to rivulets (Schäfke 2010, 205–06).
b Motifs
Dwarves mostly function as donors and healers in the sagas, and they sometimes
also support the protagonists in battle. All these functions are also filled by troll
women (Schulz 2004, 211–13), showing the literary semantic similarity between
these two stock character types (Schäfke 2010, 219). Saga dwarves support the
protagonist in combat by shooting arrows. Dwarves do this with a bow, not by
shooting magic arrows out of their fingers as troll women do (Schäfke 2010, 278–
81). In Gǫngu-Hrólfs saga the most notable of all Old Norse dwarves, Mǫndull, has
a magic duel lasting for several days with the sinister and demonic Grím-Ægir.
There is only a single case, in Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar (fifteenth c.), where an
unseen dwarf apparently helps the protagonist in a close quarter’s melee, thus
showing the preferred combat style of Middle High German dwarves: invisible
wrestling, as well as great bodily strength, which is an untypical feature for Old
Norse dvergar, but a typical one for Middle High German getwerc.
There are two recurring motifs, the “extorted dwarf” motif (Schäfke 2012),
and the “grateful dwarf” motif (Boor 1924, 553). In the first motif, a dwarf that
tries to avoid the human protagonist, is captured by him or is prevented from

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entering his boulder. The dwarf is thus coerced into supporting the protagonist in
one of his major goals, e.g., by supplying him with magical items or supporting
him in abducting a courtly woman. But the hero is also required to reward the
dwarf, if he wants to avoid being cursed (Schäfke 2012). Thus reciprocity is also
an aspect of human-dwarf interaction (Battles 2005, 70). The instances of the
motif where the human fails to reward the dwarf and is cursed, is often referred to
as the “vengeful dwarf” motif, and is considered to be the most characteristic
dwarf motif showing their true nature (pro: Lecouteux 1981, 372; Halvorsen 1958,
378; Motz 1993a, 623; moderating: Motz 1977, 48; Motz 1983, 110; 112 et passim),
even though this is one of the least common interactions between human and
dwarves in Old Norse literature (Schäfke 2010, 266–67, fn. 249). These instances
hardly constitute a motif, but only one of its possible “tracks” (track1b as per
Schäfke 2012).
The “grateful dwarf” motif that sometimes involves dwarf children lacks the
extortion aspect. The rewarding of the dwarf by the protagonist is sometimes
replaced by the protagonist rescuing or endowing the dwarf’s child. The avoid-
ance of the protagonist by the dwarf in the “extorted dwarf” motif is reminiscent
of the respective relation between dwarf and protagonist that was noted by
Lütjens (1977). The rescuing of the dwarf’s child has a vague parallel in the dwarf
being rescued from a giant by the protagonist in Middle High German literature.
There are only three instances of Old Norse dwarves that abduct women. One is
the highly atypical Mǫndull mentioned above. The other two, in Nitiða saga
(fourteenth c.) and Samsons saga (ca. 1500), are coerced by humans into abduct-
ing or assisting in abducting courtly women. In this respect, Old French larrons
and Middle High German getwerc are more similar to each other.
c Dwarf-like Characters
As noted above, dwarves as a stock character type fall under the same paradigm
of encounters as giants and troll women, fulfilling comparable functions in
recurring motifs such as donor or healer. It is therefore not surprising that there
are a number of characters that possess features of more than one category, and
that they therefore cannot clearly be assigned to one category as their primary
one. Most of these vague elements of the literary semantic categories of
dwarves, trolls, and giants, are never denoted by an appellative of either of the
categories, but are menn (‘men,’ or rather ‘humanoid beings’). There are, how-
ever, also dvergar (‘dwarves’) that possess features of categories other than that
of dwarves. They are always small, if they are denoted as dvergar, as this is the
constitutive feature of Old Norse dwarves, as Schäfke (2010, 212–13) demon-
strated.

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For example, the notable dwarf Mǫndull first acts as an antagonist, removing
a friend of the protagonist from his position as a jarl’s advisor, and then is
attributed by the protagonist in a variant of the “extorted dwarf” motif. As he is
originally antagonistic, and not frightful and/or supportive, as dwarves most
often are, Mǫndull has a giant feature: black skin. The little man Nípr in Sigurðar
saga þǫgla (fourteenth c.) can be categorized as an atypical giant with dwarf
features, as he fights with a club, the prototypical giant weapon (Boberg 1966,
118; F531.1.1. and F531.1.2.; Schulz 2004, 290–92), does not live in a stone, but
a hut, which is quite un-dwarfish, but is small, unlike giants (Schäfke 2010,
278–81).
An interesting case of apparently unconventional use of appellatives is Ectors
saga. There are two svartalfar in it. One, Tarsus, resembles a giant, riding a camel,
swinging a club, and is described with mineral metaphors. The other one, his son,
is small, but has black skin, as only Mǫndull does among the dwarves. He also
attempts to rape a dwarf girl; the protagonist prevents this by goring the little
fiend (as part of the “grateful dwarf” motif). Tarsus’ son thus functions as a sort of
anti-dwarf, or “black dwarf.”
Battles (2005, 48–82) posits parallels between the spámaðr in Þorvald þáttr
víðfǫrla (early thirteenth c.) and Mǫndull in Gǫngu-Hrólfs saga, as well as the
dwarf father in Sigurðar saga þǫgla: the close relationship between the non-
human entity and a human, or the complaints of the non-human about his
children having been hurt in some way by a human. These parallels are rather
vague, as the spámaðr’s role in the plot is utterly different from that of any dwarf.
He functions as an entity of pagan belief driven away by a Christian missionary.
This saga thus might rather preserve a medieval Icelandic notion of folk belief in
house spirits, or infer Christian stereotypes about such pagan belief into the saga.
Lastly, there are the many instances of Reginn, a dwarf-like smith and later
dwarf proper, who features in the Nordic tradition of the Nibelungen matter. He is
a “dwarf in size” in Vǫlsunga saga, Skaldskaparmǫ́ l, Fáfnismǫ́ l, and Reginsmǫ́ l,
obviously underlining his great skills as a smith. He is a dwarf in Norna-Gests
þáttr even though he is also called a maðr there, which is in fact sometimes the
case with saga dwarves, but is rare. Also, Reginn has obviously even less dwarf-
like kin, who are usually considered humans, and this is otherwise never the case
with dvergar, who have dwarf women (dyrgjur) and dwarf children (dvergsbǫrn)
as kin. The slow and not entirely complete transformation of Reginn from dwarf-
like smith to dwarf smith shows the strong conceptualization of dwarves as
smiths (Schäfke 2010, 283–85), which is frequently found in Old Norse literature.

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C Trolls, Ogres, and Giants

The basic concept of large beings seems to exist in nearly every medieval culture
and all their literatures. Unlike with dwarves, however, there is a large variety of
different entities subsumed under the term “giants.” As the heading of this
section implies, rather than identifying all the various beings as derivations of a
common mythological blue-print including an archetypical function and positing
relationships between them, an overview will be given of the different beings
addressed as giants in research on the canonical European literatures and the
myths that are part of their traditions.
The concept of giants as indigenous people populating an area before the
arrival of the people in whose culture’s myths and literatures they feature in,
cannot be found in Old French and Middle High German literature (Ahrendt 1923,
92). This theory, however, once held some currency in the study of Old Norse
mythology regarding the wars between the two groups of Nordic gods, the Æsir
and the Vanir. The trolls and giants of saga literature are thought to resemble
Sámi (Gallo 2006; Straubhaar 2001), even though those appear non-camouflaged
in the same genre and even the same texts, too. The most fitting theory, is a more
general one in agreement with findings of cultural semiotics (Lotman 2005), and
monster theory (Cohen 1996), that has, however, been formulated much earlier: a
culture’s neighboring societies might feature as giants in their cultural texts, if
their relations are characterized by war (Grimm, 1992 [1875], vol. 1, 436) or to
justify their assimilation, exclusion, or the killing of their members (Cohen 1996,
7–12).
I Celtic cewri
It seems that “what makes a Celtic giant is […] hard to grasp” (Ciklamini 1961,
287). However, Celtic literature contains entities of huge size that are commonly
referred to as giants, the cewri (sg. cawr), who feature most prominently in the
Mabinogion and in Arthurian tales (Grooms 1993). Cewri are noted for their huge
size and great strength. Contrary to Old Norse saga giants and Middle High
German Wilde Leute, they are not uncivilized monsters, but live in courtly struc-
tures, just like most Old French and Middle High German giants. In the Welsh
romance Culhwch ac Olwen (thierteenth c.), for example, the antagonist Ysbadda-
den Bencawr (‘chief of giants’) lives in a castle typical for any king of Arthurian
tales. A motif known from Old French and Middle High German texts is that
heroes from the heroic age are of gigantic size. This is especially true of Bran the
Blessed, and of Arthur in Breuddwyd Rhonabwy (late twelfth c.). In the latter text,

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374 Werner Schäfke
for example, the protagonist Rhonabwy visits the heroic past in a dream, and
meets many of the great heroes. When coming to Arthur, the latter comments on
the small size of the people of the future.
Apart from the cewri there are entities that are not denoted by this appellative
and do not share enough features with other literature’s giants to be commonly
accepted as such. I.e., the Fomóiri are regarded by Eldevik (2005, 103, fn. 51) as
an example of giants. The Formóiri constitute a group of people driven away by
the Irish gods invading Ireland. They thus can be subsumed under the category of
a culture’s “earlier people” that feature as giants in origin myths. Ciklamini (1961,
284–86), however, interprets the Fomóiri as pre-Celtic fertility gods, “if one thinks
of giants as deposed deities” (ibid., 286). She considers this a parallel to the
relation between gods and giants in Old Norse mythology. As Old Norse giants are
not deposed gods, however, this constellation rather parallels the war between
the two groups of Old Norse gods, the Æsir and the Vanir in (esp. Skaldskaparmál,
1; Ynglinga saga, 4), of which the latter are fertility gods—and clearly not giants.
II Old French jaiants
Old French giants (jaiants, sg. jaiant) appear in the Chansons de geste nearly
exclusively on the Saracen side. There are hardly any Christian giants in the
Chansons de geste, rather giant-like heroes (Wohlgemuth 1906, 79). The distribu-
tion is thus complementary to that of Old French dwarves in this genre. In courtly
romances, jaiants occur far less frequently than dwarves (Wohlgemuth 1906, 78).
Wohlgemuth (1906, 39–40) sees little influence from other mythologies and
literatures on jaiants, other than some reminiscences of “Germanic” giants on
jaiants that feature on the Christian side in the Chansons de geste. There is,
however, strong Celtic influence in individual cases. Wohlgemuth (1906, 76–77)
identifies a number of jaiants that are especially monstrous as “keltische Vollrie-
sen” (full Celtic giants), especially Orgilleus in Huon de Bordeaux (thirteenth c.).
Most of them feature in courtly romances (Wohlgemuth 1906, 79).
1 Appearance
Jaiants are characterized by their large size, their heavy weight, enormous
strength, the heavy weight of their huge weapons, and their looks. Like dwarves,
jaiants are most often characterized by their size. The size is either given in
feet (usually 15 ft., ranging from 7–17 ft.), or circumscribed (Wohlgemuth 1906,
12–13). For example, Corsolt in Li coronemenz Looïs is so big that Gillaume, when

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attempting to strike his helmet, cannot reach it with his sword (Wohlge-
muth 1906, 14). Jaiants are also characterized by their excessive weight resulting
from their enormous size. It is impossible for the giants Nasier (Gaufrey) and
Rainuoart (Aliscans) to ride a horse (Wohlgemuth 1906, 15). A jaiant’s strength is
often illustrated by his handling humans like a human could handle a small
animal, picking several of them up at one time, throwing them around, or tearing
them apart (Wohlgemuth 1906, 16–17). The size and weight of the jaiants’ weap-
ons—usually a club or club like instrument—is a further means of illustrating their
superhuman strength. These clubs are often made from whole trees (Wohlge-
muth 1906, 18–23).
Jaiants are usually ugly, but in some rather exceptional cases they are
described as beautiful (Wohlgemuth 1906, 27). Many of them have black skin (as
do Old Norse saga giants) which marks them as ugly—and as Saracen. The sole
exception to that is the Saracen jaiant Rainouart in Aliscans whose face got
darkened with coal by a cook (Wohlgemuth 1906, 27). A number of jaiants have
unusually large heads (Wohlgemuth 1906, 28), just as Old Norse saga dwarves do.
A few jaiants have animal heads or horns (Wohlgemuth 1906, 28–29), underlining
their devilish nature (Wohlgemuth 1906, 35–36) or placing them close to the
many man-animal hybrids known from medieval encyclopedic texts and marginal
manuscript illuminations. When the eyes of jaiants are mentioned, they are, with
a few exceptions, topically compared to red glowing coals (Wohlgemuth 1906,
29). The great distance between their eyes is also frequently mentioned, as is the
deviant shape and size of their noses and their gaping mouths, and their long,
white teeth (Wohlgemuth 1906, 30–31). If the jaiant is described as ugly, he might
have long, shaggy hair that might reach the ground (Wohlgemuth 1906, 32). Their
hair is sometimes given as the reason for the frequent invulnerability of jaiants
(Wohlgemuth 1906, 33). Vulnerability is feature they share with Old Norse saga
giants, trolls, troll-like warriors, and berserkers. A feature that sets Old French
jaiants apart from other medieval giant characters is their ability to breathe fire or
smoke (Wohlgemuth 1906, 34). In addition they have very loud voices (Wohlge-
muth 1906, 34–35). There are other individual features, including double body
parts (Wohlgemuth 1906, 34–35). Some jaiants have limited mental capacities
and are clumsy (Wohlgemuth 1906, 49–50).
2 Motifs
In the courtly romances, jaiants sometimes kidnap virgins or virgins’ lovers. More
often they are knights that, once overcome by the protagonist, enter into their
service. Only very few jaiants are man-eaters (Wohlgemuth 1906, 49). When

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376 Werner Schäfke
appearing on the Saracen side in the Chansons de geste, jaiants function as the
most challenging enemies of fabulous size and strength. On the Christian side,
Wohlgemuth (1906, 40–41) describes a number of characters that he classifies as
“enlarged humans” which share features with proper jaiants, such as their
extreme size and the weight of their weapons. He regards this as an influence
from “Germanic” concepts of giants (Wohlgemuth 1906, 40–41). But more inter-
esting is the parallel to the hyperbolic size and strength of heroes in Middle High
German heroic epic, such as the Nibelungenklage, and especially the like often
almost courtly Dietrichepik. It could well be that in Old French literature, the
heroic ethos demonstrated in the Chansons de geste alienated the historical
audience and the heroes were marked as deviant through their Gigantifizierung.
Ahrendt (1923, 16) considers the gigantic heroes of the Chansons de geste to be
traces of the literary taste of the Carolingian age.
The character type of the Ritterriese (giant knight) subsumes antagonistic
giants that function in more or less courtly contexts, such as giants living in (sea)
fortresses taxing the surrounding areas—sometimes demanding human tributes
(i.e., Ahrendt 1923, 24–25, § 35). While both Ahrendth (1923) and Wohlgemuth
(1905) see many similarities between the Old French and Middle High German
instances, neither of the two concisely define this stock character type at any
point, so their analyses remain a desideratum of comparative teratology.
III German Giants
Old High German material is scant, and apart from etymology, there is little that
links this material to the Middle High German concept of giants. This, however, is
due to the character of the sources. The Old High German material stems from a
monastic context, and with one exception consists only of glosses, while the
Middle High German material stems from courtly romance and heroic epics.
1 Old High German Appellatives
Giants are almost unknown in the extant Old High German sources. Only Notker
offers an insightful remark, as he equates demons (and indirectly heathen gods)
with tursa when paraphrasing “dii paganorum sint daemonia” with “kota dero
heidenon sint tursa” (Notker 17, 34). Tursa is a cognate of Old Norse þurs (pl.
þursar) and Old English þyrs (pl. þyrsas), from proto-germanic *þurisaz. Apart
from the passage by Notker, the appellative turs and its side forms thuris, thures,
and dur(i)s are otherwise only found in glosses, as is the other German term, risi/

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riso that is exclusively found in such. Duris glosses Latin deus ‘god’; Dis, Pluto,
Orcus, deus inferni ‘god of the underworld’ (Schützeichel 2004, s.v. “<duris>”),
and cyclopum (Helm, 1953, vol. 2, 89). There is also a compound duriseslizzi
‘devil’s visage’ (Schützeichel 2004, s.v. “<duriseslizzi>”). Risi glosses Latin gigas
and Cyclops (Schützeichel 2004, s.v. “<risi>”) and thus indicates partial synony-
my with turs. The usage in Notker’s remark and the glosses indicate that the word
could be used for demonic beings on the one hand (including gods that were
regarded as such by German Christians), and Romano-Greek gods on the other.
2 Middle High German Literature
Ahrendt (1923, 21; 118) considers Middle High German giants to be influenced by

the Saracen giants of the Chansons de geste. As noted above under II.2, there are
also heroes of giant like size (e.g., Nibelungenklage, Laurin; Ahrendt 1923, 16, 95).
In Middle High German, giants are denoted as rise (pl. risen), less often as turse/
türse. The giant-sized heroes of Dietrich in Laurin are called recke, which is
interpreted by Ahrendt (1923, 95) as meaning ‘half giant’ in this context, but is one
of the usual terms for ‘hero, brave warrior’ in Middle High German heroic epics.
There are also frequent references to biblical giants where giants are concerned in
Middle High German courtly romance (Ahrendt 1923, 118).
a Motifs
As noted under section C.II.2, the stock character type of the Ritterriese (or,
alternatively, Ritter- und Räuberriese) appears in both Old French and Middle
High German literature. It subsumes antagonistic courtly giants that demand
taxes from the surrounding areas, or fight other knights and steal their women
(i.e., Ahrendt 1923, 21–22, § 31). There are three instances of the motif of a young
knight having to rescue a virgin that is being held by a giant: Lanzelet, Gawan im
Parzival und Gawan in Diu Crône (Ahrendt 1923, 25–26, §§ 33–39). As in Old
French literature, there are two variant motifs of a giant robbing a virgin’s lover or
wooing a virgin, and subsequently threatening or attacking their home court (cf.
Ahrendt 1923, 26–28, §§ 39–42).
Giants often live in caves, like the Wilde Leute (“wild people”) of Middle High
German literature (Ahrendt 1923, 94). The motif of a giant taking over a dwarf
mountain is not uncommon (Ahrendt 1923, 94–95). Due to the nature of the
Eckenlied as a Carnivalesque critique of chivalric values, the giants live in castles
in this piece of Dietrichepik. Giants often appear in pairs or groups of twelve just
like Old Norse berserkers or berserker-like troublemakers. Their number rarely

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exceeds 13. If they appear in pairs, they are either husband and wife or brothers,
triggering the motif of blood vengeance (Ahrendt 1923, 93).
b Appearance
Unsurprisingly, giants are of a huge size in Middle High German literature
(Ahrendt 1923, 94–95, § 113), and if measures are given, they are several klafter or
shoes tall (Ahrendt 1923, 95). Likewise, they are also very heavy (Ahrendt 1923,
95, § 114). Interestingly, Middle High German giants are rarely described as ugly.
Ugly giants rather seem to display features of the Wilde Leute. However, Wilde
Weiber, i.e., female Wilde Leute, can hardly be distinguished from female giants
(Ahrendt 1923, 95). Interestingly, this continuum seems comparable to the Old
Norse situation, where giantesses and troll women can hardly be distinguished
(Schulz 2004, 48), but the terminology denoting giantesses and troll women there
is again much more varied, and an attempt to distinguish types of female giants
and trolls remains a desideratum. Middle High German giants, however, often
have black skin (Ahrendt 1923, 95–96), which might be due to the influence of Old
French Saracen jaiants (Wohlgemuth 1905, 27). Ahrendt (1923, 96) suspects there
to have been oriental influences, as this skin color is often found with wild men,
especially man-eaters, in Middle High German literature. The black skin, how-
ever, might nonetheless mark the giants as belonging to the Other. Middle High
German giants are also shaggy, or have single outstanding features, such as very
long pony tails or long eyebrows (Ahrendt 1923, 96, § 116). Other bodily features
are rarely mentioned, but include broad faces, eyes that are set wide apart, or are
deep in the skull and/or glowing like coals, and deformed noses (Ahrendt 1923,
96–97, § 117). Multiple body parts are only found in isolated cases, and could stem
from Wendish or oriental traditions (Ahrendt 1923, 97–98, § 118). If their clothes
are described, they are made from animal hides or dragon skin, but most often
giants wear armor (Ahrendt 1923, 98, § 119). Furthermore, giants have extremely
loud voices in Middle High German literature, just like Old French jaiants do
(Ahrendt 1923, 102, § 125).
In combat, giants are swift, strong, and deadly (Ahrendt 1923, 98–99, § 120–
121), making them the most dangerous foes in Middle High German epic, much
like Saracen jaiants function in Old French Chansons de geste. Invulnerability is
not often mentioned with regard to giants or wild men, and is usually overcome
by magical means, such as a special sword (Ahrendt 1923, 100, § 122). There are
plenty of comparable motifs featuring invulnerable giants, trolls, and berserks
and special (usually dwarf made) swords in Old Norse literature. Man eating is a
rare feature of Middle High German giants (Ahrendt 1923, 100–01, § 123), as it is
with Old Norse giants, though some of them are even denoted by the appellative

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jötunn ‘giant’ < proto-germanic *etunaz ‘eater’. Most of the rare instances of
anthropophagic humanoid entities in Middle High German literature are from
biblical and encyclopedic context, and the few man-eating giants show clear
classical or oriental influences (Ahrendt 1923, 102). In combat, giants often fight
with poles or clubs (Ahrendt 1923, 108–114), just like Old French and Old Norse
giants. Middle High German giants are true followers, once attributed by the hero,
and especially giantesses are good at treating wounds (Ahrendt 1923, 106–107).
This is also a common motif especially for female giants in Old Norse literature
(cf. B.VI.2.b and C.V.2).
IV Old English Giants
There is only scant material on Old English giants (Ciklamini 1961, 4). The sole
giant known from Old English literature is Grendel in Beowulf. Appellatives and
proper names of giants do not offer much additional material.
1 Onomastic Evidence
a Appellatives
Five appellatives denote giants in Old English: ent, eoton, þyrs, gígant, and fífel
(Ciklamini 1961, 19). Fífl also designates sea monsters in human and animal form
(Ciklamini 1961, 19–20). Eoton, þyrs, and fífl have cognates in Old Norse, but only
eoton (cf. Old Norse jǫtunn) and þyrs (cf. Old Norse þurs) are appellatives for
giants in Old Norse as well. Gígant is a Latin loan word and except in Beowulf is
only used in psalms (Ciklamini 1961, 20). The etymologies of the Old English
appellatives are rather uncertain and give little insight into role and function of
Old English and Proto-Germanic giants (see Eldevik 2005 for a recent discussion).
b Proper Names
There are two Old English proper names referring to giants (Jente 1921, 194–95). A
plant name, Fornetes folm, obviously contains a giant name otherwise known
from Old Norse, Fornjótr. It is unfortunately unknown which plant this name
refers to. Then there is a sword name, Mimming, which is thought to contain
another giant name otherwise known from Old Norse, Mímir. The latter is also
found in Old High German place names (Helm 1953, 95).

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c Place Names
There are numerous place names, especially in northern England, that include
the lexeme þyrs in later forms such as thrush, thrus, thrust or dross (Cardew
2005, 201–02). These place names are connected to water, fens, and caves, which
are “traditionally the haunt of monsters, devils, and evil spirits” (Ciklamini 1961,
11). The concept of þyrs, at least as it is attested in these later place names, thus
differs from that of Scandinavian giants who dwell in lava fields and on moun-
tains (Cardew 2005, 205; cf. V.2), but they have in common that they both live in
spaces bordering the cultural sphere, as all these areas are non-arable. In agree-
ment with the interpretation of the place names, a gnomic verse associates þyrsas
with fens: “þyrs sceal on fenne gwunian ana innan lande” (Maxims II, 42–43;
Ciklamini 1961, 21). Lastly, a connection to Master Builder tales is made by the
Wade’s Causeway, a Roman road, which had been built by the giant Wade’s wife
according to folklore (Ciklamini 1961, 4).
2 Grendel
Grendel might be the most well-known Old English giant, but his status is
ambiguous, as he is denoted both as eoten and wer ‘man’ (Eldevik 2005, 104), and
might have features of Old English þyrsas, which are giant entities believed to live
in the fenlands of England, as indicated by the places names above (Cardew
2005, 201–02; cf. Cardew 2005 and Eldevik 2005 for recent discussions and
further literature). Another major difference to Old Norse giants and trolls is
Grendel’s cannibalism. It is a rare feature with Old Norse, Middle High German,
and Old French giants to display cannibalism, which makes it hard to root the
literary character Grendel in these literary traditions. Maybe Beowulf shows
features typical of Old English heroic epic in this respect which we do not know
of since there is so little material, or features its very own concept of a monstrous
character. The latter possibility is rarely taken into account in historical-compara-
tive research.
V Old Norse Giants
Giants can be found in all three indigenous genres of Old Norse literature, saga
literature, Eddic lays, and skaldic poetry.

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1 Appellatives and Names
There are numerous appellatives for giants that are traditionally translated into
English not only as ‘giant’ but also as ‘ogre’ or ‘troll’. Some appellatives refer only
to female giants. These appellatives are often translated as ‘giantess,’ ‘troll
woman’ and ‘ogress,’ and especially in saga literature they often denote entities
that have many similarities to folk tale hags. The most common appellatives for
giants are jǫtunn, þurs, and troll. Especially the last term has a wider meaning in
saga literature, as it is being applied to humans with giant-like characteristics and
even becomes synonymous to berserkr ‘berserker’ in some sagas. However, there
are far more than those three appellatives: Schulz (2004, 37–50) lists more than
twenty appellatives for giants and their distribution in Old Norse texts—not
including runic inscriptions. Some of these appellatives are composites that
paraphrase giants in a kenning-like fashion, such as hraunbúi ‘lava-dweller,’ as
giants often live in desolate, rocky areas, (Schulz 2004, 45; Boberg 1966, 119,
F531.6.2.1.; Motz 1993b, 86–96) beyond arable—and thus cultural—space.
Even though the reconstruction of sub-groups of giants by their appellatives
has been attempted (Motz 1987), Schulz (2004, 30–37) finds that there is no
obvious pattern in the usage of appellatives for giants. She points out that
individual sagas create their own taxonomy, e.g., of friendly vs. unfriendly giants.
For example, in Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns friendly giants are jǫtnar (sg. jǫtunn),
and antagonistic, heathen giants are þursar (sg. þurs). Another text, Bárðar saga
Snæfelsáss, contrasts four groups of giants: jǫtnar, þursar, risar, and troll. In this
text, the jǫtnar and þursar have the same characteristics as in Þorsteins þáttr
bœjarmagns. So, further study might still reveal conventions regarding concepts
of giant sub-groups, even if these might not be consistent for larger parts of Old
Norse literature.
2 Motifs
In Eddic lays giants usually have alien powers, with the potential to threaten the
gods in more or less fatal ways (Schulz 2004, 119), such as the robbing of Þórr’s
hammer in Þrymskviða or the apples of Iðunn that grant the gods their eternal
youth in Haustlǫng and Skaldskaparmǫ́ l. They are consistently characterized as
ancient, since they also feature in the cosmogony of Old Norse mythology: in
Gylfaginning (st. 6–7), the gods Óðinn, Vili, and Vé slay the primordial giant Ymir,
and create the world out of his body. Corresponding to their primordial existence,
giants possess great knowledge (Schulz 2004, 120). This is especially seen in the
gnomic lay Vafþrúðnismǫ́ l, in which the giant Vafþrúðnir makes a formidable

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382 Werner Schäfke
contestant in a battle of knowledge with Óðinn. According to the mythological

cosmogony, they are the god’s previous generation, much like ancient Greek
titans and gods, but there are also more direct family ties, such as the god Týr who
is Hymir’s son in Hymiskviða. Their wealth is only mentioned implicitly. Schulz
(2004, 120) supposes a poetic restriction, as wealth is the characteristic attribute
of a leader in skaldic praise poems, and would thus be a far too positive attribute
for the rather fiendish Eddic giants.
Skaldic verse mostly depicts the animosity between gods and giants (Schulz
2004, 134–35). Most of the kennings either characterize giants as kinsmen of other
giants, thus marking them as part of an out-group, or associate them with rocks
and mountains, i.e., the non-cultivatable wilderness (Schulz 2004, 134). Only a
few kennings presuppose the knowledge of Eddic characteristics of giants, such
as their wealth, knowledge, or primordial existence. More kennings rather associ-
ate giants with destructive natural forces who damage objects, like vandar jǫtunn
‘giant of the mast’ (Schulz 2004, 135) for ‘storm’.
Saga giants and Eddic giants feature in a common set of motifs: They are
primordial entities, function as antagonists or abstract threat and are located at
the periphery beyond the homes of gods and men (Schulz 2004, 309), just like Old
Norse dwarves and so many more monstrous entities. Some saga giants, however,
are stupid, contrary to the knowledgeable giants of Eddic lays (Schulz 2004, 309).
Unsurprisingly, saga giants can be huge, but more often size is not mentioned, or
they appear to be big and strong humans, especially in the troll-part of the
continuum (cf. Jakobsson 2008).
Saga giants are nearly without exception ugly, but saga giantesses sometimes
function as objects of desire, as they do in Eddic lays such as Skírnismál, and are
described in these cases as possessing great beauty (Schulz 2004, 164–66). An-
other typical feature is their tremendous strength, and since they frequently
function as monstrous foes, they are the topical most deadly enemy a hero can
encounter during his adventures in saga literature, and—vice versa—the most
deadly foes of heroes are often attributed with giant like features, even if they are
basically humans. This function is similar to that of Old French Saracen jaiants
and Middle High German risen. Just like Old French jaiants, Old Norse giants most
often use clubs (or staffs) as weapons. These weapons, however, are made from
iron, and not from trees, as is the case with jaiants. Still, the iron rods are usually
interpreted as showing giants’ cultural backwardness. This backwardness, their
marginal spatial situation, and their aberrantly strong appetite for horse meat
and human flesh, have led to interpretations of giants—and saga giantesses
especially—as symbols of the cultural Other, i.e., Sámi (Gallo 2006; Straub-
haar 2001), and as a demonizing symbol for women with a deviating, i.e., aggres-
sive, sexuality (Schulz 2004, 184–98). Considering their appearance, their lust for

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sex and eating human flesh, many appellatives denoting them could more readily
be translated as “hag.”
The fluid continuum between giants, trolls, and berserkers is best illustrated
by the fact that there are no Master Builder tales in saga literature involving
giants, as is the case with Eddic lays. There is, however, a Master Builder tale in
Eyrbyggja saga about the building of a road through the Ljósufjöll on Snæfellsnes,
the Berserkjahraun (‘berserker’s lava field’) that involves two berserkers.
Select Bibliography
Ahrendt, Ernst Herwig, Der Riese in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik (Güstrow 1923).
Battles, Paul, “Dwarves in Germanic Literature: Deutsche Mythologie or Grimm’s Myths,” The
Shadow-Walkers, Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous, ed. Tom A. Shippey (Tempe,
AZ, 2005), 29–82.
Grooms, Chris, The Giants of Wales, Cewri Cymru (Lewiston, NY, 1993).
Jakobsson, Ármann, “The Trollish Acts of Þorgrímr the Witch. The Meanings of Troll and Ergi in
Medieval Iceland,” Saga Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 32 (2008): 39–68.
Lütjens, August, Der Zwerg in der deutschen Heldendichtung des Mittelalters, rpt. ed. (1911;
Hildesheim 1977).
Schäfke, Werner, “Was ist eigentlich ein Zwerg? Eine prototypensemantische Figurenanalyse der
dvergar in der Sagaliteratur,” Mediaevistik 23 (2010): 197–299.
Schulz, Katja, Riesen: Von Wissenshütern und Wildnisbewohnern in Edda und Saga (Heidelberg
2004).
Wohlgemuth, Fritz, Riesen und Zwerge in der altfranzösischen erzählenden Dichtung (Stuttgart
1906).

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David Sheffler
Education and Schooling
A Introduction
Textbooks and popular works on the Middle Ages rarely mention schooling.
When they do, it is typically to assert either its absence or its alleged dependence
on the Church. At the same time, interest in schooling among specialists has been
slowly growing (Orme 2006, 2–11). Recent scholarly works have centered around
a number of key debates: the extent of women’s literacy and access to education
(Green 2000, Essay VII); the expansion of schooling (Orme 2006); the role of the
universities (Ridder-Symoens, ed., 1992), and the social and religious impact of
increasing literacy (Stock 1983; Clanchy 1993; Biller and Hudson, ed., 1994). The
purpose of this essay is to provide a brief overview of formal schooling in the
Middle Ages in the Latin West between ca. 500 and ca. 1500. The essay will focus
on four major categories: the schools themselves, teaching and learning, curricu-
la, and finally the students. Although important subjects in their own right,
schooling in less formal contexts—homes, guilds, private tutors—will be dis-
cussed only in passing. Jewish education is addressed elsewhere and will not be
discussed here. The education of women, about which we now know a great deal
more than we did just a few decades ago, does not receive separate treatment, but
will be discussed throughout the article.
B Schools
I Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Historians have long since abandoned the image of a benighted Middle Ages
precipitated by barbaric Germanic hordes inundating the sophisticated and
civilized world of the Romans (Fontaine 2005, 735). Although political centers
shifted and multiplied, and in some areas the value of traditional Roman educa-
tion declined or vanished entirely, the process unfolded over multiple genera-
tions and even then remained incomplete (Riché 1976, 17–21; Fontaine 2005,
736–37; Wood 1990, 70–71). Thus, despite the political and military instability
that ultimately fractured the Western Roman Empire, the legacy of Roman
schooling continued even as new educational forms and priorities emerged.
Gregory of Tours’s famous lament that in his day the study of letters had

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Education and Schooling 385
“virtually disappeared altogether” (Gregory of Tours 1979, 63) no longer rings as

true as it once did.
As Ralph Mathisen has shown, the secular schools that dominated the educa-
tional landscape of late antiquity continued to function into the sixth and seventh
century (Mathisen 2005; cf. Wood 1990, 73; Riché 1976, 48–51). The late fifth-
century bishop of Clermont, Sidonius of Apollinaris (d. ca. 489), mentions schools
in Arles, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Périgueux, Clermont, and Lyon, and Gregory of
Tours describes a curriculum at Marseille indicating an active secular school there
(Mathisen 2005, 5–8). Traditional Roman education continued in Northern Italy
as well, as evidenced by the career of Ennodius of Pavia (ca. 473–421) who drew
students from as far away as his native Provence. The town schools in Milan and
Rome likewise continued to operate, the latter serving as a center of study for law
and rhetoric (Riché 1976, 24). In Visigothic Spain, lay literacy remained relatively
high among the elites suggesting that schools continued to operate there as well
(Collins 1990, 114–15; Riché 1976, 36–37).
The schools of North Africa also remained important centers of learning.
Martianus Capella, a scholar and jurist in Carthage, produced the influential
pedagogical text, The Marriage of Mercury and Philology some time before 430.
Following what was likely a decline in the activities of the schools during the
initial phases of the Vandal conquests, the schools of Carthage and Vandal North
Africa reemerge in the sources with a flurry of activity in the last quarter of the
fifth century. After Justinian’s conquest of North Africa, the emperor restored
public funding for schools in several key cities including Carthage. Although
renewed public funding ensured income stability for the teaching personnel in
the official city schools, it did not represent a restoration of schooling, which in
Carthage, at least, had never really ceased (Riché 1976, 39; Fontaine 2005, 740).
Even in rural areas under Vandal rule, witnesses to property transactions were
still expected to be able to sign their own names, suggesting that some level of
elementary education survived outside the cities as well (Riché 1976, 20).
Traditional Roman learning survived to the extent that it continued to carry
value as a practical skill and an indicator of social prestige and identity. Political
elites, who took over as Roman imperial structures collapsed, continued to
require individuals skilled in both law and the rhetorical arts who could provide
the newly established regimes with a legal foundation and legitimacy (Fontaine
2005, 736). This close connection between political power and schooling is
perhaps best illustrated in Justinian’s Pragmatic Sanction in which he sought to
reestablish official salaries for teachers of grammar, rhetoric and law after his
reconquest of portions of the western Mediterranean (Fontaine 2005, 740). And
although in many regions the value of a traditional Roman education as a marker
of social class declined with the rise of a militarized aristocracy, engagement with

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386 David Sheffler
Latin texts and authors did not entirely cease. Nor did literacy ever become the
exclusive preserve of clerics or the highest stratum of society (Kelly 1990, 60–61;
McKitterick, ed., 1990, 330). Merovingian royal courts in particular often hosted
scholars and teachers who educated the royal household and the children of key
magnates (Wood 1990, 74).
At the same time monastic, parish, and diocesan schools grew in importance
(Fontaine 2005, 736). The need for competent clerics and ecclesiastical adminis-
trators spurred bishops and other church officials to establish schools early in the
history of the institutionalized Church. In his work De Doctrina Christiana, Augus-
tine (354–430) concerns himself first and foremost with the training of teachers to
serve these schools. The Council of Provence and the Second Council of Toledo,
held in 529 and 531 respectively, required the establishment of schools for the
education of future clerics. The Second Council of Toledo further stipulated that
when these boys reached the age of eighteen they could choose between the
church and a secular life (Fontaine 2005, 744; Riché 1977, 282–90). Many monas-
tic communities also developed schools. In the prologue to his monastic rule,
St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480–ca. 547) refers to the monastery itself as a school
for the Lord’s service. The Rule does not specifically discuss the establishment of
schools, but the expectation that the monks participate in the lectio divina (divine
reading) coupled with the practice of accepting oblates, assured that most mon-
asteries provided at least a rudimentary education (Fontaine 2005, 743). Although
somewhat unique in its unapologetic embrace of pagan learning, and intense
focus on the preservation of texts, Cassiodorus’s (ca. 490–ca. 585) foundation, the
Vivarium, provided a model for the establishment of a rigorous monastic school
that combined the study of both sacred and secular letters (Hildebrandt 1991, 26–
27; Leclercq 1982, 19–21).
Some of the most influential monastic schools emerged from the peregrina-
tions of the Scotti. Most notable among these, the seventh century Irishman
Columbanus (ca. 543–ca. 615) established a series of monasteries from Burgundy
to Northern Italy including the important scriptoria of Luxeuil, St. Gall, and
Bobbio. These schools later played a significant role in the eighth and ninth
centuries by providing many of the texts and scholars that sparked the so-called
Carolingian Renaissance. In England too, the Irish monks played a decisive role,
especially in Northumberland, where the unique elements of Celtic Christian
culture came into contact with Roman missionaries moving North from Canter-
bury. The Northumbrian monasteries of Whitby, Wearmouth, and Jarrow, and the
cathedral at York developed schools whose reputations extended well beyond the
British Isles (Fontaine 2005, 754; Orme 2006, 22).

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II Carolingian Schooling
Although the so-called Carolingian Renaissance still stands out as a period of

remarkable scholarly activity, the centuries both before and after Charlemagne’s
reign no longer appear as dark as they once did (Wood 1990; Moore 2006). At the
same time, overly optimistic interpretations of Charlemagne’s educational policy,
especially as it relates to monastic schools, has further distorted the relative
significance the Carolingian Renaissance. Nevertheless, Charlemagne and his
immediate successors did provide significant financial support and leadership that
encouraged the growth of schools and scriptoria and resulted in the development
of new spiritual and intellectual networks. (McKitterick 1989, 163; Contreni 1995,
711; Hildebrandt 1991, 108). In addition, the more than 50,000 surviving texts bear
witness to the existence of an intense intellectual and literary culture producing
biblical commentaries and histories, and engendering new debates on long dor-
mant theological questions (Contreni 1995, 710). Charlemagne also cultivated a
dazzling court and palace school employing renowned scholars Peter of Pisa and
Alcuin of York who taught the Emperor’s children and those of his courtiers.
Two key documents attest to Charlemagne’s educational program: the Episto-
la de Litteris Colendis and Admonitio Generalis. The De Litteris Colendis takes the
form of a letter to the Abbot Baugulf of Fulda directing the Abbot to educate “each
according to his capacity.” Despite the apparent universal call for education, the
letter aims primarily at the training of future clerics (Hildebrandt 1991, 56). Like-
wise, the Admonitio, which required monasteries and bishoprics to establish
schools for children from both free and servile families, clearly aimed at the
education of priests (Contreni 1995, 715; Hildrebrandt 1991, 58). The real innova-
tion was the employment of monastic schools for the education of clerics. This
intent is clear from the capitula of Theodulf (ca. 760–821), bishop of Orléans,
which permitted priests in the diocese of Orléans to send their relatives to either
the cathedral school or one of the monastic schools with “no hint here that those
who chose to learn their letters in a monastic school intended to become monks”
(Contreni 1995, 713). As a further indication of the growing presence of non-
oblates in monastic schools, the Council of Aachen reversed earlier policy and
expressly forbade all but future monks from attending monastic schools (Contreni
1995, 714). The famous plan of St. Gall, with its school located outside the convent
close, may have been an effort to circumvent these new strictures against the
mingling of oblates with external students (Hildrebrandt 1991, 91–93). In all, some
seventy schools left behind significant traces of their activities in the surviving
sources with major centers at St. Amand, Corbie, St. Denis, Auxerre, Laon, Lyons,
Lorsch, St. Gall, Fulda, Tegernsee, Reichenau, Verona, Milan, and Pavia (Contreni
1995, 721).

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388 David Sheffler
Women also participated in the intellectual activities associated with the

Carolingian revival. Many female religious communities housed significant
schools intended for the education of the nuns. Paschasius Radbertus received
his early education with the nuns at Soissons and later dedicated several works to
them in appreciation (Contreni 1995, 718). The scribal activities of the nuns is also
well attested; the scriptoria at Chelles, which Bernard Bischoff first identified,
now sits alongside a growing list of female houses that produced a significant
number of texts (McKitterick 1994; Contreni 1995, 719). Aristocratic women out-
side of religious institutions might also receive high levels of education. Two of
Charlemagne’s daughters, Gisela and Rotrud, wrote to Alcuin requesting assist-
ance in their efforts to understand St. John’s Gospel (Garver 2009, 162; Contreni
1995, 718). Even outside the immediate circle of the imperial court, the education
of the noble woman Dhuoda attests to a high degree of aristocratic engagement
with schools and learning (Contreni 1995, 718).
III High Middle Ages
Judging from the relative dearth of manuscripts surviving from the tenth century,
historians have long argued that the end of Carolingian political hegemony
signaled a dramatic decline in intellectual activity, including schools. When
coupled with accounts of Viking attacks on once flourishing monastic commu-
nities, the impression of decline seemed confirmed. Yet a more recent systematic
examination of the textual productions of the tenth century suggests a rather
more optimistic assessment of education within the core of the old Carolingian
lands. Indeed, even areas at the periphery of Latin Christendom experienced “a
period not of decadence but rather of renewed interest in study and intellectual
activities” (Leonardi 2000, 191). In Anglo-Saxon England and Christian Spain,
courts continued to attract scholars and provide schooling for those closest to
political power. In Southern Italy, Salerno near Naples served as a center for the
translation of Greek texts (primarily hagiographical accounts) into Latin (Leonar-
di 2000, 193). Scholars working in both Southern Italy and the recently conquered
Toledo, also translated significant numbers of texts from Arabic (often mediated
through Hebrew) that would have profound effects on the curriculum of European
schools (Pedersen 1997, 119–20).
Perhaps the most famous educator of the tenth century, Gerbert of Aurillac
(ca. 945–1003), who took the papal name Sylvester II, taught and studied in many
of the most important schools of his day. A restless scholar, Gerbert began his
studies at his home convent of Aurillac, continued in Catalonia and later taught
at the cathedral school of Rheims before serving as the tutor to Otto III. Gerbert’s

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studies in Catalonia brought him in contact with Islamic scientific and mathema-
tical learning which he famously incorporated into his curriculum at Rheims
(Leonardi 2000, 209; Zuccato 2005, 748). Gerbert’s pupils at Rheims came from
across the former Carolingian realms and often returned to their home regions as
bishops, administrators, and teachers (DeMayo 2012).
Many of the older monastic and diocesan schools that had flourished under
the Carolingians continued to do so, while new ones, most notably in Saxony and
Bavaria, emerged. The famous scriptoria of Quedlinburg, Reichenau, and Hilde-
sheim crafted beautiful illuminated manuscripts and trained scribes. Female
religious houses including Gandersheim provided schooling for the daughters of
the Ottonian elite and produced the poet and playwright, Hrotsvit, whose works
remain some of the most famous literary productions of the tenth century (Leo-
nardi 2000, 194; 199). The cathedral schools of Liège, Cologne, Hildesheim,
Bamberg, Cologne, Rheims, and Chartres enjoyed particularly high reputations as
well as royal patronage. Many of these schools trained the men who staffed the
royal and episcopal administrations and provided these courtiers with the skills
and mores appropriate to their station (Jaeger 1994, 36–52). The prestige of the
cathedral schools and associated libraries drew students from across Europe and
played an important role in the reproduction and transmission of texts.
Monastic houses, both male and female, continued to staff schools to educate
their oblates and in some cases non-oblates (Opitz 1994, 67). Although often
overshadowed in the historiography by the reputation of cathedral schools on the
one hand, and the subsequent rise of the universities on the other, monastic
schools occupied a position of prominence in the educational and intellectual
landscape (Vaughn and Rubenstein, ed., 1–7). The monastery of Bec, with its
abbey school, provides perhaps the most compelling example of the continued
vibrancy of monastic schooling. Headed in turn by two future bishops of Canter-
bury, Lanfranc (ca. 1005–1089) and Anselm (ca. 1033–1109)—both originally from
Italy—the school of Bec epitomized the continued transnational character of
schooling and the fluid boundaries that separated monastic and cathedral
schools (Vaughn and Rubenstein 2006, 15). Bec also serves as an example of “fee-
paying pupils without any aspirations to become monks” in monastic schools
(Swanson 1999, 17). Even as oblation became rarer during the twelfth century,
children might still be brought into monasteries for schooling (Orme 2006, 257).
By the end of the twelfth century, new educational structures competed with
traditional cathedral and monastic schools for students (Luscombe 2004, 467). In
some places, collegiate churches, with their emphasis on pastoral care and great-
er engagement with the world, developed new schools to serve a growing urban
population (Swanson, 18). The schoolmaster William of Champeaux (ca. 1069–ca.
1122), whom Abelard savaged in his Historia calamitatum, founded just such a

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390 David Sheffler
school at St. Victor in 1109 where he taught students free of charge (Swanson
1999, 18). Paris, in particular, also gave rise to a number of independent masters
whose frequently brutal rivalries left a trail of bruised psyches and broken
careers. Students crowded around popular masters near the Petit Pont and the
Mont Sainte-Geneviève (Pedersen 132–33). Rival schools challenged each other to
high-stakes debates, which, if Abelard is to be believed, could destroy the
defeated master’s reputation and decimate his school. Although lacking institu-
tional continuity, these independent masters continued to draw students and
scholars to Paris and helped to establish the city as the intellectual center of Latin
Christendom (Swanson 1999, 22).
Paris, of course, did not possess a monopoly on education in this period.
Higher level teaching is attested to in most major towns and Councils diocesan
cities. Abelard’s travels give some indication of the range of towns in which
independent masters could earn a living. Both the Third (1179) and the Fourth
Lateran (1215) decreed that every cathedral should provide for a grammar master
(whether they did or not is of course another matter entirely). As was always the
case, those with sufficient resources, like the mother of Guibert of Nogent (ca.
1053–ca. 1122), might make arrangements with private tutors. And even small
parishes likely trained one or two clerics in the basics of reading and perhaps
writing (Swanson 1999, 23). Twelfth-century Italy, where monastic and cathedral
schools were less dominant than in the North, saw the rise of schools for the study
of the ars dictaminis as well as the development of vibrant city schools (Swanson
1999, 24). Montpellier and Salerno developed as centers for the study of Medicine
and by the middle of the twelfth century Bologna ruled in law (Swanson 1999, 32;
Verger 1999, 256).
IV Rise of the Universities
By the opening of the thirteenth century the first universities (studia generalia)
had begun to emerge (Rüegg 1992, 6). These institutions fundamentally altered
the medieval educational landscape. Once flourishing intellectual centers like
Chartres and Rheims now possessed only regional significance (Verger 1999, 257).
For reasons of local and institutional pride, various schools have claimed the title
of oldest university. Salerno, which in the early twelfth century already had a
large number of practitioners and teachers of medicine, was an early candidate
(Pedersen 1997, 122–24). But its claim has given way to the rival claims of Paris
and Bologna. Bologna’s case rests on the Authentica habita (ca. 1155), in which
Frederick Barbarossa granted special protection to the students of Bologna, and
on the initial formation of Bologna’s law students into nations in 1191. The

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competing claim of Paris asserts that a true university requires an association of

teachers and students across multiple disciplines, something that did not emerge
until 1208 at Paris (Rüegg 1992, 6; Verger 1999, 258).
Regardless of primacy, the universities of Paris and Bologna provided the
institutional models followed by most subsequent universities. Born in conflict
with local authorities, students (at Bologna) and masters (at Paris) joined together
for mutual protection. By the 1230s, in response to pressures from the commune
of Bologna, two student universities formed at Bologna, one for Italians (except-
ing those from Bologna whose presumed loyalties to their home city made them
suspect) and one for the ultramontanes (mostly Germans). Excluded from official
universities structures, the professors contracted with the student universities
(Verger 1999, 258). The statutes of 1252 reflect the full institutionalization the
University of Bologna as a student controlled university focusing on the study of
canon and civil law. In contrast, at Paris, it was the masters who joined together
to form a university in response to the demands of secular and ecclesiastical
authorities. It is clear from the early statutes of Paris that the masters also sought
to impose some level of discipline on the growing number of students flowing into
the city to study (Ferruolo 1985, 285–86; Verger 1999, 259).
Although it is important not too draw too sharp a distinction between the two
archetypes, indeed universities such as Salamanca reflected structural elements
of both Paris and Bologna, Bologna’s ‘student’ university provided the model for
many of the universities of Southern Europe (Verger 192, 49). Paris meanwhile
influenced many of the Northern universities. By the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury, eighteen studia generalia operated in Europe, three in the Iberian Peninsula
(Lisbon, Salamanca, and Valladolid), eight in the Italian Peninsula (Naples,
Rome, Siena, Arezzo, Bologna, Padua, Vicenza, and Vercelli), five in the Kingdom
of France (Montpellier, Toulouse, Angers, Orléans, and Paris) and two in England
(Oxford and Cambridge). Fifteen of these show evidence of significant activity
throughout the latter half of the thirteen century, with Bologna, Padua, Salaman-
ca, Paris, Montpellier, Oxford, and Cambridge emerging as truly international
centers of study (Verger 1992, 55). The German Empire, however, remained with-
out a true university until the fourteenth century when Emperor Charles IV
founded the University of Prague in 1348 (Šmahel 2007, 9–10).
V Mendicant Studia
Nearly as important as the rise of the universities, mendicant studia emerged as

centers of schooling in the thirteenth century. In order to assure a steady stream
of educated preachers and teachers, the four main mendicant orders (Francis-

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392 David Sheffler
cans, Dominicans, Augustinian Hermits, and Carmelites), developed highly struc-

tured educational systems (Mulchahey 1998; Roest 2000; Lickteig 1981; Andrews
2006, 148–62). The Dominican system emerged first, but the other mendicants
quickly adapted these innovations to the needs of their respective orders. At the
lowest level every Dominican priory employed a lector who provided basic
instruction in theology. Although in theory the Dominicans only accepted literate
members as friars, elementary and basic grammar education may also have been
available in some convents. Moreover, these schools may have included a few
external (non-mendicant) students. For higher levels of education, several con-
vents pooled their resources to support a school of arts (primarily logic) and
natural philosophy (science). These schools rotated between convents to help
defray costs. Students who succeeded at this level might be selected to study at
one of the studia generalia for the order. (Courtenay 1987, 61–66; Mulchahey
1998, 219–350). Each year a small number of the most promising students entered
one of the convents associated with the universities at Oxford, Cambridge and
Paris. The Dominican studia of St. Jacques in Paris and Blackfriars in Oxford drew
the best and brightest from within the order. By the 1230s, the Dominicans held
two of twelve chairs of theology at Paris and one at Oxford. Within two decades
the Franciscans had similarly acquired control of theology chair at both Paris and
Oxford (Asztalos 1999, 415; Mulchahey 1998, 381). The reputation of the mendi-
cant theological schools was so high that some secular students began to attend
the lectures. A second tier of mendicant studia generalia coalesced around other
centers of study particularly Bologna and Cologne. Not surprisingly, many of the
secular masters saw the growing influence of the mendicants as a threat to the
university and their positions within it. Already in the mid-thirteenth century,
secular masters at Paris sought to limit the recruitment of students into mendicant
orders. At Oxford, the secular masters created new statutes which would have
effectively barred mendicants from becoming theology masters had not dispensa-
tions to the statutes been routinely granted (Asztalos 1999, 416).
VI Late Middle Ages
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, a crowded and complex educational

landscape had emerged. In many of the expanding urban centers, older monastic,
collegiate, parish, and cathedral schools operated alongside, and at times com-
peted with, mendicant studia, city schools, and private schoolmasters. Even in
rural areas and small towns, parish priests frequently educated a few young
scholars. Many parish libraries were sufficiently well stocked to provide at least
basic education leading to elementary literacy. The high number of university

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matriculants from small towns and rural areas, suggests that geography was not
the most significant barrier to education (Schwinges 2000, 40).
The surviving evidence also suggests an increase in the number of schools,
students, and texts during the late Middle Ages. By the fourteenth century,
established city grammar masters and ecclesiastical schools complained about
competition from small, often illegal, vernacular schools. In Germany so-called
deutsche Schulen taught basic vernacular literacy and numeracy to the children of
urban merchants who adapted the curriculum to their social and economic needs.
Similar developments can be seen across Europe in the fifteenth century (Will-
emsen 2013, 22–30). Patrons eager to solidify earthly reputations and secure
heavenly rewards established schools and scholarships for poor scholars (Moran
Cruz 1985; Alexander 1990). Cities and towns founded new schools and expanded
existing ones. In many cities across Europe, schoolmasters began to appear in
urban account records as paid civic officials. One recent study estimates that
there were sixty grammar schools in the Northern Netherlands by 1500 (Will-
emsen 2008, 23). Cities across France founded new schools at civic expense and
at times ecclesiastical offense (Huppert 1984, 12–13; Willemsen 2008, 31). Similar
growth is also evident within Germany (Endres 1991, 153) Italy (Grendler 1989, 13)
and Scandinavia (Willemsen 2008, 33).
The expansion of schooling in Italy is particularly remarkable. Here, town
schools predate the opening of the fourteenth century. By the middle of the
fifteenth century they appear in nearly every city from Lombardy to Sicily. Many
towns provided free schooling to the children of its tax-paying citizenry, although
the elite, above all in Venice and Florence, still preferred private tutors (Black
2004, 23–24). These sophisticated educational structures often included separate
elementary and secondary institutions (Black 2004, 19–20). Alongside the tradi-
tional secondary schools aimed at developing Latin literacy, Italy also saw the
rise of abacus schools, an alternative secondary education aimed at the acquisi-
tion of basic numeracy (Black 2004, 23).
Although the overall impression is one of dramatic expansion, some caution
is necessary here. Some of the apparent increase may simply be the result of the
higher survival rate for more recent documents. A simple narrative of incremental
increase that overlooks regional differences and fluctuations must also be
avoided (Orme 2006, 341). Nevertheless, other evidence seems to confirm broad-
based growth across Europe. New universities appeared in Scotland, Scandina-
via, Germany, and Poland. In all, thirty-five universities opened their doors
between 1400 and 1500. Enrollments at Oxford and Cambridge increased fifty
percent, and German matriculations rose five-fold. Private libraries, as well as
those attached to religious and civic institutions, increased in size and richness
(Verger 1998, 225; 241; Schwinges 1986). The increase in university graduates is

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394 David Sheffler
also attested in the intensifying competition for the most desirable positions
(Moraw 1995, 286).
Two additional institutions made significant contributions to late medieval
education: the beguines and the Sisters and Brethren of the Common Life. Schools
appear in the houses of many beguines from the beginning of the movement in
the early thirteenth century. By the fourteenth century, at least in Germany and
the Low Countries, beguinages housed more religious women than any other
monastic order and attracted a variety of students to their schools (Simons 2003,
85). The Sisters and Brethren of the Common Life, similar in some ways to the
beguines as they did not take permanent vows, joined together in a communal life
centered on religious devotion and pious reading. Given that many of the brethren
had themselves been schoolmasters, including the founder Geert Groote, it is
unsurprising to find a keen interest in education among the brethren. As an
extension of their core mission, many of the houses established bursae (hostels)
which provided food, lodging, tutoring, and moral instruction for Latin scholars
(Van Engen 2008, 149–50). The house associated with the school at Deventer
could boast several of the leading intellectual lights of the late Middle Ages
including: Nicolas of Cusa, Erasmus, and Rudolf Agricola. And although Erasmus
famously criticized the brethren as unsophisticated and antiquated, the Breth-
ren’s direct approach to reading the Bible echoed aspects of the humanist move-
ment and contributed to both religious and educational reform at the end of the
Middle Ages (Verger 1998, 228).
C Teaching and Learning

I Discipline
The trope of the harsh schoolmaster dominated the medieval image of the class-
room. Guibert of Nogent complained about the cruelty (and incompetence) of his
master from whom he “was deluged everyday with a hail of blows and whip-
pings” (Guibert of Nogent 1996, 16). The twelfth century royal portal of Chartres
includes the image of Lady Grammar, switch in hand, correcting a cowering pupil
(Münster-Swendsen 2006, 307). In late-medieval Germany, school-children cele-
brated the annual Virgatumgehen singing songs and cutting new switches for later
classroom use (Sheffler 2008, 153). The fifteenth century German humanist Con-
rad Celtis (1459–1508), admonished his students to bear harsh words patiently
that they might learn more from words than from blows (Celtis 1963, 4). A
collection of fifteenth-century school exercises associated with Bristol offered up
for translation into Latin “my fellow being beaten with a birch rod, I am to be

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beaten with a whip” (Orme 2013, 54). Fines and systematic humiliation were also
employed (Sheffler 2008, 148). These examples, which could be easily multiplied,
limn a grim picture of the medieval schoolhouse.
This picture, however, is misleading and incomplete. Daily practice was often
much gentler. In contrast to the brutality of the scenes portrayed above, William
of Conches (ca. 1100–ca. 1154) and John of Salisbury (ca. 1120–1180) advocated a
pedagogy based on “affinity and love.” According to John of Salisbury, students
“listen with pleasure to those whom they love, and believe what they say…”
(Münster-Swendsen 2006, 308–09). The noble religious women who composed
the so-called Regensburg Love Songs in the late eleventh or early twelfth century,
similarly express keen affection for their schoolmaster (Dronke 1968, 422–47). The
fourteenth century German schoolmaster, Conrad of Megenberg (1309–1374),
instructed teachers to adjust their methods to the needs of the students and to
“correct the timid by words, master the frivolous with the switch, and dispense to
each according to his abilities the gift of letters” (Conrad of Megenberg 1984, 38).
A fifteenth century statute from the city of Bayreuth cautions schoolmasters to do
nothing cruel to the students (Sheffler 2008, 148–49). Beatings, of course, did
take place—regulations limiting their brutality would make little sense otherwise
—but at no time did they comprise the sum total of classroom experiences (Orme
2006, 146–47).
II Instruction
1 Elementary and Secondary Schools
Depending on the size and type of school, classroom practices could vary signifi-
cantly. Class size ranged from a handful of students studying under a parish priest
or a tutor hired by a wealthy family, to eighty or more in a large cathedral or town
school (Orme 2006, 141–42). In larger schools, the schoolmaster typically super-
vised one or more assistants often called locati (ushers). Conrad of Megenberg
described a system with two additional levels of teaching assistants including a
pedagogue and an accusator to maintain discipline (Conrad of Megenberg 1984,
25). Students might also be divided into separate classes by skill level. One late
fifteenth-century schoolbook imagined the students separated into groups ac-
cording to their primary instructional texts (Sheffler 2008, 110).
Despite individual variations, pedagogical methods at the elementary and
secondary level remained relatively stable throughout the Middle Ages. Students
frequently learned to read using a hornbook made of wood or slate inscribed with
the letters of the alphabet and important prayers. The students learned to recog-

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396 David Sheffler
nize the letters and to read them first as syllables and then as entire words. Even
as book ownership became more common in the later Middle Ages, learning and
teaching remained intensely personal with a high degree of “face-to-face encoun-
ters and a direct, oral transmission of knowledge” (Münster-Swendsen 2006, 310).
The oral component of teaching included the use of frequent repetition and rhyme
to ensure proper memorization. Even the texts used in the classroom reflect the
essential oral/aural aspect of medieval teaching and learning. The Donatus and
many later grammars presented a series questions to which the students were
expected to provide a suitable oral response. Nomen quid est? (what is a noun?).
Students would then be expected to provide the appropriate answer, Pars oratio-
nis cum casu corpus aut rem proprie communiterve significans (a part of speech
with a case signifying an object or an abstract thing either generally or specifi-
cally). More advanced grammar schools often expected their students to speak
only Latin on the school grounds. At this level, instruction might also include
disputations in Latin and, in larger towns, competitions between schools (Orme
2006, 148–49). Instruction in writing involved first learning to form letters by
copying them onto wax tablets using a bone or metal stylus. The tablets made of
wood or slate were covered with a thin layer of wax that could be easily erased
and written over. Such tablets, some inscribed with school exercises, have been
excavated across Europe (Willemsen 2008, 57).
2 University Instruction
In all the faculties, university masters lectured on texts listed in a standardized

syllabus. Masters too, were increasingly interchangeable. During the course of the
lectures, which lasted one and half to two hours, the master read and explicated
portions of the mandated text. A typical school year included between 130–
150 days of lecture (Verger 1992, 154–55). During the lectures students followed
the readings in their own copies and took notes on the explication. In the after-
noon, professors (or formed bachelors) delivered additional (extraordinary) lec-
tures. At least once a week, professors arranged disputations in which the bache-
lors and masters argued controversial questions (quaestiones) while less
advanced students observed. After the disputations, the professor concluded with
the determination of the disputed questions. About once a year faculty held
disputatio de quodlibet covering any topic of the master’s choosing. The school
day concluded in late afternoon and early evening with additional exercises and
repetitions conducted in the less formal setting of the master’s household. It was
often here that the most important and creative interaction occurred. Here
students learned to argue and apply authority in an appropriately scholarly

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manner and honed their Latin skills (Schwinges 1992b, 233). Having attended all
the required lectures and disputations, a process which typically took between
four and six years, students might submit themselves for examination and deter-
mine as a bachelor. Only a minority proceeded to the licentiate which included
permission to teach. Although the emphasis differed from region to region and
school to school, this basic form dominated all universities and faculties through-
out Europe after the fourteenth century.
D Curricula
I Liberal Arts as a Curricular Ideal
While the liberal arts provided the most pervasive curricular model it is important
not to overstate the extent to which individual schools and schoolmasters fully
implemented the ambitious educational program. Few if any schools emphasized
each of the seven liberal arts equally and many never progressed much beyond
the rudiments of grammar. In some cases, the assertion that a school taught the
full liberal arts curriculum, or that a particular individual was expert in the arts,
was merely formulaic. Medieval conceptions of the liberal arts had roots in
antiquity; both Plato and Aristotle outlined educational programs that empha-
sized grammar, literature, music, and arithmetic as preparation for the study of
philosophy. In the fifth century, St. Augustine adapted this model of profane
learning to the service of theology (Leff 1992, 307–08). The enormous popularity
of Martianus Capella’s The Marriage of Mercury and Philology both reflected and
ensured the persistence of the liberal arts as a pedagogical model in the Middle
Ages. This early fifth century work, copied continuously throughout the Middle
Ages, distilled late Roman pedagogical traditions into the seven liberal arts.
Boethius (ca. 475–525) further divided the liberal arts into the trivium—compris-
ing grammar, rhetoric, and logic—and the quadrivium consisting of arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music (Fontaines 2005, 742). Cassiodorus’s Institu-
tiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum also provided a useful model for the
integration of divine and profane learning (Contreni 1995, 727). Even more influ-
ential, the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) sets out what becomes
the standard hierarchy of medieval learning. A hierarchy understood to progress
from the most foundational subjects of the trivium through the quadrivium and
finally culminating in the higher disciplines of medicine, law, and above all
theology (Isidore of Seville 2006, 20). With only few changes this ideal remained
firmly in place throughout the Middle Ages. In practice, the curriculum was much
more limited, often focusing primarily on grammar, rhetoric, and logic with only

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398 David Sheffler
limited attention paid to more advanced subjects of the quadrivium. Even within
the trivium grammar tended to dominate with logic more important in Northern
Europe and rhetoric retaining its significance in Italy.
II Pre-university Curriculum
For many children the earliest formal literacy training likely came at home, in
some cases from their mother. Indeed, as Pamela Sheingorn has noted, the
popular image of St. Anne teaching Mary to read, presented a domestic ideal in
which the mother had primary responsibility for the rearing and educating of
children (Sheingorn 1993, 77; Clanchy 2011, 152–53). For both boys and girls, the
increasing access to books, most commonly books of hours and other devotional
texts, offered opportunities to acquire some of the rudiments of basic literacy and
expanded the ways in which individuals and communities accessed the spiritual
power of texts. (Orme 2006, 60; Zieman 2008, XII–XIII). Collegiate and monastic
churches and new pious foundations might also provide the opportunity to
acquire basic training in literacy through service in the choir. Choristers learned
to recognize letters and read the texts necessary for performance. However, even
simple recognition of letters might allow for the easier acquisition of vernacular
literacy which expanded dramatically in the later Middle Ages (Orme 2006,
61–63; cf. Zieman 2008, 1–39).
In most grammar schools, the Ars Grammatica of Donatus and the Institu-
tiones Grammaticae of Priscian provided the primary texts for the study of Latin
grammar. Even after the introduction in the thirteenth century of the popular
verse grammars by Alexander de Villedieu and Eberhad Béthune (Doctrinale
Puerorum and Graecismus, respectively) and the humanist inspired grammars of
the of the fifteenth century, the Donatus (as it comes to be known) remained the
standard introductory grammar. In the Netherlands, a region otherwise heavily
influenced by humanistic reforms, Donatus was reprinted twenty-nine times in
the first quarter of the sixteenth century (Willemsen 2013, 25). The association
between the Donatus and elementary grammar students was so strong that in
many schools the youngest grammar students were called donatists. (Sheffler
2008, 110). In addition, many schoolmasters also employed the Distichs, a series
of versed couplets falsely attributed to Cato, which provided moral instruction as
well as exempla for teaching grammar and style (Orme 2006, 41–44). Indeed,
throughout the Middle Ages, even as education allegedly became more secular-
ized in the fifteenth century, religious and moral instruction remained central to
the educational ideal. Alongside grammar and moral instruction students may
also have learned to write, although this was not always the case.

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III The Universities
1 The Arts
Although the medieval universities adopted the hierarchical model of the liberal
arts described above (C I) the schema never perfectly fit the actual content of the
courses offered. By the middle of the thirteenth century, new classifications
emerged. In some universities, for example, natural, moral, and metaphysical
philosophy augmented (and even supplanted) the traditional classifications of
the liberal arts. Moreover, the basic elements of the arts curriculum developed
unevenly within the universities. In Northern universities the emphasis on logic
largely subsumed grammar and relegated rhetoric to the margins. Whereas in
Italian universities rhetoric retained its important position within the curriculum.
At Paris the trivium remained the curricular center of gravity, whereas at Oxford
interest in the quadrivial subjects increased from the 1230s. The position of the
arts and its emphases also depended on the relationship between the arts and the
higher faculties, particularly theology. At Paris and Oxford, where the arts stu-
dents and masters significantly outnumbered the other faculties, it was the arts
faculty that generally controlled the most important university offices. In Bologna
and many of the Southern universities, the size of the arts faculty and its influence
was much more limited (Leff 1992, 308; see also the contribution to this Handbook
on “The Medieval University” by Graeme Dunphy).
In addition to the ideal of the liberal arts inherited from antiquity, the arts
curriculum reflected the influence of new translations emerging from contact with
Islamic and Jewish learning in Spain and Sicily. Previously unknown Aristotelian
texts mediated through Islamic commentaries poured into the West. For nearly a
century the arts faculties worked to assimilate these new texts and ideas into the
existing hierarchy of knowledge. Newly integrated Aristotelian texts such as the
Posterior Analytics combined with a growing interest in the analysis of meaning to
create a grammar that exhibited an increasingly philosophical bent. This philoso-
phical approach to grammar is especially evident in the concern for the relation-
ship between words and things. The study of logic initially focused on the old logic,
a group of texts that included Aristotle’s Categories and Interpretations as well as a
translation of the introduction to Porphyry, Boethius’s commentaries on Porphyry,
and Cicero’s Categories. By the thirteenth century the introduction of the new logic,
chiefly the Posterior Analytics, revolutionized the study of logic in the universities
(Leff 1992, 314–15). In addition to the newly translated works of Aristotle, Islamic
commentators, above all Ibn Rushd (Averroës) (1126–1198) also entered into the
university arts curriculum. Despite a series of official condemnations, the influ-
ence of Aristotle and his commentators continued to grow. At Oxford, Robert

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Grosseteste’s (ca. 1168–1253) commentary on the Posterior Analytics included his

theory of scientific demonstration. His pupil Roger Bacon (ca. 1220–1292) argued
for the primacy of mathematics over logic and helped to inspire a new approach to
natural philosophy that found its most complete development in the fourteenth
century Mertonians (Leff 1992, 322–23). The quadrivial subjects of geometry, artih-
metic and astronomy also benefited directly from the introduction of Islamic texts,
especially Ptolemy’s Almagest known in the West through Gerard of Cremona’s
(ca. 1114–1187) translation from Arabic, Ibn al-Haitham’s (Alhazen), Optica, and
the work of al-Kwarizimi on Arithmetic (North 1992, 341–48).
2 Medicine
Even after the foundation of the first formal medical schools, most practitioners of
the healing arts had no schooling in the formal sense. In the fifteenth century, it
was still important to distinguish between learned doctors and less formally
trained barbers and surgeons. In addition, like other crafts early medieval medi-
cal knowledge passed from master to student primarily through apprenticeships
(Demaitre 2013, 2). The oral nature of this transmission makes analysis of early
medieval medical curriculum difficult, although surviving manuscripts from the
early Middle Ages provide some insights into the content of early medieval
medical knowledge (Contreni 1995, 747). Most notable is the importance of
Hippocrates, Galen, and Isidore of Seville. In the eleventh century, the Salernitan
Garipontus compiled his Disease Book (passionarius) comprising a large number
of works from antiquity, including Galen’s Therapeutics (De Ingenio Sanitatis).
Garipontus’s actvities and the twelfth-century work De curis mulierum attributed
to the Trota from Salerno, attest to the intensity of medical study in Salerno before
the rise of the universities (Demaitre 2013, 320; Green 2001, VIII, 33; Green 2001).
As with the arts, the translations from Arabic and Greek sources that began in the
late eleventh century proved essential to the development of the medieval curri-
culum. The Canons by Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina (980–1037)—
better known as Avicenna—quickly became one of the most important medical
texts. The Tunisian merchant and later monk at Monte Cassino, Constantine the
African (ca. 1020–1087) also brought a treasure trove of new Arabic text to South-
ern Italy, which he translated for the educators and medical practitioners of
Salerno (Demaitre 2013, 11). In addition, authors in Salerno compiled the articella,
a collection that included the Aphorisms and Prognostics of Hippocrates, and the
Galenic treatise sometimes called Ars Medica. Thus, a century or more before the
foundation of the first universities, Salerno was already well established as a
center of medical education where men, and at least some women, practiced,

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taught, and wrote (Siraisi 1992, 366; Green 2000, XII). The twelfth century in
Montpellier saw a similar intensification of medical activity. By 1220 medical
teachers there had organized themselves into a fully-recognized university (Siraisi
1992, 367). Paris had an active faculty of medicine by 1213. And although not
officially part of the university, Bologna was also an important center of medical
education.
By this time, a substantial body of medical literature was available and
incorporated into the curriculum. Evidence from surviving statutes suggests that
lectures focused on Galen and Avicenna (Siraisi 1992, 278). As in the other
faculties, extraordinary lectures supplemented those prescribed by statute. The
course of study lasted from five years (for those already proficient in the arts) to
six (for those not yet proficient). Later statutes from fifteenth-century Bologna
required three years of philosophy, three years of astrologia and “four years each
of medicina and practices” (Siraisi 1992, 379). Although some universities did offer
training in surgery, much of the curriculum was based on texts and made use of
the same pedagogical tools as the other faculties: lectures and disputations.
(Siraisi 1992, 382). Medical teaching also made use of Aristotelian texts, above all
the libri naturales (O’Boyle 2000, 205). The key concepts of learned medicine
focused on Complexio, the balance of hot, wet, cold and dry and the relationship
between the movement of the heavens and health. These basic concepts and
approaches likely differed little from university to university as learned medicine
became institutionalized and text based. As a result, non-learned practitioners
of medicine, both male and female, became increasingly marginalized (Green
2008, 2).
3 Law
Before the establishment of the universities, those who wished to study law did so
under the direction of a private master. These teachers operated independently of
one another and developed their methods, curriculum, and texts individually
(Brundage 2008, 220). The curriculum of many of these schools may well have
resembled that of the twelfth century Bolognese jurist, Bulgarus (d. 1158). Bul-
garus, who taught Roman law, assigned hypothetical cases to two groups of
students; one group took the side of the plaintiff and one that of the defendant.
He selected the cases to illustrate important points of law and capture the interest
of his students; one case hinged on whether a cross-dressed woman who stood
surety for a man who defaulted on his loan could be sued—it was ruled she could
not be (Winroth 2006, 44–45). The early teaching of the famous canonist Gratian
seems to have taken a similar form. But it was only with the first university that a

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uniform curriculum developed (Brundage 2008, 220). In the universities the

language of instruction was Latin, although commentaries and important legal
works began to appear in local vernaculars in the thirteenth century. The uni-
versities employed two major texts that were virtually identical across Europe: the
Corpus iuris canonici and the Corpus iuris civilis. The former collection ultimately
came to include the Decretum of Gratian (mid-twelfth century), the Decretals
(Liber extra) of Gregory IX (d. 1241), the Liber sextus of Boniface VIII (1298),
Clementine Decretals (1305), and the Extravagantes of John XXII (1325). The latter
included the Digest, the Code, the Institutes, and the Novels. To this older body of
texts, medieval lawyers added constitutions from the German Emperors Libri
feudorum (García y García 1992, 392–93). Despite their importance, the universi-
ties did not hold an absolute monopoly on the teaching of law. Basic instruction
in canon law continued to be available in many cathedrals (Brundage 2008, 122).
In London, the Inns of the Court taught English common law, but may also have
offered some training in Roman law (Brundage 2008, 369).
4 Theology
Unlike law and the arts, where independent masters contributed to a dynamic
and extremely fluid educational landscape, teachers of theology were much more
likely to be attached to formal religious institutions (Courtenay 2000, 246). Given
the sensitive nature of the subject matter, it is hardly surprising that many within
the Church desired tighter controls over the teaching of theology. The rise of the
universities further institutionalized both the content and credentialing. Until the
fourteenth century, only Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge offered degrees in theol-
ogy. The papacy, and later the privileged universities themselves, jealously
guarded this virtual monopoly. The efforts to control the study of theology betray
broader anxieties about the potential dangers of unchecked theological specula-
tion. This increasing standardization is most evident in the narrowing of accepta-
ble texts. The texts were basically two, the Bible and the Libri sententiarum
(Sentences) of Peter Lombard (ca. 1100–1160). Dominican theology students were
also required to possess a copy of the Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor. The
demanding course of study included five to seven years auditing lectures on the
Bible and the Sentences, two years actively lecturing on the Bible, followed by
participation in disputations. Successful completion of the disputations allowed
the newly minted baccalarius sententiarius to lecture on the sentences. After
completing lectures on the four books of the Sentences, the would-be master
engaged in four more years of lectures and disputation. Finally, after a period of
study lasting roughly fifteen years, the bachelor was ready to be promoted to

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master and receive the license to teach (provided he had reached the minimum
age of thirty-five). With some local variations, and exceptions for mendicant
students, the outlines of the curriculum remained fairly stable for the remainder
of the Middle Ages (Asztalos 2000, 417–19).
E Students
Throughout the Middle Ages, access to formal schooling remained a privilege
accessible to a minority of the population. Ecclesiastics were more likely to have
access than the laity. The wealthy, the urban, and the male enjoyed significant
advantages over the poor, rural and female. Even with the establishment of
charitable endowments to support poor scholars, many families could not afford
to sacrifice the productive labor of their children. Legal impediments to study also
remained for those of unfree status (Orme 2006, 131). However, at no time was
schooling the exclusive monopoly of the elite. As discussed above (B VII), educa-
tional opportunities and rates of participation increased dramatically in the later
Middle Ages. Even in the early Middle Ages, a period not generally associated
with lay education, laymen and women appear among the ranks of the literate
(McKitterick 1994).
It is possible that most who learned to read, whether girls or boys, did so in
the home, an environment much less likely to leave traces in the historical
records. Here, mothers may have taken a leading role in the education of their
children. Psalters, prayer books, and books of hours served as key pedagogical
texts in schools, and by the fourteenth century were accessible in many homes as
well. These texts were also increasingly feminized. Already in the thirteenth
century, the Sachsenspiegel listed psalters along with cooking utensils as items
belonging to the female sphere (Clanchy 2011, 139). In the fifteenth century
Christine de Pizan (ca. 1364/65–ca. 1430) simply assumed that women, at least
women of a certain social class, would take an active interest in the education of
their children (Sheingorn 1993, 69). Fourteenth- and fifteenth- century images of
St. Anne also begin to link explicitly education and motherhood (Sheingorn 1993,
77; Clanchy 2011, 149). At the same time, educated daughters of merchant families
appear in the sources with increasing frequency (Willemsen 2008, 22–23; Kamme-
ier-Nebel 1994, 81).
Students who pursued formal Latin education beyond the elementary level,
likely anticipated further study at a university (Courtenay 1987, 17). As a result, a
significant majority of students in secondary schools were boys. There were, of
course exceptions; some cities in the Low Countries, France and Italy had official
secondary schools for female students (Willemsen 2008, 28–29), and monastic

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404 David Sheffler
schools continued to provide education for its members and a few outsiders
(Opitz 1994). In one famous case, a woman dressed as a man to study at the
University of Kraków (Shank 1989, 190–97). In general, however, most parents
saw Latin literacy like that obtained in higher grammar schools as more beneficial
for boys than for girls. Those who completed their grammar studies, typically
between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, might continue their education at a
university. Barriers to university study included geography (there were no uni-
versities in the German Empire before the middle of the fourteenth century), living
expenses, which were frequently higher in university towns, and knowledge of
Latin. Matriculation fees for the poorest were often waived, although expenses
associated with promotion could be significant. Nevertheless, university students
were drawn from a broad segment of medieval society (Schwinges 1992a, 185). In
fact, in most universities the wealthiest and most privileged were only a small
percentage of the overall student population—although they did represent a
much larger portion of the student body in the higher faculties, especially canon
law. Despite the relative accessibility of the medieval universities, and the un-
deniable mobility they afforded, they continued to reflect and reinforce medieval
hierarchies. University honors, living arrangements, patronage networks all de-
pended on social status and often trumped university achievement (Schwinges
2000, 42).
F Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that medieval schools primarily served the interests
of power. Secular and ecclesiastical elites (frequently drawn from the same
families and networks) invested in education because they expected tangible
rewards. First and foremost, education served to reinforce ecclesiastical and
secular authority. Kings, princes and bishops demanded educated individuals to
manage burgeoning bureaucracies and to enhance the prestige of their courts.
With the growth of cities and towns after the eleventh century, civic leaders
increasingly employed civil servants with at least a modicum of formal education.
Even simple parishes required educated individuals to administer the sacraments
and provide basic religious instruction. Thickening networks of trade encouraged
new groups to pursue education to ensure access to privileged positions and the
wealth and honor they provided. Though unintended, growing rates of literacy
allowed access to the power of texts and ideas in ways that were less easily
controlled. Literate men and women could also facilitate the textual engagements
of friends and neighbors, forming textual communities and shaping new identi-
ties that might challenge entrenched religious, political, and economic interests

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(Stock 1983, 88–92). Nevertheless, elites continued to support education, and

individuals and families continued to pursue it, not to overturn the social hier-
archy but to ensure their places within it.
Select Bibliography
Black, Robert, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and
Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (New York 2001).
Courtenay, William J., Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton, NJ, and
Guildford 1987).
Green, Monica H., “The Possibilities of Literacy and the Limits of Reading: Women and the
Gendering of Medical Literacy,” Women’s Healthcare in the Medieval West, ed. eadem
(Aldershot and Burlington VT, 2000), Essay VII, 1–76.
Grendler, Paul F., Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore,
MD, 1989).
Hildebrant, Madge M., The External School in Carolingian Society (Leiden 1991).
Jaeger, C. Stephen, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe,
950–1200 (Philadelphia, PA, 1994).
McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1990).
Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England (New Haven, CT,
2006).
Pedersen, Olaf, The First Universities: Studium Generale and the Origins of the University Educa-
tion in Europe (Cambridge 1997).
Schwinges, Rainer C., Deutsche Universitätsbesucher im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert: Studien zur
Sozialgeschichte des alten Reiches (Stuttgart 1986).
Verger, Jacques, “Patterns,” A History of the University in Europe, vol. 1: Universities in the
Middle Ages, gen. ed. Walter Rüegg, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge and New York
1992), 35–76.
Willemsen, Annemarieke, Back to the Schoolyard: the Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance
Education (Turnhout 2008).

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Gerhard Jaritz
Excrement and Waste
A Modern Shit—Medieval Shit

In his planned but then prohibited radio play from 1947/1948, “Pour en finir avec
le jugement de Dieu” (“To Have Done with the Judgment of God”), Antonin
Artaud (1896–1948), the French playwright, poet, actor, and representative of
surrealist avant-garde theater (the Theater of Cruelty), offered the following state-
ment: “Là ou ça sent la merde ça sent l’être …” (Artaud 1976, xlvi–xlvii):
There where it smells of shit

it smells of being.
Man could just as well not have shat,
not have opened the anal pouch,
but he chose to shit
as he would have chosen to live
instead of consenting to live dead.
Because in order not to make caca,
he would have had to consent
not to be, …
(Artaud 2011)
Artaud’s statement was undoubtedly odd and exceptional for an audience of the
twentieth or twenty-first century. One does not talk about shit when expecting to
be accepted in society. A similar situation is true for any studies into it. Thus, the
research into shit, defecation, excrement, latrines, and also dirt and waste is not
very popular and common in Medieval Studies, as in a number of other fields too,
as, for instance, anthropology (Van der Geest 2007) or literary and art historical
studies (Persels and Ganim, ed., 2004, xiii: “Scatology, the Last Taboo”). A
representative of the research community of medievalists who published a “Man-
ifesto for Waste Studies” (Morrison 2008, 153–55) is still an exception. Many
aspects continue to escape our full understanding, but one may hope that some
recent research will push us further in recognizing the cultural significance of
how people treated waste in the past (Wagener, ed., 2014).
When concentrating on statements, discussions, and discourses of the medie-
val period, one can at least partly agree with the late Michael Camille’s remark in
his famous book Image on the Edge where he emphasized that “… we have to
forget our modern, post-Freudian, notions of excrement linked with decay, infec-
tion and death. Medieval people did not problematize faecal matters as dirt, as

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Excrement and Waste 407
Freud’s ‘matter out of place’. Shit had its proper place in the scheme of things”
(Camille 1992, 111). On the other hand, one always has to be careful with general-
izations, in particular when dealing with such a topic like “Excrement and
Waste.” Thus, one also should not offer general statements like “Excreting and
urinating in public was, as we might say, no big deal” (Coudert 2009, 715–16).
B Privies
The studies concerning the toilet culture of ancient Rome are well advanced
(Neudecker 1994; Hobson 2009; Jansen, Koloski-Ostrow, and Moormann, ed.,
2011; Koloski-Ostrow 2014). A recent collective volume has offered valuable multi-
disciplinary, comparative approaches and particular insights into the manifold
contexts of ancient society and latrines—in private and public space, concerning
personal hygiene, with regard to the construction, technology, and decoration of
the toilets, and so on (Jansen, Koloski-Ostrow, and Moormann, ed., 2011). The
situation with regard to the Middle Ages is different. Still much has to be done to
achieve the level of results that Ancient Studies have reached.
The earliest recorded use of the term privy [ME prive, from Old French privé,
from Latin privatus; Middle High German privet; ital. privato] in England from ca.
1200 was the noun for toilet, and this remained the most frequent and regular
usage during the Middle Ages (Austin 1998, 183). The context of secret and private
could be modified in specific situations and communication and discussion about
the privy could even become important for a broader public with regard to its use,
any legislation and quarrels about it, its visual image, literary texts, symbolic and
allegoric meanings, and so on.
Concerning monastic houses of the high Middle Ages, defecating and privies
were seen as a part of community space that had to be regulated in detail, as is
proved by a number of descriptions and rules of monastic life (consuetudines).
The Cluniac Constitutions of Farfa from the mid-eleventh century describe the
monks’ latrine quite accurately. It is supposed to be 70 feet long and 23 feet broad,
has 45 seats, and each seat has a small window. Each seat is also provided with a
small pile of wooden splinters (Zimmermann 1973, 412). To make it possible to
clean oneself these wooden splinters (ligneae astulae) or soft hay and herbs had
to be offered, as the Consuetudines of Hirsau from the end of the eleventh century
spell out in great detail (Zimmermann 1973, 413). Some eleventh- and twelfth-
century regulations stipulate that the novices are not allowed to go to the latrine
alone but only together with their novice master. If a novice has to visit the latrine
during the night, he has to wake up the novice master, the latter wakes up another
novice, and then they walk together to the latrine. The novices are to have their

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408 Gerhard Jaritz
own latrines or seats in the latrine, separated from the ones of the monks
(Zimmermann 1973, 411–12).
Urban building regulations sometimes also deal with the construction of
latrines. Often, it was not a private decision where an individual had a latrine
constructed (Jørgensen 2006, 11). Some laws order that the garderobe (i.e., the
toilet) should only be built in those parts of the houses which were on the far side
from the street (Jaritz 2005, 61). Other ordinances determined a certain distance
from the neighbor’s property (Sabine 1934, 319). The filth was either held in
cesspits or, when available, one built the privies over the running water of rivers
and brooks or over the city ditches. The privies built over running water could
lead to massive problems and controversies because of the resultant filth fouling
the watercourse. From a number of cities, London, for instance, there is quite rich
evidence about public latrines that were constructed over running water for
clearing filth (Sabine 1934, 306–09).
Often one comes across individual cases and controversies concerning la-
trines that deal with annoyances because of smell or leaking. One finds discus-
sions about the common use of latrines or the division of their use and their role
with regard to the selling and purchase of houses. Sometimes accidents happened
and led, in particular, to the death or injuries of the cesspit cleaners. The latrines
were not only used as toilets but often served as universal garbage chutes (Küster
1998, 323–24). They were used as disposal for organic waste, pieces of wood, clay,
glass, etc.
In many urban communities, the cleaning of the privies and cesspits was
professionally organized. The latrine-cleaners were mostly members of marginal
groups of society, and sometimes they also worked as grave-diggers (Kamber and
Keller, ed., 1996, 14–15). It can be assumed that the cleaning and repair of the
privies generally took place at night (Sabine 1934, 316; Lehnert 1981, 152; Frieser
1999, 196).
In a number of cases, the discussion about privies, their construction, and the
activities in them exceeded the specific concern of the affected members of
medieval communities and became a popular topic of prose and poetry. There,
the privy, excrement, and farting could particularly contribute to mediating
humoristic and satiric matters, often in a didactic way (Classen 2009, 71–72). One
great example proves to be Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400), in particular
the scatological Miller’s Tale, “with the most famous fart in all English (if not
world) literature” (Morrison 2008, esp. 67; Beidler 1977). Boccaccio (1313–1375) is
generally “fascinated with latrines and privies” and shows “an uncompromising
disgust in the presence of filth” (Biow 2006, 170; 173). There is, for instance, the
well-known story about the young horse-dealer, Andreuccio da Perugia, in the
Decameron from ca. 1350 (II, 5) who was staying in Naples and, “nature demand-

Authenticated
ing,” wanted to visit the privy, “set his foot on a plank which was detached from
the joist at the further end, whereby down it went, and he with it.” He took no hurt
“beyond sousing himself from head to foot in the ordure which filled the whole
place” (Boccaccio 2003). In the illustrated manuscripts of the Decameron one also
finds visual representations of this story. The story is comparable to the one about
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, mentioned in some sources for the year 1183. The
emperor was holding court in a hall at Erfurt, when a number of planks broke.
Eight princes, many noble lords, and more than hundred knights fell down into
the cesspool; only the bishops and clerics were not harmed. The emperor saved
himself by jumping out of the window (Annales Stadenses 1859, 327; 350–51;
Kamber and Keller, ed., 1996, 24).
An Alemannic author from the South German town of Constance, Heinrich
Wittenweiler, also uses shit in his satiric and didactic verse narrative, the Ring
from ca. 1400: The main protagonists are two peasant lovers from the fictional
village of Lappenhausen. In a quarrel between the girl, Mätzli Rüerenzumph, and
her father, Fritzo, the latter locks her into a shed and exclaims:
Da sitz und scheiss!

Der ars ist dir ze dik und feiss
(Röcke 2012, 70, v. 1546–47)
[Sit down and shit!

Your arse is too fat]
– meaning that she is doing too well, or is too lazy.

Two other female protagonists in the same text are Jützin Scheissindpluomen
[= Shit-into-the-Flowers] and Elsbeth Völlipruoch [= Breeches-Full-of-Shit].
The use of fecal language can also be traced particularly in quarrels and at
the judicial court, which was not only part of male space. An example from Basel
offers evidence of a quarrel between two women, in which one of them shouted at
the other “Ich scheiß auf dein Recht” (I am shitting on your right), to which the
other shouted back “Ich scheiß dir in dein Maul” (I am shitting into your mouth)
(Kamber and Keller, ed., 1996, 45). There is also evidence of using smeared
excrement against adversaries and their possessions (Kamber and Keller, ed.,
1996, 46).

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410 Gerhard Jaritz
C Excremental theology
In his Divina Commedia (ca. 1308–1321), Dante Alighieri’s hell “offers perhaps the
most profound meditation on excremental theology” (Allen 2007, 80; Biow 2006,
157–58). Sinners sit in shit (… in sterco che da li uman privadi parea mosso—“in
excrement that seemed as if it had been poured from human privies;” Inferno
xviii, 113–14), and they wear shit for hats (… vidi un col capo sì di merda lordo, che
non parëa s’era laico o cherco— “I saw a man, his head so smeared with shit one
could not see if he were priest or layman;” Inferno xviii, 116–17). A “foul, dishev-
elled wench” scratches herself with “shit-filled nails” (quella sozza e scapigliata
fante che là si graffia con l’unghie merdose; Inferno xviii, 130–31) (Dante 1966;
Dante 2001; Allen 2007, 80; Barański 2003).
Defecation and excrement also sometimes turn up in the image-text word-
play connections in illustrated religious manuscripts, of which the late Michael
Camille has shown a good number (Camille 1992). These contexts, mainly based
on mnemotechnic aspects, may often be hard to understand for a modern
beholder. An example from an Austrian manuscript from the last third of the
fifteenth century owned by the Lower Austrian Premonstratensian house of Geras
(Ms. 6, fol. 153r; see Fig. 1) shows a squatting and defecating boy who might, at
first sight, not fit well into the context of this Gradual, that is, a liturgical manu-
script. If, however, one looks for the contextualizing text-image word-play, every-
thing becomes clear. The text beside the image offers the Vulgate Psalm 138:2:
Domine probasti me et cognovisti me, tu cognovisti sessionem meam et surrectio-
nem meam … (O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known [me]. Thou knowest my
downsitting and mine uprising …). This sitting down (sessio), is clearly meant to be
recognized as connected with the content of the image, that is, the activity of the
squatting and defecating boy. This context had a clear function in the specific,
monastic, and aristocratic mnemonic “riddle and word-play culture” that one can
trace regularly and which had its proper place in the intellectual life of the period.
The objects, activities, and relations could certainly be special and conspicuous,
but at the same time not problematic (see also Wentersdorf 1984).
Theological symbolism, biblical typology and natural allegory also used
excrement. One might, for instance, think of examples out of the so-called
Concordantiae Caritatis of Ulrich of Lilienfeld from the mid-fourteenth century
(Douteil 2010). It represents the textually and visually transferred relation of the
Christian antitype with its pre-figurations in the Old Testament as well as with
natural allegories. In the core, the manuscript seems to be a sermon collection
following the Sundays, the feasts of the Church Year, and saints’ feasts. In the
allegories from nature, excrement, this time of animals, again can play an im-
portant role. One example is the New Testament story of Jesus driving the money-

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Fig. 1: The defecating boy of the Vulgate Psalm 138:2. © Institut für Realienkunde,
University of Salzburg.
lenders from the Temple that, as an allegory from nature, is referred to dogs being
chased away as they foul places with their stinking excrement: Hinc canis absce-
dat, loca nam male stercore fedat (“From here the dog should depart, as he fouls
the place with his stinking shit”). Further, the explaining text becomes more
detailed: “Aristotle says and also general experience proves: Dogs are expelled,
as they dirty and soil the most beautiful and blossoming places with their excre-
ment. Bad clerics and other bad persons living near churches, they are shameless
dogs: As with stinking excrement their bad example dirties and soils the God-

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412 Gerhard Jaritz
pleasing and virtuous life of simple people. Following Christ’s example, these bad
persons have to be expelled by the true shepherds of the church, like rabid dogs”
(Douteil 2010, vol. 1, 78–79 and vol. 2, 459).
D … not for the eyes and noses of pious people …

Garderobes as parts of stone castles or urban houses on the far side from the street
did not have the problem of not being shielded from view. This was different for
common and public privies as well as for free-standing latrines in rural space.
There, laws can be traced which ordain that privies be concealed, sometimes
stating that they should not be seen by pious people (Jaritz 2005, 63).
Medieval culture also shows a tight connection between cleanliness and
noses (Biow 2006, 183; see also Jørgensen 2013). Besides the problems with
latrines and the trade of the butchers, complaints were also made about the odour
from other trades, as from tanners (Jørgensen 2010b, 38–40), dyers (Illi 1987,
20–22), or potters (Paris 1496: Thorndike 1928, 203). The surviving sources offer
not only a picture of such difficulties with the trades but also with individuals
concerning other matters than latrines (Leguay 2007, 16–31). In 1349, the English
king wrote to the mayor of London and protested “that filth was being thrown
from the houses by day and night, so that the streets and lanes through which
people had to pass were foul with human feces, and the air of the city poisoned to
the great danger of men passing, especially in this time of contagious disease”
(Sabine 1936, 27). In some laws human filth was routinely put together with sour
wine and garbage in the broader sense, as in 1307 in the Istrian town of Piran, or
with wastewater, straw, or litter. “The implication is that human waste products
were viewed as simply another form of litter blocking free access to the town’s
roadways …” (Zupko and Laures 1996, 52).
The contamination of streets with waste of any kind as well as the waste
disposal in rivers and brooks led to a large number of conflicts, arbitrations,
regulations, and prohibitions. One of the main threats could also come from
people disposing of filth, defecating, or engaging in other unhygienic activities in
and around the fountains (Magnusson 2001, 122).
Altogether, “the forces which motivated public action on cleansing were the
aesthetic objection to the appearance and smell of rubbish, the association
between putrefaction and disease, and a sense of pride in the dignified appear-
ance of a town” (Keene 1988, 28). Clean streets and rivers were seen as part of
“proper moral behaviour” (Jørgensen 2010a, 303). Attempts to create and keep a
clean community can generally be seen as tightly connected with good rule
(Jørgensen 2006, 16).

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E Management strategies
Dolly Jørgensen stated rightly that “the uncomplicated technologies of streets,
gutters, waste bins, and latrines required complicated management strategies in
the late medieval city” (Jørgensen 2008, 565). For the treatment of waste in
medieval communities, the craft of the butchers offers perhaps the most impor-
tant evidence. Butchering can be seen as the trade that, more than any other, led
to complaints, controversies, and regulations with regard to cleanliness and
smells (Carr 2008, 451; Ciecieznski 2013, 95). Medieval and early modern “butch-
er’s space” was context-dependent. The two opposites, that is, “public” and
“secret” performance and representation of the trade, were meant to lead to a
similar result, that is, protecting the communities and their members in a number
of analogous respects. The two different types of space were meant to have similar
outcomes. A large number of surviving norms and regulations show that slaugh-
tering the animals and selling the meat was meant to be as public as possible so
that controllers and customers could see the quality of the livestock and meat as
well as the correctness of the method of slaughter (Sabine 1933, 336; Faugeron,
2006, 60; Jaritz 2010, 235). Sometimes, however, slaughtering in public space was
seen as a danger to the health of the people. When plagues swept the community
in the 1360s, it was ordered in London that all beasts should be slaughtered
outside the city (Sabine 1933, 344). In Coventry, it was ordained in 1442 that
animals should only be slaughtered outside the city walls but cows, calves and
sheep could be slaughtered in the butchers’ houses and pigs in the “common
slaughter houses” for one year (Carr 2008, 457).
For getting rid of the offal, the “butcher’s space” should be as secret as
possible (Faugeron 2006, 60–61). This situation can be seen as comparable to a
number of regulations concerning public latrines that sometimes were to be
concealed in such a way that they were not in sight of pious people (Ciecieznski
2013, 97). Butcher’s waste seen as a visual offense and danger to health can be
found in a number of European communities as, for instance, London. Butchers
were not allowed to throw entrails, intestines, blood, and other waste on the
road in order not to disturb the public in any way. In some communities it was
decreed that the offal had to be carried away from the butcher stalls so as to
prevent smell and not to endanger health. It should be disposed of into the
nearest river, or to some segregated spots outside the community. In fourteenth-
century London the butchers were assigned a jetty in the Thames, called the
‘butchers’ bridge,’ from which they were supposed to dispose of the entrails
from their slaughtered animals (Keene 2001, 168). If a large river, like the
Danube or the Thames, was not at hand but only a smaller one or a brook, the
latter could also sometimes be selected for taking the waste from slaughtering,

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414 Gerhard Jaritz
but only where the water was about to flow away from the community (Jaritz
2010, 238; Carr 2008, 457).
Other communities, however, saw waste disposal in the river as a general
problem. For the English towns of Norwich, Coventry, and York, Jørgensen found
that the actions of the authorities concerning river pollution were far-reaching,
from prohibiting disposal of waste into them to the organization of water cleaning
operations, river scouring, and dredging projects (Jørgensen 2010b, 50). In Coven-
try, the town council banned waste disposal in the river nine times between 1421
and 1475 (Jørgensen 2010c, 53).
Based on archaeological evidence, Jørgensen states that in Scandinavia there
was less waste disposal on the streets of towns in the late Middle Ages compared
to earlier periods (Jørgensen 2008, 560). With the help of written sources, how-
ever, there is always the problem of finding out to what extent and how vigor-
ously the communities enforced their own cleaning requirements and waste
disposal prohibitions, as the number of surviving court records that deal with
transgressions is regularly rather low (Jørgensen 2008, 559).
Select Bibliography
Biow, Douglas, The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy (Ithaca, NY, 2006).
Jansen, Gemma C. M., Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow and Eric M. Moormann, ed., Roman Toilets:
Their Archaeology and Cultural History (Leuven 2011).
Jørgensen, Dolly, “What to Do with Waste? The Challenges of Waste Disposal in Two Late
Medieval Towns,” Living Cities: An Anthology in Urban Environmental History, ed. Mattias
Legnér and Sven Lilja (Stockholm 2010), 34–55. [= Jørgensen 2010c]
Leguay, Jean-Pierre, La pollution au Moyen Âge, 5th ed. (1999; Paris 2007).
Morrison, Susan Signe, Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoe-
tics (New York 2008).
Persels, Jeff and Russell Ganim, ed., Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in
Scatology (Basingstoke 2004).
Zupko, Ronald Edward and Robert Anthony Laures, Straws in the Wind: Medieval Urban Environ-
mental Law—The Case of Northern Italy (Boulder, CO, 1996).

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Emily J. Rozier
Fashion
A Introduction
I Overview
Fashion does not simply refer to the wearing of clothing, or even to an interest in
personal adornment and finery. Instead, fashion is the creation of, and adherence
to, a codified approach to sartorial display in which there is an established, and
yet constantly metamorphosing, popular concept of what constitutes stylish dress.
Fashion is thus a unifying force, in that its followers must adhere to the sartorial
aesthetic in vogue at the time, which is based on a consistent desire for constant
and systematic change (Heller 2007, 8–10). Fashion is often popularly viewed as a
modern phenomenon, driven by capitalism, consumerism, and advertising. As the
following article will show, however, fashion was a key facet of European culture
throughout the Middle Ages (Payne 1965; Racinet 2000). Indeed, clothing played
such an important role in the medieval psyche that to knock the hat off a man’s
head was considered so severe a breach of a person’s dignity as to be grounds for
legal proceedings (Piponnier and Mane 1997, 102). The significance of dress in the
medieval mind is further evidenced by the fact that coronations and appointments
to the priesthood or knighthood all relied upon the donning of special robes for
their semiotic weight. Many of these rituals were even called “investiture”—a solid
sign of the importance dress played in the social imagination. Conversely, to take
clothing away from an individual effectively removed them from society. Con-
demned criminals were stripped to their underclothes, and disgraced members of
knightly or holy orders were undressed so as to reverse the power given to them at
their investiture (Elliot 2004, 61). This article seeks to outline the main approaches
to medieval fashion, both in terms of scholarship on the subject and the attitudes
to dress expressed in the Middle Ages.
II Sources Available
A sizeable corpus of work has been undertaken on the styles of dress that were
popular during the Middle Ages. General guides to medieval fashion include
Françoise Piponnier and Perrine Mane’s Dress in the Middle Ages (Piponnier and
Mane 1997) and Margaret Scott’s Medieval Dress and Fashion (Scott 2007), both of

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416 Emily J. Rozier
which provide a sound introduction to medieval clothing studies. The articles

collected in Clothing Culture 1350–1650 (Richardson, ed., 2004) analyze the social
discourses of fashion as exercised in a range of sources, from Russian clothing
edicts to Irish effigies, and offer a firm starting point for investigation of pan-
European clothing culture in the late-medieval period. There are also a number of
excellent scholarly works that offer a well-documented account of the fashions of
a particular period and geographical location. Thor Ewing, for example, presents
a vivid account of Scandinavian clothing culture in his monograph Viking Clothing
(Ewing 2006) and Gail Owen-Crocker’s Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (Owen-
Crocker 1986) offers a thorough report of English dress from the fifth to the
eleventh centuries. Most focused is Stella Mary Newton’s Fashion in the Age of the
Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340–1365 (Newton 1980), which closely exam-
ines the sartorial changes that occurred in the English and French courts of the
mid-fourteenth century. Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France
and the Netherlands, 1325–1515 (van Buren 2011) offers a richly illustrated guide to
the evolving fashions of France and the Netherlands in the late-medieval period.
For an account of late-medieval attitudes to, and economies of, fashion one can
also turn to Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Jones and Stally-
brass, ed., 2000), which combines close reading of texts and analysis of a range of
other sources with the aim of uncovering the role played by clothing in the
formation and transmission of culture in the sixteenth century. Similarly, Carole
Collier Frick’s Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing
(Frick 2002) offers a through account of the Italian clothing trade and investiga-
tion of the cultural significance of fashion toward the end of the Middle Ages.
When discussing medieval fashion one major obstacle impedes the scholar’s
progress, namely that very few examples have survived. The reasons for this are
twofold. Firstly, textiles are prone to decay and so do not withstand the ravages of
time. Secondly, due to the intrinsic value of material, clothing was recycled and
garments were frequently refashioned to serve new purposes (S. Crane 2002, 11).
This means that many examples were destroyed during the Middle Ages. Archae-
ological finds have helped to shed light on medieval methods of textile produc-
tion, the types of materials used and sewing techniques (Crowfoot 1992, 1), but
much of the evidence is fragmentary (Wolff 1993, 124) and so can tell us little
about the appearance of the garment as a whole. Noteworthy exceptions to this
trend include the garments that were found during archaeological excavations
undertaken in 1926 at Herjólfsnes, Greenland, which uncovered a large selection
of headwear, tunics, and leg coverings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
(Nørlund 1924). Wardrobe accounts can offer documentary proof of what clothing
was ordered for a particular household but, as they were not kept with the
intention of documenting the specifics of contemporary styles, they lack the level

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Fashion 417
of detail that would allow for a complete understanding of concurrent fashions

(Staniland 1989, 275–81).
One faces a similar problem when considering the evidence offered by sump-
tuary legislation as the Acts of Apparel that were enacted across Europe during
the period, which are discussed further below, offer little proof of what the
garments mentioned therein actually looked like. They do, however, offer a useful
repository of clothing terms and an index of the styles that were deemed popular
and dangerous enough to be legislated against at the time of enactment. The
items of clothing listed in the legislation can be further elucidated through
recourse to lexical databases, such as the online, illustrated catalogue of clothing
lexis in Old and Middle English, Welsh, Old Irish, Anglo-Norman, Old French,
Medieval Latin, and Anglo-Norse that was produced as a result of the “Lexis of
Cloth and Clothing” project (Owen-Crocker et al., ed., 2012). The legislation is also
an effective tool for examining the social significance of particular items of
clothing as it rations different styles of dress on a class basis.
Artistic representations of fashions, as found in literature, portraiture, and
other visual mediums, can offer an important cache of sundry evidence. Such
sources must, however, be treated with caution as they are open to artistic license
and flights of fancy (Piponnier and Mane 1997, 3–7). Art is by nature symbolic and
although it is tempting to assume that the evidence provided by memorial brasses
and funerary monuments is an accurate reflection of contemporary trends, it is
more prudent to assume that such representations are idealized versions of reality
(Bertram, ed., 1996). As such, the fashions depicted on memorials may not reflect
those actually worn by the commemorated individual during their lifetime, nor
indeed even by their peers at the time of dedication. Instead, the articles of dress
may have been chosen to convey a particular spiritual or socio-political message.
This is a concern that becomes increasingly compounded when one considers
artistic representations of purely fictional individuals, such as those adorning
manuscripts and church walls. There is, however, no reason to assume that such
works were purely the product of fancy and indeed it seems more probable that
they were grounded in some form of reality so as to appeal directly to their
audience. There is, after all, little point in torturing wicked souls in hell on a
church mural if they bear no resemblance to the individuals whose souls the
depiction is intended to save. It must also be remembered that even written
sources that purport to offer an accurate description of contemporary styles were
composed by social commentators who so reveled in criticizing concurrent fash-
ions that they chose to describe only the most extravagant examples. How far
these caricatures reflect reality is therefore uncertain. As such, visual and literary
evidence can be used to elucidate the articles of dress listed in wardrobe accounts
and legislation, but the sources should be used collaboratively.

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418 Emily J. Rozier
III The “Birth” of Fashion
Much academic endeavor has been expended on establishing a particular point in

time that can be identified as the starting point or “birth” of fashion. Françoise
Piponnier and Perrine Mane trace the European penchant for luxury goods to the
Crusades, which they claim “introduced the glamour and variety of textiles
produced or used in the Islamic world to a large number of Western soldiers”
(Piponnier and Mane 1997, 59). Indeed, Spanish modes of dress had been shaped
by Saracen and Persian fashions since the Arab invasion of the Spanish peninsula
in the year 711 (Tierney 2003, 3). Byzantine styles also influenced European
fashions, causing, for example, women’s undergarments to extend into a train in
eleventh-century Germany and Spain (Dlugaiczyk 2001, 128; Bernis-Madrazo
2003, 238). Much has also been made of the increased urbanization of Europe that
took place over the late-medieval period and the concordant shift from local to
international textile production that this brought about (Deceulaer 2006, 124–25;
Rosenthal, ed., 2009, 460). Jennifer Harris has argued that fashion began in the
West in the twelfth century thanks to the tailoring innovations of that period
(Harris 1998, 99). For Katherine French it is in the “quickening economies” of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries that fashion first becomes a widespread cultural
phenomenon (French 2013, 197). Anne Hollander ascribes the dawning of what
she terms “true fashion,” which she defines as consisting of a “reshaping of the
body-and-clothes unit,” to ca. 1300 (Hollander 1978, 90). For many scholars,
however, it is in the royal courts and great households of fourteenth-century
Europe that fashion as we understand it today first materialized (Piponnier and
Mane 1997, 65; Heller 2007, 50). The exact geographical location of this burgeon-
ing has spurred some debate, with Paul Post arguing that fashion as a codified
cultural practice originated in Burgundy (Post 1910), Mary Stella Newton attribut-
ing fashion’s naissance to the interactions between the French and English courts
during the Hundred Years’ War (Newton 1980), and Rosita Pisetzky identifying
Italy as the birthplace of fashion in the mid-fourteenth century (Pisetzky 1964,
vol. 1). As Sarah-Grace Heller has previously observed, however, the instigation
of fashion as a cultural phenomenon tends to be identified as having occurred in
whichever period is being studied and the attribution of the roots of fashion to the
latter part of the Middle Ages is often fuelled by the paucity of extant evidence
from the earlier centuries (Heller 2007, 58–59). As such, attempting to trace the
first burgeoning of a Western fashion system is a somewhat fruitless task.
What can be said about the fourteenth century is that it is an interesting
period of sartorial change for which we have a good level of evidence on which to
draw. Whilst the surface details of dress, such as decorative motifs and embellish-
ments, changed frequently throughout the Middle Ages, its form changed rarely

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Fashion 419
(Heller 2007, 9). Fundamental shifts in clothing styles have been termed tracht
changes (Redlich 1963, 3–4) and it is such a tracht change that occurs in the
fourteenth century. The male silhouette changed very little over the early medie-
val period, throughout which time male dress typically consisted of the Germanic
model of a “short, girdled tunic worn over close-fitting trousers” (Bernis-Madrazo
2003, 237; Owen-Crocker 2012, 493)—a style of dress that was mirrored in the
Spanish Saracen mode (Tierney 2003, 3). The outfit tended to be completed by
“flat, ankle-high shoes and a rectangular cloak, usually secured on the right
shoulder by a round brooch” (Owen-Crocker 2012, 493). This combination of short
tunic and visible leg coverings fell out of favour in the thirteenth century and was
replaced by long, full gowns that were often lined and hemmed with fur (Wild
2012, 499). This shift to a loosely draped form meant that the reintroduction of the
short jacket in the fourteenth century struck social commentators as a shocking
departure from traditional clothing styles despite, in many respects, actually
being a return to an earlier form. Like its male counterpart, women’s dress also
became more figure-hugging over the course of the fourteenth century. Through-
out the early-medieval period the blueprint for women’s apparel had remained
the Greek peplos—a long gown that was fastened at the shoulders by brooches
(Ewing 2006, 24; Owen-Crocker 1986, 42–54). In the late-medieval period wo-
men’s dress shifted to an ensemble that was tightly fitted at the top, especially
around the bust, and increasingly full in the skirt (Wild 2012, 499). The neckline
of these garments varied greatly over the late-medieval period, vacillating be-
tween the extremely low-cut style that came into fashion in the first decades of
the fourteenth century and the high-collared design in vogue from ca. 1400.
Women’s hair remained covered throughout the Middle Ages and the headdresses
favored became increasingly ornate, such as the cofia de tranzado that spread out
from Spain in the fifteenth century (Bernis-Madrazo 2003, 238).
What emerged in ca. 1340 was apparel that was shaped by and reshaped the
body. This tracht change to the silhouette was dependent on several technical
advances. Improvements in weaving techniques allowed for tighter fitting gar-
ments, as did “setting the sleeves into small rounded armholes at the point where
the arms spring from the shoulder” (Newton 1980, 3). Buttons were also a
considerable advance, negating the need to sew up the sleeve every time the
wearer put on the garment (Egan and Hayward 2012, 106–07). As with all fash-
ions, however, these functional attributes were taken to their extremes to serve
stylistic aims. Buttons were often enameled or set with precious stones, even
being listed amongst the jewels in royal inventories (Newton 1980, 4). Fashion-
able clothing often incorporated gold thread into its weave, thereby increasing
the intrinsic value of the item (Geijer 1983, 89–93), and expensive accessories
such as silver belts became an integral part of a fashionable outfit. In Germany

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420 Emily J. Rozier
the belts worn by the elites, introduced since ca. 1200, were adorned further by
small bells (Brüggen 1989, 100–05; Kühnel 1992, 93–95; Dlugaiczyk 2001, 128;
Classen 2008). In mid-fourteenth-century Florence silver belts became so valu-
able that they were worth one tenth of a respectable bride’s dowry and came to be
the focus of much sumptuary legislation (Stuard 2011, 129). Sleeves also became
more opulent, growing wider over the fourteenth century and having long pieces
of purely decorative material, or tippets, added as extensions. As Robin Netherton
notes, often “a costume feature would expand, elongate, exaggerate, or otherwise
develop over time until it reached its physical limit” (Netherton 2005, 121). The
physical limits of garments are their edges and even these were cut into intricate
patterns, or had pieces of material attached to the hem—a practice known as
dagging. This was a labor-intensive and costly decorative technique that received
negative attention from numerous quarters, including “members of parliament,
preachers, satirists, and chronicle writers who yearned for the plainer costumes
of the ‘good old days’” (Hodges 2000, 62).
It has frequently been argued that it is in this period that a clear divergence
between male and female dress can be observed (French 2013, 198). Indeed, it is
the sartorial inclinations of men that drove fashion forward during the later
Middle Ages and on average they spent more on clothing and made more frequent
purchases than their female counterparts (Piponnier and Mane 1997, 77).
Although men and women continued to wear similar layers of clothing—both
donning an undershirt, or smock for women, as the base-layer, followed by a
jacket for men or a kirtle for women, each of which was topped with a gown—and
the outfits of both sexes became tighter, the male tunic shortened drastically in
the mid-fourteenth century and male dress came to be used increasingly to mark
the wearer’s virility and to reveal and enhance the masculine form. The shortness
of the tunic, or doublet, meant that the hose, which had previously been under-
garments, came to be on display. For the sake of decency the hose, which were
originally independent leg coverings fastened by either laces or aglets, therefore
had to be refashioned into a garment that was joined at the top (Hayward 2012,
280–81)—though it should be remembered that joined leg coverings had already
been a feature of Germanic and Scandinavian dress for many centuries by this
time (Ewing 2006, 74). What is striking about the hose of the fourteenth century,
however, is the fact that their tightness showed shapely legs at their best and that
the buttocks and genitals were left on display.
The lascivious implications of the new clothing style were not lost on moral
commentators and complaints such as that which Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–
1400) has his Parson express about the incitement to lust caused by the “horrible
disordinat scantnesse of clothyng, as been thise kutted sloppes, or haynselyns,
that thurgh hire shortnesse ne covere nat the shameful membres of man, to

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wikked entente” (Chaucer 1987, 300–01) were widespread. The short jacket, like
the hose, also enhanced the male physique, using a combination of padding,
“unpressed, symmetrical pleats, stitched horizontally across the chest” (Pipon-
nier and Mane 1997, 69), and binding in the waist to create the perfect physique of
knightly prowess. Indeed, the shift in male fashions that began in the mid-four-
teenth century tailored the body to fit the chivalric ideal of broad shoulders, slim
waist, and strong, long legs, as was espoused in romances such as Wolfram von
Eschenbach’s (ca. 1170–1220) Parzival (ca. 1205), in which much is made of how
splendid the eponymous hero’s legs look in fine woolen hose (Wolfram von
Eschenbach 2004, 54; see Raudszus 1985, 100–38; Brüggen 1989, 114).
The feet also became much more conspicuous and so greater attention came
to be paid to the choice of footwear. The long-toed shoe known variously as a
poulaine, pike, and crakow came into vogue for the first time in the mid-fourteenth
century and remained popular until ca. 1410, making a further appearance
amongst the fashionable classes during the latter half of the fifteenth century.
These shoes were wholly impractical and the toes became so long that they had to
be stuffed with substances such as bone so as to retain their shape (Grew,
Neergard, and Mitford 1988, 88). As Diana De Marly has observed, this was a
fashion that was deemed to be “very elegant by those who did not have to walk
far” (De Marly 1985, 20). The tailoring changes of the mid-fourteenth century
therefore create in fashionable attire oddities of style that serve a purpose that is
in no way practical, something that contemporary writers were quick to criticize.
Sleeves come under attack for being so long that, to quote Thomas Hoccleve (ca.
1368–1426), they “sweepe away the filthe out of the street” (Hoccleve 1999, 55)
and impede movement. Unnecessary embellishments, such as embroidery, also
received negative comment. They were deemed a frivolous luxury, indicative of
the pride of the wearer. Embroidery, like dagging, was incredibly labor-intensive.
Several heavily embroidered items in the great wardrobe accounts took over 800
working days to produce (Staniland 1986, 236–46). Whether the reference was to
tight hose, short doublets, voluminous gowns, or embroidered cotes, however,
the items were all treated with condemnation and fashionable dress continued to
be used as a vehicle through which to criticize the lasciviousness and excesses of
contemporary society throughout the medieval period, as the article will now turn
to consider.

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B The Social Meaning of Fashion

The importance of viewing fashion as an expression of cultural and social identity
has long been appreciated, from the publication of Johann Carl Flugel’s The
Psychology of Clothes in 1930, to, for example, Alison Bancroft’s recent mono-
graph Fashion and Psychoanalysis: Styling the Self (Bancroft 2012). Numerous
studies have considered the nuances of dress, such as Alison Lurie’s The Lan-
guage of Clothes (Lurie 1983) and Roland Barthes’s The Fashion System (Barthes
1985), in which he described clothing as an extra-linguistic but analytical code of
social expression. Anne Hollander’s Seeing Through Clothes even goes so far as to
describe fashion being in itself “a form of visual art, a creation of images with the
visible self as its medium” (Hollander 1978, 311). Whilst these studies do not
contain any detailed analysis of the cultural significance of medieval fashion,
they do set important precedents for serious consideration of the semiotics of
dress. The significance of undertaking such an endeavor has been neatly sum-
marized by Barbara Burman in the abstract of Material Strategies: Dress, and
Gender in Historical Perspective, in which she posits that: “integration of close
object and textual analysis can enrich our understanding of wider historical
factors and illuminate otherwise obscure facets of gendered historical experi-
ence” (Burman 2003). By “reading” medieval clothing as a form of cultural
discourse one can uncover a wealth of socio-political messages and the tensions
between group and personal identity at play in the Middle Ages.
The interpretation of fashion as an arena for serious cultural expression is an
approach that has come to be increasingly applied to the material culture of the
Middle Ages in recent years, with a number of studies using clothing as a key
interpretative factor in their analysis of medieval culture and literature. Laura
Hodges’s Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue
(Hodges 2000), in its close analysis of the pilgrim’s costume features and the role
thereof in the socio-political satire of The Canterbury Tales, helped to bring
sartorial issues to the fore in medieval studies. This was followed by Susan
Crane’s The Performance of Self (S. Crane 2002), which uses a variety of sources,
including wardrobe accounts and archaeological finds, to examine the role of
clothing in the formation of personal identity during the Hundred Years War.
Similarly, the collection of essays contained in Medieval Fabrications: Dress,
Textiles, Cloth Work, and other Cultural Imaginings (Burns, ed., 2004) and Weav-
ing, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages
(Rudy and Baert, ed., 2007) marry pure clothing studies and literary criticism to
explore how the material nature of textiles fed into the abstract world of artistic
representation. This approach is also taken by Monica Wright in her recent
monograph Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century French Romance,

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which argues that clothing informs and shapes the narrative structure of the texts
she examines (Wright 2009, 41). An understanding of the politics of fashion in the
medieval period is crucial to the interpretation of the cultural discourses exer-
cised in the period. It is, to quote Jane Burns, by “reading through clothes” (Burns
2002, 15) that the “cultural formations and literary paradigms” of the Middle Ages
can be navigated. As the following brief analysis of some of the sartorial dis-
courses exercised in the period will indicate, clothing carried a weight of meaning
far beyond sartorial display and modishness. The section will begin by exploring
the socio-political factors behind the clothing laws enacted across Europe in the
Middle Ages and the role of clothing as an indicator of class and as a vehicle for
the expression of anxiety at changes to the social order. The section will then turn
to consider the relationship between fashion and morality in medieval art and
literature and clothing’s role therein as an indicator not only of social position,
but of spiritual health as well.
I Sumptuary Legislation
Sumptuary laws have their roots in antiquity (Harte 1976, 133) and first become
part of the legal framework of the Middle Ages in thirteenth-century Italy (Brun-
dage 1987; Killerby 2002) and France (Moyer 1996). Sumptuary legislation was
introduced to England in 1337 and Sweden in 1345 and its widespread appeal was
spurred by, it has been argued, the “rapidly increasing luxury and extravagance”
of the late-medieval period (Baldwin 1926, 21). It should be noted, however, that
the emphasis on the role of clothing as a marker of social status and the desire to
protect fashion’s ability to define visually class barriers that is apparent in the
later laws is no different to the earlier edicts (Lachaud 2002, 122–23). As the
centuries progress, however, the laws do become increasingly detailed and this
may, in part, be a direct reaction to the fact that society became more complicated
over the medieval period and so the regulation of dress, when fashion was used
as a status marker, became increasingly convoluted (Scattergood 1987, 263).
Racial concerns also played a part in the legislation, particularly in Spain where
the clothing of the Muslim population was controlled by the Castilian courts as
early as 1252 (O’Callaghan 2013, 463).
Economic motives can also be clearly discerned behind the legislation and
many of the clothing laws actively sought to protect the interests of insular cloth
workers and artisans. The legislation passed in Nuremberg toward the end of the
fourteenth century, for example, explicitly banned Italian jackets, daggers, and
Venetian cloth of silver (Greenfield 1918, 107). There are, however, certain themes
to the laws that survive the test of time and are culturally universal, and it is these

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424 Emily J. Rozier
broad concerns that are reflected in the literature of the day. Firstly, fashion is
discussed in moral terms, with specific aspects coming under attack from both
legislators and moralists. Secondly, a desire to protect the identity of the nobility
in the face of the emergent merchant and gentry classes through limiting dress on
the basis of class over financial situation forms the main thrust of the legislation.
The general tone of the sumptuary laws when speaking of contemporary
fashions has been described by John Scattergood as being one “of high moral
outrage” (Scattergood 1986, 265). This can in part be attributed to a legislative
tendency toward conservatism and neophobia (Baldwin 1926, 10). The concerns
also have their roots in the desire of the Christian Church to control all forms of
pride and ostentation, fuelled by a belief that excessive sartorial splendor was
innately wicked (Newton 1980, 131). The sumptuary restrictions frequently sought
to curb the excesses of fashion by prescribing, for example, the maximum length
of pikes that were to be allowed on shoes and the amount of material that could
be used in the fashioning of any one item. Dagged clothing came under particular
attack (Phillips 2007, 26), with the objection being based on the fact that cutting
fanciful shapes into clothing was horrendously wasteful as the remnants had to
be discarded. This “moralization of luxury” as Alan Hunt has termed it (Hunt
1996, 77) names very specific aspects of the concurrent fashions as being particu-
larly at fault. Some features, like the aforementioned padded doublets, receive
criticism because of their deceptive nature. This sentiment is echoed in literature,
for example in a macaronic complaint poem of 1388 in which the author bemoans
the fact that contemporary sartorial trends bastardize God’s creation by making
the wearer “Brodder then ever God made / humeris sunt arte tumentes [they puff
out shoulders artificially] / Narow thay bene, thay seme brod” (Dean, ed., 1996,
129–31). This sense that fashionable attire is inherently deceptive continues to be
a key facet of social satire throughout the medieval period with, for example,
Sebastian Brant (1458–1521) dedicating an entire chapter of his Das Narrenschiff,
which was published in 1494, to the subject of “von neuen moden” (new fashions;
Brant 1962, chpt. 4, see also chpt. 32). A great deal of importance was thus placed
upon outward appearance reflecting reality.
The bulk of the statutes attempted to enforce and protect a visible class
distinction by rationing fashionable attire on the basis of rank over wealth, with
the higher echelons enjoying more freedom than the lower classes. Whilst the
laws cite moral reasons for this, it is clear that a primary goal of the legislation is
to make an individual’s status instantly recognizable from their clothing. Fashion
was dangerous because clothing “could actively produce status, not just passively
reflect it” (Sponsler 1997, 13). The legislation was therefore universally careful to
state that the population must dress according to their place in the social order.
The Acts of Apparel (sumptuary and sartorial laws, see below) enacted in Europe

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over the course of the Middle Ages reveal that the legislators were well aware of
the power of fashionable garb to enhance the wearer’s status (Jacoby 2004). They
all, barring those that merely repeal previous edicts, regulate dress along clear
class divisions, allowing the highest members of society to enjoy considerably
more sartorial freedom than the lower orders. Further than this, the structure of
the Acts also suggests that the legislators were aware that many of the arrivistes
were financially able to purchase luxury goods. This was in part caused by the
improved prospects of the merchant and gentry classes in the latter part of the
Middle Ages—an economic shift that meant that members of the lower orders
were often actually better placed, in terms of wealth, to indulge in finery than
were their noble counterparts. There was also a boom in production of luxury
materials, with Italian manufacturers starting to offer relatively cheap silks in the
fourteenth century (Piponnier and Mane 1997, 20). So successful was this manu-
facturing of more affordable silks that archaeological finds of “silk textiles from
London are second only to those of wool in quantity” (Crowfoot 1992, 6). Sump-
tuary legislation was thus needed if silk was to remain the reserve of the upper
classes and so retain its symbolic value.
II Sartorial Semiotics
To the medieval mind clothing not only served as a physical marker of class and
status but also as a symbolic representation of the wearer’s inner nature and
spiritual health—a duality of purpose that allowed garments to be “tenuously
positioned as equally material and symbolic” (Burns 2004, 8). The physical
qualities of clothing, such as the material, acted as an expression of the wearer’s
status. The stylistic features also served, however, as a symbolic representation of
the owner’s soul (Camille 1998, 107). Whilst the nobility were expected to use
sartorial display to convey and re-enforce their power and authority, didactic
texts and images used the same styles of clothing to represent sin. Sermons
frequently accused all those who indulged in fashion of being guilty of pride and
lust (Owst 1966, 404)—a message that was reinforced by the fact that the vices
portrayed in church murals were often dressed in the highest fashions of the day.
The link between the sin of pride and clothing is most obvious in visual treat-
ments of the Seven Deadly Sins—an “ancient moral-devotional-homiletic tradi-
tion” (Yunck 1988, 138) that was explored in Middle High German, Middle Eng-
lish, Spanish, and Provençal morality plays (Woolf 1980, 414), poetry and murals
alike. An excellent extant example of the latter medium can be seen in the
fifteenth-century tree-diagram housed in the Church of St Ethelbert in Hessett,
England. In this depiction the personification of Pride, situated at the apex of the

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426 Emily J. Rozier
tree, is represented by a fashionably dressed young man wearing mi-parti hose, a

short and tight-fitting tunic with wide sleeves, and a plumed hat. These fashion-
able costume features ensure that the figure and the message it carries cannot be
mistaken. The fact that the figure is dressed so as to draw maximum attention to
his body, through his colorful and tight-fitting clothing, identifies him as Pride.
Likewise, the plumed hat exudes a sense of self-worth that can only be judged as
hubris. In case the audience failed to understand the negativity to be associated
with this style of dress the figure stands on a hell-mouth, giving a very clear
indicator of the consequences of such proud array.
Similar usage of sartorial iconography is also evident in treatments of Les
Trois Mortes et les Trois Vifs, which in English was commonly referred to as “The
Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead.” The earliest origins of the
Legend have been ascribed to an oriental tale (Oosterwijk 2004, 62) and to
folklore (Stork 1912, 249) but “the form in which the legend was known to
medieval artists was inspired by four short thirteenth-century French poems”
(Williams 1942, 31). The Legend survives across Europe in some 200 murals and
went on to be translated into Middle English, German, and Italian. There is also
evidence that suggests that a broad selection of examples of the Legend have
been lost, “including a panel diptych, sculptural forms, and even paintings on
the sides of houses in Paris and Chartres, where addresses were often given by
visual cues taken from images on the walls” (Kinch 2008, 1). The story, in both its
written and pictorial form, is an account of three young kings or nobles who
encountered three cadavers when they were out hunting. The Legend acts as a
memento mori tale and treatments of the subject make much of contemporary
fashions to emphasise the moral message of the piece: beware of earthly vanity
for it is indeed vanity.
The medieval perception of aristocratic clothing culture therefore raises some
interesting questions about the duality of fashion discourse in the Middle Ages.
Michael Camille has investigated this in relation to the Luttrell Psalter, using the
illustrations contained in the manuscript to explore the “double bind” that
women, particularly wives, were caught in on account of their having “to strike a
delicate balance between dressing with enough richness to identify her status and
allure her spouse but not so richly that it put her in the wanton category” (Camille
1998, 110). One particular aspect of female dress that received a great deal of
criticism was the horned headdress—as one anonymous Irish author writing in
the early-fourteenth century complained: “God that berreth the crone of thornes /
Destru the prude of wome[n] hornes / For his der passione” (Cosgrove, ed., 2008,
233). The horned headdress is an item of clothing that, like the male clothing
maligned in the macaronic poem quoted above, again remodels the physical
appearance of the wearer into a shape that it nonhuman and could even be said

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to be demonic. The same clothing discourses thus surround both sexes and male
members of the fashionable classes were caught in a similar trap to their female
counterparts. On the one hand luxury was perceived by didactic authors and
social commentators to be a destructive force, responsible for demolishing the
social fabric of Europe. Members of the nobility were, however, expected to dress
in a manner that reflected their status and an opulent facade was even presented
as “a social duty for people of rank” (Smuts 2001, 34). Despite this need for
sartorial display by the upper classes the adoption of fashionable attire, particu-
larly the most innovative and a la mode of contemporary trends, was criticized
indiscriminately by didactic authors and social commentators, even when under-
taken by the elite. There is therefore something of a dichotomy in medieval
attitudes to clothing culture.
In romance literature, however, there is little debate surrounding sartorial
display. This is a genre that was designed to entertain the nobility and as such
these tales use opulent dress to represent chivalric virtues (see the article on
“Chivalry and Knighthood” by Ken Mondschein in this Handbook), rather than as
a gloss for sin as was the case in the didactic material. In courtly literature “it is
noticeable that, at all periods, the physical features selected for praise by poets
are those which are emphasized in the current fashion in dress” (Newton 1980,
40). The Parlement of the Thre Ages admiringly describes Youth as “balghe in the
breste and brode in the scholdirs” (Ginsberg, ed., 1992, 112), yet “in the medill als
a mayden menskfully schapen” (Ginsberg, ed. 1992, 114). As was discussed above,
the male fashions introduced in the mid-fourteenth century tailored the body
through tight-fitting garments and padding to fit this chivalric ideal. The style of
the new fashion does not, therefore, receive criticism (Brüggen 1989, 41–45).
Similarly, the authors of romance also praised opulence. In Ipomadon (ca. 1180),
for example, the expensive materials used in the manufacture of the hero’s attire
are lingered on, including the red velvet used to make his doublet and the gold
for his buttons. Several of the costume features were restricted by the Acts of
Apparel to the highest orders of society and their inclusion in the description
therefore helps to identify the character as a member of the ruling class. There is
no moral censure attached to the description, which instead concludes that the
outfit became him well (Newton 1980, 40). The authors of romance literature take
fashionable modes of dress and imbue them with a chivalric identity. Instead of
viewing the figure-hugging new fashion as lascivious, the author of Ipomadon
uses it to represent virility. Even dagging, which was greatly maligned in didactic
literature and frequently legislated against, is used to represent sartorially the
wounds won in battle (Denny-Brown 2004, 237). This is in direct contrast with
how such garments were used in didactic texts as symbolic of the moral and
social rifts perceived to be apparent in society.

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428 Emily J. Rozier
Tournaments and festivals also offered the upper classes legitimate platforms
for sartorial display as they were expected to “display superfluous splendor” at
public occasions (Smuts 2001, 212). Such events were a chance for ambitious
courtiers to appear in all their finery and the wardrobe accounts attest to the fact
that expenditure on dress rocketed around such festivities. These occasions were
not only an opportunity for the elite to compete in sartorial display with one
another, but also a chance to impress their magnificence upon the commoners
who formed part of the audience. By appearing in luxurious and ornately worked
clothing the peerage retained an aura of grandeur in the eyes of the proletariat.
This was of paramount importance as by appearing superior the nobility were
able to continue to actually enjoy a position of elevated status. Sartorial magnifi-
cence was equally important for the maintenance of kingship, with contemporary
commentators drawing on classical authorities in their endorsement of the em-
ployment of lavish clothing as a solidifier of royal power (Aristotle 1926, 204–13).
Adherence to fashion was as important in this respect as opulent materials. By
appearing innovative in dress kings visually accentuated their role as leader of
the nation. This concern is reflected many times in literature. In the Middle High
German epic poem Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200), for example, the king Gunther is
extremely anxious that he should be dressed in the finest raiment when wooing
Brünhild so as to not be shamed in front of her and her people, who are reported
to wear only the best fashions (Armour, trans., 1999, 28; Brüggen 1989, 121).
Fashion thus took on different meanings for different agendas. The nobility used
sartorial finery as a platform from which to present itself as a ruling caste,
depending on luxury and ceremony to retain their air of supremacy. For their
critics, however, fashion was used as evidence of the morally corrupt and deca-
dent nature of the court and the nation that they ruled.
C Conclusion
Whilst the sources outlined in this brief article have been shown to have judged
luxury differently, they all bear testimony to the importance of dress in the
cultural mind of medieval Europe. The power of fashionable display to confer
status was well appreciated and legislative measures were taken to curb the
sartorial excesses of all but the very upper echelons of society. The clothing
discourses exercised in the period were, however, complex and fed into wider
concerns about immorality, sexual temptation and sin. By investigating medieval
culture through “a dual lens in which material culture and cultural imaginings
cross in productive and surprising ways […] clothes and other adornments
become flexible cultural formations; their use and meaning extend far beyond the

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functions of practical cover, decorative adornment, or index of social status”

(Burns 2004, 7). Fashion was not only used to confer social position but also to
indicate the character of the wearer. When wielded by authors whose sympathies
lay with the fashionable classes, fine clothing represented inner strength and
purity. Literary sources that were designed for an aristocratic audience support
and re-enforce this interpretation of luxury. The well-dressed heroes and heroines
of romance literature share the costume of their didactic counterparts. They are,
however, immune to the usual accusations of immorality that were attached to
such an appearance and instead enjoy the adulation of their author and audience
alike. It is not that their clothing choices are ignored; indeed the sartorial features
are usually described in detail and with a sense of relish. Nor can the adoption of
fashionable clothing by such characters be excused simply on account of rank, as
moralities such as “The Three Living and The Three Dead” always depicted their
target as aristocratic and yet the clothing of these figures was used to represent
the vanity of earthly pleasures. These clothing discourses thus go beyond the
socio-political to the spiritual, expressing eternal concerns about the corruptibil-
ity and wayward nature of the vain.
A strong desire to document and discuss fashionable attire is evident in the
literature of the Middle Ages. In the last verse narrative by the German (Swabian)
author Heinrich Kaufringer (d. ca. 1400), entitled New Foolishness in Fashion
(Kaufringer 2014), Kaufringer lambasts contemporary clothing culture with vehe-
mence. His detailed attack on concurrent fashions also acts, however, as an
inventory of them. Kaufringer’s verse continues a rich tradition of sartorial criti-
cism, echoing the work of the Middle High German poet Neidhart (fl. ca. 1220–
1240) and the didactic poet Hugo von Trimberg (ca. 1230/35–after 1313; vol. 2,
12639–779; cf. Lehmann-Langholz 1985; Raudszus 1985), among others. Such
traditions of sartorial discourse flourished across Europe. In England they mani-
fested into the satiric figure of the galaunt—a prevalent caricature of fashionably
dressed youth that was used as a warning against a profligate lifestyle in English
literature and visual art from ca. 1380 (Davenport 1983). In its cycle of manifesta-
tion and reaction, fashion offers an excellent medium through which to study the
cultural history of the Middle Ages (Keupp 2011).
Select Bibliography
Brüggen, Elke, Kleidung und Mode in der höfischen Epik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts
(Heidelberg 1989).
Burns, E. Jane, ed., Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Cloth Work, and Other Cultural
Imaginings (New York 2004).

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430 Emily J. Rozier
Crane, Susan, The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing and Identity During the Hundred Years
War (Philadelphia, PA, 2002). [= S. Crane 2002]
Ewing, Thor, Viking Clothing (Stroud 2006).
Heller, Sarah-Grace, Fashion in Medieval France (Cambridge 2007).
Hodges, Laura F., Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue
(Cambridge 2000).
Jones, Ann R. and Peter Stallybrass, ed., Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory
(Cambridge and New York 2000).
Newton, Mary Stella, Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340–1365
(Woodbridge 1980).
Owen-Crocker, Gail R., Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge 1986).
Piponnier, Françoise and Perrine Mane, Dress in the Middle Ages, trans. Caroline Beamish (Paris
1995; London 1997).
Richardson, Catherine, ed., Clothing Culture 1350–1650 (Aldershot 2004).
Stuard, Susan Mosher, Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in Fourteenth-Century Italy
(Philadelphia, PA, 2011).

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Jean N. Goodrich
Fairy, Elves and the Enchanted Otherworld
A Introduction
The term “fairy” refers to a category of supernatural beings, usually more human
than monster, but also to the Otherworld homeland of such beings, as in “Fairy-
land.” Sources from later in the medieval period may associate the fairy with
nature spirits or elementals, like classical dryads or nymphs. The term is also used
to describe characteristics of such creatures and the magical abilities they are
purported to have. The word “fairy” entered the English lexicon from Old French
faerie or fay after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and became the preferred word
in texts from the medieval period. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first
instances of the word (spelled fayré) in the Middle English metrical romances, Sir
Orfeo, ca. 1320 and Kyng Alisaunder, ca. 1300 (Auchinleck Manuscript, NLS Adv.
MS 19.2.1). Prior to the Norman Conquest, and afterward in texts not so exclu-
sively aristocratic, the term “elf” could be used (Old English aelf, ylf; Middle
English alve, alfe); sometimes synonymously, and sometimes simultaneously to
mark a distinction in status between the creatures being described. Thus, a single
elf or group of elves hails from their otherworld homeland, Elfland.
The characteristics attributed to fairy in English-language texts were influ-
enced by the continental traditions dominant at the given period in history as well
as the population for which the text was written. The earliest instances of “elf”
that occur in English are the result of the settlement of Germanic peoples (Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes) during the fifth century and the later Viking invasions of the
ninth century. Prior to these influences, texts would have been written in Latin by
Romano-Celt monastic scribes, and are more likely to show the influence of
classical and/or native Celtic traditions. One such classical influence may be seen
as early as the eleventh century in Bishop Burchard of Worms’s penitential
Decretorum libri viginti, which attacked belief in the classical Parcae, goddesses of
destiny also known as the Fata or Fates, as well as the popular belief in “women of
the forest,” sylvaticae, who offered their love to mortal men (Harf-Lancner 2000).
French lais, chansons de geste, and courtly romances were widely circulated,
translated, and adapted into other vernacular languages across Europe, intended
at first for aristocratic audiences. After 1066 and the adoption of the French
language by the court of William of Normandy (1028–1087), aristocratic audi-
ences read or told stories of Fairy and the courtly fairy knights and ladies who
peopled its landscape. With time, the literary texts became popular with a wider

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432 Jean N. Goodrich
and more diverse audience, adapted from metrical text to prose romance, ballads,
lyrics, and folklore. It is through the collections of “curiosities” and travel writing
of monastic authors and chroniclers such as Giraldis Cambrensis (ca. 1146–ca.
1223), Walter Map (ca. 1140–ca. 1209), and Gervase of Tilbury (ca. 1150–ca. 1228)
that we see evidence of the survival of Germanic and even Celtic traditions among
the common people during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Briggs 1967),
even as the consciously literary texts continued in popularity among the literate
and elite.
By the early modern period, the texts that preserve elements and tales of Fairy
are a combination of popular folk tales and the aristocratic Fairy of literary
medieval romance. Texts intended for a more elite audience continued to depict
the aristocratic and romance version of Fairy, often stressing the quest for the
enchanted fairy mistress. However, with increasing literacy and a wider audience,
the more folkloric version of fairies begin to emerge alongside and eventually in
favor of aristocratic fairy. Writers such as William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) made liberal use of contemporary fairy folklore, inspiring
the fashion for diminutive fairies that became popular with later writers such as
William Browne (ca. 1591–ca. 1645), Michael Drayton (1563–1631), and Robert
Herrick (1591–1674). At the same time, more learned, non-fictional texts begin to
explore the belief in fairies, especially in relation to accusations of witchcraft and
witchcraft trials in England and Scotland. By the mid-seventeenth century fairies
became more of a literary trope, used for political commentary, satire, and parody.
In all such texts, the distinction must be made between the recording of an
actual belief in the Fairy or Elven Otherworld, and the use of these ideas as
literary figures and tropes.
B Fairy in the Early Middle Ages

I Elf Traditions in Old English
The earliest Old English mention of elves, ylfe, occurs in a number of West Saxon
texts: in Beowulf, in Anglo-Saxon medical texts known as leechbooks, and in some
of the vernacular glosses of Latin texts, such as Ælfric’s Glossary. The prefix Ælf-
also occurs in a number of personal and place names during the period. The
instances of the mention of elves at this time seem to fit into one of five sets of
characteristics: (1) in the medical leechbooks, elves are the supernatural source of
disease suffered by humans and livestock due to elf shot, invisible arrows shot by
malignant elves at the unsuspecting; (2) also in the leechbooks, elves are malign
spirits capable of physically possessing their victims, causing foolishness, mad-

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Fairy, Elves and the Enchanted Otherworld 433
ness, or seizures; (3) in the Old English poem, Beowulf (ca. 900), elves are
monstrous beings that inhabit the wastes; (4) found as vernacular glosses in the
feminine form, elfen / ælfenne, they are nature spirits, like classic nymphs, that
inhabit woods, fields, mountains, and water sources; and finally, (5) surviving as
part of proper personal or place names, usually denoting a benign or complemen-
tary aspect, as in the adjective ælfsciene (elf-bright), and the names Ælfwine (elf-
friend) and Ælfric (elf-powerful) (Stuart 1976, 313–14).
In the epic poem, Beowulf, the monster Grendel is said to roam the wild-
erness with eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas. Eotenas has been translated variously
as giants, monsters, or enemies (Clark Hall 1960), and ogres (Swanton, ed.,
1978). Orcneas has been translated as demons or evil spirits (Hall 2007, 69–73),
monsters (Clark Hall 1960), and goblins (Swanton, ed., 1978). The grouping of
eotenas, elves, and orcneas are described by the Beowulf narrator as untȳdras,
monsters or misbegotten creatures (Hall 2007, 70–71), and swylce gīgantas þa
wið gode wunnon, such giants that struggled against God. This translation
suggests the influence of the Christian scribe copying out the pre-Christian tale,
as well as the classical tradition of the struggle of the Titans against the
Olympian gods. In this case, the clustering of ylfe with eotenas and orcneas
may suggest a grouping of the monstrous against the human, as defined by
ancestry or language, but also an association by group inclusion as supra-
human creatures (Hall 2007).
Examples of ylf / elf found in the medicinal texts known as leechbooks
suggest that elves were believed to be the source of mysterious illnesses such as
wasting diseases, fevers, and warts. The leechbooks contain a miscellaneous
collection of remedies for human and animal illnesses such as fever, stom-
achache, and snakebite, but also remedies against theft and demonic possession
as well as for safe journeys and to obtain favors. The Lacnunga (British Library MS
Harley 585) written ca. 950, compiled by Oswald Cockayne as Leechdoms, Wort-
cunning, and Starcraft in Early England (1864), contains a number of medical
recipes to cure diseases caused by being shot by the spear or arrow of an elf. The
recipe, Wið Færstice (against a sudden pain or “elf-shot”), is a treatment against
the gescot (projectile) of ēse, ælfe, and hǣgtessan (pagan gods, elves, and witches)
(Jolly 1996; Hall 2005; 2007). The association of elves with sinister, demonic
forces is also suggested by the remedy þis is sē hālga drænc wið ælfsīden 7 wið
eallum fēondes costungum (“This is the holy drink against elf magic and against
all tribulations of the fiend”) (Hall 2007, 120–21). The Lacnunga also contains the
remedy Wið dweorh (“Against a dwarf”). As the ailments are rarely presented with
a list of symptoms, dweorh (“dwarf”) has been variously translated as “a warty
eruption” by Cockayne, a tumor, a paroxysmal disease, a nightmare, and a fever
by various scholars (Storms 1975, 168).

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Bald’s Leechbook (I and II) and Leechbook III, found in British Library MS Royal
12, D xvii, a tenth-century manuscript produced at Winchester (Cameron 1983),
also contains a number of medical remedies for disease brought on by elves. Bald’s
Leechbook provides a remedy Gif hors bið gesceoton, (“If a horse is elf-shot”) and
another for patients suffering Wið ælfe 7 wið uncuþum sidsan (“Against elves and
against unknown magic”) (Hall 2007, 120), both intended to address illnesses
caused by mysterious, unseen magic or invisible arrows. Leechbook III, bound
together in the manuscript with Bald’s Leechbook, provides remedies for elf-related
illnesses not explicitly caused by an elf’s arrow. Wiþ ælfādle oððe ælfsogoðan
(“Against elf-sickness or elf-disease”) presents a cure for generic elf-sickness, and
the more specific “elf-disease,” which may be jaundice (Hall 2007, 105). Leech-
book III also provides relief for patients Wiþ wæterælf-adl (“Against the water-elf
disease”), possibly chicken pox (Storms 1975). In the event of an anticipated en-
counter with the dangerous unseen, this collection provides the recipe for Elf Salve,
Wiþ ælfcynne and nihtgengan and þam mannum þe dēofol mid hǣmð. (“Against elf-
kind and against nightwalkers and against/for those people who have sex with the
devil”) (Hall 2007, 104), which explicitly links the non-Christian belief in elves with
the Christian belief in devils. Other remedies are provided to treat fevers, night-
mares, falling-sickness (perhaps epilepsy), and for those victims out-of-mind or
foolish (Jolly 1996, 45–47). The remedies present a combination of herbcraft, ritual
performance, and invocation of Christian saints and iconography, demonstrating
the amalgamation of Christian cosmology with local pagan customs. They also
demonstrate the Anglo-Saxon viewpoint that the unseen elves were as physically
and spiritually dangerous to mankind as demons, devils, and witches.
The Old English Herbarium from the late tenth century (Hall 2007, 127),
includes similar remedies against attacks by elves, as well as two treatments
against dwarves. The remedy Wið Dweorh (“Against a Dwarf”) treats the patient
for trembling or convulsions and a fever, while the second remedy, Dweorg onweg
to donne … (“To be rid of a dwarf…”) treats the patient for fever, as well as possible
warts (Griffiths 1996, 54). The similarity between the illnesses caused by elf and
dweorg, as well as the remedies prescribed for them, suggests that the elf and
dwarf are distinct kinds of supernatural creature that have the same malign
effects on the humans and animals they encounter.
The monastic scribes of the time recorded the remedies used in communities
around them in an effort to incorporate current medical practice into the body of
learned Christian and classical knowledge. This process occurred across Europe
as well, in various languages and different kinds of texts. The effort to resolve the
two bodies of knowledge also resulted in a number of texts where the vernacular
language is glossed with another language, usually Latin, written by clerical,
didactic, and literate lay-readers, sometimes for private use and sometimes for

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circulation. In the case of the word elf or ælf, a number of sources survive which
gloss Latin-to-English or English-to-Latin, allowing us a broader understanding
of the early medieval conception of elves.
The influential 7th-century text, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, provides a
list of Latin-English glosses for the feminine form ælfinne:
Nimphae . aelfinne eadem. & muse (Nymphae: ælfinne, and at the same time musae)
Oreades dūun . aelfinni . (Oreades: mountain-ælfinne)
Driades. uudu . aelfinne (Dryades: wood-ælfinne)
Amadriades uater . aelfinñ (Hamadryades: water-ælfinne)
Maiades feld . aelfinne (Maiades: open-land-ælfinne)
Naiades sāe . aelfinne (Naiades: sea-ælfinne)
Similarly, the tenth-century Third Cleopatra Glossary (MS Cotton Cleopatra A.iii,
folios 92r–117v) provides glosses of ælf in compound words to similar figures from
Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate (BL MS Royal 7. D. xxiv):
Ruricolas musas : landælfe (country-dwelling Musae: landælfe)

Castalidas nymphas : dūnælfa (Castalian nymphae : mountain-ælfa)
The First Cleopatra Glossary (folios 5–75) also glosses Aldhelm’s text, providing:
Nymphas : gydena (Nymphae : goddesses)
Both the First and Second Cleopatra Glossaries gloss the classical nymph Echo,
known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as a wudumær (a wood-nightmare), mær
being the Old English word for a nightmare, or a creature which causes night-
mares. Ælfric’s Glossary (Codex Junii 71 Bodleian and Bodleian MS Barlow 35), a
late tenth-century text written by Ælfric of Eynsham (ca. 955–ca. 1025) to assist
students in learning Latin, also glosses feld-ælfen as hamadryas. The Antwerp-
London Glossary (Plantin-Moretus Museum, M 16. 2 and BL Add. 32246) from the
eleventh century, glosses the Latinate figures with English elfen:
Oriades . muntælfen. Driades . wuduelfen . Moides . feldelfen . Amadriades . wylde elfen .

Naides . sǣelfen . Castalidas . dunelfen
using both the ælfen and elfen plural forms of the word. In each case, the elf is
associated with the nymphs of classical tradition, beautiful divine or semi-divine
women, often the companions of goddesses such as Diana/ Artemis or Venus/
Aphrodite. The classical nymphs are usually found in natural settings, associated
with trees, streams, bodies of water or mountain meadows, marking them as
nature spirits or elementals.
The word ælf is a frequent first element in Old English compound personal
names, and suggests both a benign and complimentary meaning (Hall 2007, 58).

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Some of the names recorded by scholars of onomastics include: Ælfric (noble or

rich as an elf), Ælfred (elf-wise), Ælfnoth (elf-noble), Ælfwine (elf-friend), Ælfgifu
or Elfgiva (elf-dear or gift of the elves), Ælfgar (elf-spear), Ælfheah (elf-high),
Ælfwold (elf-rule), Elfhilda (elf-battle), and Ælfthryth or Elfthrythe (elf-strength
or elf-fearsome). The positive nature of the names suggests they survive from a
time when elves were viewed sympathetically or as friendly to humans. Elf place
names in England include ælfrucge (elf-ridge) in Kent from a charter from the year
996 C.E.; ylfing dene (elf valley) in Berkshire from a charter from the year 956 C.E.;
and Elveden in Suffolk as it appears in the Domesday Book (Hall 2007, 64–66).
Whether the result of earlier, more positive associations with elves or the
glossing of ælf as analogous with the generally beautiful classical nymphs, the
word ælf appears a number of times in Old English texts, free of the association
with disease. Ælf occurs twice in the Old English translation of Genesis A of the
Old Testament Bible, to describe Abraham’s wife, Sarah, as ælfscīeno (elf-shining
or elf-bright), where the Latin text used pulcher, meaning seductive beauty.
Despite her own virtue, twice Sarah is taken from her husband by other men
because of her beauty. Similarly, in the Old English Judith, bound in the tenth-
century Nowell Codex with the Beowulf manuscript, the virtuous and beautiful
heroine Judith is described as ælfscīnu, as if aglow with holy light, even as she
beheads the Assyrian general, Holofernes. Laȝamon’s Brut is a late (twelfth
century) example of Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry based on the Anglo-Norman
Roman de Brut by Wace (ca. 1100–1174). Though composed during the Middle
English period (after 1066), the text preserves the language and conventions of
the earlier linguistic period. In The Brut, King Arthur is said to wear armor made
by an aluisc smið (elvin smith), associating the elves with the fashioning of
magical weaponry and armor, usually reserved for the most worthy of warriors
(Hall 2007, 33). Similarly, the beautiful Argante, Queen of Avalon, who will heal
King Arthur’s mortal wounds, is described as aluen swide sceone (a very beautiful
elf) and fairest alre aluen (most beautiful of all elves). Argante is one of many
queens of Fairy, like the White Ladies of Scandinavian myths, or the Fairy Queens
of Middle English romance, who intervene in human activities for only the most
worthy of men.
And finally, though the text does not use the term aelf / elf explicitly, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year C.E. 1127 seems to describe the Wild Hunt of
Fairy, riding as a result, perhaps in protest, of the abbacy of Peterborough having
been granted to Henry of Poitou, to which the chronicler objects:
… as soon as he came thither … immediately after, several persons saw and heard many
huntsmen hunting. The hunters were swarthy, and huge, and ugly; and their hounds were
all swarthy, and broad-eyed, and ugly. And they rode on swarthy horses, and swarthy
bucks. This was seen in the very deer-fold in the town of Peterborough, and in all the woods

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from that same town to Stamford. And the monks heard the horn blow that they blew in the
night. (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1912, 202).
Recorded more commonly in later texts, the Wild Hunt is the mythic supernatural
hunting party, common to folklore across Europe. It is a cause for fear among the
country folk, and often occurs as a sign of the disorder of the world or to presage a
future disaster. Since the chronicler ends the year’s record with: “This was [Henry
of Poitou’s] entry; of his exit we can as yet say nought. God provide,” it seems the
chronicler agrees with this interpretation.
Geoffrey of Monmouth (ca. 1100–ca. 1155), a cleric living in the town of
Monmouth on the Welsh border, wrote the first secular historiography in England
known as the Historia Regum Britanniae (ca. 1136). The text purports to present
the history of England back to its mythical founding by Brutus, a descendant of
the Trojan Aeneas. Most of the material presented is fictional, taken from the
ninth-century Historia Brittonum, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,
and sixth-century Gildas’s De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, in addition to local
oral traditions. Due to the popularity of the text, Geoffrey’s depiction of the mythic
English hero, Arthur Pendragon, from conception to his mortal wounding against
Mordred, spread widely in learned and lay circles as historical fact.
According to Geoffrey, the boy Merlin is found by agents of king Vortigern, a
“youth that never had a father.” His mother claims to have lain with no man, but
dreamed of a young man that no one else could see who embraced her. One of
Vortigern’s learned advisors explains this as the result of an incubus, thereby
defining forever Merlin’s demonic, or perhaps fairy, origins. In the chapters that
follow, Merlin provides the king with numerous prophecies and eventually assists
Uther Pendragon magically in impersonating Gorlois, the duke of Cornwall, to lay
with Gorlois’ wife, Igerna. Arthur’s conception is the result.
Later Arthurian texts present an Arthur whose success and fall is frequently
linked to the Fairy Otherworld, but not in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history. There
is no explicit mention of Fairy. Arthur’s sister is Anne, not Morgan. There is no
Lancelot, the protegé of the Lady of the Lake, however, Merlin prophesies his own
death at the hand of the Lady of the Lake. Arthur’s sword is named Caliburn, and
was made on the Isle of Avalon, called the “Island of Apples” in Geoffrey’s later
work, Vita Merlini, where Morgan herself is first introduced. However, the story
ends ambiguously, with Arthur carried off to the Isle of Avalon to be healed of his
mortal wounds. The means of transport and the identity of those who implemen-
ted it is never explained. Nevertheless, the Historia Regum Britanniae became a
primary influence on later Arthurian tales and the medieval conception of Fairy-
land.

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II Scandinavian Traditions
The Scandinavian cultures (primarily Icelandic and Norse) have preserved a rich
tradition of literature concerned with a magical or enchanted Otherworld of elves,
often referred to as hulda-folk. The cognate for elf in Icelandic is álfr, and in Old
Norse, álfar. In both cultures, the álfar are often associated with the pre-Christian
Norse gods, primarily the Æsir, but the Vanir as well: Odin, Thor, Feryr, Freya,
Loki, etc.
The Prose Edda, also known as the Snorra Edda after its compiler, Snorri
Sturluson (1179–1241), is a twelfth-century compilation of mythological stories,
including quotations from the earlier verse Elder Edda. The Snorra Edda includes
a prologue and three books: Gylfaginning, Skáldsaparmál, and Hattatál, which
reproduce older works, often citing older verse mythologies. Gylfaginning is con-
cerned with the creation and destruction of the world of the gods; Skáldsaparmál
with mythology and the art of poetry, and Hattatál with verse forms in Old Norse
poetry. While the álfar are usually associated with the æsir, perhaps purely for
alliterative effect, some texts also associate them with the vanir, the Norse gods of
fertility, wisdom, and vision. In Gylfaginning, Snorri distinguishes the æsir from
vanir, whereas other texts do not make a distinction. The Poetic Edda, containing
the older material, includes ballads and lays of mythological and heroic nature,
such as Grimnismál, Reginsmál, Hamðismál, Skírnismál, and Alvíssmál, the Loka-
senna and Vǫlundarkviða. These Old Norse poems are preserved in the thirteenth-
century Icelandic manuscript Codex Regius, as well as the brief citations in the
Snorra Edda.
The Álfr are primarily male and live in Álfheimr, Home of the Elves. Equiva-
lent female characters are usually described instead by the words dís (super-
natural lady, as in the Verse Edda Grimnismál, Reginsmál, and Hamðismál), norn
(noble and supernatural lady, the Fates), or valkyrja (choosers of the slain). There
is also a medieval Icelandic compound word, álfkona (elf-woman, elf-kin) to
designate a female álfr. The literature makes a distinction between the ljósálfr
(light) and døkkálfar or Svartálfr (dark) elves. The ljósálfr live in Álfheimr, a sky
realm, and døkkálfar live underground, though they are distinct from dvergr
(dwarves) and jọtnar (giants) which also inhabit underground realms. The ljósálfr
are described as bright as the sun, while the døkkálfar are black as pitch. In
Snorri’s Viðbláinn, the ljósálfr are more like angels, suggesting a Christian influ-
ence. Jacob Grimm (1883, vol 2 444–56) suggests that the dark elves might be the
souls of dead men (Griffiths 1996, 52 n 37).
In Vǫlundarkviða, an Old Norse poem from the Verse Edda, a common
formulaic phrase is ása oc álfa (gods and elves), which are grouped together for
alliterative purposes. In Lokasenna, the álfar are described as akin to the vanir,

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but the poems Sigrdrífumál, Skírnismál, and Alvíssmál mention álfar as different
from the vanir. Alvissmal, a twelfth-century poem about poetics associates the
álfar with the god Freyr because of his association with the sun. The word
alfroðull used in Snorri’s Skáldskarpamál to mean the sun, is also associated
with Freyr.
In skaldic verse, Old Norse praise poetry which is primarily historical, álfr is
used as a common epithet for men in metaphoric verse called kennings (Hall
2007, 28–31). The epithet is used to stress the wisdom, strength or battle prowess
of the human warrior. Thus, in Bragi inn gamli Boddason’s ninth-century poem,
Ragnarsdrápa, one man is described as sóknar alfr (álfr of attack), and another as
raðaralfr (álfr of the ship). Similarly, another hero in the ninth-century skaldic
poem, Ynglingatal, is described as brynjalfr (armour-álfr). While the use of álfr is
commonly used in epithets for heroes, words for male supernatural beings with
negative connotations such as dvergr, jøtunn, mara (evil spirit, nightmare) or þurs
(giant), are rarely used as epithet for humans. In Sigvatr Þorðarson’s eleventh-
century skaldic poem, Austrfararvísur, he describes an encounter with a Swedish
household, which denied him hospitality because they were observing an álfablót
(sacrifice to the elves). The woman of the house explained that they feared the
wrath of Odin because Christians were not welcome during this time of sacrifice
(Griffiths 1996, 53).
Vǫlundr, the hero of the Vǫlundarkvida, equivalent to the English hero We-
land, is described as álfa lioði (member of the álfar) and isi álfa (wise one of the
álfar). Like many of the Scandinavian álfar, Vǫlundr is associated with metal-
working, forging rings of gold and gems. He married Hervor Alvitr (Hervor the All-
wise), one of three supernatural women who appeared on the lakeshore one
morning. To rest from their travels and spin flax, the women put aside their swan-
garments. Scholars have compared these ladies to the Fate-dispensing norns and
to swan maidens.
Thus, the Old Norse and Icelandic traditions that survive suggest that the
early Scandinavian peoples saw the elves as associated with the gods. The males
are wise and warrior-fierce; the women magical, wise and beautiful. There is a
clear distinction between ljósálfr (light) and døkkálfar (dark) elves, both of which
are distinct from the more monstrous dvergr (dwarves), jọtnar (giants), and mara
(nightmares). And yet, each of these types of creatures inhabits the Otherworld
with the elves.

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III The “Elf” Tradition in Germany
As with England, early written texts in Germany were the result of the missionary
work and the Christianization of the Germanic tribes of the area. While early texts
such as the Merseburg Charms— written during the tenth-century on a blank page
within a ninth-century theological text—recorded the pagan oral traditions of the
Norse god, Wodan (Odin), Frija (Freyja), and Balder (Baldr), elves are not men-
tioned. Linguistic evidence for the existence of elves in medieval German litera-
ture and folklore is scarce (Thun 1969), however this suggests a preference for
different word choices as well as a different conceptualization of the idea of “elf.”
A number of these earliest texts contain figures that would be recognized in later
works as enchanted, elven or fairy.
Early secular literature such as the alliterative mid-ninth-century poem,
Muspilli, and the twelfth-century epic, König Rother, have characters that are
giants, but there is nothing to characterize these figures as inhabits of Fairyland.
Muspilli’s giant is from a land of fire, not unlike a Greco-Roman titan, and the
giants of König Rother seem like unusually-large humans. There is nothing
inherently magical about them. More common in the literature of this time is the
dwerg / twerg (dwarf). The eleventh-century romance Ruodlieb, written in Latin
verse, features a prophetic dwarf who tells the hero where to find treasure and
foretells his future marriage. Dwarves are often associated with hidden treasure
and metalworking. Each of these may owe more to classical Latin works but still
demonstrate the uneasy combination of classical learning and native folklore.
The English word elf is a loan word reintroduced into German during the
eighteenth century by Wieland’s translation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer
Night’s Dream in 1764 (Bächtold-Stäubli et al., ed., 1927, vol. 2, 760). In both Old
High German (ca. 750–ca. 1050 C.E.) and Middle High German (ca. 1100–ca. 1450
C.E.), the cognate word for elf is alp or alb (Graff and Massman 1846; Grimm and
Grimm 1854; Meyer 1891). The word elbisch in Middle High German meant “pixie-
like” obut also “confused because of elves” (Köbler 1993). An alp was considered
a mahr (nightmare), a naturgott oder damon (nature god or attendant spirit), a
faun, or a malign ghostly presence (Köbler 1993), and a genius (Graff and Mass-
man 1846; Grimm and Grimm 1854). As a nightmare, the alp was believed to sit
upon the body of the sleeper, causing pressure that made breathing difficult, and
bringing bad or often erotic dreams; in many ways similar to the classical incubus
(Meyer 1891). In some cases, the alp was believed to be the spirit of a deceased
person. In one Old High German charm, the disease malus malannus (in Latin) is
glossed as alpe in German (Edwards 1994).

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IV Celtic Fairy Traditions
In Ireland, the fairy people are the Daoine Sidhe, the People of Peace. In Gaelic,
they are the síth or sidhe, the sluagh (fairy host), and Daoine Síth or maithe. In
Scotland, they are the “guid wichts,” the Good People, the Good Neighbors, the
Little People, the Gentry, and the People of Peace. In Wales, they are the Tylwyth
Teg, the Fair Folk. In Cornish, they are the spyrys (spirits) or an bobel vyghan (the
Little People) and in Manx, ferrish or ny guillyn beggey (the Little Boys) (MacKillop
1998, 177).
Individual fairy creatures often have their own names, as if identifying them
as a sub-species, which are highly dependent upon location: brownie, gruagach,
badhb or bean-shithe (Henderson and Cowan 2004, 14–15), cluricaune, dullahan,
ellyll, fenduree, glaistig, pixie, and pooka (MacKillop 1998, 177–78), to name only
a few. Indeed, in Scottish folktales, some fairy creatures become so infamous in a
particular locale that they have earned a personal name known to all the local
inhabitants: Whoopity Stoorie, Habetrot, Aiken Drum of Galloway, Wag-at-the-
wa’ from the Borders, Puddlefoot from Perthshire, and Meg Mullach from Strath-
spey (Henderson and Cowan 2004, 16), as well as more ubiquitous individuals
such as Hind Etin of the ballads and Jenny Greenteeth.
Fairy often plays a significant role in the literature of early Ireland. The best
of warriors, the most beautiful of women, wondrous magical weapons, and the
warnings of prophecy often owe their origins to the Fairy Otherworld. As such, the
characters that appear in these works are magical, semi-divine, and predomi-
nantly aristocratic. The Leabhar Gabhála Éireann, in Middle Irish Lebor Gabála
Érenn, “The Book of Invasions,” is a twelfth-century compilation of poems and
prose narratives telling the mythological story of the early inhabitants of Ireland,
the Tuatha Dé Danann (Children of the Goddess Danu), who fled underground at
the coming of the Gaeil, the Milesians or sons of Míl (Bhrolcháin 2009, 26). This
explains the Celtic belief in a Fairy Otherworld that is entered via neolithic ruins,
barrows, and fairy mounds as well as lakes, ponds, and springs. Most of this
mythological material is preserved from a rich oral tradition in the Aisling Oengu-
sa (“The Dream of Oengus”), Cath Maige Tuired Chonga (“The Battle of Moytura of
Cong”), Cath Maige Tuired (“The Battle of Moytura”), Tochmarc Étaíne (“The
Wooing of Étaíne”), Altram Tige dá Medar (“The Nourishment of the House of the
Two Vessels”), and Serglige Con Culainn (“The Love-Sickness of Cú Chulainn”)
(Bhrolcháin 2009, 31).
In Irish literature, the Otherworld is named often as euphemistically as its
inhabitants: Tír na mBeó (the Land of the Living), Tír na mBan (the Land of
Women), Mag Mell (the Plain of Delight), Mag Mór (the Great Plain), In Tír
Tairngire (the Promised Land), or Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth) (Bhrolcháin

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2009, 79). It has also been associated with the legendary island of Hy Brazil,
usually ensconced in a fog, invisible but for a brief appearance every 7 years
(Bhrolcháin 2009, 80).
The poem Eochaid in the Lebor Laignech, the Book of Leinster (ca. 1160),
identifies the Tuatha De Danann as the conquerers of the Fir-Bolgs, an earlier race
of people inhabiting Ireland. They are the hosts of siabra, an Old Irish word
meaning fairies, sprites or ghosts (Evans-Wentz 1966, 285).
1 Ulster / Heroic Cycle
The stories of the Heroic or Ulster cycle are concerned mainly with the mythic
hero Cú Chulainn, and contain frequent, critical interactions with the fairy Other-
world. Cú Chulainn himself lives a year with with the fairy woman Fedelm
Foltchaín (fair-haired), wife of the god Elcmar. In the Tochmarc Emere (“The
Wooing of Emer”), Cú Chulainn is trained in the Otherworld by the fairy woman
Aife (Bhrolcháin, 2009, 49) and the female warrior Scáthach (shadowy one).
When he returns from the Otherworld, he brings with him the magical spear, the
gae bolga (Bhrolcháin 2009, 84). The best of warriors, Cú Chulainn receives the
benefit of fairy wisdom, martial training, and the magical weapon that always
strikes true.
The Táin Bó Cuaulnge (“The Cattle Raid of Cooley”) is the most famous of the
Irish heroic epics. It details the challenge between Aillil, king of Connacht and his
wife, Mebd, to see who has the best cattle. In oral tradition, Medb herself is
considered a fairy queen (Gribben 1986; MacKillop 1998, 178). As a result of losing
the bet, Medb decides to raid the Ulstermen of their prize bull, the Donn of
Cuailnge to ultimately outdo her husband and his prize bull, Finnbennach. The
origin of the two bulls is recounted in the De Chophur in dá Muccida (“The
Conception of the Two Swineherds”): the bulls were conceived as a result of a
quarrel between the kings of two fairy mounds, whose magical shape-shifting pig-
keepers took up their masters’ quarrel. The shapeshifters transform eventually to
maggots, which are consumed by cows that subsequently give birth to Finnben-
nach, the white-horned bull of Connacht and the Donn of Cuailnge (Bhrolcháin
2009, 46). In the Táin itself, Medb and Aillil are given a prophecy by the fairy seer,
Fedelm, as they gather their army; a prophecy of their upcoming defeat, which
they promptly ignore (Bhrolcháin 2009, 50). Thus, in this story cycle, the cattle,
which symbolize wealth, masculinity, and rightful sovereignty, are a result of
disorder in the fairy Otherworld that spills over into the mortal world.
In a related story, the Táin Bó Fraích (“The Cattle Raid of Fraech”), Fraích, the
most beautiful warrior in Ireland, owns twelve red-eared white cows from the

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Otherworld, a gift from his mother Bé Finn, sister to the Boann river. Fraích woos
Finnabair, daughter of Medb and Ailill, with cloaks, tunics, silver shields with
rims of gold from the Otherworld (Bhrolcháin 2009, 48). These possessions make
Fraích a worthy suitor for Finnabair, though her father Aillil refuses to allow the
marriage by demanding an exorbitant bride price.
2 The Fenian Cycle
The Fenian cycle is a series of heroic tales about Finn mac Cumall and the
warriors of the Fianna.
In Macgníomhartha Finn (“The Boyhood Deeds of Finn”), the fairy Otherworld
also plays a significant role. The tale features multiple shape-shifting characters
—like the women of the Serglige Con Culainn who transform into birds (Bhrolcháin
2009, 84–85)—but most especially women who appear as deer. In one episode,
Finn gains prophetic knowledge when he attempts to catch an invisible thief and
has his finger slammed in the door of a sidhe mound. In another, he meets three
women “with horns of the síd” upon them. He chases them, and obtains a brooch
from one, who promises him a reward if he returns it. The story ends abruptly
before the reward may be remitted.
3 Cycle of Kings
The more closely historical of the early Irish story cycles is the Cycle of Kings, a
compilation of stories about prehistoric and historic kings of Ireland, still predo-
minantly fictional. Despite the “non-mythical” nature of the stories, the fairy
Otherworld continues to play a significant role (Rider 2012).
In Immram Bran (“The Voyage of Bran”), Bran hears music that puts him to
sleep, whereupon he dreams of a silver branch with white blossoms, the symbolic
invitation of a mortal to Fairyland. When he awakens and returns home, there is a
woman “in strange raiment” who appears and sings verses about the Otherworld,
the Land of Women. The next day, Bran sets sail and voyages to the Otherworld
where he meets the sea-god Manannán mac Lir, who prophecies the birth of
Mongán mac Fiachna, king of the Dál Fiatach in Ulster. Bran and company
continue on to the Island of Joy and thereafter, to the Land of Women. When the
company returns home, they discover that many years have passed and they are
now the heroes of stories. One sailor sets foot on land and immediately turns to ash.
Bran recounts the tales of his voyages for his countrymen and then leaves, never to
be heard from again (Bhrolcháin 2009, 80–82). In Coimpert Mongáin (“The Concep-

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tion of Mongán”), the prophecy of Mongán is fulfilled, starting a new generation of

heroes. Manannán mac Lir takes Mongán, who is actually his own son, to the
Otherworld for twelve years. Mongán himself is a shapeshifter, a legacy from his
sea-god father (Bhrolcháin 2009, 82–83). These stories feature the theme of the
enigmatic passage of time in Fairyland as well as Fairy as the source of prophecy.
The fairy mistress theme is featured in Echtra Conli (“The Adventures of
Conla”). Conla son of Conn sees a fairy woman no one else can see, who gives him
a magic apple. Conla survives solely by eating this apple, which always remains
whole. The fairy woman later reappears and invites him to the Land of Women.
Conla sets sail the next day and is never seen again (Bhrolcháin 2009, 80). Passage
to the Otherworld is open only to the worthiest of men in these tales, but it also
serves as a locus for testing the worthiness of the individual hero. The Echtra
Cormaic maic Airt (“The Adventures of Cormac mac Airt”), again features the sea-
god Manannán, who takes Cormac’s daughter, son, and wife, leaving a musical
silver branch with three apples in exchange. The silver branch grants safe passage
of humans into the fairy Otherworld. Cormac sails to the Otherworld to retrieve his
family. Passing a test of truth, Cormac awakens back home with his family beside
him and a goblet of truth that distinguishes truth from falsehood (Bhrolcháin
2009, 126). Similarly, the hero of Echtra Thaidhg meic Céin (“The Adventures of
Tadg son of Cian”), Tadg must also retrieve his wife from the Otherworld, where
he meets many people, including Conla (Bhrolcháin 2009, 86).
Scotland shares many of the same mythical stories in Gaelic as those of the
Irish during this early period. Scottish Fairies and Fairyland become more distinct
from their Irish counterparts in later texts.
V Welsh / Brythonic Traditions

While there is much early native Welsh poetry—religious, commemorative, and
praise poetry—that survives, the most significant corpus of Welsh literature con-
cerned with Fairy and the Otherworld is the collection of prose tales known as The
Mabinogion, based on the Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi (“Four Branches of the Mabi-
nogi”). The name Mabinogion (tales of youth) (MacKillop 1998, 276) was given to
the collection by Lady Charlotte Guest (1812–1895) in the nineteenth century, and
usually refers to twelve tales including the original four branches. The original
tales were written in Middle Welsh between the eleventh and fourteenth centu-
ries, based on oral tradition that circulated long before the written versions. The
tales survive in two fourteenth-century manuscripts: The White Book of Rhydderch
(Peniarth MS 4, National Library of Wales) and The Red Book of Hergest (Bodleian
MS Jesus College 111).

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The Four Branches are Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed (“Pwyll Prince of Dyfed”), Bran-
wen ferch Llŷr (“Branwen daughter of Llŷr”), Manawyden fab Llŷr, (“Manawydan
son of Llŷr”), and Math fab Mathonwy (“Math son of Mathonwy”). The first tells
the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, who encounters the Lord of the Otherworld,
Arawn and his pack of hounds—white dogs with ears of red—while hunting the
same stag. To repay his discourtesy for chasing off Arawn’s hounds, Pwyll agrees
to take Arawn’s shape and place as ruler of Annwn for a year, at the end of which
Pwyll must challenge and defeat a rival king who has been troubling Arawn.
Annwn is both the Otherworld and Afterlife. Later in the tale, Pwyll sits upon an
enchanted hill in order to see a wonder. A beautiful woman appears on a white
horse, and though he tries three times, he cannot catch up to her. On the fourth
time, he addresses the fairy lady, who introduces herself as Rhiannon and
declares her love for him. They must meet again in a year’s time at her wedding
feast, and Pwyll must best a rival suitor with the help of a magic, unfillable bag.
Thereafter, having married Rhiannon, Pwyll and his wife conceive a child which
is stolen away on its day of birth. Rhiannon is suspected of killing the child, but
eventually it is discovered far away in a barn by a lord whose mares were robbed
of their foals just after foaling. The child is returned to Pwyll and Rhiannon, and
named Pryderi.
The second tale, Branwen daughter of Llŷr, tells the story of the children of
Llŷr, the sea-god. The eldest brother, Bendigeidfran (Bran the Blessed) is so large,
he can wade across the Irish Sea. Branwen is married to Matholwch, the king of
Ireland. Her brothers give Matholwch a cauldron of regeneration that will heal
slain warriors. The third tale, Manawyden son of Llŷr, continues the previous story
with Branwen’s brother Manawyden and includes Pryderi son of Pwyll. After
Manawydan marries Rhiannon, now widowed, Pryderi and Rhiannon are ab-
ducted while hunting, after chasing a gleaming white boar into an enchanted fort.
They are returned only after Manawydan demands a ransom for the life of a
mouse, which is the transformed wife of a powerful stranger (identified as a
bishop) who has been behind the abductions and devastation of Dyfed in revenge
for the humiliation long ago of his friend, Rhiannon’s other suitor.
The last tale, Math son of Mathonwy, features the enchanter Gwydion, Math’s
nephew, who is able to conjure phantom horses and hounds in exchange for
Pryderi’s swine, and later, to fashion a bride, Bloddeuedd, out of flowers for his
own nephew, Lleu. Gwydion himself and his brother Gilfaethwy are transformed
to deer, pigs, and wolves and give birth to three deer, pig, and wolf children.
When Lleu’s flower wife commits adultery and then plans his murder with her
lover to prevent discovery, Lleu transforms into an eagle. When this is discovered,
Gwydion transforms Lleu back to human form before he wastes away and turns
Blodeuedd into an owl.

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The remaining stories in the Mabinogion collection include two eleventh-century

native Welsh Arthurian tales:
Culhwch ac Olwen, and Breuddwyd Rhonabwy (“The Dream of Rhonabwy”).
In Culhwch ac Olwen, the hero Culhwch must win the hand of the giant’s daugh-
ter, Olwen by accomplishing forty impossible tasks. One of Culhwch’s many tasks
is to obtain the comb and scissors mounted on the head of the mythical boar,
Twrch Trwyth, who can only be hunted with the aid of Gwyn ap Nudd, king of the
Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh Fairy folk. In Gwyn ap Nudd, “God has set the spirit of
demons from Annwn, lest this world be destroyed” (Jones and Jones, trans., 1949,
99). As part of the completion of the forty tasks, the enmity between two kings is
presented: Gwyn ap Nudd abducted his sister Creiddylad from her betrothed,
Gwythyr, and the two kings agree to fight for Creiddylad each May-calends until
doomsday, and the victor on the final day wins the lady. King Arthur is able to
reconcile the quarrel, allowing Culhwch to continue with his tasks (Jones and
Jones, trans., 1949, 107). It is also through the aid of Gwyn ap Nudd that the great
boar Twrch Trwth is located, and the blood of the Black Witch obtained to enable
Culhwch’s quest (Jones and Jones, trans., 1949, 110–12).
In the second native Welsh tale, Breuddwyd Rhonabwy, the hero Rhonabwy
dreams of joining king Arthur’s court. These two tales are followed by two early
Welsh histories: Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys (“Lludd and Llefelys”) about king Lludd,
son of Beli Mawr and his brother Llefelys, and Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig (“The
Dream of Maxen”) about Macsen Wledig, founder of the Powys and Gwent
dynasties. The collection is completed by Welsh adaptations of three tales influ-
enced by the twelfth-century French poet, Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1165–1180):
Iarlles y Fynnon (“Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain”), based on Chrétien’s
Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion, Geraint ac Enid (“Geraint and Enid”), based on
Chrétien’s Érec et Énide, and Peredur son of Efrawg, based on Chrétien’s Perceval,
le conte du Graal.
C Fairy in the High Middle Ages

I French Fairy Traditions
With the succession of William II of Normandy (ca. 1028–1087) to the throne of

England in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, the English court, government, and
nobility turned to the official language of Norman French, though much court
business and the learned elite maintained correspondence in Latin. With the
change in language and shift in power to Norman French nobles, the preferred
literary works at court were in French and began to express French aesthetic

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and cultural concerns, specifically chivalric behavior and courtly ideals. In-
creasingly, French as the language of culture and prestige was adopted by many
of the European elite, as were the romances, lais, and shorter verse pieces that
were adapted or translated into the local vernacular languages (Lacy 2006).
French author Robert de Boron is credited with the composition of a metrical
trilogy of the Arthurian literature (ca. 1200), which was expanded into two prose
versions, Le Roman du Grail and the more extensive five romance Prose Lance-
lot, also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle or Vulgate Cycle (Lacy 2006;
McCracken 2008). The collection of tales known as the Post-Vulgate cycle,
containing the Suite du Merlin, Queste del saint Graal, and Mort Artu, survives
only in fragments in the original French, but was adapted into Spanish and
Portuguese (Lacy 2006).
The earliest literary genre in the French language is the chansons de geste
(songs of heroic deeds), which date from mid-twelfth century onward. The thir-
teenth-century chanson, Huon de Bordeaux, is one of the chansons considered
part of the “Matter of France.” The hero, Huon, must perform a list of impossible
tasks in recompense for killing the son of Charlemagne. Huon must pass through
the forest domain of Oberon, the Fairy King. Oberon is described as no higher
than three feet in height, with an angelic face. When Huon encounters him, he is
upon a horse, dressed in rich robes encrusted with gems that glow like the sun.
He carries a horn made by four fairy women that could heal any illness, satiate
any hunger or thirst, bring great joy, and summon anyone from a great distance,
including Oberon himself. Oberon is a dwarf, and Huon declares him so beautiful,
he must be a devil from hell. King Oberon gives Huon a magic cup that fills itself
with wine and the ivory horn that will summon the fairy king and his army in a
time of great need. This story, translated into English by John Bourchier, Lord
Berners (ca. 1467–1533) in 1540, was an influence on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.
Early romances from this period often stress the wisdom, strength, beauty,
and the bountiful, marvelous gifts a fée, or fairy, gives the worthy hero: Ober-
on’s horn, Lancelot’s ring, Arthur’s sword Excalibur, Érec’s coronation robes. In
the Roman d’Escanor by Gerard d’Amiens (ca. 1280), Gawain’s strength, which
waxes and wanes with the sun, is a fairy gift. The French fée usually takes the
form of either a benevolent fairy godmother, counseling or aiding the worthy
human, or the enchanted fairy mistress/lover, who may be sought by the worthy
hero or who may seek him out herself (Harf-Lancner 2000). An enchanted or
magic-wielding woman may share all of the characteristics of a fairy enchant-
ress in these tale, but not necessarily be referred to as such. Later romances
treat fairy characters, women especially, much more ambiguously, if not nega-
tively (Paton 1902).

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The Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1165–1180) also became

popular throughout Europe, where they became models for chivalrous and
courtly behavior. The tales include: Érec et Énide (ca. 1170), Lancelot, le Chevalier
de la Charrette (ca. 1178), Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion (ca. 1170s), and Perceval, le
conte du Graal (ca. 1182). In these romances, the Otherworld is often entered
without warning and may seem indistinguishable from the mortal world (Rider
2012). In addition, while there are numerous characters in Chrétien’s works
identified as Otherworld or fairy in similar tales, Chrétien de-emphasizes the
otherness of these characters. Morgan le Fay, or Morgan the Fairy as she is known
in other works, is introduced as the sister of Arthur in Érec and the probable lover
of Guinguemar, Lord of Avalon (Chrétien 1990, 25). Morgan fashioned the green
silk chasuble “such as had never been seen” placed upon the altar at Érec and
Énide’s wedding, a silken cloth embroidered with gold thread (Chrétien 1990, 30).
She may be the creator of the sumptuous garment, but it is not credited to any
fairy magic or knowledge. She is also credited with making a healing ointment
that could cure any wound, given to Arthur by his sister, and used on Érec after
his battle with Guivret the Small (Chrétien 1990, 53). In Yvain, another miraculous
healing ointment is attributed to “Morgan the Wise” (Chrétien 1990, 292). This
normalization of the Morgan character in Chrétien might be compared to later
depictions of Morgan; for instance, by Thomas Malory in Le Morte Darthur two
hundred years later, or to Claris et Laris, from a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript,
where Morgan is explicitly identified as a fairy and a witch, and Claris is impri-
soned by a fairy mistress because she loves him and he refused her.
The most explicit references to Fairy in Chrétien’s works are limited: when
Lancelot, the hero of Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette, is described as having
a ring: “But the knight … had a ring on his finger …. The lady who had given him
this ring was a fairy, who had raised him in his infancy” (Chrétien 1990, 199); and
when the robe Érec wore at his coronation is described as embroidered “by four
fairies with great skill and mastery” (Chrétien 1990, 84). However scholars have
noted similarities with several established fairy folklore motifs: Érec is a hero who
must fight a giant for his lady, Énide, who has supernatural beauty like a fairy
mistress; Yvain must also fight a giant for a lady associated with a magic fountain,
equating the lady Laudine as well to a fairy mistress.
The Anglo-Norman writer, Marie de France, popularized the Breton lai in the
English court during the late twelfth century. Of the works that have survived,
Lanval and Yonec have characters that are explicitly fairy. Lanval is the worthy
knight who earns the love of a beautiful, unnamed fairy mistress who showers
him with gifts. He breaks her prohibition not to speak of her, but she appears in
Arthur’s court, rescues him from infamy, and takes him away to Fairyland (Marie
de France 1999, 81). Yonec is the name of the unborn child, the offspring of a fairy

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knight who comes to his beloved in the form of a hawk, while she is imprisoned in
a tower by her jealous husband (Marie de France 1999, 86). To be sure that the
fairy knight is not a devil, the lady requires him to take the Eucharist, proving he
is Christian. Like the author of Amadas et Ydoine, Marie makes a particular effort
in Yonec to demonstrate the fairy knight’s godliness. The knight is mortally
wounded when visiting the tower, and the lady follows his trail of blood to his
underground Fairy kingdom. The knight gives her a magic ring and his sword,
and prophesies that their son Yonec will avenge their deaths. Of the other lais by
Marie, the hero and heroine of Guigemar benefit from a magic boat and a set of
knots magically tied so they can only be untied by the lovers, and the hero of
Bisclavret is a shape-changer, a werewolf.
The thirteenth-century work by Adam de la Halle (ca. 1237–ca. 1288), Le Jeu
Adam, òu de la Feuillie, describes the visit of three fairies—Morgue, Arsile, and
Maglore—to a bower prepared for them, though Maglore is displeased to discover
a place has not been set for her (Briggs 1959). This may be the origin of the
fairytale grouping of three fairies as well as the consequences of having forgotten
the third (Briggs 1959). In the Anglo-Norman romance Amadas et Ydoine (ca.
1220), three witches save the heroine Ydoine from consummating a marriage she
does not want, an example of the three fairy godmothers of more modern fairy
tales. Later, Ydoine is rescued by an otherworldly knight. The story de-empha-
sizes the marvelous fairy elements by explaining that the “witches” are actually
three maidservants play-acting, and the otherworldly knight was sent by God.
Like Marie de France’s knight in Yonec, the proof that the fairy knight is a
Christian or servant of God attempts to dispel anxiety that the fairy character is
malevolent, or a servant of evil.
Perhaps the most influential of the French medieval romances concerned
with Fairy is Jean d’Arras’s prose romance, Roman de Mélusine, compiled between
1392 and 1394 in Norman French (Pairet 2001). Mélusine is part fairy mistress, part
mermaid/serpent, and part banshee, heralding the death of one of her progeny
with her woeful cries. D’Arras wrote the romance as a dynastic origin myth at the
request of John, Duc d’Berry (1340–1416) for the house of Lusignan. Mélusine is
a fairy lady who was cursed for disobedience: she is half-fish (or serpent) from
the waist down. She is able to disguise this, meeting her future husband at an
enchanted fountain, marrying and bearing children, but must bathe once a week
in fish form. She requires of her husband a promise not to enter her chamber each
Saturday. Mélusine is responsible for the rise in power and wealth of the Lusignan
family, including magically building the castle of Lusignan. When her husband
breaks the prohibition, Mélusine transforms into a dragon and flies screeching
out the window. Thereafter, she appears over the castle in dragon form, wailing,
to announce the death of one of her descendants. The story was so popular, it was

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borrowed and adapted numerous times, including Coudrette’s fifteenth-century

version, Le Roman de Parthenay ou de Lusignan, Thüring von Ringoltingen’s (ca.
1415–ca. 1483) translation into German in the mid-fifteenth century, and into
Castilian as Historia de la linda Melosina (1489) by Juan Parix (fl. 1472) and
Estevan Cleblat (Rivera 1997). A number of variant Mélusine tales have been
identified in Irish folklore as well, which pre-date the d’Arras romance (Almquist
1999).
II Middle English
1 The “Trifles” of Monastic Writers
While the literature of nobility and court in England turned to romances of

chivalry and courtly ideals, a number of learned, monastic writers collected the
continuing fairy folklore descended from Germanic and Celtic traditions from
across England. Such stories were collected as curiosities to entertain a literate
elite audience back in “civilization.” One of the earliest examples of peasant fairy
lore that contributed to the popular conception of faerie was recorded in The
Itinerary through Wales (ca. 1191) by Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald of Wales (ca.
1146–ca. 1223). Gerald records the story of Elidorus (or in Welsh, Elidyr) and the
fairies. Elidorus was a 12-year-old boy who was approached by “two little men of
pygmy stature” who invited him into the underground world of Fairyland to be a
playmate for the King of Fairy’s son (Cambrensis, 1863, 390). On his return,
Elidorus described Fairyland’s sunless sky, the sumptuous wealth of the diminu-
tive fairy people, even the food they ate. Shortly thereafter, Elidorus was able to
return again to Fairyland, but he stole a ball from the king’s son. The two
“pygmy” fairy men came to retrieve the ball and chastised him for his dishonesty.
After that, Elidorus was no longer able to find the entrance to Fairy, but soon after
was seen to have been “restored to his right way of thinking” (Cambrensis 1863,
390) that Fairyland was only a tale.
Walter Map (ca. 1140–ca. 1209), a contemporary and friend of Gerald, also
recorded fairy folklore in his De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers’ Trifles). Map recorded
several tales of Fairy including the story of a knight who pulled a lady from a
circle of dancing fairy women, and made her his wife. Her fairy nature was
evident in her great beauty. The lady set a prohibition on the knight that he would
never reproach her, a prohibition he eventually broke. Map explicitly compares
this tale to the “demons that are incubi or sucubi” (Map 1983, 159). Map recorded a
similar story of a man who buried his dead wife, only to see her dancing in a fairy
ring, from which he snatched her (Map 1983, 161), a story that associates the

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fairies with the dead. A third story of dancing fairy ladies ends with the women
fleeing into the nearby lake and transforming to swans, an instance of the swan
maiden folktales.
Map also recorded the story of the ancient Briton king Herla, who met another
king, described as a pygmy in stature with the legs of a goat (Briggs 1967, 50). This
fairy king agreed to attend Herla’s future wedding if Herla would attend his in
Fairyland. The fairy king brought rich gifts to Herla’s wedding, and a year after,
Herla’s party entered Fairy through a cave high in a cliff. After the revelry, Herla
returned to the surface to discover his time was long past. Map concludes by
explaining that Herla is now the leader of the Wild Hunt, a spectral hunting party
of riders, horses, and hounds believed to hunt the souls of men.
Gervase of Tilbury (ca. 1150–ca. 1228), in his Otia Imperialia (“Entertaiment
for an Emperor”) (ca. 1211) recorded a number of folklore stories, including tales
of the water spirits of the Rhone Valley, called dracae, that lured young women
into the water at their peril; the tale of a stolen fairy drinking horn; the story of the
woman taken into Fairyland to be midwife to the fairies and the magic ointment
that allowed her to see through the fairy illusions; to the naming of very tiny
fairies as “Portunes” (or “Neptunes” in France) (Briggs 1967, 6–7).
Ralph of Coggeshall (d. ca. 1227) a thirteenth-century monk, recorded the
story of a human changeling named Malekin stolen into Fairyland (Briggs 1967, 7)
in his contribution to the Chronicum Anglicanum (ca. 1223, preserved in manu-
script BL Cotton Vespasian D. X.). He also recorded the story of the Green Children
from St. Martin’s Land, about two green-skinned children found wandering in
Wolfpits (or Woolpits), Suffolk, England (Briggs 1967, 7–8). The two claimed to be
from an underground country. Historian William of Newburgh (1136–ca. 1198)
repeats the same story in his Historia Rerum Anglicarum (1198), but adds that it
was the girl child who claimed to be from St. Martin’s Land (Briggs 1967, 8).
2 Courtly and Chivalric Romance
Other stories of Fairy and Fairyland in Middle English all survive in texts more
literary than “historical,” and usually of the romance genre.
The fifteenth-century verse romance, Thomas of Erceldoune, is based on the
late twelfth to thirteenth-century figure from the legendary history of Scotland,
Thomas of Erceldoun or Thomas the Rymour. Thomas was known for his powers
of prophecy, but also as a poet credited for a version of the Tristrem romance
(Murray, ed., 1875). The earliest versions of the poem, dating from ca. 1400, begin
with the story of how Thomas lay on the “Huntlie” bank one afternoon when the
Queen of Fairyland rides by. Thomas makes the mistake of hailing her as the

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“queen of heaven.” Having caught the lady’s attention, Thomas is taken into
Fairyland by the Queen as her lover to serve her for seven years. Upon his return,
Thomas begs a token of the Queen, and is granted the ability (or curse) of speak-
ing only truth, as well as the knowledge of the future of Scotland. This romance is
one of the sources of the Thomas the Rhymer and True Thomas Scots border
ballads collected by Walter Scott and Robert Jamieson in the nineteenth century
(Murray, ed., 1875, lii). Many of the ballads collected by Francis Child in English
and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–1889), and Walter Scott in his Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border (1802) including “Thomas the Rhymer,” “Tamlin,” “Hind Etin,”
“Sir Orfeo,” and “Lady Isobel and the Elfin Knight”—originate from sources
during the medieval period.
The Thomas romance and ballads use the tropes of the fairy mistress, abduc-
tion—from a river bank or under a tree—into Fairyland, and service in the Other-
world for seven years that became a convention of fairy lore in literature and
popular belief.
The classical story of Orpheus and Euridice is the basis for the fourteenth-
century verse romance of Sir Orfeo (Auckinleck, MS National Library of Scotland
Advocates MS 19.2.1), likely an adaptation of a French Breton lai, Lai d’Orphey,
which does not survive (Burrow and Thorlac-Petre 2004, 112–13). In Sir Orfeo, the
queen Herodis is abducted by the Fairy King and taken to Fairyland after sleeping
under an impe-tree or apple tree. Orfeo wanders across the land in search of her
until, after ten years, he sees her riding among the fairy host. He follows them into
a cave and down into Fairyland, and into the castle of the Fairy King, where he
sees Herodis sleeping in the company of people Orfeo recognizes as long dead.
Orfeo entertains the Fairy King with his harp, and as a reward for his music, Orfeo
asks for Herodis. Unlike his namesake Orpheus, Sir Orfeo is able to return to the
mortal world successfully with Herodis and live out the rest of their lives happily.
Queen Herodis is an example of the woman abducted into Fairyland, along with
many folk believed to have died, demonstrating the association of Fairy with the
dead and the Underworld (Briggs 1967, 141–42; Maxwell-Stuart 2001). Other
scholars have interpreted “being taken by the fairies” as a euphemism for mad-
ness (Spearing 2000).
Two other texts included in the Auckinleck manuscript mentioned above are
the anonymous, Sir Degarré, an early fourteenth-century romance, and Guy of
Warwick, a fourteenth-century English metrical romance. Degarré is the aban-
doned son of a princess who was raped by a fairy knight while traveling to an
abbey in the forest. The child is raised by the sister of the hermit who found him,
with nothing but a pair of magical gloves and a broken sword. Once grown,
Degarré defeats a dragon, which earns him knighthood, and then unknowingly
fights his grandfather for the hand of his mother. After winning the challenge and

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marrying his mother, Degarré and the princess discover his identity because of
the magical gloves that will fit only her. Learning the story of his birth, Degarré
goes off in search of his father, with whom he fights and is discovered because of
the broken sword: the fairy knight has the missing half by which he will one day
identify his son. Degarré is the means by which his parents are reunited and
properly married. The romance, Guy of Warwick, recounts the adventures of Sir
Guy, who defeats an evil duke, a dragon, and two giants, until he becomes the
greatest knight in the world to impress his lady. His son Reinbrun will fight a fairy
knight to free an old friend of his father’s who has been imprisoned by the fairy in
a magical palace.
The fourteenth-century romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (British
Library MS Cotton Nero A.x., Art. 3) is the story of Gawain, the preeminent English
knight in King Arthur’s court, who accepts the challenge of the Green Knight’s
Yule beheading game. The Green Knight survives Gawain’s blow from the ax, and
calls upon Gawain to find him in a year’s time to receive an ax-blow in return.
Gawain must undergo a series of tests in his quest for the Green Chapel. In the
end, it was Arthur’s sister, Morgan le Fay—“Morgne the goddes”—who arranged
the beheading game, both to test the courage of Arthur’s court and to frighten
Guinevere to death (Cawley and Anderson, ed., 1996, 273–74).
Fairyies appear in two of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1390s) as a
tale of long ago and as the subject of Chaucer’s self-satirical verse romance. The
Wife of Bath explains in the beginning of her tale that in “th’olde days” of King
Arthur, was “this land fulfilld of fayerye. / The elf-queene, with hir joly com-
paignye” (Chaucer 1987, 116–17). Unfortunately, she explains there were “none
elves mo” because there are now churchmen that walk everywhere the fairies
used to go. The Wife tells the tale of a disgraced knight of King Arthur’s court,
who is tasked by the queen and her ladies to discover what it is that women most
desire. The disgraced knight finally obtains an answer from an old woman he
found in a clearing filled but a moment past with four and twenty dancing ladies.
The loathly old woman extracts a promise of the knight that he will do as she asks
for the true answer. When he finally learns his lesson and redeems himself, the
knight finds the loathly lady he has agreed to marry is actually a beautiful fairy
enchantress. “The Tale of Sir Thopas” is the tale provided by the pilgrim Chaucer
in the Canterbury Tales, a doggerel verse romance about a knight who rides forth
to find an elf-queen as his beloved. Sir Thopas rides all the long afternoon until
he comes to the country of Fairye but is challenged by a giant before he can find
his elf-queen (Chaucer 1987). Chaucer’s tale is a parody of outdated verse ro-
mance as well as the conventional trope of the quest for the fairy mistress, a rare
undertaking of great difficulty which became a clichéd, common occurrence in
medieval romance by Chaucer’s day.

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III Medieval German (ca. 1050–ca. 1350 C.E.)
Under the influence of Christianity, the alp of Old High German transformed from
a ghostly nature spirit with ill intentions into a demonic creature in league with
the Devil (Köbler 1993). Like the classical incubus, the alp would still trouble the
sleeper with dreams, but in the service of demonic forces tempting the individual
into a mortal sin (Bächtold-Stäubli et al., ed., 1927, vol. 1, 282; vol. 2, 759). The alp
sometimes appeared in an animal shape such as a sheep, a cat with glowing eyes,
or a horse (Bächtold-Stäubli et al., ed., 1927, vol. 1, 285). During this period, the
alp developed the characteristic of being tricky, leading travelers astray or paying
for goods with fairy gold, which turns to twigs once the deal is done.
In Middle Low German, the alf was a böser geist (evil spirit), and was still
predominantly male (Lasch et al., ed., 1928). The alf continued to cause trouble
by bringing nightmares to sleepers, but they were also the source of alfschot,
which caused eye diseases in people and breathing difficulty in cattle (Lasch
et al., ed., 1928; Thun, 1969). The few examples that survive from Middle German
suggest a similar view of elves as that demonstrated in Old English texts. One
early version of the elben occurs in the lyrics of the minnesinger Heinrich von
Morungen (Lied V, “Von den elben”) from the thirteenth century: “Von den elben
wirt entsehen vil manic man” (Full many a man is bewitched by elves) (Edwards
1994). The Middle High German Der Münchener Nachtsegen (fourteenth century)
provides a charm against evil spirits in general, including alp and the plural
elbelin (Edwards 1994). Konrad von Würzburg’s (ca. 1125–1287) verse romance
Trojanerkrieg (ca. 1281–1287) associates the magic of elber with the confusion of
love: “Ich wene die elber triget mich / Machet mine daz ich reben” (I think the
elves are deceiving me / Is it love that makes me confused) (Edwards 1994). For
thirteenth-century poet Bruder Wernher, elves are described in the Sangsprüche
as the source of deception and dreams: “Elbe triegent niht so vil” (Elves do not
deceive as many) (Edwards 1994). Similarly, the thirteenth-century text Irregar
und Girregar quoted by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in Irische Elfenmärchen (1826)
conflates the alp and the nightmare: “dich hat geriten der mar, / ein elbisches as”
(You have been ridden by the mare, / an elfin phantom) (Edwards 1994). The
fourteenth-century North German penitentials ask, “hostu icht gelewbit … an dy
maren ader an dy alben ader an dy weysin frawen ader an keyner hande
truknisse?” (Have you believed in… mares or elves or in the wise women or any
kind of deception?) (Edwards 1994), associating nightmares, elves, wise women,
and deceit.
By the twelfth century (ca. 1170), the romance genre was translated or
adapted into German (Rasmussen 2012). The Lancelot story was translated into
Middle High German by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven (ca. 1194) in his Lanzelet. The

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Alexanderlied, composed in the twelfth century and modeled on the French poem
about Alexander the Great by Albéric de Besançon (ca. 1120), contains the story of
the knight’s erotic encounter with flower maidens, strikingly similar to fairies. In
the late twelfth century, Hartmann von Aue (ca. 1160–ca. 1210) translated Chré-
tien’s Érec and Yvain into Middle High German (Gibbs and Johnson 1997, 132).
While aristocratic romance continued to gain in popularity, other texts of Germa-
nic origin show the influences of the French fée. The thirteenth-century Nibelun-
genlied (anonymous, ca. 1200) tells the story of the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried,
which includes the dwarf Alberich (elf-ruler) who guards the Nibelung, the
treasure of the Burgundian royal line, and water spirits called Nixes who predict
the death of the Burgundians. The guardian Alberich may in fact be an analog of
the dwarf fairy king Oberon in the thirteenth-century French chanson, Huon of
Bordeaux. In Albrecht von Halberstadt’s (b. ca. 1200) translation of Ovid’s Meta-
morphoses (first printed in 1545), the male and female elves are equated with
classical nymphs: “die elben und auch die elbinnen / desgleichen alle wassergöt-
tinnen” (the male elves and also female elves / likewise all water goddesses)
(Edwards 1994).
Fairy literature besides the Arthurian cycle would also eventually make its
way to Germany. For instance, the Old French Partonopeus de Blois was translated
in the late thirteenth century by Konrad von Würzburg as Partonopier und Melior,
and Jean d’Arras’s French Roman de Mélusine was translated into German by
Thüring von Ringoltingen in 1456.
D Fairy in the Early Modern Period

I English Aristocratic Romance
Le Morte Darthur compiled by Sir Thomas Malory (ca. 1460–1470) was one of the
first texts printed by English printer, William Caxton (ca. 1422–1491) in 1485, and
presents the collected Arthurian tales that comprise much of the “Matter of
Britain.” Malory’s primary source for the early books of the Morte is the French
Suite du Merlin, and magical use is dominated by Merlin, who is practitioner
of both natural magic, illusion/enchantment, and prophecy (Saunders 2010,
236–37). Malory de-emphasizes Merlin’s origins explored in his source texts as the
half-human offspring of a demon. Instead, unlike many of his sources, Malory’s
Merlin is often mistrusted or feared as a witch.
Later books ascribe most magical use to female enchantresses, whether
benevolent “white ladies” like Le Belle Isode and her mother of the Tristram
stories—usually human women gifted or knowledgeable in healing arts—or the

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more ambiguous or outright sinister enchantresses who use illusion, deception,

and enchantment to obtain their goals. These include Nenive, who entraps Merlin
in a stone tomb, Dame Brusen, who enchants Sir Lancelot against his will to father
a child on Elaine, and Morgan le Fay herself, “the false sorceress and witch most
that is now living” (Malory 1998, 204). Many of these sinister enchantresses use
natural magic as well as “nigromancy” and illusion, but only Morgan retains a
kind of super-human agency when presented by Malory. It is Morgan who attacks
other fair ladies she considers her rivals, repeatedly tests the virtue of Sir Launce-
lot, and plots the downfall of Arthur and his queen. Malory de-emphasizes the
otherworld origins of most of the enchantresses. Heroes may fight giants and enter
into the unmarked boundaries of foreign lands in ways usually associated with the
Fairy Otherworld. However Morgan is “fay” because she is learned and magical,
not explicitly of fairy. Even the Lady of the Lake, who is ruler of a magical island or
underwater kingdom in the French sources, becomes the ruler of a kingdom
hidden in a great rock in Malory’s work, and Nenive, a damosel of the Lady,
becomes a mortal maiden in Arthur’s court with an interest in magical studies.
The English poet Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) took the model of aristocratic
romance for his own work, The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). His figure of Gloriana,
the Queene of Faerie, is an idealized allegorical double for Queen Elizabeth I
(1533–1603). Spenser’s hero is the youthful Arthur, instructed and armed by
Merlin, and sent into Fairyland on a quest for the Queene, of whom he has had a
vision. Spenser’s “faerie” and elf characters, sometimes indistinguishable from
humans and often allegorical representations of virtue or vice, are conventionally
indebted to courtly and chivalric ideals of medieval romance, however many are
also reflections of more popular, less-elite representations of fairy folklore (Wood-
cock 2004; Lamb 2006; Micros 2008). Conventionally, such characters are used to
legitimize the Elizabethan hereditary aristocracy (Swann 2000).
II Royal Progresses and Entertainments
The trope of the Fairy Queen was used in a number of courtiers’ entertainments in
honor of Elizabeth Tudor in extravagant displays of hospitality and elite generos-
ity. The 1575 Kenilworth entertainment depicted the Lady of the Lake in need of
rescue from a villainous Sir Bruse, who could only be overcome by the presence
of the Queen (Woodcock 2004, 40). The entertainment at Woodstock later in the
1575 Royal Progress featured a fairy queen bringing a sumptuous gift to the
visiting Queen Elizabeth (Nichols 1823), portrayed as an equal sovereign able to
give Elizabeth counsel. The entertainment at Norwich in 1578 presented a more
folkloric version of fairies, with water nymphs and fairies dancing in a ring

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(Woodcock 2004, 47). Soon thereafter, Elizabeth was entertained at Hengrave

Hall in 1578, where she was presented with the gift of a rich jewel by a show of
fairies. Many years later in 1591, in an entertainment at Elvetham, Elizabeth was
portrayed as the favorite of the Fairy Queen, who invokes her name nightly in a
Dianic prayer (Woodcock 2004, 48). In 1592, at Quarrendon, Ditchley, the royal
entertainment portrayed a gift-bearing damsel of the Queen of Fairies, and an
enchanted knight asleep who can only be awakened by the Queen’s interpretation
of the “charmed pictures” displayed around him (Woodcock 2004). In each of
these cases, the entertainments staged for the Queen were lavish and flattering,
reflecting images of the Queen back to herself as beautiful, immortal, powerful,
singular, and magical, and intended to earn royal favor. After the ascent of James
I (1566–1625) to the English throne in 1603, Queen Anne (1574– 1619) was pre-
sented a jewel by Mab, Queen of Fairies at a masque authored by Ben Jonson
(1572– 1637) at Althorp (Swann 2000). These entertainments were often the
vehicles of non-commercial acquisition and conspicuous consumption expected
of the nobility (Swann 2000).
III Shakespeare
The fairies of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) are perhaps the best known in
Early Modern fairy literature, and illustrate the nature of the folkloric fairies
usually ascribed to the past or the lower orders of society (Swann 2000). In Henry
IV Part I (1597), King Henry wishes he could prove his own son, Harry, a changel-
ing, having been exchanged by a fairy with Henry Percy at birth, which would
explain the prince’s dissolute youth. In Comedy of Errors (1589), the disorder of
multiple twins and confused identities is attributed to fairies. Hamlet (1600)
describes the dawning as having the power to stop fairies from taking mortals and
witches’ power to charm. In Antony and Cleopatra (1606), Cleopatra’s influence
over Antony is described as the love enchantment of a fairy. In Pericles (1608),
Marina is believed a fairy vision when first reunited with her father, and Cymbe-
line’s (1609) Imogen is believed a fairy, an angel, an “earthly paragon” when first
discovered in the cave of Belarius. The abandoned infant Perdita is taken up by
the old shepherd with “fairy gold” in The Winter’s Tale (1610). The Tempest (1611)
presents Prospero’s “airy spirit” Ariel as a fairy, or so Caliban believes. Recogni-
tion of, if not belief in, fairies was common enough to all social classes through-
out Shakespeare’s play-writing career to make it suitable for the public stage.
However, three of Shakespeare’s plays develop the folkloric fairy material
more fully. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595–1596), Shakespeare weaves the
story of the disordered human world of Athens with the world of Fairyland. In this

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play, Fairy is represented both by the King and Queen of Fairies, Oberon and
Titania, Oberon’s servant Puck or Robin Goodfellow, and the various nature-
inspired fairies Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed. The quarreling
of Titania and Oberon over a changeling child brings disorder both to the natural
world of the fairies and the mortal world of humans. Shakespeare’s fairies are the
“stuff” of folklore (Briggs 1959; Lamb 2000; 2006). Puck admits to being the
mischievous hobgoblin who ruins the cheese and brewing, and misleads trave-
lers. The flower fairies, Peaseblossom and Mustardseed, are the inspiration for
later depictions of fairies as diminutive and associated with particular flowers,
especially British Victorian fairies.
Contemporary with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet (1594–1596) also presents Mercutio’s extended portrait of Queen Mab, “the
fairies’ midwife” who rides a hazelnut shell of a chariot “Through lovers’ brains,
and then they dream of love,” bringing dreams of fees to lawyers, or of cutting
throats and warfare to soldiers. She plaits the manes of horses into knotty elf-
locks, and acts as the “nightmare,” like an incubus pressing down upon the
sleeping maids that they “might bear,” implying pregnancy. Mercutio’s fanciful
speech, repeating much of early modern folk belief concerning fairies, is a
response to Romeo’s claim that dreams present truth. Mab brings dreams both
pleasant and ill, Mercutio demonstrates, but hardly true. Thus, Mercutio uses the
fanciful story of Queen Mab to satirize Romeo’s equally fanciful belief in true
love.
The Merry Wives of Windsor (ca. 1597), a later play by Shakespeare, makes use
of the story of Herne the Hunter, a local legend of Windsor park (Fitch 1994).
Herne rides about on horseback at midnight, blasting the oak known as Herne’s
Oak in Windsor Park, rattling chains and sickening cattle, a version of the Wild
Hunt of Fairy. In Shakespeare’s play, Mistress Page presents the tale as super-
stition and the basis of the trickery of Sir John Falstaff: the wives will have Sir
John meet them at night at Herne’s oak, disguised and horned like Herne. Various
children, dressed as fairies, will swarm the “unclean knight,” pinching him blue
until he admits the truth of his intended lechery, enacting a ritual shaming for his
wooing of virtuous wives. The fairy lore depicted in the play is presented as
superstitious nonsense, only believed by the ignorant Falstaff, and used to trick
or gull the simple-minded, but it also served to regulate personal behavior
(Swann 2000).
In contrast to this light-hearted treatment, Shakespeare uses fairy lore in
Macbeth (1606–1607) by the witches in their conjuring. Hecate, the goddess of
witches, commands the Weird Sisters to sing around the cauldron “like elves and
fairies in a ring” as they enchant the ingredients for a charm “of powerful
trouble.” Shakespeare uses this brief reference in direct association to witches in

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the Scottish play about the quasi-historical regicide that eventually led to the
founding of the Stuart royal line through the characters of Banquo and his son,
Fleance. A prospective audience, James Stuart (1566–1625), James VI of Scotland
and newly crowned James I of England, was a believer in witchcraft, having been
the target of an assassination attempt in 1591 by a conspiracy of witches (“Newes
from Scotland,” a pamphlet originally printed in 1591, in Stuart 1597; Purkiss
1996; Gibson 2000).
IV Unlearned Belief and the Gulling of the Ignorant
Perhaps in response to this experience with witchcraft, the then-James VI of

Scotland wrote Daemonologie (1597) in refutation of Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of
Witchcraft (1584). James himself makes explicit the connection between witches
and fairies in Daemonologie, explaining that fairies are a vision sent by the Devil
to delude simple folk: “the deuil illuded the senses of sundry simple creatures, in
making them beleeue that they saw and harde such thinges as were nothing so
indeed” (Stuart 1597).
And when asked why they appear,
… to the innocent sort, either to affraie them, or to seeme to be a better sorte of folkes nor
vncleane spirites are, and to the Witches, to be a cullour of safetie for them, that ignorant
Magistrates may not punish them for it, as I told euen now (Stuart 1597).
Thus for James, fairies are illusions, even unclean spirits, sent to people simple
enough to believe such visions, and used by witches to camouflage their wicked
activities. The association of fairies and witches will continue on during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries during the last great surge of witchcraft
persecution in England and Scotland.
In Ben Jonson’s (1572–1637) comedic play, The Alchemist (1610), the gullible
Dapper is convinced to “throw away all worldly pelf” so that he might be gifted
with an even greater treasure by the Fairy Queen. The comedy depicts a thor-
oughly ignorant Dapper, gulled into giving his money away to the three con-
artists, exemplifying the claim that fairies are visions of deceptions used to cover
wicked deeds. Jonson based his plot on the 1595 scam run by a London woman
who took money to introduce clients to the Queen of Fairies, and the 1609–1610
arraignment of Sir Anthony Ashley for swindling a young man of his fortune as
payment for marrying him to the Queen of Fairies (Swann 2000, 454). Jonson
returned to fairy material again a year later. Oberon, the Faery Prince (1611) was
performed in the court of King James and commissioned by his son, Prince Henry
(1594–1612). The masque included courtiers, professional actors, and Prince

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Henry himself playing fairies, satyrs, and Oberon, depicting a combination of

folkloric elements and classical motifs (Lamb 2006). The masque presented
Prince Henry’s legitimate descent from the Tudors and his newly acquired status
as Prince of Wales. The masque functioned as both a self-presentation of the new
Prince of Wales in his father’s court, a demonstration of princely munificence,
and a manifestation of the superiority of the aristocracy (Lamb 2006). It also
served as a subtle critique of Jacobean court excess.
V The Association of Fairies and Witches
1 England
After the coming of the Reformation to England (ca. 1534), many stories of Fairy
and Fairyland became more explicitly associated with witchcraft and the devil.
Often, part of the witches’ celebration, or sabbat, includes a dance with fairies.
Englishman Reginald Scot (ca. 1538–1599) wrote his treatise, The Discoverie of
Witchcraft (1584) to refute the existence of witches, witchcraft, and the claims of
witch-hunters and “witchmongers,” especially of the Catholic Inquisition. He
repeats a number of witchcraft trial cases where the accused mentions an interac-
tion with fairies to explain the use of magic, believing that traffic with the fairies
is to be preferred over traffic with the devil. Scot reports one case of a man (as
recorded by witch-hunter John Bodin) who was transported many miles in the air
to “the fairies danse” to spy upon his wife. Another accused witch associates “the
divell and the ladie of the fairies” with “ladie Sibylla, Minerva, or Diana,”
associating once again the fairy lady with the classical goddesses. Other witches
claim to “ride abroad with Diana … or else with Herodias… and doo whatsoever
those fairies or ladies command,” a possible reference to Herodias, the mother of
Salome. Still others claim to have witnessed the passing of the fairy troupe: “a
great noise of minstrels, which flie over then, with the ladie of the fairies.” In
refuting such stories, Scot reasons that ignorant and superstitious people were
once afraid of “spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies” including “Robin
good-fellowe” from the stories of their mothers’ maids, but reformed religion has
put an end to all such illusions. Robert Burton (1577–1640), the author of The
Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) devotes an entire section of his work to “A Digres-
sion of the Nature of Spirits,” characterizing fairies as “terrestrial devils” and
explaining how these “most dangerous of devils” can cause melancholy (Briggs
1959).
In a number of legal cases throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries, both men and women accused of witchcraft or sorcery used the story of

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traffic with fairies as an explanation for privileged knowledge, the ability to heal
or “unwitch” a sick or cursed victim, and the ability to counter malignant fairy
influence: Agnes Hancock of Somerset (tried in 1438), Joan Tyrrye of Taunton
(1555), John Walsh of Dorsetshire (1566), Bessie Dunlop of Ayrshire, in Scotland
(1576), Alisoun Pearson of Fifeshire, Scotland (1588), Andro Man of Aberdeen
(1597), Joan Willimot of Leicestershire (1618), Isobel Gowdie of Auldearn, Scot-
land (1662), to name a few (Macculloch 1921; Evans-Wentz 1966; Purkiss 1996;
2000). Bessie Dunlop, who claimed to have recognized a dead man among the
fairies, cured “elf-grippit,” that is, being gripped by elf, as in a sudden pain (Hall
2005). One accused witch who managed to escape punishment was Anne Jeffries
of Cornwall (1646), the “prophetess of Bodmin,” who claimed to have seen six
fairies dressed in green who taught her healing by laying-on of hands. Jeffries
survived when incarcerated on food provided by the fairies, and later began to
prophesy (Purkiss 1996; Buccola 2006).
2 Scotland
In Scotland, there were periods of more intense witchcraft accusations in

1591–1597 and 1628–1630, many of which involved encounters with fairy (Purkiss
2000). In 1616, Elspeth Reoch was tried for witchcraft, claiming knowledge gained
from the fairies, and later explained her own pregnancy by a fairy (Purkiss 2000).
In 1615–1616, Katherine Carey, Janet Drever, and Katherine Jonesdochter of
Orkney were all accused and tried for witchcraft, having met fairies out upon the
hills or having entered into a fairy hill. Isobel Sinclair, also of Orkney, under
control of the Fairy claimed to have second sight (1633). Donald MacMichael of
Inverary (1677) claimed to have visited a fairy hill on multiple occasions and
gained the knowledge of lost and stolen things. Early claims of fairy influence are
often associated with the influence of Catholicism and the fear of corruption of
the Protestant state by the papacy, while later cases during the seventeenth
century are often linked to Royalist sympathies (Buccola 2006).
Like the earliest English Anglo-Saxon and German sources for elves, a num-
ber of the Scottish witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries include
mention of elf-shot or elf-stones (Hall 2005). In at least six trials from 1576 to 1716,
the belief that fairies caused illness, specifically sudden internal pain in both
humans and livestock (Hall 2005, 27). The sudden pain or illness itself was called
“elf-schot,” as was the invisible projectile shot by elves. Some deponents would
identify “elf-arrow heidis” or elf-stones as the offending projectile (Hall 2005). In
1650, Joanet Scott and Jeane Scott were accused of witchcraft for the healing of
cattle by elf-shot (Hall 2005, 25). Katherene Ross (tried in 1590), Christiane Roiss

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(1577), and Marion Meyne McAlester (1590) were each tried for witchcraft, having
used elf-stones or elf-arrows to “schute” their victims (Hall 2005, 28–29). Accused
witch Stein Maltman (1628) referred to “fairies schott;” he healed illness caused
by the “fairye folk” and also gained knowledge to heal with an “elf-arrow-heid”
or elf-stone from “Fairye folk” themselves (Hall 2005). Many of the accused
witches in Scotland attributed their magical skill to a fairy, which prosecutors
and/or clerks reinterpreted as evil spirits or the Devil, who, like fairies, was often
associated with or dressed in green (Wilby 2000). The functions of the witch’s
familiar, which usually appeared in animal form in England, was fulfilled in
Scotland by a fairy or devil “spirit” in human form (Wilby 2000). Despite the
refutation of fairies as illusions created by witches, many Scots believed in the
fairies, in Scots Gaelic sìthean, at all levels of society (Maxwell-Stuart 2001), and
well into the twentieth century.
3 Germany
The belief in elves and illness caused by their malignancy continued on in

Germany into the sixteenth century as well, as evidenced by at least two German
witchcraft trials (Edwards 1994, 21). Anne Beringer (1573) was convicted of send-
ing “Elben oder Unholden” (inflicting elves) to one victim and “die reißenden
Elben” (tearing elves) to another (Edwards 1994, 21). Similarly, Katharina Wille
(1573) sent six pairs of elves to torment a village boy, but confessed that she
learned this from the devil (Edwards 1994).
VI Literary Texts and Political Satire
The learned of the seventeenth century, in general, characterized fairy as either

the superstitions of the ignorant or completely fictional literary tropes. While
actual belief in fairies and elves may have been recorded in witchcraft trials—that
is, beliefs of the unlearned accused as recorded by the learned judge or interro-
gator—into the seventeenth century, fairies were also used in texts as literary
tropes for explicitly political purposes.
An anonymous royalist pamphlet of 1648 titled The Faerie Leveller: or King
Charles his Leveller Descried and Deciphered in Queene Elizabeths Dayes uses
Edmund Spenser’s episode of Artegall and the egalitarian Giant as an allegory
that supports King Charles I (1600–1649) against the “leveller” Oliver Cromwell
(Buccola 2006, 170). Spenser’s allegory of Justice from Book 5 of The Faerie
Queene is presented as a prophetic warning of the rise of the Parliamentarians

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against the Crown in the English Civil Wars. Another anonymous pamphlet
ascribed to Robin Goodfellow, “The Midnight’s Watch, or Robin Goodfellow his
serious observation; Wherein is Discovered the true state and strength of the
kingdom as at this day it stands, without either Faction or Affaction” appeared in
1643, in support of King Charles I, and criticizing the King’s unscrupulous secre-
taries (Halliwell 1845; Buccola 2006).
The Stuart fairy poetry of the seventeenth century depicts pastoral idylls in an
escapist fantasy of sumptuous detail and aristocratic revelry using the pastoral
images of diminutive fairies inspired by Shakespeare’s flower fairies (Swann
2000). William Browne (ca. 1591–ca. 1645) in his Britannia’s Pastorals (1616),
demonstrates a clear debt to Spenser’s Faerie Queene as well as the pastoral
folkloric fairies in an idyllic rural landscape in Books 1 & 2, but Browne shifts to
the miniature fairies of Shakespeare for a critique of the Stuart monarchy and its
conspicuous consumption in Book 3 (Swann 2000). While Browne uses the fairy
banquet to satirize the inadequacies of the Spanish court, he also critiques King
James’s love of sport and the excesses of the Stuart monarchy in the person of the
diminutive King Oberon. Influenced by the Queen Mab of Mercutio’s speech in
Romeo and Juliet, Michael Drayton’s (1563–1631) Nimphidia (1627) presents the
mock romance-epic of the quarrel of King Oberon and Queen Mab in a comedic
critique of Jacobean court decadence. In complimenting James’s successor,
Charles, in a set of pastoral eclogues in his next work, The Muses Elizium (1630),
Drayton presents the tiny fairy nymph, Tita, in the preparations for her marriage.
The detailed catalogue of Tita’s bridal clothing and jewels naturalizes rather than
critiques the material consumption of the Caroline court (Swann 2000). Robert
Herrick’s (1591–1674) verse collection Hesperides (1648) combines a pro-Royalist
attitude with a criticism of Anglican church ceremony. In the poem “The Fairie
Temple: or Oberons Chapell,” Herrick’s miniature fairies seem to parody the
church rituals they portray, while the fairies of “Oberon’s Feast” and “Oberon’s
Palace” rely upon the detritus of nature and human debris to construct their
elaborate material culture. Thus, the Stuart poets such as Browne, Drayton, and
Herrick use the fairy court and monarch the way earlier writers used foreign and
fictional courts: to safely critique and parody their own aristocracy and the
material consumption of English monarchic court culture.
Near the end of the seventeenth century, Scottish Presbyterian minister and
early folklorist Robert Kirk (1644–1692) attempted to study methodically the world
of fairies. In 1691, he wrote The Secret Common-Wealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies,
recording the folk beliefs of the Lowland and Highland Gaelic Scots, which were
presumably free of the more literary traditions of the south (Briggs 1959). Many of
the stories collected are nevertheless similar to folklore collected in England. His
treatise was presented as serious scholarship of the unseen world of fairies,

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ghosts, and poltergeists, including a study of phenomena of the second sight,

which allowed his informants to see the fairies. The Secret Common-Wealth was
not published until 1815 by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), as part of the efforts to
collect and preserve folklore and oral tradition that became widespread through-
out Europe in the nineteenth century (Briggs 1959).
Select Bibliography
Bhrolcháin, Muireann Ní, An Introduction to Early Irish Literature (Dublin 2009).
Briggs, Katherine, The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature (London 1967).
Briggs, Katherine, The Anatomy of Puck: An Examination of Fairy Beliefs among Shakespeare’s
Contemporaries and Successors (London 1959).
Gibbs, Marion E. and Sidney M. Johnson, Medieval German Literature: A Companion (New York
1997).
Hall, Alaric, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity (Wood-
bridge and Rochester, NY, 2007).
Harf-Lancner, Laurence, Les Fées au Moyen Âge: Morgane et Mélusine La Naissance des fées
(Geneva 1984).
Henderson, Lizanne and Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (East Lothian 2004).
Jolly, Karen, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill, NC,
1996).
Lamb, Mary Ellen, The Popular Culture of Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson (New York 2006).
MacKillop, James, The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (New York 1998).
Purkiss, Diane, Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairy Stories (London 2000).
Rider, Jeff, “The Other Worlds of Romance,” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance,
ed. Roberta L. Krueger, paperback ed. (2000; Cambridge 2010), 115–31.
Saunders, Corinne, Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge and
Rochester, NY, 2010).
Swann, Marjorie, “The Politics of Fairylore in Early Modern English Literature,” Renaissance
Quarterly 53.2 (Summer 2000): 449–73.
Thun, Nils, “The Malignant Elves: Notes on Anglo-Saxon Magic and Germanic Myth,” Studia
Neophilologica 41.2 (1969): 378–96.

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Scott L. Taylor
Feudalism in Literature and Society
A Historical Time Frame and Theoretical

Reflections
“Feudal,” as Ralph von Caenegem (1988) has observed, is derived from feodalis
and concerns fiefs, the fief generally being called in Latin a feudum or feodum,
and also referred to in the Middle Ages according to region or dialect as a feud, fie,
feu or in England, sometimes a fee. Although these terms occasionally referred to
a piece of land in general, as is the term “fee” in modern English usage, or
somewhat more frequently to a dependent tenure in the nature of a benefice, the
term most frequently referred to the tenure of a vassal, particularly one whose
obligations, or servitium debitum, included military service or its equivalent.
Hence, “feudalism” properly understood, though the term itself was coined only
in the modern era, relates to lords, vassals, and fiefs, and so to the aggregate of
principles and usages governing land tenures under feudal law. This was the
sense in which it was used by sixteenth-century humanist legal scholars such as
Charles Du Moulin (1500–1566) and Pierre Pithou (1539–1596), and subsequently
Louis Chantereau-Lefebre (1662) and Nicolas Brussel (1750) (Kelley 1970; Ever-
gates, trans. and ed., 1993).
However, from at least the eighteenth century onwards, the idea of a “feudal
system” as characteristic of the political and/or social milieu of the Middle Ages
was loosely employed by leftist political philosophers, republican apologists,
free-traders, and most important for present purposes, scholars. As a conse-
quence, every historian has undertaken to define the term for him/herself, as was
conceded by Marc Bloch, whose own reputation rested largely on his Feudal
Society (1939–1940). Perhaps no term has engendered such debate as that sur-
rounding the concept “feudalism” over the last forty years, particularly since the
publication of E. A. R. Brown’s “The Tyranny of a Construct” (1974), which
transcended the dissatisfaction already evident with the concept manifest in
contributions such as Frederic L. Cheyette’s introduction to Lordship and Commu-
nity (1968). The criticism reached a crescendo twenty years later in Susan Rey-
nold’s Fief and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1994).
Even before the penning of these attacks on the so-called “classical model” of
feudalism, usually associated with François-Louis Ganshof, medievalists were
more than casually divided over the definition and use of the term, and whether
the terms “feudalism” and “feudal system” were synonymous. Today, while some

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466 Scott L. Taylor
scholars avoid the term altogether, others are investigating the contemporary
arrangements, usually on a regional basis, which in some part resemble the more
traditional concept of feudalism. The following subsections will undertake very
briefly: (1) to describe the evolution and development of the concept up to the
Second World War, i.e., through Bloch’s masterwork of 1939; (2) to detail the
major post-war developments to the mid-1970’s; (3) to consider the criticisms
leveled against the concept in general; and (4) to consider the continuing research
into feudalism over the last twenty years. In the second section, various medieval
literatures will be reviewed, and an assessment proposed regarding the continu-
ing viability of the concept of “feudalism.”
I Pre-War History of the Concept
Critics of the concept “feudalism” are fond of recalling Frederic William Mait-
land’s quip to the effect that the feudal system was introduced into England by
Henry Spelman (1562–1641), whose discernments particularly in the posthumous
Reliquiae Spelmannianae (1698) – italicize Reliquiae Spelmannianae constituted
early essay in comparative jurisprudence, and which achieved its most perfect
form in the mid-eighteenth century (Maitland 1946, 142). Certainly, it is true that
Spelman identified an hierarchical feudal law dictated by the state, which he
contended regulated social and political relationships, and, in contrast to Cokean
insularity, which could be reasonably compared to continental institutions as
described by François Hotman (1524–1590) and Jacques Cujas (1520–1590). Less
often mentioned, but building upon Spelman in the aftermath of the English Civil
War, James Harrington (1611–1677) in the Oceana (1656), argued a principle of
balance based on the premise that political power always follows economic
power, argued by some, such as Achille Loria, to be the precursor to Marxian
dialectical materialism. Contending that the monarchy had distributed its land to
the barons, Harrington hence argued that Gothic politics had been aristocratic,
since the commons were bound to the nobility by feudal tenure.
Maitland, though bemoaning the inchoate character of the feudal concept,
proceeded to use the expression, attempting particularly to differentiate English
and French feudalism. Part of his argument was that the basic features of the
English system were preexistent in Anglo-Saxon aspects of commendation, as
opposed to Round (1895), who believed the Norman invasion of 1066 essentially
transformed the English system into an idealized version of Norman tenure and
accompanying institutions. In his approach, Maitland in fact had much in com-
mon with Stubbs, who largely rejected the views of Montesquieu and thus, Eich-
horn, in favor of Waitz’s theory that feudal notions of lordship and vassalism were

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Feudalism in Literature and Society 467
alien to the ancient Germanic constitutions, which recognized only sovereign and
subject (Waitz 1865). This perspective dovetailed with a certain corporatist thesis,
advanced particularly by Gierke (1868–1881), that German Genossenschaft was
ultimately displaced by Herrschaft.
Maitland, blind to Stubb’s Whiggish historicism, and perhaps Gierke’s Ger-
man exceptionalism, saw to the translation and publication of the third volume of
Gierke’s masterwork (Gierke 1900). Stubb’s subsequent critics, Richardson and
Sayles (1963), condemned the very use of the terms “feudal” and “feudalism,”
though grudgingly persisting in their use. To some extent, however, the discom-
fort with the idea of feudalism was the rejection of any a priori conceptualizations
as obstacles to reconstructions of the legal past, Maitland and Milsom after him
being, after all, essentially functionalists who believed that legal doctrine was not
the product of analysis and reasoning within a closed system, but efforts to
respond to problems and forces within society. Insofar as feudalism was con-
ceded to exist, therefore, it dealt with the prevalence with which dependent and
derivative land tenure was conjoined to the relationship of lord and vassal, which
varied over time and geographically, and perhaps changed in its import. Phrased
somewhat differently, some set of phenomena existed that might be labeled
feudalism, but models of feudal systems or, for that matter, manorial systems, are
“apt to make the texture of medieval society look simpler than really it was …”
(Pollock and Maitland 1898, I:296).
Unlike Maitland, across the Channel the dominant influence was that of the
Annales school of French historiography, emphasizing totality and a search for
deeply ingrained mentalities. It is not surprising, therefore, that Marc Bloch, one
of the followers of the movement, would describe in his magnum opus (Bloch
1939–1940) more than define feudalism as to include so extensive and inclusive a
list of aspects of European life as to render it conceptually meaningless and
essentially synonymous with European medieval society itself. For Bloch, all
hierarchical aspects of European society, which he conceived in terms of the three
estates of nobility, church, and peasantry, were symptomatic of a feudal system,
although he did maintain a conceptual distinction between feudalism per se and
manorialism. Bloch hypothesized a feudal revolution that had accompanied what
he perceived to be the fragmentation of unitary authority in the eleventh century.
II Post-War Attempts to Refine the Concept
In contrast to Bloch’s integral approach, Ganshof (1944) attempted to limit feudal-

ism to the socio-military tenancy of lord and vassal, with rights of seigniorial
jurisdiction, so important to Strayer (1965), being merely optional. Stenton (1952)

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468 Scott L. Taylor
would adopt Ganshof’s model in his introduction to the English translation of

Ganshof’s work, accepting that a single classical model pertained in most of
France, Burgundy and Germany.
While the definitions continued to abound, they generally fell into one of
three categories: The Ganshof approach, emphasizing tenure; the Strayer ap-
proach, emphasizing seigniorial rights of jurisdiction; and the Annales approach,
emphasizing the totality of institutions and mentalities. The resulting perplexity
is nowhere more evident than in the work of Duby, who in 1953, seemingly
attempted to bridge the first two categories, suggesting feudalism had two
aspects, the political and the economic, pouvoir banal and feodalité, and then in
1958 proposing that feudalism could best be explained as a psychological com-
plex, approaching Bloch’s totality approach.
III Critiques of the Concept
Perhaps reflective of a certain Anglo-American hyper-empiricism dominant in the

second half of the twentieth century, Brown (1975) asserted that there was little in
the way of evidence to demonstrate that the terms for fiefs, vassals, and lords
reflected their meaning in the early Middle Ages, and argued that feudalism was
little more than an anachronistic construct that modern scholars had imposed on
medieval data. Two decades later, Reynolds would argue exhaustively, that the
concept actually arose only with the twelfth-century legal palingenesis, at the
very time when state authority was being consolidated into a unitary system
obviating the legal construct learned lawyers were assembling. More recently
(Reynolds 2011), while acknowledging criticisms of her own technique, she has
maintained her position that the concept has distorted the image of the Western
Middle Ages, concentrating on the upper classes and their dyadic arrangements,
while ignoring more collectivist ideas and activities, a topic she pursued in other
work (Reynolds 1997).
IV Recent research
A number of scholars, though taking issue with a simplistic view of feudalism,

have nevertheless hesitated to dispose of the concept altogether. Dominique
Barthélemy, for example, while finding no evidence for an eleventh-century
transformation in the Vendômois and the Loire Valley, suggests that feudalism
might be found already in the Carolingian period (1993), though he suggests that
feudalism should be rethought in terms of lord and vassal, without necessarily

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requiring exchange of a fief (2005). Indeed, when thought of in those terms,

comparison may become possible with areas not feudalized in a Ganshofian
sense, such as Denmark (Opsahl 2011). Others, such as Gerd Althoff in his studies
of German Lehnswesen (1990; 2011), continue to find at personal bonds were
fundamental and indispensable to medieval governance, and depended highly
on an endowment or fief, though by a certain period, those fiefs had become
hereditary. Continued research on England, rather than dispelling feudal notions
per se, have suggested that Maitland may have been correct in believing certain
rudimentary ideas existing before the Conquest facilitated the transportation of
Norman feudalism, which itself adapted to some aspects of Anglo-Saxon tenure
(Hudson 2011).
B The Medieval Literature of Feudalism

I The Genesis of the Libri Feudorum
The beginnings of feudal law as the subject of scholastic concern lay in two mid-
twelfth-century letters by the imperial judge at Milan, Oberto dall’ Orto, to his son
who was a student at Bologna, purporting to reduce to writing the customary law
pertaining to feuds. These were subsequently supplemented, but largely ignored
by the Bolognese doctors, though they themselves voiced opinions on feudal
controversies (Meijers 1934a). Pillio of Medicina (d. after 1207), a student of Placen-
tine (d. 1192), composed a Summa on the collection, and commenced an Appara-
tus, probably before 1187. Although frequently attributed to his student, John
Bassian (d. ca. 1197), it was probably Accursius (ca. 1185–1263) himself who added
to the Corpus the tenth collation containing the Authenticum, and the Libri
Feudorum, together with the glosses of Bassian’s student, James Dove (Jacobus
Columbi), who also was responsible for completing Pillio’s unfinished Apparatus
(Meijers 1934b). Baldo Ubaldi (ca. 1319–1400), perhaps the most illustrious pupil of
Bartolo of Sassoferrato (1313/14–1357), prepared notes on the Libri Feudorum,
which became the standard gloss. At Padua, a student of Zabarella (1360–1417),
James Alvorotto (1385–1453), commented on the Libri Feudorum.). The Libri Feu-
dorum was subsequently recast in six books by Antony Minucci of Pratovecchio
(d. 1468), along with James Dove’s gloss, which was published in 1431, with the
whole consolidated and revised in 1442 (Smith 1975). Perhaps inspired by the latter
work, Matthew d’Afflitto (1448–1528) in Naples composed various works on Nea-
politan feudal law, while in Turin, Giacomino Micheloni of San Giorgio (Jacobinus
de Sancto Giorgio) (d. 1494), published in 1487 twin treatises, De feudis and De
homagiis et roydis, along with fifty problems on feudal law.

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II Pre-Scholastic Evidences
Although critics of feudalism as a useful concept are correct that evidence of

feudalism in the sense adherents of classical feudalism envisioned or employed
the model is sparse, it is not non-existent. Some of that evidence has been
discussed in prior sections of this article. A number of other examples are
proposed herein as at least suggestive that the concept of feudalism is not quite
as spectral as its harshest critics would assert, nor as late a development as
advanced by others.
1 Carolingian Diplomata
In 717, Charles Martel transferred from his allodial property [quod contra allo-
diones meos recepi] (Diplomata Karolinorum 1906, I, #9), as opposed to a subse-
quent transfer in 722, which involved properties belonging to the fisc [quae in
ditione fisci sunt], and which, though confirming the grant, he repaid in cash to
the fisc (Diplomata Karolinorum1906, I, #11). At first glance, these two documents
could suggest merely a distinction between property owned personally and lands
administered as part of the treasury. However, an interesting provision is in-
cluded in a grant to a certain Paulinus of the estates of one Waldandus, who
apparently sided with Duke Rotgaud of Friuli in his revolt against Charlemagne
in 776:
“Igitur notum sit ominium vestrum magnitudini, qualiter cedimus atque donamus a novis
viro valde venerabili Paulino, artis grammatice magistro, hoc est res quasdam et facultates,
que fuerunt Waldandi, filii quondam Immoni de Laberiano, que ad nostrum palatium
devenerunt, pro eo quod in campo cum Roticauso inimico nostro a nostris fidelibus fuit
infectus … .” (Diplomata Karolinorum 1906, I, #112).
[Therefore, let all our largesse be transcribed, in what manner we ceded and gave to the
exceedingly venerable man, Paulinus, master of the grammatical arts, that which was the
certain property and powers which were Walandus’s, son of a certain Immo of Laberiano,
and would have returned to our fisc, for the reason that he was killed on the battlefield with
our enemy, Rotgario, by our faithful men … .”
The use of the phrase “ad palatium devenire” seems to imply that to return to the
fisc, it must have been considered as originating from the fisc, which sounds
somewhat more like a traditional feudal formulation, rather than mere confisca-
tion. Indeed, this same tone dictates the complaints against Liedingerus, Duke of
Saxony, where it is recorded:

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“… quod cum Liedingerus dux Saxonis ducatum suum iure feodali teneret ab imperio nec
hoc recognoscere curare et tributum de suo ducatu a Cesare Augusto statutum, quod a
predessoribus suis consuetum fuit singulis annis predessoribus nostris exhiberi, nobis dare
contempneret et modis omnibus se imperio et nobis contumaciter per suam superbiam
opponeret et se in preiuducium et gravamen imperii pro rege gereret et se regem Saxonie
vocari precepisset … .” (Diplomata Karolinorum 1906, I, #269).
[… that although Liedingerus, the duke of Saxony, held his duchy from the emperor by
feudal law, and yet did not take care to recognize this and the tribute established by Caesar
Augustus pertaining to his duchy, which was the custom by his predecessors to pay over
each year to our predecessors, he despised to pay to us, and confronted contumaciously the
emperor in every way through his haughtiness, and had borne himself as a king, to the grave
prejudice of the emperor, and had begun to be called king … .]
Still, the case of Saxony was peculiar to lands reduced to tributary status, though
the document certainly suggests that feudal status implied some form of depend-
ent tenure. Perhaps clearest is the 813 confirmation of a grant made by a certain
count Angelbert of a forest to a religious house, which confirmation was required
“quia de camera et feodo imperiali erat” [“because it was from the fisc and in
imperial feud”] (Diplomata Karolinorum 1906, I, #284). Feudal land, therefore,
seems to have a tie to the fisc, and further, perhaps because of this, implies an
inalienability of the granted estate.
2 Early Poetic References
Terminology usually associated with feudalism was in relatively early use in

French literature. For example, in La Chanson de Sainte Foi d’Agen dating
from Province ca. 1050, the emperor is described as summonsing his fief-
holders: “Trames sas letras els correus, / Manded aqelz q’en tenun feus … .”
(1925, ll. 517–18) [He summonsed those who held fiefs from him]. This work
predates by a century or more Girart de Roussillon (1036–1080), whose plot is
largely dependent upon the protagonist’s rather confused tenancy, and which
Paterson (1993) points to as an early Occitan example of feudalism in litera-
ture. In Gormund et Isembard (ca. 1100), an imprecation of the king recites,
“ber sainz Denise, or m’en aidiez!/jeo tenc de vus quite mun fieu, / de nul
autre n’en conois rien,/ fors sul de deu, le veir del ciel”(1906, ll. 375–79;
“Baron St. Denis, now aid me in this / I hold my fief from you freely, / from
no other do I recognize any of it, / only from God alone, truly from heaven”).
Surely this reflects an old hierarchical mentality that while others may hold
from some superior, the king holds from God and no other, to whom alone he
owes fidelity and must answer.

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472 Scott L. Taylor
The Chanson de Roland (ca. 1108) [Oxford text], contains multiple references
that suggest the dependent status of fiefs and their frequent association with
offices. For example, “jo vos durrai or e argent asez, / teres e fiez tant cum vos en
vuldrez,” (ll. 75–76; “I will give you much gold and silver, and as many lands and
fiefs as you might want”); “Qu’il devendrat joints ses mains tis hom, / E tuto
Espaigne tendrat par vostre dun” (ll. 223–24; “That he would become your man,
with hands folded, / And all Spain hold through your grant”); Ganelon’s prayer
for his son, “E lui aidez e pur seigneur le tenez” (l. 364; “And aid him and take
him for your lord”], having previously made his bequest), “A lui lais jo mes
honurs e mes fieus” (l. 315; “To him I leave my offices and my fiefs”); similarly
conjoining fiefs and offices in lines 819–20, “Virent Guascuigne, la terre lur
Seignur. / Dunc le remembret les fies e des honurs …” (l. 2680; “They see Gascony,
land of their lord. / Then they remember their fiefs and offices.”]; or “Mei venget
pur reconoistre sun feu” (l. 2680; “He will come to me to acknowledge his fief”),
or “Deven mes hom, en fiet le te voeill render” (l. 3593, “Become my man, I will
convey it back to you in feud”). Indeed, the dependent nature of the fief is
emphasized by an interesting colloquialism, “Dunez m’un feu” (l. 866), meaning
“do me a favor.” Vassalage, when referred to at all, is usually used in the sense of
“courage” (e.g., ll. 744, 1080, 2981, 3037, 3447, 3901), suggesting that the early
use of the term, at least in French, was consistent with a Latin root, “vas,”
meaning military equipment, and suggesting that the term “vassal” merely meant
someone who bore arms.
As a final example, consider the dialogue between Garins and William in La
Geste des Loherens (La Mort de Garin le Loherain 1862), dating to the last third of
the twelfth century:
“Garins parole qui ot cuer enterin:

‘sire Guillaume, li sire de Monclin,
Tu ies mes home mon fie a tenir
Et mes parens et mes riches amis.
Por mes pechies, biaus sire, ai la crois pris,
Outré la mer irai as Sarrasins;
Se nule rien a nul jor vos forfis,
A tos vos pri por amor Deu merci.
Chi remanra l’enfes Gerbers, mes fix,
s/estes si home, de luis deves tenir;
s’il a mestier – jones est et mescins –
aides li, sire, si feres que gentis.
Se Dex co done que puisse revenir,
Vos volentes ferai et vo plaisir.’
‘Comment, diable?’ li quens Guillaumes dist,
‘vos otroiastes, quant tenistes mon fil,

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Tos les marchies de Mes quite a tenir;

Il n’en a nul, ne il n’en est saisis.’” (La Mort de Garin le Loherain 1862, ll. 4636–53)
[Garins spoke what his heart entertained:/ ‘Sir William, sire of Monclin, / you are my man
my fief to hold / and my peer and my powerful friend. / For my sins, good sir, I have taken
up the cross, / I will go across the sea to the Saracens; / You have never done anything
wrong / for all I beseech for you the merciful love of God. / Here remains the child Gerbers,
my son, / If you are my man, you must hold from him; / If he has need – he is young and
tender– / Help him sir, if you be a gentlemen. / If God grants that I am able to return, / you
will have your wish and your pleasure. / ‘How, devil,’ says count William / ‘You promised,
when you held my son / all the marches of Metz to freely hold; / he has none of it, nor have
you possessed him of any of it.’]
Here we see various characteristics usually associated with classic notions of

feudalism, including the notions that the duke’s men hold through the grantor of
the fief; the supposition that vassals will hold through the duke’s son in his
absence; and the intimation that the enfeoffed has a duty of aid and advice to
their lord.
3 Histories
A number of early histories and reports employ language generally associated

with feudalism, though often within contexts leaving doubt as to their precise
significance. One of the more pregnant is the remark by Notker the Stammerer
attributing to Charlemagne his explanation for limiting the number of counties he
assigned his counts: “Cum illo fisco vel curte, illa abbatiola vel ecclesia tam
bonum vel meliorem vassallum, quam ille comes est aut episcopus, fidelem mihi
facio.” (1959, 17, l. 13; “With this estate or manor, from that monastery or church,
I make my confidant as good or better a vassal than any count or bishop”).
Dudo of Saint-Quentin in De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum
(187), suggests that around the year 1000 when he wrote, it was known that
Norman lords had begged land from the Duke in exchange for military service,
suggesting an earlier date for the development of Norman feudalism than ad-
vanced by some scholars such as Douglas. The extent of the relationship between
military tenurial aspects of feudalism and administrative aspects sometimes
associated with feudalism may also be illuminated by consideration of the facility
with which certain gastaldates were converted by the Normans into fiefdoms in
eleventh-century Lombardy (Kreutz 1991).

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474 Scott L. Taylor
4 Tentative Conclusions
The primary documents, while not determinative, suggest that fiefs differed from
precaria and beneficia, and suggest further that fiefs (a) were freeholds in the
sense that they were held freely (quite) by free men, meaning primarily that the
holders are absolved from the ban or hereban (bannum aut heribannum non
solvere debeant); that feudal holdings are conceived as part of the fisc (de camera
et feodo imperiali sunt; quae in ditione fisci sunt), and are subject to returning to
the fisc (ad palatium devenire); that as a consequence, fiefs are not subject to
voluntary alientation without confirmation by the grantor, although upon death
they constitute a patrimony (heredium), which in normal circumstances descends
upon death to the heirs, albeit not as an inhereitance (hereditas) subject to
testamentary disposition or free collateral inheritance; (4) because they remain
part of the fisc they constitute sovereign land, not subject to diminution by such
usages as praescriptio or usucapio; (5) that they are subject to at least reasonable
expectations of loyalty and to certain customary obligations, including response
to summonses.
III Feudalism Post-1200
Legal compilations after 1200, whether assembled by the curia regis, such as the
Livre du justice et plet or by imperial direction, such as Frederick II’s Liber
Augustalis, or by diligent jurists determined to provide practical handbooks of
customary law, such as Philippe de Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvaisis, that
proliferated in the thirteenth century (see “Law in Literature and Society” in this
handbook), all presume the existence of fiefs and vassals as characteristic of a
specific and peculiar tenurial regime. Perhaps this should not be surprising,
since all also borrow heavily from the Corpus iuris civilis, which by then
included the Libri feudorum as part of its tenth collation. However, this also
corresponds to a period of exploding documentation of feudal usages, since by
1200, the most powerful princes were maintaining records concerning fiefs,
homages and military service as part of their fiscal administration. Hence, in
areas such as Champagne, a trove of data exists concerning feudal practices
(Evergates 1975).

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C Conclusions
Critiques of feudalism as a useful concept seem to proceed from at least three
perspectives. The first is a radical empiricism that resists the temptation to read
the twelfth or thirteenth-century signification of terminology such as fief or vassal
back onto Carolingian use of such terms. In some respects, this is a healthy
tendency, recognizing the historical and evolutionary aspects of language. On the
other hand, it is not a response to the ultimate question of where and when, if
ever, those terms signified the same or similar phenomena, nor does it establish
they never did; and to the extent there was a shift in meaning, how, why and
when did it occur?
The second, and related perspective, is a severe chronologism that would
prohibit application of any concept not current in the subject society. It bespeaks
a certain anti-Weberian mentality that would obviate social scientific comprehen-
sion of historical events once they are understood initially within their historical
context. The same argument raised against feudalism because the term was not
used by medieval writers would bar the use of terms such as “colonialism” or
“imperialism,” or for that matter, “socialism” or “capitalism,” or even “Calvin-
ism” or “Lutheranism.” Such “isms” are merely generics for purposes of modern
comparative sociological or political analysis, admittedly less useful for purposes
of intellectual history, but anachronistic only if imputed to historical actors. The
fact that historians disagree on definition is merely evidence of their disagree-
ment on what phenomena are purely local, which are more regional, and which
aspects are most important.
The last is a proclivity for collectivist or communitarian analyses that concen-
trate on aspects of social and political affairs other than the bilateral arrange-
ments among the nobility. In itself, this is a legitimate avenue of inquiry that
bears significant promise. However, there is no reason why such research neces-
sarily obviates parallel inquiry into feudal arrangements, unless those advancing
such perspectives intend to generate a “master narrative” as “tyrannical” as they
claim feudalism to represent.
It is perhaps regrettable that the term “feudalism” was early coopted by
polemicists of various stripes, even as it is regrettable, as Evergates has observed,
that Bloch discarded an earlier historiographical tradition that employed the term
in a more restrictive fashion, limiting the use of “feudal” to describe a particular
type of tenure and the laws governing it, linking such terms as homage, fidelity
and liegance, with proprietary concepts of mouvance, escheat and relief. How-
ever, it is as unlikely that feudalism can be so restricted, as it is that the term will
be abandoned altogether. As the editors of one recent collection have noted:
“Feudalism in practice differs considerably from Ganshof’s neat picture—in itself

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476 Scott L. Taylor
not intended as a complete picture of practice over the whole feudal area—but it
seems premature to pronounce its death at the present moment” (Bagge, Gelting,
and Lindkvist, ed., 2011, 13).
Select Bibliography
Bagge, Sverre, Michael H. Gelting and Thomas Lindkvist, ed., Feudalism: New Landscapes of
Debate (Turnhout 2011).
Bloch, Marc, La Société féodale (Paris 1939).
Brown, Elizabeth A. R., “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval

Europe,” American Historical Review 79 (1974): 1063–88.

Evergates, Theodore, trans. and ed., Feudal Society in Medieval France: Documents from the
County of Champagne (Philadelphia, PA, 1993).
Evergates, Theodore, Feudal Society in the Bailliage of Troyes under the Counts of Champagne,
1152–1284 (Baltimore, MD, and London 1975).
Ganshof, François-Louis, Qu’est-ce que la féodalité? (Paris 1944).
Kelley, Donald R., Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in
the French Renaissance (New York 1970).
Lehmann, Karl, ed., Consuetudines Feudorum (Göttingen 1892–1894), 2 vols.
Maitland, Frederic William, Constitutional History of England (Cambridge 1946).
Meijers, Eduard Maurits, “Les glossateurs et le droit feudal,” Tijdschrift 13 (1934): 129–49.
[= Meijers 1934a]
Reynolds, Susan, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford and New York
1994). [= S. Reynolds 1994]
Round, J. H., Feudal England (London 1895).


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Sarah Gordon
Food and Cookbooks
A Introduction
Because food is a human necessity and at the center of all life, looking at food and
research on eating, table manners, cooking, diets, famine, hunger, food prepara-
tion and preservation, the material culture of food, and other foodways of medie-
val culture can tell us much about daily life. Eating is a biological need and a
culturally determined activity. Kitchen account documents, manuscript illustra-
tions, and of course cookbooks, along with other visual and textual sources,
reveal much about medieval cuisine. From cookbooks and household bookkeep-
ing to literary feasts and manuscript miniatures of harvests, a varied menu of
scholarship on medieval food is ever expanding (for an exploration of many
extant European culinary manuscripts, see Lambert, ed., 1992). Medieval cook-
books are rare and culinary manuscripts were limited of course to those with
means, and as such we may study “this function of the medieval recipe collection
as a pseudo-social document” (Scully 1995, 8).
Throughout the Middle Ages, food and narrative had a strong link. Meal-
time storytelling is represented from epic to Arthurian romances to Chaucer. A
commonplace scene in romances represents King Arthur’s court as waiting to
eat until some news of adventure arrives. Many commonplace descriptions of
lavish courtly feasts appear in wedding and feast scenes in the romance tradi-
tion. Romances in the Perceval/Parzifal tradition have as their central scene a
feast at the Grail castle. Troubadours and trouvères often performed lyric verse
or conducted courts of love during mealtime at court. Scenes of eating, drink-
ing, and even food fights appear in medieval epic, romance, and theater (see
Gordon 2007). The Anglo-Saxon hall was a community space, creating commu-
nity and identity through eating and drinking together (as Hagen 1992 and
others have shown). Obtaining, cooking, and consuming food was a community
effort, from harvest to table. In fact, through the fifteenth century in Europe, it
was common to share drinking cups and food dishes, such as large stale bread
bowls, called trenchers, on French and British tables. Utensils and table set-
tings were simple and table manners were complex (including not spitting over
the food, not using dogs as napkins, using table clothes as napkins, not
drinking too much, and not scratching at the table, all common to manners
lists). People would eat with their hands out of the same dishes, sometimes
carrying their own knives, but always sharing out of communal dishes and

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breaking bread together (for an extensive study on medieval bread, see De-
sportes 1987).
Community stores and granaries supplied people too, in times of siege and
famine (for a recent study of the archeology of agriculture and food storage of
rural medieval England, see Woolgar, Serjeanston, and Waldron, ed., 2009).
Community mills, communal ovens, and public bakeries were common. Open
fires with large pots and cauldrons and hearths in the home constituted the
kitchen in most houses (for specifics of medieval kitchen equipment, utensils,
and architecture in England, for example, see the study by Brears 2008). Most
homes, even larger households, did not have an oven, so baking or buying bread
publicly, as well as buying pies or other baked items at cookshops were a
common communal practices, to generalize.
B Food Variety, Availability, and Famine

Contrary to popular belief, medieval food was not elaborate multi-course aristo-
cratic feasts, nor was it all sloppy, tasteless peasant porridge, or piles of grilled
chicken legs, but somewhere in between. True, blancmanger, a sort of risotto or
white porridge recipe, was very popular in England and Western Europe, as was
frumenty, another type of porridge type dish with varied ingredients, but many
refined and gastronomically complex recipes exist. Varieties of dishes similar to
porridges, soups, potages, purées, stews, broths, and pasta soups (in Italy, France
and beyond) were popular (Redon, Sabban, and Serventi, ed., 2000, 53–68).
Herbs, spices, cooking methods, and hygiene all appear in middle-class house-
hold manuals and in literary texts. Many recipes include complex flavors and
seasonings (Hieatt, Hosington, and Butler, ed., 1996; Black 1992, and others have
attempted to edit and adapt many such recipes for today’s cook). Spices and
complex flavors often included for example: black pepper, cardamom, grains of
paradise, galingale, ginger, cinnamon, cassia, cloves, nutmeg, mace, salt, honey,
sugar, verjuice (unripe grape juice), vinegar, olives and olive oil, and rose water
were common (Adamson 2004, 14–31). There is a sense of gastronomy, of what is
considered good food and bad food, in household manuals and in literature.
Chaucer’s cook receives negative restaurant reviews, accused of having flies in
his pie shop, and draining the gravy from his meat pies, scolded for serving stale
leftovers, criticized for his indigestion-provoking use of parsley.
Urban pie and food shops were common during Chaucer’s time, and appear
in several manuscript traditions. They were not known for their fair trading
practices, but these medieval equivalents of fast-food take-out establishments
offered pre-cooked foods to city dwellers and grew in popularity in the fourteenth

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Food and Cookbooks 479
through fifteenth centuries; for instance, the fifteenth-century French farce Du

pâté et de la tarte acts out the unsavory practices of a bourgeois couple’s urban
pie shop (Gassies, ed., 2011). Many literary texts include feast menus or cooks’
repertoires, as with Chaucer’s cook in the General Prologue:
A cooke they hadde with hem for the nones,

To boille the chiknes with the marybones
And poudre-marchant tart and galyngale;
Wel koude he knowe a draughte of Londoun ale;
He koude rooste and sethe and broille and frye,
Maken mortreux and wel bake a pye.
But greet harm was it, as it thoughte me,
That on his shyne a mormal hadde he,
For blankmanger, that made he with the beste (Chaucer 2008, GP ll. 380–88).
Different cooking techniques, such as boiling, broiling, frying, and baking ap-
pear, as well as roasting, basting, marinating, and braising, in literary representa-
tions of cooking, such as this passage from Chaucer (on Chaucer, see Biebel 1998,
15–16 and in contemporary cookbooks, of course). Adamson discusses further
images of food in the Canterbury Tales (Adamson 1995, 94). Drying, smoking,
salting, brining, pickling, fermenting, curing, and confit techniques with fat or
honey, were all common methods of food preservation. Salt was particularly
valuable in preserving meat and pork products, of course.
There are well over a dozen extant collections of English recipes that have yet to
be edited, estimates Hieatt (Hieatt 1998, 105), but many common ingredients and
techniques are seen across the recipe compilations discussed below. Common
seasonings found most in medieval European cookbooks and literary representa-
tions are: garlic, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, parsley, and others.
Ginger, fennel, caraway, anise, honey, also were included in what made up the
many common sweet and sour recipes, with vinegar, grape, and later citrus as
common flavors.
I Menus and Foodstuff
What was on the menu? For banquets, both household documents and literary
representations give us an idea of menus (see Laurioux 1989 for more on medieval
menus and flavors). For everyday life, staples and available foodstuffs were much
less elaborate, of course. Socio-economic status played the largest role in food
availability and daily diet, for “medieval food culture, like medieval society, was
hierarchical in nature” (Adamson 1995, 233; see also Klemettilä 2012 on socially-

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determined diet and cooking; see Mennell 1995 on socially and nationally or
culturally determined cuisine in France and England). Adamson also details the
consumption and preparation most popular foodstuffs in the Middle Ages, pro-
viding a food-by-food overview, from various grains and vegetables to meat and
fish to escargot and porpoise (1995, 1–55).
Medieval diet was highly dependent on grains. Historian Christopher Dyer’s
work has underlined the importance of grain in the medieval peasant diet (Dyer
1998, 53–72, for example, and elsewhere). Adamson lists the common European
staples and available alternatives in meat, poultry, game, and fish, to give some
idea of the possibilities for medieval cooks depending on availability: pork,
suckling pig, wild boar, venison, beef, veal, lamb, mutton, hare, rabbit, peacock,
pheasant, partridge, pigeon, dove, quail, crane, heron, salmon, sturgeon, caviar,
bream, carp, perch, pike, trout, crayfish, eel, lamprey, porpoise, whale, oysters,
mussels, cockles, scallops, frogs, and snails (Adamson 1995, 1–55). Frogs and
other available foods were also commonly eaten (Albala, ed., 2006, 115). For
further discussion of animals, game, hunting, and fishing, see Clason on “Ani-
mals” in this Handbook, and for fishing in the Middle Ages, see the extensive
study by Hoffman, ed., 1997). Chicken, rooster, capon, duck, goose, and other
poultry were consumed regularly. The poultry and meat were limited to flesh-
days. Pig breeding was a hallmark of medieval economy (Flandrin and Monta-
nari, ed., 1999, 168–70). Popular non-meat staples in the diet or side dishes were
vegetables, primarily onions, garlic, and leeks, cabbages, lettuces, chicory,
chard, kale, endive, peas, chickpeas, carrots, radishes, parsnip, and turnips. Fava
beans and broad beans, fresh and dried peas, nuts, and legumes appear in a large
majority of non-meat recipes.
Almonds were a staple across the medieval European diet. Almond milk
often replaces milk or is in many sauce recipes as ground almond or almond
milk. Other nuts were popular and eaten whole, ground, cooked, boiled,
roasted, dried, pureed, pounded, used in stuffing to stuff poultry or meats, or
mixed into both savory and sweet recipes. Nuts often replaced meat on non-
meat days. Nuts common to the European diet were: almonds, walnuts, hazel-
nuts/filberts, pine nuts, pistachios, chestnuts (Adamson 2004, 24–26). Flours
varied greatly, including nut flours, and were far from limited to wheat. Cheese,
butter, and eggs were an important part of the medieval diet for many. As for
fruit, apples, pears, berries, peaches, cherries, quince, strawberries, pomegra-
nates, citrons, lemons, limes, oranges, and grapes were popular (Henisch 1990,
114–16 and Adamson 2004, 21–25). Some fruits especially appear regularly in
manuscript illustration and in fictional narrative (such as the Old French fabliau
Jouglet, in which a traveling minstrel feeds the bridegroom too many leftover
pears, or the rotting fruits thrown in the royal food fight of the Old French

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chantefable of Aucassin et Nicolette). Dates, raisins, figs, and dried fruits were
popular.
Flandrin and Montanari’s important study underlines that the variety and the
availability of a wide variety of foods led to a more varied and balanced diet in
medieval Europe at all socio-economic levels than seen in other periods (1999,
169). Likewise, Laurioux’s extensive study on archeological evidence and cook-
book references has demonstrated a wide diversity of ingredients and dishes, a
vast array of colors, flavors, spices, and economically or culturally determined
diets (2006). Variety is also addressed in the Lambert 1992 volume. Perhaps
surprisingly, everything edible was on the table, for “there was not a category of
foodstuff that was unused in the Middle Ages to produce food for the table. A
modern dietician, or even a modern conservationist, could not fault the medieval
cook for a narrowness in his choice of food sources. At least potentially, the
medieval diet was neither restricted, unhealthy, nor monotonous” (Scully 1995, 9).
II Nutrition and Famine
People had no need for elaborate recipes and menus when hunger was rampant.
Famine and poverty (see related articles in the present volume, “Poverty” by
Francis Gentry) are also important issues in medieval food studies. Significant
famines occurred for instance in Western Europe in: 400–800, 1005 (England),
1016, 1097 (France), 1235 (England), 1315–17. France alone suffered famine for
much of the fourteenth century, for example: 1304, 1305, 1310, 1315–1317, 1330–
1333, 1349–1351, 1358–1360, 1371, 1374–1375, and 1390–1391. The Great Famine of
1315–1317 touched most of Europe and had wide-ranging grave ramifications for
mortality, agriculture, diet and nutrition, as well as cuisine (Jordan 1998 provides
an extensive study of the Great Famine). Some famines were so grave that chroni-
cles and literary texts record cannibalism, though not common (Marvin 1998,
73–86). In some areas, this famine was pervasive. Crops and vineyards suffered in
England and the north in the mid fourteenth century due to the colder climate.
Both man-made and environmental factors played a part in these famines.
Poor crops and poor nutrition also played a role in the spread of disease and
epidemics (see articles on medicine and plague in the present volume). Food
storage for grains, salted and preserved meats, legumes and vegetables, was not
often dependable, due to weather, animals, disease, market pricing, and food
spoilage. Beyond just poor crop years and poor food storage, there were many
local and regional famines, caused by weather, drought, natural disasters, dis-
ease, population growth, and politics (see Jordan 1998 study on causes and
consequences). Moreover, in addition to famine, disease, weather, and crop fail-

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ure, poor food storage and fears about spoiled food or taboo food were ever-
present worries for some (for food fears, see Ferrières, ed., 2002).
Some nobles were accused of hoarding while peasants starved, particularly
in England in the fourteenth century. Food could be highly political indeed, as for
example when Philip of Valois passed the salt tax in mid-fourteenth-century
France, la gabelle, to finance his military that stayed in the books until 1946 (salt
was needed of course for meat preservation as well as flavoring and survival).
Although extreme hunger and even cannibalism appear in English chronicles
(Marvin 1998, 73–86), historian Christopher Dyer has shown that not all peasants
were starving in Medieval England, contrary to some views (Dyer 1998, 53–72).
Post plague years, there was a bounty of food available to many survivors in
Europe, and the late fourteenth-century saw a boom in culinary discourse, both
in literary texts and in the production of the first cookbooks.
III Food, Gluttony, Vice
Gluttony was a sin that even exemplified other sins. Throughout the Middle Ages,
in countless cautionary tales, such as those of St. Augustine’s Confessions and
Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale, in which pleasure in eating and over eating are viewed
as sinful (Prose 2003), as well as in various exempla, the Old French fabliaux,
courtly romances, theater, and beyond, gluttony was a ubiquitous thematic
literary preoccupation and apparently a real-life temptation for many who were
not living in poverty. Symbolic and religious aspects of food were of course
important in the Middle Ages (see Bynum 1987). Biblical references to food, food
imagery, and depictions of eating and fasting played an important role in the
Middle Ages, as Henisch shows (Henisch 1990, 3–6). Illustrated Books of Hours
often provide seasonal images of agriculture, crops, harvest, and food for each
month of the year and held religious meaning. Weekly religious fast and lean
days marked the calendar and cookbooks include fish, egg, and vegetable recipes
for fast days and for Lent. As for monastic eating habits, of course the Rule of
St. Benedict emphasized moderation in daily meals, often limited eating to two
simple meals per day, consisting of mostly vegetables, bread, cheese, eggs, and
some fruit and wine. Chaucer’s Monk, on the other hand, is a gluttonous monk,
who loves rich dishes like swan, and whose morality is judged by his excessive
diet (Biebel 1998, 17). Christian rules of conduct dictated fast days and dietary
restrictions as with meat and animal products often restricted for Lent (see
Henisch 1990 for a discussion of fast days and holidays).
All of the culinary manuscript collections cited here include meatless dish
recipes. Dietary laws distinguished Christians, Muslims, and Jews, since of course

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food was tied to religious and cultural identity as it still is. Pork was a major part
of the Christian diet in Medieval Europe, and many ways of preserving and
preparing pork or using pork fat appear in surviving cookbook compilations.
C Cookbooks and Cooking

From banquets and feasts to alms and meager sustenance, foodstuffs and diet
varied of course according to socio-economic status and region. A wide range of
foul, grains, vegetables, and legumes were especially popular in Western Europe,
as scholars have shown through looking at shopping lists, merchant records, and
cookbooks. The Roman cookbook by Apicius is the oldest surviving western cook-
book and medieval cookbooks share many similarities with it in form and content.
It was written and compiled in the late fourth century to fifth century and we have
an extant manuscript dating from ca. 900 in the Benedictine monastery of Fulda
in Germany (Grocok and Grainger, ed., 2006; and Milham, ed., 1969). Ancient
cooking had some influence on medieval cooking techniques and cookbooks
(Bober 1999). An overview of some of the most important extant medieval cook-
books shows that medieval cooking was varied and codified. The end of the
thirteenth century through late fourteenth century was marked by a vogue of
cookery books in Europe, particularly in France; however, “we shouldn’t think
that this flourishing of the cookbook genre in France indicates some sort of
spontaneous stirring of canny ingenuity among a handful of chefs. High standards
in cookery—to say nothing of the highly valued recipes themselves, undoubtedly
developed over many generations of apprenticeship. If nothing else, the sudden
appearance of this small array of cookbooks shows that the French themselves
now realized that good cookery was indeed a legitimate and worthy branch of
knowledge” (Scully and Scully, ed., 2002, 8). Well over 100 western European
culinary-related manuscripts dating from the mid to late fourteenth through
fifteenth centuries have been identified or edited and studied by scholars, and
especially notable are the three lengthy French culinary texts discussed below.
Specific quantities, techniques, temperatures, and cooking times strike today’s
cook as absent in many of the edited extant texts. Details are not lacking even if
quantities are. Culinary competence in techniques, methods, and quantities are
assumed. Taste, texture, color, and presentation are often mentioned, however.
In French, the earliest large compilations of recipes are extant in Du fait de
cuisine, in Le Viandier de Taillevant and the Ménagier de Paris. In France, Le
Viandier de Taillevant (The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of All Extant Manu-
scripts, ed. Scully, 1998; Le Viandier d’après l’Édition de 1486, ed. Hyman and
Hyman, 2003) is a roughly contemporary fourteenth-century recipe compilation (it

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has not been accurately dated, but the generally accepted dates are either ca. 1375
or ca. 1380–1381). Four extant copies of Le Viandier exist and copies were widely
circulated in the century to follow, with the first printed edition, enlarged with
recipes from other later anonymous cooks, and revised, appearing probably ca.
1490. French lengthy cookery book attributed to Taillevent, calling the author
Guillaume Tirel (born ca. 1310–1312 in Normandy, he became a court cook, then
chief cook for Charles V in 1373), though the veracity of this attribution remains
unclear. Tirel/Taillevent could be potentially seen as the first known figure of
celebrity chef, putting a name on his courtly culinary repertoire, and demonstrat-
ing a coherent style of cooking under this name. The term viande did not apply
only to meat as it does in modern French, but rather to food in general. It includes
many meat recipes, mostly slow-cooked, braised, and roasted, and many complex
and refined recipes including many costly spices and sauces. The variety and
diversity of ingredients is remarkable, as shown throughout Laurioux’s study on
the food of Taillevent’s time (Laurioux 1997). Fourteenth-century French literary
texts also echo some of the menus and recipes found in these roughly contempor-
ary cookbooks, such as in the poetry of Eustache Deschamps (1340–1406), which
includes descriptions of food and food imagery (Scully 1998, 248).
A combination of cookbook and conduct manual, the Le Ménagier de Paris,
dates from ca. 1393 (ed. Albertano and Renault 1846; 2011; and translated as The
Good Wife’s Guide, trans. Greco and Rose 2009). The Ménagier de Paris is a house-
hold manual and cookbook that includes a significant menu and recipes section in
the second part of the book (with a wide variety of recipes for soups, meat, poultry,
eggs, fish, sauces, pastries, sweets, fried foods, and more) as well as other specific
conjugal, behavioral, and home economics advice. Moderation and frugality are
notable characteristics throughout the food and household management sections.
It is written as a didactic manual, in verse and prose, from the point of view of a
middle-class husband who means to educate his young wife. Recipes appear more
as ingredient lists or shopping lists that assume some knowledge of a variety of
cooking techniques. Recipes are divided into main dishes, as well as those that
include spices or thickener, for example. There are also medicinal recipes with
herbal beverages and special soups for the ailing. Diet as medicine plays a major
role in medieval medical treatises, making some of them read like cookbooks.
The Ménagier includes a significant discussion of food, menus, and diet for
the sick. Particular spices that are popular in recipe books and medical manual
recipes are: ginger, black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and others. The
Ménagier offers a wide range of household advice interspersed with the recipes,
from how to thicken split pea soup to how to save money to suggested hobbies for
women in the home. This is more than a cookbook; it is a marriage conduct
manual. The Ménagier has much to tell us about fourteenth-century bourgeois

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lifestyle, from food preservation and preparation to gardening, shopping, and

entertaining (as Crossley-Hollande 2000 explores in detail).
Chiquart’s French cookbook from ca. 1420 (Du Fait de Cuisine, ed. Scully
2010) details cooking utensils and accessories, from cauldrons to cheese cloths,
gives multi-course meal menus for an aristocratic context, and gives recipes for
meat, fish, soup and cheese dishes and includes an extensive pastry section that
discusses techniques as well. The recipes include everything from peacock to
mutton, from whole pigs to pigeon, from eels to dolphin. Many basic recipes,
especially those for soups and sauces, echo the earlier Viandier and Ménagier. He
is very detailed about flavors and methods, more so than the Ménagier, reminding
cooks for example to periodically to check on the food, to taste the amount of salt,
to make sure it is not too sour or to add more wine to the broth, to verify the
correct color of the sauce, or how to neatly and appetizingly plate the dishes. He
also emphasizes clean pots and pans and culinary hygiene. The book addresses
seasonal recipes and availability of foods and discusses appropriate menus for
different occasions and social status of guests. Chiquart refers to cooking as both
an art and a science. Chiquart was cooking for Burgundian and Savoyard ban-
quets, on occasion for hundreds of people. Adamson notes that the cuisines of
medieval France varied greatly from north to south (Adamson, ed., 2002, xi);
Chiquart’s recipe collection contains recipes from several regions.
Other important French culinary manuscripts, slightly earlier, though not as
lengthy nor as well studied as Viandier, Ménagier, or Chiquart, are: Paris, Bib-
liothèque nationale, lat. 7131, fol. 94–99v, dating from ca. 1304–1314 and the early
fourteenth-century Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 9328, fol. 129–39v, contain-
ing the Tractatus de modo preparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria and the Liber de
Coquina (both ed. Mulon 1971; and Maier, ed., 2005).
In the German tradition, we have for example the Das Buch von guter Spiese
from ca. 1350, then for the next generation of cooks, ca. 1400 the Salzburg
Kochbuch, and later the widely disseminated Das Kochbuch des Meisters Eberhard
(ca. 1450), an extensive compilation of recipes and dietary or nutritional informa-
tion from the court of Bayern-Landshut. These manuscript cookery compilations
were followed by the early printed Küchenmeisterei (Nuremberg ca. 1492), as well
as by others appearing at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
century. Medieval German diet and cuisines were varied and had many foreign
influences and varied ingredients (Adamson 2002, 153–96).
As for Poland, Dembinska (1999) provides a historical view of Polish food,
based on the grocery shopping lists of medieval royal account books. A wide
variety of recipes includes for example: many grains, lentils, mustard sauce,
sauerkraut, game, fish, tripe, stews, trencher bread, as well as soups and baked
recipes with buckwheat, millet, oat, spelt, rye, and barley flours.

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486 Sarah Gordon
The most significant insular cookbook of this period is perhaps the English
The Forme of Cury, ‘cury,’ ‘curye,’ or ‘curry’ meaning ‘cookery’ here, a well-
circulated and often copied late fourteenth-century cookbook, composed ca. 1390
(Hieatt and Butler, ed., 1985), in which a later hand notes in the manuscript that it
was compiled in the reign of Richard II and presented subsequently to Elizabeth I.
The English Forme of Cury includes approximately 200 recipes, depending on the
manuscript version anywhere from 195–206 recipes, from main dishes to sauces,
which may have been prepared for the court of Richard II or by later cooks.
Cereals, grains, and porridges are plentiful in this collecton. For example the
recipe for frumenty (also spelled furmenty): “Nym clene Wete and bray it in a
morter wel that the holys gon al of and seyt yt til it breste and nym yt up and lat it
kele and nym fayre fresch broth and swete mylk of Almandys or swete mylk of
kyne and temper yt al and nym the yolkys of eyryn boyle it a lityl and set yt adoun
and messe yt forthe wyth fat venyson and fresh moton” (Pegge, ed., online 2014).
Several copies of the Forme of Cury exist with many variations and a great
influence on other cookbooks. Important culinary manuscripts in the fifteenth-
century English tradition are: Harleian ms. 279, Harleian ms. 4016, Ashmole ms.
1439, Laud ms. 553, and Douce ms. 55 (Renfrow, ed., 1991, and see Austin, ed.,
1964). Also notable is Sloane ms. 1986, the Liber Cure Corcorum (Morris, ed.,
1862), which includes a poem on cooking in rhymed verse, probably from North-
umbria, as an appendix to the “Boke of Curtasye,” in the Sloane culinary manu-
script. It includes many dishes under the rubrics of potages, broths, roasted
meats, backed meats, sauces, and others.
In the Iberian tradition, we have the ca. 1423 Arte Cisoria o tratado dell’arte de
cortar del Culchillo (De Villena 1984), a manual on food preparation. The Arte
Cisoria is about the art of carving and serving meat and other dishes at the table,
by an author better known for his literary works, Enrique de Villena. It was written
on behalf of Juan II of Castilla’s royal carver. This commissioned manual is not
only about carving also about table manners and table service and has much to
teach us about the relationships between food and identity. Both Spanish cook-
books above show some North African influence.
Roughly contemporary is the mid-fourteenth-century Catalan text of the Libre
Sent Soví cookbook, ca. 1430 (Santanach, ed., 2008). It is an upper-middle-class
cookbook that includes everyday and somewhat lavish special occasion dishes.
Medieval Catalonia had its own distinct culinary tradition that is still echoed in
Catalan kitchens today (as shown throughout Lladonosa i Giró 1984). In addition,
the ca. 1400 Libre de totes maneres de confits is a Catalan treatise on candymaking
(de Saint-Germain 1946, 105–21).
In the Arabic tradition, even earlier, we have the ca. 1243–1348 Fuǭālat-al-
Hiwan Fi Tayyibat al-Ta’am Wa-l-Alwan (Marìn, ed., 2007; The Delicacies of the

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Table and the Finest of Foods and Dishes), including a compilation of recipes
with both Maghrebi and Spanish dishes. There are at least two other roughly
contemporary manuscripts that contain recipes of this regional cooking in Arabic.
It is notable that some dishes in the Spanish and Catalan cookbooks above show
the influence of recipes from this earlier Arabic recipe tome (for more on Hispano-
Maghrebi cooking and influences in both directions, see the studies by Marín
2007 and Miranda 2010). There is also a tenth-century extant cookbook from
medieval Baghdad, Kitab al-Tabikh (Rodinson, Arberry, and Charles Perry, ed.,
1998), with versions dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and copies
in Istanbul and the British Library, including over 600 recipes that give insight
into medieval Islamic culinary traditions. There is a rich medieval culinary
literary tradition in Arabic as well (see Zaouali 2009, as well as Salloum, Salloum,
and Salloum-Elias 2013).
As the Middle Ages came to a close, the vogue of cookbooks continued in the
courts and bourgeois households especially in France and Italy. At the close of
the Middle Ages and beginning of the Italian early modern period is Maestro
Martino’s Libro de Arte Coquinaria, ca. 1465 (Ballerini, ed., 2005), written by a
well-known chef from Northern Italy (probably in or near Como or Milan, though
else little is known about him; see the review article by Jenkins 2007, 97), who
cooked in Rome and the Vatican. Cooking methods as well as kitchen manage-
ment and manners appear in the recipe collection, of which at least four copies
survive. He is known for his surprise and decorative specialty dishes, or mirabilia
gulae that included live birds, live fish, elaborate decorations, or even stuffed
peacocks spitting flames (Jenkins 2007, 102). Many more modest sauces, pasta,
and meat recipes, as well as some dishes demonstrating possible Spanish influ-
ence, are featured. For further investigation of medieval Italian food, see the
volume edited by Moudarres 2010, exploring food imagery in Dante, Boccaccio,
Michele Savonarola, and Catherine of Sien.
Of course, the less fortunate did not have access to cookbooks or the great
variety of foodstuffs described within (the sociological and agricultural study by
Birlouez 2009 shows how food and diet varied greatly by socio-economic groups).
These aristocratic and bourgeois cookbooks and household manuals give us
much insight into food availability, variety, culinary methods, and taste in this
period, helping scholars to better piece together the complex picture of daily life
in the Middle Ages.

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488 Sarah Gordon
Select Bibliography
Adamson, Melitta Weiss, Food in Medieval Times (Westport, CT, and London 2004).
Carlin, Martha and Joel T. Rosenthal, ed., Food and Eating in Medieval Europe (London and Rio
Grande, OH, 1998).
Gordon, Sarah, Culinary Comedy in Medieval French Literature (West Lafayette, IN, 2007).
Henisch, Bridget Ann, Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society (State College, PA, 1990).
Laurioux, Bruno, Manger au Moyen Âge: Pratiques et discours alimentaires en Europe XIVe et
XVe siècles (Paris 2006).
Redon, Odile, Françoise Sabban and Silvano Serventi, ed., The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from
France and Italy, trans. Edward Schneider (Paris 1991; Chicago 2000).
Scully, Terrence, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge 1995).
Woolgar, Chris M., D. Serjeanston and T. Waldron, ed., Food in Medieval England: Diet and
Nutrition (Oxford 2009).

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Charles W. Connell
Foreigners and Fear
“All the world is foreign soil to those whose native land should be heaven.”
(Hugh of St Victor, In Ecclesiasten Homiliae, 1961, 216 n. 84)
A Introduction
As is perhaps made most poignantly clear in the words of Hugh of St. Victor
quoted above, the entire physical world might be considered foreign in the Middle
Ages. Like many stereotypes of the medieval culture, however, that reduction
does not hold up so well under further scrutiny. Whereas in the modern world we
usually make more of a distinction between the “foreign” as either a strange
physical space or a person from another culture and/or religion, and the “other”
as something even more distant from our understanding, such as a conceived and
constructed other (devil, monster, ghost, etc.), or someone of a physical deformity
or different sexual orientation, the medieval world often made no such distinc-
tion. Yet, it is only in more recent years that the complexity of that medieval
notion has been more seriously considered by scholars. As Mary Campbell has
observed, the medieval world was “self-centered” and its “ethnocentricity is
reflected in the concentrically divided world of [its] maps and geographical
writings” (Campbell 1988, 65). The illustrations on medieval mappaemundi reveal
monstrosities placed at the far edges of the world, Jerusalem is dead center, and
Europe is in the inner circle.
The most inhabitable part of the world was depicted as the climate of the
northern Mediterranean, and the farther from “home” you went, “the more out-
landish, unheimlich, became the bodies and manners of men” (Campbell 1988,
65). Yet, even this limitation to the internal versus external boundaries of the
study of the foreign or the “Other” and the familiar are shifting. Perhaps receiving
its greatest impetus from the movement of modern medieval scholars to the study
of the “other” provided by such works as that of Edward Said, or the post-colonial
applications to the medieval outlined by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and other recent
scholars, the concept of both the “foreign” and the “other” has become more
prominent in the study of the medieval culture (Said 1978; Cohen 2000). This
essay will provide an overview of that study and also examine how the stereo-
typically expected reaction to both the foreign and the other, namely fear, has
been modified to show that the medieval response was much more complex. We

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490 Charles W. Connell
turn first to the evolution of the concept of the foreigner and its significance in
medieval culture.
B Foreign and Foreigner

In the attempt to better understand medieval portrayals of the foreign we rely
largely on various genres of medieval literature. David Tinsley, in his more recent
study of medieval German courtly literature, for example, examines the etymol-
ogy of the concept of the vremde and the connotations of its related word fremde
in the modern German, where it bears two connotations. The first is that of foreign
in the sense of place, or a difference in geography and culture, and the second
which bears a sense of the unconventional in appearance. He argues that both
connotations can be detected in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s (ca. 1170–1220)
Parzival (ca. 1205), wherein “foreignness” is “rooted in unconventional behaviors
usually associated with visits from foreign cultures and registered in the reactions
of the indigenous” (Tinsley 2002, 46; see also Krusche 1985; Wierlacher, ed., 1985;
Pochat 1997). Tinsley also points out that the Middle High German word “ellende”
connotes “persons who have been banned or exiled from their own society” and
thus must live in a “foreign culture,” and notes how this quality of the displaced
who become strangers in a strange land is explored in the character of Rüdiger of
Pöchlarn at the end of the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200; Tinsley 2002, 45). Overall,
Tinsley is concerned with the way this literature reflects on how identity is
explored in encounters with the foreign, and how “identity is born in the recurring
interaction of the individual, the social group, and the exemplar.” Thus, “notions
of the foreign are inevitably shaped by social expectations surrounding conduct,
dress, and obligation” (Tinsley 2002, 47; see also Haymes 1997). This dynamic
notion of the concept of the foreign also led the medieval world to include those
who violated social norms within society as being “foreign” based on subjective
notions of the social group. For example, as he points out, the nobility considered
commoners as foreigners, and peasants were little more than animals. As well, for
the clerics, “the laity constitute the ‘Other’; men proclaim their physical and
moral superiority to women; whereas in the cities foreignness comes to reside
ever more outside one’s particular guild or profession” (Tinsley, 2002, 48; Stråth,
ed., 2000; see also Phillips 1997; Reyerson 1997). Perhaps the most dominant
notion of the foreign, however, was the simple medieval conviction voiced in the
Song of Roland that “Pagans are wrong and Christians are right,” a principle that
stood at the base of the interface between Christians and non-Christians through-
out the Middle Ages (Strickland 2003, 157). Another interesting aspect of the role
of literature in defining the foreign in found in the relationship between the

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Foreigners and Fear 491
author and his audience. Wolfram, for example, adapted his romances based on
models from the Old French and a variety of other sources, but he had to prepare
his version for an audience familiar with the heroic epics and songs of the German
literature. So also the author of the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) had to blend the oral
heroic poems with the newly emerging norms of the courtly literature, which, in
Tinsley’s terms meant that the “act of authorship itself presupposed in the
thirteenth century intensive interaction with the foreign.” Thus, as Tinsley con-
cludes, both authors had to give “familiar shape to what was in essence, foreign
material” (Tinsley 2002, 48–49; cf. also The Nibelungenlied 1966; Das Nibelungen-
lied 1997; Wailes 1978; Lionarons 1998; Haymes 1994).
Albrecht Classen, in his introduction to Meeting the Foreign in the Middle
Ages, has provided further direction for those who wish to explore the foreign in
the Middle Ages. He first of all calls attention to the phenomenology of human
existence which demands definition and explanation as developed by Martin
Heidegger and Hubert Dreyfus. In essence, in Classen’s summary, “Without the
foreign there would be no familiar” (Classen, ed., 2002, xi; Dreyfus 1984). He
postulates that this modern concept can be applied to the Middle Ages even
though modern concepts of the self, personal identity, or “nationhood” were not
in place, because in the twelfth century we begin to see that “radical changes can
be observed in literature, the visual arts, politics, and religion” that suggest the
early emergence of such. In Classen’s words, “human existence and its develop-
ment over time is determined by a process of distinguishing the self from the
other” (Classen, ed., 2002, xii; cf. also Harris 1992; Hanning 1977; Benton 1982;
Bynum 1972; Patterson 1987).
Secondly, Classen reminds us how much of the visual arts, religion, and
politics in the Middle Ages were concerned with and reflected upon the opposi-
tion between self and the other. Whether that conflict was between Christian and
pagan, Jew, or Muslim, or between the human and the non-human, namely
monsters, the record is found in architectural gargoyles, manuscript illumina-
tions, tales in travelogues, and the accounts of miracles, myths, and legends.
Though Classen is cautious, he is positive in his assessment that: “It will remain
uncertain how far medieval artists, writers and travelers fully understood the
implications of the opposition between self and other, but they certainly observed
the distance and tried to come to terms with it in many ways” (Classen, ed., 2002,
xiii; see also Classen 1997; McKendrick 1996; Leonardi 1999; Camille 1992).
Contrary to the stereotypes of the Middle Ages as an age of intolerance, Classen
argues that during that era “the relationship between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ was
still a matter of complex and open-ended negotiations.” Classen does acknowl-
edge that this openness was declining by the late Middle Ages, when “the need
for self-identity and the establishment of nationhood … increased tremendously,”

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and that the decline involved the development of a “disturbing trend…to erect
race barriers, to discriminate against non-conformists, and to expel non-Chris-
tians.” By the end of the fifteenth century, as nations began to be more clearly
developing, “the monstrous became more commodified than ever and turned into
a topic of both public and private debates” (Classen, ed., 2002, xv).
Thirdly, Classen further opens the dialogue on the debate over the character-
ization of the Middle Ages as an age of intolerance in the context of defining the
“other” by focusing on the minority groups in medieval society, namely, Jews,
lepers, homosexuals, and heretics. It is clear that violence was prominent in the
Middle Ages, especially in times of stress from disease, famine, or external
invasion, and was often directed against the minority populations, but the mino-
rities were not the only ones to suffer from the perceptions of the other. As Classen
points out, “even the majority felt threatened by external forces, by unknown
elements of nature, and by the impact of myth on everyday life” (Classen, ed.,
2002, xvi; see also Nirenberg 1996).
Furthermore, Classen takes a more moderate position on the issue of rejection
and/or violence toward the foreign. Using such evidence as the travel narratives
of John of Mandeville and the Mappaemundi, Classen sees these as demonstra-
tions of how the medieval world was reflecting a “strong concern to use the other
simply as a catalyst to identify and characterize the self.” Though a modern sense
of “tolerance” was absent in the collective, “there were certain early indications
that some individuals espoused a remarkable open mind toward other cultures”
(Classen, ed., 2002, xvi; cf. also Flasch and Jeck, ed., 1997). Furthermore, heroic
epics (e.g., Beowulf and the Thidrekssaga) depict a conflict between heroes and
creatures from another world, and the courtly romances led knights on quests in
which they encountered worlds full of danger; all of which led to self-reflection.
In many cases, as Classen notes, the foreign creatures might point out the weak-
nesses or faults of the familiar society, or the monster creatures might even seem
to represent a “higher form of culture.” Kâlogrenant in Hartman von Aue’s (ca.
1160–ca. 1220) Iwein (ca. 1202), for example, encounters a “wild man” living in a
peaceful setting, which is in direct contrast with the knightly world of violence
and fighting which characterizes the court of King Arthur. Similarly, in other
romances, such as Tristan und Isolde or Parzival, the wilderness is depicted in a
dual fashion, sometimes as something to be feared, or in contrast, as something
more like a wooded refuge from a corrupt society (Classen, ed., 2002, xviii–xix;
Hasty 1990; Rider 2000; Yamamoto 2000).
In his extensive introduction to Meeting the Foreign, Classen calls attention to
several other ways in which the foreign was confronted in the medieval context.
Perhaps most simply, the differences among cultures, or the notion of the stran-
ger, or racial, cultural, or political differences are those we might most expect to

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find (Classen, ed., 2002, xxii; xxiv; xlv). However, Classen also draws upon the
work of scholars who are exploring the views of women toward the other, as well
as how the medieval men viewed women and their roles being depicted as often
“foreign” (Classen, ed., 2002, xxv–xxviii; xxv; cf. Oswald 2012). He points out that
much of medieval culture was defined as being in a liminal status, where the
foreign was often deemed attractive, and not to be feared, where the despicable
heathen was also an admirable warrior, or where heroes such as Gawain experi-
enced the “foreign” as they ventured out on their quests (Classen, ed., 2002, xxx;
xxxv–xxxix). The foreign other could be as concrete and to be feared as the
Viking, Magyar, Mongol or Saracen invaders, or as symbolic as the dangerous
mountains, mysterious monsters, or dark forests of the legends and myths which
found some origins in Scripture (Classen, ed., 2002, xlii; Connell 1973). It could
also be found in the visions and mystical experiences of those who sought to
connect directly with God. Thus, in those worlds the foreign could be Evil in the
form of the Devil or Good in the form of God (Classen, ed., 2002, xli–xlii).
Because the range of notions regarding the “foreign” was so broad, space
does not allow us here to review each in depth. Thus, we will focus on those
encounters which were most persistent, most prominent, and perhaps most
characteristic of the way the medieval world responded to the other.
I The Heretic as Foreigner
Focusing in particular on some of the most concrete experiences with the other,
the medieval experience with heretics and other perceived enemies of the Chris-
tian faith is exemplary. Although there are examples of religious toleration and
reaching out to the other by such individuals as Peter Abelard (1079–1142), Petrus
Alfonsi (ca.1062–ca. 1110), and John of Salisbury (ca. 1120–1180), the most con-
sistent and persistent reaction to heretics, Jews, and Muslims was ambiguous,
though regularly negative to the point of violence (Classen, ed., 2002, xxix; xxxii;
xliii; xlix–li). We turn first to examine the emergence of heresy.
Beginning in the eleventh century Christian Europe experienced an acceler-
ated contact with the foreign. As trade expanded and pilgrims multiplied, stories
of encounters with new cultures began to spread, ideas from the East began to
circulate, and eventually even began to challenge traditional Christian beliefs.
Malcolm Lambert reminds us, at the “beginning of the eleventh century, leading
churchmen in Western Europe had no living experience of heresy,” but by mid-
century they had come to know a new set of ideas supposedly influenced by the
teaching of a third-century Persian prophet known as Mani (ca. 216–276), whose
ideas became associated with the end of the world (Lambert 1999, 4–5). Raoul

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Glaber (ca. 985–ca. 1047), the Benedictine chronicler most associated with the
fears of the first millennium, stirred up fears of the developing sects of heretics in
southern France as adherents of the Devil. Similarly, Ademar of Chabannes (ca.
988–1034), another monastic chronicler residing at St. Martial of Limoges, wrote
in 1018 describing the alleged Manicheans of Aquitaine as messengers of Anti-
christ, whose major offense was that although they practiced asceticism, they
were really not what they seemed to be; that is, they really were secret practi-
tioners of vice (Lambert 1999, 5–6).
Without real knowledge of the teachings of these sects, the influence of
Augustine, who had an encounter with real Manicheans, even belonging to a
group for nine years before denouncing their Elect members for “secret vices,”
predominated as the eleventh-century revival of heresy was subsequently ac-
cused of such vices as magic, demonic possession, poison, seduction, orgies, and
physical contagion (Lambert 1999, 6–8). To combat these evils of the “other,” the
clergy had to steel themselves against “devilish deceit” with the sign of the cross,
and prayer, as well as daily communion in preparation for trying the heretics after
they were apprehended. In dealing with the heretics, the clergy early on had
accepted “ideas and preconceptions [of the foreign, that is, those who rejected
Christianity] from the past broadly dictating their views on heresy” (Lambert
1999, 8–9; Moore 1976; Fichtenau 1992; Grundmann 1927). However, in fact, the
heretics of the eleventh century were not Manicheans at all. Instead, they derived
impetus from “the religious and social history of their own age,” particularly with
the failed attempt at reform of widespread abuses by clergy and lay lords asso-
ciated with the Peace of God movement (Lambert 1999, 11–12).
By the twelfth century, however, significant heretical movements did arise
which attacked and threatened the ethical and hierarchical bases of the Church.
There were those accused of being Donatists, that is, did not believe that the
sacraments delivered by “evil-living” priests were valid, and others who attacked
the need for the clerical institution itself. Wandering preachers such as Robert of
Arbrissel (ca. 1045–1116) and Bernard of Tiron (ca. 1046–1117) caused suspicion as
they attracted crowds by calling for a return to the vita apostolica. Peter of Bruys
(fl. ca. 1117–d. 1131) questioned the mass and communion, and rejected the need
for church buildings or traditional forms of worship, especially the veneration of
the cross (Lambert 1999, 14–15). These developments are placed in the context of
significant social change in medieval society, especially that of the rise of the
urban economy, which occurred so rapidly that the Church had difficulty in
responding to this new form of the “foreign.”
Those charged with responding to heresy had great difficulty. First, they had
to pin down the nature of the heretical beliefs. The bishop of Soisson in 1114, for
example, found those whom he questioned about their beliefs to be responding

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quite like Christians. Some of the accused were found guilty by means of the
ordeal or confessed, but were not punished immediately. Confusion led to a
postponement of punishment of some of the accused, and, in one case, in the
temporary absence of the bishop to attend a regional synod, a local crowd broke
into the jail and burned the prisoners. Thus, violence became the popular method
of responding to the fear of the unknown, but the use of force in confronting the
foreign created a number of ongoing difficulties for the Church, including the
undermining of confidence in the hierarchy itself (Lambert 1999, 16–17; Moore
1984; 1975).
One of the most serious threats came at the hands of the Cathars, who became
prominent and widespread in the middle of the twelfth century. The visionary
abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) dated their appearance along the Rhine
to 1140, and upon reading the Apocalypse, even began to have visions about the
heretics. One of these recorded in 1163, reported that “the wicked works of men
which are blown out from the mouth of the black beast … [were] causing great
destruction” (Lambert 1999, 19), reflected a common way that the medieval world
dealt with the unknown by dehumanizing the “other” (Connell 2013). But char-
acterization did not lead to successful elimination of the threat. Ekbert, brother of
St. Elizabeth of Schönau, a friend of Hildegard’s, took the lead in responding to
Catharism in the Rhineland. In a series of sermons preached in 1163, Ekbert
expressed the dangers of the heresy. First, he once again erroneously demonized
its beliefs as Manichean and wrongly borrowed from Augustine to refute it. Yet,
he also correctly identified the heresy as having a set of beliefs that were likely to
outlast the idiosyncratic teachings of any one individual, and thus truly posed a
threat to the Christian faith (Lambert 1999, 19–20). The Cathars were foreign to the
traditional Roman Church, which they labeled the Church of Satan, but the
dualism of the Cathars in the division of its followers between the most com-
mitted, celibate, ascetic “elite,” and the ordinary members who remained in the
world and lived a simple life of marriage, children and a normal diet, does not
seem that far from the separation of clergy and laity in the traditional Roman
Church (Lambert 1999, 21). By attacking the traditional church at its ritual roots
and claiming to be more true to the apostolic church, the Cathars represented a
new kind of foreign threat, and perhaps most dangerous because it came from
within the culture of Christianity itself.
A strange twist in the struggle against heresy is found in the so-called
Albigensian Crusade, an attempt to eliminate the Cathars in Occitania that lasted
from 1209 to 1255. It is strange in several ways. First, because the geographical
region south of the Loire was “foreign” in many ways to the kings of France who
resided in Paris, yet it was those kings who intervened in the matters of the
inhabitants of that region upon receiving a call from Pope Innocent III in 1209 to

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crusade against the heretics. Influenced by the work of Frederic Cheyette, Sharon
Kinoshita portrays it as follows: “with Pope Innocent’s call; throughout Occitania,
nobles—heretics and good Christians alike—were about to find out what it meant
to have Normans, Frenchmen and other foreigners ‘in their house’” (Kinoshita
2006, 203; Cheyette 2001). The crusade was strange in a second way because the
crusaders took no mercy on even the orthodox inhabitants of the territory who
were merely tolerant of the Cathars. As the papal legate who accompanied the
first expedition is alleged to have said, “Kill them all; God will recognize his own”
(Kinoshita 2006, 203; Roquebert 1999; Sumption 1978). Following the success of
the early stages of the crusade, the invaders began to treat the conquered
territories as colonies by imposing northern customs and practices, which in turn
led to a broad-scale resistance by Occitanians to the northern “foreigners”
(Kinoshita 2006, 206). However, even appeals by the orthodox to the pope could
not overturn the destruction of feudal society in the region. Much of the early
turmoil caused by the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1255) is recorded in the anon-
ymous Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, but the courtly poets of Occitania
subsequently apparently gave up the fight and left for Iberia or the courts of
northern Italy, where in turn they experienced another form of “foreignness”
(Kinoshita 2006, 234–35; Huot 1984; Paterson 1993).
Similar to the Cathars in some ways were the Waldensians of southern France
who in the later twelfth century also challenged the notion of the hierarchical
church. Symbolic of changes in society which raised the level of the laity and the
importance of the masses which were not being reached spiritually by the clergy,
the Waldensians argued for lay preaching and the rights of women to be included
as preachers. Peter Waldo (ca. 1140–1218) of Lyons, who, according to Bernard
Gui (ca. 1260–1331) in his Manual for Inquisitors, began to preach poverty and
care for the poor in or about 1170. He later met with church hierarchs at the Third
Lateran Council (1179) to try to persuade the Church to soften its stance on
preaching by the laity. That effort was unsuccessful, and subsequently he was
formally condemned as a heretic at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
The Waldensian challenge to papal authority and its focus on the poverty of
the apostles as the best model of Christianity, reminds modern scholars of several
other issues regarding the way the Church dealt with the foreign within the
context of the medieval struggle with heresy. Perhaps most interesting is the way
the heretics were often depicted as illiterate, which was another way of distin-
guishing the “other,” especially as the laity began to challenge the clergy after the
year 1000. As Peter Biller describes the association, “the topos of the heretic as
illiterate,” is both early occurring and persistent throughout the Middle Ages.
Despite the explicit claim of St Augustine (354–430) in his On Heresies that heresy
originated in philosophic speculation, the tradition of the apostles as unlettered

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fishermen whose holiness created suspicion surrounding learning, led to subse-

quent confusion. Whereas earlier churchmen often ignored Augustine on this
point, and instead relied on Scripture to create images in the eleventh century of
the heretic as illiterate, namely “outside of the Latin ‘educated-world’” and thus a
foreign other, later churchmen had to come to grips with increasing literacy
among the laity which undermined the earlier image. Often, the complex nature
of that difficulty led to the creation of the notion of the heretical sect as consisting
of masters or teachers who were literate, and able to secure “diabolical assis-
tance,” which enabled them to seduce the simple or stupid masses of illiterates
(Biller and Hudson, ed., 1994, 1–3; see also Stock 1983). Despite the recognition of
more sophisticated heretics, as well as the rise of the vernacular languages in
various forms of literature, including the sermon, and the need to better educate
the clergy to deal with heresy, in the mid-thirteenth century the text by the
Anonymous of Passau still linked the theme to a division of social ranking and
power and sex: “every kind of man has our faith: philosophers, the illiterate, and
Princes; but only a few have the faith of the heretics, and these are only the poor,
workmen, women, and idiots [ydiote, i.e., the illiterate].” By the fourteenth
century there were still examples of the topos of the heretic as illiterate, but it was
no longer the predominant image (Biller and Hudson, ed., 1994, 4–5). By the time
we reach the age of the Lollards in fourteenth century England, “The attractive-
ness of heresy as a choice against orthodoxy is not necessarily conditioned by
literacy, but it may be assisted by it” (Swanson 1994, 290).
II The Saracen as Foreigner
The bibliography on the Western reaction to Islam and the development of the
derogatory term Saracen is enormous and growing. One might start with the work
of Richard Southern entitled Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (1962), and
continue with Norman Daniel’s work, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image
(1993), and then sample from various anthologies such as those edited by Maya
Shatzmiller on Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth Century-Syria (1993), and Mi-
chael Frassetto and David Blanks called Western Views of Islam in Medieval and
Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other (1999). Images of the Saracen in medie-
val Christian art have been analyzed more carefully and insightfully as well. This
has been brought to light in more comprehensive studies such as in The Gothic
Idol: Ideology and Image Making in Medieval Art (1989) by Michael Camille, and in
Saracens, Demons & Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (2003) by Debra Higgs
Strickland. More prominent individual views of Islam in the Middle Ages have
been portrayed in studies such as that of James Kritzeck in Peter the Venerable

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and Islam (1964). The ambiguity and more positive nature of the Saracen image
has been examined as well, beginning with such works as Norman Daniel’s
Heroes and Saracens: an Interpretation of the Chansons de Geste (1984), and
Robert Burns in Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia
(1984), and continuing most recently in the work of the authors featured in the
anthology edited by Albrecht Classen entitled Meeting the Foreign in the Middle
Ages (2002), and in his East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
(Classen, ed., 2013; see also Goetz 2013).
For the past twenty years or so, the work of John Tolan, including his more
comprehensive overview of a large representation of the studies prior to 2002
which bears the title, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination
(2002), offers a combination of bibliographical analysis and thought-provoking
interpretations to encourage ongoing examination and highlight where we have
come in this study of the Western reaction to the Muslims over the past forty to
fifty years. Tolan opens his broad-reaching study of the Saracens with a long
quote from a letter by Riccoldo of Monte Croce (ca. 1243–1320) bemoaning the Fall
of Acre in 1291. Riccoldo was both amazed and confused in his visit to Baghdad
where he viewed the splendor of the Saracen capital while at the same time
reflected on the loss of Acre (1291), the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land,
“What could be the cause of such massacre and such degradation of the Christian
people? Of so much world prosperity for the perfidious Saracen people?” For
Tolan, this statement “expresses all the ambivalence, the attraction and repul-
sion, that medieval Latin Christendom felt for the world of Islam” (Tolan 2002,
xiii). He subsequently details the evolution of the medieval reaction to the
Saracen as the “other,” beginning with first Christian encounters with the Muslim
world and tracing the development of that dynamic encounter through the
thirteenth century. The history of that experience is in many ways a microcosm of
the medieval Christian world’s reaction to the foreigner in general. As Tolan sums
it up, “Western attitudes toward Muslims and toward Arabs (terms that are often
poorly distinguished) are still problematic, still tinged with condescension and
mistrust, still rife with contradictions.” The same has been said about the Muslim
attitudes toward the Christians or Franks (terms often poorly distinguished in the
Middle Ages), especially in the Holy Land (Tolan 2002, xvii).
In portraying the evolving Christian perception of Islam, Tolan begins with
Isidore of Seville (ca. 540–636), who conflated human geography with human
history, and relied upon Scripture where Ishmael fathered twelve sons that
became identified with the twelve tribes of the Arabs. Thus, Ishmael, born of
Hagar and Abraham, bred the Ishmaelites, whose name became corrupted into
Saracens (Saraceni), but Isidore did not conflate Agarenes, Saracens, Ishmaelites
and Arabs together into interchangeable terms for the same people as did his

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contemporaries. For Isidore, the Arabs were foreigners in a distant place who
pierced their ears and were heretics who believed in reincarnation. On the other
hand, the Saracens “are so called, either because they claim to be born from
Sarah or because (as the pagans say) they are of Syrian origin” (Tolan 2002, 287 n.
25; Shaid 1984; Rotter 1986). Eusebius of Caearea (ca. 260–339) and other earlier
Eastern writers described the Arabs as ferocious warriors, and as “blood-thirsty
cannibals,” or as “robbers of Arabia,” or “wolves of Arabia” (Tolan 2002, 10–11;
Lamoreaux 1996). Regardless, those writing and living in Europe prior to the mid-
seventh century had little actual experience with the Arabs before or after they
became practitioners of Islam.
In contrast to the early Christian perceptions of the Saracen was the Muslim
view of Christians. Amidst the doctrine found in the Koran and the Hadith, as well
as other early Muslim texts, the “religious others,” in particular Christians and
Jews, were portrayed as “corrupt, superseded versions of the true religion, Islam;
their adherents were to be tolerated, but were not to be considered equal to
Muslims” (Tolan 2002, 21).
In the face of the reality of the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land and their
subsequent expansion as far West as Spain, Christians had to find new ways to
confront the foreign. Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580–662), for example, not even
aware of the new religion of Islam, wrote a letter from Alexandria in the 630s
labeling the newly Muslim invaders as “Jews and followers of Antichrist,” a
“barbarous nation of the desert,” consisting of “wild and untamed beasts” who
laid waste our civilization (Tolan 2002, 43). An anonymous author of the anti-
Jewish text, the Doctrine of Jacob Recently Baptized (634), saw the Arab invasions
as part of the apocalyptic drama of the final days of the creation as portrayed in
the Book of Daniel (Tolan 2002, 45).
Tolerated and given the option to convert to Islam, which occurred more
frequently with the passage of time, the defensive rhetorical response of Chris-
tians changed to one labeling the Muslims as heretics, which of course was the
worst kind of medieval Christian. John of Damascus (ca. 655–749) was among the
most influential of apologists and polemicists of the era who took up the cause.
Having played a role in the Umayyad (ruling Caliphate, ca. 661–750) government
in Damascus before he retired to write, John took a unique position regarding
Islam. He characterized it as not a new religion, but as the last of one hundred
heresies, “the religion of the Ishmaelites, which still dominates today, leading the
people astray, precursor of the Antichrist” (Tolan 2002, 51–52; Sahas 1972).
By the ninth century, when it was clear that the Muslims were not going
away, the apologists tried to provide Christians with an explanation for their
success in the context of Christian history. Theophanes (ca. 758–818) for exam-
ple, who compiled his Chronicle around 815, spoke of Muhammad (ca. 570–632)

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as a “leader and false prophet of the Saracens” who are the descendants of the
Ishmaelites. Theophanes further wrote that Muhammad had fooled the Jews into
thinking of him as their Messiah, and that Islam was a heresy composed of both
Jewish and Christian components. But he becomes less certain when trying to
explain why God allowed the Muslims to conquer so much of the known world.
Though he saw the conquests as having some part in God’s plan, he did not place
them directly into the Christian apocalyptic tradition (Tolan 2002, 64–66).
Continuing in their ignorance of the true Muslim beliefs, especially that of
Islamic monotheism, many Christian texts in Latin, French and other vernacular
languages portrayed the Saracens as pagans who paid homage to many gods and
demons. This propaganda became particularly rampant during the era of the First
and Second Crusades (1095–1148). Earlier, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (ca. 935–
1002) had claimed that the Muslims “inflicted the death penalty on anyone who
blasphemed the gods they made of gold” (Tolan 2002, 106). She also provided an
example by telling the story of a Saracen king (allegedly Abd al-Rahman III,
912–961) who “stained with bodily lust,” attempted to seduce a Christian boy
named Pelagius, who rejected the king and was eventually decapitated for insult-
ing the king and blaspheming the pagan gods he worshipped. As the first Latin
author to describe Saracen paganism in such lurid detail, Hrotsvit became a
model for later chroniclers of the crusades. The Chronicles of the Archbishops of
Salzburg tell the story of Archbishop Thiemo who was killed during the latter
stages of the First Crusade (1097–1099). Thiemo was accompanying a group of
pilgrims, which was captured by a band of Saracen warriors, who were angered
by the success of the Christians and so took vengeance on unarmed pilgrims.
While a captive, Thiemo, who was also a trained goldsmith, was asked to repair
an idol made of gold. When he smashed it instead, and subsequently responded
to the charge of blasphemy by warning the leader of this group of Saracens to
desist from worshipping obscene idols, he was martyred in a brutal manner,
including the cutting off of his limbs and the drinking of his blood. As Tolan sums
it up, while not so lurid in detail, other chroniclers did not contradict this hostile
picture of the Saracens (Tolan 2002, 108–09; Tolan 1999; Flori 1992; 1995; 1997;
Loutchitskaja 1996; 1999).
Other chronicles of the First Crusade where Saracen paganism plays a central
role include those of Petrus Tudebodus (fl. ca. 1080–ca. 1120), and Raymond
d’Aguilers (d. ca. 1100?). It is also key to the drama of the Chanson d’Antioche (ca.
1180), a collection of poems inspired by the various crusading events from 1097–
1099. The poets and chroniclers were clever in stirring up the emotions of their
Christian readers by creating fictions of scenes wherein a supposed pagan Sar-
acen, such as the alleged ruler of Jerusalem at its capture, would bemoan to the
pagan gods the losses of territory to the “power of the crucifix,” or report the

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discovery of a silver idol of Muhammad in the temple of Solomon, where d’Agui-

lers described knights riding in blood up to their knees as they captured Jerusalem
(Tolan 2002, 118–19). In the Christian mind, the temple of Solomon was the center
of a cult, the cult of Muhammad, and the idolatry of that temple was portrayed as
a form of “pollution” of the holy city by the pagan followers of that cult (Tolan
2002, 120; Camille 1989; Cole 1993).
Even though the crusaders who settled in the Holy Land after the First
Crusade (1097–1099) learned that Muslims were not polytheists, that false percep-
tion did not disappear in either the Chansons de Geste or the chronicles of the later
crusades. Perhaps most influential in the West was the Chanson de Roland (ca.
1100; Tolan 2002, 105; 312 n. 1, uses Chanson de Roland 1990; Chanson de Roland
(The Song of Roland) 1978), which depicts the Saracens as pagans worshipping a
triad of gods, including Muhammad himself as one of them (Tolan 2002, 125;
Kedar 1984; Dufournet 1987; Bervoc-Huard 1978; Haidu 1993). Also important was
the Chanson d’Antioche (ca. 1100), which as Tolan describes it, made “the Crusade
central to Christian eschatology by having Christ himself predict it,” when, at the
time of his crucifixion, He speaks to the good thief to predict the future arrival of
the crusaders (Franks specifically) to free the Holy Land and eliminate paganism.
Since the Romans were the original pagans in this narrative, it became necessary
to replace them with the Saracens as the target for avenging the death of Christ:
“The crusaders’ historical model was the capture of Jerusalem by the Roman
Emperor Titus, in revenge (as was commonly believed in the Middle Ages) for the
killing of Jesus” (Tolan 2002, 121). Thus, medieval architecture picked up on this
theme, as in the church of Moissac, wherein the porch was modeled on Titus’s
triumphal arch to symbolize the successful recapture of Jerusalem by the crusa-
ders (Seidel 1986). The image of the Saracen foreigner as the pagan became so
pervasive that even the ancient Greco-Roman pagans were referred to as “Sara-
cens” who “worship Mahomet,” and many pagan idols became referred to by the
name of Muhammad or some other corrupt form (e.g., Mahomet, Mahon, Mahoun,
Mawmet). This stereotype of the Saracen as pagan prevailed well beyond the era
of the initial crusades to the Holy Land. The Hereford map of the thirteenth
century labels the golden calf worshipped by the Israelites during the exodus as a
“Mahom;” the Decreta of the Council of Vienne (1311) accused the Saracens of
worshipping Muhammad; and, even English plays of the fourteenth century took
great liberties in declaring that the ancients Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar,
and Pontius Pilate all acknowledged “Mahound” in some way (Tolan 2002,
126–27; Bancourt 1982; Daniel 1984; Keller 1987; Camille 1989; Metlitzki 1977).
The dynamic interplay of Christian and Saracen in the Middle Ages often led
to the simultaneous projection of different images. This was true in the twelfth
century, for example, where in contrast to the persistent picture of the Saracen as

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the archetypical pagan, there was the conflicting notion of the Saracen as heretic.
Four Latin polemics of that era, for example, portray Muhammad as heretic,
trickster, and magician (Tolan 2002, 137). Embrico of Mainz (Vita Mahumeti,
written ca. 1100), Gautier de Compiègne (De otia machometi, ca. 1155), Adelphus
(Vita Machometi, ca. early twelfth century), and Guibert of Nogent (ca. 1055–1124;
brief biography of Muhammad in his Gesta) all combine a mix of real knowledge
of Islam with numerous popular images of the prophet to reflect a growing
curiosity about the man and his religion (Tolan 1996b, 2012). The significance of
these works, according to Tolan, is that although they borrow from earlier Eastern
and Latin texts that describe Muhammad as a heretic, they go far beyond in
creating a view of him as a scoundrel who fools the Saracens through trickery of
various sorts.
At least three of these four authors openly demonstrate that they are taking
much of their opinions from popular vulgar legend, and though “they distance
themselves from their material … they exploit its potential to defame the Saracen
enemy” (Tolan 2002, 139). In the context of heresy and reform within Europe of
the twelfth century, these four accounts show how one needs to define the other
in order to come to grips with one’s self. As Tolan briefs the views of Guibert, for
example, “Orientals are clever, flighty intellectuals whose brilliant circumlocu-
tions carry them off into heresy, contrasted implicitly to the stodgy, earthbound,
authority-respecting Latins. Is it any wonder, Guibert continues, that virtually all
the heresiarchs were Orientals, from Mani (216–276 C.E.) and Arius (256–336 C.E.)
forward?” (Tolan 2002, 145)
One might expect those Christians living together with Muslims, as in Spain,
to have a more enlightened view of Islam. Yet, the turmoil of reconquista meant
that there was a constant migration of Christians and Muslims moving north
and south across the peninsula as the Christians pushed further south to
reconquer Muslim-held territories throughout the later Middle Ages (Burns
1999). As a result, a number of polemical and apologetic works were produced
by Judaic, Christian, and Islamic authors. All were trying to confront the “other”
in their own ways, but the Christian authors for the most part continued to paint
the Muslims as heretics. Muhammad was a false prophet; the Koran was
illogical; polygamy and the promise of sexual pleasure in heaven were a joke;
whereas the Bible was truth.
What was new perhaps in these treatises was their demonstrated familiarity
with Arab science, and with the approaches of Latin theologians such as Hugh of
St Victor (ca. 1096–1141) and Peter Abelard (1079–1142) using the “new logic” to
construct their arguments. Petrus Alfonsi (ca. 1062–ca. 1110) perhaps best illus-
trates this approach in crafting his anti-Muslim polemic as part of his Dialogues
against the Jews, wherein Alfonsi characterizes Muhammad as a false prophet

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who is violent, lustful (the latter being a sign of his lacking in the signs of a true
prophet), and the Islamic rituals and beliefs as merely a collection of confused,
heretical Christian practices (Tolan 2002, 150). Alfonsi was widely read in the
Middle Ages, and his ideas apparently had some influence on Peter the Venerable
(ca. 1092–1156), the abbot of Cluny, who used Alfonsi’s anti-Muslim tract to
compose his own treatises against both the Muslims and the Jews in the 1140s and
1150s (Tolan 2002, 155; Tolan 1993). Though the abbot’s approach was ultimately
more analytical and careful (he traveled to Spain and had the Koran translated
into Latin, for example), his first response to his more direct encounter with Islam
was to compose his Summa totius haeresis ac diabolicae sectae Saracenorum siue
Hismahelitarum. Therein he saw his purpose to prepare Christians to understand
Muhammad and what he taught before they read the new edition of the Koran in
Latin. In this tract, however, he still concluded that Muhammad was “a poor, vile,
unlettered Arab” who went on to deceive others by claiming a religious vocation
that led to his role as prophet, and eventually to his partnering with a heretical
Nestorian monk and several Jews to establish a new heretical doctrine of his own
(Tolan 2002, 157; Tolan 1998; Kritzeck 1964). In around 1156, he later wrote a more
reasoned treatise (Contra sectam siue haeresim Saracenorum) in order to plead
with potential Muslim readers to hear him out and to convince them to accept
Christian scripture. In book two of this work, he tries to prove logically that
Muhammad was not really a prophet by comparing him disfavorably with the Old
Testament prophets (Tolan 2002, 159).
Tolan presents a succinct overview of the European reaction to the Muslim
other from the ninth through the twelfth century in these words: “Islam [was] a
new variety of … pagan idolatry, heresy, the cult of Antichrist, or a confused blend
of all of these” (Tolan 2002, 171). He goes on to describe how the writers in the
thirteenth century used this base to propagandize the reconquista in Spain or to
try to launch a new crusade to the Holy land. However, the rhetoric took two
directions in the later period. First, there was the overreaching militant crusading
optimism that ultimate victory over Islam could still be obtained through force.
Second, others began to conceive that peaceful missionary work could better lead
to ultimate victory through conversion of all of Islam to Christianity. The mission-
ary advocates changed the rhetorical strategy to portray the Islamic world as
“ready to convert to Christianity given a proper mix of political allegiance and
rational argumentation” (Tolan 2002, 172). Interestingly, the ambivalence of the
Western perspective appeared in the way the primary missionaries, the Francis-
cans and Dominicans, adopted different approaches to engage the Muslims. The
Franciscans decided not to learn the Arabic language or study the Koran; instead
they relied on the model of preaching apostolic poverty. On the other hand, the
Dominicans took a more organized and planful approach which included the

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study of Arabic, engagement with both the Koran and the Hadith, and direct
theological debate with Muslim scholars.
Ultimately, neither the militant nor the missionary approach succeeded. The
last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell in 1291 with the capture of Acre,
and as Tolan concludes, by the fourteenth-century Christian protagonists, such as
Riccoldo of Monte Croce (ca. 1243–1320), had decided to revert to portraying
“Muslims as illogical, invariably hostile enemies.” Thus, they were no longer
considering the possibility of even logically demonstrating that Christianity was
superior to the Islamic other (Tolan 2002, 173).
III The Jew as Foreigner
Very similar to the ambiguity of the Saracen image, was the everchanging Chris-
tian view of the Jew as an “other” to confront throughout the Middle Ages. For
example, Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) in his treatise Against the Jews presented
a picture of Jewish culture that was more based on his “reading of Jerome rather
than on any contact with real Jews.” He chastised them for not converting,
accusing them of being illogical and stubborn, and thus saw them as a threat to
his constructed narrative of the ultimate triumph of Christianity. In the mind of
Isidore, since the Visigothic Arians had been converted the only remaining threat
to Christianity was the infidel Jews (Tolan 2002, 15–16; Albert 1982). The reflection
of such Christian attitudes toward Jews in later attitudes toward Islam ironically
had a parallel in Jewish attitudes toward Christianity. For example, some Jewish
polemics refer to Jesus as a magician who led Israel astray, and passages in the
Talmud also present Jesus as suffering in hell for having mocked the Jewish
prophets (Tolan 2002, 16; Green 1985). As a minority struggling to preserve its
religious traditions, the Jews took to an aggressive defense, even to the point of
liturgical condemnations of the Christians as heretics (minim) (Tolan 2002, 16;
Green 1985).
Of course, the Jews were foreign to the Muslims as well, and the Muslims were
not consistent in their portrayal of or in their attitude toward the Jews (Tolan
2002, 33). On the one hand, the Jews were afforded a place in Heaven as “people
of the Book,” but, on the other hand, were accused of misinterpreting that same
scripture to deny the prophethood of Muhammad or the antiquity of Islam (Tolan
2002, 33–34). However, for the Muslim in the seventh-century Islamic capital of
Damascus, the proof of superiority was found in the conquest of both Christians
and Jews. As Tolan summarizes it, “Their weakness and submission were appro-
priate to their inferior, secondary status in the eyes of God” (Tolan 2002, 39; see
also M. Cohen 1994; Chazan 1996).

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We have a problem sorting out the medieval perception of the Jew because, in
the words of Debra Strickland, “It is far more difficult to draw a line between the
actual and the fantastic during the Middle Ages given that constructed views of
living non-Christians were nearly entirely stereotyped and imaginary. Contempor-
ary descriptions of Jews illustrate this very clearly.” Thus, she concludes that
medieval views of the Jews could be seen in the extreme as the “embodiment of
everything medieval Christians dreaded and feared about themselves, their so-
ciety, and their own religion (Strickland 2003, 95). Jean Delumeau, in writing a
history of late medieval and early modern fear, devotes a chapter to the Jews as
one of the agents of Satan, wherein the Jew is often portrayed as the “absolute
Evil” to be feared (Delumeau 1978, ch. 9).
However, more recent scholarship does enable us to determine that not all
medieval views of the Jews were negative. Especially from the twelfth century
forward, at least in northern Europe, images were sometimes neutral, sometimes
positive, as in the exegesis of the Old Testament. For example, the role of David as
model king, or the illustration of the genealogy of Christ as part of the Tree of
Jesse with roots in the Old Testament, offer samples of the positive role played by
the Jews in Christian thought (Strickland 2003, 97–98; Shapiro 1960; Wright 1993;
Hourihane 2002).
Unfortunately, there is more evidence on the negative side of this perception,
and the work of such individuals as Bernhard Blumenkranz and Ruth Mellinkoff
provide insight as to the breadth of medieval anti-Jewish images. Cecil Roth early
in the twentieth century argued that the Jews were so detested because not only
were they “non-Christians,” but they “deliberately rejected Christianity, and they
did so with authority,” an explanation that still bears consideration according to
Strickland (Strickland 2003, 96; see also Roth 1938; Blumenkranz 1965; 1966;
1980; Mellinkoff 1993; 1999; Stow 1992: Rubin 1999). The image of the Jews as the
enemies of Christ came from the New Testament because Jews were too stubborn
to recognize Christ as the Messiah. Peter the Venerable called them out on this in
his Against the Inveterate Obstinacy of the Jews (Against the Jews, in brief). Alter-
natively, and again as verified in the New Testament in passages from Luke 23:21,
the Jews were said to cry out to Pontius Pilate: “crucify him!” Thus, the Jews,
instead of the Romans who were carefully often edited out of the medieval
versions of this text, became known as “Christ-killers.” As Jeremy Cohen has
pointed out, this tradition was one that persisted throughout the Middle Ages
from the time of Augustine to that of the late medieval friars (Strickland 2003, 99;
J. Cohen 1982a; 1983; Blumenkranz 1958; Fredriksen 1996).
In contrast to a tendency to want to slay the Jews in revenge for Christ’s death,
there was the goal to convert them in order that they play their assigned role in
Christian eschatology. Using St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans (Rom. 11:16–27) as

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evidence, it was believed that the Jews must remain alive because their mass
conversion was necessary to initiate the Second Coming of Christ. Another later
medieval mystic and prophet, Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202), who believed in
the nearness of that Second Coming, wrote in his treatise Against the Jews, that
“the time is at hand to take pity on them, the time of their consolation and
conversion” (Strickland 2003, 99–100; Hirsch-Reich 1966; Bloomfield 1957; Re-
eves 1969). Even earlier, the Third Lateran Council (1179) had encouraged the
support of Jews for the sake of humanity; and later in thirteenth century, Thomas
Aquinas argued for toleration of the Jews since they played an important role in
history and in Christian theology (Classen, ed., 2002, xliii–xliv). However, as
Leonard Glick argues, the justifications for toleration were not always humanitar-
ian: “the reason for their survival…was that they were useful—often all but
indispensable—as sources of liquid capital. But once that usefulness, declined,
they were doomed” (Glick 1999; see also Classen, ed., 2002, lxviii, n. 168; Hood
1995).
Though Glick’s pessimistic view is somewhat offset by more recent research,
the pogroms that accompanied the organization of the army for the First Crusade,
or the expulsion of Jews from England in the late thirteenth century, should not
be overlooked in trying to strike a balanced view of how the Christians treated the
Jews as others” (Classen, ed., 2002, xliii–xliv; Yerushalmi 1979; Classen 1998;
J. Cohen 1996). One cannot avoid the question of “usefulness” that Glick raises.
The official Christian doctrine saw too much profit from the loaning of money
(i.e., usury) as sinful and therefore forbidden by the Church, which put the Jews
in an enviable economic position in the rising urban world of the later Middle
Ages. Even though the Jews also regarded “immoderate profit” as wrong, they
believed it was permissible to loan money at interest to “foreigners.” Of course
this bred resentment among the Christians, and in the subsequent twelfth- and
thirteenth-century persecutions it is possible to determine that they were under-
taken to relieve Christian debtors from paying their Jewish creditors. This was
certainly true at York in 1190, and likely so in England overall in 1290 (Strickland
2003, 140; Kirschenbaum 1985; Jordan 1989; Lipton 1995; Stacey 1992).
Debra Strickland has called attention to the degree to which art played a role
in attacking the Jews in the Middle Ages, and has accumulated a significant
collection of examples to demonstrate how art was both powerful propaganda
and played an important role in what she labels “a much broader, multifaceted
campaign that employed pictorial, literary, dramatic, legal, economic and politi-
cal mechanisms to suppress and to persecute Jews within Western Christian
society.” Persecution and physical expulsion from England came in 1290; from
France in 1306, and again in 1332 and 1394; from Spain in 1492; and from dozens
of German principalities and towns during the fifteenth century, as well as Italy in

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1541. The campaign was so effective that “By the fifteenth century, there were
almost no Jews in Western Europe” (Strickland 2003, 105).
The art of the era contributed the stereotypical male Jewish icon, portrayed as
bearded, hook-nosed, and hat-wearing. The medieval Jewish “hat” was usually
either the softer flatter Phrygian cap, or a more pointed tall hat with the most
exaggerated forms looking like an inverted funnel, the modern “dunce’s cap.”
Though it is not likely that the Jews in fact wore distinguished costumes before
the Lateran Council of 1215, which required both Jews and Muslims to wear a form
of dress to distinguish them from Christians, the fact is that in the thirteenth
century the “foreignness” of the Jew was emphasized (Strickland 2003, 105–06).
Though the wearing of a hat per se was not necessarily negative or confined to
Jewish figures, it was often perceived as a sign of evil regardless of the wearer.
Even familiar Old Testament figures such as Moses took on some negative
connotations for the Jews when depicted in medieval art.
In a register from the thirteenth-century French manuscript of the Somme le
roy (Dream of the King), “a horned Moses receiving the tablets of the Law kneels
opposite the image of a blind-folded Synagoga grasping her broken staff,” and
below in another frame, the Israelites are shown worshipping an image of the
Golden Calf (Exod. 32:1–6, 3 Kings 28–30), suggesting an affiliation of Moses with
idolatry. Often, Moses was portrayed as having horns, which for medieval theolo-
gians were construed as symbols of honor and power, but for the average
medieval viewer horns were more likely seen as derisive, especially since one of
the more common views was that contemporary Jews concealed horns and tails
beneath their clothing (Strickland 2002, 106; Mellinkoff 1970).
The pejorative views of the Jews began to become prominent in northern
Europe from the late twelfth century as Jewish-Christian relations really deterio-
rated. Jews were burned in London in 1189, for example, and a massacre of Jews
occurred in York in 1190 (Jones and Watson, ed., 2013; see also, Alexander, ed.,
2004, and Bale 2010). Increased settlement of Jews in the urban areas of England,
France, and Germany was a likely cause for increased conflict (see, for example,
Auslander 2005). Artistic productions bear witness to the transformation, where
the number one theme became the belief that the Jews murdered Christ, which
provided an opportunity to fan the fires of Christian hatred because of the
perceived evil and guilt of the Jews in the Passion. Thus, Christians regularly
assumed the Jews to be agents of the Devil, and assigned them to prominent
places in Hell in the medieval Christian iconography, as illustrated in the Bible
moralisée, which dates from Paris in the 1240s (illustration in Strickland 2003,
126; see also Lipton 1999; Trachtenberg 1993).
In the anthology of work collected and edited by Scott Waugh and Peter Diehl
under the title Christendom and its Discontents, various authors address the

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question of how religion shaped both personal identity and the culture (Waugh
and Diehl, ed., 1996, 5). Drawing upon Freud’s notion that constraints on indivi-
dual behavior in a civilized society often lead to “neuroses and unresolved
conflicts among individuals in that society” (Freud 1961; Waugh and Diehl, ed.,
1996, 3), various authors therein explore how often medieval society dealt with
conflict with the other by excluding individuals or groups from society, and how
obedience became the test of inclusion or not. As well, studies by R. I. Moore,
Jeffrey Russell, and John Boswell all confront related issues regarding the sys-
tematic condemnation of a wide range of “others” in medieval society, especially
Muslims and Jews, but also heretics, lepers, male homosexuals and female
prostitutes, and conclude that there is a linkage between these actions and the
neuroses and fears of the dominant culture (Moore 1987; Russell 1992; Boswell
1980; Waugh and Diehl, ed., 1996, 3–8).
Close to the alleged role of the Jews in the Passion was the accusation of
ongoing idolatry, and the two portrayals are seen in manuscripts, stained glass,
and other forms of artistic representation. Color, particularly yellow and red,
played a key role in denigration of the Jews. In certain regions the Jews were
forced to wear the yellow badge; the funnel hat was usually yellow, the Phrygian
cap red or yellow; the stockings were red; the skin usually dark. Red and black or
dark are symbols of evil or criminality; yellow was used because it stood out in a
crowd, thus distinguishing the foreigner. Gold was also used as a way to empha-
size the timeless nature of an event being depicted, which thus linked the Jews of
the Passion itself to their guilty ancestors in the contemporary world (Strickland
2003, 109–11; Kisch 1957; Petzold 1999).
One further illustration of artistic anti-Judaism is found in the prominent role
played by the drama of the Apocalypse that is especially true in English illumi-
nated manuscripts of the thirteenth century. Perhaps the most famous of these for
its strong bias is the Gulbenkian Apocalypse of around 1260–1270, which contains
a direct anti-Jewish commentary that claims that the Jews worshipped dragons
and were followers of Antichrist who is depicted as a Jew. In this manuscript
traditional figures of the Apocalypse are replaced by Jews, including one or more
of the Four Horsemen. Therein, the pointed hat, the veil of Moses in the form of a
cowl, and other symbols of Jewishness are used to heighten its “unusual virulent
anti-Jewish imagery,” as noted by the work of Suzanne Lewis in her examination
of the manuscript (Strickland 2003, 130; Lewis 1986).
In many ways the Jews were ‘classic’ foreigners in the medieval world
because they were perceived as barbarians, monsters, ethnically different, and
sometimes even viewed as fools (the latter for having failed to convert to Chris-
tianity) (Strickland 2003, 133–40). As in Greek times, where the barbarian was
anyone whose physical appearance and social customs differed, in the Christian

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medieval world Jews were “different.” They lived in different sections of the cities,
they ate a strange diet (no pork); the spoke a different language (Hebrew) from
either the vernacular or the Latin; and they were sexually licentious. Moreover,
they were physically deformed (males were circumcised), they had a foul odor,
they concealed tails and horns under their clothing, and they followed an alien
religion! (Strickland 2003, 133; Hood 1995). Unfortunately the anti-Jewish polemic
became more and more organized and stereotyped as the image of the Jew
deteriorated with the increasing Jewish settlement within the urban centers of
later medieval life. By the middle of the twelfth century, the Jews were resented
because of the increased visibility of their economic activity, and because of the
way they were treated positively by the Christian authorities who supported
Jewish money-lending. After their persecution in northern Europe that occurred
in the context of recruitment for the First Crusade, the image of the Jew as an
“enemy of the faith” was enhanced in the public imagination leading up to the
expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 (Funkenstein 1971; Chazan 1996;
1997; J. Cohen 1982a; ed., 1996; Foa 1996; Mirrer 1996; Despres 1998; Lipton 1999).
With the approach of the fifteenth century in England, for example, this “differ-
entness” became further accentuated when a sense of identity became more
based upon a national sense of geographic place, and later, in the case of
Shakespeare, with a sense of “Englishness” (Shapiro 1996; Lampert 2004).
Regarding the connection between a sense of geographic space and one’s
identity in the Middle Ages, David Leshock undertook a closer examination of two
medieval texts that in his view began to exclude both Jews and Muslims from any
legitimate place within either “England” or “Europe.” In his article regarding how
Jews and Muslims became designated specifically as “foreigners,” Leshock uses
the Hereford mappaemundi and The Book of John Mandeville to show how in “a
Christian-centered world, identity is connected with religion,” but in these two
texts it is also connected with geographic space. Thus, he argues further that:
“These two texts in particular show the ways that both geography and religion
can influence the construction of identity, and thereby determine what is ‘foreign’
” (Leshock 2002, 202). It is clear to Leshock that religion “trumps geographic
proximity” regarding those who belong and those who do not. However, in
expelling the Jews, Leshock also avers that this was an act of “medieval national-
ism” supported by the idea that “many people felt that foreign people inhabited
their land” (Leshock 2002, 203, emphasis his). He cites in support of contempor-
ary ideas related to this concept the chronicler Pierre de Langtoft (d. 1305), who
stated “there is nobody who opposes it / To expel the Jews” (Leshock 2002, 203).
His focus on the two main texts ultimately leads him to point out how the
Hereford map, for example, “erased Jews from Europe and placed them in Asia,”
while Mandeville claimed that “only the enclosure of Gog and Magog is the true

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home of Jews until they emerge during the Apocalypse” (Leshock 2002, 220).
Thus, in the sense of constructed communities as defined by the work of Benedict
Anderson and Nelson Goodman, Leshock argues that a geographical location did
not define a community for Jews or Muslims who might be residing in medieval
England, that is, “Those who do not meet further requirements could be defined
as foreigners in their own homeland” (Leshock 2002, 221; Anderson 1991; Good-
man 1978; Westrem 2001; see also the contributions to this Handbook by Mir-
iamne Krummel and Mark Abate).
IV Death and the Ultimate Confrontation of God as the Foreign
Returning to the theme of the other as the mirror image of the self, there is one
other persistent confrontation with the “other” in medieval life, namely the hu-
man challenge to understand God. To Saint Anselm (1033–1109), “God is radically
other, dwelling in ‘light inaccessible,’ eluding our senses and our understanding
alike” (Clayton 1998; Classen, ed., 2002, xli). Similarly, it has been argued that
Beowulf’s encounters with Grendel and Grendel’s mother in the cave under the
sea, Gawain’s journey confronting his sense of self in the wood, or Dante’s meet-
ing with death in The Divine Comedy while in the “midway journey of life” can all
be seen as necessary and positive ways of confronting the divine other. In a
related way, attempts to face up to death might have led to encounters with
revenants, that is, the ghosts who inhabited regions beyond the known world, but
returned to help the living. Aline Hornaday argues, “that sometimes unwelcome
and intrusive third [party] was an ideal self which both the living percipient and
the ‘undead’ ghost needed to internalize in order to enter the heavenly world, the
‘celestial fatherland’ as Gregory the Great calls it” (Hornaday 2002, 71). Thus,
overall, as observed by Charles Dahlberg, “unlikeness is a part of likeness, that
unlikeness exists only as a consequence of man’s likeness to God” (quoted in
Classen, ed., 2002, xli; Dahlberg 1988). The later medieval mystics, such as
Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–1329) and Mechthild von Magdeburg (ca. 1208–1282/
1297), pursued this quest to the ultimate, believing and hoping, as Classen states
in his prelude to Anselm’s remark above: “To witness God would indeed be to
witness the final otherness” (Classen, ed., 2002, xli).
Other recent scholarship has turned even more attention to exploring how
modern analysis of the loss of psychological form leading to a bifurcated reaction
of repulsion and attraction might better enable an understanding of the medieval
confrontation with God during the coming of the Last Days. David Williams
relates, for example, that “The loss of identity of the self is met with abhorrence,
for it betokens an assault not only upon the individual being that is the self but on

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the very possibility of Being” (Williams 1996, 79). As Williams develops the
analysis, the deforming of self is both a psychological and a religious question
“since it is an experience that extends beyond the dimensions of psyche to
encounter those of metaphysics.” Furthermore, he states that “as personal form
structures the understanding of the self and makes possible the various rapports
between self and other, it is also that form that permits and limits the relation of
the self and God” (Williams 1996, 79).
To provide a specific medieval example, Williams calls attention to the
language of the mystics, such as St. Catherine of Siena (ca. 1347–1380), who speak
of being permeated by God or of their divine ravishing and absorption into God,
thus emphasizing the “disappearance of self into the Godhead, not in the
pantheistic sense of diluting God into the forces of nature, but rather in the erotic
sense of union in which lovers become as one” (Williams 1996, 81). Especially in
confrontations with sin and guilt, and the prospect of the Last Judgment, Williams
points out that “in the roles of penitent, petitioner, and seeker, the devout are
provided with discourses in which God is cast as the ultimate Other: the Just God
who punishes, the Merciful God who answers our prayers, the Hidden God who is
the object of a life-long search” (Williams 119, 81). To conclude this part, we again
turn to Catherine of Siena, where we find these words about her confrontation
with God in her meditation on The Cell of Self Knowledge: “Daughter, do you not
know who you are and who I am? … You are she that is not, and I am he who is”
(Catherine of Siena 1981, 29; Williams 1996, 81).
Modern scholarship sampled above regarding the most dominant and more
obvious ways the medieval world confronted the foreign does not reveal or
exhaust the totality of the forms of foreignness. More of those will be discussed
below as we focus on medieval fears. But to review briefly before we move on to
discuss “fear” in some detail, the foreign could be a military opponent such as the
pagan barbarians, whether they be Celts, Goths, Vikings, Magyars, Tartars; or
non-Christian monotheists such as the Muslims and Jews; or those abandoning
their Christian faith for heresy; or the mythical and mystical others in the worlds
of theologians and poets. The “other” might also be someone close by who was
not of the same clan, or not of the same guild, or women who did not hold equal
status with men, or peasants and merchants who could not rise to become lords
or knights. In response to both the concrete foreign others and the symbolic, the
medieval world was ambivalent and ambiguous; resulting in encounters which
resulted in “violent and vitriolic forms of hostility, rejection and fear, and they
can also trigger a quest for self-analysis, possibly producing tolerant attitudes”
(Classen, ed., 2002, xlii; 226–48; Nederman 2002; Patschovsky and Zimmermann,
ed., 1998; Dinzelbacher 1996). Unfortunately, much of the perception of the
foreign in the Middle Ages, as in the modern world, was based on a fear of the

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unknown. We now turn attention to a review of some of the ways in which the
medieval world experienced and dealt with fear.
C Fear in the Middle Ages

In the 1970s, as Jean Delumeau undertook the writing of La Peur en Occident
(XIVe–XVIIIe siècles), he reminded his readers that fear is natural, and at the same
time he wondered why such a history had not been written before. He concluded
that this had something do with the way humans juxtapose fear and cowardice, or
courage and rashness. He also pointed to the work of Delpierre, who had insight-
fully noted that the word “fear” is “charged with so much shame” (Delpierre 1974,
7; Delumeau 1978, 3). Similarly in the medieval world as portrayed in the romance
literature and the chansons de geste, the archetypal knight in shining armor is
portrayed as “without fear if not always without reproach,” and is contrasted
sharply with the masses who are reputedly without courage (Delumeau 1978, 4).
Dorsey Armstrong more recently has examined the work of Malory (ca. 1405–1471),
who in his tale of Sir Lancelot “stresses preoccupation with a knight’s identity as
here to enclose ‘male,’” and contends that the knight, out of fear of a loss of
identity, seeks violent adventures in order to maintain his male identity (Armstrong
2002; Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002, xxxiv; Crane 1997). Delumeau also reminded us
that the poet Virgil, who was a favorite among medieval readers, wrote that “Fear
is proof of a lowly birth” (Delumeau 1978, 4, quoting from Enéide, IV, 13).
Tracing these ancient world traditions regarding fear as an introduction to
Fear and its Representations in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Cynthia
Kosso lists several ways that fear was significant to the Greeks and the Romans
(Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002). Fear of losing power, for example, because it led to
the shame of dishonor (infamia). Fear of death was linked to their fear of the gods;
and they also feared the “pollution” of their religion by less powerful gods or new
gods that were “foreign” (Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002, xviii; Bailey 1971; Gilmore,
ed., 1987; Barton, 2001).
Since the new religion of Christianity was eclectic in nature and not far from
its pagan roots, these ideas carried forward and built into new fears in medieval
society, such as fear of sin that might incur the wrath of the one God (Delumeau
1990). Fear of women and fear of sex with women was added to the list of
everyday fears as fear became embraced in many different forms. Fear of the sea
began with the Greeks and Romans, and persisted thereafter, as did fear of
divination and sorcery. One could add somewhat less rational fears, such as fear
of the night, continued in the medieval world alongside the more rational fears of
famine, pestilence, and war. Diffusion of fear was made possible through rumor

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mongering, as well as by the sermon on a Sunday (Delumeau 1990). Fear was an

emotion that needed to be cultivated, explored or exploited.
Fear in the Middle Ages was potent; it could teach lessons that enhanced
faith; or, it could motivate cultural and political changes. Fear played a signifi-
cant role in the Inquisition and its associated use of torture, or in the use of
excommunication to control the faithful (Peters 1988; 1996; Vodola 1996). As
David Scruton’s collection of studies in Sociophobics: the Anthropology of Fear
(Scruton 1986) provides examples across all cultures, the experience of fear is
physiological (within the body), physical (e.g., external threats to the body), and
social (i.e., anxieties develop over social interactions, leading to both fear of and
fear for others) (Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002, xii). Evidence of social fear-building
in medieval society is found in the way the Christian belief system excluded
others (Jews, Saracens, heretics, and “witches”), and built images of them that
led to fear of individuals who were so labeled (Kors and Peters, ed., 1972;
Delumeau 1990). As Kosso continues in her introduction, other medieval fears
included fear of eternal damnation and pain in hell; fear of sexual or social
deviants, including homosexuals, prostitutes and gypsies; and the penultimate
fears of the devil, death, and God. Of course Christians, with these fears in mind,
would not want to confront them directly, which often meant they feared going to
confession where they had to confront their own sins and the penance these
might incur (Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002, xiv–xxvi; Duggan 1984).
In the medieval world, fear was used in religious writings or even the secular
medieval romances to promote repentance or to “overcome spiritual paralysis,”
and, of course, to coerce, control and manipulate others (Lander 1971). Fear was an
issue of masculinity in the chivalric romances (Kaeuper 1999; Armstrong 2002; cf.
Crane 1997). For Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), fear was something to be
embraced; it could be a natural and instinctive reaction to deal with things that
might corrupt the human world, or it could be non-natural as a reflection of man’s
laziness or shame or anxiety. Fear could be disabling also, especially if sermons in
response to natural disaster or religious wars fed on pessimism to breed fear and to
bully parishioners (Delumeau 1990). Because man was rational, Thomas thought
that human fears should be regarded as significant; as when fear represented an
intuitive shrinking by man from a future evil, such as in the fear of hell (Scott and
Kosso, ed., 2002, xxiii–xxv; Taylor 1999; Bernstein 2000; Loughlin 2002).
Though only somewhat less true today, the medieval world was regularly
threatened by a number of physical dangers, such as the severity of the environ-
ment, which the literary metaphor of the deep, dark woods so often captured
(Semmler 1991). Also, European society was periodically challenged by outside
invaders—from the Germanic tribes of the fourth and fifth centuries to the Vikings
of the eighth and ninth, to the Mongols of the thirteenth who struck fear into the

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hearts of countless numbers from Russia to England, and signaled to many the
end of the physical world itself (Strickland 2003, 192–206; Jackson 2005; Morgan
2007; Connell 1973; Saunders 1969; 1971; Bezzola 1969; Turnbull 1980). At a more
local level, the peasants and clerical populace often had to fear the wrath of the
local lords who might ravage their lands, steal their corps, or even kill them as the
knights fought one another in the midst of a growing population beginning in the
late tenth century. Others, such as pirates, highway robbers, or thieves who
represented threats to personal property, security, and even life, had to be feared.
One needed, as well, to fear the effects of famine and disease which truly threa-
tened survival on a regular basis. Yet, medieval manuscripts and elements of
church architecture are filled with grotesque images, gargoyles, and other forms
of fantastic creatures to engender fears that do not seem so related to the actual
physical dangers. In the last twenty years, the research of Ruth Mellinkoff and
Dolores Frese, among others, has explored more deeply how “these images were
not simply fantastic notions, but often reflected … deep seated fears and concrete
existential problems which medieval people could not solve, wherefore the artists
… resorted to forms of psychological substitution via illustrations, sculptures, and
literary texts when dealing with outsiders, namely members of religious, ethnic,
racial, and gender minorities” (Mellinkoff 1993; Frese 1991; Camille 1989; J. J.
Cohen 1994; 1999).
There is not space herein to offer greater details on all the fears experienced
in the medieval world, but we will examine a few that more clearly relate to
perhaps the more prominent medieval confrontations with the “other” (for broad
looks at the “other” in the arts and literature, see, for example, Ramey 2008;
Kinoshita 2006; Strickland 2003; Nederman 2002; Devise and Mollat 2010; J. J. Co-
hen 2000; Rider 2000; Goodich 1998; Lionarons 1998; Kruger 1997; Dinzelbacher
1996; Uebel 1996; 2002; Williams 1996; Classen 1993; Stow 1992; Friedman 1983;
Camille 1989; 1992).
I Fear of the Monster in the Middle Ages
As the medieval world confronted the multifaceted foreigner, various forms of

monster were created and evolved as symbols evoking fear. For example, the
figure of the dwarf in the early Middle Ages was depicted as representing an
advanced underground world to be feared. By the late Middle Ages it had become
more concretely “a dangerous, horrid, mean-spirited, and evil being which
deserved to be eliminated” (Classen, ed., 2002, xxiii; 1999; Habicht 2010; see also
the article on dwarves in this Handbook by Werner Schäfke). Jews and Arabs
(Saracens) were feared and subsequently demonized into monsters. As well, those

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who were perceived as or looked different were often depicted as objects of fear.
Thus, those of a different skin color, particularly black, and those with terminal
diseases or physical deformities (e.g., lepers), or different sexual preferences, or
of a lower social class were more and more portrayed as evil and marginalized in
society, or worse. Whereas in the ancient world monsters had been seen as
harbingers of ill-doing and a disruption of the natural order of things, in the
Christian era, monsters were a sign of God’s power and a part of his plan. On a
positive note, for example, Augustine said that God would even restore monstrous
men to perfect form at the Resurrection. But most of the medieval world more
agreed with Bishop Patrick of Ireland who said that the monstrous races were
given by God; yes, but as “Signs of future ill/that He might frighten those whom
He willed to see them”(Friedman 1981, 109; Jackson 2001). Of course there were
exceptions to seeing all monsters and foreigners as evil, such as witnessed in the
writings of Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170–1220) in his Willehalm and Parzival or
in the text of his lesser-known contemporary Wirnt van Gravenberg’s Wigalois (ca.
1210–1220) where the people of “difference” were better treated. There were even
“good monsters” (Classen 1997). However, for the most part, and regardless of
one’s status in medieval society, fear played a significant role in daily life and
shaped the images of the other in art and literature (Classen, ed., 2002, xxiii–xxv;
1993; Stråth 2000; Goss and Bornstein, ed., 1986; Maksymiuk 1992; Mellinkoff
1993, 229; J. J. Cohen 1994).
Examination of medieval art and architecture is perhaps most revealing of the
ways the medieval world confronted its fears. It was natural for the inhabitants of
that world to be ambiguous because they were confronted with a theology that
looked forward to the next world and had contempt for the nature of the world they
physically inhabited in this life. This view came from the very top of the religious
establishment. Pope Innocent III (1160–1216; r. 1198–1216), who was very active in
dealing with worldly matters, in his work entitled De Contemptu Mundi, sive de
miseria conditionis humanae wrote that: “Man is born for work, for suffering, for
fear—and what is worse—for death” (Delumeau 1990). This conflict of holding out
a hope for a better next life, while living a miserable life on earth, was reflected in
many artistic ways. For example, artists throughout the Middle Ages, depicted
monsters in abnormal physical forms while performing “uncivilized” activities.
From the twelfth century onward, demons “by contrast transcend the realms of sin
and barbarity to embody concepts more abstract … That is, demons represent an
attempt to visualize the nature of evil itself” (Strickland 2003, 61; cf. Marx 1995, 5).
Of course, one must fear embracing evil, for it threatens achievement of the good
life in the next world. Thus, intentionally and ironically, devils were created with
features from “all of God’s creatures,” and shaped into a more abhorrent and
“hideous hodgepodge,” often “sporting horns, a tail, shaggy hair, wings, goat or

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bird legs, and hooves, paws, or claws.” Human parts were usually “distorted, with
long, hooked noses and ugly grimaces, and unnatural coloring, usually dark”
(Strickland 2003, 61–62; see also Erich 1931). After the eleventh century, the most
common characteristic of the Devil was horns, an ancient symbol of power, with
the next two most common being the tail and wings (Strickland 2003, 62).
Fear was further promoted by the instruments of torture depicted as being
carried by the devils, namely tridents, pitchforks, and flesh hooks, all of which
were common agricultural implements then turned against both the peasant
laboring man and his master to torment them in hell as they were made to fear the
wrath of the devil (on torture in general, see Peters 1996). One also often sees
devils portrayed with cat-o-nine-tails-style whips or ladles pouring molten lead
down the throats of the damned, as shown in illuminated manuscripts such as the
Guthlac Roll (ca. 1210) or the later Livre de la Vigne de Nostre Seineur (ca. 1450–
1470) (Palmer 1992; also, Mellinkoff 1970; and, manuscripts illustrated in Strick-
land 2003, 62–63).
The use of wings to depict devils likely caused some confusion among view-
ers of various representations because wings were normally used to designate
positive Christian figures such as the angels or saints. However, in the depictions
of devils, they usually have wings in the wrong places, as in the example of the
Devil who is shown tempting Christ in a stained-glass image from Troyes Cathe-
dral (ca. 1170–1180; image in Victoria and Albert Museum, London), where the
wings “sprout not from the conventional angelic location of between the shoulder
blades, but perversely from the wrists, ankles, and backside.” As Strickland
observes, such portrayals convey “demonic perversity … using an attribute which
in other contexts has positive connotations in order to underscore what demons
are not” (emphasis hers, Strickland 2003, 63–64, with black and white image of
the stained glass panel on 64).
Similar to the images of the Monstrous Races, the devil and other demons are
seen nude or minimally clothed in order to represent them as barbarous, and to
better highlight their physical deformities, as well as to indicate sin. Naked
images of Adam and Eve were the prototype of this form of representation, but
other generic representations of sinners in general followed. One can see such an
example of a naked sinner who is surrounded by fearful bulls in an illuminated
initial D for Psalm 21 in a twelfth century Psalter from St. Albans (Albani Psalter)
(Strickland 2003, 64; Dodwell, Pächt, and Wormald 1960; Klingender 1971).
Naked images are used by the artists to contrast them with the virtuous, as is the
case in the Last Judgment tympanum at Autun. In one of the details, an angel
figure is graceful, with delicate features and a serene expression; the body is
mostly hidden by long robes. Opposite are the demons whose bodies are comple-
tely naked, even to the point of muscle and ribs exposed; they are grotesquely

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presented with angled postures that imply “violent and erratic movements,” with
large heads and open mouths that accentuate “gleeful, sadistic expressions.”
Even the soul of the damned in this scene is represented in demonic fashion
(Strickland 2003, 72–73, with illustration on 69). Modern research by Barbara
Palmer and others indicates that throughout the Middle Ages the iconography of
angels remained consistent, but that of the devil was more variable. Strickland
comments that, “This suggests that evil held a greater fascination than good, or
perhaps that the negative incentive of nightmarish and terrifying images was the
most effective in encouraging the Christian to stay on the proper moral path”
(Strickland 2003, 73; see also Palmer 1992, 20; Caciola 2003).
II Fear of the Saracens and the Jews
As the medieval world progressed beyond the year 1000 and began to settle down
into a pattern of reurbanization and population growth, there was increasing
interaction between Christians, Jews and Muslims. This created an opportunity
for what the research of David Scruton and others has characterized as “socio-
phobics,” or, the “study of human fears as they occur and are experienced in the
context of the socio-cultural systems humans have created” (Scruton 1986, 9).
Thus, “Fears are situational,” and fear is a method “to symbolize and to feel in
order to cope with problems that arise from living” (Scruton 1986, 40). This
concept seems applicable to the way Christians reacted to both the Jews and the
Saracens, and the similarities of the response seem to make the “other” inter-
changeable as Christians responded in the crusade era in particular.
Despite the rather euphoric response of Fulcher of Chartres (ca. 1059–1127) to
what he observed of the Crusader Kingdom immediately following the success of
the First Crusade, namely, “I pray and reflect in our time how God has trans-
formed the Occident into the Orient … . He who was a Roman or a Frank has in
this land been made into a Galilean, or a Palestinian [sic]” (quoted in Menache
2009, 67; see also Fulcher of Chartres 1913; Peters 1971; Dressler 1995; Morris 83),
the analysis of Sophia Menache has illustrated how unique he was. Even Ful-
cher’s emotional outburst is better seen in her words as reflecting “the expecta-
tions and perhaps also some of the compensation mechanisms that gradually
developed among the Latin settlers” (Menache 2009, 68). The Christian response
to the Saracen quickly turned more to fear. Even in Fulcher’s own lifetime the tide
was running against the Christian settlers, who lost in the Battle of the Field of
Blood in 1119, which likely heightened a growing sense of alarm that accelerated
after the Christian defeat in the Second Crusade that occurred after the fall of
Edessa in 1144.

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In the crusading culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the hatred of
the Jews and Muslims was often combined. At the cathedral of Chartres, for
example, the Royal Portal contains in its iconography, especially the depiction of
the Massacre of the Innocents, “anomalies which can be read as coded references
to Jewish guilt and Muslim vice,” which are meant to inspire knights to become
crusaders (Dressler 1995, 191; see also 200–03). The Massacre became a symbol
linking Jews and Muslims around the city of Jerusalem as a destination for the
crusaders. As the Roman Emperor Titus (ca. 41–81) captured the Jewish Jerusalem
in 70 C.E., the account of Josephus reported that a wealthy female resident killed,
roasted, and fed her own son to the Roman soldiers to save herself. This horrible
image terrorized the medieval imagination, and it was recreated in numerous
manuscripts. Subsequent Christian interpretation of those events saw the Roman
victory as God’s judgment against the Jews, and as fulfillment of Christ’s pro-
phecy of Jerusalem’s fall as told in Luke 19:40–44 and Luke 21:20ff. This led to
ongoing anti-Jewish polemic dating from Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–339)
forward to various Christian texts and images of the twelfth century when Jerusa-
lem became a Muslim city (Dressler 1995, 204–07; see also Schreckenberger 1996;
Schreckenberger and Schubert, ed., 1992).
The north embrasure of the Royal Portal at Chartres includes sculptures of
three figures which, according to the interpretation of Dressler, “allude to
Muslim depravity and evoke Christian virtue” and play upon Christian anxiety
over alleged Muslim sexual license and religious idolatry (Dressler 1995, 207).
As elaborated in related Christian polemic, from that of John of Damascus
(676–749) to William of Tripoli (fl. late thirteenth century) and Riccoldo of
Monte Croce (1242–1320), even though the latter were encouraging missionary
work among the Muslims, the attack of Muhammad’s pagan childhood, as well
as his sensuality did not let up. Also, in the more popular crusader chronicles
and epics, “Muslims emerge as violent, sensual and idolatrous” (Dressler 1995,
207–08). It was not difficult for Christians to project from the leader to the
followers, and thus a blanket condemnation and fear of “Saracen depravity”
followed, and was played out in the great iconographic attention given to the
battle of the vices (Muslim and Jewish) against the virtues (Christian) (Dressler
1995, 208–17).
Among the more vitriolic attempts to raise crusaders in the era of Innocent III
was presented by Jacques de Vitry (ca. 1160/1170–1240), who left us with a rather
unique characterization of the Saracens. In order to justify their “extermination,”
Jacques proclaimed the Saracens as heretics, who were “poisonous limbs” and
“decayed flesh” that threatened the heath of the entire Christian body. This was a
powerful way to combine the Christian fear of both heresy and disease by planting
the seed of fear in the minds of Christians that Saracen heresy was a disease

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which threatened to spread its “poison and decay” unless it were eradicated
(Menache 2009, 74; see also Moore 1976).
Anti-Jewish art of the Middle Ages may appear to some moderns as more of
theoretical propaganda by intellectuals and artists, but the work of Debra Strick-
land provides evidence that it was so widespread “that it is safe to assume that
everyone—religious, lay, old, young, male, female, Christian and Jew—would
have been familiar with and understood the meanings of all the types of images,”
and therefore, “such imagery must be recognized as powerful propaganda” with
“devastating effects on the Jewish populace, from civic persecution to mass
murder, and ultimately, physical expulsion” (Strickland 2003, 105). And indeed,
there were expulsions of the Jews from England in 1290; France in 1306, 1322, and
1394; Spain in 1492; as well as from numerous German principalities in the early
fifteenth century and even from southern Italy as late as 1541. Thus, it does not
seem to have made a difference that there was a history of cross-fertilization of
cultures as in Spain or southern Italy; the fear of the corruption or contamination
by the Jews rose to a point of violent action against them.
The artistic portrayals or the anti-Jewish sermons most often heard by most
Christians reveal numerous aspects of the Christian fear. The Jews were accused
of numerous “crimes,” especially avarice and usury, which was one of the
justifications offered for the massacre of the Jews at York. Sexual intercourse with
a Jew was deemed a “crime” as well as mortal sin. The souls of Jews were alleged
to be the “dwelling places of demons,” or at least, the Jews were “friends of the
devil” (Strickland 2003, 122–30). They were portrayed as monsters, such as in the
Westminster Abbey Bestiary (ca. 1275–1300) showing a three-faced monster wear-
ing a bright orange Phrygian hat, and a Sciopod wearing a similar orange hat as
well (Strickland 2003, 134). Often the Jews were accused of desecrating the hosts
of the Eucharistic rite, and as the “sociophobia” of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries intensified, Jews were accused of ritual torture and the murder of
Christian boys, which was added to the charge of killing Christ himself. So in the
marginalia of illuminated manuscripts, more and more one could find images
featuring the Jews as physically deformed monsters, evil torturers, or even as
non-humans, such as in the Fetternear Banner, where Jews are shown as heads
only, and bearing instruments of torture (Strickland 2003, 108; also see ch. 3
passim). Even those Jews who actually decided to convert to Christianity under
the pressure could not escape the Christian fear of the Jews. “Once a Jew, always
a Jew …” was the underlying suspicion that led Christians to continue to express
their hatred toward Jews at large; hatred and violence often resulted from that
fear. The counterpart to that fear was the one that Christians would convert to
Judaism. Thus, the contamination by the Jews could result in “spiritual death” for
Christians. In the summation of Strickland, what Christians imagined about the

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Jews represented “everything medieval Christians feared and doubted about their
own religion” (Strickland 2003, 155; Stacey 1992).
The more recent work of Anthony Bale on Feeling Persecuted: Christians, Jews
and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages (Bale 2010) has opened up a wider
realm of possible ways to examine medieval literary and artistic images of the
imagined Jewish aggression toward Christians in the age of fear. Specifically, he
explored images expressing Jewish aggression against Christ, Mary, the Euchar-
ist, and Christian children in order to try to understand how those operated within
the medieval mind. He speculates that Christians used those images, particularly
in the late Middle Ages that focused on the way the Jews were portrayed in the
pictures of the suffering of Christ, to “help Christians to identify emotionally with
the fear and agony of being persecuted and tormented to death. In these images
Jews were deliberately depicted as depraved and grotesque beings enacting
violence against Christ, ridiculing Mary, and attacking Christians … . Reliving the
pain of those … who had been persecuted by Jews … was meant to encourage
introspection and prayer … negative imagery of Jews was used to serve Christian
devotional purposes” (Abulafia 2012, 180, review of Bale’s work).
What one can say about the specific fears of Jews applied with equal force
regarding the Saracens in medieval culture. The fear of Muslim contamination
appears in articles of various Church councils and was even codified in canon law.
The Council of Nablus in 1120, for example, mandated harsh penalties against
Latin men who might have sex with Muslim women, and Gratian’s Decretum
(1140) even set the penalty for living in Muslim households as excommunication.
The distinguishing dress for the “others” mandated in the Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215 was designed to prevent Christians from having sexual contact with either
Jews or Muslims (Strickland 2003, 288, n. 92). This fear is represented in various
iconography as well. In a reliquary, the Chasse of Saint Valerie from Limoges (ca.
1175–1185), the martyrdom of Saint Valerie (legendary saint of Roman period) is
depicted. Beside her there is a Saracen executioner, who is wearing a distinctive
headgear that was a stereotypical portrayal of the Saracen in medieval art. Strick-
land suggests that this juxtaposition of the two figures, male Saracen and female
Christian saint, “may have had resonance for viewers in light of Christian fears of
Muslim ‘contamination’ (Strickland 2003, 174; see also Hahn 1999; Uebel 1996).
Even traditional crimes or roles of Jews were apportioned to Saracens, such
as the Saracen participating in the execution of Christ himself. As late as the
fifteenth century, perhaps more influenced by the Turks, a stained glass image
from Cologne portrays a Saracen with scimitar and turban among those accom-
panying Christ as he bears his cross on the way to death (Strickland 2003, 177).
Illustrations in the Bible moralisée (1220s) substitute Saracens for Philistines in
the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines (I Kings 5:1–2) that brought

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about the theft of the Ark of the Covenant. The images in the illustrations portray
the Saracens as “grimacing, misshapen demons” bearing “the skin colors of
infamy: red, yellow, and black” (Strickland 2003, 171–72). The use of dark color
skin to stereotype the Saracen made it sometimes difficult to separate the Muslim
from the Ethiopian, but most often illustrators also used other attributes, such as
headgear and the scimitar, to distinguish the Muslim. For Strickland the appear-
ance of Saracen/Ethiopian “hybrids” indicates the “extent to which a common
pejorative visual vocabulary is applied across different enemy types [demons,
Jews, Ethiopians and Saracens]” (Strickland 2003, 173; 169). In the chansons de
geste, however, Saracens specifically are variously characterized as “people of the
devil, enemies of God, people of Satan, sons of Satan, sons of the devil, and
diabolical beings” (Strickland, 2003, 169). A chronicle of the Third Crusade
emphasized blackness in connecting the Saracens to the devil in an “almost
genetic” way by describing the enemy other as follows: “Among the opponents
was a fiendish race, forceful and relentless, deformed by nature and unlike other
living beings, black in color, of enormous stature and inhuman savageness” (Stick-
land 2003, 169, emphasis mine; see also 173; 179–81).
Just as the Jews had been, the Saracens were frequently depicted as idolaters,
which meant for Christians that both were to be feared since idolatry meant they
both had allegiance to the devil. Illustrations of the Flight into Egypt that show
idols falling off of pedestals as the Holy Family arrives, for example, are inter-
preted as showing “a sign of Saracen idolatry owing to the fact that the crusades
of the first half of this century [thirteenth] were directed against the Ayyubid
sultans of Egypt” (Strickland 2003, 168; Camille 1989, 135). Whereas the Jews were
seen as followers of the devil, the Saracens were more likely to be identified as
actual demons. Early in the Spanish encounter with Muslims, Eulogius of Cordo-
ba (ca. 819–859) feared Muhammad as the “angel of Satan,” and “precursor of
Antichrist,” and at the time of Urban II’s call to the First Crusade, Fulcher of
Chartres warned of the Saracens, whom he stated were a race enslaved by demons
(Strickland 2003, 169).
Various images of the Muslim warrior meant to invoke fear persisted into the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries despite the long-standing actual contact with
the people and the culture of the followers of Islam. Of many examples cited by
Strickland, the Luttrell Psalter (ca. 1320–1330) provides an illustration of a text of
Psalms wherein a Saracen is juxtaposed with a “foreigner,” and a “naked, hairy,
Ethiopian Wild Man, aliens three if not downright barbarians.” Then in the
fifteenth century we find a tapestry likely produced in Strasbourg, which depicts
a castle occupied by “comparatively small Saracens” being besieged by “giant
Wild Folk.” The Saracens are all dark-skinned, and interpreted to be the main
subject of the scene, as well as the personification of evil, or at least the scene

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itself as “one wild, barbaric type engaged in combat with another” (Strickland
2003, 183). In the case of the fifteenth century, it is likely that the scene reflects
the latest fear of invasion and directed toward those Christians who might have to
take up the fight against the latest Muslim assault by the Ottoman Turks. Continu-
ing this analysis, Strickland further concludes that, “As was the case in images of
Jews, it is really just a short step form this type of fanciful, wild, Saracen portrayal
to one that pictures the Muslim as wholly monstrous, such as the Saracen gryllus
on the Ripon misericord (fifteenth century) of the spies returning from Canaan”
(Strickland 2003, 184, with a picture of the Ripon gryllus on 57). A fifteenth-
century carving on the end of a pew shows a hairy Wild Man clad in only loin
cloth, but brandishing a scimitar as if to attack the incoming worshippers. Other
such portrayals exist in the margins of the earlier Oscott Psalter (ca. 1250–1300),
wherein we also find numerous pejorative images of the Jews in the Passion
illustrations. Apparently, in the evolution of the ongoing relationship between
Christians, Jews and Saracens in the later Middle Ages, Christian patrons and
viewers of such art, as they went to worship, were even reminded to view the
Muslim and the Jew as dangerous enemies to be feared (Strickland 2003, 184, with
a picture of the Saracen bench-end).
III Fear and the Color Black
The use of the dark to portray evil was accentuated in the evolution of the color
black to depict both imaginary demons and real people in the art of the medieval
world. Early portraits of the devil as a featureless, black imp were probably based
on the work of the Pseudo-Dionysius (late fifth–early sixth century) among others
that suggested that the devil is dark and possesses no existence (like the “black
hole” of modern physics). The ninth-century Book of Kells exhibits “a lanky, sooty
imp standing in profile beside the temple in the image of Christ’s temptation”
(Strickland 2003, 80). However, these vague images were later replaced by either
bestial demons, such as those described above, or by a human, namely the
Ethiopian. Although most Europeans had never seen an Ethiopian (nor would
they), artistic creativity “manipulated the idea of ‘black’ by transforming the image
of the Devil from a black void to a black man” (Strickland 2003, 81; emphasis hers).
This interchangeability of demons and Ethiopians is evident in such illu-
strated manuscripts as the twelfth-century Canterbury Psalter which portrays
Christ healing some demoniacs (Matt. 8:28–32), who are depicted as very black
Ethiopians in loin cloths, and even the demons being driven out by Christ are
small, black, winged Ethiopians, thus “creating a strong visual identification
between Ethiopians, demons and evil” (Strickland 2003, 81, illustration on p. 80)

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The color black became a defining feature of the Ethiopian figure in the art of the
Middle Ages, though other dark colors such as brown, dark blue, purple or dark
green were used, especially when the artist wanted to more fully expose other
stereotyped facial features (e.g., large eyes, flat noses, everted lips). Thus,
“Black,” “Ethiopian” and the “Devil” became synonymous, and in the late medie-
val theater, demons “conventionally wore black faces, and in literature and
folklore, the Devil had titles such as ‘Black Knight,’ ‘Black Jehovah,’ ‘Black Man,’
and ‘Black Ethiopian.’” No color can be said to have carried a clear, consistent, or
absolute meaning in medieval iconography, but the color black was most often
interpreted negatively as spiritual darkness, vice, and sin by the Christian world
(Strickland 2003, 83–84; Devise 1979, vol. 2, pt. 1, 51; Erich 1931, 89–90).
IV Fear of the Tartars
Though most Europeans did not encounter the Ethiopian, many were confronted
by the “Tartars” whose invasion of eastern Europe in 1241 caused panic and fear
that reached all the way to England, and led the fishermen of the North Sea to
cease their activity lest their lands be overrun next. The sudden eruption of this
new fremde caused a subsequent series of Western reactions, not the least of
which was fear (Schmieder 1994; Jackson 2005; Ruotsala 2001; Bezzola 1974;
Connell 1973). The name of “Tartar” for these Mongol-led forces was derived from
the reports of their strategy of indiscriminate slaughter of the enemies as they
advanced toward Vienna, which led the witnesses to associate them with the
region of biblical tartarus, the infernal region of Hell, wherein the demons lived.
Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–1259), the English chronicler of St. Albans, graphically
illustrated his chronicle entry for 1243 with a portrait depicting the Tartars as
cannibals (illustration in Strickland 2003, 192, and, in Claster 2009, 242; see also
Guzman 1991; Lewis 1987; Saunders 1969; Ruotsala 2001). A letter of Ivo of
Narbonne enclosed in Matthew’s Chronica majora provides a description of the
invaders as “dog-headed cannibals—Anthropophagi” who raped the Virgins, and
whose chiefs were described as having such physiological features as “short,
distorted noses,” “teeth long and few,” and “eyes shifty and black” (Matthew
Paris 1872–1873, vol. 4, 273; 275; trans. Giles 1852–1854, vol. I, 469–70; 471; Strick-
land 2003, 193; Saunders 1969).
The widespread fear and threat of total disaster for the West led Pope Gregory
IX to attempt unsuccessfully to raise a crusade against the Tartars early in 1241. At
the same time, he sent an emissary to the Mongol camp in China. John of Plano
Carpini (1182–1252) was so appalled that he called the Tartars in effect, “tricky
devils,” which must be resisted with utmost force or be slaughtered by them

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(History of the Mongols, in John of Plano Carpini 1955, 45–46; see also Strickland
2003, 198). By late 1241, however, as the Mongols retreated from Vienna and
settled in Russia and the Near East, the fear lessened. In fact, missionaries were
sent in the hope of converting the Mongols to Christianity, or at least enlisting
them as allies in the fight against the Saracens in the Holy Land. Even though the
effort to understand who they were and their purpose continued, most often the
Tartars were depicted as descendants of the peoples of Gog and Magog as
described in Scripture (Connell 1973). A mysterious letter from a certain Prester
John, who was perceived as Christian ruler in the “East” who might be an ally,
and envoys to the popes from the Mongols, as well as first-hand reports from
individuals such as Riccoldo of Monte Croce (ca. 1243–1320) kept hopes alive well
into the early fourteenth century (Jackson 2005).
In its response to the Tartars, we see the ambiguity of the Western reaction to
the foreigner from the farthest reaches of the East. Though cast as mythical
monsters, these were nonetheless a real people who represented a real threat to
safety. Well after the initial horror, the nervousness about a possible invasion
continued into the fifteenth century. For example, in the Livre des merveilles
(Book of Marvels) presented to the Duke of Berry in 1413 there is an image of
gigantic warriors passing through mountains bursting through to devastate the
countryside. The Tartars are often portrayed in later iconography within the
tradition of the Monstrous Races, rather than as heretics as were the Jews and
Saracens, because of their appearance and because of a lack of knowledge of
what the Mongols really believed and thought. In this sense they were closer to
monsters, and Christian missionaries often reported seeing other monsters—
Sciopodes, Dogheads, Apple-Sniffer/Straw Drinker hybrids, and other Wild
Folk—in the lands of the Tartars. Thus, the Tartars moved into the literature of the
exotic and the marvelous. Both the Travels of Marco Polo (1254–1324) and John of
Mandeville (ca. 1300?–ca. 1383?), one based on real experience, the other entirely
fictitious, were much more favorable in their impressions of the Mongols, even to
the point of admiration such as we witness in the account of Marco Polo (Strick-
land 2003, 198–209; Uebel 2005; Fleck 2000; Mandeville’s Travels 1953; Olschki
1960; Larner 1999).
Recent research on the question of barbaric practices, especially cannibalism,
among the Mongols has developed new insights into the Western reaction in the
Middle Ages. Anthropologists and historians alike have begun to think more
about cannibalism in the context of colonization, and are wondering whether
“cannibalism” was a product of the “European imagination, a tool of Empire with
its origin in the disturbed human psyche” (Hulme 1998), or simply a handy
derogatory ethnic stereotype, rather than an observation and reflection on an
actual practice (Guzman 1991; Lindenbaum 2004; Daston and Park 2001; Kilgour

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1990; 2001). With a greater focus on interdisciplinary research and a response to

Western Orientalism (Said 1978), those of the Orient might also argue, what about
the alleged Frankish cannibalism of the Saracens in the siege of Antioch as
reported by the Western chronicler Raymond d’Aguiliers (fl. late eleventh cen-
tury). His story of crusader cannibalism appears also in the Arabic chronicles of
Ibn al-Qalanisi (ca. 1070–1160), author of a chronicle of Damascus; and in the
works of Ibn Al-Athir (1160–1233), a Kurd historian who lived in Aleppo and
Damascus; and, Kemal al-Din (1192–1262), a historian at Aleppo trusted for his
knowledge of the Assassins, but who probably used al-Qalanisi for his narration
of crusade period events (Heng 2003; 1998).
Rumors of this forbidden act in the West must have caused a horrific reaction.
The crusaders had been charged to eliminate the pollution of the holy places by
the Saracen, not to soil those places themselves, even if there was a terrible
famine at the time that may have led to an act of desperation for survival.
Geraldine Heng has provided greater context in pointing out that a Christian at
this time lived in a culture “in which eating was overlaid with sacramental, ritual,
and symbolic significance… . The apotheosis of that culture turned, of course,
upon the symbolic eating of sacramental food—a sacred cannibalism …—the
shared experience of which created and bound the identity of the individual
Christian to a symbolic community that crossed divisions of country, region,
ethnicity, family, tribe, caste and race” (Heng 2003, 26). In contrast to the eating
of God, which in Christian doctrine placed one on the path to divinity, the eating
of any “unclean other body” led Christians to regard cannibalism with a funda-
mentally disproportionate horror” (Tannahill 1996, 32; Heng 2003, 27; Kilgour
1990). As Caroline Walker Bynum concludes in her study of The Resurrection of
the Body in Western Christianity, “cannibalism—the consumption in which survi-
val of body is most deeply threatened … is the ultimate barbarism, the ultimate
horror” for early Christians, and likely not much less so in the later Middle Ages
(Bynum 1995). The horror of cannibalism is brought forth in late medieval repre-
sentations of the hell-mouth wherein “humans are God’s victim” (Williams 1996,
144, with illustration from the Winchester Psalter, British Museum, Cotton Nero
IV). As David Williams analyzes the ambiguity of the hell-mouth, it “may be seen
as destroying or as purifying, for the act of eating is primarily a reducing of
substance to its most fundamental constituents. The symbolic eating by the hell-
mouth does the same, distilling humans to their spiritual essence by eating away
their physical dross” (Williams 1996, 145).
Moving further with his analysis, Williams, asserts that “In general, one eats
one’s inferior.” Thus, God can eat the highest of physical beings, but the eating of
one’s equal, i.e., the act of cannibalism does “of itself establish monstrosity.” But,
cannibalism is also an “indication of a monster’s participation in human nature”

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which “enjoins the question of the distinction between the self and that which is
not the self” (Williams 1996, 145). Why is this so threatening? Normally, at death
the soul is liberated from the body through the process of decomposition, but the
integrity of the “self” is maintained. However, with cannibalism, the body is
absorbed by another, “suggesting a grotesque and perverse postmortem conti-
nuation of the self within and as a part of another, a monstrosity, without identity
or even consciousness.” Yet the ambiguity continues if one interprets the human
act of eating another of the same species as the “extension of the self to the point
of inclusion of the other. It is for this reason that much ritual cannibalism has to
do with the eating of parents and other close relatives to avoid the loss of a part of
the self” (Williams 1996, 146; Osborne 1997).
Whether it was real or not, the impact of an imagined cannibalism was
widespread, and the fear of it was reflected in the art and in the literature of the
later medieval world. Based upon an ancient analysis of cruelty derived largely
from Seneca (4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.), any “other” that was associated with barbarian
characteristics, especially excessive violence, was often linked to cannibalistic
practices. This appeared especially true in the case of the Mongols, wherein
“Detailed accounts of systematic violence, sexual barbarism, and cannibalism
carried undeniably affective intent and repeatedly labeled the Mongols as cruel”
(Kaeuper 2004, 587; Guzman 1991). But, as Andrew Fleck has speculated in
analyzing The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, cannibalistic ritual could also be
operating as “a kind of mimicking inversion that causes instability in the percep-
tion of a distinct self and other during this encounter” (Fleck 2000, 394). Regard-
less, by the fourteenth century, “Tartary was a land of fable liberally sprinkled
with fiction,” as found in the likes of Mandeville in his Travels and Chaucer in his
Squire’s Tale. As summed up by Alan Ambrisco in a more recent article, “the
claims made about Mongols in romances, chronicles, and travel accounts present
them as provoking both fear and wonder in their European counterparts” (Am-
brisco 2004, 206; Campbell 1988).
V Fear of Women
Antifeminism and its concomitant fear of women were not new to the later Middle
Ages (Blamires 1992; 1997; 2004). The fear of women could be expressed in
numerous ways. There is the “wild woman” tradition, for example, which is
documented in various literary and visual sources, which modern studies suggest
represents an “ideal substitute for repressed sexuality and fear of the unknown”
(Classen, ed., 2002, xx; see also Stock 2000). There is also the example of the
woman as a “death-figure” which appears in the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) in the

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person of the Burgundian queen Kriemhild who takes revenge on her relatives
because they slew her husband (Classen, ed., 2002, xliv; 2011, ch. 2). However, the
most prominent way fear of women was developed into anti-feminism in the
Middle Ages is found particularly related to the portrayals of the institution of
marriage in both clerical and secular sources of several types.
Anxiety and animosity directed at women throughout the Christian Middle
Ages was based on two traditions, specifically the secular satire found in the
literature of Greece and Rome, and the beliefs and teachings of the early Church
Fathers. The most influential ancient works were those of the Roman satirists
Horace (65–8 B.C.E.), Persius (34–62 C.E.), and especially Juvenal (ca. late first-
early second C.E), whose depiction of the vices of women in his sixth satire greatly
influenced the strongest of the misogynists among the medieval clergy (Smith
2005). Ovid (43 B.C.E.–ca. 18 C.E.) was important because of his satire on female
lust in his Remedia amoris, which became “grist to the mill of medieval satirists as
they compiled their catalogues of complaints against women’s errant behavior”
(Walsh 2005, 224). The historian Sallust (86–35 B.C.E.) was also popular among
misogynists in the later Middle Ages, especially cited for his depiction of the vices
of Sempronia in his Catilinae coniuratio (Walsh 2005, 224).
However, as one might expect, the Latin patristic writers carried even more
weight in the onslaught against the temptations of women. Borrowing from
Scripture and the more idealistic Greek Fathers, Tertullian (160–220), Cyprian (ca.
200–258), Jerome (347–420), and even Augustine (354–430), though he was more
evenly balanced in his treatment, took to the idealization of a sacred form of
virginity which led to their condemnation of or advisement against marriage, and
a particular provocation of fear for men (Walsh 2005, 225). Jerome was a model
for the use of this theme in his treatise Adversos Jovinianum (Against Jovinian,
392 C.E.), wherein he responded to Jovinian (d. ca. 405), a monk who had made
the case that the married state had as much merit as that of “sacred virginity”
(Walsh 2005, 225).
Moving forward as Scripture began to emerge in its written medieval Latin
form (the Vulgate) as produced by Jerome in the fourth century, individuals such
as Macrobius (fl. early fifth century C.E.), and then later the monks of the tenth
and eleventh centuries built on the anti-feminine base provided by the ancients
and the Church Fathers. Odo (ca. 878–942), second abbot of Cluny, and Marbode
(ca. 1035–1123), bishop of Rennes and then monk at Angers, for example, devel-
oped such arguments as “the beauty of women is only skin-deep” or that the
worst trap of men provided by the “enemy [the devil],” and the most difficult to
evade, is woman, the “deadly vine-trap of misfortune” (Delumeau 1978, 313). The
fame of Peter Abelard’s Historia calamitatum (1118) added to the fire by providing
an account of his love affair, marriage, and the significant “calamities” that

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resulted from this series of events (Walsh 2005, 226–27; see also Blamires 2004).
Andreas Capellanus (mid- to late-twelfth century) provides another example,
though he does so in a confusing fashion. In the first two parts of his De Amore
(ca. 1185), Andreas depicts men of various stations in life being instructed as to
how to court ladies of either the upper or the lower class in society. Then, in part
three, he unexplainably takes to a “scurrilous catalogue of their [women in
general] alleged vices” (Walsh 2005, 227). Andreas goes so far as to label the
female as a “true devil, an enemy of peace, a source of impatience” (Delumeau
1978, 314; see also Classen 2002d).
The medieval view of women was not consistent, perplexingly ambivalent,
and even bipolar in the ironical way it fluctuated between the extreme models of
the character and role of women found in Eve and the Virgin Mary. It is also
important to remember in this context, for example, how women were portrayed
in the New Testament as loyal servants of Christ, present at his crucifixion and at
his tomb when the male disciples were nowhere to be found. Also, in the early
expansion of Christianity, we learn that women played key roles, often persuad-
ing husbands, especially some of the pagan kings in the West, to convert to
Christianity. Ironically, it was those talents of persuasion that later become the
targets of the clergy as they began to fear that women might persuade their
husbands to heresy. Even the appearance of the medieval cults of the Virgin Mary,
or the much lesser-known devotion to Jesus our Mother in the twelfth century,
had little impact on the male anxiety regarding the female (Bynum 1982). As
argued more recently by Carolyn Waters, ultimately it appears that it was the
combined fear of women’s speech and sexual allure that led to the ongoing
development of the fear of women in general (Waters 2004, esp. ch. 5).
The views of St. Jerome (ca. 347–420) regarding marriage became very popu-
lar in the clerical community of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Since the
time of the eleventh-century church reform movement ordained clergy could not
be married in the Western Church. Therefore, it was necessary to find arguments
to persuade simple clerics from marrying and forfeiting the option of eventual full
ordination as priests (Walsh 2005, 225). Moreover, of course, women of the
thirteenth century were explicitly forbidden to preach. Prior to that time, as
Innocent III became aware before he issued the prohibition in his bull of 1210
(Nova quaedam nuper), women had become involved and effective in responding
to a growing need for preaching to the laity. He issued the bull with the explicit
denial of the “power of the keys,” which according to church doctrine, was only
available to men who were the only ones permitted to receive the priestly ordina-
tion. The pope’s fears regarding the potential spread of the Waldensians or the
Cathar heresy in southern France surely played a key role here as the lay women
preachers in these movements were rumored to be effective (Shahar 2001).

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Apparently the inference that one need fear the temptations of women toward
marriage contributed more widely to a generalized fear of women as the popula-
tion grew in that era and the demand for ordained clergy grew along with it.
Sermons seeking to recruit preachers, as well as to tend to the other spiritual
needs of the laity, made it harder for listeners not intending to become clergy to
not be influenced by the general message about the problems of marital entangle-
ment. As Claire Waters reminds us, however, our knowledge and perception of
the fear of women in the Middle Ages comes to us from literature and from the
“mouths of skilled rhetoricians with a purpose” (Waters 2004, 86–89). Like our
understandings of much of the heresy of the era, we must be wary of the sources
of those views. Yet, we do have such direct evidence as that of Humbert of
Romans (ca. 1200–1277), who in his thirteenth-century preaching manuals for the
training of the Dominican friars, excluded women from preaching for four rea-
sons. These included what he regarded as a deficiency of understanding within
women, the subordinate status of women overall, the memory of the “foolishness
of the first woman,” and, the fear that if women preached, they might provoke
men to lust because of their appearance (Waters 2004, 37). In the same period, the
influential and perhaps somewhat more neutral Vincent of Beauvais (ca. 1190–
1264) compiled a massive Speculum maius in which he tried to catalogue all
knowledge of the world by grouping it into three categories, which he called the
natural, the doctrinal, and the historical. In one of those categories, which he
titled Speculum naturale, he devotes a chapter to the vices of women, where he
drew upon the authority of ancient authors such as Terence (ca. 190–159 B.C.E.),
Macrobius, and Seneca (4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.). Relying especially upon the latter of
these, Vincent determined that the root of the vices in women is avarice.
The sermons of the emerging new preaching orders, which had an enormous
widespread influence throughout Europe in the thirteenth century, often por-
trayed woman as less than man and predestined to evil (Delumeau 1978, 315). In
much of this literature, there was a particular focus on marriage and the reasons
why men should not marry. Accusations against women ranged from frailty of the
species which requires men to work hard to take care of their wives, to the
fickleness, greediness, and lustfulness of women, the latter leading men to “take
the fatal step” into marriage, or to adultery when married. Wives are also cited as
being irascible, arrogant, and spiteful, all of which could lead men to ruin; there-
fore, marriage was to be feared and shunned (Walsh 2005, 223).
Such onslaughts against women continued into the fourteenth century verna-
cular literature as well. John Lydgate (ca. 1370–ca. 1451), for example in his Payne
and Sorrow, borrowed from the ideas of Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400) in his “Wife of
Bath’s Tale,” where one finds a compelling satire on the institution of marriage,
though more recent analysis reminds us of possible alternative readings. Accord-

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ing to Warren Smith, for example, there is ambiguity in Chaucer’s approach, for
“the Wife of Bath, while at times mocking Jerome’s procelibacy biblical exegesis,
is not quick to contradict Jerome’s position.” He goes on to conclude that it is his
belief that the Wife of Bath presents a reasonably balanced, “even Augustinian
view of celibacy and marriage that triumphantly defends a literalist interpretation
of the Bible against the mischief of its male glossators” (Smith 2005, 245).
Beyond the association of women with a myriad of vices to ruin men, the
fear of women was pushed further in their characterization as agents of the
devil. Although this occurred more in the later Middle Ages, and more in
conjunction with the attack against the Jews, it was both the clergy and the lay
judges who enhanced this view. Jeffrey Jeremy Cohen has argued that the
medieval world was “almost always faced by outsiders, foreigners, hence the
other,” which often included peasants, women, and Jews, especially in the later
Middle Ages (Classen, ed., 2002, xlvii; J. J. Cohen 2000, 98). The attitude of the
males in society toward the “second sex” had always been contradictory and
swinging back and forth from attraction to repulsion or from wonder and admira-
tion to hostility (Delumeau 1978, 305). But, on the eve of the Reformation, the
Alsatian Franciscan preacher Thomas Murner (1475–ca. 1537) still found occasion
in 1512 to focus on the negative by writing that the female is “commonly unfaith-
ful, vain, vicious and a flirt,” in sum, a “domestic devil” (Delumeau 1978, 315;
Blamires 1992; 2004).
Thus, in the samples provided of the fears surrounding woman as the “other”
we see how fear could damage institutions that could stabilize a society—the
family, childrearing, and trust between the sexes that compose that society. In
this essay we cannot address all the fears in detail, but we must turn our attention
to that complex, convoluted, and ultimate fear, namely death.
VI Eschatological Fear: Death, the Last Judgment, and Hell
In many ways fear in the Middle Ages was connected to the Christian Apocalypse.
Anticipation of The Final Coming must have been the “super storm of fear” in the
Middle Ages. Imagine confronting famine, plague, war, and death at the same
time as the crisis of fourteenth century presaged once again the coming of the
Antichrist, then death, then the fear of God as he would judge whether you went
to the pains of hell to join the devil (Emmerson 1981; Emmerson and McGinn, ed.,
1992; Wright 1995; Aberth 2000; 2010; Backman 2000; Bernstein 2000). Thus,
many of the “others” were also placed into the construct of the Last Days so as to
account for their ongoing persistence and success in the conflict with Christianity
(Dinzelbacher 1996).

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As Michael Uebel and David Burr have pointed out, this was especially true of
the Christian response to the Jew and the Saracen (Uebel 1996; Burr 1996; cf.
Jackson 2001). Even though the Apocalypse and its early commentaries predate
the founding of Islam, in the later Middle Ages it became somehow necessary to
write its followers, as well as the Jews, into it. The ongoing success of the Saracens
led the Franciscan Henry of Cossey, for example, in his fourteenth century
commentary on the Apocalypse to say: “Many Christians, seeing so many people
follow the Islamic sect, will say that God could never have wished so many people
to be lost … .Thus deceived, they will follow the Beast” (as quoted in Strickland
2003, 211; using Burr 1996, 145).
Andrew Gow has focused on how the role of the Jews in Christian eschatology
became “gradually more incriminating, from necessary participants in the final
conversion to Christ to eager servants and supporters of Antichrist” (Gow 1996,
259). Various legends stated that the Antichrist himself would be a Jew, or, as in
one fourteenth-century play, Le Jour du Jugement (The Day of Judgment), that he
would be the offspring of the devil and a Jewish whore (Strickland 2003, 213). As
well, images in medieval art featured the Antichrist in stereotypical Jewish
costume or physiognomy or both. The Eton College Apocalypse provides evidence
wherein the bright red pointed hat on the Antichrist, or other images with the
grotesque physiognomy, profile stance, and the proximity of the beastly figure
next to the devil, leave no doubt about the anti-Jewish nature of the portrayal.
There is also the misericord at Cartmel Priory in Cumbria which shows a three-
faced Antichrist with the stereotyped Jewish features of the large nose, bulging
eyes, and prominent beard (Strickland 2003, 213).
In many versions of the Apocalypse in the later Middle Ages, there is the
suggestion that “the Saracens as well as Jews will receive the mark of the Beast.”
In a copy of the Bible moralisée known as the Oxford Bible, for example, Apoc-
alypse 13:12 indicates that a two-horned beast (symbol of Judaism for many) “will
be given the power to compel the inhabitants of the earth to worship the first
(seven-headed) beast.” Below that frame in the illustration there is a bearded
Saracen wearing a knotted turban depicted in conversation with a dark demon,
while next to him a second demon clubs a praying bishop, while the text explains
that “God will give the beast the power to destroy the saints in a world that has
fallen into the hands of the impious” (Strickland 2003, 215–16). In the analysis of
Strickland, “Eschatological images of Jews … require a more nuanced interpreta-
tion because Jews were a local as opposed to a distant enemy who were perceived
as a very real social and economic threat to the Christian majority.” Though the
most extreme form of this fear was developed in the legend of the Red Jews that
was based on a characterization of the Jews as inherently evil, the reality of this
anxiety being based in a more local socio-political experience is likely (Strickland

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2003, 239). One of those experiences was the Black Death outbreak in the four-
teenth century, which in the city of Zurich was specifically blamed on those so-
called “Red Jews.” Labeled a “more dangerous strain of superhuman Jews,” they
were invented in the minds of fearful Christians to explain the horrors of the
plague. In this case the Jews were accused of poisoning wells with serpent venom
to spread the disease (Strickland 2003, 232–33).
As for the Muslims of the crusade era, they were presented to the Christian
faithful as a “necessary part of salvation history, which had now reached the
stage of the final persecution of the Church” (Strickland 2003, 239; see also
Whalen 2009; Rubenstein 2011; Flori 2007; Cole 1993; 1991). One can find anti-
Muslim association with the Apocalypse, especially among the Franciscans of the
later thirteenth century, but also earlier by Pope Innocent III, who, in his call for
the Fifth Crusade in 1213 in the bull Quia maior, had identified Muhammad as the
Antichrist. Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202), in his Liber Figurarum (Book of
Figures), singled out the “Islamic menace” as a significant indicator of the forth-
coming “End of Time” (Strickland 2003, 220–23; Burr 1996; Southern 1962).
Joachim was especially concerned with Saladin (1138–1193), the feared and
admired leader of the Muslim forces that captured Jerusalem in 1187. This led
Joachim to identify him as the sixth head of the apocalyptic seven-headed dragon.
However, in 1190 Joachim prophesied to King Richard I (1157–1199), who had
failed to re-capture Jerusalem but negotiated with Saladin a truce to allow
Christian pilgrims regular access to the Holy City following the end of the First
Crusade, that Saladin would lose control of Jerusalem and would be killed (Strick-
land 2003, 225.) Later polemics and treatises became a bit more optimistic that the
Saracens could be converted to Christianity. Even though they might portray the
military successes of the Muslims as being accomplished with brutality and
fearful acts of various sorts, they were confident that this was all part of God’s
plan (Tolan 2002, ch 8.; Strickland 2003; Goss and Bornstein, ed., 1986; Kedar
1984; E. R. Daniel 1969).
Also difficult to place in God’s plan was the appearance of the plague known
as the Black Death of the fourteenth century. A recent study by Laura Smoller
argues that the writers of that era “entered into a tangled web of symbols,” and as
a result of debating its “naturalness” versus its eschatological significance they
“appeared to be unwilling to say that plague was either entirely natural or entirely
apocalyptic” (Smoller 2000, 158). Symbols of both fear and marvel were being
“mapped,” which meant that the chroniclers “mapped God’s apocalyptic tor-
ments onto an orb whose image already was pregnant with religious meanings
apparent in the great mappaemundi“ (Smoller 200, 158). Thus, apocalyptic signs
such as snakes and toads or hail and fire were portrayed as raining down in the
East, which was also the land of the marvels such as monsters, Prester John, or

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Gog and Magog. By the fourteenth century the East was also the land of potential
converts such as the Tartars or the Saracens. On those “maps” the plague moved
from east to west, from the land of pagans to the land of Christians in the west.
Contemporary authors apparently thought, Smoller speculates, that if they could
plot the progress, they might be able to control the plague itself, and simulta-
neously place it into the apocalyptic plan. As Smoller concludes, “Mapping has
been called a form of conquest and control of territory, and mapping plague’s
progress was perhaps an attempt at mastering and possessing the feared dis-
ease.” (Smoller 2000, 159). At the same time the apocalyptic plan portrayed in
Matthew 24:14 called for a mass conversion of all the non-Christians, and a
subsequent “universal passage of all the faithful” to the Holy Land prior to the
appearance of the Antichrist (Smoller 2000, 157–59). Thus, Jerusalem, the center
of the world in the mappaemundi would become the locus of the final denoue-
ment and the fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecy.
The most feared aspect of the final denouement, namely hell itself, was
increasingly portrayed in later medieval art and sculpture in such a way as to
identify it with all of the negative symbols of disorder and darkness to heighten
the fear of the unknown (Davidson and Seiler, ed., 1992; Sheingorn 1992). The
early descriptions of hell by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (ca. 500), who drew
an “ugly, disproportionate, dark, disordered, incongruous” picture of it and its
inhabitants, set the tone and others followed throughout the Middle Ages (Strick-
land 2003, 7). Examples are provided by the Livre de la Vigne (ca. 1450–ca. 1470),
a manuscript which emphasizes the dark coloration of the twelve devils therein;
while the green devil of the earlier Tanner Apocalypse (ca. 1250–1255) is shown
forcing a dragon into a large welcoming fiery hell-mouth. This green devil has an
extra face of it own on its belly “with a mouth of its own spewing a flame precisely
[from] where a penis should be” (Strickland 2003, 71, with Fig. 25 showing the
illus. from the Tanner ms.). The image of hell in the Hortus Delciarum (Garden of
Delights) of Herrad of Hohenbourg produced in Alsace in the late twelfth century
reveals some of most vivid images of the damned caught up in a multi-leveled
chasm. The text that accompanies the images describes hell as “dark with perpe-
tual flames, frigid cold, demons, vermin,” and it is filled with “sinners and
criminals” such as the “prideful, liars, drunkards, thieves, murderers, fornicators,
and blasphemers, among others” (Strickland 2003, 123–24). In other words, it
describes plenty of characters with whom everyday persons might identify around
them. A twelfth-century English anonymous painting depicts a huge hell-mouth
in the shape of a two-headed monster engulfing the damned while the angel
prepares to lock the gates after them, and the demons prepare to administer
various tortures. Details of the Last Judgment painted by Stefan Lochner about
1430 reveal several monster-formed demons in various dark colors dragging the

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damned in chains into a deeper darker abyss (illustrations in Evans, ed., 1966,
228–29).
Bynum and Freedman in their introduction to their work on Last Things as
conceived in the Middle Ages, note that “last things sometimes referred to events
(such as…advent of Antichrist, or the resurrection and Last Judgment) that might
come to all humanity in time,” and thus society could be seen as constantly on a
pilgrimage, “confidently expectant or cowering in fear” (Bynum and Freedman,
ed., 2000, 5). But, as they also note, there were other times when the focus was
not on the collective end, but the individual, from temporal to beyond time or
atemporal, from a stress on spirit to a sense of embodied or re-embodied self”
(Bynum and Freedman, ed., 2000, 5). Recent scholarship has also shown a
change in the attitude toward death in the Middle Ages, from a death experience
in a community to one of “personal death” which was reflected in a change in the
view of the afterlife. Instead of seeing the resurrection after death as one literally
of the material body to face judgment, the idea of a “twofold eschatological
landscape of heaven and hell” evolved into one stressing the concept of a
separated soul from body that after death could experience a “three-tiered after-
life, including the in-between space and time of purgatory” as a possibility
(Bynum and Freedman, ed., 2000, 6). From their reading of the scholarship on
eschatology Bynum and Freedman conclude that “religion is not so much doc-
trine as a way of life.” Therefore, we should not be too concerned about changes
or contradictions and ambiguities in the medieval Weltanschauung, because
“Medieval eschatology was, like life, profoundly inconsistent” (Bynum and Freed-
man, ed., 2000, 6).
Since the watershed study by Johann Huizinga entitled The Waning of the
Middle Ages (Huizinga 1996; orig. 1919), which portrayed the fourteenth century
as a time of total gloom and doom, we have come a long way in our analysis of
fear in the Middle Ages (e.g., Fanning 2002, 296). Still, the power of that image
has adhered into the late twentieth century. Popular thinking was still being
influenced by such mid-century studies as Ziegler’s The Black Death or Barbara
Tuchman’s still widely-read The Distant Mirror, the Calamitous 14th Century (Zieg-
ler 1969; Tuchman 1979). Only more recently have scholars such as John Aberth in
his From the Brink of the Apocalypse tried to offset the dark picture by presenting
a more balanced study illustrating how a closer examination of prayers, chroni-
cles, poetry and commemorative art reveals a greater sense of optimism within
the late medieval culture (Aberth 2000; 2010). Perhaps this is best illustrated with
a specific example. In his essay “To Fear or Not to Fear, That is the Question”
(Classen 2002c), Albrecht Classen argues that Oswald von Wolkenstein “mirrors
the typical fears of his time.” He had been imprisoned, tortured, suffered personal
failures, and yet, his poetry was not filled with despair. Oswald’s attitudes toward

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death and damnation may have been typical, but he expressed more concern
about the issues of everyday life and remained “unconcerned with His presence”
(Scott and Kosso, ed., 2002, xxxv; Classen 2002c).
The study of fear and the foreigner in the Middle Ages reveals much ambi-
guity. The foreigner was treated with force and violence, sometimes tolerance or
the early appearances of it, attempts to make the foreigner “like us” through
missionary work, or the attempt to demonize or “wonderize” the various foreign-
ers by pushing them into the realm of eastern exotica in travel tales or mappae-
mundi. Often those who did not accept Christianity, or were otherwise considered
“different” or the abstract “other,” became objects of fear. What drove these
concepts was most simply a fear of the unknown. However, the medieval world
did not collapse out of fear. It came to live with it, and by the late Middle Ages,
seems to have focused more on everyday existence and the practicalities thereof.
This perhaps means that hope triumphed over fear so long as you did what you
could in pursuit of the best life you could possibly live leading toward a “good
death.” The immediacy of the Last Judgment had been relegated to the margin,
and whenever it came, a “good life” was more likely to result in a “good death,”
meaning a favorable judgment. Whether Christian, Jew or Muslim, you experi-
enced the foreign and the fear that accompanied it; and, you came to accept it as
all part of God’s plan.
Select Bibliography
Alexander, J. C., ed., Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (Berkeley, CA, 2004).
Camille, Michael, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge 1989).
Classen, Albrecht, ed., East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Trans-
cultural Experiences in the Premodern World (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2013).
Classen, Albrecht, ed., Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages (London and New York 2002).
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, “Hybrids, Monsters, Borderlands: The Bodies of Gerald of Wales,” The
Postcolonial Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (New York 2000), 85–104.
Daniel, Norman, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image, rev. ed. (1960; Oxford 1993).
Delumeau, Jean, La Peur en Occident (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles): Une cité assiégée (Paris 1978).
Dressler, Rachel Ann, “Deus hoc vult: Ideology, Identity and Sculptural Rhetoric at the Time of the
Crusades,” Medieval Encounters 1 (1995): 188–218.
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and London 1992).
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Europe: Perception of Other (New York 1999).
Kruger, Steven F., The Spectral Jew: Conversion and Embodiment in Medieval Europe (Minneapo-
lis, MN, and London 2006).
Lambert, Malcom, The Cathars (Malden, MA, 1999).

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Scott, Anne and Cynthia Kosso, ed., Fear and its Representations in the Middle Ages and
Renaissance (Turnhout 2002).
Scruton, David L., ed., Sociophobics: The Anthropology of Fear (Boulder, CO, 1986).
Strickland, Debra Higgs, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art
Tolan, John, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York 2002).
Walsh, P. G., “Antifeminism in the High Middle Ages,” Satiric Advice on Women and Marriage:

from Plautus to Chaucer, ed. Warren S. Smith (Ann Arbor, MI, 2005), 222–42.
Waters, Claire M., Angels and Earthly Creatures: Preaching, Performance, and Gender in the Later
Middle Ages (Philadelphia, PA, 2004).
Waugh, Scott and Peter D. Diehl, ed., Christendom and its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution
and Rebellion, 1000–1500 (Cambridge 1996).

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Marilyn Sandidge
The Forest, the River, the Mountain,
the Field, and the Meadow
A Early Sources for Beliefs about

Landscape Features
Whether the subject is forests, rivers, and mountains or fields and meadows, the
medieval world drew on classical and Judeo-Christian sources for their under-
standing of the creation of these features, their purposes, and their places in the
cosmology of the Christian universe. As individual communities developed at
different times and places throughout the European Middle Ages, a rich body of
associations with and beliefs about these features came to be reflected in the
philosophy, literature, folklore, artwork, music, drama, laws, and archeological
evidence that we draw on for cultural studies of the period.
First developed by Empedocles in the fifth century B.C.E., the doctrine of the
four elements was used in conjunction with Aristotle’s principles of causes to form
the basic ideas on the form of the earth (Alexander 1986, 38–49). Drawing on the
natural philosophy of Aristotle and Ptolemy, the treatises of Muslim writers such
as Avicenna (980–1037) and Averroes (1126–1198), and contemporary Christian
writers such as Albertus Magnus (ca. 1193–1280) and Ristoro d’Arezzo (ca. 1282), a
widely-held view in the twelfth century said that the earth was first subject to
forces that briefly generate or recreate forms and then to a protracted period of
corruption during which the effects of gravity, water erosion, alluvial deposition,
earthquakes, etc., transform the landscape (Alexander 1986, 47). As a result, all
features of the landscape were viewed at times with a sense of misgiving because
of their instability. The river that provides water and transportation one day may
wash out fields and towns the next. An ambivalent sense of respectful apprecia-
tion and fearful awe, therefore, underlies the cultural views of these features.
At the same time, early medieval clerics of the twelfth-century renaissance,
drawing on Plato’s Timaeus (ca. 360 B.C.E.), envisioned humans as existing in a
complex framework, designed by God, called nature (Chenu et al., ed., 1997, 5).
William of Conches (ca. 1080–1154), noting the spiritual value of all things in
nature created by God, and other monastic thinkers at Chartres came to view
humans in terms of their role in the microcosm of God’s divine universe (Chenu
et al., ed., 1997, 129; 162). Stating that nature is God’s intermediary, Alan of Lille
(1128–1203) called God the Vicar of Nature. Working the land by plowing, tilling,

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538 Marilyn Sandidge
and sowing, and by tending the meadows, the mountain sides, and the forests is
seen as attempts to recreate Eden after the fall (Glacken 1967, 308; 348). These
features in the medieval landscape—rivers, mountains, fields, forests, and mea-
dows—therefore, took on symbolic values as well as practical ones. In Kenneth
Clark’s words, the depictions of the natural world became a “landscape of
symbols” (Clark 1979, 1).
Ernest Robert Curtius notes in his seminal work European Literature and the
Latin Middle Ages that medieval Christians had an image of the locus amoenus,
developed earlier by classical writers, available to use in iconic descriptions of the
ideal landscape: a place containing at least one tree, a spring or brook, and a
meadow (1948; Curtius 1953, 195). Each of these same features, but with the
addition of mountains, is praised by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) in On Kingship,
To the King of Cyprus (1267) when he gives advice on where to build a city. The site
should “claim the inhabitants by its beauty,” and the best setting for beauty
combines broad meadows, abundant forests, mountains, groves, and plenty of
water (Glacken 1967, 270). As a statement of aesthetics, Aquinas’s advice on the
placement of a city provides a clear link between appreciation of beauty and these
features of the landscape in thirteenth-century Europe.
Depending not only on the individual’s perspective, but also on the particular
feature under discussion, the symbolic value of these landscape features could
range from the best possible associations with God’s perfect universe to the worst
possible associations with deadly sin and eternal damnation. As universal figures
in the landscape, these features “offered natural imagery for archetypal aspects in
human life” (Classen 2012b, 24). Whether expressed in religious or secular set-
tings, the attitudes held by medieval people who depended on the good will of a
natural world beyond their control always included reverent respect for the
magnitude of its power and no small degree of fear for its potentially hostile
forces that could easily challenge or destroy their communities (Le Goff 1988). The
following sections will examine cultural attitudes toward each of these features
individually.
B The Forest
The medieval concept of the forest represents a complex combination of realism,
symbolism, and fantasy, reflecting attitudes ranging from absolute terror to
immense delight depending on the perspective of the viewer. As something quite
different from our own concept of a forest as an abundance of trees, the medieval
forest incorporated much more than woodlands: villages, manors, swamps, mea-
dows, and arable fields (Young 1979, 4–5). When William I created his New Forest

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The Forest, the River, the Mountain, the Field, and the Meadow 539
in England, for example, it encompassed between 15,000–20,000 populated

acres, including over thirty villages, and 75,000 acres of partially populated
woodland (Battles 2010, 211 n.74). In addition to timber, firewood, and meat,
medieval forests were sources of iron, hides, grain, salt, peat, honey, and wax,
raw materials for industry in rural towns, and grazing space for horses, swine,
sheep, goats, and cattle (Young 1979, 58; Glacken 1967, 294; 324). Cultural
attitudes toward the forest were, therefore, complex and depended on the view-
er’s perspective. A peasant relying on the wood and food sources found within a
forest would probably see it in terms different from those of an aristocrat who
enjoyed hunting in this space.
Showing delight in the forest while reflecting on the wonders of the natural
world as a reflection of God’s glory, St. Bernard (1090–1153) said that we learn
more from a forest than from books or teachers. On the other hand, Albertus
Magnus (ca. 1193/1206–1280) saw forests as unhealthy places: the middle of
forests, he says, is stifling, heavy with moist vapors, whirlwinds, and dense
clouds, where walnut, oak, and other trees poison or stifle the air. Wise men, he
says, cut down forests (Glacken 1967, 213; 270). Peasants in the Southern Alps
who viewed trees as useless vegetation, as leeches of the nutrients in the soil,
would have agreed (Glacken 1967, 345). Translating from Bartholomaeus Angli-
cus’s work De proprietatibus rerum (1240), John of Trevisa (1342–1402) calls the
forest a place of deceit where passing men are often despoiled, robbed, and slain
(Withers 2010, 89). As the border between the known, civilized, courtly realm and
the unknown, isolated territory beyond human consciousness, the forest could
evoke terror of wolves and monsters and, thus, presented trials to be overcome, or
it could offer challenges that led to sublime rewards (Clason 2011, 1570.) In Land-
scapes and Seasons of the Medieval World, Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter
first stated that the medieval forest was a place associated in literature with
mystery, testing, and evil while later scholars, particularly Corinne Saunders,
have expanded the associations in the archetypal romance forest to include
spiritual vision, refuge, transformation, and growth, love, adventure, and action,
which was usually hunting or fighting (Pearsall and Salter 1973, 52–53; Saunders
1993, 71; Hooke 2010).
I Hunting
Hunting, often associated with the forest in the Middle Ages, was described in
great detail including not only the techniques and equipment, but also the
pleasure and social nature of the experience in the forest by Gaston Phébus, the
Count of Foix, in the classic Livre de la chasse (1387–1389), and many other

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hunting manuals drawing heavily on it (Gaston et al. 1986). The royal forest, a
specific type of medieval forest, was seen in dramatically different terms depend-
ing on the viewer’s socio-economic status and feudal rank. At least as far back as
Charlemagne’s reign, royal rulers seized large tracts of land and imposed forest
laws controlling the use of this land, particularly the hunting of animals such as
deer and boar, but also the cutting of trees and grazing of animals (Young 1979,
4). The attitude of the royals toward these forests can be summed up in a phrase
from a forest law which states that the sole purpose of the land is for the king’s
delight and pleasure (Griffin 2010, 453). This politically charged land gave mon-
archs a space in which to display their preeminence in both the wilderness of the
natural world and in human political, social, religious, and economic commu-
nities. For obvious reasons, the rest of society, those who lived in, depended for
subsistence on, owned or worked land in these royal forests, greatly resented
having to sacrifice their property for royal entertainment. Although it refers to the
need to obey William the Conqueror’s strict new forest laws, this passage from the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle would have described the views of many during the Middle
Ages:
His rice men hit mændon 7 þa earme men hit beceorodan. Ac he wæs swa stið þæt he ne
rohte heora eallra nið, ac hi moston mid ealle þes cynges wille folgian, gif hi woldon libban
oððe land habban, land oððe eahta oððe wel his sehta. Wala wa, þæt ænig man sceolde
modigan swa hine sylf upp ahebban 7 ofer ealle men tellan. (Irvine, ed., 2004, 1086)
[Powerful men complained of it and poor men lamented it,

But they had to follow out the king’s will entirely
If they wished to live or hold their land,
Property or estate, or his favour great.] (Whitelock, ed. and trans., 1961, 165)
Many literary works from across Europe during the Middle Ages, especially
romances about great characters like King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table,
Orpheus, Alexander, and Charlemagne, frequently show nobles enjoying them-
selves in the forest—their aristocratic pleasure ground—gracefully hunting and
hawking in fine attire. Although we read on occasion about characters poaching
deer or rabbits in forests, the central cultural view associates hunting in forests
with regal pastimes.
II Spiritual Space
As the domain of gods, the forests of Germanic tribes were spiritual places;
therefore, in their quest to wipe out paganism, early monks, including St. Bene-
dict (ca. 480–543), cut down groves of trees to clear these spaces associated with

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pagan divinities. Later on, however, Christian monasteries recognized forest

enclaves as places of contemplation and refuge for wild animals (Glacken 1966,
29; 310). St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) in particular found the forest to be a quiet
place to contemplate and pray and is said to have had deep mystical experiences
there (Fumagalli 1994, 130). Celtic tales reinforced this sense of divinity in the
woods by locating in the forest the entrance to another world parallel to the
human one (Saunders 1992, 54). In other literature of the Middle Ages, religious
hermits inhabit the forests and offer spiritual guidance and healing. Parzival in
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s (ca. 1170–ca. 1220) Parzival (ca. 1205) is able to find
the Grail only after he spends two weeks in the woods with his uncle Trevrizent, a
holy man who teaches him about sin and penance and the true meaning of the
grail (Wolfram von Eschenbach 1980). By the late Middle Ages, however, a more
naturalistic sense of the forest as a commodity needing managing prevails, and in
a parody of earlier beliefs about deities in the forest, the great medieval English
poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) claims in the Knight’s Tale from the Canterbury
Tales (1387–1400) that “goddes ronnen up and down” (Chaucer 2008) when great
numbers of trees are cut down for Arcite’s funeral (Rudd 2007, 63).
III Refuge and Exile
Historically forests were used as places of refuge for both the law-abiding person
escaping danger and the lawless outcast. Describing the forest as a “place of
terrors and vast solitude,” the saint Robert of Knaresborough shared his hermit
experience in Yorkshire with a knight fleeing the political intrigue of King
Richard I (Young 1979, 59). Eadric the Wild and Hereward the Wake, among other
Anglo-Saxon noblemen, took refuge from the Normans in the forests, hunting,
raiding, laying ambushes for Normans, and offering support to others who
suffered injustice from corrupt authority (Battles 2010, 205; Keen 2007, 9–38.) In
an early Swedish proverb, the forest is called the mantle of the poor, suggesting its
importance in the life of the peasant as a source of nurture as well as protection
(Glacken 1967, 320). Romance characters such as Chaucer’s Palamon in the
“Knight’s Tale” (ca. 1387) and the eponymous hero of Gamelyn (ca. 1350) seek exile
from unjust societies in the forest. For commoners as well as nobles, the forest was
seen as a safe space where one could flee from trouble and maintain an existence
though this expectation of a safe refuge could sometimes prove to be an illusion.
For a female character who has been violated or fears being violated in some
way, the green and lush forest becomes a sanctuary. Most notably, in Confessio
Amantis (ca. 1386–1393) John Gower’s (ca. 1330–1408) version of Ovid’s tale of
Tereus and Philomela (Metamorphoses 6.426–676), Philomene, after being raped

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and having her tongue cut out, looks to the forest to protect her and to hide her
shame even though she has been turned into a bird, the nightingale:
Whan that she seeth the bowes thikke, (bows thick)

And that ther is no bare stikke, (branch)
But al is hid with leves greene,
To woode comth this Philomene
And makth hir ferst yeres flight; (first flight of the year)
Wher as she singeth day and night.
(Gower 2006, Book 5, 426–31)
For another woman, Perceval’s mother in the Perceval (ca. 1170) composed by the
late twelfth-century poet Chrétien de Troyes, as well as in Wolfram von Eschen-
bach’s later Parzival, the forest is also seen as a safe space where she can protect
her son from the allure of chivalrous knighthood that had previously led to the
deaths of her two older sons and her husband; unfortunately, however, the refuge
in the secluded forest proves illusory as civilization in the form of knights of King
Arthur enters her land, and Perceval runs off to join the Round Table (Classen,
ed., 2012, 48–50). In the medieval German prose novel Queen Sibille (1437), by
Elisabeth of Nassau Saarbrücken (who had translated that text from French), the
forest is both a terribly frightening place and a safe space. After Charlemagne’s
wife had been falsely accused of adultery and exiled, an evil knight kills her
escort in order to rape her, but she escapes by riding deeper into the forest.
Although she is protected by the dense woods she rides through, she is petrified
the whole time that the rapist will catch up with her, turning her experience in the
secure space into an intensely terrifying journey (Classen 2011c).
If we turn to another work by Chrétien, Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain, the
Knight with the Lion) (1170s), Yvain retreats to the forest when driven mad by love
in the same way that Lancelot does in the Prose Lancelot written in the early
thirteenth century (see also Hartmann von Aue’s slightly later translation into
Middle High German, Iwein, ca. 1200). For these characters, the forest is more
than just a refuge in which they can suffer in isolation. As a dark, unexplored, and
lawless space, the forest in these works is used metaphorically to reflect the
irrational state of these rejected lovers’ minds (Saunders 1993, 71). For pairs of
lovers such as Tristan and Isolde the forest can serve as a place of escape such as
in the twelfth-century Béroul’s or Gottfried von Strassburg’s (ca. 1210) Tristan
(Scarborough 2013, 22–23; Classen 2014b). Originally a secret haven reflecting
love’s secrecy and danger, the forest becomes less an idyllic refuge and more a
savage exile in other versions. As Corinne Saunders notes, its role as the boundary
between civilization and the wilderness highlights the conflict between individual
passion and social responsibility when the lovers flee into the forest (Saunders

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1993, ix; 93). For other pairs of lovers, the forest provides the only privacy possible
and is associated not only with love but also with sexual fulfillment, fecundity,
and natural regeneration. In the Spanish poem Razón de amor con los denuestos
del agua y el vino (Reason to Love with a Debate between Water and Wine) from
the first half of the thirteenth century, for example, the description of the pleasant
and sensual forest clearing is designed to celebrate the physical delights of love
(Scarborough 2013, 154).
IV Danger, Adventure, and Transformation
The world of the medieval forest is often thought of as dark, dangerous, and
perhaps even evil, full of wild animals like bears and wolves, if not lions, and
deranged or wicked humans out to kill all that they encounter (see also Ben
Snook’s entry on “Threats, Dangers, and Catastrophes” in this Handbook). For
ordinary people, as the poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) makes himself out to be
in the first canto of The Divine Comedy, the forest can be a dark, savage, and
fearful place, reflecting the anxiety, confusion, distress, and despair that the
isolated human experiences:
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura

esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
[Ah, how hard it is to tell

the nature of that wood, savage, dense and harsh—
the very thought of it renews my fear!] (Dante 2000, 1. 4–6)
Kings and emperors during the Middle Ages made good use of this fear of the
forest to display symbolically their preeminence in the wilderness of the natural
world, and literary characters gained respect and obedience when they tamed this
perilous space as well (Sandidge 2012, 390). The late twelfth-century romance
Havelok the Dane claims that Havelok forced the hostile nobles to bow under his
command, his will, and his mercy by taking control of the perilous woods full of
wicked men. In this sense, the forest presents itself as an enemy to be defeated, a
challenge or opportunity for a ruler to prove himself the master of everything in
the natural world. As indicated by the historical evidence, military leaders during
the Middle Ages saw the forest as a possible site for ambushes or for enemies to
hide. Chronicle and archeological evidence attests to English rulers such as
Henry II (1133–1189), John of Lancaster (1389–1435), and Richard II (1367–1400)
cutting down and burning large tracts of woods during invasions into Wales and
Scotland to prevent their enemies from making use of them.

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We can find this view reflected in literary works as well, such as in the
Alliterative Morte Arthure (ca. 1400) and Malory’s Morte Darthur (1470) when
forests are cut or burned before battles or around towns under siege (Withers
2010). For many romance heroes, however, that same dark unknown space
promises unlimited adventures. The Knights of the Round Table are probably best
known for riding off into the forest to seek quests to prove the virtues of chival-
rous knighthood and to reaffirm their places within the hierarchy. Both Lancelot
and Gawain, Arthur’s top two knights, believe the forest offers them the best
opportunity for adventure, and they ride off into the woods whenever they have
the chance. Just as often in medieval works, the experience in the forest results in
an initiation, transformation, or growth for that person whether it be in spiritual,
ethical, or social terms. Sir Gawain in the late fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight faces his fundamental challenges in the wilds of the forest
before he returns to Arthur’s court a much more self-enlightened and humbled
person.
V The Forest in Art
Medieval artists seldom moved past workshop formulas to depict actual forests in
their paintings or the miniatures illustrating manuscripts. A forest could be
shown by several stylized trees inserted in the background of the picture. How-
ever, a remarkably powerful forest scene appears in an illustration from René
d’Anjou’s Livre du Cœur d’Amour épris (1457) (René d’Anjou 2003). In this allegory
on love, Cueur and Desire are shown in the illustration on folio 9 emerging from a
wicked and sinister forest to ask for lodging. Said to be the work of René himself,
this forest still encloses the figures when we see them about to step out over a
broken stump. The most prominent vertical figure in the piece is a large, tall tree
standing between the characters and us as though blocking their release from this
dark, dense forest where large rocks and scrub cover the little bit of ground
visible. Since Cueur and Desire are asking a hideous character named Jealousy for
lodging, the forest also projects a sense of their continual blind confusion and
ignorance as they stumble along on their journey. Much more positive views of
the forest come through in the books on hunting from the period. The Hunt Book
of Gaston Phoebus (MS. Français 616), for example, includes a scene of hunters
eating in the forest which clearly mimics royal banquet scenes in its sense of
order, hierarchy, and plenty. In fact, except for the six large trees that form the
background and the dogs and horses watching from the sides, it would be hard to
distinguish this scene from one at court. Here the noble hunter is shown in control
of the forest in the same way he presides at court (Gaston 1998).

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A quite unusual hunting scene is found in an illustration from the Grande

Chronique de Normandie (ca. 1460) depicting the death of William Rufus, the king
of England, in 1100 (British Library Yates Thompson 33, fol. 186). On the left-hand
side of the illustration, a view from above lets the viewer look into the dense forest
where the dead king lies with a spear through his midsection as his riderless horse
stands not too far away and a number of well-dressed hunters aim in his general
direction. On the right-hand side, nobles swarm out of a castle as a messenger
informs the new king, Henry I, about his brother’s death. Despite the conven-
tional finery depicted in great detail, the chaotic movement of armed hunters,
horses, aristocrats, and their retainers makes it impossible to equate this royal
hunting scene with aristocratic privilege at all.
The most remarkable set of illustrations of nature from the medieval period is
found in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a book of prayers to be said at
canonical hours created for Duke Jean de Berry first by the Limbourg brothers
between 1412–1416 and completed by an intermediate painter and later Jean
Colombe between 1485–1489 (Longnon et al., ed., 1969). Although the illustra-
tions for most of the months in the accompanying calendar depict beautiful field
and meadow scenes outside of the different residences owned by the duke, the
November picture shows a forest scene. In this picture of the autumn acorn
harvest, the trees, still shown with green leaves at the top of their tall trunks,
provide a carpet of acorns for the hungry pigs to devour as a peasant throws sticks
to knock them down. Although November is often viewed as a cold and bleak
time, this picture illustrates instead the abundance associated with the forest that
provides sustenance for humans and animals even in the late fall landscape (see
Classen 2012c).
C The River
In an important way the river differs from other landscape features in that it tends
to be at the center of human activity instead of separate from or outside of the
heavily populated areas as mountains and forests, fields and meadows are. From
the earliest times, rivers have been associated with deities and life or creation. For
example, the Nile in Egypt was thought to be the source of all gods, and the Styx
in Greek belief was considered the primeval darkness from which the beginnings
of life arose. “As nature’s most protean element,” a river flows through both time
and space, resistant to stasis (Herendeen 1987). Comprised as it is of water, the
river carries metaphorical as well as literal associations of cleansing, baptism,
and rebirth. As not only a geographical marker of place, but also a pathway for
travel, the river is easily connected to founding myths for cities as well as for

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countries. Moreover, the pathway that a river takes suggests divine order and
lends itself well to allegorical thoughts on the journey of life, including barriers
and boundaries as well as opportunities humans face. As perhaps the most
significant river for European culture during the Middle Ages, the Rhine had been
used as a central artery for trade and transportation at least since Roman times.
As a result, the river’s associations with the wealth and splendor of the nobility,
as well as their churches, cathedrals, castles, and other structures that line the
river, have given the Rhine a mythic quality, and German, French, and Dutch
literature and cultural history are all deeply interconnected with the Rhine
(Classen 2008; see also his entry on “Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Travelers” in
this Handbook).
Early Christian sources like Basil envision the perfect landscape as encircled
by a river: “When in 357–359 Basil had described his new abode in the positive
language of cultured retirement (otium liberale), his was an Eden-like retreat into
a thick forest, featuring deep ravines and an encircling river. Cool breezes off the
river nourished the sense of tranquility” (Goehring 2003, 445). When the sixth-
century writer Cassiodorus describes the monastery he founded at Vivarium in
Institutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Litterarum (ca. 530–550), his guide to read-
ing for the monks there, he states that no one should fear the river Pellena next to
the gardens or dismiss it because its waves are neither too large nor too small,
and, furthermore, it works where it is needed and then moves on. This panorama
of an ideal landscape, thus, gives us a glimpse into attitudes toward rivers: rivers
can be quite dangerous and damaging if they get out of control, but when full and
calm, they are of service to humans who depend on them for production (Cahn
1991, 15).
I The River in Literature
Rivers can be sources of national pride used in encomiums of praise. In the laus
Hispanie found in the thirteenth-century Castilian Poema de Fernán González (ca.
1250), for example, passages highlighting Spain’s rivers extolled the country’s
landscapes: “Just as the rivers flow through these lands, uniting them and water-
ing the fields without regard to political division so, too, the writers imply that
Spain is one united kingdom. The fertility of its lands depends on all the rivers in
the peninsula to nurture it as a whole” (Scarborough 2012, 148).
As one would expect, the river in Christian poetry is frequently associated
with cleansing of the soul or is seen as the dividing line between spiritual states.
In the fifteenth-century translation of the French work Le Pèlerinage de l’Âme (ca.
1355) by Guillaume de Deguileville (1295-before 1358) entitled The Pilgrimage of

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the Life of Man, the river allegorically represents the rite of baptism which the
pilgrim must undertake before he can even begin the journey to Jerusalem. When
the pilgrim tells the Grace Dieu that he cannot swim, she chides him for fearing
something that little children usually do and wonders how he can think of
traveling to Jerusalem if he is afraid to pass the small, smooth river at hand:
“What menyth thys? what may thys be,

That thow art now, as semeth me,
So sore a-drad of thys Ryver, (sorely afraid)
Whch ys but lytë, smothe & cler?
Why artow ferful of thys streem? (are you fearful)
And art toward Ierusaleem,
And mustest of Necessyte
Passen ferst the gretë see, (first the great sea)
Or thow kome ther….” (before you come there)
(Guillaume de Deguileville 1996, 891–99)
Most medieval writers place a river (or at least a spring feeding a stream) within
their depictions of the locus amoenus, following the tradition of Greek poets
begun with Homer and popularized by Virgil (1948; Curtius 1953, 186; 190). The
Middle English poem The Pearl (ca. 1375) features a dream narrator who first
enters a scene described in terms similar to that of the conventional locus
amoenus where his grief for his daughter slowly gives way to happiness (Cawley
and Anderson, ed., 2005). The farther he follows this river, the greater the joy in
his heart grows until he becomes suddenly aware that across the river bank was
paradise. Although hoping at first that the river is just a device connecting two
garden areas, he then realizes that the water is in fact a barrier, not a connector,
and that his beloved daughter is on the other side. She is the one who tells him
that first he must die to be able to cross that river:
“Thou wylnes over thys water to weave;

Er moste thou cever to other counsayl:
Thy corse in clot mot calder keve.” (318–20)
(Cawley and Anderson, ed., 2005, 14)
[“You wish to cross over this water;

First you must listen to other counsel:
Your body must sink down into the cold earth.”]
The beautiful river that leads him to envision Paradise marks the boundary
between life and death.
The river is used in Dante’s Divine Comedy in the same way, as the bound-
ary between life and death, but then later, more importantly for the people
taking the journey to Paradise, it is used as a boundary line between Purgatory

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and Paradise, and then as a purifier of human souls. After Dante reaches the top
of Purgatory, he sees wonderful sights across a river that he cannot cross until
Beatrice pulls him across it. Beatrice then pushes Dante down underwater in the
first branch of the river, the Lethe, to make him forget his human sorrows and
then asks Matilda to take him to the second branch of the river, the Eunoe.
Although Dante will not tell us anything else about this very sweet water, after
he drinks it he is pure and ready to enter Paradise. Drawing on its ancient
associations with life, cleansing, purification, transition, and blood of the
divine, the river proves to be in symbolic terms the last essential element for a
human before attaining eternal life.
One of the most popular French secular works of the Middle Ages, the Roman
de la Rose (ca. 1230 and continued 1275) begins with the narrator walking along a
river whose water is cold, clear, and refreshing (Guillaume de Lorris 1968). As
soon as he washes his face in this water, smaller but more “belle” than the Seine,
and walks a short way by the side of the river, the walled garden of love, into
which he seeks entry, appears. Bringing together several iconic associations, this
river cleanses and renews the narrator, i.e., baptizes him, before he can attempt
to enter a space that frequently signals the Garden of Eden, a walled garden. The
beauty and pleasure of this experience are also conveyed through the description
of the river. The difference between these iconic associations and the cast of
characters he meets inside this particular garden, beginning with Idleness, how-
ever, underscores for the reader the decided contrast from this point onward in
the poem between Christian love and courtly love.
Although Chaucer also makes use on occasion of the convention in which a
river flows through a locus amoenus, it is not to validate the traditional ideas
associated with this idyllic space, but instead to invert or deflate them through
irony or parody as though envisioning human life in any ideal terms was no
longer possible for an author in the late medieval world. In the Parliament of
Fowls (1382), for example, the river is fed by cold well streams where, the narrator
says, “nothyng dede” (nothing is dead), underscoring in a comical inversion the
usual topos of life associated with rivers (Chaucer 2008, 187). Since this work is a
debate between birds of different types over which male bird the female formel
should choose as her mate on Valentine’s Day, the courtly lovers in the scene are
not even human, and their debate is basically a satire on late medieval class
divisions. Moreover, in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from the Canterbury Tales (ca.
1387–1400), Chaucer’s Wife describes a lusty bachelor who is riding alone by the
river when he spies a young maiden. At this point, the reader expects to hear
about the beginning of a love affair. Instead, the usual expectations of a medieval
romance are shattered when the sentence describing the river setting ends
abruptly with a rape:

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And so bifel that this kyng Arthour

Hadde in his hous a lusty bacheler,
That on a day cam ridynge fro ryver, (riding by the river)
And happed that, allone as he was born,
He saugh a mayde walkynge hym biforn,
Of which mayde anon, maugree hir heed, (despite her attempts to stop him)
By verray force, he rafte hire maydenhed. (he took away her maidenhead)
(Chaucer 2008, WoBT, ll. 882–88)
As the single feature given in the setting, the river takes on ironic associations of
brute force and betrayal by an Arthurian knight whose oath bound him to protect-
ing and aiding women.
Often in the chivalrous literature of medieval Europe, crossing a river symbo-
lizes a rite of passage for young protagonists. For Parzival in Wolfram von
Eschenbach’s eponymous romance (ca. 1205), the failure of his first adventure
after leaving home is symbolized by his trouble crossing a shaded river. His
inexperience and ignorance, shown in misjudging the depth of the river and in
wandering indecisively beside it all day, lead to serious trouble when he reaches
the other side and attacks the beautiful duchess he finds there, only trying to get
food, but endangering her well-being in the process because her husband Orilus,
when he later returns, believes that she had an affair behind his back. Learning
how to conduct himself in the chivalric world of King Arthur’s knights is a difficult
task for Parzival, who had been kept isolated in a remote forest up to this point by
his mother, and his inept manner of crossing the river signals that he is not yet
prepared for the rite of passage into knighthood. For more seasoned knights such
as Sir Lancelot or Sir Gawain, finding a way to cross a particularly treacherous
river often represents passage into a dark world of unknown peril which they do
not at first recognize or understand. As they confront layers of challenges after
reaching the other side, they realize that their heroic crossing of the ferocious
river was just the beginning of the ordeal.
In his discussion of the Middle High German epic Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200),
Albrecht Classen points to another interpretation of crossing the river: “Those
who face a river or a sea quickly understand that their ultimate challenge has
arrived, since the crossing of that body of water constitutes the moment of truth”
(Classen 2012b, 21). In this work, the Burgundians must cross the river Danube to
make their way to King Etzel and their sister Kriemhild. Their leader Hagen tests
the prophecy of some water fairies and throws the chaplain into the water
although he cannot swim. Miraculously, the chaplain survives, which tells Hagen
that they all will die in Etzel’s land because the first part of the prophecy has thus
already been confirmed. In this case, the Danube becomes the dividing line
between life and death much like the role the Styx plays in Greek mythology

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although the knights who are fated to cross it don’t realize beforehand that this
crossing will lead to the next stage in their lives, death (Classen 2012b, 21; Scott
2009, 407–25).
II The River in Art
In the many secular as well as religious renderings of the locus amoenus in

medieval art, there is, as in poetry, always a river. These rivers curve slowly
around the landscape with just enough movement to indicate the freshness of the
water without suggesting dangerous flooding or wild currents. In a pastoral scene
taken from an illustrated manuscript of The Eclogues by Virgil with a Commentary
by Servius (1469), three contented men seem to relax by the river that forms a half
circle through the mid-ground of the scene. With their pipes and their staffs in
their hands, the two young men in the foreground are almost embraced by the
river. Displaying a beautiful symmetry, each feature in the landscape, the flowers,
the trees, and the humans, is aligned in a reflection of cosmic harmony (Ms 493
fol. 14 Shepherds by a River).
However, in other illustrations from the Middle Ages, the river can be
depicted as a terribly frightening space. For example, the Thames is shown as a
wild and dangerous space in two miniatures from John Lydgate’s Lives of Saints
Edmund and Fremund (1461 and ca. 1475) (BL MS Yates Thompson 47, f. 94v). In
the first, a boy falls from London Bridge after being pushed by cattle, and large
bold brush strokes of blues and whites swirl as the river current rushes through
the archways and a boat is tossed sideways. In the second miniature, a kind and
brave river man hands the boy to his mother as the civilized stability and order of
London in the left background is contrasted to the raging waves of the river on the
right. Another late-medieval river scene, this one of Charon rowing Dante and
Virgil across the river Acheron to hell, is truly frightening (BL MS Yates Thompson
36, f. 6). As the only clothed figures in the scene, Dante and Virgil are afloat in the
boat midway between two banks lined by small peaks of purple, blue, and grey
mountains rising out of the river. In a dark and eerie background, suggestions of
smoke and fire swirl. Chunks of the mountains litter the ground as the denizens of
hell struggle with each other, and the swift current and waves echo the chaos of
the scene. In this diabolic vision, Priamo della Quercia has inverted the tradi-
tional associations of rivers in the human imagination, rebirth, cleansing, ferti-
lity, and life, to show instead in most graphic terms the horror of the eternal
damnation of the human soul.

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D The Mountain
Writing in the fourteenth century, Dante believed that, while gravity accounted
for all things being drawn down into the Inferno, the pull of the stars’ almost
magnetic force created mountains whose shapes mimicked the shape of the
zodiac. Furthermore, he said that the heat of the sun pulled water vapors up into
the mountains (Alexander 1986, 41). Based on his understanding of natural
science, Dante’s explanation of the origins of mountains is quite different from
those in earlier periods where mountains were considered sacred spaces since
their heights made them the space closest to the deity. It was thought, therefore,
that the difficulties and dangers inherent in ascending this space were meant to
keep the human and the divine separate (Kirchner 1950, 412). An eleventh-century
chronicler from the monastery of Novalese located in a valley of the Alps reports
that those attempting to climb nearby peaks were forced back by wild animals,
bad weather, and “stones hurled at them,” which was a clear sign to them that
mountains were not meant to be climbed (Kirchner 1950, 421). Other narratives
such as one on the twelfth-century attempt by John de Bramble from Canterbury
to climb the “Mount of Jove” and another on the thirteenth-century climb by King
Peter III of Aragon up Pic Canigou reinforce the popular view of mountain tops as
incredibly treacherous territory inhospitable to human beings (Kirchner 1950,
421). It is only with the attempts to understand nature and geography found in
twelfth- and thirteenth-century encyclopedists such as Bartholomew of England
that cultural attitudes toward mountains began to shift. Although mountains
were sometimes viewed with respect within medieval culture—Marco Polo, for
example, praises the refreshing, pure air at the top of mountains—the sheer
ruggedness of terrain and massive size as well as the barriers they provided to
travel still made them formidable impediments (Classen 2014a; Classen 2013c,
194).
I The Mountain in Literature
Beginning in the literary and artistic works of the twelfth and thirteenth-centuries,
concepts associated with mountains begin to go beyond their outward physical
appearances as gigantic masses that impede human travel to reflect more ab-
stractly on their symbolic use as “important boundary markers in the human
consciousness” (Classen 2012b, 27; see also Classen 2014a). Dan Hooley explains
the significance of mountains to the human imagination in this way: “[M]ountains
give us perspective…. [T]here is always something metaphysical in that view”
(Hooley 2012, 23). Often in medieval literature, that view of the mountain as

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something frightening comes from the anxiety over the immensity of this un-
known and obscure space which emphasizes a person’s own weakness and
vulnerability. When the hero has overcome in some way this enormous monstros-
ity, it proves to be a triumph of the highest value (Thomasset and James-Raoul,
ed., 2000). This is apparent in Dante’s Divine Comedy (1307–1327), for example,
where Purgatory is envisioned as a mountain with seven terraces corresponding
to the seven deadly sins. Unlike the many weary souls Dante meets who have
stopped climbing, Dante himself, with much aid from others, makes it to the top
of the mountain ready to enter Paradise with Beatrice.
Frequently linked to giants, the mountain can project the same spiritual and
social depravity that the obscenely large creature represents (Thomasset and
James-Raoul, ed., 2000, 272.) The extent of the evil in the acts of perversion and
villainy committed by the giant at the Mont Saint-Michel in Thomas Malory’s
Morte Darthur (1470), including among other things raping, roasting, and eating
young girls and women, is reflected in the grotesque size and shape of the
mountain. Only later is the mountain tamed and Christianized when a chapel to
St. Michel is built on top. In a similar way, it is up into a forested mountain that
the Infantes Fernando and Diego in the Castilian epic The Poem of the Cid (El
Poema de Myo Çid) (ca. 1195–1207) take their wives to tear them apart like wild
beasts and leave them to die (Simpson, trans., 2007; see Scarborough 2013, 20).
At times, the journey is not up the mountain, but down inside the mountain, into
a cavern, cave, or grotto where the character may regress into infantilism, bestial-
ity, or monstrosity, essentially losing his or her humanity and all sense of clarity
(Thomasset and James-Raoul, ed., 2000, 269). Mountains form a grotesque image
of hell in the very popular medieval work The Travels of John Mandeville (ca.
1355), where Alexander is said to call on God to move the Caucasus mountains to
enclose the twenty-two Jewish kings and their people after his men had chased
them there so that they could not kill Christians. God complies even though
Alexander was a pagan, the author says, and “closed the mountaynes togydre,”
creating a hellish space thought to be appropriate for those who had rejected
Christ (Mandeville 1923, Ch. 24).
At the same time, however, just the opposite sense of a mountain—that of
sacred space—is evoked by its associations with the sacred nature of the deity
(Thomasset and James-Raoul, ed., 2000, 273). In biblical stories, Moses receives
the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and Ezechiel 28: 13–14 says that Eden
had been perched high up on a mountain. John Mandeville tells us in chapter 21
of The Travels of John Mandeville that Adam and Eve spent the first one hundred
years after their expulsion from Paradise weeping on another great mountain on
the Isle of Silha. The deep lake formed from their tears contains pearls and
precious stones which the poor can dive for once a year as alms (Mandeville 1923,

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Ch. 21). Dante’s placing Paradise at the top of a mountain in the Divine Comedy, as
just discussed, is another well-known example of sacred space being depicted on
a mountain top.
In most Grail stories within the Arthurian Legends, the chateau of the Grail is
located in mountainous territory, and in Italian folklore Morgan Le Fay is said to
live on Montegibel on Sicily. Moreover, an experience on a mountain is often an
initiation into a more spiritual or enlightened state of being where a person
emulates the suffering of Christ and contemplates the spiritual world. Instead of
the deserts in which biblical saints withdrew for decades of isolation, mountains,
like forests, in Western Europe became associated with ascetic withdrawal from
human contact (Goehring 2003, 444). In the early sixth-century Lives of the Jura
Fathers, for example, Romanus seeks spiritual isolation in the Jura Mountains
northeast of Lyon and undergoes the same type of hardships that biblical figures
had endured in the hostile deserts (Goehring 2003, 446). This pattern is also seen
in, among many other similar works, the Castilian poem Vida de San Millán de la
Cogolla (Life of San Millán de la Cogolla) by Gonzalo de Berceo (ca. 1197–1264).
When San Millán retreated into the mountains where he suffered physical hard-
ships and had to do battle with the devil, his incredible determination to live the
contemplative life is underscored by the hostile environment of the mountains
(Scarborough 2013, 55). In a more positive connection, the Noah stories retold in
works from the medieval period link the mountain on which the ark is perched
after the flood to a sense of progress or renewal in humanity (Thomasset and
James-Raoul, ed., 2000, 274).
Albrecht Classen argues that in a letter Petrarch (1304–1374) wrote to a friend
sometime between 1336 and the late 1350s we get perhaps the earliest sense of a
mountain as a tantalizing, mysterious place to explore in medieval culture. As
Petrarch describes his ascent up Mont Ventoux, however, his conception of the
mountain changes, and he begins to view the mountain as a worldly distraction,
a symbol of the greatest earthly appetites that must be suppressed, as something
that impedes his journey toward God (Moore 2008, 61). The climb comes to
represent the struggle to attain spiritual salvation, and the mountain essentially
becomes a metaphor for human life where all people need to keep climbing or
striving and to recognize that the search for the soul is the only worthwhile
journey (Classen 2013c, 11–15).

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II The Mountain in Art
In the symbolic landscape of medieval art, the outlines of mountains are drawn
with hard and sharp angles cut into long slabs of vertical planes, lacking the
softness that a cover of trees gives in later depictions. In a worldview built on
vertical perspectives, where spiritual truth and authority come from on high, the
sheer height of the mountains in paintings signifies transcendence which can
elevate, intimidate, or alienate the figures in the landscape. In Christian paintings
during the Middle Ages, mountains could serve as places where humans encoun-
tered God or reenacted biblical scenes of sacrifice or exile (Classen 2012b, 37–38).
One of the best examples of a mountain used to elevate and intimidate is in the
Stigmata of St. Francis painted by Giotto around 1300. The artist has placed St.
Francis on the edge of a cliff on a very stylized version of Mount Alverno with
sharply cut edges and a high vertical peak rising above his head. With the sides of
the mountain darkened, an illuminating downward-sloping vertical line points to
St. Francis. Jesus appears as a seraph in the sky next to the mountain peak and
seems to direct sharp gold volts from his wounds onto the kneeling figure of
St. Francis who has his hands up as though to protect himself. The majesty of
Christ is underscored by his raised position next to the peak of the mountain
while the sense of fear and isolation that St. Francis experienced is shown visually
as he is overpowered by the immensity of the mountain overtop of him (Fossi
2004, 110).
Another event frequently shown in the mountains is Abraham’s sacrifice of
Isaac. In Lorenzo Ghiberti’s bronze panel depicting the story of Abraham on the
doors of the Florence Baptistery called the Gates of Paradise, the jagged edges of
the rugged mountain projecting into his back suggest the intensity of spiritual
belief that would lead a father to sacrifice his son (Radke, ed., 2007). In one of the
illustrations from the text of the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry called La
Tentation du Christ (The Temptation of Christ) (1411–1416) by the Limbourg broth-
ers, Jesus stands on top of a steep and narrow mountain as he looks down on the
earthly temptations he must resist (fol. 161 v). The suggestion seems to be that
only someone so far above the other mortal beings could possibly resist the devil’s
offerings (Longnon et al., ed., 1969; see Lecouteux 2008).
E The Field
Agricultural fields were used in conjunction with other types of landscape, the
forest, meadow, and pasture, because each type was necessary to supply the
different resources and products needed for farming during the Middle Ages.

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According to archaeologists, farmers began to enter the lands of the hunter/

gathering clans in Europe some time after the advent of agriculture in the Middle
East 11,000 years ago, gradually spreading the use of fields as well as the
domestication of animals from south-east regions eventually to north-west Eur-
ope. By the Middle Ages, therefore, fields had been used for thousands of years,
and a cycle of clearing of forest or scrub land for cultivation followed by re-growth
of forest had been repeated many times throughout the landscape in Europe.
During periods of high population growth, more land would be cleared and
cultivated to feed the larger numbers of people while plagues and natural disas-
ters would lower the population and lead to fewer fields in use. After both the
collapse of the Roman Empire (fifth century) and the Black Plague (1347–1351),
much abandoned land was turned back into forest or scrub, “waste,” land. By the
eleventh century, however, larger tracts of land were being put to use as fields
since a growing population supplied both the labor to work the fields and the
need for increased food production (Unger 2003, 65).
In a blend of ideas taken from classical and biblical sources, the medieval
world attributed poor fields to the fall from Eden. Hesiod had pronounced in the
eighth-century B.C.E. that soil had been naturally fertile in the much earlier
Golden Age, and the Old Testament said that as a result of the fall humans must
till barren, rocky, or thorny fields. Connie Scarborough reminds us, moreover,
that agricultural fields can also be linked to death in battle, destruction, and
political upheaval when they are used for combat (Scarborough 2013, 206). In
Summa Theologiae, however, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) shows through his
discussion of Eden that arable land makes up his ideal landscape (Thomas
Aquinas 1964). As Clarence Glacken notes, “To St. Thomas, tilling the earth in a
quiet rural setting in a temperate climate seems to have been an idyllic existence
worthy of man even before the Fall” (Glacken 1967, 235).
As early as Charlemagne’s Capitulare de Villis (Capitulary of Manors and
Farms) (ca. 800), a balance is called for between forested land and cultivated land
which includes this decree: “[W]here there is a place suitable for clearing have it
done, not allowing the woods to increase in the fields” (Glacken 1967, 334;
Boretius and Krause, ed., 2001). During the eleventh through the thirteenth
centuries, the active life the church encouraged included cutting forests to con-
struct convents, churches, and cathedrals and to cultivate fields to support the
members of these Christian communities. In the twelfth century, as we can see
from the Topography of Ireland (1187) by Giraldus Cambrensis (ca. 1146-ca. 1220)
which features a hierarchy of landscape features, the field is shown to be central
to human society:

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In the common course of things, mankind progresses from the forest to the field, from the
field to the town, and to the social condition of citizens…. [The Irish] lead the same life their
fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or
learn anything new. They, therefore, only make patches of tillage; their pastures are short of
herbage; cultivation is very rare, and there is scarcely any land sown. (quoted in Glacken
1967, 281)
Good tillage of fields is linked to higher civilizations and those who prefer to live
in the woods, hunting and gathering as their ancestors did instead of embracing
the agricultural lifestyle, are considered barbaric by Giraldus (Giraldus 1968).
I The Field in Literature
In Spain, the crucial importance of agricultural fields is evident not only in the
thirteenth-century lawcode Siete Partidas of Alfonso X which covers the good
management of fields (Alfonso 2003), but is also shown in the use of fields for the
setting of many works in Alfonso X’s collection of Marian tales, the Cantigas de
Santa Maria (1282) (Alfonso 2003). Through their biblical associations with Adam
after the fall of mankind, fields represent nature tamed by humans and under
human control. “Medieval audiences saw the cultivated field, especially one that
was productive, as emblematic of God’s favor” (Scarborough 2013, 105). As the
farmers or vintners worked to increase their crops or to save them from destruc-
tion in these Marian tales, they looked to God or the Virgin for help, and if they
followed the right steps for Christian salvation, their fields usually prospered.
In the Middle English work Piers Plowman (ca. 1368–1374), the field is a
symbolic space equaling God’s world on earth with Piers serving as a vision of
St. Paul laboring on one half acre to achieve justice and truth on earth (Pigg 2012,
356). After Piers tells a group of pilgrims that he will show them the way if they
will help him plough and sow his half acre, there is one brief span of early
morning work with everyone contributing to the plowing and weeding of the field.
By 9 a.m., however, the shirkers have quit working, bringing on an attack by
hunger (Langland 1990, Passus VI, 63–65). The work on this one-half-acre field is,
in fact, the pilgrimage, and Piers’s helpers fail to achieve an ideal Christian
society by abandoning their work there (Rudd 2007, 199). Furthermore, Chaucer
also uses the image of the plowman as a person who lives the good Christian life
in the Canterbury Tales (1400). As the brother of the Parson, the only cleric on the
pilgrimage truly journeying toward the city of God, the Plowman is described in
ideal terms, said to live in peace and perfect charity, to love God first and then his
neighbor as himself, and to work hard to help the poor. Interspersed with these
are details describing the work of a farm laborer: “That hadde ylad of dong ful

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many a fother” (He had hauled many a cart full of dung) and “He wolde thresshe,
and therto dyke and delve” (He would thresh and in addition make ditches and
dig) (Chaucer 2008, I, 530, 536). Simple, physical, earthy labor in the field is
linked to a good Christian life.
The medieval cultural view of fields is illustrated in secular works such as
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (ca. 1205) as well as in later versions of the
story, where the fields of Parzival’s mother are hidden in the forest into which she
has retreated to raise her son. Wolfram describes the work the knight sees going
on in the field as they furrow, sow, and harrow the soil. These honest field
workers are good men who tell the knight what he wants to know and lament the
fact that young Parzival has gotten his first seductive view of the splendor of
knighthood (Wolfram von Eschenbach 1980). We see their steadfast labor for and
loyalty to their queen in a much more positive light than the muddled actions of
knights who chase other knights who carry off young ladies. At the same time we
see the quiet, fertile field associated with the simple life in sharp contrast to the
tangled wilderness of the forest in which knights compete for glory.
We get glimpses of peasant attitudes toward fields in several ways. One is
their illegal clearances of fields deep in forests or on a far edge where they think
no one will notice (Bechmann 1990, 78). Their heavy dependence on the crops
from fields for survival made them risk the punishment they would receive if
these fields were detected; for them, fields are essential to life. In another source,
Latvian folksongs originally created during the Middle Ages, the views of field
workers toward this space come through in song and poetry. Fields as well as
other elements of the ordinary landscape are shown to be intertwined with
natural and human rhythms of life. In one poem, the speaker states that the best
land possible is made up of a little field in the middle of a green birch grove:
The land that I wished,

Such land did I get:
A green birch grove all around,
In the middle a beloved little field.
(Švābe, Straubergs, and Hauzenberga-Šturma, ed., 1952–1956, 48275; Bunkše 1978, 563)
The pleasure the speaker takes in having gotten this space comes through in the
positive force of the imagery. In another poem, the very pragmatic reason for
clearing the forest to make a new field is suggested:
Her brothers have come

New ground they will clear
Where their sister’s barley
Will be cut this summer.

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The sister’s upcoming wedding means the family needs to increase the amount of
land it cultivates to produce extra barley. Sometimes there is crop failure in the
field: “I wanted to plant oats, / God threw in a little lake” (Švābe, Straubergs, and
Hauzenberga-Šturma, ed., 1952–1956, 28218; Bunkše 1978, 564). And sometimes
the deforestation necessary for new fields brings tragedy:
Tired are my brothers,

Having cleared the land.
Where will the little rabbit, little bear
Spend a nasty day?
The clearing of the forest to increase field acreage in order to produce food for
human consumption comes at a cost for wildlife.
II The Field in Art
In the many renderings of fields by painters during the Middle Ages, we find
almost realistic detail in contrast to the heavily stylized portrayals of other
features in the landscape. By projecting either positive or negative associations,
the manner in which the fields were depicted in the paintings reinforced the
artists’ themes concerning human society. A prosperous, well-tended field, for
example, could suggest wise leadership and adherence to Christian values while
a scrubby, untended or wasted field could suggest evil behavior, spiritual death,
or incompetent leadership (Jaritz 2003, 54–55). In more than half of the months in
the famous Très Riches Heures, workers can be seen in their fields carrying out
their seasonal duties in an idyllic landscape. Perhaps because of their familiarity
with them as well as the importance of fields in the cyclical patterns of the natural
world, artists focused on the actual features, such as the furrow lines evident
where the peasant has plowed the field with two oxen and the mounds of earth
about to be seeded in another field on the page for March in Duc du Berry’s
magnificent manuscript. The well-ordered and cultivated fields in works like
these reflected the economic success of the landowner as well as his benevolent
oversight of his estates and those who work on them.
The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, a series of frescoes painted by
Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Sienna between 1338–1339, displays contrasting scenes of
town and country life to illustrate the beneficent effects of virtuous government
and the horrendous effects of despotic rule on Italian society (Southard 1979).
With a winged figure of Security hovering over the landscape, the countryside in
the good government section is populated by peasants and farmers leisurely

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working at various activities in well-ordered, bucolic, fertile fields. On the other

hand, the fresco entitled The Effects of Bad Government shows the horror of two
armies advancing on each other in burned fields, reminding us that agricultural
fields could take on associations with death, destruction, and political turmoil
when they become places for battle and displays of dominance. In Lorenzetti’s
detailed landscapes, the carefully attended, fertile field clearly reflects human
society at its best as a part of a regenerative world mirroring God’s spiritual one
while the dead fields illustrate the consequences of shameless denial of the
precepts inherent in the Christian universe.
F The Meadow
As a second type of rural feature to be carved out of forest spaces, the meadow in
its earliest sense was a field covered in grass to be mown for hay but later became
associated with either a space to pasture animals or an area of grassy lowland
usually beside a river. Early on meadows were generally used as common land for
the grazing of a community’s animals, but increasingly during the Middle Ages
disputes over access to meadows and common land grew, indicating the impor-
tance of this type of space to European farming. One thirteenth-century law on
land use, the 1236 Statute of Merton in England, restricted expansion of arable
land so that pasture and forest land would not be lost (Unger 2003, 75–76.) In the
later Middle Ages, the percentage of land set aside for the grazing of animals grew
as a greater prosperity led to greater demand for meat (Fox 1998, 12). In economic
terms, therefore, the meadow was becoming a more valuable space, and this
process of turning fields into pastures for animals would result in massive
enclosures of land in the centuries to come, causing much hardship in the
countryside. For medieval Europe, however, the meadow was still a very pleasant
place for the human population to rest, to dream, to reflect on its relationship to
the natural world, and to contemplate love in both its romantic and spiritual
senses.
I The Meadow in Literature
Although the early modern period would revive the pastoral conventions inher-
ited from Virgil in his Eclogues, often employing the meadow as a space in which
to debate the world of politics and court, the meadow in much medieval literature
is not connected to the realities of urban life, but, like the river discussed earlier,
is a common feature in the locus amoenus portrayed in classical literature and in

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medieval poetry. These rich spaces of lush grass and flowers became associated
with love as pairs of lovers throughout the literary canons of medieval Europe
retreat there for private time together. In “Under der linden,” by the German poet
Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1170-ca. 1230), for example, a young woman
describes the bed her true love has made for her in the grass and flowers of a
meadow where they enjoy a thousand kisses and more (Walther von der Vogel-
weide 1996, no. 16). The private and secret nature of the space is underscored
when she says that she would die of shame if anyone knew that he lay with her.
Instead of taking on associations with sin, however, this richly verdant space is
linked to “innocent, sublime, pristine and natural love” (Clason 2012, 235).
The Spanish poet Gonzalo de Berceo adapts the locus amoenus convention as
the setting for an elaborate allegory about the majesty and mercies of the Virgin
Mary. In Milagros de Nuestra Señora (before 1264), the perennially green meadow
in which the pilgrim/poet rests on his journey is the space in which stories about
Mary’s miracles are heard, which links the fertile and peaceful space to a Chris-
tian paradise. Instead of sharing his locus amoenus with a beautiful young woman
of courtly romance, Berceo shares this meadow with the Virgin (Scarborough
2013, 155).
One of the most telling details Chaucer gives us about the young squire in the
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (1400) is that his shirt is embroidered as
if it were a meadow full of fresh flowers red and white. Evoking not only the
beautiful fullness and lighthearted pleasure of the meadow, but also the youthful
exuberance of this “lusty bachelor,” this passage shows us again the popular
cultural associations linked to this landscape feature. Although his father, Chau-
cer’s knight, has spent his time on battle fields fighting the enemies of Christian-
ity, this young squire has his heart set on meadows. Not surprisingly, the writer
who popularized the love sonnet during the fourteenth century, Francesco Pet-
rarch (1304–1374), often used the pastoral image of the meadow when reflecting
on love. In Rima 310, for example, the meadow is said to laugh while love fills the
air, earth and water in an idyllic spring scene meant to contrast with the emo-
tional despair that the poet experiences over the loss of Laura.
Ridono i prati, e ‘l ciel si rasserena;

Giove s’allegra di mirar sua figlia;
l’aria et l’acqua et la terra è d’amor piena;
ogni animal d’amar si riconsiglia. (5–8)
[The meadows laugh and the sky is serene;

Jupiter gladly gazes on his daughter;
Love fills the air and the earth and the water;
And all the creatures’ instincts on love lean.] (Petrarca 1978, 231)

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Also associated with this meadow scene is a sense of harmony among the various
parts of the natural world which the human yearns to experience.
When we turn again to the landscape features found in Dante’s Divine
Comedy (1307–1327), it is in the Inferno that we cross a stream to find a “fresh,
green meadow” (Dante 2000, IV.111). Here Dante at first feels at home with
those whose words were sweet, the great pagan spirits from the classical world
whose deeds or teachings gained them much respect. Although condemned to
eternal life in the Inferno because of their pagan beliefs, these figures, such as
Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Electra, Euclid, and Seneca, are given the pastoral
paradise of the meadow celebrated by their poets where they will passively
repose for eternity.
Despite this meadow’s being populated with almost silent, almost still sym-
bols of human sapience and despite moral courage appearing very attractive to
Dante at this stage, he will come to understand the meadow’s inadequacies
compared to the Christian paradise at the top of the mountain at the end of his
journey.
II The Meadow in Art
In some of the earliest European Christian art, paintings and mosaics in Roman
catacombs frequently portray the Good Shepherd based on Christ’s parable of the
lost sheep in which a herdsman searches for the one lost sheep out of one
hundred. In addition, Orpheus is also depicted in these works charming the
animals. A detail taken from a third-century tomb in the Catacomb of Domitilla
depicts an Orpheus-Christ, pipe in hand, relaxing next to carefully painted sheep
in a lovely meadow or pasture (Bourguet 1965, 27). As in other paintings of this
type, the meadow is suggested by tall, stylized sprays of grass or flowers inter-
spersed around the background. Another source for early images of herdsmen is
Virgil’s Georgics III. A scene taken from a fifth-century illuminated Vatican manu-
script (Vat.lat.3867, 44v.) depicts two herdsmen, one playing a pipe, enjoying the
day in the meadow with lively horses jumping or mothering a fold while goats
munch on the stylized foliage interspersed among the figures (Bourguet 1965,
175). As spaces of salvation and natural harmony, the meadows in these works
prefigure the more detailed versions that appear in late medieval secular as well
as religious medieval art.
The magnificent mille-fleurs tapestries woven in France and Flanders during
the fifteenth century use backgrounds of meadow space where many species of
plants and flowers appear scattered throughout, and animals and birds are often
placed in random patterns. What could be more appropriate for northern Eur-

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opeans to visualize on their cold bleak walls than brightly colored meadows
(Stokstad 1986, 383).
In a series of late medieval paintings called the Madonna of humility or
Madonna of the meadow because Mary sits holding the Christ child on a stool or
on the ground in a meadow, the meadow reflects a rich union of spiritual and
natural fecundity in a beautiful, harmonious scene (Williamson 2009). In the
Madonna of Humility painted ca. 1442 by Giovanni di Paola, for example, the dark
green carpet of the meadow blends into the folds of Mary’s dark blue clothing,
linking the symbols of Christian salvation with the beauty of the meadow.
Sheltered by a half circle of fruit trees behind her, Mary is surrounded by plants
such as strawberries and white blooming flowers as she and her infant symbolize
regeneration for the human world. The Adoration of the Lamb of God, the magni-
ficent altarpiece for Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, (1432) by the brothers Hubert
and Jan van Eyck, uses a beautiful green meadow into which saints stream for the
setting of the adoration of the Lamb (Dhanens 1973). Although mountain scenes
frequently displayed dramatic, intense, active interplay between humans like
Moses, Abraham, or St. Francis, and the divine, it is in the verdant peaceful
meadow that artists often envisioned the divine love that Jesus and Mary offered
humans.
The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the book of prayers (or Book of
Hours) including the famous illustrated calendar discussed earlier, is full of
beautiful meadows (Longnon et al., ed., 1969). Lovely scenes of meadows appear
in the illustrations for every month from March through August, sometimes as the
primary space, such as when the April scene sets a newly betrothed couple
exchanging rings surrounded by friends and family in a meadow bordered by a
forest, a river, and a walled garden, or when in the June scene peasants harvest
hay in the meadow, or sometimes simply as a background feature. The late
medieval move toward more detailed viewing of natural scenes allows us to feel
the idyllic intersection of contentment and pleasure, harmony and plenty, and the
human, natural, and divine worlds symbolized by the medieval meadow.
G Conclusion
The analysis of cultural attitudes toward these landscape features in the Middle
Ages shows Western Europe moving from strictly conventional views inherited
from classical and early Christian sources to a more complex vision that incorpo-
rates knowledge taken from medieval studies of nature and practical considera-
tions about their utility into a Christian framework of the physical world. The
symbolic or iconographic associations were usually based on the physical char-

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acteristics such as size or shape or on sense perceptions of each of these features.

The immense size of a mountain, for example, led to its use in contrasting human
infirmity and insignificance with divine strength and eminence, while the dark-
ness of forests, the amorphous movement of rivers, or the fertility of fields and
meadows, as well as other characteristics we could identify, gave authors and
artists the material for scenes of either exaltation or condemnation. Of the five,
the mountain was perhaps the least appreciated of these features, and, in fact,
natural scientists in the early modern age debated whether it even existed in the
antediluvian world (Glacken 1967, 413). On the other hand, the meadow retains its
positive cultural associations with fertility, relaxation, and harmony almost with-
out fail.
Although earlier modern studies of the natural world such as Curtius’s
seminal work European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages highlighted the
conventional and artificial uses of these features in medieval culture, later scho-
larship, i.e., current studies looking at medieval works through an ecocritical
lens, has shown that many medieval writers and artists did work realistic details
about the natural world gained through firsthand experience into their depictions
of life in Europe during this period (see Rudd 2007; Moore 2008; Siewers 2009;
Clason 2012; Classen, ed., 2012; and Scarborough 2013).
Select Bibliography
Bechmann, Roland, Trees and Man: The Forest in the Middle Ages, trans. Katharyn Dunham
(New York 1990).
Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New
Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. and trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little,
paperback ed. (1968; Toronto et al. 1997).
Classen, Albrecht, “The Discovery of the Mountain as an Epistemological Challenge: A Paradigm
Shift in the Approach to Highly Elevated Nature. Petrarch’s Ascent to Mont Ventoux and
Emperor Maximilian’s Theuerdank,” The Book of Nature and Humanity: Natural and Human
Worlds in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. David Hawkes and Richard G. Newhauser,
with the assistance of Nathaniel Bump (Turnhout 2013), 3–18. [= Classen 2013c]
Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask
(1948; Princeton, NJ, 1953).
Fumagalli, Vito, Landscapes of Fear: Perceptions of Nature and the City in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge 1994).
Glacken, Clarence, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from
Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (London et al. 1967).
Howe, John and Michael Wolfe, ed., Inventing Medieval Landscapes: Senses of Place in Western
Europe (Gainesville, FL, 2002).

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Laszlovszky, József and Péter Szabó, ed., People and Nature in Historical Perspective (Budapest
2003).
Saunders, Corinne, The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden (Cambridge
1993).
Thomasset, Claude and Daniele James-Raoul, ed., La montagne dans la texte medieval: Entre
methe et realtite (Paris 2000).

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John M. Hill
Friendship in the Middle Ages
A Introduction
While friendship is an important matter globally, especially in small or other-
wise face-to-face societies, its ethical and personal prominence during the
European Middle Ages is still little noted outside of specialized, scholarly
circles. That prominence has not survived into modern times, certainly not into
an age when people have hundreds or even thousands of facebook “friends,”
along with buddy systems hyping networking above all else. Medieval Eur-
opean societies of course stressed the instrumental importance of friendships in
the needs and activities of daily life, perhaps especially where kinship support
was not strong or did not exist, and in business and organizational ventures as
well as in political affairs. In the latter arena people sought and valued the
“friendship” of powerful figures, who in turn used friendship for political
purposes vis-à-vis other rulers or kings as well as vassals or groups of vassals
(Althoff 1991, 91–94). But medieval discourse on love, ethics and friendship is
what matters intellectually concerning deep friendships between good men.
That discourse, with two, intertwined strands, will be the main concern of this
essay, with noble friendship being the more important strand, however spiritua-
lized through Augustine (354–430) and in eleventh and twelfth-century monas-
tic contexts.
Noble friendship originates with Aristotle’s (367–38 B.C.E.) Nicomachean
Ethics, where it is the highest ideal, superior to friendship within the family
because disinterested. Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.) re-establishes it as a central political
and social topic through De amicitia, with lesser contributions by Ovid (43 B.C.E–
17 C.E.) in some of his exilic letters (Ex. Ponto 1–3, Claassen 1999), and by Seneca
(4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.) and Sallust (86–34 B.C.E., for some resonant phrases). Greek
ideas from Pythagoras (sixth century B.C.E.) especially become part of the early
Church’s self- identification as a communal brotherhood (McEvoy 1999, 7–8). But
noble friendship awaits the full development Cicero gives it. Augustine, influ-
enced by Ambrose (340–397; see McGuire 1988, 41–44), responds deeply to
Cicero’s ideal in his transformation of noble friendship into the lasting friendship
that can only come in and through Christ, thus making the ideal’s Neoplatonic
potential religiously transcendent. Some Western Church Fathers, such as Gre-
gory, and some philosophers follow accordingly. Although misfortune will ex-
pose false or convenient friends, noble friendship is an unalloyed good in

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566 John M. Hill
Boethius’s (480–524) Consolation of Philosophy, where misfortune can help one

discover who is a true friend and who is not.
From there it travels into theological and ethical discourse during the high
Middle Ages, most notably via eleventh and twelfth-century monastic circles
first—such as in the writings and letters of Anselm (1033–1109), Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090–1153), Peter the Venerable (1092–1156) and Peter of Celle (1115–
1183)—and especially via Aelred of Rievaulx’s De spiritali amicitia (ca. 1110–1167;
McGuire 1988, 268–79; 296 and following). In the thirteenth century, Robert
Grosseteste’s (1168–1263) university scholarship firmly establishes Aristotle’s
Ethics, as he produces the first continuous text and commentary in the 1230s or
1240s. That account of friendship entered the Middle Ages first through Byzantine
reception and then in the theology and ethics of such figures as Bradwardine
(1290–1349; see Barber and Jenkins, ed., 2009). The Nicomachean Ethics, Books
VIII and IX, nevertheless takes a back seat to Cicero’s De amicitia in that it was not
much studied as a whole until the thirteenth century, by which time Aristotle’s
account of friendship, while received as philosophical background to Cicero’s
treatment (McEvoy 1999, 26–27), would not have seemed novel.
In other contexts noble friendship owes something to Augustine’s influence—
via The Confessions it is reflected in Aquinas’s (1225–1274) debt to Aristotle, and
appears in Jean de Meun’s (1240–1305) continuation of The Romance of the Rose.
That discourse has already probably influenced other poets, such as Chretien in
the twelfth century (at least in Yvain in a scene where, unknowingly, two close
friends nearly kill each other). Warrior companions and friends appear in earlier
Germanic epic, such as the eighth- or ninth-century Beowulf or the eleventh-
century The Song of Roland, or the tenth-century Latinate Walter of Acquitaine
(Waltharii poësis; Magoun and Smyser, trans., 1950). While Roland has Oliver the
wise against the Saracens, Beowulf has Wiglaf in the last third of the poem
against the dragon. But the latter friendship at least is better characterized by the
reciprocities of the war band, the artificial kinship of the hall that intensifies a
distant blood relationship (Hill 2008, 82–83; Classen 2011a). Earlier in the poem
Hrothgar, who has grieved for a long-time ‘shoulder-companion’ and counselor
killed by Grendel’s mother, tearfully feels intense emotion for Beowulf, whom he
has come to appreciate deeply for the latter’s celerity, courage, enormous prowess
and considerable wisdom (especially the wisdom of promising help should Hroth-
gar have future need—this upon Beowulf’s imminent departure from the land of
the Danes [lines 1822–39; Fulk, et al., ed., 2008]). The tearful moment in lines
1870–80a is highly emotional but within the expected, friendly reciprocities of a
good king, a sweeping form of which Hrothgar has just pronounced between
Danes and Geats (lines 1853–65). Friendship from kings and lords in the poem has
legal weight, as it does in other Anglo-Saxon poems and in the law codes (Hill

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Friendship in the Middle Ages 567
1995, 99; 187 n 30), but does not exclude strong feeling. Beowulf will even think
of his chosen retainers late in the poem as deserving of good luck, a better luck at
least than he seems to have drawn for himself given the fiery dragon. But while
there is great respect and praise involved, as well as repeated service, Beowulf
and Hrothgar, who once settled a feud for Beowulf’s famous father, are not good
friends, although an adoptive, father-son-like feeling is possible, especially on
Hrothgar’s part. Moreover Hrothgar does tearfully think of Beowulf as ‘dear,’ leof
(1876), a term applied also to the old shoulder-companion Grendel’s mother killed
and by Beowulf to Wiglaf, the warrior and kinsman who steps up for him against
the dragon. The term suggests affection and love for the warriors concerned but
not a blood brotherhood or a union of souls.
Strong, emotional ties, especially in intense, combat situations, also appear
in the eleventh-century The Song of Roland and in the twelfth or early thirteenth-
century Nibelungenlied among warriors who are loyal friends (Oliver and Roland)
or who have been denominated friends in the course of excellent hospitality,
escort and the giving of gifts (along with in-law ties) between Rüdiger and the
Burgundians. Kings and warriors sorrowing over the deaths of comrades and
favorites appear in both poems (Classen 2011a). Moreover, secure friendships
between figures in Saga literature matter in any overview of medieval friendship,
as between Gunnar and Njal in the thirteenth-century Njal’s Saga (Classen 2011a).
While Njal always gives Gunnar excellent legal advice and counsel, and is willing
to have his son aid Gunnar in troubles with other parties, such friendships,
however personal or deep in the moment, are not Ciceronian.
Arthurian and courtly literature will feature friendship in homosocial and
homoerotic contexts (Zeikowitz 2003, 35–43). Then one should note the early
Dante and Petrarch, one of whose letters sets out character quirks among his
friends (Classen and Sandidge, ed., 2010, 64), while Dante may have structured
The Paradiso along Aristotelian friendship lines, modified via Aquinas so as to
climax in friendship with God (Bourbeau 1991, 57–61). Dante (1265–1321) no doubt
was in various ways indebted to his beloved teacher, Bruno Latini (1220–1294),
who believed that good and full, true friendship can only exist between good men
of similar virtue who love each other for their respective virtue (Classen and
Sandidge, ed., 2010, 59). Boccaccio (1313–1375) in the Filostrato sets friendship
into a go-between relationship, which Chaucer (1343–1400) especially intensifies
and elevates into “full” friendship between Troilus and Pandarus. That narrative
masterpiece, Troilus and Criseyde, is arguably the greatest, Western European
treatment of friendship in relation to a love story before Shakespeare’s (1564–
1616) Romeo and Juliet.
The friendship between Pandarus and Troilus hardly looks back to simple
sources. Chaucer in fact brings together Boethian, Ciceronian, and literary threads:

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the Boethian idea that true friendship lies outside the goods of fortune, the Cicer-
onian, taken directly or else derived in part from Jean de Meun’s Romance of the
Rose (in Reason’s discourse, 4680–762), and then ideals from twelfth- and thir-
teenth- century French and Latin romance, especially the Amys and Amylion tradi-
tion of avowed friendship between look-alike knights. In turn that tradition may
owe something to the spiritualizing of noble friendship begun with Augustine.
B Spiritual Friendship
Historians of monastic life and of friendship have set out the overall contours of
spiritual and communal friendship within and between monastic orders and
between prominent abbots. Often their analyses of late probe for personal feel-
ings, for affects accompanying even utilitarian aims whenever the language of
spiritual friendship appears. In addition, the phenomenon of letter collections
has drawn attention (Haseldine 2010, 393) for its expression of various political,
diplomatic and institutional purposes. An overview of recent scholarship on early
medieval and twelfth-century appropriations of Cicero in monastic contexts can
content itself with findings from at least three volumes, two of which are notable
essay gatherings: Brian Patrick McGuire’s Friendship and Community (1988),
Julian Haseldine, ed. Friendship in Medieval Europe (1999), and selections from
Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandige, ed., Friendship in the Middle Ages and
Early Modern Age (2010).
The initial problem is that noble friendship in the life of an aristocratic,
Roman polity cannot transfer entirely to a monastic, rule-bound community
headed by an abbot. Deep, paired friendships threaten communal harmony and
even organizational assignments. Yet noble friendship is an attractive ideal: two
men are bound to each other non-instrumentally by their appreciation of each
other’s virtue, philosophical intellect and political ethics. They are each teachers
to the other, confidants in a fickle, treacherous world, and thus a mutual refuge.
They are also allies and counselors in adversity: friends in deed who would do
everything they could, perhaps even die, for their virtuous friend in need. Even
aid in an ambiguous matter is thinkable if there is a threat to life or honor. It is as
though there is one soul in two bodies, golden even beyond death when memory
of one’s friend is sustaining in that season of loss.
Who, believing in a virtuous life, removed from family, extended kin and
interested neighbors, would not desire such a rare friendship? Yet who among
monks living with others can champion such a friendship given their Christian
community of pious, striving souls? Supposedly all are friends, moreover friends
in and through Christ, the only “friend” who is always, eternally true. Here, as

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McGuire tells us, Augustine takes the lead in “forging attitudes towards friendship
in Western monasticism” (1988, 41). Yet Augustine has a precursor, Ambrose of
Milan (ca. 334–397), who substitutes examples of biblical friendship for Cicero’s
pagan ones. In this and in his account of friendship’s duties, he is a bridge
between Cicero’s De amicitia and Aelred of Rievaulx’s De spiritali amicitia
(McGuire 1988, 43). For Ambrose, adversity tests friendship, eliciting compassion
and a willingness to bear another’s burdens. “For what is a friend if not a
companion of love, to whom you join and bind your mind, and so you are
enmeshed, and you want to be made one from two with him to whom you entrust
yourself as it were to another self, from whom you fear nothing, and of whom you
seek nothing dishonorable for the sake of your own gain” (McGuire 1988, 44)?
That splendid question encapsulates the heart of spiritualized noble friendship,
with love transfiguring the virtue Cicero would otherwise emphasize.
Yet even if such a friendship is true, never betrayed and deeply satisfying, no
friend lives forever. Augustinian securitas in friendship rests only in Christ,
merging the insecurity of temporal affairs with the human love Augustine valued
(McGuire 1988, 48). He “truly loves a friend who loves God in the friend, either
because God is in him or so that God may be in him” (McGuire 1988, 48). Attaining
the highest good is something one does with others: “we together in harmony can
look into our souls and at God” (from Augustine’s Soliloquies). As McGuire would
have it, “the bonds of friendship in the monastic life” formed a bulwark against
“heretics and barbarians.” In the Christian community of late antiquity, friends
sought each other out in alliances to protect and defend the true religion. For
Ambrose friendship provided a language for bonds between men. For Augustine
it was the very substance of human life and love (McGuire 1988, 57). The aims of
friendship here are both deeply interpersonal and outwardly protective.
Skipping from Egypt to Anglo-Saxon England, from monastery to missionary,
we find Boniface (675–754), who carries on friendship’s salutations and comforts.
His letters had utilitarian as well as spiritual aims. It is the custom of men in
distress, he says, to seek comfort from those bound to them in friendship (McGuire
1988, 112). This would be true for Alcuin (730–804) as well, who writes to King
Æthelred of Northumbria (reign 774–79) about the duties of friendship. One expects
various kinds of help and feelings of love and piety, he says. Overall, Alcuin and
others, such as Einhard (775–840), believe that true friendship is reserved for a few
confidants, is a precious gift, comes close to kinship and love, and develops
gradually. Old friendships are especially esteemed. Friendship involves mutual
obligations, such as truth, faithfulness and constancy. In an uncertain world of
sorrow and temptation, friends truly matter. Friendship is thus both heartening and
pragmatic (Goetz 1999, 129–30), ideal as well as a recourse. Only in the network of
friends does Alcuin find the peace and meaning he desires (McGuire 1988, 118).

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570 John M. Hill
Rarely finding limitations in his friendships, Alcuin seems more personally

committed to them than, say, Anselm about three centuries later (1033–1106).
What matters to Anselm, perhaps because of the Benedictine reform, “is the state
of loving within a monastic community, not the personal affection between one
monk and another” (McGuire 1988, 218). Anselm subordinates personal feeling to
a life leading to God, even if that means a dear friend’s absence in another
community. Unlike Peter the Venerable, for whom friendship according to
McGuire (1999, 259) is an end in itself, Anselm remained analytical in the interests
of community. “You cannot be wherever you are being loved: but wherever you
are you can be loved and be good” (McGuire 1988, 219). By contrast, Peter the
Venerable “found in his friend alone and almost singly that definition of true
friendship: we are not two in two bodies but one single soul would seem to be in
our bodies” (McGuire 1988, 261) with Christ appearing wherever two gather in his
name. Yet such individual bonding is not independent of community or the
supreme need for salvation. Indeed, bringing a friend into the community may
complete the friendship, as McGuire suggests for some of those with whom Peter
the Venerable corresponds (1988, 267–68).
That impulse to complete friendship through a merging with community
seems supreme in McGuire’s account of Aelred of Rievaulx, for whom “there is
nothing to fear when one sets forth on the paths of friendship” with other
members of the monastic community. Because God is also friendship, loving the
friend in the context of community means loving God (McGuire 1988, 298). For
Aelred there are stages in the formation of friendship and there are also physical
manifestations, which of course can be misused or used well (McGuire 1988,
314–15). With Aelred we are almost back in Ambrose of Milan’s world, eight
centuries earlier. Still, the differences are two-fold: noble friendship has been
reshaped to monastic and communal ends without entirely losing Cicero’s ideal-
ism; and in Aelred and the Cistercians an interest in male beauty and rhetorical
elegance seems to sublimate erotic potential into Christian caritas. Where fully
communal friendship and love appear, there group sublimation, although idea-
lized, seems pervasive. McGuire quotes Aelred in translation:
The day before yesterday, as I was walking the round of the cloister of the monastery, the
brethren were sitting around forming as it were a most loving crown … . In multitude of
brethren I found no one whom I did not love, and no one by whom I felt sure I was not loved.
I was filled with such joy that it surpassed all the delights of this world (McGuire 1988, 316).
Mature friendship, however, requires more than apparent group sublimation—it

requires a transcendence of personal desire rarely achieved and often the shoals
upon which friendship founders. This in part is Jean Gerson’s (1363–1429) experi-
ence in what Brian McGuire calls the end of the religious age of friendship

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(McGuire 1999, 230). For McGuire, Gerson’s letters reveal a monk compelled to
“sacrifice his concern for friends and family in order to save his own soul. Other
people were simply extra baggage that had to be thrown off his sinking ship”
(1999, 233). Personal anxiety and fear, disappointment in the behavior of so-
called friends, attraction to women, separation from his beloved kin—all of that
deeply isolated Gerson from a possible community of friends of the sort Aelred
celebrated. But is spiritualized noble friendship then dead for the devoutly
religious? Perhaps. Yet it is not dead as a vibrant motif, even a dramatic necessity
in secular literature.
C Secular Friendship
Jean de Meun (ca. 1240–ca. 1305) and Petrarch (1304–1374) owe much to Cicero
when presenting true friendship. Petrarch in fact thinks of Cicero as a great hero,
a profound, exciting thinker, a virtuous man who, if born at a later time, would
have been a fine Christian. Petrarch’s letters testify to his absorption in Cicero’s
various works, with some letters even addressed to Cicero and a late letter
confessing his lifelong devotion (Bishop, trans., 1966, 292–95). Although rarely
echoing De amicitia, Petrarch clearly knows the work on friendship. His letter
about ascending Mont Ventoux surveys the characters of his many friends, one of
whom he thought to invite as a fellow climber. However, after considering the
matter, he found hardly any who would be suitable: “for even among one’s
intimates a perfect concord of character and purpose is very rare… [they have]
defects that are tolerable enough at home (for charity suffers all things and
friendship rejects no burdens), but they are much too serious on a journey”
(Bishop, trans., 1966, 45–6). He weighed his friends in silence, not wanting to
injure friendship, finally approaching his younger brother instead, who jumped
at the chance. So while Petrarch can think of no friend quite suitable as a
mountain climbing companion, he values all of them enough not to say anything
injurious to the friendship, especially, one supposes, regarding those who are
otherwise delightful companions, who are witty, gay or prudent. He does not here
reveal an overview of noble friendship, aside from invoking the rarity of a perfect
concord of character and purpose. Yet his canvassing on behalf of a physical,
athletic enterprise reveals how much he values friendship in itself. In a sense he
goes through a process of reasoning, which is what Jean de Meun’s Reason
undertakes on the topic of true friendship itself.
Invoking Cicero, Reason, in The Romance of the Rose, tells the lover that one
kind of love is friendship, a love that does not deprive one of one’s proper senses.
“It consists of mutual good will among men, without any discord, in accordance

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572 John M. Hill
with the benevolence of God” (Dahlberg, trans., 1983, 100). True friends readily
help each other, are dependable, wise, discreet and loyal. One can without fear
confide one’s thoughts to one’s friend, just as to oneself. “He who comforts a
friend, in any way he can, bears half his sorrow and partakes of his joy, as long as
their love is rightly shared” (Dahlberg, trans., 1983, 101). Classical virtue has been
subsumed in the mastery of love, as has been the case all along in eleventh and
twelfth-century monastic thought about friendship. The proviso about rightly
sharing love, however, warrants further attention. Cicero says that as long as
one’s request of a friend is honest one can make it according to the law of
friendship, a request one’s true friend should perform if made with “right and
reason.” But without such a just request, one should act in only two cases, two
exceptions. Should one’s friend be in danger of being sent to death, one should
try to deliver him from it; or if the friend’s reputation is assailed, one should “take
care that they are not defamed” (Dahlberg, trans., 1983, 101). In those two cases
one need not wait for right or reason.
Romances in the Amys and Amylion tradition, which goes back to Anglo-
Norman texts, reflect a similar language but to absolute effect. The two look-alike
knights come, in the words of the Middle English version, to plight their troth for as
long as they live. They would be to each other “bothe be dai and be nyght, / In wele,
wo, wrong and right / Fferly scholde hem fonde, / Hold togeder at every nede,
[exceedingly should they busy themselves to hold together in every need] / In wele,
woo, word and dede, / While thei myght stonde” (Amys and Amylion 1993, 32).
Neither would fail the other in joy or woe, to which they commit their hands. With
its repetitions, this is somber friendship ritual combined with something like a
wedding vow, leaving no room for right or wrong to divide them. Such friendship
leads at times to strange commitments, such as the slaying of one’s children to heal
one’s friend’s leprosy (the children then in turn miraculously revive). Moreover, in
death both lie in the same grave. Here in romance we are not in Petrarch’s world of
deliberations over appropriate, mountaineering companionship. Nor are we in
Jean de Meun’s right domain where honesty and reason prevail, two exceptions
aside. But we are in a world where oath- bound friendship is the primary, dramatic
given, one that Boccaccio flirts with two centuries later in Il Filostrato (see Barney,
ed., 2006, for a translation paralleling his edition of Troilus and Criseyde).
While drawing much of his story from earlier sources, Boccaccio virtually
invents Troilo’s friend, Pandaro. A plausible source for that character is Galehot
in Lancelot du Lac, a seemingly dear friend of Lancelot’s and a go-between
regarding Guinivere (Kirby 1940, 110–15). Indeed that relationship has been read
as homoerotic recently (Zeikowitz 2003, 40). However, Boccaccio is not interested
in transferring to Pandaro the intense love Galehot has for Lancelot. Troilo and
Pandaro are friends, young men of good lineage and spirit. Upon being discov-

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ered in his undisclosed love suffering, Troilo initially refuses to share with
Pandaro. Their’s is not a Ciceronian friendship, however willing to help Pandaro
is. Yet more than casual, their friendship partakes somewhat of the Amys and
Amylion tradition, as Pandaro presses Troilo for information about what ails him.
He calls upon their friendship, urging Troilo to share because friends share pain
and pleasure. Moreover, he says Troilo knows how he, Pandaro, has loved him in
right and in wrong and that he would serve Troilo in whatever the action (Il
Filostrato 2.5). From there, Troilo reveals his pain but not the lady. Eventually
Pandaro gets that information out of him and the tale becomes one of rather quick
seduction via Pandaro who is cousin to Criseida. Chaucer’s version of this is much
more complex, extended and intensified, especially in the professed nature of the
friendship we first hear of through a much more substantial version of Pandaro,
Chaucer’s Pandarus.
Although the Ciceronian ideal of virtuous friendship between aristocrats,
amicitia, functions mainly in political and philosophical contexts for Cicero, not
in affairs of love, a redirection to other areas of personal and social life, as we
have seen with monastic, that is, spiritual friendship, is possible. And redirection
with something close to the Ciceronian is what Boccaccio has done before Chau-
cer, bringing together the ami figure, the friend as procurer, with the friend as
aristocratic companion and intimate. He does so because his is a love story and
that is the social world that matters. Chaucer follows accordingly while emphasiz-
ing both the courtly in the love story and especially the noble in the friendship
whenever possible. His cue for the latter may come from Cicero directly. Chaucer
refers to Cicero (Tullius) on friendship in the envoy to Scogan. Or else Chaucer
takes his cue from a reflection of same in Jean de Meun’s Reason, who introduces
Ciceronian friendship into The Romance of the Rose to counter the instrumentally
Ovidian friendship embodied in Ami.
Moreover, much as Troilus’s suffering removes him from public life and
performance, public worth and ennoblement are outcomes at each stage of love’s
progress. Before love strikes, Troilus is a callow, cynical commentator on the
foibles of lovers. After, and with help a real prospect, he becomes a public
resource in the war against the Greeks, where in combat he ‘plays’ the lion: “Wo
was the Grek that with him mette a-day” (1075, in Chaucer 1987, for all Chaucer
quotes). Moreover, in town he commands love from all who see him, so goodly
and gracious is he.
In principle, for Cicero, the true friend is a soul mate who might be older, a
close conversant on deep topics, a help in every need and a sincere counselor
who would not assist his friend in questionable matters. He would in such cases
take the better option of counseling, unless he fears for his friend’s life or
reputation, provided further that help in such cases does not court disgrace. In a

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574 John M. Hill
Middle English translation of The Romance of the Rose sometimes attributed to

Chaucer, those provisions emerge as follows: one should help always in matters
of reasonableness and honesty, “Except oonly in causes twoo: / If men his freend
to deth wolde drive, / Lat him be bisy to save his lyve; / Also if men wolen hym
assayle, / Of his wurshipp to make hym faile, / And hindren hym of his renoun, /
Lat hym, with full entencioun, / his dever don in ech degree / That his freend ne
shamed be / In thise two caas with his might, /Takin no kep to skile nor right, / As
fer as love may hym escuse / This oughte no man to refuse” (RR B. 5292–5304, in
Chaucer 1987). Transferred to a love story, such extenuations become a virtuous
duty whenever the true friend, who has been found steadfast and whose heart
inflames with love for the other’s, fears for his friend’s life if not for his reputation
(such friends share each other’s joy and woe, RR.B. 5278–79, and need not in
those cases noted above always attend to reason or right when clear vice is not
the issue). And of course reputation and honor might suffer if one’s forlorn friend
sickens, withdrawing then from public life. Reputation also matters when the
prospective love affair requires secrecy, a veil protecting the lover’s honor as well
as the lady’s, not to mention the friend’s.
Moreover, unless we consign the world of private sexual love and feeling to
sinfulness entirely, we must distinguish between honorable and dishonorable
varieties of love (such as “lust voluptuous”) and thus also between honorable and
dishonorable acts of assistance in love. The overarching forms of love and
“trouthe” in love, as in friendship, are not easily envisioned. Could he have
moved forward in time, Cicero might have condemned the affairs of courtly love
entirely, as does Jean de Meun’s Reason. But that is hardly the case for Boccaccio
or for Chaucer, despite the latter’s interest in Boethian perspectives, one of which,
we can recall, sets true friendship apart from the goods of fortune. Such friends
come of virtue, constituting something almost holy—a point that applies to
Pandarus, who, while not holy or even a soul mate, remains close to Troilus, his
friend to the bitter end (Chaucer’s Boece, Bk III Prosa 2, 55–57). Chaucer has
constructed a positive version of Ciceronian friendship materialized in a love
story, if not the best version of such friendship as an approximation of pure form.
It pays at this point to investigate an important, early scene in the poem for its
professions of friendship, its dynamism, and the ritual intensifications of that
bond near its end. Friendship in classical, monastic and medieval secular con-
texts is not automatic or without its rituals of progress and intensification. Nor is
‘full’ friendship dramatized as acutely anywhere else in medieval literature.
As well as being Troilus’s friend, Pandarus is also a substantial figure in the
aristocratic circles of Troy. He is not primarily interested in love games or in the
maneuverings of hoped for courtship, even as he proves quite able on Troilus’s
behalf. Moreover his efforts are not uniformly likely or manipulative. He even has

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anxious moments when his plans might suddenly go awry, as in Criseyde’s

response to the Horaste fiction in Book III. Still, Barry Windeatt reflects the
opinions of many:
at his first appearance Pandarus is moved with what proves an unflaggingly sympathetic
desire to help his friend, but a confession of love is for Pandarus the beginning of ‘game’
(I. l. 868), and his enthusiasm is so infectious that his own feelings and motives can barely
be seen separately from his zest for the game. Pandarus will apparently go to any lengths to
make friends happy, without pondering the nature of happiness … . yet Chaucer’s narrative
leaves it to the reader to define an ulterior motive for Pandarus (Windeatt 1995, 293).
So Pandarus here is an unreflective enigma, seemingly shallow and pleasure-

loving, completely dedicated on his friend’s behalf but lacking in philosophical
forethought. One can point out immediately that Pandarus certainly worries, most
pointedly when alone with Troilus in Book III, about how Troilus might see him in
his role; he hardly goes in general about Troy making friends happy; and he knows
there are lesser goods, lesser consolations for the consolable. His learned pouch of
proverbs adds a flexible source of applicable wisdom. Still, perhaps he is too
sympathetic and too fond of “game.” What then? If even that lesser point is
accurate, then Chaucer’s elevation of Pandarus in relation to Pandaro becomes
quite puzzling. Chaucer’s Pandarus is a valued advisor to Priam, has Troilus’s
brother as a great friend, with ‘great’ distinguished from ‘full,’ knows geometry
and astronomical calculation, knows civil and property law, is Criseyde’s uncle
and advisor (rather than just a cousin) and is full of proverbial wisdom. Why so
extensively ennoble a character, giving him both personal and public scope, if one
simply constructs him as a hedonistic companion, whether capable of reflection
or not? To elevate him as Chaucer has is to give his opinions on friendship and on
love much more weight than they could have as the bon mot of a mere player.
Pandarus of course can be demonstrative, playful, manipulative and deceit-
ful, at least once politically so (the Book II ruse about a law suit against Criseyde)
and later outrageously and almost disastrously (the Horaste fiction, in terms of
which in Book III he conjures up a desperate, jealous Troilus for a surprised
Criseyde, whom he has confronted in her temporary bedroom). But arguably his
playful and manipulative traits intertwine both instrumentally and functionally
with his concern over Troilus’s woe to a far greater extent than is so with Pandaro.
His playful ruses draw Troilus out and his manipulative and playful ways both
start and help sustain the affair with Criseyde on Troilus’s behalf.
For the poem and in Pandarus’s case, one needs to emphasize the Amys and
Amylion principle, so to speak: the proposition that “trouthe” in full and espe-
cially in ties of noble friendship trumps avuncular and otherwise familial ties;
indeed as ideals the two kinds of relationships are incommensurable in friendship
literature and perhaps even in historical fact (Bray 2003, 111). In the Nicomachean

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576 John M. Hill
Ethics, Book VIII, Aristotle notes friendship within family ties, friendship that
brings pleasure and usefulness. It is the latter benefit that makes such friendship
lesser than the best friendship between two men of virtue. Cicero hardly disagrees
as in De amicitia he distinguishes between friendship and relationship, thinking
of friendship as “nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine,
conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection … with the exception of wisdom, no
better thing has been given to man by the immortal gods (Aristotle 1962, 238).
Boethius also follows suit as Philosophy raises true friendship above any other
good or partial good in this world. True friends come of virtue; they are not among
the goods of fortune—see Chaucer’s Boece (Bok III Prosa 2, 55–57).
There are few noble friendships in the world, but among them Cicero notes
the friendship between Theseus and Perotheos, which Chaucer invokes as a love
that transcends death between two “felawes” in The Knight’s Tale (1191–1200),
although in that tale Theseus himself will later praise the God of Love after
softening to the discovered Arcite and Palamon (defeated knights whom he
initially imprisoned for life). And, as a second proposition, Love somewhat
exceeds friendship, in effect, as Troilus realizes that Criseyde is much more than
he ever anticipated, their consummated love removing the two for a time from the
three-way gladness Pandarus early on anticipated, placing them in a paradise
Pandarus in Book III can only imagine as a kind of wager: “he / That ones may in
hevene blisse be, / He feleth other weyes, dar I leye, / Than thilke tyme he first
herde of it seye” (1656–59). So, when approached Neoplatonically and through
the lenses of (a nearly) noble friendship, which in effect is a game changer, the
poem’s love drama and friendship story take on a different cast overall and in
close readings from the assessments most readers form, assessments usually
critical of Pandarus by reading pander back into his name and by supposing he
should attend more to Criseyde’s interests than to Troilus’s. Only a few recent
readers see it otherwise, with Richard Zeikowitz noting how the text privileges
friendship over the uncle-niece relationship (Zeikowitz 2003, 46, while pursuing a
homoerotic reading; and Hill 2003, on the Ciceronian).
Pandarus works assiduously on Troilus’s behalf, having committed his
“trowthe” to doing so. Indeed, his enlarged role and his relations with Troilus
make the poem as much a work in the tradition of vernacular friendship literature,
and as such clearly the best instance of that tradition, as it is a tragic love story.
We have inside Troilus’s double sorrow an extraordinary friendship, Pandarus
and his Troilus, which emotionally and intellectually changes the dramatic situa-
tion radically. It notably alters expected obligations and imperatives. When
Pandarus goes to Criseyde on Troilus’s dire behalf (Troilus seeming capable of
dying) he completely serves his “fulle” friend, having already offered wise coun-
sel in Book I—such as this, “Requere naught that is ayeyns hyre name; / For vertu

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streccheth naught himself to shame” (902–03)—while simultaneously consider-

ing his lovely niece’s honor and inclinations. In the course of those embassies she
shifts internally after her first outbursts and refusals, then considers, and then
eventually finds security, albeit not an eternal security, in love.
When discovered in Book I, and after being prodded, Troilus, insists on
hiding his love whereas Pandarus calls on the intensity and constancy of their
friendship in his effort at discovery: “if evere love or trouthe [emphasis mine] /
Hath be, or is, betwixen the and me, / Ne do thow nevere swich a crueltee / To
hidden fro thi frend so gret a care! / Wostow naught wel that it am I, Pandare”
(584–88). Clearly, whatever we think of his eventual maneuvers in Books II and
III, where he lies to Troilus’s brother and to Criseyde about a legal suit against
her and especially to her about Troilus’s jealousy in Book III, Pandarus in the
moment resorts to the depth and constancy of the friendship. The powerful
subjunctive, the emphatic calling up of what has been or is, and even the end
rhyme of Pandare and “care”–all intensify what Chaucer finds in Boccaccio so
as to expresses the depth of Pandarus’s worry. He is not angling for some juicy
information to enliven his afternoon. He is straightforwardly, truly concerned,
as well as somewhat angry. Essentially he says, ‘Don’t throw me, your best
friend, out of your life in this your time of need. Trust me, confide, let me share
with you your great care.’
Sharing here is more than cozy or friendly. It is central to the gift of friendship
given and reciprocated. Not sharing is wrenching; it tears the friendship asunder
without cause: in short a kind of insane cruelty. Pandarus continues, with
Chaucer expanding upon Boccaccio, by reminding Troilus of their great friend-
ship as a kind of covenant for sharing each other’s woes as well as glad play, a
covenant Pandarus has always upheld and always will: whether in matters of true
or false report, in wrong or right he has always loved Troilus.
The force of that covenant eludes Barbara Newman (1980, 269), who has
doubts about a “trouthe” defined in some such way. But Chaucer here has tapped
into the classical and medieval tradition of look-a-like blood brothers bound by
something like a marriage vow, familiar to us especially in the Amys and Amylion
tradition. In this tradition, as indicated above, the friendship, which may involve
feudal vows, supersedes, indeed overrides, all family and marital ties as well as
those of vassal and lord. At a personal level, Pandarus needs his “fulle” friend-
ship. He needs its intimacy and love in the face of the world’s ups and downs. It is
what Cicero would say is the greatest bond of admiration and well-wishing
between men of virtue, arousing love and calling out love in turn (but not
countenancing just any passion). For his part in the moment, Troilus would not
have Pandarus think ill of him, eventually sighing that he, love-afflicted, is in
despair, a revelation that should now satisfy his “fulle frend” (610).

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578 John M. Hill
So that is the problem, not battle fatigue or stress, and not spiritual remorse
(presumably woes Pandarus can less well address). Relieved, he speaks to Troilus
a little superciliously now: how have you long and unnaturally hidden this
from me? But how indeed, Pandarus might wonder, suggesting Troilus’s past
freedom in his feelings, confidence in Pandarus and callow scorn for lovers. By
helping Troilus, Pandarus can do well and conserve their “fulle” friendship, not
one injured by his withdrawal. He can perhaps compensate also for his own
disappointments in love, while still needing to discover the object of Troilus’s
suffering.
A few stanzas later, after many efforts at prying out whom Troilus loves,
Pandarus comically shakes an almost terrified Troilus, who quakingly, finally
says, “Thanne is my swete fo called Criseyde” (874). Despite that “swete” the
stress of revealing her name nearly kills him, something Pandarus comically
overlooks as he tells his “frend so deere” that Love has established him well. For
she is an excellent woman, of good name, wise, well-mannered and noble. That
she is beautiful he supposes Troilus already knows. His excited praise continues
by comparatives and negations reflecting his admiration of Criseyde as well as his
sense that she is approachable, will have doing well in mind and some idea of
what to do when Pandarus tells her about Troilus. Moreover, because there is
nothing vicious or hard-hearted about her, “so foloweth it that there is some
pitee” (899)—a crucial moral claim.
At this juncture Pandarus articulates a valuable truth: it is nothing but good
to love well and to have fallen in love with a most worthy person. Surely this has
happened more by grace than happenstance (894–96). Pandarus’s praise perhaps
idealizes his niece too much, although its terms and tenor recall the Man in
Black’s portrait of his lady in Chaucer’s early The Book of the Duchess. That
extended report, if seen in retrospect, becomes Chaucer’s preliminary sketch for
honest love and turmoil, coinciding in several points with Troilus’s much more
lyrical and more dramatically imagined arc (cf. BD. 835–40; 1034–43; 1277–80).
With both the Man in Black and Troilus well “beset” in love, Chaucer does more
than draw upon the love-struck Troilo as a model. He works toward the best that
can be thought and felt about heterosexual love, about “trouthe” in love. When
Pandarus adds that Troilus is not to require anything of her that would dishonor
her, we hear a wise friend, counselor and doting uncle, after which teasing time
comes again as he recalls Troilus having once called Love Saint Idiot and Lord of
Fools. Troilus should now repent, asking the God of Love for grace.
This Troilus does as he and Pandarus turn the scene into a moment of
religious obeisance, with Pandarus becoming a kind of confessor on behalf of the
God of Love. Then the hierarchical relationship shifts, a shift to which we should
attend carefully and which Chaucer adds to the comparable moment in Boccac-

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cio’s poem (Troilo merely jumps down from his bed and embraces Pandaro).
When Pandarus vows his all he says that because it would redound upon Criseyde
well to love and cherish a worthy knight, “I am, and wol ben, ay redy / To peyne
me to do yow this servyse; / For bothe yow to plese thus hope I / … / And so we
may ben gladed alle thre” (989–94). The stanza begins with an announcement of
devoted service, ever ready, in the hope that he can please both. It ends with a
prospect of gladness for all three (for Pandarus gladness in the success of his
“servyse”; for Troilus and Criseyde, gladness in their mutual pleasure and in
Pandarus’s service for both of them—the fluid pronoun applying first to Troilus
and then to the prospective lovers). The two points envelope a notion of secrecy
as wise counsel. Now if Pandarus would serve his “fulle” friend, what will the
friend do in turn? Invoking Venus’s help, Troilus hopes that before he dies he
might do something to deserve Pandarus’s thanks. That settled, Troilus becomes
urgent about how his woe will be lessened, an urgency that expresses an instru-
mental strand in his embodiment of friendship (a strand in part characterizing
him until after the first consummation). In response Pandarus soon enough urges
gladness and the receiving from Troilus of “this labour and this bisynesse” such
that his success will be Troilus’s “swetnesse” (1043, the rhyme underlining
Pandarus’s hopes in all of his labor). Such a request and promise require yet
another in return, which Troilus forms by first kneeling and grasping Pandarus.
What seems abject upon casual notice is in fact the prelude to a vow of
prowess against the Greeks, if life and God are willing, followed by a concate-
nated commitment of his life unto Pandarus’s hands, along with a plea for help
(“thow wis, thow woost, thow maist, thow art al! / … Help now!–an exclamation
filled out in the line by Pandarus’s unqualified asseveration, “Yis, by my trowthe,
I shal”). The fluency of the rhyme royal stanza is exploited maximally here to tie
hopes, words and prospects tightly together. Troilus then can offer no more for
his ‘friend,’ that term placed in the middle of the line within which he invokes
God’s reward for Pandarus’s promise and especially for Pandarus’s commenda-
tion of him to Criseyde, who may command his death. Tilting the bond of friend-
ship from the horizontal to the vertical nearly sacralizes this exchange of vows
and asseverations. Hardly is Pandarus merely appointed a manager of lovers’
affairs. As though to do more than reiterate his promise and deserve Troilus’s
trust in everything, Chaucer tells us that, “desirous to serve / His fulle frend,”
Pandarus bids farewell, urging Troilus to think that he will deserve Troilus’s
thanks, doing so on his “trouthe,” a vow repeated to seal the promise between
them and Pandarus’s desire on Troilus’s behalf.
For now, at least, Troilus needs to forbear while newly energized for the wars
or “elles al oure labour is on ydel” (to reflect an earlier point, 955). The plural
possessive, repeated a few lines later (“oure bothe labour,” 972), shows Pandar-

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580 John M. Hill
us’s complete identification with Troilus in the work of love to come and his
assumption that his labor, however it goes, is one Troilus will accept as his own.
Whatever Pandarus labors to do, so in effect does Troilus. The labor he intends is
not grossly the seduction of Troilus’s ‘foe.’ Rather he would labor to bring his
great friend, his virtuous and worthy niece, and himself to gladness. He would do
this to save Troilus, who might die for lack of love returned, and please his niece
(who presumably is apt for love whether she currently knows that or not). Neither
of the two sees any moral hindrance in the niece-uncle relationship. Does Chau-
cer? Should we?
As Pandarus binds himself seriously to Troilus’s service and Troilus puts his
life and death in Pandarus’s hands there is no hint on Chaucer’s part of anything
untoward in this love prospect and this work of true friendship. He even has had
Troilus say that he would rather die than have Criseyde understand anything
about him other than what might conduce to good, which provokes some bemu-
sement from Pandarus (don’t all lovers say so?). Yet Pandarus knows Troilus is in
earnest, especially as Troilus wishes God’s help and reward for Pandarus his
friend who will recommend Troilus to Criseyede. Their “fulle” friendship is
dynamic and primary, subject to deepening, especially in Troilus’s gratitude, as
Pandarus succeeds on Troilus’s behalf, a point reaching its apotheosis in Book III
when Pandarus shares his doubts about how Troilus might see him in this affair
of ever more intimate closure around Criseyde. That the poem’s arc of augmenta-
tion moves through several moments, crucially after each early development,
indicates the dramatic nature of their “fulle” friendship. There is nothing static
here, no simple, plot-useful given. And while true that the instantiations of
friendship are not as fully noble or pure as Cicero would have liked, this more so
on Troilus’s part, because of his urgent need, than on Pandarus’s, all is hoped for
out of concern for life and given the love that is in friendship. Right now Troilus is
glad enough to increase his manly virtue both in the field and in town, having for
some time fought hardily against the Greeks, not out of hatred, but in the hope
that his renown would please Criseyde. Now he becomes a virtual lion against the
Greeks as well as the friendliest, most noble and generous of knights at home.
That such good comes immediately after the scene closes is already cause for
some joy as Pandarus casts about for a plan, a way to found the house of Love. If
on occasion his means strike us as sly and possibly underhanded; if on occasion
they involve deceit, those means do not invalidate or else corrupt his purpose,
assuming his end is good and he in fact achieves it, which he does in Book III.
Chaucer dies in 1400, but the discourse on friendship continued. The Chan-
cellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson shows us, for instance, the vicissi-
tudes of friendship for monastic culture in the decades following. Secular litera-
ture does not quite match that trajectory as the idea of friendship courses through

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European literature on the strength of Aristotle, Cicero and of idealizations

indebted to the latter (Achilleos 2010, 647). But that is a subject for early modern
studies and thus beyond the scope of this overview. One can say, however, that
noble friendship is far from dead in the literary life of vernacular literature,
especially courtier literature and humanist essays, and especially with Shake-
speare, who wrote or collaborated in the writing of at least five plays that focus in
part or in whole on various phases of the subject: the early Two Gentlemen of
Verona and Romeo and Juliet, the great, middle period plays, Hamlet and The
Merchant of Venice, and the late play The Two Noble Kinsmen (in part a reworking
of the eventually broken blood brotherhood Chaucer dramatized between Arcite
and Palamon (“The Knight’s Tale”). In Gentlemen there is Proteus and Valentine,
young and hardly mature in their friendship; in Romeo and Juliet we have the
sociable group of young friends led by Mercutio; for Hamlet in the dark vicissi-
tudes of court there is Horatio; and in Merchant there is Antonio, willing to
commit his “extremest means” so long as Bossanio’s needs stand within “the eye
of honor” (I.i.137).
Select Bibliography
Amys and Amylion, ed. Françoise Le Saux (Exeter 1993).
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis, IN, 1962).
Barber, Charles and David Jenkins, ed., Medieval Greek Commentaries on the Nichomachean
Ethics (Leiden 2009).
Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston, MA, 1987).
Classen, Albrecht, “Friends and Friendship in Heroic Epics: With a Focus on Beowulf, Chanson de
Roland, the Nibelungenlied and Njal’s Saga,” Neohelicon 38.1 (2011): 121–39. [= Classen
2011a]
Classen, Albrecht and Marilyn Sandidge, ed., Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern
Age: Explorations of a Fundamental Ethical Discourse (Berlin and New York 2010).
Haseldine, Julian, ed., Friendship in Medieval Europe (Phoenix Mill 1999).
Hill, John M., “Aristocratic Friendship in Troilus and Criseyde: Pandarus, Courtly Love and
Ciceronian Brotherhood in Troy,” New Readings of Chaucer’s Poetry, ed. Robert G. Benson
and Susan J. Ridyard (Woodbridge 2003), 165–82.
McGuire, Brian Patrick, Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250, paper-
back ed. (1988; Ithaca, NY, 2010).
McGuire, Brian Patrick, “Jean Gerson and the End of Spiritual Friendship: Dilemmas of Con-
science,” Friendship in Medieval Europe, ed. Julian Haseldine (Phoenix Mills 1999), 229–50.
Rosenberg, Samuel N. and Samuel Damon, trans., Ami and Amile: A Medieval Tale of Friendship,
Translated from the Old French (Ann Arbor, MI, 1996).

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Paul Milliman
Games and Pastimes
A Historiography, Methodology, and Chronology

I Historiography
Games and pastimes have been important topics for medievalists since the begin-
ning of medieval studies as an academic discipline in North America and Europe
(Carter 1988). Charles Homer Haskins (1870–1937), the second president of the
Medieval Academy of America—which he played a principal role in founding—
chose as the topic of his 1927 presidential address, “The Latin Literature of Sport.”
His lecture begins with this statement: “The Mediaeval Academy of America … is
interested in every phase of mediaeval civilization. Literature, language, art,
archeology, history, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, economic and social
conditions and matters of daily life—nothing is foreign to us” (Haskins 1927, 235).
He could not have found a better way to demonstrate the breadth and depth of
this new organization’s commitment to the interdisciplinary study of the Middle
Ages, because games—along with the Latin language, the other main topic of his
address—permeated every aspect of medieval society.
Since Haskins’s time medievalists have demonstrated that games and pas-
times played a central role in the social, cultural, political, intellectual, religious,
economic, military, and environmental history of the Middle Ages. In fact, no
scholar has done more to advance the academic study of play—not just in the
Middle Ages, but in all times and places—than the Dutch medievalist, Johan
Huizinga, whose 1938 book, Homo Ludens, analyzes how all aspects of human
culture developed as play. This book can certainly be criticized for at times
making some rather facile comparisons and conclusions, and other scholars have
contributed substantially since then to theories of game and play (Sprague 2010;
Anchor 1978; Geertz 1972; Caillois 1961). But, as Henk Aertsen rightly surmises, “it
is true that Huizinga was so obsessed with play that he saw instances and
elements of play almost everywhere, yet there can hardly be any exaggeration in
his statement that ‘medieval life was brimful of play’” (Aertsen 2008, 53).
Modern popular culture has also embraced medieval games as one of the
most defining characteristics of the Middle Ages. One of the most apparent
current manifestations of medievalism is in games and pastimes, as anyone who
has ever attended a Renaissance festival or Medieval Times restaurant or played a
variety of computer and role-playing games can attest (Cangemi and Corbellari

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Games and Pastimes 583
2012; Müller 2010; Ortenberg West-Harling 2009). Yet, this vision of the ludic
Middle Ages is not entirely a recent construct. The idyllic image of the “Merrie
Olde” Middle Ages was also a defining feature of nineteenth-century Romanti-
cism, as demonstrated by the writings of Sir Walter Scott and the famous Egling-
ton Tournament of 1839, which—despite the horrible weather and remote loca-
tion—drew around 100,000 spectators from Britain and abroad, some of whom
joined the “knights” in dressing and acting “medieval” (Bull 2005, 26–28).
The early nineteenth century also saw the first attempt to study medieval
games and pastimes systematically. Joseph Strutt’s The Sports and Pastimes of the
People of England from the Earliest Period, Including the Rural and Domestic
Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Pageants, Processions and Pompous Specta-
cles, Illustrated by Reproductions from Ancient Paintings in Which Are Represented
Most of the Popular Diversions, first published in 1801 and republished several
times in the nineteenth century, is the classic work on medieval games and
pastimes. As the title indicates, this work framed the language of medieval games
and pastimes for its readers in both text and image by including engravings from
medieval illuminations, particularly from Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley
264, the Roman d’Alexandre. This remarkable fourteenth-century manuscript’s
bas-de-page depictions of all kinds of games and pastimes provide one of the
most reproduced and therefore most recognizable illustrations of medieval ludic
culture. They also bring us to the issue of sources and methodology.
II Sources and Methodology
Because games and pastimes permeated medieval society, we must look for
evidence in a wide variety of sources. There are some medieval sources, particu-
larly several beautifully illustrated manuscripts, devoted entirely to games. But,
more often than not, games are marginal (sometimes literally, as they are often
depicted in the margins of manuscripts), mentioned in passing, or serve as
metaphors in works concerned mainly with other topics. Games and pastimes are
everywhere and nowhere, so one must look for them in a wide range of sources.
In addition to the references to games in a variety of written sources (chroni-
cles, sermons, romances, legislation, legal proceedings, accounts of financial
transactions, instructional manuals, biographies, letters, etc.) and the images
depicting games in a variety of media (manuscript illuminations, misericords,
tapestries, mosaics, frescos, stained-glass windows, stone sculpture, ivory car-
ving, etc.), one must also look at the material remains of the games themselves
(gaming boards, boxes, pieces, dice, etc.). The remains of the spaces—indoors
and outdoors—in which these games were played as well as references to land-

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scape and material sources which no longer exist must also be considered,
because entertainment structures and playgrounds were often intended to be
temporary, while others have not withstood the test of time. Even most materials
for play (if any were required) were often ephemeral. For example, sticks, stones,
and dirt were the only materials necessary for playing merels, one of the most
popular games of the Middle Ages, while many popular pastimes (singing,
dancing, wrestling, running, etc.) required no special equipment. Finally, games
were played in different ways by different people at different times in different
places. Medieval games have their own histories, and—just like the medieval
societies that played them—were not homogenous or timeless.
We must also carefully consider how games and pastimes were used to
decorate a variety of objects. It is sometimes easy to understand why games were
chosen to decorate certain objects. For example, hunting scenes were used to
decorate both leather scabbards (Gilchrist 2012, 92) and ivory mirror cases (Koech-
lin 1924), because hunting (and also chess and the tournament) could provide
metaphors for both love and war, as will be analyzed in more detail below. But,
we also see games depicted in places that seem incongruous, like the cockfighting
sculptures inside some Romanesque churches, the various games and pastimes
depicted in marginal illustrations in Gothic religious manuscripts, and the carved
misericords which began appearing in church choir stalls in the late Middle Ages
so clergy could rest while standing in prayer. Careful attention must also be paid
to the context in which games are depicted or else these games can be dismissed
as marginal even though they are central to understanding the Middle Ages
(Forsythe 1978; Randall 1966; Randall 1989; Randall 1972; Camille 1992; Hall
2009; Kraus and Kraus 1975; Grössinger 1997).
For most people during the Middle Ages playing and praying were generally
not seen as being at odds with each other. As will be discussed in more detail
below, there were ambivalent attitudes about games throughout the Middle Ages.
And even during the Reformations of the sixteenth century, which produced a
more thorough critique of games and pastimes as social evils, communities
throughout Europe continued to play. Various games were subjected to regula-
tions and bans at different times and in different places, just as they had been
throughout the Middle Ages. But, categorical condemnations of games and pas-
times—for example, those of the Puritan Phillip Stubbes, who dedicated a large
part of his 1583 The Anatomie of Abuses to attacking games and pastimes,
particularly those played on Sundays, including the “horrible Vice of pestiferous
Dauncing,” most kinds of music, cards, dice, tables, tennis, bowling, bear-bait-
ing, cockfighting, hawking, hunting, football, “the reading of wicked books,” etc.
(Stubbes 1583)—reflect the aspirations of particular people or groups of people
rather than the practice of the majority of the population, who enjoyed the games

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and pastimes the Puritans and other medieval and early modern reformers
thundered against. Throughout the Middle Ages certain games and pastimes, and
games and pastimes in general, had their proponents and opponents, with both
clergy and laity on both sides of the aisle.
III Chronological Developments
The centuries of the early Middle Ages were an important transitional time in the
history of European games and pastimes. This era witnessed the end of Roman
spectacle in all places except for Constantinople’s Hippodrome (Milliman 2014;
Roueché 2008). But this does not mean that all Roman games and pastimes
ended. The legacy of Roman spectacle gave legitimacy to other regimes, like the
rulers of Kievan Rus’, who decorated their church of St. Sophia with an enormous
fresco of scenes of Roman spectacle from Constantinople’s Hippodrome (Boeck
2009). Other less spectacular Roman games, like board and ball games, also
continued into the Middle Ages in one form or another. And, more importantly for
our analysis here, medieval Latin Christians adapted Roman games and pastimes
or developed new ones or ones newly introduced by their neighbors in unique
manifestations of medieval culture. For example, as Eric J. Goldberg has recently
argued, Carolingian propagandists elevated hunting “from an elite pastime of
little political significance into a central component of kingly representation”
(Goldberg 2013, 614). This is even more apparent in the following centuries, when
the opportunities presented by the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the
creation of chansons de geste, which celebrated that well-ordered semi-legendary
past, provided the perfect conditions for a new elite to develop an entirely new,
medieval ludic culture.
The heyday for games and pastimes in medieval Europe was in many ways
the high Middle Ages, which saw the emergence and rapid rise in popularity of
the two games that have come to symbolize medieval society—chess and the
tournament. The former was imported from the Muslim world into Latin Christen-
dom via Spain and Italy around the turn of the eleventh century (Gamer 1954;
Eales 1985, 39–48), while the latter was developed along the northern French
borderlands in the late eleventh century (Crouch 2005, 1–16). This period, and the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries in particular, also saw the production of
some of the most comprehensive discussions of games and pastimes. Foremost
among these are Emperor Frederick II’s (ruled 1220–1250) hawking manual,
De arte venandi cum avibus, and King Alfonso X “el Sabio” of Castile’s (ruled
1252–1284) manual for board and dice games, Libro de los Juegos. This period also
produced some of the most detailed marginal manuscript illustrations of contem-

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porary games and pastimes, as well as beautiful ivory game pieces and boxes,
among other works of art which contributed to the ludic culture of the Middle
Ages.
The late Middle Ages and early sixteenth century also saw several important
developments in the history of European games and pastimes. The rules of chess
were changed to make the game more engaging and entertaining (Eales 1985;
Monté 2013; Taylor 2012; O’Sullivan, ed., 2012). Tournaments became much less
like real battles and much more like courtly spectacles, although they could still
be dangerous and even deadly events, as the death of King Henri II of France
(ruled 1547–1559) in 1559 attests (Barber and Barker 1989). The palio horse races
rose to prominence in northern Italian cities, in some ways reviving the glories of
the ancient Roman circuses (Mallet 1996; Tobey 2005). This was also an important
period for the future of both gambling and state economies, as playing cards were
introduced from the Muslim world into Europe and then exported to North
America, and the first lotteries were developed as a means of raising revenue for
the state (Schwartz 2006, 41–91).
B Ambivalent Attitudes Toward Games and

Pastimes
I Vices and Virtues
Throughout the Middle Ages games and pastimes occupied a problematical place
in the minds of secular and religious leaders. Those who favored games argued
that they could provide rest and relaxation and acknowledged enjoyment as an
important function of games. As will be discussed in more detail below, the main
justification espoused by proponents of play was its restorative power. Men and
women needed a certain amount of mirth in their lives, but it had to be the right
amount and the right kind. Others, however, argued that games and pastimes
were at best a waste of time and at worst taught lessons which were far more
sinister and so should be avoided. These ambivalent attitudes were also reflected
in the fact that people in the Middle Ages recognized a utility in games and
pastimes that transcended mere enjoyment. Because games and pastimes were
ubiquitous in medieval society they provided malleable metaphors, which could
be used to fulfill a variety of symbolic purposes. Games could be used by secular
and religious leaders as pedagogical aids to teach and train and so were useful for
instruction in a wide variety of intellectual and moral lessons. But, games and
pastimes could also subvert those messages, as some songs in the thirteenth-

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century Carmina Burana and other parodies demonstrate (Bayless 1996). Simi-
larly, games could provide symbols of power and authority; for example, hunting
parks like the one constructed at Hesdin at the turn of the fourteenth century
demonstrated how rulers dominated their subjects and the environment, while
also displaying the exotic fruits of their networks of influence (Farmer 2013). But,
games and pastimes could also provide powerful symbols of resistance, and this
was especially true of poaching (Hanawalt 1988; Dowling 2012).
The court of King Henry II of England (ruled 1154–1189) amply demonstrates
how these ambivalent attitudes played out in the politics of the royal family as well
as the knights who defended the realm and the clerical administrators who ran the
government. For example, Henry’s concern with restoring order to his kingdom
after years of civil war explains why he seems to have banned tournaments in
England, but apparently viewed his sons’ profligate spending on tournaments in
France as part of their courtly education (Barker 1986, 9). In fact, the Young King
Henry was trained in combat by the greatest tourneyer of the day, William Marshal
(Crouch 2002, 42). We can also see these ambivalent, and sometimes outright
positive, attitudes among some of Henry’s courtiers, who were both clerical and
royal administrators. For example, Richard fitz Neal uses the game of chess to
teach readers of his administrative manual, The Dialogue of the Exchequer, about
how the king collects revenue and the justness of this system (Milliman 2012).
Descriptions of games and pastimes occupy a substantial part of William fitz
Stephen’s panegyrical Description of London. A variety of recreations practiced by
Londoners—debating, horse racing, miracle plays, cockfighting, ball games, com-
bat games on land, water, and ice, archery, throwing objects, bear-, bull-, and
boar-baiting, ice-skating, and hunting with birds and dogs—are all praised be-
cause, as William explains, “We now come to speak of the sports of the city, for it is
not fitting that a city should be merely useful and serious-minded, unless it be also
pleasant and cheerful” (Douglas and Greenaway, ed., 1981, 1199). Similarly, John
of Salisbury dedicated two of the first five chapters of his Policraticus to hunting
and gambling. While for the most part, these passages are preoccupied with the
evils caused by these “frivolities of courtiers,” he does allow that games and
pastimes can have some positive uses: “There are, however, times when, viewed
from a certain aspect, games of chance are permissible. For example, if without evil
consequences they alleviate the strain of heavy responsibilities and if without
harming character they introduce an agreeable period of relaxation. Liberty to do
as one pleases is justified if moderation controls the act” (Pike 1938, 37). Alexander
Neckam mirrors John of Salisbury’s ambivalence. He condemns the violence and
wastefulness associated with chess and gambling in De natura rerum, while at the
same time penning a poetic encomium to the virtues of cockfighting in De laudibus
divinae sapientiae (Nequam 1863, 323–26; 391–92; Forsyth 1978, 268–69).

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Medieval theologians also demonstrate this ambivalence. Some associated all

games with gambling or the Roman spectacles condemned by early Church
Fathers. For example, when Peter Damian saw the bishop of Florence playing
chess, he condemned him for sinning, even though the bishop attempted, unsuc-
cessfully, to argue that chess and gambling with dice were dissimilar activities,
and so clerics should be allowed to play chess (Damian 1989, 387–88; Adams
2006, 49–50). Similarly, Isidore of Seville condemns games and pastimes in his
Etymologies:
Surely these spectacles of cruelty and the attendance at veil shows were established not only
by the vices of humans, but also at the behest of demons. Therefore Christians should have
nothing to do with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theater, the cruelty of the
amphitheater, the atrocity of the arena, the debauchery of the games. Indeed, a person who
takes up such things denies God, having become an apostate from the Christian faith, and
seeks anew what he renounced in baptism long before—namely, the devil and his pomps
and works (Barney et al., ed., 2007, 370–71).
Yet, both of these scholars present anachronistic views of games. Isidore of Seville
is merely summarizing condemnations made by moralists during the heyday of
the Roman Empire, because by the time he was writing (at the turn of the seventh
century)—and even more so in the early ninth century, when Hrabanus Maurus
copied this passage almost verbatim into his De Universo (book 20, chapter 38)—
Roman spectacles had for the most part ceased to exist, except for chariot races
and some other performances at Constantinople’s Hippodrome (Milliman 2014;
Roueché 2008). Similarly, when Peter Damian was writing in the middle of the
eleventh century, chess was for the most part still a novelty, and although chess
was sometimes played with dice and often used to gamble during the Middle
Ages, the more common view of chess was that it was both different from and
superior to games involving dice (Adams 2006, 50–51), which will be explained in
more detail below. Such anachronisms are also apparent in later humanist
writings, such as Francesco Petrarca’s fourteenth-century De remediis utriusque
fortunae. In the first book, on the remedies for prosperities, Reason harangues Joy
for enjoying a wide variety of contemporary games and pastimes—music, dan-
cing, ball games, board and dice games, wrestling, hunting, and hawking—but
Reason also parrots ancient Roman moralists in condemning a number of Roman
spectacles which had long ceased to exist, such as chariot-racing, gladiatorial
combat, and wild animal hunts (Rawski, trans., 1991, 70–100).
Although there were plenty of other leaders—both secular and religious—who
condemned games and pastimes, most medieval scholars had a more positive, or
at least more ambivalent, view of games and pastimes. Some of these leaders
were advocates of certain games and pastimes and so claimed that their pursuits
were entirely beneficial. For example, Edward of Norwich claimed in the prologue

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to his early fifteenth-century hunting manual, The Master of Game, that “hunting
causeth a man to eschew the seven deadly sins” (Edward of Norwich 2005, 4), a
sentiment which he copied from Gaston Phébus’s fourteenth-century Le Livre de
Chasse (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 616, f13v), an English translation of
which forms the bulk of Edward’s text.
The greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274),
also weighed in on the benefits of games in a number of places in his Summa
Theologica, but especially in the second part of part two, where under the virtue
of temperance he proposes “Question 168: Modesty as consisting in the outward
movements of the body,” which includes three articles directly related to games
and pastimes: “Article 2: Whether there can be a virtue about games,” “Article 3:
Whether there can be sin in the excess of play,” and “Article 4―Whether there is a
sin in the lack of mirth.” As one would expect from the placement of his analysis
of games under the virtue of temperance, games and pastimes can be virtuous
because they provide rest and relaxation; but they can also be harmful if they are
“indecent or injurious” or are played at improper times and places and so get in
the way of more important matters (Aquinas 1921, 292–303).
In the following century another Dominican, John Bromyard, presented a
similar view of games in his encyclopedic preaching manual Summa Predican-
tium. In his entry under “ludus,” he divides games into two groups, licit and illicit,
and then describes the characteristics of each. Licit games are those that are
honest and provide rest and relaxation, while dishonest games are those, like
tournaments and gambling, that cause cupidity, lust, violence, and other sins.
Although he presents both sides of the argument, he spends much more time
denouncing the evils of illicit games than singing the praises of licit games. This
is in keeping with a preaching tradition in which the seven deadly sins were
commonly associated with games. This tradition preceded John, as can be seen in
Jacques de Vitry’s sermons from the turn of the thirteenth century, specifically in
his condemnation of tournaments, during which he claims that all seven deadly
sins were committed (Crane 1890, 62–64). And it is also apparent in John’s
fifteenth-century confrères, Meister Ingold and Girolamo Savonarola, and also the
Franciscan Bernardino of Siena. The latter two popular preachers railed against
games in their sermons and also used dice, cards, and board games to help fuel
their bonfires of the vanities. Similarly, in the 1420s Meister Ingold wrote Das
goldene Spiel (The Golden Game), which uses seven games to preach about the
seven deadly sins. The Dominican links chess with pride in his most extended
discussion of the relationship between a game and a sin, and then he continues
his allegory with much shorter treatments of six kinds of games, which he links
with the other deadly sins: board games with gluttony, dice games with greed,
card games with lust, dancing with sloth, “shooting games” (by which he means

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bowling, other ball games, and “all games in which one takes aim”) with wrath,
and the playing of stringed instruments with jealousy and hatred (Schröder 1882,
1; 74–75). However, as Meister Ingold explains, the reason that around half of his
work is dedicated to chess is because he is following in the footsteps of Jacobus
de Cessolis, another Dominican, who over a century earlier wrote Liber de moribus
hominum et officiis nobilium or Libellus super ludo scacchorum (The Book on
Chess), an allegorical exploration of the lessons that can be learned from the
game of chess (Schröder 1882, 1). This regimen principum or mirror for princes was
wildly popular and was translated into many vernacular languages, including
William Caxton’s 1475 English translation, The Game and Playe of the Cheese, and
has attracted a great deal of attention from modern scholars (Cessoles 2009; Burt
1957; Adams 2006, 15–56; Boyle 1988; Mehl 1975; Antin 1968; Plessow 2007; Ferm
and Honemann, ed., 2005). This work and the allegorical uses of chess and other
games will be discussed in more detail below. Here the pedagogical uses of games
will be briefly considered. The ubiquity of games and pastimes made them perfect
memory aids for instructing people and instilling morality in them (Luchitskaya
2010; Di Lorenzo 1973). Just as in Jacobus de Cessolis’s story the wise scholar
invented the game of chess to correct the evil king’s injustices, so also can the
wise preacher use the game of chess to correct the sins of the people listening to
his sermons.
II Games as Pedagogical Aids
Jacobus de Cessolis is one of the most prominent examples of scholars who have
used games as pedagogical aids to teach about a variety of topics. This has a long
tradition, going back to Plato and Aristotle, who both used the ancient Greek
board game of polis metaphorically (Milliman 2012, 66). In fact, Aristotle used this
game to help explain his famous statement that man is a political animal. But,
people in the Middle Ages would not have been aware of this, because when the
Dominican William of Moerbeke translated Aristotle’s Politics into Latin in 1260
he apparently did not understand the game and so completely altered the Philo-
sopher’s metaphor; a man without a polis (civitas) was not compared to an
isolated and therefore defenseless piece in the board game polis, but rather an
unbridled beast (Susemihl, ed., 1872, 8). Considering the popularity of gaming
metaphors in the Middle Ages, one can only imagine what commentators like
William’s contemporary confreres Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus would
have made of this if they had known.
Games were not just used metaphorically to teach. Actual board games were
used to teach the subjects of the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, music, and

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astronomy—in late medieval English schools and universities (Burnett 1997;

Moyer 1999; Moyer 2001). Also, playing during recess was recognized as an
important aspect of education, as an anonymous fourteenth-century educational
treatise explains: “Nor should the scholars be always kept intent upon their books
and writing tablets, but they should be given an occasional recess and set at
suitable games, so that their spirits may be raised and their blood stirred by the
pleasure of play. For thus boys’ minds which before were fatigued by the tedium
of classes are refined and refreshed” (Thorndike, ed. and trans., 1944, 225).
Richard Mulcaster also devoted a large part of his 1581 Positions Concerning the
Training Up of Children to physical education (Mulcaster 1994).
But, games did not just provide a means for teachers to instruct students in the
liberal arts and for student to relax and recover from those studies. Games could
also provide an arena for students to demonstrate their mastery of these skills,
especially rhetoric and logic, both to other students and to their teachers. Disputa-
tion, according to Ruth Mazo Karras, was “inherently competitive—in Walter
Ong’s term, agonistic […] a sort of ceremonial combat,” and William Courtenay
compares it to a knightly tournament “along the lines similar to a ‘round table’
with capped lances [in which] young scholars would enter the lists to prove their
skill, their subtilitas, against an appointed foe …” (Karras 2003, 90). The twelfth-
century logician, Peter Abelard, who was the son of a knight and therefore well
acquainted with tournaments, perhaps best described the similarities between
these two forms of competitive games (and also between peripatetic scholarship
and knightly errantry) in the beginning of his Historia Calamitatum:
… I was so enthralled by my passion for learning that, gladly leaving to my brothers the
pomp of glory in arms, the right of heritage and all the honours that should have been mine
as the eldest born, I fled utterly from the court of Mars that I might win learning in the bosom
of Minerva. And – since I found the armory of logical reasoning more to my liking than the
other forms of philosophy, I exchanged all other weapons for these, and to the prizes of
victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in disputation. Thenceforth, journeying through
many provinces, and debating as I went, going whithersoever I heard that the study of my
chosen art most flourished … (Abelard 1922, 1–2).
The combat of the tournament was just one of the ways in which games helped train
a knight. All of the seven knightly skills Petrus Alfonsi lists in his influential
twelfth-century Disciplina Clericalis are games and pastimes that trained a knight
for success at war and at court: chess, riding, swimming, archery, boxing, hawking,
and verse writing (Hermes, ed. and trans., 1977, 115). A twelfth-century preudome
had to demonstrate physical prowess, but he also had to demonstrate restraint and
refinement (Baldwin 2000, 69). A very similar depiction of games providing the
training for an ideal of nobility characterized by both physical and mental acuity
can be found in early medieval Ireland, as Mark A. Hall explains: “Both fidcheall

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and brandubh [two board games similar to tafl (see below)] are listed in Irish law
texts of the seventh and eighth centuries as games to be taught to boys of noble
birth—along with how to swim, ride a horse and throw a spear …” (Hall 2011, 150).
As Eileen Power demonstrated in the early twentieth century, games were also
central to the education of noble women. In fact, Cambridge University Press’s
most recent reprint of her still important and influential Medieval Women bears the
cover illustration of one of the queens from the Lewis Chessmen (Power 2012).
Incidentally, John H. Arnold’s What is Medieval History? earlier used a different
queen, a more anxious-looking one, from the same collection on its cover (Arnold
2008). These chess pieces (and why they have become so representative of the
Middle Ages) and the importance of the game of chess in our understanding of the
Middle Ages will be discussed in more detail below. Now, we should turn our
attention back to Power, who very effectively used a quotation from Robert de
Blois’s thirteenth-century Floris et Lyriopé to demonstrate the importance of games
and pastimes in a noblewoman’s education: “She could carry and fly falcon, tercel
and hawk / She knew well how to play chess and tables / how to read romances,
tell tales and / sing songs. All the things a well-bred / lady ought to know and
lacked none” (Power 2012, 78; Ulrich, ed., 1889, 16–17). Games and pastimes were
also important in the education of the bourgeoisie, both male and female, as
demonstrated by Le Ménagier de Paris, which was written at the turn of the
fifteenth century. In this household guidebook an elderly man instructs his teen-
age wife on a variety of topics, including the importance of “games and amuse-
ments to help you socialize with company and make conversation” (Greco and
Rose, trans., 2009, 50). He had intended to write three articles in this section, the
first on board games, the second on falconry, and the third on puzzles, but he only
completed the section on falconry (Greco and Rose, trans., 2009, 52; 229–52).
Games also played an important teaching role in society as a whole. Hugh of
St. Victor included hunting and theatrica among the seven mechanical arts in his
early twelfth-century Didascalicon, the latter of which encompassed a wide range
of games and pastimes: acting, singing, dancing, wrestling, foot races, horse
races, boxing, and dice playing. This idea of the art of theatrica was copied in part
in the thirteenth century by the Dominican Bonaventure in On the Reduction of the
Arts to Theology and the Franciscan encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais in Spec-
ulum Maius (Tartarkiewicz 1965). Hugh goes on to explain that the ancients
numbered these entertainments among legitimate activities because by temperate motion

natural heat is stimulated in the body and by enjoyment the mind is refreshed; or, as is more
likely, seeing that people necessarily gathered together for occasional amusement, they
desired that places for such amusement might be established to forestall the people’s
coming together at public houses, where they might commit lewd or criminal acts (Taylor,
trans., 1961, 79).

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These two points anchor many medieval perceptions of games and pastimes. If
played in moderation, games were permissible and could even be beneficial. But,
games and pastimes could also lead to trouble, so it was necessary to regulate
them.
III Regulating and Generating Revenue from Games and

Pastimes
The tension between the benefits of playing games in moderation and the pro-
blems they could cause when they got out of hand, particularly when gambling
was involved, is most thoroughly considered by King Alfonso X “el Sabio” of
Castile (ruled 1252–1284), who wrote or commissioned others to write about a
wide variety of games and pastimes (walking, running, hunting, fishing, bull-
baiting, riding horses, wrestling, throwing stones or other objects, fencing, play-
ing ball games, playing board and dice games, dancing, listening to and making
music, watching theatrical performances, and reading) in a wide variety works,
including the Setenario, a mirror for princes, the Siete Partidas, a general law
code, the Libro de las Tahurerías or Ordenamiento de las Tafurerías, a law code
specifically about gambling, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, songs dedicated to the
Virgin Mary, and the Libro de los Juegos, a book about how to play a variety of
board and dice games. The latter two, which will be discussed in more detail
below, are preserved in beautifully illustrated manuscripts depicting games and
pastimes, especially board and dice games (MacDonald, ed., 1995, 24–29; Keller
and Cash 1998, 1; 43–44; Schädler 2012; Romeo Pérez 2008; Musser Golladay
2007; Carpenter 1988; Carpenter 1998).
Gambling was ubiquitous. Just as today, people in the Middle Ages gambled
on anything and everything, including various kinds of games and pastimes. As
the Cantigas de Santa Maria lament, “God gave people games so that they might
have amusement, [but] they turn everything into gambling and try to prosper in
this way” (Kulp-Hill, ed. and trans., 2000, 257). Gambling—or at least excessive
gambling—was almost universally regarded as a dangerous and harmful pas-
time, even by unrepentant gamblers, such as the author of “Verses on Dice” in
the early thirteenth-century Carmina Burana: “Dice are the root and branch of /
every deterioration: / Dice degrade humankind, con- / found divine aspiration. /
Guess who accompany gambling? – / Trickery, Trumpery, Shaming, / Breaking-
of-pledge, and Theft, / and Having-no-property-left (Parlett, trans., 1986, 168–
69). But, this poet failed to mention that dice’s other associates were violence
and blasphemy, which were the main concerns of secular and religious autho-
rities.

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Despite these social ills, however, along with attempts to curb gambling,
there were also attempts to control and therefore profit from gambling (Ortelli
2006). For example, Alfonso X in the 1260s prohibited gambling in his realm and
hoped to profit from fines but in the next decade decided to legalize gambling
because selling permits to gambling houses and taxing these establishments
proved to be a more effective means of both generating revenue and controlling
the behavior of his subjects (MacDonald, ed., 1995, 27). Of principal concern both
to Alfonso and to other secular and religious leaders throughout the Middle Ages
was blasphemy (Purdie 2000). These concerns appear in both legislation and
literature, perhaps most strikingly in similar stories told in both the late thir-
teenth-century Cantigas de Santa Maria and the early fifteenth-century Scotichro-
nicon of a gambler becoming so enraged by his losses that he threw a stone at a
statue of the Virgin and Child and broke off one of Jesus’s arms (Kulp-Hill, ed. and
trans., 2000, Hall 2009, 74). So, the first of the 44 sections in the Iberian king’s
Libro de las Tahurerías deals with “blasphemy and corresponding punishments”
(Carpenter 1988, 269).
But, gambling games were also linked to the development of probability and
economic theories which contributed to scientific and commercial advances (Bell-
house 2000; Bellhouse 2005; Ceccarelli 2006; Franklin 2001, 262–300; Schädler
2012). Dice games like “hazard” and also “jeopardy” problems relating to various
tables games show the link between gambling and some understanding of prob-
ability theory in the late Middle Ages (Murray 1941, 64; Schädler 2012, 43). Also,
these medieval neologisms show an understanding of risk and its role in econom-
ic exchange, especially because the wide variety of dice and tables games
required players to agree on rules before they started playing. The requirement of
ensuring fairness in gambling through some understanding of probability, so that
“each gambler must be equally exposed to the chance of winning or losing … [a]
principle, initially developed within the debate on gambling profits, was crucial
in subsequent discussions on other kinds of contracts like commercial partner-
ships …” (Ceccarelli 2006).
Gambling games were not the only games and pastimes condemned or
controlled by various secular and clerical authorities. Violent and destructive
games like the tournament and football were also subjected to periodic bans,
especially in England, where a series of late medieval English kings ordered their
subjects to spend their free time practicing archery rather than engaging in
“dishonest and unthrifty or idle games,” like football (Magoun 1929, 38). Like-
wise, fears of violence, destruction of property, and sedition justified several
English kings’ attempts to ban tournaments, a move which had the support of
popes and church councils from 1130 to 1316 (Barber and Barker 1989, 139–41).
However, Richard I (ruled 1189–1199) reversed this trend by granting licenses for

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tournaments, a response similar in some ways to Alfonso’s granting of licenses

for gambling houses in that if the rulers were unable to stop these games, they
might be able to control when and where they were played and also profit from
them (Barker 1986, 53–56).
C Places and Times for Play and the Social

Aspects of Games and Pastimes
I Playgrounds
Games and pastimes took place everywhere. Unlike the Roman world, with its
circuses, theatres, and other arenas for spectacle, there were few permanent,
purpose-built places for most people to watch or play games in the Middle Ages,
so people used whatever spaces were available. Sometimes these ancient sites of
spectacle were used for medieval games, but usually they were mined for materi-
als or used for different purposes; and, in any event, the few games that took
place in these ruins were very different from the ludi that took place there during
the heyday of the Roman Empire (Milliman 2014). There were, however, specially
constructed areas for nobles to enjoy their games and pastimes. Often these were
temporary structures or spaces which usually fulfilled other functions, but there
were some purpose-built playgrounds or areas whose primary purpose was for
games and pastimes.
Among the most spectacular of these places were game parks with carefully
manicured grounds to ensure that a steady supply of the best animals could be
hunted in the most enjoyable ways. Often pavilions and other structures were
built with advantageous sightlines so that both the hunters and the animals,
especially birds of prey, could be observed by spectators and other participants
(Farmer 2013; Shearer 1961). These parks might be within a “forest,” an institution
first developed by the Merovingian kings and then exported to England and
elsewhere by the Normans and others, which—contrary to both Roman law and
Anglo-Saxon law—gave the king exclusive hunting rights, even in forest lands
that were not part of his demesne (Goldberg 2013; Mileson 2009; Griffin 2007). Or,
they might be smaller-scale gardens or parks which contained menageries of
exotic and spectacular animals which may or may not be hunted (Ševčenko
2002).
Spectacular indoor spaces were also constructed for the purposes of games
and pastimes. One of the most impressive of these was built for King Vladislav
Jagellonský of Bohemia at the turn of the sixteenth century. The Vladislav Hall in

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Prague Castle is an enormous vaulted space which could be entered by the

“knights’ staircase,” a stone ramp which enabled horses to be brought into the
hall for jousts (Kaufmann 1995, 59–63). Most indoor spaces, however, were not
designed for play, and because games—both physical and sedentary—could
become quite boisterous, they were usually not welcome in secular and religious
structures designed for other purposes—halls, churches, cloisters, etc. They were
also not welcome in outdoor spaces designed for other purposes, including
cultivated fields that could be trampled during a tournament or the hunt (Magoun
1929, 39; Crouch 2005, 55). But, games were still played in all of these places and
also in more public spaces, like town streets, squares, and bridges, and this
playing could often lead to large-scale violence. Late medieval Italy provides
some of the most striking examples of this in the form of the palio, a horse race,
and the battagliola, an often quite violent mock battle (Burke 1993; Davis 1994;
Mallet 1996, Tobey 2005). In late medieval England some villages had common
spaces reserved for games called “camping closes” and “playing places,” where
violent ball games could be played without doing too much damage to property,
while some larger towns also had public bowling alleys and tennis courts (Dy-
mond 1990; Dyer 1994, 305; Mate 2006, 292). Communities throughout Europe
also had a place that functioned as both religious and social center for their
community, the churchyard, which was one of the most popular places for people
in late medieval England and elsewhere to engage in all kinds of games and
pastimes, including wrestling, ball games, dancing, singing, theatrical perfor-
mances, and church-ales (Dymond 1999, 476–82). Just as the churchyard was the
social center of many communities in medieval Europe, and so the most likely
place to stage games and pastimes, so too did the church calendar affect the
permissibility of certain games and pastimes.
II “Omnia tempus habent”
Just as Ecclesiastes 3 recognized a “tempus ridendi” and a “tempus saltandi”

among all of the other activities described, so also were games and pastimes
affected by the two calendars that governed the lives of people in medieval
Europe—the religious and the seasonal. Games and pastimes dominated activities
on Sundays, feast days of saints important to particular communities, and the
times before and after the most important periods of solemnity or rejoicing,
including Carnival (just before the start of Lent) and the Twelve Days of Christmas
(between Christmas and Epiphany) (Hutton 1994, 4–48). Of course, some moral-
ists complained that people profaned during periods when they should be most
penitent, but Sunday games were as much a part of medieval society as Sunday

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NFL games are in the United States today. Game playing was also affected by the
seasons of the year, as we can see illustrated in the calendars in various books of
hours, where different games and pastimes are associated with different months.
This can also be observed in the list of reforms Einhard claims Charlemagne
enacted, including renaming February Hornung or “Antler Shedding” (Goldberg
2013, 613). Games and pastimes were also integral to the celebration of important
events in the lives of individuals (weddings, knightings, etc.) and political com-
munities (coronations, royal entries, peace treaties, etc.) (Barber and Barker 1989;
Brown and Regalado 1994). But, there were more informal, quotidian amuse-
ments, such as conversation or “gossip,” which could be combined with work and
thus could be enjoyed year round, because as Mavis E. Mate astutely argues “the
distinction between work and leisure was extremely fluid” (Mate 2006, 277).
III Status, Gender, and Age in Courtly Amusements and

Popular Celebrations
Although men and women, religious and lay, children and adults, young and old,
and nobles and commoners shared certain games and pastimes, certain games
were seen as more appropriate for certain groups. The group most associated with
playing was children. Children’s love of games was recognized as one of their
defining characteristics by illustrators of the “ages of man” throughout the Middle
Ages, where children are often depicted playing with a top or some other toy
(Hindman 1981). Children played in many ways that would be familiar to children
today. They used their imaginations to bring dolls and other toys to life. They
pretended to be engaged in adult activities, both secular and sacred. They
engaged in physical activities and in sedentary games. All of these activities can
be observed in one form or another in Peter Bruegel’s mid-sixteenth-century
Children’s Games, one of the most famous and revealing depictions of children’s
games ever created (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). This painting depicts
nearly 100 games, and when studied in conjunction with other late medieval
artwork—especially books of hours like the nearly contemporary Golf Book (Lon-
don, British Library Add. MS 24098)—can give us a fairly full view of late medieval
children’s ludic culture. We also learn something about medieval children’s
games through material culture. Just as Bruegel’s painting depicts many scenes of
children acting out adult activities (marriage, etc.), so also can we see this in the
archeological evidence, where children are buried with miniature weapons or
domestic items. Children, then as now, can make toys out of most things, but
there were also purpose-built toys in the Middle Ages (Gilchrist 2012, 147–51;
Gardeła 2012; Nickel 1966; Orme 2001; Hanawalt 1993).

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But, as already outlined above, people in the Middle Ages knew that games
were not just for children. The questions of which games were appropriate for
which groups of adults—men or women or mixed company, clerics or laypeople,
noble or common—has already been addressed somewhat and will be addressed
in more detail below. Here it is worth pointing out that no opinions regarding
these categories were universally accepted throughout the Middle Ages. For
example, in the early sixteenth century Baldassare Castiglione framed his Book of
the Courtier by having his main characters invent courtly games and pastimes,
because the ability to perform well in certain games and pastimes—both violent
and social, physical and intellectual—was an important aspect of being a courtier
(Greene 1979). But people at court, especially women, were cautioned that many
of these games and pastimes posed a grave threat to morals. For example, the
French knight Geoffrey de la Tour Landry wrote a courtesy book for his daughters
in the late fourteenth century, which was translated by William Caxton a century
later into English as The Book of the Knight of the Tower. In this book he related
several anecdotes about women who lost their reputations by enjoying the atten-
tion of men who were not their husbands during the dancing, singing, feasting
and other social activities that accompanied late medieval tournaments and other
courtly amusements (Barnhouse 2006, 142–49). But, not everyone took such a
stodgy view of men and women interacting at court. As Albrecht Classen’s entry
on “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in this volume demonstrates, love itself could be a
game (see also Classen 1989). And there were also games played at court which
were intended to promote this idea, especially fortune-telling games, like “have
your desire” and “ragman’s roll,” which were, as Nicola McDonald persuasively
argues, examples of “a kind of amorously inflected social game that was popular
in élite society in late medieval Europe,” which “did not simply socialize women
in conformity with dominant ideologies but rather afforded them a space in which
to play with – to debate, nuance, challenge – those ideologies” (McDonald 2006,
176; McDonald 2008, 234).
D Board, Dice, and Card Games

I Categorizing and Ranking Games
People in the Middle Ages recognized that not all games were created equally,
and they debated the origins of certain games in order to link them with more of
less reputable historical or legendary figures in order to demonstrate the positive
or negative aspects of these games. This was particularly true of board, table, and
dice games. For example, although chess was introduced into Western Europe

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from India through the Muslim world, medieval scholars sometimes sought its
origins in the “Matter of Rome,” usually crediting its invention to Ulysses, rather
than the “Matter of Araby” (Nequam 1863, 324; Murray 1913, 482; O’Sullivan 2012,
1). Playing cards on the other hand, which were also introduced into Western
Europe from the Muslim world via the Mediterranean, were recognized as a
novelty introduced by Muslims and were not thought to have been invented by
classical heroes (Parlett 1990, 35–36). Ranking and categorization is also appar-
ent in medieval literature and artwork. For example, in the Song of Roland, the
young knights are depicted playing tables, while Charlemagne’s “older and
wiser” men spend their time playing chess (lines 110–14). Similarly, William
Tronzo has demonstrated that the games depicted in a twelfth-century mosaic
pavement in a northern Italian church should be read as social signs, where chess
symbolizes justice while dice symbolizes discord (Tronzo 1977). But, nowhere is
this more apparent than in Alfonso X’s Libro de los Juegos or Libro de acedrex,
dados e tables, a richly illuminated manuscript completed in 1283, which depicts
a wide variety of board and dice games, gives detailed rules about how to play
them, and also provides social commentary through both words and images
(Musser Golladay 2007; Constable 2006). In the prologue to this work Alfonso
explains that “chess is more noble and of greater mastery than the others [tables
and dice],” but that all three games are better than all others:
… because these […] games are played sitting they are everyday and they are played as well
at night as in the day; and because women who do not ride and are confined are to use them;
and also men who are old and weak, or those who like to take their pleasures separately in
order not to be irritated or grieved by them; or those who are under another’s power as in
prison or captivity or who are at sea. And equally all those who have harsh weather so that
they cannot ride or go hunting or elsewhere and have perforce to remain indoors and seek
some kinds of sport with which to amuse and comfort themselves and not be idle (Musser
Golladay 2007, 106–07).
He was not alone in viewing these three games as nearly equally praiseworthy.
Game boards in the later Middle Ages often had spaces to play chess, tables, and
merels, as the tables board was often the interior part of a folding square board,
which had chess and merels boards on the exterior sides (Murray 1941, 58;
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 4429, 7832, 220, 154). And manuscripts
concerned with board games often contained problems for all three games, as can
be seen in the Libro de los Juegos as well as in late medieval problem collections
known as Bonus Socius and Civis Bononiae. Although the chess problems in these
works usually far outnumber the tables and merels problems combined, signify-
ing the pride of place held by chess above these other games, tables and merels
were also recognized as strategy games which were worthy of serious study
(Murray 1913, 564–735; Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 372). The high

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regard in which these games were held is also demonstrated by the fact that tables
and chess boards and chess pieces were used as reliquaries in the Middle Ages
(Shalem 1996, 190; http://www.stiftsschatz.de/e/schatzkammer_brettspiel.html,
last accessed on March 3, 2014; http://www.navarra.es/home_en/Temas/Turismo
+ocio+y+cultura/_Museos/Museos+de+arte+sacro/roncesvalles.htm, last access-
ed on March 3, 2014).
II Chess and Other Games Played on a Chessboard
Chess was introduced into Latin Christendom through Spain and Italy around the
year 1000 (Gamer 1954; Eales 1985, 39–48). But, as with other medieval board,
dice, and card games, there was no one game of chess in the Middle Ages.
Different parts of medieval Europe played according to various “assizes,” and
games could often last for a very long time, because the queen was generally
allowed to move only one space diagonally, while the bishop had to move exactly
three spaces (Murray 1913, 455–70). Because of this, “jeopardies” or chess pro-
blems were extremely popular because, according to Alfonso X, they were “… like
things new and strange to hear and therefore they are enjoyable, and also because
they are played more quickly …” (Musser Golladay 2007, 140; Murray 1913,
564–735). The queen did not acquire her modern move until the late fifteenth
century (Taylor 2012; Eales 1985, 71–93).
Chess pieces—then as now—were also called by different names in different
languages and in different works written at different times in the same language.
These pieces could also be used allegorically or metaphorically, both in literature
like Jacobus de Cessolis’s work and in the designs of the actual pieces (Camber
2005). The most famous medieval chess pieces are most likely the Lewis chess-
men, which are divided between the British Museum and the National Museums
Scotland. The expressions and gestures of these twelfth-century walrus ivory
chess pieces have captivated the imaginations of viewers since their discovery in
1831 and in many ways symbolize the modern popular image of the medieval
game of chess (Robinson 2004; Caldwell, Hall, and Wilkinson 2010). But, it took
time for the pieces to acquire the names and shapes we associate with them,
because the pieces introduced into Spain and Italy by the Muslims had very
different shapes and names. How the queen completely displaced the vizier by
the end of the Middle Ages can provide important insights into late medieval
gender studies, as Marilyn Yalom has demonstrated (Yalom 2004).
Chess, like hunting, could be both a public and a private game as well as a
metaphor for both war and love. Both games could engage large groups of people
in a conflict—chess could become a team game because the common practice of

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kibitzing blurred the boundaries between players and audience and could some-
times lead to real violence (Murray 1913, 475–76; Milliman 2012, 70–75)—and also
provide an excuse for intimates to spend private time together. This is why both
hunting and chess (and also the tournament, which served the same public-
private purposes) functioned as metaphors for love in the visual and material
culture of the Middle Ages: the early fourteenth-century Codex Manesse (Große
Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, Cod. Pal. Germ. 848); an early fifteenth-century
stained-glass window at the Musée de Cluny (Cl. 23422); early fourteenth-century
ivory caskets and mirror cases (Walters Art Gallery 71.264 and 71.268; Victoria and
Albert Museum 803–1891; Louvre OA 117; Cleveland Museum of Art 1940.1200;
Metropolitan Museum of Art 41.100.160; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 69.45);
early fourteenth-century ivory writing tables (Randall 1993, 123; Barnet 1997,
237–39); and a collection of ivory marriage caskets, which also depict several
other games which served as metaphors for love, including dancing and “shaking
the pear tree” (Nuttall 2010).
But, chess also allowed plenty of other allegorical uses (Ferm and Hone-
mann, ed., 2005; Plessow 2005). As Daniel O’Sullivan argues, “Its rules and
potential for metaphorical and allegorical representation invite poets and preach-
ers to note the similarities between the world on and the world off the chess-
board” (O’Sullivan 2012, 2). One of the most common images medieval chess
conjures in modern popular culture, at least for those who have seen Ingmar
Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal, is its allegorical connection with death
(Koskinen 2005). This was also a popular image in the Middle Ages. It appears in
church decorations, like Albertus Pictor’s turn-of-the-fifteenth-century mural in a
church in Täby, Sweden, and the early sixteenth-century stained glass window in
St. Andrew’s Church in Norwich, England (Melin 2005). And it also appears in
many late medieval texts and illustrations (Wilkinson 1943). In the early thir-
teenth century Odo of Cheriton dedicated one of his fables to the game of chess as
a means to humble “nobles glorifying in their station,” because all of the pieces
end up in the same place after the game is over, just as all of the players in the
game of life end up in the ground after they die (Jacobs, ed. and trans., 1985,
111–12). Another common image in these “chess moralities”—as H. J. R. Murray,
the leading scholar on the history of chess, calls them—is to have the devil as an
opponent (Murray 1913, 529–63; Juel 2012; Taylor 1990).
The chessboard could also be put to other gaming uses. Checkers was a late
medieval invention which was not very popular before 1500. It combined chess
and merels, using the board and the medieval queen’s move of the former with
the number of pieces and rules of play of the latter (Murray 1951, 72–76). Chess-
boards could also be used for other games, including dice and other gambling
games, because the board provided a level playing surface and because the

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different colored squares could be used for roulette-like games, like the game of
queke. For example, in the Prodigal Son stained-glass window in Chartres (refer-
enced below), the men are playing dice on a chessboard, while Villard de
Honnecourt depicted two men playing a dice game on a plain board in his
Portfolio / Sketchbook (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Fr 19093,
fol. 9r.; Barnes 2009, 66). Or, like shaved or loaded dice, the gambling boards
could be altered to make certain outcomes more probable. We see this in a couple
of cases from late medieval London, where chessboards were manipulated so that
in different parts of the board the squares of one color were raised while the
squares of the other color were depressed, so that an object cast on a certain part
of the board would always land on one color or another (Riley, ed. and trans.,
1868, 395–96; 455–57).
III Tables, Merels, Rhythmomachia, and Other Board games
Tables games are similar to backgammon and were derived from the Roman game
of alea / tabula, a game which used three dice to move counters around a board.
And whereas chess was invented in south Asia in late antiquity and introduced
into Western Europe by Muslims many centuries later, tables was a European
invention, which was introduced into western Asia in late antiquity, and from
there spread by Muslims both further into Asia and also back into Mediterranean
Europe as a different variant of the game, nard, which is played with two dice
(Murray 1951, 113–29; Murray 1941). But, there was even more variety than playing
with two or three dice, because the tables board, like a deck of playing cards
today, was an instrument which could be used in a variety of games.
Merels was one of the most popular games of the Middle Ages. Merels boards
carved into the stone and wood of a variety of medieval buildings, both secular
and religious, are a testament to the popularity of the game (Hall 2011; Watkins
2007, 148). Because it was a scalable game, it was played by everyone in one form
or another. The goal of the game was to place three pieces in a row, so it could be
as simple as the children’s game of tic-tac-toe. But, by adding more squares and
more pieces, it could become an extremely complex game. This is why these
forms of the game, including the extremely popular nine-men’s-morris, were
deemed sufficiently challenging to be included on game boxes with chess and
tables boards in the later Middle Ages and why problem collections for these three
games were produced (Schädler 2012; Murray 1941, 64; Murray 1951, 37–50). At
the turn of the sixteenth century Anne of France also advised her daughter,
Suzanne, to “keep busy and occupy yourself honorably but not too eagerly in
pleasant games like chess, tables, and merels, or other such minor amusements,

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nothing too novel or that requires too much attention. […] Such things should be
employed in moderation; they are an appropriate way of passing the time instead
of doing nothing” (Jansen, trans., 2012, 29–30). This is not exactly a ringing
endorsement of these three board games, but it does reiterate the prevalent
medieval idea that all three games can be worthy intellectual endeavors as long
as they are not taken so seriously that they arouse dangerous emotions or
interfere with more important matters.
Common throughout Scandinavia in the early Middle Ages and introduced
into Britain and Ireland by the Vikings were tafl or table games, including
hnefatafl. This board game was played by two opponents with unequal numbers
of men. One player had a king, who was defended with half as many men as his
opponent used to attack him. The pieces have the move of the rook in chess, and
a piece was captured when it was caught between two opposing pieces. The king
was captured when surrounded on four sides by opposing pieces. Both literary
sources and surviving boards demonstrate that a merels board was sometimes
inscribed on the other side of a tafl board, and a surviving board also shows that
the game could be played with pegged pieces placed in holes on the board, a
useful device for playing the game at sea. This game in many ways fulfilled the
same functions as chess. Playing it well was seen as a mark of nobility, and it was
also used allegorically in both religious and secular literature. Perhaps because of
this, when chess was introduced into Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland, tafl was
almost completely abandoned (Murray 1951, 55–64; Hall 2011, 147–50).
Another medieval board game which has not survived was rythmomachia, or
“battle of the numbers,” which as the name suggests was a complex mathema-
tical board game. This “philosopher’s game,” as it was also called, was extremely
popular among intellectuals, particularly in England, during the later Middle
Ages and was one of the games enjoyed by the inhabitants of Thomas More’s early
sixteenth-century Utopia (Moyer 2001; Burnett 1997). Medieval manuscripts also
preserve other mathematical games and puzzles (Moll 2008; Eldredge, Schmidt,
and Smith 1999), while dice games provided the first attempts to understand
probability in the later Middle Ages (Bellhouse 2000).
IV Dice Games
As discussed above, people gambled on many things. But, there was something
special about dice games, because they were games of chance rather than games
of skill or games that combined chance and skill, and they were almost always
played for a stake. Gambling with dice received almost universal condemnation
from secular and clerical authorities throughout the Middle Ages. For example, in

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the early sixth century Caesarius of Arles called the gaming table “the nursery of
all sins” in one of his sermons (Hen 1995, 214), and over six centuries later John of
Salisbury called gambling “the mother of liars and perjury” (Pike 1938, 36). Yet,
gambling with dice was also associated with salvation in a number medieval
works of art and literature.
The turn-of-the-thirteenth-century Jeu de saint Nicolas has attracted a great
deal of attention from scholars both because of its significance in the history of
French theater and because of its ludic aspects (Mandel, trans., 1982, 43–75;
Cowell 1999, 54–110; Kavanagh 2005, 31–48; Symes 2007, 27–68; Dinshaw 1980;
Bruckner 2006; Raybin 1988; Hüe 2012). Around half of Jean Bodel’s play takes
place in a tavern in which gamblers partake of two of the most popular dice games
of the Middle Ages, highest points and hazard. These dice games were usually
played in conditions—“too much wine and too little light”—which could lead to
conflict, a situation which was exacerbated by the complexities of hazard, which
required players to pay close attention and remember who threw what when
(Bruckner 2006, 42; Kavanagh 2005, 44–47; Purdie 2000, 171). So, it may seem
odd to a modern audience that St. Nicolas chose this environment to intervene to
save a man who asked for his protection and as a result convert a large number of
Muslims. But, there are some parallels with “Saint Peter and the Jongleur,” a
fabliau written about the same time in which gambling is also linked with
salvation (DuVal, trans., 1992, 130–39; Kavanagh 2005, 42–43). In this story the
devil entrusts all the souls of hell to a jongleur with a gambling problem, which
prompts the wily saint to go to hell to gamble the jongleur for the souls placed in
his care. Peter eventually wins the salvation of all the damned, including the
jongleur he had played against.
Dice could also serve a contemplative function in medieval society as both a
tool of prayer and through cautionary tales. For example, in the tenth century
Archbishop Wibold of Cambrai invented ludus clericalis, a complex contemplative
game using three dice which prompted its players to think about all of the various
virtues depending on the roll of the dice (Schädler 2013, 199–209). This game
appears not to have become very popular. A far more common link between dice
and contemplation was their depiction as one the Arma Christi, the instruments of
the Passion, because the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’s clothes (Hall 2009, 75–76;
Cooper and Denny-Brown, ed., 2014). Another popular way in which dice games
were used to instruct sinners was through depictions of the “Parable of the
Prodigal Son.” Even though it was not part of the biblical account, the Bible
moralisée as well as the stained-glass windows of Poitiers, Chartres, and Bourges
cathedrals all depict the Prodigal Son gambling away his possessions in a tavern
(Guest 2006, 42). Medieval records also preserve accounts of real life prodigal
sons, who usually were not as fortunate the biblical one. Despite what Jesus said

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in Luke 15, profligate spenders, including degenerate gamblers, were shunned by

their family and friends (Carlin and Crouch, ed. and trans., 2013, 262–66). And
sometimes money was not the only thing they lost. The early thirteenth-century
account from Caesarius of Heisterbach of a young man hanging himself after
gambling away all of his possessions is just one of several gambling-associated
suicide stories from the Middle Ages that were meant to deter people from
partaking in an activity which could be so socially disruptive (Murray 1998, 309–
10). But, it was not just violence against oneself that worried religious and secular
authorities. As outlined above, gambling with dice was also recognized as a
source of conflict and discord, because it led to violence against others (theft,
homicide, etc.) and against God and the saints (blasphemy). And so a common
fate awaited all gamblers, as the bas-de-page illustration of naked gamblers
roasting in the flames of hell in a mid fourteenth-century book of hours demon-
strates (London, British Library MS Yates Thompson 13 f149v).
In addition to causing conflict, however, dice could also be used in conflict
resolution, as Proverbs 18: 18 tells us: “contradictiones conprimit sors et inter
potentes quoque diiudicat.” We see dice serving this function in medieval litera-
ture. For example, in the Saga of Olaf Haraldson in Snorri Sturluson’s early
thirteenth-century Heimskringla, the Swedish and Norwegian kings, both named
Olaf, settled a land dispute by throwing two dice. The saintly Norwegian Olaf won
the contest even though his opponent threw two sixes because, through divine
intervention, one of his dice split in two, so that he threw a six and a seven
(Sturluson 1844, 128–29). Similar stories of splitting dice also appear in the
Cantigas de Santa Maria and Jacobus de Cessolis’s Liber de moribus hominum et
officiis nobilium, but the result of these matches is not the settlement of a dispute
but the acquisition of a church by the Virgin Mary and a soul by St. Bernard, in
some ways paralleling “Saint Peter and the Jongleur” to demonstrate that God
and the saints could intervene in dice games to perform a greater good but not
just to help gamblers profit, because as the cantiga explains, “such profit does not
please Holy Mary” (Kulp-Hill, ed. and trans., 2000, 257; Cessoles 2009, 95).
V Cards
Like chess, cards were introduced into Italy and Spain from the Islamic world, but
this occurred more than three centuries later, in the mid fourteenth century. Also
like chess, cards spread rapidly to rest of Europe, so that by the 1370s there are
references to playing cards in France, Germany, and Switzerland (Parlett 1990,
35–36; Depaulis 2013; Ortalli 1996). One of the earliest references to playing cards
in medieval Europe is a bas-de-page illustration in a mid-fourteenth-century

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South Italian manuscript of the mid-thirteenth-century French Arthurian romance

Meliadus or Guiron le Courtois, part of the romance of Palamedes (British Library
Add MS 12228 f. 313v.), which also depicts its protagonists jousting (ff. 214v–215v.,
f. 151v.) and playing chess (f. 23r.). This link between cards and other courtly
games and pastimes illustrates how when playing cards were first introduced into
Latin Christendom, they were luxury items associated with elite courts, especially
the tarot or trump cards, which had nothing to do with fortune telling at this time
(Dummet 1980). The first European playing cards were expensive, hand-painted
objects, and those used at courts throughout Europe remained so well into the
fifteenth century (Ortalli 1996).
Cards did not remain just a courtly pastime for long, however. Cards were
soon mass produced with wood blocks and stencils, which made them relatively
cheap and plentiful (Dummet 1980, 15). They became so popular by the early
fifteenth century that the Franciscan Bernardino of Siena railed against both
cards and dice in his frequent sermons against gambling, calling the former “the
devil’s breviaries” and using them to help fuel bonfires of the vanities (Depaulis
2013; Frugoni 2003, 69). Two of Bernardino’s contemporary confreres, John of
Capistrano and James of the Marches, also joined in his invectives against dice
and cards (Depaulis 2013; Ortalli 1996, 177). Yet, not all late medieval friars were
opposed to this new pastime. Following in the footsteps of Jacobus de Cessolis,
the Dominican Johannes of Rheinfelden wrote his Ludus cartularum moralisatus
or De moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis at the turn of the fifteenth
century to show how card games could help to teach people about morality. Yet,
despite the rapid rise in popularity of card games in the fifteenth century and
later, Johannes’s treatise on cards never achieved anywhere near the popularity
of Jacobus’s treatise on chess (Jünsson 2005).
E Physical Games
I The Tournament
No game or pastime has come to symbolize the Middle Ages more than the
tournament, especially jousting. In North America we can see it performed live at
Renaissance festivals and Medieval Times restaurants, as well as in films like
Brian Helgeland’s 2001 A Knight’s Tale and in two (!) reality-television shows:
National Geographic Channel’s “Knights of Mayhem” and the History Channel’s
“Full Metal Jousting.” Yet, these stylized events were a creation of the late Middle
Ages. The tournament as it first appeared in the late eleventh century along the
northern French borderlands was for the most part indistinguishable from regular

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warfare (Crouch 2005, 1–16). These mêlées, which ranged over many miles,
remained the most popular form of the sport until the thirteenth century, when
jousting, which had at first been regarded merely as a preliminary, became the
main event.
There are rich sources for twelfth- and early thirteenth-century tournaments
in both literary and historical texts. For example, in the late twelfth century
Chrétien de Troyes depicted tournaments in his romances—Cligés, Érec et Énide,
Le Chevalier de la Charrete (Lancelot), Le Conte du Graal (Perceval)—and men-
tioned one very briefly in Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain). Jean Renart’s Le Roman de
la Rose and Gerbert de Montreuil’s Violette and Continuation also have accounts
of tournaments. These literary accounts provide interesting points of comparison
with L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, the early thirteenth-century biography
of William Marshal, the ideal twelfth-century preudome who translated his
enormous success in tournaments into political power (Baldwin 2000, 72–73;
Benson 1980; Crouch 2002; Crouch 2005; Holden, ed., 2002). In fact, literature
influenced the development of tournaments, especially the introduction of
“round tables” and other forms of stylized combat which acted out “historical”
themes while also providing contemporary social commentary (Cline 1945;
Crouch 2005, 116–21). As the name for this theatrical tournament implies, partici-
pants and sponsors of tournaments most often looked to the “Matter of Britain”
(i.e. Arthurian legends). For example, the “Arthurian enthusiast”—to use Roger
Sherman Loomis’s characterization—King Edward I of England (ruled 1272–1307)
put the Matter of Britain to good use in demonstrating his right to rule all of
Britain, including holding round tables to commemorate important events, like in
1284, when Edward celebrated his victory over the Welsh or in 1306, when he and
his son vowed vengeance on the Scots (Loomis 1953; Davies 2000). Round tables,
however, did not take place only in Britain and were not limited to propagandistic
purposes. In the thirteenth century round tables were held from Cyprus to Spain,
and one of the most famous and detailed accounts of knights performing the
Matter of Britain comes from Central Europe—Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s Frauen-
dienst, in which the protagonist dresses first as Lady Venus and then as Arthur, in
an expression of courtly love and knightly errantry rather than an attempt to stir
up support for or commemorate a military campaign.
Despite these other kinds of tournaments, the mêlée tournament—the violent
(and sometimes deadly) sport which was banned by clergy since its inception and
also banned or heavily regulated by many secular authorities—remained popular
into the fourteenth century (Crouch 2005, 125–31), and remained the preferred
form of combat for battle-hardened knights like Geoffroi de Charny, the “theoreti-
cian of chivalry,” to use Richard Kaeuper phrase, and one of the greatest pre-
udomes of the fourteenth century, who met his death at the battle of Poitiers in

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1356. Geoffroi wrote that tournaments “earn men praise and esteem for they
require a great deal of wealth, equipment and expenditure, physical hardship,
crushing and wounding, and sometimes danger of death” and were superior to
jousting. But, he does understand the appeal of jousting as well as its social
function and ranks it among “the finest games and pastimes” along with “con-
versation, dancing, and singing in the company of ladies,” which often accompa-
nied the feasting that followed tournaments (Kaueper and Kennedy 1996, 3; 87;
113; Crouch 2005, 108–09). These social and political functions of the tournament
grew as the spectacle and pageantry of both the tournament and all the social
events associated with it increased during the late Middle Ages, so that “…
throughout Europe from the late thirteenth century onwards … diplomacy and
jousting went hand in hand” (Barber and Barker 1989, 50). We can see this in
events like The Field of Cloth of Gold, the 1520 meeting between King Henry VIII
of England (ruled 1509–1547) and King Francis I of France (ruled 1515–1547)
(Russell 1969) and also in the “sports diplomacy” of a group of Bohemian nobles
who toured around European courts in the mid fifteenth century participating in
and / or watching a wide variety of games, including jousting, hunting, bull-
baiting, stone-throwing, and wrestling (Letts, ed. and trans., 1957).
II Ball Games
The world’s most popular sport—soccer—and many other sports involving balls—
tennis, cricket, baseball, bowling, field hockey, billiards, golf, etc.—can trace
their origins in one form or another to ball games played in the Middle Ages
(Flannery and Leech; Gillmeister 2002; Gillmeister 1998; Magoun 1938). Yet, un-
like hunting, the tournament, chess, tables, and even dice games, all of which
have at least one major literary or didactic work dedicated to their play in the
Middle Ages, ball games are mentioned only in passing. But, these references go
back to the very early Middle Ages. Sidonius mentions ball games in serveral of
his letters, and Gregory of Tours employs a ball game metaphor in his History of
the Franks (Hen 1995, 215–16). In fact, the metaphorical uses of ball games
throughout the Middle Ages provide important insights into medieval society and
the transmission of ideas, as Heiner Gillmeister, the leading expert on medieval
ball games, has demonstrated by tracing the origins of the famous tennis balls
scene from Shakespeare’s Henry V (Gillmeister 1996a; 1996b). Gillmeister has also
demonstrated that the rough ball games of the Middle Ages provided venues for
commoners to demonstrate their masculinity to other participants and spectators
in much the same way that tournaments fulfilled the same function for nobles. In
fact, “medieval football had its roots in the medieval tournament” (Gillmeister

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1996a, 273). Not all ball games were so violent, though. Despite Meister Ingold’s
association of bowling games with the deadly sin of anger, a certain type of
bowling game, called the game of spheres, was used by his early fifteenth-century
contemporary, Nicolas of Cusa, to teach philosophy, which he justifies because
various “… branches of knowledge have their instruments and games; arithmetic
has its number games, music its monochord—nor is the game of chess and
checkers lacking in the mystery of moral things” (Cusa 1986, 55). Ball games were
also among the most popular marginal illustrations in late medieval religious
manuscripts, one of which contains one of the earliest depictions of the game of
golf and so has come to be known as the Golf Book (London, British Library Add.
MS 24098 f.27r).
III Other Physical Games
Other games were also played and watched both for amusement and for a variety
of other purposes, and like the ball games mentioned above, play fighting could
quickly degenerate into real violence. Running, wrestling, swimming, and throw-
ing and targeting games, as well as a wide variety of winter sports are mentioned
in several sources. For example, in William Marshal’s biography his achievement
in stone-throwing is depicted as impressing spectators and other participants
almost as much as his achievements in tournaments (Holden, ed., 2002, 92–95).
Wrestling is also depicted in sculpture, stained-glass windows, and manuscripts
(Barnes 2009, 91), including the drawings of Villard de Honnecourt’s Portfolio /
Sketchbook (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Fr 19093, fol. 14v.) and
Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 16, fol. 58).
In fact, Matthew Paris’s illustration accompanies an account of a riot in London
in 1222, which was caused by discord between Londoners and suburban inhabi-
tants arising from wrestling bouts between the two groups (Lewis 1987, 228–29).
Wrestling bouts are also imagined as places of ill repute by the author of the
fourteenth-century How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, who advises the
young woman “Ne go thou not to no wrastlyng,” (line 73, Shuffelton, ed., 2008).
But, wrestling was also thought of as a sport appropriate for nobles and could
even act as a substitute for jousting when conditions did not allow for it, as was
the case for one of the days of The Field of Cloth of Gold (Russell 1969, 131–32).
Also popular were targeting games, like quoits, which resembles the American
game of horseshoes, although the object thrown was usually a stone (Aertsen
2008, 59); a variant of this game was cockthreashing, in which restrained roosters
were the target of thrown objects (Hutton 1994, 19). Crossbow and musket shoot-
ing were also popular pastimes in the late Middle Ages, especially in the shooting

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tournaments held in German towns (Nickel 1975; Kusudo 1999). Games played in
water or on ice were also enjoyed by people, especially youths, in the Middle
Ages. Swimming was discussed in Erasmus’s early sixteenth-century Colloquies,
along with a variety of other sports, and was a common pastime (Erasmus 1997,
74–110; Orme 1983). William fitz Stephen’s Description of London lists combat
games on water and ice as well as ice skating among the amusements enjoyed by
Londoners in the late twelfth century, an activity, along with sledding, which is
also depicted in late medieval books of hours (Douglas and Greenaway, ed., 1981,
1200; Hindman 1981, 473–74). Bone skates, along with skis, have been found in
Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and Icelanders already enjoyed bathing in hot
water springs in the Middle Ages (Gardeła 2012, 241–42). These were among many
games and pastimes enjoyed by medieval Europeans in the winter (Alexandre-
Bidon 1993).
F Games Involving Animals

The discussion here will focus on games—other than hunting, hawking, and
fishing—in which humans employed animals as helpers or pitted them against
each other for their amusement. For a more detailed analysis of hunting, hawk-
ing, and fishing, see the entries in this handbook on “Hunting, Hawking, and
Fishing” (Stuhmiller) and “Animals, Birds, and Fish.” (Clason).
Clerics’ and commoners’ disdain for the tournament, the favorite sport of
knights, does not mean that they failed to enjoy other blood sports. Members of
all social groups in medieval Europe were often avid fans of sports which pitted
animals against each other, including cockfighting, bear-, bull-, and boar-baiting,
horse races; and, whenever possible, they enjoyed hunting with birds and dogs as
well. Yet, while all groups enjoyed these sports, they often did not experience
them in the same way. Commoners hunted animals, but—unless they were
specially-trained huntsmen—not in the spectacular hunting parties of the nobi-
lity. Poaching a lord’s animals was a perilous business and was usually done
under cover of secrecy, although it could also be performed as an overt act of
revolt (Hanawalt 1988).
Other blood sports involving animals transcended the noble / common and
clerical / lay divides. Among the most popular of these sports was cockfighting
(Forsyth 1978). Bear-, boar-, and bull-baiting fulfilled a similar function in medie-
val society, as people, both noble and common, watched and bet on the outcome
of a contest which pitted packs of dogs against a much larger animal; bear-baiting
was also depicted in a variety of media, appearing for example in the margins of
the fourteenth-century Luttrell Psalter and the late eleventh-century Bayeux

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Tapestry (British Library Add. 42130 f. 161r.; Brown 2005). In Iberia it was already
popular for men to fight and run with bulls, and throughout medieval Europe
other forms of animal combat were staged involving dogs, foxes, cheetahs, ante-
lopes, lions, bulls, leopards, bears, asses, rams, and even an elephant and a
rhinoceros (Ševčenko 2002, 75–76; Kiser 2007, 113–24).
Horses were also baited, as were badgers, apes, and asses, and horses were
also pitted against each other in fights, as we see in Norse sagas (Kiser 2007, 118–
19; Gardeła 2012, 242). But a far more common form of using horses for entertain-
ment was horse racing. Chariot racing was the most popular sport of the sixth-
century Roman Empire, and even though all the other hippodromes ceased to
function by the following century, chariot racing remained popular in Constanti-
nople’s Hippodrome for several centuries, becoming a symbol of Roman imperial
authority (Cameron 1973; Boeck 2009; Giatsis 2000; Milliman 2014). Horse racing
was popular in the Middle Ages throughout both Europe and the Near East, where
other animals, including camels, dogs, and especially pigeons, were also raced
(Ahsan 1979, 243–52). Horse racing was especially popular in late medieval and
early modern northern Italian towns, which commemorated the feast days of
saints important to each community by racing horses throughout the town’s
streets and squares to claim a palio, a banner specially made for each event to
serve as a trophy for victory (Tobey 2011; Kiser 2007, 114–15). In the sixteenth
century Cosimo I even revived the practice of chariot racing in Florence’s Palio dei
Cocchi (Tobey 2005, 130–35; McClelland 2007, 108–10). Both Byzantine and
Muslim nobles also enjoyed using horses to play polo (Giatsis 2007; Ahsan 1979,
252–55), and some Byzantine rulers also participated in tournaments both against
each other and against the Franks in the Holy Land (Jones and Maguire 2002).
People also enjoyed watching animals perform in acts similar to those in a
modern circus, particularly when the animals imitated humans, as they did both
in travelling shows and on the margins of medieval manuscripts (Randall 1966).
People, especially children, also dressed up like animals or used fake animals,
like hobby horses, in their amusements. Animals could also be used in liturgical
performances, like the Christmas crèche, the Nativity scene which St. Francis of
Assisi is credited with having created in 1223 using living animals (Kiser 2007,
120–25).
G Conclusion
Space does not permit an analysis of all the games and pastimes of the Middle
Ages, nor does it allow for a full exploration of everything that games and
pastimes meant to people in medieval Europe. In addition, the limitations of

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surviving sources for both spectacle performances and quotidian recreations

complicate the study of medieval ludic culture. Rich and poor, old and young,
men and women, clerics and laypeople all found ways to entertain themselves
with a wide variety of games and pastimes, but most of these have left little trace
in the historical record. Despite these limitations, however, this fascinating topic
continues to provide new insights into every aspect of the Middle Ages, as
demonstrated both by the number of books and articles published each year on
this topic, and also by the number of entries in this Handbook which explore
forms of medieval amusement (e.g. “Literature”; “Love, Sex, and Marriage”;
“Music”; “Hunting, Hawking, and Fishing”; and “Animals, Birds, and Fish.”
Following in the path of Haskins and Huizinga, this article has attempted to
demonstrate that medieval societies were indeed “brimful of play” and under-
standing medieval games and pastimes is central to understanding all aspects of
these societies.
Select Bibliography
Archangeli, Alessandro, Recreation in the Renaissance: Attitudes towards Leisure and Pastimes
in European Culture, c. 1425–1675 (Basingstoke 2003).
Barber, Richard W. and Juliet R. V. Barker, Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the
Middle Ages, 1st American ed. (Woodbridge 1989; New York 1989).
Carter, John Marshall, Medieval Games: Sports and Recreations in Feudal Society (New York 1992).
Cavaciocchi, Simonetta, ed., Il Tempo libero: Economia e società (Loisirs Leisure, Tiempo Libre,
Freizeit) secc. XIII–XVIII. Atta della ventiseiesima settimana di studi, 18–23 Aprile 1994
(Florence 1994).
Classen, Albrecht, “Erotik als Spiel, Spiel als Leben, Leben als Erotik: Komparatistische Überle-
gungen zur Literatur des europäischen Mittelalters,” Mediaevistik 2 (1989): 7–42.
Eales, Richard, Chess: The History of a Game (New York 1985).
Gillmeister, Heiner, Tennis: A Cultural History (New York 1998).
McClelland, John, Body and Mind: Sport in Europe from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance
(London and New York 2007).
Mehl, Jean-Michel, Des jeux des hommes dans la société médiévale (Paris 2010).
Murray, Harold J. R., A History of Board-Games other than Chess (Oxford 1952).
Murray, Harold J. R., A History of Chess (Oxford 1913).
Musser Golladay, Sonja, “Los Libros Acedrex Dados e Tablas: Historical, Artistic and Metaphysical
Dimensions of Alfono X’s Book of Games,” Ph.D. diss. University of Arizona, Tucson, 2007.
O’Sullivan, Daniel, ed., Chess in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: A Fundamental Thought
Paradigm of the Premodern World (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2012).
Reeves, Compton, Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England (Stroud 1995).
Sonntag, Jörg, ed., Religiosus ludens: das Spiel als kulturelles Phänomen in mittelalterlichen
Klöstern und Orden (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2013).
Strutt, Joseph, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (London 1801).

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Hans-Werner Goetz
God
Introduction
Since religion is an important part of culture, it seems to be appropriate to include
a historical article on “God in the Middle Ages” in a compendium of medieval
culture. The object of such an article cannot be God Himself—according to
theological belief, God is eternally invariable—but human perceptions and con-
cepts of God, which have indeed varied over history. In an “age of faith,” such as
the Middle Ages, God is a central figure. Contrary to some recent studies (Arnold
2005; Dinzelbacher 2009; Weltecke 2010), there are no real indications that there
was any atheism in the Middle Ages (what has been interpreted as atheism is
mostly simply “unbelief” in the eyes of orthodox Christians). Since the vast
majority of medieval sources were written by monks or clerics who are supposed
to have a distinctly religious view, we will never be able to draw a reliable picture
of the religious perceptions and beliefs of the lower classes in the Middle Ages.
Nevertheless, also medieval clerics had a religious standpoint that was primarily
specific to their epoch (and not only of their status). Although it comes as no
surprise that people thought and wrote much about God, concepts of God and
divinity were seldom discussed in comprehensive treatises, but are rather scat-
tered over a multitude of various statements in our sources. In the following
pages, I shall try to characterize the specifically medieval representations of God,
which have their roots in the Old and New Testament, but also include Oriental,
Greek, Roman, philosophical (Neo-Platonic) traditions that have all been inter-
weaved by the Church Fathers of the patristic age. I shall restrict myself to the
most prominent ideas about God, and concentrate on the early and high Middle
Ages, with only a few prospects into the later Middle Ages. While this article has
to be brief, a more detailed treatment with further references can be found in a
monographic study on this theme (Goetz 2011).
People in the monotheistic Christian Middle Ages were, of course, convinced
that there was only one God, although this was a threefold, Trinitarian God
comprised of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, with one and the same
origin or “principle” (principium). The existence of pagan gods was not denied,
but they were regarded as demons who, in their turn, could be interpreted as the
fallen angels. God was responsible for the existence of the whole universe,
including all of its parts (heaven, earth, and hell), its creatures (angels as well as
human beings and animals), and its natural environment (plants, etc.). All this

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was good, as God Himself saw, according to Genesis (“And God saw that it was
good,” a phrase that was repeated after every single act of Creation). The belief
that the whole Creation was God’s work, had two consequences. First, dualistic
theories assuming the existence of two principles, good and evil, were definitely
declared to be heretical. Second, the existence of evil in the world, which simply
could not be denied, had to be explained: historically (by the Fall), morally (by
human nature), and philosophically. St. Augustine (354–430), inspired by Neo-
Platonism, claimed that evil was nothing else than the absence of good, but had
no existence in itself; it was not being, but nothing.
Further, God was a ubiquitous, but transcendent being: how, then could
people know and learn something about Him? The simple answer was: through
divine revelation (revelatio divina): first and foremost, from God’s own word, as it
was revealed in the Bible; second, all history was divine revelation—as a conse-
quence, history was open to theological interpretation—; third, deep religious
contemplation, as it was propagated by the “school” of Saint Victor in Paris,
could lead to divine revelation; finally, people believed in mystical revelations of
those who were worthy of having visions and being enraptured to heaven, as
revealed, for example, in Hildegard of Bingen’s (1098–1179) visionary books.
Most of these sources of divine revelation, however, did not speak for them-
selves. The meaning of the words in the Bible, for example, had to be extracted by
human interpretation, namely biblical exegesis, particularly by applying allego-
rical (figurative) and anagogical interpretations (concerning the beyond), which
gave sufficient freedom for individual ideas and development. Moreover, beside
and beyond these authorities (including former, particularly patristic guidelines),
medieval authors also searched for philosophical explanations and argued within
the tradition of logic and dialectics. (In the twelfth century, these debates led to
the first scholars being put on trial for heresy.) Since in the final analysis God was
unrecognizable and inexplicable, theologians tried to describe Him in terms of
negative theology: that is, by saying what He was not: He was immortal, invari-
able, indivisible, not created, etc. Man could try to understand God only by human
explanations (humanae rationes) (Otto of Freising 1912, Chronicon 3 prol., p. 131).
For Otto (ca. 1112–1158) and many others, however, the full realization of this
insight was not possible until Eternity which consisted of seeing God face-to-face
(ibid. 8,33, p. 451).
Human representations of God Himself can be roughly divided into two parts,
which are nevertheless intertwined: first, God’s activity, or work; and second His
character, or nature.

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A God’s Work
God’s work is threefold. Firstly, He is the Creator (of everything). Secondly, He is
the Ruler who governs, guides, and controls His Creation from its beginning to its
end; medieval authors liked to call Him the King, or the king of kings (rex regum).
God makes sure that everything develops according to Providence, His predes-
tined plan of history. Thirdly, He is the Judge who punishes sins already on earth
and He, that is, Christ, will finally redeem or condemn all human beings in the
Last Judgment.
It is a universal medieval belief that God created the universe (“heaven and
earth” in the words of the beginning of Genesis) from nothing, and that the
universe and all existence, including history and time (in contrast to eternity)
came into being only from the moment of Creation onward. In the twelfth century,
Hugh of Saint Victor († 1141), in a simple dialogue between teacher (M. for
magister) and pupil (D. for discipulus), describes the essentials of Creation:
D. What was before the world was created? M. Just God. D. Since when did He exist? M. From
eternity. D. Where was He when there was nothing but Himself? M. He was there then where
He is now. D. Where is He now? M. In Himself, and everything is within Him, and He is
within everything. D. When did God create the world? M. In the beginning. D. Where was the
world created? M. In God. D. From what was the world created? M. From nothing. D. How
was it created? M. First everything was created simultaneously in substance; then the world
was composed in its present form in six days, and everything was arranged in order (Hugh
of Saint Victor, De sacramentis legis naturalis et scriptae 17 C).
The six days of Creation (the Hexaemeron), three days of creation and three days
of decoration, or perfection, correspond with the perfect number six, the only
number that according to Augustine (1928, De civitate Dei 11, 30, p. 350) is formed
by an addition as well as by a multiplication of the first three numbers (1 + 2 + 3 =
1 × 2 × 3). Creation, however, is perfect because God is perfection (Hugh of Saint
Victor 1966, De sacramentis Christianae fidei 1, 4, 5–6, col. 236). Furthermore,
Creation provides proof of God’s existence because the world would not exist
without Him. In the Middle Ages, no story in the Bible was commented on more
often than was the story of Creation in Genesis, the opus conditionis. Medieval
exegesis of Genesis offers insight into the concept of God: although Creation is
symbolically divided into six days, according to God’s nature the world was
actually created simultaneously in a single moment. When, according to the
biblical report, God is “speaking” (for example, “Let there be light”), His words
are the act of Creation. Medieval natural philosophy combines this work with its
concept of nature: God created still disordered substance from nothing and then
ordered and divided it into the four elements out of which all lifeless and living
things are composed.

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It was generally acknowledged and believed that the Creator ruled and
conserved His Creation (his “second work”), and that nothing happened that God
did not either do Himself or permitted to be done (Augustine 1970, De dono
perseverantiae 6, 12, col. 1000). “He who has created this,” the priest Salvianus of
Marseille († after 470) wrote in the fifth century, “the creator of all elements, must
be the same who reigns it; He who has founded all this through His power and
glory, will rule it by His providence and reason” (Salvianus of Marseilles 1975, De
gubernatione Dei 1, 4, 19, p. 118). Consequently, Honorius Augustodunensis, who
lived and wrote in the first half of the twelfth century, taught that everything
should be in “a well-organized disposition” (ordinata dispositio) (Inevitabile col.
1211 C). According to Hugh of Saint Victor, everything happened according to a
threefold order: of space, time, and the sequence of events (2001, De arca Noe 4,
1, p. 111). Historically, God’s activity was particularly reflected in the sequence of
the great realms, as well as in the belief in a constant process of an increasing
Christianization. In the twelfth century (with much older roots, though), many
authors tried to discover God’s providence in symbolic schemes: the four great
realms; the six ages of the world, parallel to the six days of Creation (with one or
two further “ages” after the end of the world); or the seven epochs of ecclesiastical
history (Goetz 2012, 220–30). A favourite example of demonstrating God’s “reign”
in history was the explanation of why Christ arrived so late: mankind had to learn
beforehand, and thereby become “mature” enough to understand the signifi-
cance of His coming. In addition, it was not by chance that He arrived precisely at
the time of the foundation of the Roman Empire by Augustus (63 B.C.E. 14) (cf.
Orosius [380/85–after 418] 1967, Historiae adversum paganos 6, 22, p. 426–30; 7,1,
p. 431–33; Otto of Freising 1912, Chronicon 3 prol., p. 130–35). Moreover, God’s
“government” is mirrored in the government of kings who were regarded as God’s
deputies on earth (as was the bishop, in his ecclesiastical office) and who ruled
by God’s grace (Dei gratia).
In this conception, historical events could be interpreted as signs from
heaven. When medieval chronicles frequently commented on historical events
using terms such as providentia Dei, nutu Dei, iudicium Dei, and so forth, these
phrases are not merely topoi, but theological interpretations of history. In the
famous account of Gregory of Tours (538/39–594), Clovis (466–511) implored
Christ for His assistance in the battle against the Alamans, and promised to be
baptized in case of his victory (Gregory of Tours 1951, Historiae 2, 30, p. 75–76).
Because God (or His saints) were thought to be present at battles (Graus 1977),
each victory could be interpreted as a sign of God’s grace whereas each defeat
was conceived as a punishment for sins committed. God, therefore, acted either to
offer assistance and shelter or to punish sinners (or both at the same time for the
two ‘parties’ respectively). Liutprand of Cremona (ca. 920–970/72) underlines the

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fact that the victory of Otto I (912–973) at Birten over the rebelling dukes (939)
“did not happen by chance but by God’s disposition” (1998, Antapodosis 4, 26,
p. 113). It goes without saying that God was expected to help His people, the
Christians, as long as they were worthy of His aid. God’s assistance or punishment
becomes particularly visible in wars between Christians and heathens (such as
the attacks of the Vikings and Hungarians in the ninth and tenth centuries), or
between Christians and Muslims (as in the Crusades). Natural phenomena (such
as astronomic constellations, earthquakes, eclipses of the sun or moon, or hea-
venly lights) as well as natural disasters (such as pestilences or inundations),
were all interpreted as omens and as signs of God’s warning, predicting and
intervening “activity.” God also communicated by way of the innumerable mira-
cles that were retold not only in miracle stories and saints’ Lives, but also in
chronicles. Many authors, such as Gregory of Tours and Thietmar of Merseburg
(975–1018), offer ample evidence of all these manifestations of God’s “work.”
God’s third “activity,” after Creation and governance, was judgment. There is
no governance without passing severe judgments (Salvianus of Marseilles 1975,
De gubernatione Dei 1, 5, 26, p. 118); this rule applies not only to the Last
Judgment, but already to judgments here on earth. Historical events, therefore,
were frequently interpreted as God’s judgment (iudicium Dei), particularly when
something happened unexpectedly (like a victory by an army that was in the
minority), when Christendom was threatened by pagan attackers (Vikings,
Magyars, or Saracens), or when human legal authorities were unable to do justice.
Tyrants who rose up against their lords never remained unpunished, wrote
Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856) (ep. 15, p. 408). People even expected, prayed for
or called for God’s revenge, in judicial ordeals as well as in everyday life. Of
course, people also feared God’s punishment: when the Merovingian king
Chlothar I (511–561) wanted to tax the churches, a bishop threatened him with
God’s revenge and thus persuaded the king to drop his plan (Gregory of Tours
1951, Historiae 4, 2, p. 136). The story shows that the expectation of God’s judg-
ment could even be exploited. In another story, a feigned miracle by an Arian
bishop, according to Gregory, necessarily failed, thus proving at the same time
without doubt that Arianism was the wrong faith (Gregory of Tours 1951, 1, 47,
p. 30–31). When, however, human sinfulness got completely out of hand, God
punished mankind with great disasters such as the Flood. And of course, people
always lived in fear of the End of the World and the Day of Judgment.

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B God’s ‘Nature’
While all medieval people may have believed that God constantly and actively
intervened in human affairs, discussions of His nature were more or less restricted
to scholars, with their Neo-Platonic thinking. It is remarkable, though, that during
the early Middle Ages, the Christian missionaries, while preaching the truth of
their faith and the power of the Christian God to the pagans, underlined that there
was only one eternal and almighty God who had created everything (cf., for
example, Bede [673/74–735], Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 2005, 3, 22,
p. 280–82). From a philosophical point of view, God is invariable and “simple,”
that is, consisting of one substance and not composed of elements. Furthermore,
God alone is immeasurable, eternal, and not created, because there can only be
one being like God, and only an eternal being can be immeasurable (thus Richard
of St. Victor [† 1173] 1958, De trinitate 2, 6–8, p. 112–15). The “highest good”
(summum bonum), thus Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), must necessarily be
the “highest one” (summum unum), and the only highest one (unice summum)
(1968, Epistola de incarnatione verbi 8, p. 15). According to Hugh of Saint Victor,
God is “simple” in His existence, universal and omnipresent in space, eternal in
time, good in nature, and invariable in state (1966, Didascalicon 7, 17–20, col.
825–31). Gilbert of Poitiers (ca. 1080–1154) and Otto of Freising emphasized the
fundamental difference between the Creator and His creatures: only God is
“genuine,” that is, not composed, unique (singulare), and sole (solitarius) (Otto of
Freising 1912, Gesta Frederici 1, 5, p. 128–42).
Consequently, first, in God there is no difference between existence and
nature, being and acting. In Him, to be wise is the same as wisdom, to know the
same as knowledge, living is the same as being or as being wise (thus Ermenrich
of Ellwangen [ca. 814–874] 1899, Epistola ad Grimaldum 31, p. 570–71). For Him,
“speaking,” thinking or wishing is the same as creating —thus Creation was just
the realization of His will being pronounced in His words.
Second, from an ontological perspective, God is being, or existence, or the
epitome of being: that is, in human understanding, the highest form of being. “If
God is good, great, holy and wise,” Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) writes, “all
this is manifest in one word: He is” (1963, De consideratione 5, 6, 13, p. 477). He is
He who is (and not what He is) (Est qui est, non quae est: Bernard of Clairvaux
1963, 5, 7, 16, p. 480). He is the “Onest” (unissimus, ibid. 5, 7, 17, p. 480–81). If
God has divinity, then He is divinity (ibid. 5, 7, 15–16, p. 479–80). In this regard,
God is the absolute opposite of His creatures, who nevertheless, although only in
part, participate in His being. Thus, one might say that while, on earth and in
history, God demonstrates his omnipresence in his activities, philosophically he
is absolutely transcendent, a feature emphasized above all by John Scot Eriugena

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in the ninth century: “The invisible and incomprehensible God transcends all
capacity of comprehending, yet He created in all this an image similar to Himself”
(1996–2003, Periphyseon 2, 28, p. 81). Creation exists because God knows that it
exists (ibid. p. 97). God cannot be defined, because He is beyond all being.
Regarding space, God’s domicile is a heaven beyond the physical heaven and
even beyond the spiritual heaven of the angels: the “heaven of heavens,” as
Honorius Augustodunensis named it (1954, Elucidarium 1, 10–11, p. 362). Regard-
ing time, there is no difference between past, present, and future because in God,
everything is omnipresent (cf., for example, Honorius Augustodunensis 1966,
Inevitabile col. 1199 B). His omnipresence also explains His omniscience, or, from
a human perspective, His “prescience.” In the eleventh century, Peter Damian
(1007–1072), while discussing the question of whether God can or cannot “undo”
a historical event such as the foundation of Rome, admits that God cannot do evil
(because He is absolute goodness), and he equally cannot undo what has hap-
pened, not because he is incapable of doing so, but because events would never
have happened if He did not want them to happen (ep. 119). Thus, despite the
underlying contradiction, the concept of God’s nature corresponds to the concept
of His activity.
C The Trinity as a Theological Problem

The main difference to other monotheistic religions, and the very characteristic
feature, but also the main problem of Christianity, was its belief in the Trinity:
that the one God manifests Himself in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, who are all equally divine and, all three of them, are God Himself.
This Trinitarian problem, the paradox of “three in one,” was difficult to under-
stand and caused innumerable discussions and attempts to explain it. At the
same time the Trinitarian doctrine distinguished orthodox belief from other
religions and from heretical beliefs: arianism with its conviction that the three
persons of the Trinity were not equal but in a hierarchical relationship to one
another, or even the Greek Orthodox Creed that lets the Holy Ghost emanate
(procedere) from the Father alone. Jews and Muslims considered the Christian
doctrine of the Trinity as being polytheistic.
It seems that the Trinitarian doctrine was hard to comprehend even for
Christians themselves. Therefore, numerous authors tried to confirm the indis-
pensability of this doctrine and to explain its contents. Alius non aliud, Augus-
tine taught: that is, “different in person, but of the same substance”: “This trinity
is one God” (1928, De civitate Dei 11, 10, p. 330). To believe in three gods is
pagan, but to deny the division between the three divine persons is impious,

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wrote Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) (2006, De differentiis rerum 2, 2, p. 10).

Even the Merovingian Countess Dhuoda, as a laywoman in the middle of the
ninth century, could teach her son the following truth: “One in ‘threeness’ and
three in unity: that is trinity” (1991, Manuale 2, 1, p. 118). On the one hand,
Gregory of Tours tried to convince the Arian bishop Agila that God could never
be without the Son (just as He could never be without wisdom or light), and that
the three divine persons were absolutely equal in their status (1951, Historiae 5,
43, p. 249–52). On the other hand, Gregory also had to reprimand the Frankish
king Chilperic (ruled 561–584) for denying any difference between the divine
persons (ibid. 5, 44, p. 252–53). While debating with a Jew, Gregory had to
defend the Christian belief that Christ was God (ibid. 6, 5, p. 268–69). Thus, in
the three “religious debates” that Gregory inserts into his Histories, he, who had
headed his chronicle with the Catholic Creed, explicates all the aspects of
Christian Trinitarian belief. Alcuin (ca. 730–804) taught at the end of the eighth
century (with regard to the Spanish heresy named Adoptionism) that Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost are one God of the same substance, the same essence, and
the very same inseparable divinity; each Trinitarian person is of the same whole,
integral, perfect, eternal, and simultaneous substance (Alcuin 2012, De fide
sanctae et individuae trinitatis 1, 2, p. 20); the three persons are inseparable in
their nature as well as in their activity, and, as has been established, demon-
strate the equivalence between God’s nature and work. It is remarkable how
many authors resumed this theme again and again. Because the Trinitarian
persons are one God, and because God is wisdom, together they are one Wisdom
or one Almighty (and not three wisdoms or three almighties), as Ermenric of
Ellwangen comments in the ninth century (1899, Epistola ad Grimaldum, 170–
71). Because they are inseparable, Hildegard of Bingen writes, one cannot be
imagined without the other, so that it would be wrong to see God as the Creator
and Christ as the Redeemer. Instead, Hildegard emphasizes that Christ was born
before all times and was already there at the Creation while the Holy Ghost
appeared during Christ’s baptism already under the sign of the end of the world
(1978, Scivias 2, 2, 2, p. 125–26). Bernard of Clairvaux admits that the Trinitarian
concept could not be comprehended only with reason, but without faith (1963,
De consideratione 5, 7, 18, p. 482).
For authors in the context of twelfth-century early scholasticism, such differ-
entiations became even more sophisticated. When theologians like Gilbert of
Poitiers or Peter Abelard (1079–1142) tried to explain the Trinity by transferring
principles of logic to theology, they were accused of having heretical opinions by
Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Saint Thierry (ca. 1085/90–1148/49), and Pope
Innocent II (pope 1130–1143). Those authors ventured to the limits of human
thinking, and they irrefutably did so in order to confirm the Christian faith by

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solving apparent inconsistencies and thus making the problem of the Trinity more
comprehensible. Gilbert distinguished between “Being God” and “Being God the
Father” in order to make clear that the three persons are three unique beings.
They are all God because they consist of the same divine substance, but different
in their relationship to each other. The scholastic movement did not use reason as
an alternative to authority, let alone to challenge faith, but instead tried to
reinforce the elements of the Christian doctrines by using reason, logic and
secular philosophy.
In the same manner scholars tried to prove God’s existence by using
rational arguments. The most famous attempt was the ontological argumenta-
tion of Anselm of Canterbury. Since there is no one who doubts the existence of
“good,” he argues in his Monologion, there must be something by which it is
good, and this must necessarily be the highest good (summum bonum) which is
good by Himself, namely the Creator. The same conclusions can be drawn about
being: there must necessarily be a supreme being from whom everything derives
its (own) being while only partially participating in it. In his Proslogion, Anselm
transfers this argumentation to a completely intellectual level: there must be a
highest being, beyond which one cannot imagine the existence of an even
higher being because this would be illogical. These arguments apply only on
the Neo-Platonic assumption that every being derives its being from some high-
er being. Although Anselm’s proofs of God’s existence are the most familiar,
there are many others demonstrating that to prove God’s existence was as
necessary as to explain the Trinity. God must exist, William of Conches (ca.
1080–ca. 1154) teaches, because the world exists. The world cannot have been
created by pure coincidence because this would require preceding causes; nor
can it have been created by nature, for conflicting elements would flee from
each other instead of being composed into things and beings; nor by a crafts-
man (artifex) because a human creator would have necessarily been created
himself by someone else (William of Conches 1980, Philosophia 1, 2, 6, p. 19).
Richard of Saint Victor argues in De trinitate that God must be eternal because
otherwise he would have an origin in time, and he transfers these ideas to the
Trinity: God the Almighty must be One because there cannot be several almighty
beings, and He must be Three because the highest being requires perfect love
and perfect goodness.
The concept of one God in three persons has repercussions upon the idea of
God’s activity, including Creation, which, in fact, is performed by all three
persons. At the same time, each of the three persons has a specific characteristic
(proprium). Hugh of Saint Victor attributes power to the Father, wisdom to the
Son, and kindness to the Holy Ghost (Hugh of Saint Victor 1966, De sacramentis
Christianae fidei 1, 3, 26, col. 227 CD; ed. Berndt 2008, p. 87–88). Otto of Freising

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extends Hugh’s description of the three persons into a kind of “trinity square”
(1912, Chronicon 7 prol., p. 307):
Father: power majesty creation

Son: wisdom providence government
Holy Ghost: kindness grace protection.
D The Christological Problem

Christ has various functions: He is mediator, thaumaturge (miracle worker),
exorcist, teacher, prophet, logos, shepherd (pastor), healer, savior, pantocrator,
God, priest, king, judge, child, and even bride or mother, particularly of his
Church (Angenendt 2009, 123–47). Of the greatest importance is the fact that
Christ is seen as being both God and human being, thus having two natures (and
one can attribute His characteristics to one of them respectively), and yet He
remains one and the same in both natures. While trinitarian theology tried to
reconcile the “oneness” of God with the idea that He was divided into three
persons, Christology tried to reconcile Christ’s two natures (God and human) with
His divinity. Eadmer of Canterbury (ca. 1060–after 1128) believed that Christ
descended, but was not born, from the Father in eternity and was born by a virgin
(Eadmer 1967, De quatuor virtutibus quae fuerunt in beata Maria 8, col. 585 A). He
was fathered but not created (thus Abelard, Theologia scholarium 1, 122, p. 362).
Fathered by the Holy Ghost and born by the Virgin Mary, He descended from
Heaven to redeem mankind from their sins (thus, for example, Gezo 1976, Liber de
corpore et sanguine Christi 2–3, col. 377–79, in the second half of the tenth
century). In the Middle Ages, Christ’s incarnation and passion are much more
discussed than are His resurrection and ascension (Marschler 2003), obviously
being the greater problems. It is not without good reason that Christ’s divine
nature as Son of God was the main theme in the polemical literature directed
against other religions, particularly Judaism, in order to defend the specific
character of Christianity and to prove its being the only true faith.
According to Saint John’s Gospel (John 1,1), Christ is God’s word and was
incarnated in the beginning. In his work De victoria verbi Dei, Rupert of Deutz (1075/
80–1129/39) pursues and describes the whole process of the history of salvation as
the developing victory of God’s word over the devil. For Hugh of Saint Victor and
many others, Christ is the center of the “work of restoration” (opus restaurationis)
after the Fall (1966, De sacramentis Christianae fidei 1, 8, 4, col. 308). Anselm of
Canterbury’s question Cur Deus homo? (Why did God become man?) is answered by
stating that it was necessary for mankind to be redeemed by someone who was not

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a sinner; since all humans are sinners, the redeemer could not be a human being.
Christ is the center and fulfilment of the whole history of salvation. He is usually
also seen as Judge in the Last Judgment (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Tympanon, St. Denis, Paris (© Albrecht Classen).
On earth, Christ is the “king of kings,” the ruler of history, and the lord of the
Church (which is His Church and is itself a symbol of His body). The Church,
however, is united by the Eucharist that allows man to participate in Christ’s flesh
and blood. (Thus, the disputes over the nature of the Eucharist in the ninth and
eleventh centuries centered on the question of whether Communion was a literal
or a symbolic act.) Christ’s role in history as well as His human nature explain
why primarily Christ is represented in paintings, sculptures, and art objects,
although there are also artistic medieval depictions of God the Father (particularly
as Creator or Ruler, with His hand stretching from Heaven to intervene in earthly
affairs) and of the Holy Ghost. Christ is depicted as a child with the Virgin Mary,
or being crucified on the Cross, but also in other roles: as ruler of the world
(mostly inside the ‘mandorla’), sitting enthroned on the globe or crowning earthly
kings and queens; as teacher, in illustrated scenes of the New Testament; as judge
in the Last Judgment (see Fig. 2); or, symbolically, as a lamb (the “lamb of God”).

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Fig. 2: Tympanon, St. Denis, Paris (©Albrecht Classen).
It would be wrong to imagine that representations of Christ refer exclusively to

His human nature; many of them underline His divine nature, by placing Him in
heaven, or His dual nature. In the world map of Ebstorf, the largest extant
medieval map dating from around 1300, Christ embraces the whole world with
His head above, His feet below, and His hands on either side of the globe; at the
same time, another image of Him being crucified in Jerusalem, the very center of
the world, underlines his life on earth.
E The Holy Ghost

The third divine person, the Holy Ghost, may have played a minor role in the
popular piety of the Early and High Middle Ages (thus Le Goff 1964, 199) In
theological discussions, however, the Holy Ghost was considered to be comple-
tely equal to the Father and Son in substance and divinity. Unlike Christ, the Holy
Ghost is not fathered and born, but emanating (procedens) from Father and Son.
As the spirit of God, “floating over the waters” (Gen 1,2), It is incorporeal. Like
Christ, the Holy Ghost is involved in all deeds of divine creation, government, and
judgment. It is represented in medieval artistic depictions by a dove or by rays of

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light coming from Heaven. The Holy Ghost is particularly supposed to be respon-
sible for the “adornment” of Creation, and for breathing life into all living things.
It is characterized as divine goodness and, above all, as the embodiment of divine
grace. The Holy Spirit is said to be “sevenfold,” because Its seven gifts (wisdom,
understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of God) distribute
divine grace to everyone who is worthy of receiving them. Everything, Honorius
says, is from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Ghost (Honorius
Augustodunensis 1954, Elucidarium 1, 2, p. 362–63), who is particularly effective
in bestowing sacraments, such as baptism or consecration, and effects the unity
of the Church. Rupert of Deutz dedicates nine of his 42 books of De sancta trinitate
Dei et operibus eius to the Holy Ghost. Clearly, the Holy Ghost did not play a minor
role in the theology and belief of the early and high Middle Ages but is an
indispensable part of the Trinity.
F Conclusion and Outlook

In spite of a very consistent framework of the medieval view of God, concepts of
God include various and sometimes even contradictory ideas. Although God was
imagined as being incomprehensible, people tried to comprehend and to imagine
His existence; they even literally pictured Him in the visual arts; and although He
was thought to be invariable, He was at the same time assumed to be active in
concrete historical situations. God, the Lord (dominus), “dominates” everything.
He communicates with human beings by various revelations that appear through
historical events, signs, miracles and visions. In return, people communicate with
Him, although frequently through the Church and its clerics: by means of rituals
(such as baptism, consecration, and Communion) and prayers. Nevertheless, God
remained a theological problem because it was problematic to reflect about
divinity in human concepts and thinking, and the continuous attempts to explain
the Trinity show the difficulty of explaining this doctrine where explanations, on
the one hand, were crucial to distinguish Christianity from other religions, but
on the other hand, might always be in danger of adopting heretical opinions.
However hard scholastic thinkers tried to prove God’s existence with logic, in the
last analysis, all belief in God and in divine nature still resulted from faith.
Although medieval concepts of God differed in many nuances, they were, and
remained, quite consistent, and medieval theologians were eager to demonstrate
the consistency of all its aspects. Particularly in the twelfth century, scholars
developed a systematic symbolic or figurative view, and a system of argumenta-
tion based on reason. However, the characteristic features remained the same.
Theologians did not alter the tradition that was handed down from patristic

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authors and carried on and developed further in the early Middle Ages, but tried to
“prove” with logical arguments that it was correct. This holds equally true for the
later Middle Ages. Late medieval Scholasticism further developed, systematized,
and differentiated their concept of God (Angenendt 2009, 116–17), for example,
by distinguishing between a “first cause” (God) and a “second cause” (man) of
Creation. Late medieval mysticism, beginning with Bernard of Clairvaux in the
twelfth century, internalized human relations to God, and both directions empha-
sized God’s love and kindness toward human beings. Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–
1275) interprets God’s anger as being quite moderate: God’s revenge is working
gently (Angenendt 2009, 103). Thomas and Albert the Great (ca. 1200–1280)
distinguish sharply between “relations” and “proprieties” in the three divine
persons. Nevertheless, these developments suggest no more than tendencies.
Unlike some recent suggestions, I cannot see clear trends in the concept of
God over the course of the Middle Ages: for example, there was no clear develop-
ment from an image of an irascible and severe God toward “the good Lord” (thus
Le Goff 2003, 25; 99). Both irascibility and goodness are characteristic features of
God throughout the medieval centuries. God loves His creatures well before the
Later Middle Ages, and man has both loved and feared God throughout the
Middle Ages. Similarly one-sided seems the suggestion, resulting exclusively
from the analysis of depictions, that the concept of Christ developed over time,
from a “warrior god” and ruler in the Early Middle Ages toward the suffering
Christ in the Later Middle Ages (Dinzelbacher 2008, 142–45), or from an en-
throned to a suffering Christ (Le Goff 2003, 99), and that this progression indicates
religious internalization. Both perspectives remain characteristic features of the
concept of God in all periods of the Middle Ages: the idea of Christ’s kingdom
remains important in the later Middle Ages (Leclercq 1959), and a suffering Christ
is depicted also in earlier centuries (Sepière 1994). The specific medieval concepts
reveal themselves in the abundance of current ideas. In addition, the idea of God
as the Lord may correspond to a “feudal age” (thus Le Goff 2003, 53–69), but has
nevertheless unambiguous roots in the Old Testament.
Medieval concepts of God may, of course, appear naïve in our eyes, but they
nevertheless are characteristic of this period which adopted concepts that, from
our point of view, may seem pagan, but probably corresponded simply to the
specific thinking of that period. Thus, the Trinity may be interpreted as a sub-
stitute for polytheism. However, medieval authors did not at all recognize such an
interpretation and instead defended the unity of God vehemently against attacks
from other religions, heresies and probably also against doubts of some Chris-
tians. The ‘medieval God’ bears both characteristics: He is imagined and ex-
plained by earthly concepts, but at the same time He is the sublime and transcen-
dent being beyond any human imagination.

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In medieval convictions, God is incomprehensible, yet reveals Himself con-

stantly through His deeds. This contrast causes a tension that seems to be
characteristic of all medieval religious thinking, and is not merely a distinction
between popular thought and theological reflexions. Admittedly, we do not know
much about the ideas that the common people had about God, but they surely
heard about God every Sunday from their priests’ sermons. It seems reasonable to
assume that they, too, believed most of what they heard.
Select Bibliography
Angenendt, Arnold, Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter, 4th ed. (1997; Darmstadt 2009).
Goetz, Hans-Werner, Gott und die Welt: Religiöse Vorstellungen des frühen und hohen Mittel-
alters, vol. I, part 1: Das Gottesbild (Berlin 2011).
Kessler, Herbert L., Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia, PA,
2000).
Le Goff, Jacques, Le Dieu du Moyen Âge: Entretiens avec Jean-Luc Pouthier (Paris 2003).
Schmitt, Jean-Claude, “Dieu,” Dictionnaire raisonné de l’Occident médiéval, ed. Jacques Le Goff
and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris 1999), 273–89. [= Schmitt 1999a]

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Kriszta Kotsis
The Greek Orthodox Church
A Introduction
The designation Greek Orthodox Church collapses multiple layers of meaning and
historical development; it can refer to: the Greco-Roman linguistic and cultural
context of the newly emerging religion of Christianity in contrast to its Jewish
roots; the Churches of the Eastern Mediterranean; the Church of the Byzantine
Empire; and all orthodox Churches in operation today that use the Greek lan-
guage and the Byzantine rite (Harakas 2005). This essay examines one of these,
the Church of the Byzantine Empire whose territories historically encompassed
the capital, Asia Minor, much of the Balkan Peninsula, and the Aegean Islands,
although by the fifteenth century this domain diminished to barely more than the
capital itself.
Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the complexity of the concepts
‘Byzantine’ and ‘orthodoxy.’ The term Byzantine, first used by Hieronymus Wolf
in the sixteenth century, derives from Byzantion, the settlement Constantine I re-
founded and renamed Constantinople in 324 (Evans 2004, 5; Dagron 1974, 13–47).
It was frequently applied as a derogatory label to distinguish what was perceived
as a depraved medieval state in the Eastern Mediterranean from its august
ancestor, the ancient Roman Empire. The people of the Eastern Roman Empire,
whom we call Byzantine, however, called themselves and their empire Roman,
yet Western medieval polemical texts tendentiously call them not Romans but
Greeks (Stephenson 2010, 429–30; Page 2008, 11–71; Kaldellis 2007, 68), high-
lighting their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural difference. Yet, following the Latin
conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Greek and Hellene became labels of self-
identification used by Byzantines to articulate resistance to foreign rule (Page
2008, 123–29; Angelov 2005). While Greek was the dominant language in Byzan-
tium after the sixth century, the empire also incorporated populations who spoke
other tongues (Smythe 2010). Recent scholarship has examined the intricate
ethnic, national, cultural, and religious threads that underpin Byzantine identity
(Smythe 2010; Page 2008; Kaldellis 2007). Tia Kolbaba has emphasized how the
Byzantines’ encounters with Westerners crystallized and consolidated notions
about their own identity, which was complex and mutable (Kolbaba 2000; 2001).
Defining what constitutes orthodoxy is similarly difficult. Averil Cameron argued
that, although orthodoxy is frequently evoked by scholarship, it should not be the
primary analytical framework in studying Byzantium. She further noted that

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orthodoxy is “not at all something fixed and easily definable” (Cameron 2008,
135). Recent scholarly work underscores that orthodox doctrine fluctuated, was
continuously fought over, and its definition and enforcement required consider-
able effort (Louth and Casiday, ed., 2006; Cameron 2008; 2007; MacMullen 2007;
Williams 2002).
The uncritical use of the terms Byzantine and orthodoxy can obscure the
dynamic nature of Byzantine civilization, a feature emphasized in recent scho-
larly work (e.g., Cameron 1987; Herrin 2007). The Byzantines prized taxis (the
orderly hierarchy of both Church and state), a principle particularly strongly
articulated in imperial and religious ceremonials (Cameron 1987; Mango, ed.,
2002, 16; Porphyrogennetos 2012), and visual images. Yet, taxis was tempered by
oikonomia (compromise or dispensation offered in imitation of God’s grace),
which allowed flexibility especially in the enforcement of rules governing the
Church (Kazhdan 1994, 203–06; Neville 2004, 101–02). Byzantine culture is para-
doxical: its insistence on tradition creates the impression of a calcified and rigid
society, a view echoed by many modern historians, yet, under the veneer of
stability great changes unfolded, social mobility was possible, and flexibility
could be exercised (Kolbaba 2000, 129–33; Kazhdan and Constable 1982, 117–39).
Complex interactions of order, hierarchy, change, and flexibility characterize
the history of the Byzantine Church. This essay highlights noteworthy themes in
the life of this institution from the early through the late Byzantine periods (fourth
through fifteenth c.). The themes progress broadly chronologically. The essay first
sketches the evolving role of the See of Constantinople within the universal
Church, the emperor’s position within the Church, and the Church’s organiza-
tional structure to signal developments rooted in the early Byzantine period. Next,
it explores icons and the Iconoclastic Controversy in the period of transition
between the early and middle Byzantine periods. Finally, it assesses the liturgical,
structural and decorative developments within church buildings of the early
through the late Byzantine periods to chart the changing confluence of these
elements within religious worship.
B Church Organization and Structure

I Constantinople, the Universal Church, and Conflicts
with the West
The See of Constantinople could not boast of apostolic foundation or impressive

early Christian martyria as Rome or other Churches in the Eastern Mediterranean
(e.g., Antioch, Ephesus). Although originally under the ecclesiastical authority of

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the Metropolitan of Herakleia in Thrace (Taft 1992, 23), by the fifth century
Constantinople emerged as one of five major sees that acquired supra-metropoli-
tan status, serving as the five heads (pentarchy) of the universal Church. Two
canons in particular contributed to the elevation of the hierarchical status of the
See of Constantinople: Canon 3 of the First Council of Constantinople (381)
declared that “[t]he bishop of Constantinople has the primacy of honor after the
bishop of Rome, because this city is the New Rome” (Mansi, ed., 1901–1927, vol. 3,
560CD, from hereupon Mansi; translated in Taft 1992, 23); Canon 28 of the Council
of Chalcedon (451) confirmed this and extended the authority of the See of
Constantinople over a large territory in the Eastern Mediterranean (Mansi, vol. 7,
428B-D; Dvornik 1958, 50–56; 81–105). Constantinople’s promotion was part of
the development (termed “principle of accommodation”) which adjusted the
organization of the Church to the divisions of the empire’s political administration
(Dvornik 1958, 3–38; 50–56). According to the theory of the pentarchy, which
received legal status in the code of Justinian (Nov. 109, 123.3, 131.2, Schoell and
Kroll, ed., 1912, 518; 597; 655; Dvornik 1966, 74–76; Meyendorff 1968, 49–50),
Christendom was governed by the five patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alex-
andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem who were on equal footing and oversaw their
respective territories independently, although the pope in Rome was accorded
honorary primacy (Herrin 2004; Chadwick 2003, 49; 164–65; 213–15; Anastos
2001, 55–59; Gahbauer 1993; Peri 1988; Siciliano 1979; Pelikan 1974, 164–66;
De Vries 1965). While the five patriarchs did not form a de facto collegiate body,
the pentarchic principle underlay various processes of church governance, in-
cluding the notifications new patriarchs sent out to colleagues announcing their
election and confirming their faith; the view that ecumenical councils required
representation from all five patriarchates; and the right of appeal to the college of
patriarchs (De Vries 1965). The pentarchy persisted as an organ of ecclesiastical
government till the late ninth century when it finally morphed into “a metaphor
for Christian unity rather than [functioned as] a decision-making organization”
(Herrin 2004, 618).
The pentarchic configuration of the Church was gradually replaced by the
diarchy of Rome and Constantinople. Dogmatic disagreements of the fifth century
led to the splintering off of several branches of the universal Church in Syria,
Armenia, and Egypt (Gray 2005; Finneran 2010; Louth 2011). Islamic conquests in
the seventh century cut off the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusa-
lem from the rest of the orthodox community, leaving Constantinople the domi-
nant ecclesiastical see in the East. The collapse of imperial power in the West in
476 left Rome and its church increasingly outside the political sphere of the
Roman/Byzantine Empire and by the eighth century the papacy established its
firm independence from Byzantine imperial authority (Kazhdan ed., 1991, Oxford

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Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. 1, 520, from hereupon: ODB). The last pope to seek
confirmation from the Byzantine emperor before his consecration was Zachary I
in 741 (Noble 2008, 261). By the mid-eighth century the territories of the Patriarch-
ate of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire had become equivalent (Louth
2008a, 221–24; Louth 2008c, 55). The shrinkage of Byzantine lands contributed to
the decrease in cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity (Kolbaba 2008, 215), and
by the seventh century Latin was abandoned in official use (Kaldellis 2007, 67).
Henceforth Rome and Constantinople co-existed in a tense diarchy characterized
by regular conflicts that occasionally developed into schisms (Runciman 1963;
Meyendorff 1983, 91–114; Erickson 1970; Whalen 2007). The history of the rela-
tionship of the two Churches has been studied extensively (e.g., Geanakoplos
1966; Pelikan 1974, 146–98; Gill 1979; Schatz 1996, 41–77; Anastos 2001; Chad-
wick 2003; Kolbaba 2000; 2001; 2006; 2008; Gallagher 2008b). Although their
nexus was characterized by ebb and flow, at least until the twelfth century the
Latin West and Byzantine East were largely within the same orthodox fold
(Kolbaba 2006) and the disputes between the two Churches were confined to
individuals or small groups on each side (Kolbaba 2008). The pillaging of Con-
stantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204) and the establishment of Latin rule
in the Byzantine capital along with a Latin patriarch (Laiou, ed., 2005), however,
deepened the estrangement: the schism became permanent and the two sides
viewed one another as heretics (Gill 1979, 247).
The disagreements between the two churches pivoted around three types of
questions: 1) of ecclesiastical authority, 2) customs (liturgical practice, clerical
discipline), and 3) dogmatic disagreements (although Kolbaba notes the difficulty
of maintaining neat classification when examining the sources, 2000, 88–101).
With regard to ecclesiastical authority, Rome continued to advocate its primacy
within Christendom based on its apostolic foundation (Durā 2006; Larchet 2006;
Schatz 1996; Meyendorff 1989, 59–66; Dvornik 1966). Conversely, Constantinople
stressed its own ecclesiastical supremacy because of its imperial standing even
though Canon 3 of Constantinople and Canon 28 of Chalcedon had been consis-
tently ignored or rejected in Rome and some other territories (Dvornik 1966, 44–
54; Meyendorff 1968, 46; Meyendorff 1989, 184; Durā 2006, 179–80; Duba 2008,
65–66). By the late seventh century Constantinople also developed the legend of
its own apostolic foundation by Andrew although it did not gain the wide
popularity as the Roman Petrine story (Dvornik 1958; Anastos 2001, 7–9). Some
Byzantine authors even argued in favor of the absolute primacy of Constantinople
(Anastos 2001, 57–59; Siciliano 1979), although more frequently they evoked the
principle of the pentarchy to counter Roman claims. While the use of the title
Ecumenical Patriarch by the hierarch of Constantinople did not intend to convey
universal authority over Christendom merely within his own patriarchate, it was

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strongly rejected in Rome as early as the sixth century (Anastos 2001, 25–26). The
divergent views on Roman primacy became increasingly more pronounced during
the twelfth century in response to strengthening papal claims of authority (pleni-
tudo potestatis) and the crusades (Kolbaba 2001; Schatz 1996).
Arguments about ecclesiastical customs and dogma were not always easy to
disentangle. Canons of the Council of Trullo of 692 condemned Latin customs at
variance with Byzantine use, namely strict clerical celibacy and fasting on Satur-
days during Lent (Herrin 1989, 286; Herrin 2011). The inventory of Latin religious
errors was elaborated and extensive lists outlining the differences between By-
zantine and Western practices were produced in the ninth-thirteenth centuries
combining criticism of discipline, praxis, and dogma (Kolbaba 2000). Strict
celibacy, incorrect fasting, clean shaven priests, the consumption of unclean
foods, and numerous other Latin errors were condemned, yet two points of
contention emerged as pivotal: the addition of the Filioque (“and of the Son”) to
the Creed, and the use of azymes (unleavened bread) for the Eucharist. Latins
viewed the use of leavened or unleavened bread simply as a difference in custom,
yet several Byzantine writers decried the use of azymes as heretical (Erickson
1970; Pelikan 1974, 176–79; Gill 1979, 70–71; Kolbaba 2000). The question of
azymes emerged as the central topic of controversy in the schism of 1054 and
continued as the dominant motif into the twelfth century. Byzantine authors link
azymes to heretical understandings of Christ’s two natures and suggest that
unleavened bread prevents theosis (deification) through the Eucharist (Erickson
1970). Byzantine thinkers conflated the liturgical practice of using azymes of the
heretical Jews and Armenians (whose status within the Byzantine church had
become pressing in the eleventh century when Armenian territories were recon-
quered) with their heretical beliefs (Kolbaba 2000, 37–39; 2001). The controversy
over the Filioque was primarily theological in nature, although it was also linked
with questions of authority and liturgical use (Kolbaba 2000, 88). When Patriarch
Photios first condemned the addition of the Filioque to the Creed in the ninth
century as heresy, this was aimed at the Franks who adopted the dogmatic error
that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and the Son, first articulated
at the Council of Toledo in 589 (Meyendorff 1983, 91–94, 180–90; Pelikan 1974,
183–98; Herrin 1989, 230–32; Kolbaba 2000, 40–41; Herrin 2004, 598–601). The
Filioque was accepted by the Roman Church in 1014 and was reaffirmed at the
Councils of Lyon II (1274) and Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439). Kolbaba argued that
while the question of the Filioque was of import in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, it became the pivotal topic in anti-Latin discourse around the 1270s
when it emerged as a prominent rallying point in union attempts between the two
Churches (Kolbaba 2001, 130–32). Although the Byzantine representatives ac-
quiesced to papal primacy, the dogma of purgatory, and the use of the Filioque at

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the Councils of Lyon and Ferrara-Florence for the sake of Church union and in the
hopes of receiving military support, the Byzantine Church rejected their rulings as
well as attempts at union with Rome in local councils held in 1285 and 1484
(Hussey 2010, 220–94; Bryer 2008, 878; Chadwick 2003, 246–73; Geanakoplos
1966, 84–111). The numerous attempts at union (Angold 2008, 742–49) engi-
neered at the highest level, however, never materialized because of the hopeless
tangle of political, ecclesiastical, dogmatic, ethnic, and cultural differences un-
derpinning the discussions.
II The Emperor and the Church
A distinguishing feature of the Byzantine Church from the other patriarchates is

its close association with the imperial office. Empire and religion, Church and
state were connected conceptually because they were born at the same time, thus
a connection was drawn between the Roman/Byzantine monarchy and Christian
monotheism mutually legitimizing one another (Nicole 1991, 54–55). The inter-
dependence of the imperial and patriarchal offices is also linked to other factors:
New Rome was both the imperial and ecclesiastical capital of Byzantium; and
Byzantine political theory held that the terrestrial empire was a reflection of the
celestial kingdom and the emperor was the vicegerent of Christ. According to
Eusebius, the earthly ruler was a reflection of the divine monarch, a friend and
interpreter of God, and derived his power and virtues directly from Christ (Eu-
sebius 1976, 85–89). The emperor as a mirror image of Christ remained a promi-
nent theme of imperial ideology, for example, Archbishop Theophylaktos of
Ohrid (ca. 1050–1126) stated: “every emperor … is an image of God, … just as the
archetype is higher than all [creation], so the likeness will be above all [others]”
(translated in Maguire 1997, 247). Pictorial representations also convey this con-
cept: for example, the ninth century representation of the enthroned Christ placed
over the imperial throne in the Great Palace visualized the divine source of the
ruler’s power and presented him as a parallel to Christ (Belting 1994, 164–65).
Even imperial garments could encode this association. The Book of Ceremonies
(tenth c.) testifies that the loros, a bejeweled narrow band draped atop other
garments, worn on Easter Sunday signified Christ’s burial shroud and trans-
formed the emperor into his embodiment (Porphyrogennetos 2012, vol. II, 638).
Although visual images associate and parallel the emperor and Christ, the ruler is
never depicted in his likeness (Woodfin 2012, 187). However, a competing vision
existed alongside the Christomimetic understanding of the emperor’s role. The
patriarch was also described as an image of Christ starting in the early Christian
period. The overt visual paralleling of the earthly church and the heavenly court

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emerged in the eleventh-twelfth centuries and became a prominent iconographic

theme in late Byzantium. By the late twelfth century ecclesiastical garments
began to show Christological narratives underscoring the connection between the
bishop and the incarnate God, and starting in the fourteenth century Christ was
shown ministering to his apostles in patriarchal garments drawing the association
even tighter (Woodfin 2010; Woodfin 2012, 178–207).
The spheres of imperial and patriarchal authority coexisted in an ambiguous
balance regarding their ecclesiastical and political roles since a systematic con-
stitutional demarcation of the responsibilities of the two realms was not devel-
oped until the late fourteenth century (Boojamra 1993, 27; Nicole 1991, 71–73).
Justinian’s Novel 6 provides the foundation for the understanding of the relation-
ship of emperor and patriarch throughout the Byzantine period:
The two greatest gifts which God in His infinite goodness has granted to men are the
Sacerdotium and the Imperium. The priesthood takes care of divine interests and the empire
of human interests of which it has supervision. Both powers emanate from the same
principle and bring human life to its perfection. It is for this reason that the emperors have
nothing closer to their hearts than the honor of the priests because they pray continually to
God for the emperors. When the clergy shows a proper spirit and devotes itself entirely to
God, and the emperor governs the state which is entrusted to him, then a harmony results
which is most profitable to the human race. So it is then that the true divine teachings and
the honor of the clergy are the first among our preoccupations (trans. Dvornik 1966, 72;
Schoell and Kroll, ed., 1912, 35–36).
Scholars have noted that Justinian does not clarify how the harmony between the
two spheres is to be achieved, and confines the primary duty of the priesthood to
the performance of prayer and religious rituals and intercession on behalf of the
emperor (Meyendorff 1968, 49; Meyendorff 1989, 209; Boojamra 1993, 25). The
harmony of the religious and temporal realms suggested by Justinian did not
always exist in Byzantium. Tension and conflict often undermined this relation-
ship: emperors could dismiss patriarchs, for example Photios (858–867, 877–886)
was removed twice from office (ODB, vol. 3, 1669); but a patriarch could also
impose penalties on an emperor, as demonstrated by the controversy fought over
the unlawful fourth marriage of Leo VI (r. 886–912), when the patriarch levied
penitential exercises on the emperor and barred him from services at Hagia
Sophia (ODB, vol. 3, 2027). Yet, Justinian’s ideal was reiterated or amplified by
later authors. The Eisagoge (also called Epanagoge), a law book likely drafted by
Patriarch Photios proposes a more equal position for emperor and patriarch. It
describes the patriarch as the “living and animate image of Christ” and advocates
that he should stand up to the emperor when necessary (Boojamra 1993, 26;
Dagron 2007, 229–35; Angelov 2007, 363; Lokin 1994, 78–82). The chronicle of
Leo the Deacon (tenth c.) reports that Emperor John Tzimiskes (r. 969–976) said:

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“… I distinguish two [earthly powers], the hierosyne [priesthood] and the basileia
[empire], to which the creator has entrusted, to the former the care of souls, to the
latter the care of bodies, so that one of the parts does not drag compared with the
other, but that they form together a complete and appropriate whole” (trans.
Dagron 2007, 303 n. 71). Later authors could inflect this idea in various ways.
Theodore Balsamon (canonist and patriarch of Antioch in the late twelfth c.)
argued that the emperor was responsible for the enlightenment of both body and
soul, while the patriarch only for the care of the soul. Yet, Patriarch Athanasius I
(1289–1293, 1303–1309) believed that the emperor’s role was to support and serve
the Church (Nicole 1991, 69–70; Boojamra 1993, 26–40; Angelov 2007, 393–416),
yet, he did not view the patriarch as the ruler’s superior, rather, the emperor was
“God’s minister” (393 n. 146). As Angelov notes, Athanasios reordered Justinian’s
conception of the two great gifts granted to mankind, and substituted Christian
domain for mankind; in this scheme Christendom is an all-encompassing cate-
gory that includes both Church and state (402–04). The notion that empire and
Church are thoroughly intertwined endured till the fall of Byzantium in 1453,
when the resilient Patriarchate of Constantinople was entrusted with oversight
of all aspects of Christian life in the Ottoman state (Runciman 1968; Nicole 1991,
70–74; Zachariadou 2006).
The emperor’s prerogatives within the Church included the convocation of
ecumenical councils and the signing of their acts into law, the election and
deposition of the patriarch, entry into the sanctuary and quasi-priestly participa-
tion in the liturgy (Majeska 1997; Dagron 2007), although by the forteenth century
these liturgical privileges had diminished somewhat (Woodfin 2012, 201–02). The
emperor could only occasionally affect a change in doctrine, since doctrinal
definition was the purview of church councils (Meyendorff 1968; Nicole 1991;
Arnason 2010, 499), yet he was seen as the guardian of orthodoxy and the unity
of the Church (Dagron 2007, 298). The interdependence of the two spheres is also
demonstrated by the spatial proximity of the imperial and patriarchal palaces
near Hagia Sophia and the emperor’s regular participation in the liturgy of the
patriarchal church (Porphyrogennetos 2012). On these occasions the emperor and
patriarch appeared together at key moments of the ceremony, underscoring the
close association of their two domains of authority (Majeska 1997). The patriarch
performed imperial coronations since the mid-fifth century, although this was not
a constitutional requirement (Nicole 1991, 63). After 1204 anointment by the
patriarch was also added to the coronation ceremonial, following Latin practice
(Angelov 2005, 308–09). The production of nomokanones (compilations of civil
and religious law in a comparative format) also confirms that the empire and the
Church were intertwined entities (Nicole 1991, 65–66; Kondiaris 1994; Dagron
2007, 258–59).

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Modern scholars of Byzantium no longer characterize Byzantine rulership as

caesaropapist (Arnason 2010). Gilbert Dagron’s nuanced study has explored the
sacerdotal aspects of the Byzantine emperor’s role and argued that it is mean-
ingless and anachronistic to apply the term caesaropapism to Byzantium where
the separation of Church and state was not an operative concept; he further notes
that the “clericalisation of all ecclesiastical structure specific to the West” should
not be applied to the analysis of Byzantium (Dagron 2007, 311).
III Church Hierarchy and Organization
Twenty-one surviving documents (Notitiae Episcopatuum, seventh-fifteenth c.)

listing the dioceses in hierarchical order shed light on the organizational structure
of the Byzantine Church and reflect ecclesiastical and political changes over time
(Angold and Whitby 2008, 578; Darrouzès, ed., 1981; Porphyrogennetos 2012, vol.
II, 791–98; 820–23). The supra-metropolitan bishop (i.e., the patriarch) stood at
the top of the hierarchy elected by the emperor based on the recommendation of
the metropolitans, although the emperor could promote his own nominee. Justi-
nian’s Novel 123.3 established patriarch as the title of supra-metropolitan bishops
(Schoell and Kroll, ed., 597; ODB, vol. 3, 1599). The patriarch appointed metropo-
litan bishops, yet often emperors also interfered in this process (Falkenhausen
1997, 186). Each metropolitan resided in a major city and his episcopal territory
corresponded to a province of the civil administration. Suffragan bishops served
under the metropolitan and were responsible for their individual bishoprics; they
had the right to elect bishops to vacant sees within their province, although
starting in the ninth century, many episcopal elections were held in Constantino-
ple, conflicting with canon law (Hussey 2010, 326; Cunningham 2008, 530). The
smallest organizational unit of the Byzantine Church was the bishopric centered
in a city or town. Because a bishopric comprised a relatively small territory, a
parish system on par with that of Western Europe did not develop (Angold and
Whitby 2008, 578–79). Additionally, country bishops, reporting to the bishop of
the nearest city, could be appointed in rural areas. Outside the strict hierarchy of
this structure stood the archbishops of autocephalos churches (e.g., Cyprus),
independent of the five patriarchates, and archbishops of notable cities who did
not preside over suffragans but reported directly to the patriarch (ODB, vol. 1,
155–56; 234–35). The term bishop (episkopos) was used broadly in Byzantine
texts, meaning either suffragan, metropolitan, archbishop, or even patriarch
(ODB, vol. 1, 291–92).
Bishops and patriarchs had manifold duties beyond overseeing religious wor-
ship: they upheld orthodox doctrine, performed clerical and civic administrative

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duties, carried out municipal responsibilities, held judicial powers, and managed
charitable works (Angold and Whitby 2008; Louth 2008b, 102; 128–29; Cunning-
ham 2008; Falkenhausen 1997; ODB, vol. 2, 1359; ODB, vol. 1, 291–92). Kekaume-
nos’s Strategikon, a moralistic treatise reveals the perception of the patriarch’s
role in the second half of the eleventh century:
And when you become patriarch, do not become haughty, do not let spear-bearers escort
you, and do not amass money; do not concern yourself with gold and silver and costly
banquets, rather you should be concerned about food for orphans and widows, about
hospitals, the redemption of prisoners of war, peace, and help for the weak, but not about
accumulating houses and properties and robbing your fellow man, in the process telling
yourself: I am not doing this for myself and my family but for God and the church … . Day
and night your zeal should be focused on the divine and the edification of the rich and the
poor (translated in Falkenhausen 1997, 182).
Kekaumenos, a layman, presents a vivid account of the patriarch’s diverse

responsibilities and maintains that this office must be taken up as a true vocation
in serving God and safeguarding the spiritual and social needs of the population.
Metropolitan and suffragan bishops also undertook similar duties within their
communities, thus, a complex episcopal bureaucracy developed to attend to
these varied tasks (Cunningham 2008, 530–32; Hussey 2010, 314–35).
An essential organ of decision making within the Byzantine Church was the
council (Gallagher 2008a). Councils brought together representatives of the clergy
to formulate determinations about contested aspects of doctrine or liturgy, to
regulate discipline, and to facilitate the election of bishops. The early church even
before the Peace of Constantine operated as a conciliar body in dealing with
contentious matters (Cameron 2011b, 2). Councils were held at each organiza-
tional level: episcopal councils of a single bishopric, metropolitan councils of one
province, patriarchal councils of the patriarchate, and ecumenical councils of all
five patriarchates. Metropolitan councils were required to gather on a regular
schedule stipulated by Canon 5 of Nicaea I, Canon 19 of Chalcedon, and Canon 8
of Trullo. The patriarchal council of Constantinople, the Endemousa Synodos
(standing synod) became a permanent conciliar body by the eleventh century
(ODB, vol. 1, 540–43), yet ecumenical councils were convened on an ad hoc basis
to deal with major heresies plaguing the universal Church.
The Byzantine Church recognized seven ecumenical councils: 1) Nicaea I in
325, 2) Constantinople I in 381, 3) Ephesus in 431, 4) Chalcedon in 451, 5)
Constantinople II in 553, 6) Constantinople III in 680–81, and 7) Nicaea II in 787.
Two other synods were considered of ecumenical nature: the Quinisext Council of
691–92 held in the Trullo Palace in Constantinople (a supplement to the fifth and
sixth councils), and Constantinople V of 879–880. Ecumenical councils were
convoked by the emperor following the tradition established by Constantine I at

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Nicaea I, and emperors presided over the proceedings or attended some of the
sessions. The councils produced doctrinal statements and canon laws governing
the church (Louth 2008a, 244–47; Gallagher 2008a; Peri 2006; ODB, vol. 1, 512–
16; 404; 707; ODB, vol. 2, 1464–65; ODB, vol. 3, 2126–27; Mansi, vol. 1–13; 17;
Tanner, ed., 1990, vol. 1). The ecumenicity of some councils had been questioned
by the other patriarchates, and Vittorio Peri emphasizes that the acceptance of
councils as ecumenical was the result of a complex “process of assimilation and
implementation” (2006, 144–45). By the late ninth century the Christian West and
East have grown sufficiently distant to cease convoking universal synods (Herrin
2004, 622–26). Two later councils convoked by popes did address Byzantine
concerns and aimed at uniting the churches of Rome and Constantinople, namely
Lyon II (1274) and Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439); although seen as ecumenical in
the West, they were rejected in the East (Hussey 2010, 220–94; Chadwick 2003,
246–73). After the ninth century the Endemousa Synodos had become the primary
source of newly developing canon law along with the work of canonists who
provided commentaries and revisions to the established body of canons (Hussey
2010, 318–25; ODB. vol. 1, 372–74; Kondiaris 1994).
IV Monasticism
Although monastic communities originally flourished outside the structure of the

early church, the Council of Chalcedon entrusted the oversight of monasteries to
local bishops (McGuckin 2008, 615). Justinian’s Novel 5 decreed that a bishop
should consecrate the site of a monastery and had the right to elect the abbot
(Mango 1980, 113; Schoell and Kroll, ed. 1912, 28–35). A vast majority of Byzantine
bishops emerged from monasteries, and monks dominated the episcopate follow-
ing the iconoclastic period: from 705 to 1204 forty-five of sixty-seven patriarchs
were formerly monks, and in the late Byzantine period the patriarchate was
almost completely dominated by monastics (Rapp 2005, 147–52; Sterk 2004,
219–44). Sterk emphasizes that the monk-bishop archetype emerged in the
fourth-fifth centuries, exemplified by such ascetic bishops as Basil of Caesarea,
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzens, and John Chrysostom, also noting that
other factors, namely the iconophile victory in 843 and the influence of the
writings of Symeon the New Theologian (d. 1022) and Gregory Palamas (d. 1359)
contributed to the dominance of this paradigm in ecclesiastical government
through the late Byzantine period. Clearly, monastic life provided spiritual
authority to its practitioners, an essential qualification for a bishop (Sterk 2004,
219–44). Rapp also argued that asceticism was the most important of the three
interlinked threads that comprised patriarchal authority in late antiquity, namely

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ascetic, spiritual, and pragmatic authority. Asceticism, in her view, facilitates the
reception of the Holy Spirit from God (i.e., spiritual authority) and justifies the
pragmatic leadership of bishops (Rapp 2005, 16–18). Additionally, monastic
asceticism enabled the maintenance of celibate lifestyle required of bishops
(Falkenhausen 1997, 192–93; Rapp 2005, 147).
Byzantine monasticism falls into one of three forms: eremitical (solitary),
lavriotic (communities of hermits who live in the same compound and gather for
services and supplies on Saturdays and Sundays), and cenobitic (communal). The
first two types accentuate the importance of poverty and ascesis, while the third
also stresses the virtue of obedience (Talbot 1987, 232). Byzantine monasteries
were not organized into orders similarly to the medieval West; rather, they
belonged to one order loosely founded upon the Rule of St. Basil (Basil 1950,
223–337). Each monastery had its own foundation document, the typikon, in
which the patron set out the regulations for his or her institution. A recent
publication includes sixty-one such texts (seventh-fifteenth c.) offering insight
into a wide array of monastic institutions (Thomas et al, ed., 2000). Although
some monasteries were built in inaccessible places and were off limits to certain
segments of the population (e.g., Mount Athos did/does not allow women), most
were closely associated with the lives of the populace. Peter Charanis estimated
that on average about 1% of the Byzantine population led a monastic life (Char-
anis 1971, 72–73). While monasteries did not offer schooling for the public, they
served the community in other ways: by providing medical care in their hospitals,
offering a place of retirement, distributing alms and managing charitable institu-
tions (e.g., orphanages, leprosaria, homes for the elderly), as well as by cultural
production ranging from spinning and weaving to the creation of manuscripts
and scholarly work (Talbot 1987; Mango 1980, 105–24; Hussey 2010, 335–49).
C The Role of Images in Byzantine Devotion

I Icons
Icons are perhaps the most well-known manifestations of religious devotion in

Byzantium. Eikōn simply means image, yet its broad semantic range includes
painted and carved representations, likenesses, mirror reflections, and waking or
dream visions (Liddell and Scott 1940, vol. I, 485). As the faithful understood it at
least by the late seventh century, an icon was a material image that served as a
portal to gain access to divine or holy personages. Icons can range from minute
objects held in the palm to monumental representations on a wall, and can be
made from various materials. What defines an icon is not its size or material, but

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its dynamic relationship to the prototype (or archetype, i.e., the person depicted)
and to the faithful gazing at the image (Kartsonis 1998; Brubaker 2010).
Theodore of Stoudios (759–826), an iconophile leader, characterized icons as
follows:
Every artificial image is a likeness of that whereof it is the image, and it exhibits in itself, by
way of imitation, the form (charaktêr) of its model (archetupon) …: the truth in the likeness,
the model in the image, the one in the other, except for the difference of substance. Hence,
he who reveres [proskunōn] an image surely reveres the person whom the image shows; not
the substance of the image, but him who is delineated in it (Theodori 1992, vol. I, 164–65;
translated in Mango 1993, 173).
According to Theodore, verisimilitude between the icon and its prototype allows
the icon to convey the “truth” about the prototype without erasing the fundamen-
tal difference in substance between them. In this way idolatry can be avoided: it
is possible to give honor to the image without fear of venerating its material since
the honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype, an idea first expounded
by Basil of Caesarea (329–379), (Mango 1993, 47; Ladner 1953). Iconophile writers
distinguish between worship or adoration reserved exclusively for God (theīa
latreīa) and veneration offered to saints and sacred objects (timetikē proskȳnesis)
(Sahas 1988, 108 n. 45). They emphasize that material objects provide a channel
to access the realm of the holy and suggest that the veneration offered to hallowed
objects may lead to sanctification of the faithful:
Thus we, who offer our worship in spirit and truth to God alone, knowing these things, shall
continue kissing and embracing everything consecrated and dedicated to Him—whether the
divine form of the precious cross, or the holy gospel, or venerable icons, or holy utensils—in
the hope that we may receive sanctification from them. We shall also continue paying the
veneration of honor to them (translated in Sahas 1988, 132; Mansi, vol. 13, 309C).
The distinction between latreīa and proskȳnesis was lost in the Latin translation of
the acts of the iconophile council of 787 that reached the Frankish court, and this
has been traditionally seen as a reason leading to a fierce attack on the veneration
of icons in the Libri Carolini prepared for Charlemagne by Theodulf ca. 790 (ODB,
vol. 2, 1225). Recent scholarship, however, underscores that Byzantine texts do
not consistently preserve the distinction between latreīa and proskȳnesis, and
that Theodulf was well-versed in Byzantine sources and theology (Noble 2009, 91,
180–83).
The theory of the icon was developed systematically during the age of
Iconoclasm (726–843) when the legitimacy of visual images in the service of
devotion was contested (Pelikan 1974, 91–145; Schönborn 1994; Parry 1996;
Giakalis 2005). Yet, the date of the emergence of the cult of icons is still debated.

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The difficulty of understanding the rise of the cult of images is compounded by

the poor rate of survival of Byzantine icons prior to the thirteenth century.
Although Rome and the Monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai preserve a corpus of
early icons dating back to the seventh century (Wolf 2005; Belting 1994, 47–77;
Nelson and Collins, ed., 2006), the methodological problems inherent in extra-
polating about the Byzantine and Constantinopolitan use of icons based on
material evidence from Rome and Sinai have been noted (Pentcheva 2010a, 11–13;
2010b). Scholars have traditionally argued that the cult of images was already
fully developed by the mid-sixth century (e.g., Kitzinger 1954; Cameron 1992). Yet,
recent examination of sources has demonstrated that texts evincing the early cult
of icons had been reworked by iconophile authors to bolster the cause of religious
images; this recognition led to the conclusion that not until the late seventh and
the eighth centuries did a widely developed cult of images emerge in Byzantium
(Speck 1990; Brubaker 1998; Brubaker and Haldon 2011, 50–66). Critics of this
view, however, note that the cult of icons must be considered within the broader
context of the cult of the saints and emphasize the fundamental correlations
between relics and icons, and maintain that there is strong evidence for the rise of
devotional images before the age of Iconoclasm (Cameron 2011a). The definition
of icons has also been contested in recent literature, and scholars have drawn
greater attention to their material and sensual qualities, as well as to the impor-
tance of the site- and medium-specific developments in their production (Barber
2002; Pentcheva 2010a, b).
II Iconoclasm
A protracted dispute over the role of images in religious devotion shook Byzantine
society in the eighth and ninth centuries. The quarrel, referred to as the Iconoclas-
tic Controversy, lasted from ca. 726 to 843 and coincided with a period of funda-
mental social, economic and cultural reorientation in Byzantium (Bryer and
Herrin, ed., 1977; Herrin 1989, 307–89, 417–24, 466–75; Brubaker and Haldon
2001; Brubaker and Haldon 2011). Some scholars note that the term iconomachy
(dispute or struggle over images) is more accurate than iconoclasm (image break-
ing), as the former is fully grounded in the textual sources of the period (Brubaker
and Haldon 2011, 2; 10; Brubaker 2010; Pentcheva 2010b, 267). This complex
controversy was strongly motivated by the political, economic, spiritual, and
environmental realities of the day and specialists are still divided in identifying
its causes and origins (e.g., Kitzinger 1954; Brown 1973; Gero, 1973; 1977a; 1977b;
Haldon 1977; Crone 1980; Cameron 1992; Brubaker and Haldon 2011). Significant
methodological problems plague the study of Iconoclasm: the visual and archae-

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ological evidence is highly fragmentary (Grabar 1984; Brubaker and Haldon

2001); iconoclastic texts do not survive with the exception of passages interpo-
lated into iconophile documents due to the careful destruction of such works after
the iconophile victory (Cameron 2007, 11); furthermore, iconophile authors fabri-
cated certain historical ‘facts’ and revised scores of earlier texts to solidify their
position. Such texts have been reexamined in recent decades and the new history
of Iconoclasm published by Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon draws on these
reassessments and previous scholarship to present an extensive analysis of the
phenomenon. They argue that Byzantine Iconoclasm “remained throughout its
history an entirely imperial phenomenon” (Brubaker and Haldon 2011, 657) far
from the all-embracing social movement it is reputed to have been, and carefully
deconstruct the threads of iconophile propaganda woven into Byzantine texts and
modern scholarship. They propose that the emergence of the cult of images and
Iconoclasm were responses to a deep spiritual crisis brought on by the advance of
Islam: icons offered direct access to the realm of the holy through “limitless
multiplication,” stepping into the role formerly accorded to holy men, relics, and
icons made without human hands; iconoclasm on the other hand was an attempt
at controlling and purifying Christian rituals in the face of a deep crisis (Brubaker
and Haldon 2011, 772–99).
Modern historians usually begin the narrative of Iconoclasm with reference to
an imperial decree promulgated by Leo III (r. 717–741) by 726 or 730 against the
use of images (Cormack 1985, 106–07; Belting 1994, 147), yet current research
questions whether such a decree existed. While Leo III was likely in favor of a
“critique of images,” the full-blown policy of Iconoclasm is linked with his son,
Constantine V (r. 741–775) (Brubaker 2010, 328–29; Brubaker and Haldon 2011,
69–247). Constantine indeed convoked a council at the Hieria Palace in Chalce-
don in 754, where the iconoclast platform was articulated and the veneration of
images condemned (Anastos 1954). The first phase of Iconoclasm was brought to
an end in 787 at Nicaea II during the reign of Constantine VI (r. 780–797) and his
mother, Irene (r. 797–802), and the iconophile policy was set out in the council
acts (Sahas 1988; Speck 1978; Herrin 2001). A second period of Iconoclasm was
inaugurated by Leo V (r. 813–820) in 815 but was terminated at a council in 843
during the reign of Michael III (r. 842–867) and his mother, Theodora (Alexander
1953; Karlin-Hayter 2006). The Synodikon of Orthodoxy summarizes the decisions
of this council and is still read on the feast day commemorating the Triumph of
Orthodoxy (i.e., the end of Iconoclasm) on the first Sunday of Lent. The feast was
established in the late ninth century and the synodikon was produced between
843 and 920 (ODB, vol. 3, 2122).
Three particularly enduring myths are associated with Iconoclasm, namely:
the close association of women with icons; broad monastic resistance to Icono-

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clasm; and the iconoclasts’ opposition to relics. Somewhat polarized views have
been proposed about the role of women: it has been argued that women had a
greater proclivity for the veneration of icons than men (Herrin 1994; 1982), yet the
role of empresses in the defeat of Iconoclasm has been also minimized suggesting
that the restoration of icons should be attributed to a power vacuum during the
regencies of Irene and Theodora which allowed clerics and courtiers to influence
imperial policies (Cormack 1997). While it is unlikely that icon worship was
particularly favored by women, it is clear that Irene and Theodora were skilled
politicians who realized that a useful source of legitimization rested with the
restoration of images—iconophile policy offered a way to solidify and justify
female power in a misogynistic world (Kotsis 2012). Monks have also been upheld
as iconophile heroes who steadfastly resisted iconoclast policies and suffered
persecution as a result, yet recent scholarship has demonstrated that this highly
exaggerated view stems from iconophile propaganda (Ringrose 1979; Brubaker
and Haldon 2011, 234–47; 650–64). Iconoclasts have also been accused of blanket
hostility toward relics by their opponents, however, it has been shown that this
view does not stand up under scrutiny (Wortley 1982; Auzépy 2001; Brubaker and
Haldon 2011, 38–40).
A clear articulation of the iconoclast policy was defined at the Council at
Hieria:
… we DECREE unanimously … that every icon, made of any matter and of any kind of
gaudiness of colors by painters, is objectionable, alien, and repugnant to the Church of the
Christians … . No man should ever attempt to occupy himself with such an impious and
unholy endeavor. He who from now on attempts to make and icon or to venerate one, or to
set one up in a church or in a private home, or to hide one, if [he be] bishop, presbyter, or
deacon, let him be unfrocked; if monk or layman, let him be anathematized and subjected to
the royal laws, as an opponent of the commandments of God and an enemy of the doctrines
of the Fathers. (Mansi, vol. 13, 324D-E, 328C; translated in Sahas 1988, 143–44; 147)
In the view of the iconoclasts, the true image and the original, on which it is
based, must share the same essence (Theodore 1981, 10; Barber 2002, 78–80).
They objected to the possibility of depicting Christ in visual images, arguing that
because God is not circumscribable, neither is the Son of God. Consequently, if a
painter attempts to depict Christ this results either in the separation of his human
and divine natures, or a confusion of the two, leading to heresy. They reasoned:
“This man makes an image and calls it Christ: now the name “Christ” means both
God and man. Hence he has either included according to his vain fancy the
uncircumscribable Godhead in the circumscription of created flesh, or he has
confused that unconfusable union … and in so doing has applied two blasphe-
mies to the Godhead, namely through the circumscription and the confusion”
(Mansi, vol. 13, 252A; translated in Mango 1993, 166; Parry 1996, 100). The word

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translated as circumscribe is perigraphō, whose meaning ranges from draw, make

a line around, delineate, circumscribe, to conclude and determine (Liddell and
Scott 1940, vol. II, 1370–71; Barber 2002, 78). The iconoclasts attributed both a
concrete and abstract sense to perigraphō and suggested that making an image is
equivalent to circumscription (Schönborn 1994, 173). The iconoclasts further
argued that the veneration of images was not supported by the authority of the
ancient Church, and upheld the Eucharist and the cross as true images within
religious devotion (Barber 2002, 79–105; Brubaker 2010).
One of the central iconophile counterarguments focused on the incarna-
tion: because God took on flesh in the incarnation, he was witnessed and
described by the Gospels and he can be depicted in visual images (Parry 1996,
70–80; 99–113). Some iconophile theologians note that iconoclasts use the
term perigraphō incorrectly; according to the iconophile patriarch Nikephoros:
“something can be ‘circumscribed’ as to its place, its time, its beginning, or its
understanding …” (translated in Schönborn 1994, 209), yet circumscribing is
different from painting or drawing (graphē); being circumscribable (being de-
fined with regard to time and space) is a precondition for the possibility of
representation but is not equivalent to it (Schönborn 1994, 209–10). Additionally,
the iconophiles insisted that the making of images is a venerable old tradition of
the Church:
The making of icons is not the invention of painters, but [expresses] the approved legislation
of the Catholic [i.e., public] Church … . The name “Christ” is indicative of both divinity and
humanity—the two perfect natures of the Savior. Christians have been taught to portray this
image in accordance with His visible nature, not according to the one in which He was
invisible; for the latter is uncircumscribable and we know from the Gospel that no man hath
seen God at any time. When, therefore, Christ is portrayed according to His human nature it
is obvious that the Christians … acknowledge the visible image to communicate with the
archetype in name only, and not in nature; whereas these senseless people [the Iconoclasts]
say there is no distinction between image and prototype and ascribe an identity of nature
to entities that are of different natures (Mansi, vol. 13, 252B-D; translated in Mango 1993,
172–73).
The iconophiles acknowledged that Christ is circumscribable as a man but un-

circumscribable as God (Parry 1996, 99–113) and maintained that because of his
incarnation (i.e., being circumscribed as fully human) he can be depicted in
images. They further argued that denying the possibility that Christ can be
depicted in images is tantamount to the denial of the incarnation (Parry 1996, 70;
Schönborn 1994, 230). The iconophiles valued the material world. Since God took
on material form for the sake of human salvation, it is essential that material
images of the incarnate God are produced because they serve as physical proof of
the incarnation (Parry 1996, 72–74; Schönborn 1994, 194–96).

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The iconophiles also argued that visual images of biblical figures and stories
have equal standing to the Gospel narrative as confirmation of the incarnation
(Mansi, vol. 13, 377C; Sahas 1988, 178–79). They described the veneration of icons
and the cross as direct physical contact: “We kiss and offer the veneration of
honor to the divine form of the cross and to the venerable icons, because we are
moved by a desire and affection to reach the prototypes” (Mansi, vol. 13, 284B;
translated in Sahas 1988, 109). Furthermore, iconophile texts suggest that visual
representations are indispensable for religious devotion:
For the more these [i.e., icons] are kept in view through their iconographic representation,
the more those who look at them are lifted up to remember and have an earnest desire for
the prototypes. Also [we declare] that one may render to them the veneration of honor: not
the true worship of our faith, which is due only to the divine nature, but the same kind of
veneration as is offered to the form of the precious and life-giving cross, to the holy gospels,
and to other holy dedicated items (Mansi, vol. 13, 377D-E; translated in Sahas 1988, 179).
Iconophile arguments emphasize the role of vision in religious devotion. The

belief in the particular efficacy of vision was based on Byzantine optical theory,
which understood the process of seeing as extramission, when the eye actively
sends out rays to touch and grasp the objects of vision to return with their essential
features to the eye and the mind. There is a tactile quality to the Byzantine under-
standing of vision, which parallels the active physical engagement with objects of
devotion. Seeing, touching, comprehending, and belief are closely interwoven in
this system (Nelson 2000; James 2004; Pentcheva 2010a, 5–7).
D Liturgy, Church Decoration, and Theosis

I Liturgical Interpretation
Byzantine liturgical commentaries assign symbolic meaning to the liturgy as

well as the church building, its furnishings and liturgical equipment (Maximus
1982; Maximus Confessor 1985; St. Germanus 1984; Nicholas Cabasilas 2010). For
example, the Historia Ecclesiastica (ca. 730) attributed to Patriarch Germanos
presents the altar table as follows:
The holy altar stands for the place where Christ was laid in the grave, on which the true and
heavenly bread, the mystical and bloodless sacrifice, lies, His flesh and blood offered to the
faithful as the food of eternal life. It is also the throne of God on which the incarnate God
reposes … and like the table at which He was in the midst of His disciples at His mystical
supper … prefigured in the table of the Old Law where the manna was, which is Christ, come
down from heaven (translated in Taft 1980–81, 73; Germanus 1984, 59).

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Germanos’s rich passage links into “dynamic unity” multiple layers of meaning
that traverse historical, liturgical, and eschatological time and space and demon-
strate the principles of the economy of salvation (Taft 1980–81, 73). Sources also
attest that the faithful perceived icons of saints and Christ in church interiors as
actual holy companions and viewed images of biblical narratives as emotionally
charged sacred events unfolding in front of their very eyes confirming historical
and spiritual truths (Mathews 1988). The close association between Byzantine
church buildings, their decoration schemes, and the religious rituals taking place
inside them has not gone unnoticed by modern scholars (e.g., Taft 1992, 18;
Mathews 1980; 1988; Safran, ed., 1998).
II The Early Byzantine Rite and the Church Building

(fourth-eighth c.)
The early Byzantine rite was characterized by frequent liturgical processions that
zigzagged through Constantinople and traversed through its churches. The urban
processions addressed practical concerns, such as averting natural disasters or
enemy attacks and offering an orthodox alternative to the ritual activities of
heretics. Processions also marked the dedications of new churches, the transfer of
relics, imperial funerals and the commemoration of deliverance from major
calamities (Baldovin 1987; Taft 1992, 30–34). The early Byzantine rite unfolding
inside churches was also strongly processional in nature. The liturgy divided into
two main sections, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, was a
lively affair comprised of a series of entrances coursing through the body of the
church. The First Entrance was a true arrival of everyone: the already vested
clergy gathered in the narthex while the faithful waited in the atrium. The formal
entry into the church was led by the Gospel heralded by candles and incense and
followed by the celebrant, other clerics, and the faithful. After the catechumens
were sent away (a moribund practice after the seventh century), the Liturgy of the
Eucharist began with another impressive procession, the Great Entrance, which
transferred the bread, wine and liturgical equipment from the skeuophylakion
(treasury) located in a separate building to the altar (Mathews 1980, 111–15;
138–76; Taft 1980–81; Taft 1992; Mainstone 2001, 219–35; Taft 2004). The primary
liturgical formulary till the late tenth century was the Liturgy of St. Basil (Taft
1992, 55; Brightman, ed., 1896).
Typical Early Byzantine churches take the shape of large, longitudinal basili-
cas with grand atria providing ample space and clear direction for liturgical
processions. The areas of the clergy and the laity were segregated. An ambo
(pulpit) and a solea (a fenced in barrier) were located in the second half of the

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nave reiterating the central processional axis and reserving a section of it for
clerical use. The ambo provided an elevated area for readings while the solea
offered an uninterrupted pathway between the ambo and the sanctuary (Xydis
1947; Mainstone 2001, 222–23). Paul the Silentiary (sixth c.) in his Descriptio
Ambonis compares the ambo and the solea of Justinian’s Hagia Sophia (dedicated
in 537) to a strip of land in the midst of crashing waves:
Here [i.e., in the solea] the priest who brings the good tidings passes along on his return from
the ambo, holding aloft the golden book; and while the crowd strives in honor of the
immaculate God to touch the sacred book with their lips and hands, the countless waves of
the surging people break around. Thus, like an isthmus beaten by waves on either side, does
this space stretch out, and it leads the priest who descends from the lofty crags of this
vantage point [i.e., the ambo] to the shrine of the holy table (translated Mango 1993, 95–96).
This text offers a vivid impression of the dual nature of the solea, which is both a
distinct space reserved for the clergy and a meeting point between clerics and the
laity, and indicates that the faithful were active participants seeking physical
contact with the realm of the holy. The solea led to the templon (a chancel barrier
with low parapet walls and narrow columns carrying a beam), which marked the
boundary of the sanctuary in the shape of Π. The sanctuary, which spread into the
nave, accommodated the altar and a synthronon (semi-circular, tiered seating
area) for the clergy. Many scholars agree that the chancel barrier allowed the
faithful full visual access to the liturgy and served the purposes of crowd control
(Xydis 1947; Mathews 1980; Taft 2006). Yet Urs Peschlow has drawn attention to
barriers dividing the nave and the aisles in several early Byzantine churches,
which plainly impeded visibility in the aisles. It is, however, unclear why they
were used; the segregation of the sexes or the demonstration of the beneficence of
local patrons have been suggested as possible motivations (Peschlow 2006). In
Constantinopolitan churches women likely attended services in the galleries and
the aisles while men most likely stood in the nave, yet Taft notes that no evidence
suggests that women were expressly forbidden from other parts of the church
building, except for the sanctuary (Taft 1998; Gerstel and Talbot 2006, 84).
Although no examples of interior decoration schemes survive from Constanti-
nople or its vicinity from the early period, extant monuments from Greece, Italy,
and the Sinai Peninsula (territories under Byzantine control at various times in
this period) indicate that an impressive, monumental mosaic panel in the apse
drew the faithful to the area of the altar (e.g., St. Catherine monastery, Sinai,
sixth c.), while representations of figures lined up for procession or narrative
scenes (e.g., S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, sixth c.) along the upper walls of the
nave could emphasize the processional quality of the early Byzantine church
building (Kitzinger 1980, Fig. 106–07, 177; Mathews 1993, 92–121, 142–76). Justi-

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648 Kriszta Kotsis
nian’s Hagia Sophia (completed in 537), a domed basilica of exceptional scale and
unprecedented luxury, remained a unicum in Byzantine architecture, although it
clearly had an impact both on liturgical developments and the eventual spread of
domed churches (Mainstone 2001).
III The Middle and Late Byzantine Rites and the Church Building
(843–1453)
The fundamental changes introduced into the Byzantine rite after the liquidation
of Iconoclasm have been attributed to monastic influence. It no longer included a
procession of the laity, and the entrances of the clergy were abbreviated into
“appearances” and remained strictly within the confines of the building (Taft
1992, 72–74; Taft 2004; Marinis 2010; Ousterhout 1998; Gerstel and Talbot 2006).
The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom became the chief Eucharistic formulary by ca.
1000, while the Liturgy of St. Basil was used on a handful of feast days (Taft 1992,
55; Brightman, ed., 1896). Liturgical books survive in greater numbers in this
period (Synaxarium 1902; Euchologion 1960; Le Typicon 1962–1966; Patterson
Ševčenko 1998). The First (or Little) Entrance now comprised the Gospel traveling
from the altar to the nave and back in the company of the clergy, while during the
Great Entrance the bread and wine were transferred from the northern apse to the
altar via the nave. However, when the patriarch celebrated the Eucharist in Hagia
Sophia, the First Entrance remained a full procession entering from the narthex
till the twelfth century (ODB, vol. 2, 1238). The grand processions traversing
Constantinople as part of the elaborate stational liturgy of the early Byzantine
period were mostly eliminated, although some urban processions continued into
the middle and late Byzantine periods (Marinis 2010, 285–86; Pentcheva 2006,
129–43; 165–87). The role of the laity was reduced to observers and the clergy’s
actions were mostly confined to the sanctuary.
Following the termination of Iconoclasm, the small, centralized church build-
ing became popular whose interior was dominated by a dome placed over the
nave with the rest of the edifice organized in a cruciform layout. The cross-in-
square design was prevalent, although other variations such as the domed-
octagon and the cross-domed building had also appeared. These new churches
were no longer preceded by an atrium, their aisles atrophied into small spatial
extensions abutting the nave, and no synthronon, solea, and ambo were installed.
The sanctuary receded into the area of the apse, yet its width was extended with
subsidiary chambers on the northern and southern sides; this tri-partite scheme
accommodated the altar in the central apse (bema), the preparation of the
Eucharist in the northern apse (prothesis), and the sacristy (diakonikon) in the

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southern apse (Taft 1992, 61; Mathews 1980; Krautheimer 1986; Ousterhout 1998;
2008; Marinis 2010). The more decisive separation of the laity and clergy in this
period was underscored by the expansion of the templon which gradually became
more opaque and eventually grew into the iconostasis which obscured the visibi-
lity of the area of the altar; the mechanisms and dating of this process are still
debated (Woodfin 2012, 51–52; Ševčenko 2006, 133; Gerstel, ed., 2006; Belting
1994, 225–60; Walter 1993; Epstein 1981). The architectural design of middle
Byzantine churches continued to be used in the late Byzantine era (1261–1453),
although now subsidiary spaces began to proliferate around the core of the
building (Marinis 2010, 291; Ousterhout 1987, 91–96).
The Middle Byzantine church building received a decoration scheme that
reflects changes in liturgy and reveals the impact of the theology of images
developed during the iconoclastic period (Taft 1992, 67–72; Mathews 1988). This
decoration system is comprised of three zones arranged in a vertical hierarchy.
The imagery at the uppermost areas (dome and conch of the apse) portrays the
apex of the heavenly hierarchy, namely, Christ in the dome and his mother in the
apse; the representations in the middle zone (squinches, pendentives, and upper
regions of vaults) show narrative scenes from the life of Christ, often termed the
Feast Cycle; while the tier closest to the faithful (lower vaults and walls) accom-
modates an array of individual saints, the sanctoral cycle. The decoration scheme
unfolds along multiple axes: in addition to the vertical hierarchy, the central
horizontal axis leads toward the image of the primary intercessor, the Mother of
God in the apse, while the arrangement of the saints and Christological narratives
encourages a centripetal path around the building (Demus 1948; Mathews 1988;
1990; Belting 1994, 164–83; Kitzinger 1988). Otto Demus’s brilliant analysis of the
middle Byzantine decoration system is still pertinent, although recent scholarship
has challenged several of his conclusions. Demus argued that the primary goal of
this decoration scheme was the visual expression of Christological dogma and
suggested that the narrative cycle was a visual embodiment of the calendar of
liturgical feasts (Demus 1948). Thomas Mathews proposed a more participatory,
psychological interpretation arguing that the visual imagery of middle Byzantine
churches is an embodiment of the definition of faith propounded at Nicaea II in
787. In his view, the sanctoral cycle offers direct physical contact with the saints
and allows the faithful to commune with them, while the narrative cycle serves as
a teaching tool and a visual proof of the truth of the incarnation, and finally the
image of Christ in the dome overseeing the faithful from above facilitates theosis
(deification), the ultimate goal of the liturgy (Mathews 1988; 1990). Hans Belting
also associated this decoration system with the defeat of Iconoclasm and ascribed
a decisive role to the imperial court in the development of the newly emerging
pictorial scheme. He suggested that it functioned as “an applied theory of

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images,” where images were presented to the faithful in a carefully regulated

manner and with specifically assigned roles related to the liturgical calendar to
prevent their inappropriate use (1994, 164–83). Scholars have also noted that after
the termination of Iconoclasm religious images began to be labeled clearly and
consistently in an effort to ascertain their identities and promote their proper
functioning (Maguire 1996, 37–40; 137–45). Artists continued to produce church
decoration schemes rooted in this system in the late Byzantine period, although
the number and compositional complexity of images expanded considerably
inside church buildings (Ćurčić 2004, 69).
IV Theosis
A fundamental conviction of Greek orthodox belief is the possibility that man can
achieve theōsis (for other aspects of Byzantine theology: Arabatzis 2010; Cunning-
ham and Theokritoff, ed., 2008; Meyendorff 1983; Pelikan 1974). Maximus Con-
fessor (seventh c.) emphasizes that likeness between man and the incarnate God
makes deification possible: “By holy communion of the spotless and life-giving
mysteries we are given fellowship and identity with him by participation in
likeness, by which man is deemed worthy from man to become God” (Maximus
Confessor 1985, 207). Maximus and later theologians emphasize deification as a
central salvific concept, often linked with the potency of the Eucharist, “… which
transforms into itself and renders similar to the causal good by grace and partici-
pation those who worthily share in it … . [S]o that they also can be and be called
gods by adoption through grace because all of God entirely fills them and leaves
no part of them empty of his presence” (Maximus Confessor 1985, 203; Perl 1998,
54–55). John Meyendorff asserts that in “Byzantine theology … man’s nature is not
a static, ‘closed,’ autonomous entity, but a dynamic reality, determined in its very
existence by its relationship to God” (Meyendorff 1983, 2). This relationship is
understood as the process of theōsis, which is both a capacity granted to mankind
and a goal to attain (Meyendorff 1983, 2–4, 163–64; Parry 1996, 114–24). In the
lavishly decorated churches of Byzantium the liturgy, the spatial organization,
and the decoration scheme cooperated in creating an all-embracing transforma-
tive space where theosis could occur.

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V Sensual Characteristics of the Byzantine Church and Rite
A vivid example of how the splendor of the Byzantine rite and church building
can impact its beholders is offered by the Russian Primary Chronicle. It reports that
when Vladimir (r. 980–1015) sent a delegation to investigate the religious prac-
tices of the Bulgarians, Germans, Jews, and Greeks in order to decide which
religion to adopt, his envoys reported about their visit to Hagia Sophia as follows:
“… we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no
such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only
know that God dwells there among men, and that their service is fairer than the
ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty” (The Russian
Primary Chronicle 1953, 111). The chronicle relates how this awesome impression
was prepared:
… the Emperor sent a message to the Patriarch to inform him that a Russian delegation had
arrived to examine the Greek faith, and directed him to prepare the church and the clergy,
and to array himself in his sacerdotal robes, so that the Russes might behold the glory of the
God of the Greeks. When the Patriarch received these commands, he bade the clergy [to]
assemble, and they performed the customary rites. They burned incense, and the choirs
sang hymns. The Emperor accompanied the Russes to the church, and placed them in a wide
space, calling their attention to the beauty of the edifice, the chanting, and the pontifical
services and the ministry of the deacons, while he explained to them the worship of his God
(110–11).
The spiritual and sensual splendor of Hagia Sophia and the spectacle of the
liturgical performance were irresistible: the State of Rus converted to Christianity.
Recent scholarship has given increasing attention to the sensory aspects of
Byzantine religious worship. These studies have drawn attention to the funda-
mental importance of the senses in contributing to an experience of the divine
and the attainment of theosis. The role of natural and artificial lighting (Nesbitt
2012; Theis 2001; Bouras and Parani 2008) has been examined along with the
sensual potential of materials and colors (Pentcheva 2010a; James 2003; 1996),
the role of sound (Pentcheva 2010a), the impact of fragrances (Caseau 2007), and
the process of vision and role of the other senses (Nelson 2000; James 2004). To
offer a holistic analysis of sacred spaces, including their sensual traits, Alexei
Lidov advocates a new field of study, hierotopy based on the Greek words for
sacred and place/space/notion:
… we should recognize that the material forms were just a part, and not always the most
important one, of a spatial whole which was in permanent movement. Performativity,
dramatic changes, the lack of strict fixation shaped a vivid, spiritually intensive, and
concretely influential environment (Lidov 2009, 39).

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Hierotopy’s methodology embraces an all-inclusive examination of spatial, tem-

poral, material, ritualistic, theological, artistic, sensory, and participatory aspects
of the Byzantine sacred space and studies the interaction as well as the mutability
of these various aspects to offer a more complete understanding of the Byzantine
church building as a transformative space.
E Closing Remarks
This essay offers a selective survey of major themes from the history of the Greek
Orthodox Church within the Byzantine Empire. It presents a mosaic of various
facets of the life of this institution, starting from a broad view and moving
increasingly inward, paralleling both the contraction of the empire and the more
pronounced inward focus of the liturgy in the middle and late Byzantine periods.
However, this trajectory is not intended to suggest the false impression of isola-
tion, after all both the Church and state had extensive and sustained contacts
with outsiders (either within or outside the empire’s borders) in the middle and
late Byzantine periods that included cultural, diplomatic, economic, and military
engagements as well as religious deliberations and proselytizing. The role of the
Byzantine Church underwent notable changes in this period in tandem with the
fluctuating fortune of the state. Yet, although the Byzantines could not conceive a
separation between Church and state, ultimately the Church proved to be more
resilient: the Patriarch of Constantinople/Istanbul still presides over a large flock
while the last Byzantine emperor perished over five hundred years ago.
Select Bibliography
Angold, Michael, The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 5: Eastern Christianity (Cambridge
and New York 2006).
Herrin, Judith, The Formation of Christendom, rev. paperback ed. (1987; Princeton, NJ, 1989).
Kolbaba, Tia M., The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins (Urbana, IL, and Chicago 2000).
Louth, Andrew and Augustine Casiday, ed., Byzantine Orthodoxies, Papers from the Thirty-sixth
Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Durham, 23–25 March, 2002 (Alder-
shot and Burlington, VT, 2006).
Meyendorff, John, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (1974; New York
1983).
Safran, Linda, ed., Heaven on Earth, Art and the Church in Byzantium (University Park, PA, 1998).
Stephenson, Paul, ed., The Byzantine World (London and New York 2010).
Taft, Robert F., S. J., The Byzantine Rite, A Short History (Collegeville, MN, 1992).

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Eileen Gardiner
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven
A Definitions
During the European Middle Ages, a period of approximately 1000 years extend-
ing roughly from 450 until 1450, the otherworld and its distinct precincts were
hardly fixed locations or clearly defined spaces. Each place was characterized
broadly by certain distinct features, qualities, and purposes, but among these there
was the widest possible latitude for representing hell, purgatory, and heaven.
While the English-language names for all the otherworld spaces—heaven,
paradise, hell, limbo, and purgatory—mask a complicated history of assumptions
and translations that do not always map back to earlier or original concepts,
contemporary assumptions about the otherworld, while often maintaining skepti-
cism about their actual ontological existence, define these regions with great
certainty. According to our modern understanding, hell is a place or state of
eternal punishment after death for those guilty of grievous or mortal sin, a place
of separation from God and the dwelling place of the devil and his followers. It is
always associated with an underworld or being underground. The fires of hell are
unlike earthly fires, because, although they burn at an unimaginable intensity,
they never consume their fuel.
Purgatory is a temporary and transitional place, a concept of later origin than
heaven and hell, in which the dead, through punishments similar to those in hell,
are purged of lesser sins before release into paradise and heaven. Purgatory is
sometimes described as a connecting space between heaven and hell, but its
topographical relationship to the Earth is consequently a problem, since it would
then seem to exist in the same space as the living.
Heaven is a place or state of eternal reward for the blameless dead, the
dwelling place of God and the blessed. It is above the earth, in fact, in the
heavens. Often depicted as an enclosed city, it is a place of community where the
righteous gather in the presence of the Almighty.
While medieval theologians worked toward establishing this orthodox view
of the afterlife, two additional spaces were appended to the otherworld: paradise
and limbo, the first on the periphery of heaven and the latter on the periphery of
hell. Although the medieval otherworld paradise often is and was confused with
the Earthly Paradise or Garden of Eden located at the edges of this world, it was
located just outside heaven’s walls and served as a stage in the journey of the soul
from purgatory to heaven. It might also function as a final otherworld destination

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to accommodate those who, based on earthly performance, did not deserve to join
the communion of the saints in heaven and yet did not meriting punishment and
complete separation in hell at the end of time after the dissolution of purgatory at
the Last Judgment. Paradise is a pleasant place, a locus amoenus for the innocent
enjoyment of natural things. Although paradise does figure prominently in med-
ieval literature of the otherworld, it probably did so without much theological
sanction and does not survive into modern times as a separate place in the
otherworld.
The limbo of the Old Testament patriarchs and of unbaptized children was
imagined as an everlasting dwelling in hell, but one without any punishment
other than separation from the Almighty. The separation of the patriarchs came
into conflict with the Harrowing of Hell narrative, which became a motif in
medieval English literature, probably through the influence of the apocryphal
Gospel of Nicodemus. In this Jesus, after his death but before the Resurrection,
released the patriarchs from hell. Despite belief in Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, the
idea of the separation of the patriarchs from the elect continued to flourish in the
Middle Ages. Dante Aligheri (ca. 1265–1321) located limbo in the first circle of the
inferno, just inside the gate of hell, but this space was not sufficiently distin-
guished and delineated in other medieval literature, art, or theology.
Before entering further into these realms however, it is important to reiterate
that in the hands and minds of the medieval architects of the otherworld, the plan
and map were not so immovable. While hell is now considered a permanent place
of eternal punishment, in the Middle Ages sinners progressed through hell and
passed beyond the world of punishment. Sometimes they were only punished in
hell on certain days or in certain seasons. Sometimes they were rescued from hell
through the prayers and good deeds of their living friends and relatives. With the
rise of purgatory as a fixed space in the twelfth century (Le Goff 1984, 12–13), the
parameters of hell would solidify, and the possibility of purgation and release
would no longer be part of that realm, which became a place set apart exclusively
for the eternal punishment of the unredeemable, as we now understand it. On the
other side of purgatory, the same fluidity was in evidence. Paradise is often
described as a park or enclosed garden outside the walls of heaven, but at other
times, paradise is conflated with heaven, as it is in the Divine Comedy. Yet paradise
usually has a distinct identity as a place of sensual pleasure—an open, out-of-
doors place of air, light, color, beauty—as opposed to an architecturally con-
structed space of transcendent joy. Sometimes this otherworld paradise is even
explicitly identified with the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden of Genesis 1.
The medieval Christian otherworld also represented a system of retributive
justice in which everyone would be treated equally (McDannell and Lang 2001,
76–77). Yet there was often a great divergence in the degrees of pain and joy

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Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven 655
among and within medieval texts on and images of heaven and hell. Punishments
might range from the most severe physical torture to simple separation from the
Divine, and joys from pure non-suffering to the ultimate joy in the vision of God,
which was not necessarily granted to all who escaped hell. Even the equal
treatment of all independent of hierarchy, rank, status, or social position did not
translate into a non-hierarchical construct. All may have been treated equally, on
the face of it, but ultimately some deserved greater reward or more severe punish-
ment than others based on their actions alone. Matthew’s Parable of the Workers
in the Vineyard (20:1–6) did not gain traction among the creators of the medieval
otherworld. There was not to be an equal payment for all. Even in the Summa
Theologica (Aquinas 1947, 1:12.6), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) specifically links
the individual’s merit, indeed the individual’s intellect—not even his or her
actions—with the degree of beatific knowledge the person would enjoy in the
afterlife. The greater the intellect, the greater the degree of beatitude.
B Sources
A rich body of material informs our understanding of medieval otherworld ideas.
Beyond the official teachings confirmed by church councils, which provided little
sensational or graphic information, the writings, paintings, and sculpture of the
period contribute multitudinous details and tell a rich and imaginative story.
Chronicles, letters, manuscript illuminations, church portals, and frescoes record
a multi-dimensional otherworld with elements created or borrowed from a variety
of sources.
While it can be intriguing to attempt to examine the influences upon these
Christian otherworld concepts by other cultures and religions, or the development
of otherworld concepts through interaction with these belief systems, the evi-
dence supports only overlapping coincidences. Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern,
Hindu, Buddhist, Greek and Roman, and Zoroastrian otherworlds all share simila-
rities, but the documents do not exist to establish patterns of transmissions or
influence. There are certainly traces of ideas from Rome and Greece, Persia,
Egypt, and Ethiopia, and cultural patterns of belief also traveled the trade routes
between East and West throughout the Middle Ages.
In apostolic times, some of the Jewish proto-Christians of the Jesus Movement
may have retained traditional Jewish beliefs in a life after death in a gray under-
world, called Sheol, not unlike the Hades of the Greeks or the netherworld of the
Akkadians, Babylonians, and Sumerians of the ancient Near East. However, other
Jewish notions, including apocalyptic and millennial ones, no doubt equally
impacted developing Christian ideas.

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Jewish and Islamic ideas of the afterlife and otherworld places during the
Middle Ages are related and certainly have considerable bearing on Western
Christian beliefs (Himmelfarb 1983, 1–2), which are the focus here. Pagan notions,
which survived well into the late Middle Ages in Scandinavia, Ireland, and East-
ern Europe, are also not unrelated to the contemporaneous Christian thought that
coexisted and no doubt intersected with them. Recognizing the interrelatedness
of these ideas without positing lines of influence is in itself crucial, because this
supports, if not confirms, the proposition that none of these ideas were specially
inspired or the sole contribution of a single religious individual or group.
The Bible, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, where many might
seek the foundational ideas regarding the Christian otherworld, actually has very
little to say about hell (Bremmer 2002, 64) or heaven (Russell 1997, 40–41). There
is no mention at all of any place equivalent to purgatory in the Bible. References
to an otherworld or afterlife are vague, inconsistent, and sometimes contradic-
tory. The notions of eternal punishment and reward that are found in the New
Testament relate primarily to the state of the wicked and the good—if not to whole
nations and peoples—at the end of time following the Apocalypse and Last
Judgment (for example in Matt 25:31–46) (Bernstein 1993, 228). Some readers,
however, think they find in the Bible the basis for later—non-dogmatic—ideas
about the afterlife, sometimes taking Greek or Hebrew words and giving them
more significance or a different meaning than they originally had. Only the
parable of Dives and Lazarus from the New Testament’s Gospel of Luke (16:19–31)
describes judgment immediately after death, followed by punishment in hell or
reward in heaven, an idea that would become intrinsic to Christian concepts of
the afterlife. Since the Gospels began to take form almost three decades after the
death of Christ, tying any words or ideas directly to him can certainly be proble-
matic. In fact, this story of Dives and Lazarus is probably based on an Egyptian
folktale that may have been known in Palestine during the life of Christ, but was
certainly known there by the end of the first century C.E. and was recounted in
later Talmudic literature (Fitzmyer 2007, 1124–36). It presents the notion of an
individual’s punishment in the afterlife before the Last Judgment: immediately
after his death, Dives, the rich man, has his eye turned on a door hinge as
punishment for his treatment of the poor man, Lazarus. There is no fire in this
hell, nor any indication that it is eternal. Here we find the sole example in the
Bible of anything that might come close to corresponding to our ideas of indivi-
dual eternal punishment or reward after death, which is the essence of later
medieval notions of heaven, purgatory, and hell. A medieval manuscript illumi-
nation in the Codex Aureus Epternacensis updates this story, showing in the top
register the feasting Dives inside a dining and the poor man, Lazarus, on his
doorstep. The second register shows the death of Lazarus and his deliverance to

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Fig. 1: Dives and Lazarus, manuscript illumination, Codex Aureus Epternacensis, GNM
Hs. 156142, folio 78r, ca. 1035–1040. Nuremberg, German National Museum.

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658 Eileen Gardiner
heaven, while the third register shows the death of Dives and his delivery to a
fiery medieval hell (see Fig. 1).
From reading the Christian creeds, it is clear that a belief in heaven was
firmly established in the first centuries of the church. The original Nicene Creed of
325 does not mention either hell or purgatory but does mention heaven in the
context of the deity’s act of creation and as the place to which Christ ascended
upon his death and from which he will descend to judge the living and the dead.
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 reasserts these beliefs and adds
Christ’s initial descent from heaven to be incarnated. It also adds the element of
eternity to the idea of the “kingdom of heaven,” as well as the important eschato-
logical concepts of a “resurrection of the dead” and a “world to come,” both of
which have a considerable bearing on the developing medieval notions of the
otherworld.
The Apostles’ Creed or Symbolum Apostolorum, which post-dates the aposto-
lic period and is probably no earlier than the second half of the fifth century,
repeats these previous ideas and adds that Christ “descendit ad inferos,” the word
“inferos” meaning the “underworld.” That phrase was translated and interpreted
as “descended to the dead” or “descended into hell,” from which derives the
Christian “harrowing of hell” meme. In addition, this creed introduces the idea of
a bodily resurrection of the dead, followed by the forgiveness of sins and eternal
life. Unfortunately this text is not specific as to whether the forgiveness of sins
and eternal life will be extended to a select few, all Christians, or humanity as a
whole. Only the Athanasian Creed or Quicumque Vult, of the late fifth or early
sixth century, specifically includes the notion of an afterlife punishment, claim-
ing that those who do evil will descend “in ignem aeternum” (into eternal fire).
While doctrine, creed, and teaching maintained a cautious reticence on the
details of the spaces of the afterlife, they provided a canvas on which the fertile
imaginations of the medieval period could construct tableaux of punishment and
pain or delight and transcendence. These expressions of faith did not match
necessarily the conversation about heaven, hell, and purgatory taking place
among those Fathers of the Church and later theologians, who choose to explore
these ideas. Consequently the medieval landscape of the otherworld is rich,
imaginative, complex, and paradoxical.
C Hell
The word “hell,” which is now exclusively associated with a place of punishment,
formerly meant simply “underworld.” This English word is used to translate a
variety of terms: infernus, inferus, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna, all of which had

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meanings that do not exactly match the current concept. For instance, like the
original meaning of “hell,” infernus and inferus both meant simply an “under-
world,” a place beneath or below the surface of the earth; and “Hades” was the
name both of the land of the dead and the god of the dead. “Tartarus” was a
legendary place of punishment designated for the chthonic gods, the Titans, who
defied the rulers on Olympus. It was an even lower underworld, a world below
Hades. The word “Gehenna” in the Bible, which is very often translated as “hell,”
is a prime example of the way misread biblical texts have contributed to a
Christian otherworld picture. “Gehenna” is the Hebrew name of the valley just
southwest of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Rabbi David Kimhi (1160–1235) of
Narbonne, in his commentary on Psalm 27, made a connection between Gehenna
and a garbage dump, but this has never been supported by any archaeological
evidence (Bailey 1986, 187–91). The valley is associated in the Bible with the god
Moleck and sacrifice, particularly child sacrifice, and was long considered and
condemned as a place of evil. The fire of Gehenna was connected to hell, possibly
because Gehenna was also a burial place connected with the chthonic gods
(Barkay 2005, 22–35, 122–26), but Gehenna itself was never equated with hell
except in later Talmudic literature and in later translations from the original
biblical languages, which, instead of leaving the word “Gehenna” untranslated,
as in earlier practice, translated it as “hell.” Over time the idea of punishment and
of complex, varied individual punishment designed for specific sins, attached
itself to the word “hell.”
Two major questions about hell concerned medieval thinkers and their pre-
decessors: the location of the place and the nature of its fire, whether it was the
same as, or different from, earthly fire. The earliest form of punishment associated
with hell was fire, and there was lively speculation about this fire and how it
might be different from earthly fire, since hell fire was everlasting and did not
consume what it burned, whereas for earthly fire the opposite is true. Even those
who believed it was the same as earthly fire, credited it with a special nature in
the otherworld, which led to the perception that it was everlasting and did not
consume, but this special nature was attributed to the otherworld environment
and not the nature of the fire itself.
Tertullian (160–220 C.E.), particularly in his Treatise on the Soul and Five
Books against Marcion makes note of hell’s darkness, thirst as punishment, and a
hell mouth, as illustrated in a medieval capital in Fig. 2, but the essence of hell
remained a focus on punishment by a fire that does not consume but burns
eternally.
Origen (ca. 145–ca. 254) in his On First Principles proposed a punishing fire
that does not pre-exist in the underworld, but that is tied to the individual: a self-
generating fire fueled by one’s own sins. This fire punishes without destroying or

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660 Eileen Gardiner
Fig. 2: Mouth of Hell, capital, St.-Guilhem-le-Désert Cloister (Languedoc-Roussilon, France),

late twelfth century. Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
harming the resurrected body. Augustine (354–430) argues that the bodies of the
damned will certainly be punished eternally but not consumed by fire. He also
says that the worm will torment the body in hell, although he resists defining the
nature of the worm (Augustine 1988, 21 [City of God]; and 1.19–21 [On Christian
Doctrine]). Later Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) shared the same concerns as Au-
gustine. In questions 97–99 of the Summa Theologica, he examined the nature of
the fire in hell, but he did not maintain that fire was the only source of punish-
ment there. He acknowledged the punishment inflicted by the worm, although he
also asserted that the worm is immaterial.
While the Fathers and Doctors of the Church debated philosophical ques-
tions, the literature of the apocalypses painted vivid pictures of an infernal other-
world. The earliest apocalypses date from as early as ca. 100 B.C.E. to the third
and fourth centuries C.E. and include the pseudepigraphic, and perhaps Jewish,

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Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the Book of Enoch, both the Greek and Syriac versions
of the pseudepigraphic, Jewish Apocalypse of Baruch, and the various versions
of the closely related Christian and Jewish apocalypses, revelations or visions of
Esdras, Ezra, and Sedrach. Others, such as the Apocalypse of St. Peter and the
Apocalypse of St. Paul from the second through fourth centuries, come into
Latin from Greek and Ethiopic texts, as did the later Apocalypse of the Virgin.
The vague hints found in the New Testament, compiled by the second genera-
tion of Jesus’ followers (ca. 65–85 C.E.), about an otherworld of punishment and
fire paled in comparison with the descriptions in the apocalypses with their
graphic reports of a dark underworld with hell mouths, lakes and rivers of fire, and
pits filled with mire, blood, gore, and filth. In these realms sinners are punished
for specific sins by being attacked by beasts, snakes, and worms or hung by parts
of the body responsible for the sins committed. The damned were also thrown off
cliffs, beaten with rods and stones, and dismembered by a variety of sharp
instruments from razors to grappling hooks. There is always fire, and its effects
were detailed as sinners were burned and roasted alive. In St. Paul’s Apocalypse
(ch. 40), from the late fourth century, after witnessing a series of similar punish-
ments, just before Paul reached the pit of hell, he “saw men and women clothed
with rags full of pitch and fiery sulfur, and dragons were coiled about their necks
and shoulders and feet, and [evil] angels with fiery horns restrained them and
smote them and closed their nostrils” (Elliott, ed., 2005, 636).
While these works detail specifically the fate of the wicked at the Last
Judgment, their ideas became inextricably bound up with speculations about the
fate of the wicked immediately after death. The texts themselves describing the
Last Judgment do not equate the two different situations; they do not even
consider the occasion of the Particular Judgment, which occurs on an individual
basis at the time of death. Even in the New Testament, when the wicked are
consigned to eternal and everlasting fire and punishment (for example, Matt
25:41–46), it is not clear how this apocalyptic fate is tied to the destiny of sinful
souls at death. And yet, the fundamental medieval ideas about hell derive from
these apocalypses.
In comparison with the apocalypses, however, the earliest medieval vision
literature presents a less impassioned picture. Unlike these apocalypses, which
present the visions experienced by holy men and women of the punishments in
store at the end of days—visions of the future—with Gregory the Great (540–604)
a new type of vision of the otherworld emerged. He put a more human face on the
infernal otherworld by introducing individuals who found themselves as wit-
nesses there. As in the tales from the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome,
Gregory’s characters accidentally or incidentally descend into the underworld
and return to tell their contemporaries what they have seen occurring there in the

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662 Eileen Gardiner
present time. Gregory’s influential visions of Peter, Stephen, and a soldier (Gre-
gory the Great 2007, 4.27) from the end of the sixth century, depict a place of
smoky rivers, perilous bridges, and intolerable fire and filth. Bede’s Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Angelorum (Bede 1968, 3.13, 5.12 and 5.14) similarly described
a series of visions that portray hell to some degree. Furseus saw consuming fires,
Drythelm saw a dark pit filled with souls suffering from flames and an insuffer-
able stench, and the monk of Bernicia saw a place of eternal doom filled with
avenging flames.
Between the visions recorded by Gregory and Bede on the one hand and the
Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri (ca. 1265–1321) on the other, visions of the other-
world described the infernal regions in increasingly vivid terms and at increasing
longer length as dark and layered underground places full of suffering souls.
These visions were included within histories, letters, and chronicles and were
circulated widely. The Vision of the Monk of Eynsham from 1196, versions of which
were included in Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum, Matthew Paris’s Chron-
ica Majora, and Ralph of Coggeshall’s Chronicon Anglicanum, presents a some-
what typical description of hell. The monk and his guide
arrived at a large plain situated low down in the bosom of the earth, which seemed
inaccessible to all except to torturing devils and tortured spirits. The surface of that plain
was covered by great and horrible chaos, mixed with a sulfurous smoke and a cloud of
intolerable stench with a flame of a pitchy blackness. Rising from all directions, this was
diffused in a dreadful way through the whole of that empty space. The surface of the place
was as full of a great number of vipers as courtyards of houses are covered with rushes.
Dreadful beyond belief, monstrously large and deformed, with dreadful gaping jaws, exhal-
ing execrable fire from their nostrils, these lacerated the crowds of wretched beings with a
voracity they could not escape …. The devils, running in all directions, raging like mad
creatures, took the wretched beings and first cut them up piece by piece with their fiery
prongs, and then they tore their flesh off to the bone; and finally they threw them into the
fire, melted them like metals, and restored them in the shape of burning flame … (Gardiner,
ed., 1989, 209).
The mouth or gates of hell and the pit of hell, although without any biblical or
doctrinal basis, were significant features of this underworld landscape. The
mouth and gates were particularly suited to plastic representation and repeatedly
appeared within the program of judgment tympani on medieval cathedrals,
such as the typanum at St. Foy Cathedral at Conques (Fig. 3), where both the
mouth and gate motifs are displayed together. They were not neglected in literary
works either.
The theme appears as early as the Vision of Laisren (Irish, late ninth or
early tenth century). Outside the gate of hell Laisren has an opportunity to warn
the souls he sees to repent and save themselves from entering there. Clearly
the gates are the official entranceway to hell, and souls could be found lingering in

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Fig. 3: Mouth and Gate of Hell, West Tympanum, Conques (Aveyron, France), early twelfth
century, after 1107.
the undefined space before them. This space would later become identified as
purgatory. The pit, on the other hand, is found in the lowest depths of hell and is
often described as the location of Satan himself. His minions might wander through
hell inflicting punishment, but in the pit, Satan both inflicts and endures punish-
ment. The Vision of Orm (Yorkshire, 1126) describes how Orm’s guide led him
to the deepest and most shadowy valley, stinking full with smoke and fog, in which was
seen to be a pit of unspeakable depth, absorbing and emitting burning flames continuously.
The region of everything in the circuit of the pit was truly horrid and full of the densest
smoke, and intolerable fetor, and fog of shadows, which came from the pit of the under-
world. In truth, one of the accomplices of Satan, blacker than soot, stood upon the mouth
of the pit, burning and stinking, with a terrible look and horrendous aspect. (Analecta
Bollandiana 75 (1957): 79–80, my translation)
With Dante’s Inferno this tradition was summed up and presented in one of the
world’s finest literary works, which laid out hell as nine concentric circles, each
with a different punishment for different sins: from Limbo in Circle 1, where good
pagans suffered, through circles for punishing, broadly speaking, lust (2), glut-
tony (3) avarice (4), wrath (5), heresy (6), violence (7), fraud (8), and treachery (9).
Visions continued to be written during the Middle Ages following Dante’s master-

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664 Eileen Gardiner
work, but his was the culmination of the form and to a large extent made further
literary exploration of the subject redundant.
Throughout the Middle Ages, hell remained an important subject for visual
artists as well. They explored its monstrous possibilities in fresco, sculpture—
particularly on capitals and the tympana of cathedral facades—and manuscript
illumination.
D Purgatory
There is no biblical evidence for purgatory, nor does it appear in any place in the
early creeds of the Church. The rise or “birth” of purgatory has been linked to the
naming of St. Patrick’s Purgatory at Lough Derg in County Donegal in the North-
west of Ireland in the late twelfth century, but the concept of purgatory clearly
pre-exists the name (Le Goff 1984, 96–97). Two Alexandrine Fathers of the Church
prepared the way for the Christian idea of purgatory. Although his notions of
purgation lack clear specificity (Moreira 2010, 27–28), Clement of Alexandria (ca.
150–ca. 215) introduced into the ongoing conversation about developing Christian
tenets, punishments that would prepare souls for redemption (Clement 1954, 1.8).
His pupil Origen envisaged a long-term program of education and purification
after death that also would make souls worthy of everlasting life (Origen 1966,
2.10.4). Augustine (Augustine 1988, 21.13 [On Christian Doctrine]) allows for purga-
tion after death and before the Last Judgment, although even he also does not
specify a separate space from hell.
While earlier writers failed to make any distinction between the space of hell
and the space of purgatory, once it began to take on a distinct identity, the
location of purgatory was almost consistently placed above hell, before the gates
or mouth, or between hell and paradise or heaven. Dante’s presentation is a
notable exception, for he locates the pit of hell in the center of the earth and
purgatory as an unknown mountain in the southern hemisphere, which Dante
and Virgil ascend after climbing down the furry body of Satan. The mountain
itself includes two ante-purgatories for the excommunicated and for late peni-
tents, respectively, and seven terraces, each assigned to one of the seven deadly
sins in ascending order: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.
Pursuing Dante’s lead, some attempted to identify purgatory with a place on the
earth, for instance a volcano, but geological features such as volcanoes—Sicily’s
Mt. Etna, for instance—or lakes—like Lago Averno north of Naples or Lough
Derg in Donegal—have been generally considered entryways to the infernal other-
world, not the locations of any one particular section of the otherworld (Le Goff
1984, 203–07).

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The naming of a space as “purgatory” has been designated as the pivotal

point in the development of the idea of purgatory (Le Goff 1984, 33). The word’s
early appearance in the twelfth-century Latin as “purgatorium” is most closely
associated with the Latin work, entitled the Tractatus de purgatorio Sancti Patricii,
written ca. 1184 by a Cistercian monk, H. of Saltrey, from Huntingdonshire in the
English East Midlands. The word apparently is recorded as in regular occurrence
in the British Isles from ca. 1150. Before it became a name and became linked first
to a site in Donegal and then to a space in the otherworld, the earliest documented
appearances of the root appear to be in the ninth-century “purgativus,” a word
that meant “cleansing.” The name “purgatorium”—for which no further evidence
has yet come to light—may originally have designated some sort of bath, evolving
in Latin following on the model for naming for cold, hot and tepid baths—
frigidarium, caldarium and tepidarium—or on the model of refrigerium, a place of
refreshment in the otherworld, often synonymous with the bosom of Abraham (Le
Goff 1984, 46–48).
The medieval texts associated with this real geographical place called a
purgatorium are actually quite silent on the otherworld purgatory. In the medieval
mind, this place of retreat in northwest Ireland provided pilgrims with an oppor-
tunity to purify themselves in this world. There is some indication that the
location might have long served as a place where one went to purge maladies,
physical or spiritual. It is possible that this famous “cave” on Station Island in
Lough Derg, which has become known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory, was originally a
hot-air bath, or sweat house, a structure not uncommon in the North of Ireland
used for restoring health through cleansing (Lucas 1952, 180–81; Lucas 1965,
109–10). As a Christian site, the focus was on spiritual maladies, and the program
involved penance, fasting and prayer, and particularly sleep and nourishment
deprivation, with a night locked in a dark cave on a lonely, isolated island.
Legends arose that some pilgrims discovered in that cave an entry to the other-
world, but even that otherworld, as described in the Latin Tractatus de purgatorio
sancti Patricii included only heaven and hell.
The Tractatus makes clear that St. Patrick’s Purgatory is a “round cave, dark
within,” and as the Lord tells St. Patrick, when introducing him to this cave:
Whomever in true repentance and constancy of faith enters this cave for one day and one
night will be purified there from all the sins they have committed against God during their
lives and will also not only see there the torments of the wicked, but if they persevere
steadfastly in the love of God, they will also witness the joys of the blessed.

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After Patrick is shown the cave, he
constructed an oratory on the spot, and enclosing the cave that is in the cemetery in front of
the church, placed a door there so that no one could enter without his permission. He … gave
the key to the prior with orders that whoever came to the prior with a license from the bishop
of the district would be allowed to enter the purgatory. (Gardiner, ed., 1989, 136)
This purgatory on Lough Derg is thus a real physical place in this world, not a
region of the otherworld.
As a discrete otherworld place separated from both heaven and hell, the
rise of purgatory remains somewhat elusive. Although some texts make a
distinction between hell and this unnamed place of temporary punishment, in
numerous texts hell, as well as being a place of eternal punishment for the very
wicked, is also, in fact, a place through which souls pass from one punishment to
the next.
In the Vision of Drythelm, which Bede, who wrote in 731, dated to the end of
the seventh century, the visionary is led through a wide valley where souls are
punished on one side by flames and heat and on the other side by hail and snow.
Drythelm also finds himself in a field of delightful sweetness full of happy
assemblies. He believes the one place to be hell and the other heaven, but his
guide corrects him. Both are places where souls, not yet worthy of heaven, dwell
before the Last Judgment. The former place is for the wicked who repent late, and
although they suffer in this place, before the Last Judgment, they are “aided by
the prayers, alms, and fasting of the living, and more especially by Masses.” The
latter place is for those who did good works on earth but did not attain the
perfection necessary for immediate entry into heaven. These places, particularly
the one that includes physical punishment, are not called “purgatory,” but both
do function as a places of temporary location in the otherworld for a soul not yet
ready to experience the presence of God.
The Vision of the Monk of Wenlock presents another clear example of the
double function of the infernal otherworld before the isolation of purgatory as a
separate place. In a letter of 716 C.E. to Eadberga, abbess of Thanet, St. Boniface
describes how the monk
saw, as it were in the bowels of the earth, many fiery pits vomiting forth terrible flames and,
as the foul flame arose, the souls of wretched men in the likeness of black birds sat upon the
margin of the pits clinging there for a while wailing and howling and shrieking with human
cries, mourning their past deeds and their present suffering; then they fell screaming back
into the pits. And one of the angels said: “This brief respite shows that Almighty God will
give to these souls in the judgment day relief from their punishment and rest eternal.” But
beneath these pits in the lowest depths, as it were in a lower hell, he heard a horrible,
tremendous, and unspeakable groaning and weeping of souls in distress. And the angel said

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to him: “The murmuring and crying which you hear down there comes from those souls to
which the loving kindness of the Lord shall never come, but an undying flame shall torture
them forever.” (Emerton, ed., 1940, 27–28)
The Vision of Charles the Fat is dated to around the time of Charles’ death in 888.
Its first surviving version is preserved in the Chronicon centulense of Hariulf (ca.
1160–1143). In the otherworld, Charles meets his father, Louis the German, who is
immersed up to his thighs in a cask of boiling water. Louis explains that, like his
brother Lothair and his son Louis, he will be released from punishment even-
tually, and he asks Charles to speed the process by offering Masses, prayers,
psalms, alms, and vigils. Both the Vision of Drythelm and the Vision of Charles the
Fat indicate that the temporary suffering is necessary and hint that in itself it
might be purgative but is not explicit on this point.
Fully one third of Dante’s Commedia (1302–1321) is devoted to this third place
in the otherworld as is the entire Middle English vision of 1422, the Revelation of
Purgatory by an Unknown Woman, which details the three fires of purgatory and
ways to aid the souls therein. The preamble of the late fourteenth-century Middle
English translation of the Visio Tnugdali claims that the visionary will visit both
purgatory and hell but then follows the text of the Latin original from 1149, which
makes no specific mention of purgatory. However, even in the twelfth-century
Latin Vision of Tundale, souls in the upper reaches of hell, above the gates of hell,
have not been finally judged, which indicates that this region is an intermediary
place from which release is possible. In this work, such release results from the
intervention of divine mercy. In fact, the Vision of Tundale was particularly
tenacious about the role of divine mercy in the process of redemption. Tundale’s
guides reinforces this point numerous times throughout their otherworld journey
(Gardiner, ed., 1989, 154; 161; 167–68; 176). Those on earth are not designated a
role in effecting outcomes in the otherworld through their prayers, good works, or
almsgiving.
Souls might also be delivered from punishment onto the doorstep of paradise
through their own suffering. Presumably their punishment played a critical part
in their eventual release. Purgatorial fires would purge them of their sins and
make them ready for salvation. In fact, otherworld fire could be probative,
punitive, or purgative, and while probative fire is most closely associated with
judgment, fire in hell, once it is distinct from purgatory, is clearly punitive, and
fire in purgatory may be both punitive and purgative (Le Goff 1984, 43–44). Fire
could cleanse the soul of its sins so that it might proceed toward paradise. Some-
times souls in hell receive a respite from their torment and are punished only on
certain days, indicating that they do not merit the full force of hellfire and holding
out a promise of future release.

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Unlike the redemption in the Vision of Tundale, the process of releasing souls,
but not damned souls, from suffering and punishment after death could be
accelerated by the living, as we have already seen in the Vision of Charles the Fat.
Souls could move through punishment toward paradise, being rescued by an
array of devotional activities performed by the living including prayers, Masses,
intercessions, and good works (Moreira 2010, 107–12). It is hard not to connect
these activities back to various practices associated with cults of the dead from
Egyptian to Jewish and even to Buddhist practice, where living relatives are
obligated to provide offerings to ease the transition of souls in the otherworld.
The role of the living in easing and eliminating purgatorial punishment
eventually involved monetary contributions, a practice culminating in the buying
and selling of indulgences, which was to become a matter of great controversy
and was possibly the most volatile spark to ignite the Protestant Reformation.
It is not surprising then that Protestantism generally rejected the notion of
Purgatory, given this fundamental disagreement over the trafficking in indul-
gences by which one could reduce time spent in purgatory, either for the purcha-
ser or for another.
It was not until 1439 and the Council of Florence that the Roman Church
reached an agreement on the doctrine of purgatory (Le Goff 1984, 52), so the
medieval evidence for the third otherworld place reveals a long birth, which
probably started in the British Isles. It is worth acknowledging, however, a certain
similarity between Christian purgatory and the hell of religions that teach reincar-
nation or metempsychosis, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism, where the
punishments of the otherworld prepare the soul not for salvation but for rebirth.
On their path to nirvana, sinners may suffer for countless eons on account of sins
committed in this life before they can be reborn again, often into a lower form.
This third place in the otherworld thus has a complicated history, particularly in
the Middle Ages, and is connected with many critical developments within and
around the Church.
E Heaven
The English word “heaven” is less problematic than “hell” or “purgatory” but
combines many ideas, including the firmaments of stars and planets above the
earth, the dwelling place of the gods, a paradise, and a celestial city. The Greek
word used in the Bible is either “Ouranos” or “paradesios”; the Latin words are
“caelum” or “paradisus.” A Hebrew equivalent for the latter word signifies “fruit
garden” or “orchard,” and indeed “paradise” is most often equated with a garden
and particularly the Garden of Eden from the book of Genesis. The Greek “Our-

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anos” is the name of the Greek sky god; as the Latin name “caelum” is from
Caelus or Caelum, the name of the Roman sky god, paralleling the word “Hades”
as both the underworld and the god of the underworld. The English word “hea-
ven” appears in about 1159 as “heven” and has Germanic roots. “Heaven” also
meant “sky” but came to have Christianized associations as the dwelling place of
God, the saints, and the blessed dead. English is unusual in having two distinct
words for the upper regions: “heaven” and “sky.” The latter also has Germanic
roots, but originally meant “cloud” and is never associated with an otherworld,
although clouds are often iconographic of heaven.
In the Middle Ages, the otherworld abode of the blessed was represented as
either paradise—an enclosed garden or field full of the saints and the saved—or as
heaven, described as a celestial city, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the city as the
prototype for the space of Christian salvation. Sometimes the place of salvation
includes both paradise and heaven, with the former as a space outside the walls
that enclosed the dwelling place of the saints. Although not always consistent
throughout the long period under discussion, paradise was often located in the
upper reaches of purgatory where the “good, but not good enough,” spent their
days without punishment, but also without the communion of the saints. It might
be a temporary space from which all the souls upon the Last Judgment would
finally be released into heaven, or it might be a permanent space on the outskirts
of heaven for those who do not deserve any better.
Most often, in medieval descriptions of the otherworld, paradise is located on
the periphery of heaven, just outside its gates. Dante’s choice of the title Paradiso
is slightly misleading, since the space of his “paradise” is not a garden but the
nine heavenly spheres—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Sa-
turn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile (prime mover or ultimate cause)—and
finally, the Empyrean, or the dwelling place of God. It is interesting that as a
political exile from one of the largest and most powerful city-states in Italy—
Florence—Dante chose not to embrace the “city” as a metaphor for heaven, and
although he uses the word “paradise,” his heaven is also not, strictly speaking, a
garden. The language he uses is not one that evokes the natural world. He speaks
in terms of light, splendor, transcendence, precious materials, and heavenly
bodies, rather than words that signify a garden or locus amoenus—a pleasant,
fertile, and fragrant place—the well-watered landscapes one would normally
associate with paradise. His Paradiso is in heaven and not a separate garden.
Thus in Paradiso 3.88–90, he writes:
Then it was clear to me that every where

Of heaven is Paradise, though there the light
Of Grace Supreme does not shine equally (Dante 1984, 3:35).

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670 Eileen Gardiner
Other works follow the “paradise” model more literally. The Tractatus de purga-
torio Sancti Patricii tells of “most delightful meadows, adorned with different
flowers and fruits of many kinds of herbs and trees,” where the odors are sweet
and darkness never descends (Roger of Wendover 1968, 1:518). The Vision of
Thurkill from the early thirteenth century describes this paradise, which is outside
the gate of heaven, as “a most pleasant place, beautiful in the variety of its herbs
and flowers, and filled with the sweet smell of herbs and trees .… A very clear
spring…sent forth four streams of different coloured water; over this fountain
there was a beautiful tree of wonderful size and immense height, which abounded
in all kinds of fruits and in the sweet smell of spices” (Gardiner, ed., 1989, 234).
This idea of paradise seemed to be firmly rooted in earthly geography (Delu-
meau 1995, 39–55). Augustine declared it to be both corporeal and a spiritual
place, and afterward maps of this world would seek an appropriate location for
situating the garden—a physical place that was perennially temperate, where
“fruit and flowers never faded or failed and the harvest was plentiful all year
around” (Scafi 2006, 165). Wherever it might be represented on maps of this
world, in the otherworld it was to be found outside the walls of the heavenly city.
Usually once the topic is clearly focused on heaven, as opposed to paradise,
the descriptions change. The late fourth-century Apocalypse of St. Paul describes
heaven as the City of Christ or the Heavenly Jerusalem: “It was all of gold, and
twelve walls encircled it, and twelve interior towers, and there was a stade
between each of the encircling walls … . There were twelve gates in the circuit of
the city, of great beauty, and four rivers which encircled it” (Elliott, ed., 2005,
630). In the middle of the city was a very high altar, and there Paul finds David,
and the city is identified as the city of Jerusalem.
The Middle Irish Fís Adamnáin (early tenth and eleventh centuries) also
follows this model of the Heavenly Jerusalem in its description of heaven, where
the throne of the Lord is situated in a city where “seven crystal walls of various
hue surround it, each wall higher than the wall before it. The floor … of that city is
fair crystal, with the sun’s countenance upon it, shot with blue and purple and
green and every hue beside.” Those who will not attain heaven until the Last
Judgment find “a restless and unstable habitation … on the heights and hilltops
and in marshy places” (Boswell 1908, 33; 35).
In the Vision of the Monk of Eynsham (1196), the visionary and his guide find
“endless thousands of men or spirits, who, after passing through their punish-
ments, were enjoying the happy rest of the blessed” (Roger of Wendover 1968,
2:160). They pass from there to Upper Jerusalem, and on to a place where they
encounter a wall of crystal “so high that no one could look over it and to the
extent of which there was no end” (Roger of Wendover 1968, 2:162). There a gate
opens and closes admitting select souls, including eventually the monk and his

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guide. Inside the gate the monk is overwhelmed by the inconceivable brightness,
which sharpened the eyesight rather than blinding it. He describes how souls
ascend a stairway toward the Lord “in human form,” but the monk, who would
return to this life, was not to proceed far as the “heaven of heavens where the
Lord of Lords will appear in Sion” [a synonym for Jerusalem].
This heavenly city was characterized by richly built architecture. Usually a
throne was located in the center of an open-aired building that was often
described as an enormous church with bright pillars encrusted in all sorts of
precious stones. In layout, the space resembled closely a great cathedral with
room for enormous crowds to circulate while elaborate liturgies are performed.
Although shining brilliance was intrinsic to the place, as were the sweet sounds
of music, it was not characterized so much by its elements as by those who would
share the space of heaven: the Trinity, the Apostles, the martyrs and virgins, and
the congregation of the saints. In short, while hell and purgatory were places of
sensation and isolation, heaven was a place where any sense experience would
be strictly secondary to a sense of solidarity and community. A soul in the lower
places of the otherworld would be alone in suffering, in the upper ones, joined in
companionship.
Yet even this experience of communion paled by comparison with the essen-
tial experience of heaven, the Beatific Vision, the soul’s experience of absolute
encounter with God (Russell 1997, 5). In assuring medieval Christians of the
possibility of seeing God face to face, Aquinas (Summa Theologica 1.12) refers to
biblical authority: “We shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2) and “For now we see
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the four-
teenth century a significant controversy arose when Pope John XXII (1316–1334)
opined that souls would not enjoy the Beatific Vision until after the Last Judg-
ment. John’s views were not supported by the College of Cardinals, and his
successor Benedict XII (1334–1342) issued the constitution Benedictus Deus
(1336), which asserted that the experience was not reserved until after Judgment
Day. Indeed, medieval visionaries sometimes describe glimpsing the beatific
experience during their time in the otherworld, but each is barred from it, often
quite emphatically, before they are returned to their earthly lives. They clearly
indicate, however, that the blessed souls they encounter in heaven are admitted
to the presence of the divine and the experience of God, face to face.
In addition to the Beatific Vision, according the some medieval mystics like
Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1207–1282), heaven was also the place of another
type of experience of the divine: the beatific or mystical union. Those who look to
participate in a mystical union with God prepare throughout their lives on earth.
Although they might briefly experience in this life the union that they seek, in the
next life they will participate fully in the divine. Mechthild explains in her Flowing

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672 Eileen Gardiner
Light of the Godhead how this union, described in unabashedly erotic language,
is reserved for the purest of virgins, of which she is one (McDannell and Lang
2001, 100–02; Classen 2010).
The tension between an anthropocentric and a theocentric heaven existed
even in medieval Christianity (McDannell and Lang 2001, 78). Augustine himself
modified his views on this subject over the course of his long and varied life.
Initially presenting a view in the City of God that our human relations would play
no part in our heavenly experiences, which would be focused exclusively on a
knowledge of God, he later, in his letters and his Retractions, allowed for resur-
rected bodies united with their souls who would recognize and enjoy the shared
experience of heaven with friends and relations. St. Ambrose (ca. 340–397),
bishop of Milan, in On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus, certainly expressed the
hope for reunion with his family in the afterlife. The Franciscan theologian
St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) and the Augustinian philosopher Giles of Rome (ca.
1242–1316) were firm believers in friendship in heaven and even a social aspect to
existence there. Aquinas, however, maintained that God alone was the source of
heavenly bliss, although even he mitigated this position, acknowledging that
one could join in the enjoyment of others participating in the Beatific Vision. In
contrast to such theologians, the otherworld visions themselves are, on the
whole, unconcerned with souls being reunited with their earthly associates. In
the Vision of Charles the Fat, the meeting of relatives is intrinsic to the story, which
involves the fate of ancestors and succession to the throne. In others, the vision-
ary may recognize a famous king or bishop, as Tundale does, but these are seldom
presented as personally rewarding reunions. The evidence indicates that knowl-
edge of God and the promise of his love were the essential elements of the eternal
city.
F Conclusion
The variety of surviving material—textual and visual—over the long period of the
Middle Ages presents a complex, sometimes contradictory, picture of the other-
world. Although sculptural and fresco cycles have always been assumed to
embrace the Last Judgment as the grand Christian subject, suitable for monumen-
tal cathedral decoration, it is possible to hazard the conclusion based on a wide
variety of textual sources, that in the Middle Ages concern focused instead on the
fate of the individual after Particular Judgment at the moment of death. Where did
it travel, how did it endure punishment in an infernal region, how was it rewarded
in a paradisiacal or heavenly realm, whom did it encounter, what would be its
fate over time? There appears to be little concern about the larger Christian

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community or even about smaller, individual religious communities. The other-

world system of justice, with its degrees of punishment and reward, were focused
on the individual and its earthly record. The truly bad would receive the full
impact of punishment, the truly blessed would enjoy the Beatific Vision, and
those who ranked between these two were given time—time in the afterlife—to
progress toward salvation. Questions regarding the nature of the soul and the
resurrected body, the nature of fire and the location of the otherworld were all
aspects of the concern for the fate of the individual, rather than the political
concerns that were paramount in Jewish and earlier Christian thinking about the
otherworld. Except for noteworthy apocalyptic prophets, such as Ekkehard of
Aura (d. 1126), Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202), and Jacopone da Todi (ca. 1230–
1306), the end of time, the Last Judgment, and the fate of the Christian community
received little attention. The reward or punishment of individual Christians after
death in a multi-dimensional otherworld seems to have monopolized the atten-
tion of medieval culture.
Select Bibliography
Bernstein, Alan E., The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian
Worlds (Ithaca, NY, 1993).
Le Goff, Jacques, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Paris 1981; Chicago 1984).
McDannell, Colleen and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History (New Haven, CT, 2001).
Moreira, Isabel, Heaven’s Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2010).
Scafi, Alessandro, Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth (Chicago 2006).

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Cynthia Jenéy
Horses and Equitation
A The Horse in Medieval Society

Horses were once so common in everyday life that people in all walks of life, all
across Eurasia were familiar with them. The English language teems with figura-
tive expressions, metaphors, and truisms that reference humankind’s close asso-
ciation with the horse. “Rein in your desires,” “get up on your high horse, “get off
on the wrong foot,” “hold your horses,” “champ at the bit,” “rarin’ to go,” and so
on—all are centuries-old references to horse handling and riding which carry
images and experience-driven perceptions very much alive in horse-mounted
cultures. Horses made possible the swift transport of humans, goods, and mes-
sages over long distances and rough terrain. Although teams of oxen were reliable
for moving heavy loads at a steady pace, over time they were relegated to pulling
large heavy carts called plaustra for short distances and local hauls, while horses
would leap, plunge, swim, gallop, climb, and trot willingly through all but the
most extreme conditions. Horses moved migratory civilizations across continents,
charged into battles, swept so-called barbarians both away from and into the
middle of Rome’s marching legions. In the Middle Ages most of the city-states of
Europe and the Middle East had some equivalent of heavy or light cavalry elite
troops, either natively trained and equipped, or hired as mercenaries. Horses were
employed in agriculture for harrowing, plowing, carting, riding, packing, and
even milking. Horses were used for sport in the hunt, racing, and of course, the
wildly popular tournaments. The archeological record regarding variety in size,
color, and build (usually referred to as “conformation”) must be relied upon more
heavily than artistic representations, for with few exceptions, those surviving
representational works of art depicting the horse (i.e., the Gallen Psalter, the
Bayeux Tapestry, and Luttrell Psalter) are disproportionate and ill-designed,
especially when compared with the exquisite artistry of the classical period (cf.
the Parthenon friezes, the statue of Marcus Aurelius in Campidoglio, Rome) and
the early modern artistry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Seidel 1988).
A certain amount of experience with equines is best for the study of the
history of the horse (the animal’s basic nature and physiology remain the same
today as in centuries past), it is also true that modern equestrians can benefit from
knowledge of horses in the historical record.
It is common to claim that horses in the Middle Ages were smaller than
modern horses because of articulated remains found in burial sites. However,

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such claims are not necessarily informed by the full picture of the working horse
in most cultures. Twenty-first century horses are primarily kept for competitive
sport and recreation, and often the horses appearing in the popular media of
developed countries are those bred for racing, jumping, and three-day eventing:
sports that feature ground-covering power and sweeping strides. Horses used in
modern farming are often visually depicted as the massive Belgian and Shire draft
horses developed in the early modern period, and widely in use through the
nineteenth century. But a look beyond this surface exposure in technologically
post-equine cultures reveals that the working animals throughout the world, with
the exception of draft and cavalry horses developed during the seventeenth to
nineteenth centuries, are mostly of unassuming size. Consider, too, the thousands
of ponies and donkeys used in the mines of Wales, some standing barely ten
hands at the withers, most never seeing daylight until retirement. Some were born,
raised, and trained underground, working their whole lives there, never seeing a
pasture or the sun. If the average height of most humans during the Middle Ages
was shorter than modern people, the height of the average utility horse would,
appropriately, be shorter as well, if only to facilitate ease of mounting, dismount-
ing, and overall handling. The modern Icelandic Horse and Norwegian Fjord are
typical smooth-gaited animals of moderate stature (averaging fourteen to fourteen
and a half hands; one hand equals four inches), with gentle personalities and
great stamina; historians seem to currently assess these breeds as paradigmatic of
the medieval palfrey, a term used in reference to high-value riding horses.
In the Middle Ages attitudes toward the horse ranged along a continuum,
from bonds of affection between humans and the “noble beast” at one extreme, to
a mechanistic utilitarianism regarding the “beast of burden” or even meat-on-the-
hoof at the other end. Then as now, people whose lives were closely entwined
with the horse—as messengers, hunters, breeders, stud marshals, farriers, trai-
ners, farmers, cart drivers, knights, squires, and caretakers—understood that the
phrase “to go on horseback” was a phrase that implied a substantial amount of
infrastructure and resource management. At least 1,050 terms related to horses
and horsemanship were collected in the 1930’s and 1940’s among Bedouin Arab
tribes in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Transjordania, and the provinces of Hejaz, Nejd, and
Qasīm (Raswan 1945, 97–129). In his thirteenth-century Book of Knighthood and
Chivalry (ca. 1275), the soldier and scholar Ramon Llull declared that God, having
created the knight as the best among men, had then provided for him the cheval
(Fr. “horse”) making him the chevalier, or knight. “Thus the most noble man is
given the most noble beast” (Llull 2009, 16).
From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries animals in general gradually
moved from loose management in the forests, where horses and pigs often roamed,
to the more structured life of the farm, and from there to the city markets (and

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sometimes slaughterhouses) as urban development grew, and the horse became a

regular form of urban transport. One thing that is certain about horses in the
Middle Ages is that the nature, physiology, common size range, and dietary needs
were identical to the horse of the twenty-first century. Initially a difficult asset to
maintain outside of military use, the horse became a part of everyday life, plowing,
harrowing, carrying packs over rough terrain, and pulling carts in and out of town
(Pascua 2011, 81–82). By Chaucer’s time, cities such as London realized that as
populations of people became concentrated, so, too, had concentrations of civili-
zation’s byproducts, not the least of which was manure. Between 1372 and 1382,
twelve carts (bought and assigned for use by London’s City rakers in carting away
rubbish in ten of the City’s wards) had two horses each. The carts and horses were
purchased at rather substantial total cost of £48 6s. 8d. (Clark 2004a, 10).
B Early Domestication
Equus Caballus, the horse, shared with the dog and cat its early domestication for
purposes other than food long before its arrival in Europe. Horses had already
been domesticated through selective breeding by nomadic tribes in the mountains
and steppes of central Eurasia for use in mounted warfare, hunting, packing,
and pulling (Bendrey, et. al. 2009, 1332). Equus ferus, the wild progenitor of the
domestic horse, was hunted by humans for food throughout Europe and Asia
approximately 160,000 years ago, but is now extinct (Warmuth, et. al. 2012,
8202). Until recent genetic research, it was assumed that variety in the size, color,
and conformation of horses was primarily developed through selective breeding
by humans. Yet recent studies of mitochondrial DNA indicate early (predomestica-
tion) diversity of haplotypes. Thus, the great variety of genotypes and phenotypes
in horses of the Middle Ages was brought about not, as was once thought, by the
breeding practices of ancient tribes such as the Scythians, but genetic evidence
indicates that the horse already had diversified in size, conformation, bone
structure, and color before 5500 B.C.E. (Cieslak, et. al. 2010). Genetic research and
reconstruction also shows that breeding practices of the early equestrian steppe
cultures incorporated frequent replenishment from wild herds. Domestic stock
were often replenished from herds of wild mares, though high levels of diversity in
mitochondrial DNA combined with lower variance in the Y-chromosomal features
indicate that the pool of stallions used for herd development was much smaller,
for unknown reasons, than that of females (Warmuth, et. al. 2012, 8204). Thus, the
variations in genetic alleles actually diminished as a result of domestication.
Eventually these early equestrians of the western steppe regions were re-
placed by the Xiongnu, Wusun, and Sarmatians around 200 B.C.E., and disap-

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peared altogether. However, their rich, nomadic, horse-mounted culture has left
behind evidence of their advances in horsemanship in the kurgans, or frozen
burial mounds found in the Altai Mountain range which spreads across China,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and the Russian Federation (Matsuura 2012, 9). The
domesticated horse, then, most probably was ridden into Europe, the Mediterra-
nean, and the Middle East sometime between 3500 and 1200 B.C.E., probably
under saddle, most definitely already tamed. About 1700 B.C.E. the Hyksos, or
“Shepherd Kings,” overran the Egyptian empire in the Nile Valley, with their
version of the shock and awe weapon of terror: the two-horse chariot. Eventually
the Egyptians mastered this same weapon, and with the rise of their New Empire
(ca. 1500 B.C.E.) the chariot corps became their military élites of the regular army
(Brereton 1976, 13).
C The Horse in the Classical World: Macedonia,

Greece, and Rome
Included among the writings of the famed Athenian historian, soldier, and states-
man Xenophon (fourth century B.C.E.) were two equestrian treatises: On Horse-
manship (Περὶ ἱππικῆς) and The Cavalry Commander (Ἱππαρχικὸς). The treatise on
horsemanship provides timeless advice on the selection, purchase, training, and
riding of excellent horses, while the cavalry treatise focuses upon the qualities
and skills necessary to command units of cavalry, both in wartime, and in times
of peace and pageantry. Xenophon’s work remained by far the most influential
text on horses and horsemanship in the Classical world, and then later in the
medieval world; manuscripts from the thirteenth century existed in Italy, and it
was translated into Latin in the early sixteenth century (Davis 1989, 110). Xeno-
phon’s advice was and is invaluable and humane. First, even before the horses for
one’s army have been selected and purchased, it is imperative that sufficient
amounts and good quality feed will be made available, for cavalry horses are
hard-working animals. Then the commander may proceed to find the best animals
for the job. Modern readers might find it surprising that the paramount require-
ment in the selection of young war horses is obedience: “You must see that they
are docile, because disobedient animals assist the enemy more than their own
side” (Xenophon 1971b, 235). Both treatises cover technical information on the
rider’s ability to handle his horse on the ground and on his back. Xenophon
insists that visual as well as auditory signals must be learned so that riders can
cue lead changes, gait changes, halts, and rehearsed patterns under any condi-
tions, and on all kinds of footing. The rider must be aware that a young horse who

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obeys calmly on the practice ground may react differently in conflict situations,
which is why “sham fights” and other practice maneuvers must be held with some
regularity (Xenophon 1971b, 265–69).
Quite possibly the most famous horse known to history is Bucephalus (Βου-
κέφαλος), the legendary chosen mount of Alexander the Great. Alexander, born a
year or two before the death of Xenophon (in either Corinth or Athens), notor-
iously rode Bucephalus throughout many of his campaigns. According to ancient
accounts by Arrian and Plutarch (second century C.E.), Alexander’s father, Philip
of Macedon, refused to buy the spirited horse even at a bargain price, because the
horse kept rearing and refused to be ridden. An adolescent Alexander, however,
struck a bargain with his father to buy the horse for him if he could ride
Bucephalus. Turning the horse into the sun, for he had noticed the horse seemed
to be afraid of his shadow dancing in front of him, Alexander led the horse about
until he calmed down, then leapt upon his back and rode him at a gallop for a
good distance, as the king and his men looked on. Wheeling about, he rode his
new horse back again, whereupon Philip proclaimed his own kingdom too small
for this young warrior in the making. Bucephalus is said to have died at the ripe
old age of 30 of strain and heat exhaustion after the battle of the Hydaspes river,
against Porus (326 B.C.E.) (Arrian 1814, 38; Plutarch 1906, 75).
Roman military tradition did not at first incorporate large numbers of
mounted cavalry. The Romans did, however, employ dispatch riders who wore
paths along the softer edges of the famous paved Roman roads. Couriers were
strategically placed and supplied with remounts, which was not a novel idea: the
Assyrians and Persians had developed such systems, and Augustus imitated
these systems, establishing a postal service for Rome (Hyland 1990, 251). Faced
with highly skilled “barbarian” enemies who attacked on horseback, however,
Roman commanders realized the value of mounted archers and organized ca-
valry. One of the often referenced victories of European mounted warfare is
the defeat of Roman infantry legions by Gothic mounted troops at Adrianople in
C.E. 378.
Well-bred mules were prized by Romans, and a good riding mule could set
the owner back the price of a house (Hyland 1990, 240). In Roman culture horses
were not commonly used for food except in extreme instances of famine or
unforeseen hardship; however, byproducts included horse hair used for rope or
helmet crests, hides for leather goods, and the hooves as sturdy, small receptacles
such as might be found in a medicine kit (Hyland, 1990, 249). There is little
archeological evidence that horses were consumed as meat in Roman Britain; in
London only 1% or less of identifiable bones from the Roman period are from
horses (Rackham 1995, 20). Evidence from archeological digs in Wales from the
fifth to eighth centuries indicates that beef, pork, and mutton were commonly

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consumed, wildfowl less often, and venison occasionally; but the horse was not
eaten (Alcock 1987, 33). Slaughtering and tanning horses within the city walls of
fourteenth-century London was prohibited by law, though complaints were made
against tanners who seemed to be violating the statutes (Rackham 1995, 20).
D The Horse in the Middle Ages

Archeological burial sites in Anglo-Saxon England dated from the sixth century
contain both human and articulated (whole) harnessed horse skeletons. Such
sites appear influenced by the same practice which appears to have been much
more common on the Continent. In Anglo-Saxon burial sites from the early
seventh-century horse and human are buried separately (Fern 2005, 43–44). Such
graves or barrows show evidence of martial burial rites, with horse and human
buried either together or separately, the harness later found in human burial sites
without horse skeletons, possibly to indicate equestrian martial expertise or
status. Equestrian burial sites from the sixth and seventh centuries indicate the
cheek-ring snaffle bit as the most common in use during the Roman and Anglo-
Saxon periods (Fern 2005, 47). The small number of sacrificed horses in England
would seem to indicate that the number of prized riding horses was limited and
precious, and the island’s people hesitant to waste such a valuable resource on
burial rites, even for revered persons.
By the end of the Middle Ages the horse was such a common element of both
rural and urban life that even members of the lowliest economic strata of society
were familiar with at least the basics of horse-handling. Unlike automobiles,
which can be simply parked in a designated space and left unattended, horses
must be tended both before and after a ride. An animal ridden to a heavy sweat
(or “lather”), much like human athletes, will “tie up,” experiencing severe muscle
cramping if simply left to stand. A strong gallop, whether for sport or on urgent
business, would necessitate handing off one’s horse to a page, servant, or simply
an entrepreneurial freelancer, who would lead the animal to the “park,” an
enclosed holding area designated for the purpose. The animal would be lightly
watered, walked until cooled out, groomed, and fed if necessary. Should the
owner be merely stopping in for a brief span of minutes or hours, the horse would
be walked about, watered, and held at the ready. Frequent instances of six-penny
tips for horse-holding, and more importantly horse-walking, appear in household
accounts of such powerful families as the Cecils at Hatfield (ca. 1608) who upheld
a maxim of curat de minimis: “caring for the least” (Dent 1987, 2). Then as now,
the privileged would operate upon varying levels of care and responsibility for
their own livestock, often tossing coins to members of the less privileged social

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groups to serve the needs of expensive and perhaps finicky beasts. However, as
good horses are difficult to replace, being raised, trained, and maintained rather
than manufactured, it would always be in the rider’s best interest to provide
sensible care, and the infrastructure supporting the horse within medieval Eur-
opean cultures evolved to occupy a rather large space in many of its economies.
Obviously, minimal standards of breeding, feed, care, and training varied
from region to region, from culture to culture, and even from individual to
individual. But the overall general rule of thumb would prevail throughout the
horsed world, from early horse-keeping Scythian tribes of Southern Siberia in the
late ninth century B.C.E. (Parzinger 2012, 19), to the modern, twenty-first century
elite, high-tech worlds of racing and other equestrian sports: “No legs, no horse.”
The more informed and meticulous the animal’s care, the more one can rely upon
the animal to perform physical tasks within human spheres of endeavor. Where
horses were cheap and plentiful, their labor might be exploited and treated as
expendable; however, this is rarely the case in Europe of the Middle Ages. For
even in regions where horse breeding became a major endeavor, there was still a
substantial difference between the tough, technically feral animals running about
free in forests, glens, and hills, and the good-sized horses endowed with the
potential of providing plow, harrow, cart, coach, and riding traction. In addition,
requirements of soundness, wind, and training would add to, or detract from, the
value of any given horse.
While today’s historian may find the intricacies of horses and horsemanship
a daunting body of knowledge, it should be kept in mind that the average person
from any level in society—perhaps not all, but a substantial percentage of the
population—would at least have an enculturated, rudimentary knowledge of the
basics, such as where to stand in relation to a horse, how to halter, lead, tack, and
groom, and at least in the case of the privileged landowners and knighted
nobility, how to ride different kinds of highly schooled horses for different
purposes.
E Horse Types
Documents from the middle ages classify horses into “types” which are listed
below. It is important, however, to understand that these “types” are not breeds,
nor do they indicate phenotypes or genotypes within the species equus caballus.
Rather, they are terms used for purposes of accounting, appraisal, bookkeeping,
taxation, and reimbursements (such as the restauro equorum implemented by
Edward III of England, ca. 1282) (Prince 1940, 337). Naturally a typical freeholder
or tenant farmer would wish a horse appraisal to be lowballed when taxes were

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calculated, and high-ended when suing for replacement of, or reimbursement for,
a lost animal. Thus it should not confuse the reader to encounter the appearance
of such terms as caballus, a generic Latin term for “horse” and runcinus (“roun-
cey”), an equally general term for a typical all-purpose equine. It is certain that
many horses performed multiple tasks, depending upon their training and overall
conformation, temperament, size, and soundness. While a destrier—the grandly
schooled military stallion ridden by armed and armored knights—might be a
specialty animal costing easily the price of an entire farm or manor house, a
common working family would have little or no use for such a beast. Likewise it is
not surprising that such “lowly” animals as cart horses, plow horses, and the
versatile rounceys would receive little or no mention in epic and romance poetry
of the high Middle Ages, except to reflect the bucolic or common status of its rider.
In the heroic and idealized world of chivalric adventures, ladies and well-heeled
clerics would ride elegant palfreys or mules, while a knight would be depicted
(unrealistically) always traveling, if not fully armored, at least mounted on his
warhorse and carrying his sword.
The practical realities of pre-industrial, equestrian powered societies are not
so sleek and clear cut as the romances and chronicles would have us envision
them to be. Even the complexities of taxation, adjudication and bookkeeping
shown in the accounts and rolls of meticulous clerks in medieval England cannot
paint a satisfactory picture of the daily roles filled by thousands of horses in
medieval Europe. For purposes of sorting through the business of horsemanship
and equine management, it is helpful to be familiar with categories used in
documents:
Affrus, affra, afrus, afra, etc., anglicized as “affer,” Stottus, “stott,” is a

demesne or peasant work-horse, especially during the period from 1250 to
1400. It could be either a male or female animal; sometimes interpreted as a
term applicable to oxen and donkeys as well. However, there is apparently
little evidence to indicate that they were anything other than horses. Toward
the end of the fifteenth century “stottus” came to mean oxen or steers.
Animal is a term usually used in Domesday (ca. 1286) to refer to non-working
livestock including, but not limited to, horses.
Averium refers to livestock in general, commonly used in reference to heriot
(a kind of tribute paid to the demesne lord upon the death of a tenant).
Averus, avera, averius, averia, avrus, avra, etc., anglicized as “aver”—probably
a grammatical forerunner of the term affrus (or affra); because of the similarity
to the term “averium” (general livestock) before 1250 the term sometimes
caused confusion in the identification of animals in documents. After 1250
the term “affer” may have come into use to eliminate the confusion.

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Caballus was a term in classical Latin used in reference to an inferior class of

riding or pack-horse, although in the medieval period it seems to have had
the more general meaning of work-horse.
Carectarius, carretarius is a cart horse; often seen in documents less ambigu-
ously as equus carectarius. It is impossible to overestimate the value of this
unassuming creature. Cart horses, along with oxen, moved the goods, ser-
vices, treasures, grains, and fertilizers of most Eurasian civilizations, either in
short, connected stages or routes, or for extended journeys.
Hercatorius, hercarius, hercharius, occatorius, occator “hercator” is a harrow-
ing horse, often less ambiguously given as equus hercatorius or equus
occarius. For centuries teams of stout, low-built oxen were tasked with
plowing dense, clay-packed earth, while a harrow, pulled by a single horse
or team of horses followed behind, breaking up the clumps and forming
rows to be seeded.
Jumentum (pl. jumenta)—usually mares serving as combination breeding- and
working-stock.
Runcinus—a rouncey, the common term for horses found in the Domesday
survey. While some historians quibble, it seems safe to assume that the
rouncey was primarily an all-around, modestly sized, hardy working horse,
used for riding, harrowing, plowing, packing, and cart pulling. After Domes-
day, runcini are infrequently found among demesne or peasant stock listings,
and gradually they seem to have come to represent a class of riding animals
only. Often references to early mounted archers refer to their small-sized
horses as rounceys, but it is likely this classification refers not to their size,
speed or breeding, but to their basic level of training in comparison to the
highly schooled destrier.
Summarius, “sumpter” refers to a pack-horse, and is frequently listed in
documents recording the stock servicing a noble or ecclesiastic household.
Courser, or hunter, a swift and agile horse used for the hunt, racing, dis-
patches, and in some cases harrying and foraging, even formal mounted raids
(chevauchée).
Palefridus or “palfrey,” was usually a very fine and extremely expensive
riding horse, bred for a smooth-gaited way of going that anybody could sit
on.
Destrier, dextrarius, grant chival, or “great horse,” often called “steed,” or
simply “horse” refers to the warhorse, a horse trained and ridden for battle,
and is also used to refer to jousting horses; gradually as the tournaments
evolved from chaotic mêlée to the hastiludes featuring the one-on-one joust-
ing contests, the jousting-horse became separate from the horse ridden into
actual battle.

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Mules are an F1 hybrid produced by mating a female horse with a male

donkey. The mule was a valuable, intelligent, and versatile animal, capable
of taking on many, if (arguably) not all of the above roles.
(Davis 1989, 135–38; Langdon 1986, 293–97)
Other horses, such as the hobyn or “hobby” horse, and Spanish jennet (riding
horse), are less familiar general categories into which modern footnotes classify
what was, in actuality, a huge variety of equine breeds, cross-breeds, types, and
“grade” horses (animals produced with no real breeding plan in mind). The work
of equine historian Ann Hyland (1990; 1994; 1997; 1999; 2003) documents and
narrates the depth, complexity, and breadth of the history of horses and horse-
keeping among civilizations in the West, the Middle East, and the Far East.
F Work Horses
Unlike the military-style burial sites in which war-clad human skeletons are
buried with or near only one or a small number of horses, a large number of
mysterious sixth and seventh-century mass burials of cremated horses unearthed
in England suggest non-ceremonial status, containing little or no evidence of
harness or riding tack (Fern 2005, 46). While this may be an indicator of the more
humble status of these horses as plow or cart animals, these animals would be no
less valued by their non-military, less wealthy owners, and would hardly have
been subject to mass killing unless part of a pillaging spree or large-scale death
by disease such as an outbreak of “murrain,” a catch-all term for any and all
deadly livestock diseases, such as anthrax, glanders, and strangles.
One indication of the relative costs of keeping oxen versus horses for plowing
and hauling is the effect of famine on the purchase price. The price of oxen rose
steeply in 1315–1316, while the price of plow and cart horses, animals harder to
keep without sufficient stores of grain and fodder, plunged dramatically (Ker-
shaw 1976, 92). Because ownership of the horse requires a commitment of steady
resources, in poor economic times the horse becomes less attractive as a com-
modity.
Messenger horses were a common expense of noble and royal households.
In fourteenth-century England messengers were equipped with spurs, letter
pouches, and baskets for carrying small packages, but were responsible for
providing their own horses. While the king could choose to provide a replacement
mount to a messenger upon the loss or injury of a horse, the distinction was noted
as a “gift” in the household accounts—not as an ongoing privilege of the courier’s
position. Even the miserly Edward I (r. 1272–1307) was willing to replace horses

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lost or killed in service (Hill 1961, 39; 41). A messenger, while not as high-ranking
as an envoy, would occupy “a position of comfortable mediocrity among the king’s
servants” (Hill 1961, 21). While modern film and American romanticized images of
the “pony express” style of mounted couriers prefer to conjure images of spirited
horses sweeping across wild landscapes at breakneck speeds, the typical royal or
noble messenger would trot briskly from the household on his fresh horse, but
soon settle into a sensible walk for routine deliveries, either for local or medium
distances. Lodging for courier and horse would be either billed to the lord’s house-
hold accounts, or if not, the messenger would be reimbursed upon his return to the
court or manor of his employ. Some records indicate that on routine trips the
messenger might be accompanied by his groom. Rarely would a king’s messenger
ride at night, except in cases of extreme urgency. Should a message require speed,
the courier would be “riding post”—not relying on his own horse, but either hiring
additional horses en route, or switching mounts at posting stations maintained by
the crown for the purpose along the way (Hill 1961, 108–09). Accounts in the
thirteenth century indicate that six or seven grooms were shared by a dozen or so
messengers, and that grooms working for archers, officials, and messengers were
entitled to receive clothing and food (Hill 1961, 43–45).
Pack horses, or sumpters, despite the Roman history of legislating the
weights and workdays, were throughout history abused and often over-laden.
Horses belonging to Henry II’s household (r. 1154–1189), for example, were often
made to wait, standing for hours under heavy loads, as the king failed to adhere
to scheduled departure times (Gladitz 1997, 156). Unlike the riding horse, whose
rider would generally dismount for periods of rest and refreshment, the pack
animals would often bear their loads for most if not all of the traveling time. Good
sumpters were valuable animals, sure-footed, docile, moving at smooth, calm
paces, and halting quietly should their loads shift or even slide off to one side,
waiting for a handler to adjust and re-balance the packs. Often such a halt would
require that other animals in the train understand and halt as well, waiting
patiently until girths were tightened and loads redistributed. Obviously, less
weight could be carried on the backs of horses than could be hauled by cartload.
However, crumbling roads, bad weather, and swollen waterways are better
handled by hooves than by wheels.
Horses bred for riding included hunters, coursers, palfreys, hobbies, roun-
ceys, and amblers. Some horses were trained to bear horse-litters, a rig with a
chair or lounge unit, held by a pair of poles with a horse in front and one behind,
both horses led by careful handlers. For the best and smoothest ride an “ambling”
palfrey, or gaited horse, would be preferred. Traditional breeds such as the
Icelandic Horse and the Fjord would be strong, sturdy, short but stocky mounts
with a smooth, rapid trotting gait that is comfortable to sit on, easy for the horse

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to maintain for long stretches of time, and relatively swift and ground-covering.
While some women are pictured riding in side-facing saddle “chairs,” these
would have been used specifically for transporting the well-dressed lady, and the
horse, preferably an elegant Spanish jennet, was led by a groom or squire.
Typically when riding, however, women in the Middle Ages rode astride, and it
was not unheard of for noblewomen to ride into battle (McLaughlin 1990, 196 ff.).
The most famous exception, a woman riding like a man into battle, was, of
course, Joan of Arc (ca. 1412–1431)
G Horse Breeding and Development

By the eighth and ninth centuries, Frankish records show that stud management
was a concern. Already it was broadly understood that agriculture in general, and
specifically crop management, had a direct bearing on the ability of a landowner
to produce the proper amount of herbiage and wealth to purchase, manage, and
maintain proper mounts for military use (Hyland 1994, 62). Management of
breeding facilities was in the hands of professional stablemen who were paid in
land and status, as well as salaries, sometimes in the form of pigs (the most
popular food animals in medieval Europe). Such men were tasked with selecting
building sites for stables, deciding on the number and types of horses to be kept
and bred, purchasing feed and equipment, and supervision of grooms and other
workers. Many of these managers had to know when and how to rotate herds,
how to manage grazing areas across the seasons, and perhaps most critically,
strategies for controlling and preventing outbreaks of horse ailments and para-
sites (Hyland 1994, 62–63).
In Britain, the breeding of war horses became a royal concern. Stallions of
high quality were moved from stud to stud, to cover choice mares in hopes of
producing the size, temperament, talent, and fire required of the destrier, or war
horse, suitable for a noble to ride into battle or in the hastiludes (tournaments). In
1326 royal mares were covered by stallions brought in from Merton in Surrey, and
from Tutbury in Staffordshire, according to a program devised apparently by
Edward I (Dent 1987, 116).
Detailed records maintained by John de Neusom, one of Edward III’s horse
keepers, shows that the annual budget, including hay, oats, bread, grass (bought
and cut), litter, carting, shoeing, fuel, candles, tallow, powder, medicine, reins,
harness, cloth, wages (of Neusom, shoers, provisor, and 31 boys), and robes for
Neusom and others totaled £328 1s. 4 ½ d.—a substantial fortune. Records kept by
horse keepers also allow insights into early veterinary practices. Medicinal sup-
plies in the horse keeping accounts include ‘turmentyn’ (turpentine), honey, lard,

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tallow, incense, olive oil, galantyn powders, plasters, ginger, and alabaster oint-
ments. The recroigne was a hospital maintained for old and worn-out horses; a
special roll of honor was kept for horses dead in the king’s service (Neilson 1940,
440). Neusom’s keepers and stud marshals were commonly handling (and being
billed for) substantial sums of money. Mares, foals, and stallions were moved
from place to place, apparently at some point in an attempt to remove healthy
animals during outbreaks of deadly murrain (Neilson 1940, 437–43).
H Care and Feeding

Working horses held in domestic circumstances must be provided with grains and
fodder in addition to baled hay or even rich spring grasses. Their bodies are not as
efficient as those of oxen, and in order to replenish the calories expended in
hauling, packing, plowing or carrying a rider additional protein and supplemen-
tal nutrition is a must. Clover, both in meadows for free grazing and cut, dried,
and baled as hay was and is considered a high quality basic for the horse’s diet.
Meadows for grazing were either in drier upland areas or low-lying wetter ground
along river banks (Thirsk 1990, 33). Feed grain, in many regions easy to obtain at
reasonable prices (except in times of draught or other climatically disastrous
conditions) was sold in weights and measures no longer familiar to us, and
indeed, often such amounts as “gallons,” “stones,” “bushels,” and “quarters”
varied from region to region, as did monetary values and standards; These
measures also changed over time. Horses were fed oats, as well as peas and beans
(dried and crushed), rye, and barley, either loose or baked in various combina-
tions into loaves of “horsebread” by the “brownbaker” (Dent 1987, 162). Horses
could be relied upon to travel for some distance, for days at a time in reasonable
weather with minimal water and only surrounding grasses and browse for nutri-
tion, but not for periods exceeding a few days. Traveling long distances on horse-
back would necessitate either packing grains or purchasing sufficient feed from
towns and farms along the way. Large groups traveling along less-populated
roadways would need to plan for sufficient caloric replacement and clean water.
Small groups or individuals such as couriers and messengers could stop at inns or
posts along the way, and although this seems a great hardship, with the exception
of large armies, which moved through farmlands and villages like locust, fora-
ging, purchasing, and pillaging along the way, most relatively stable commu-
nities were, barring famine or plague, well provisioned for regular equestrian care
and lodging. The roadside “travis,” a structure used by farriers to hold horses
while shoeing, was a necessity that all would recognize, for to neglect the hoof is
to lose the horse. Archeological finds in and around Roman London indicate

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horses were shod in a manner identical to modern horseshoeing (Clark 2004b,

75–101).
I Horse Thegns and the Marshalcy

The management and maintenance of noble and royal horses was from early
post-Roman times and all through the Middle Ages a task that would tend to carry
with it rank, privilege, money, and power. Four principle officers of the Anglo-
Saxon court were the bed thegn (later the chamberlain), the disc thegn (steward),
the butler (“bottler,” or supervisor of the cup-bearers), and the horse thegn, who
supervised the stables. Bede’s chronicle in 730 notes that these were the ministry
regis, men of wisdom and experience who advised the king and themselves held
positions of trust and responsibility in their own districts (Reese 1976, 22). The
horse thegn, not merely a stable-manager but a trusted warrior and counselor,
would be responsible for developing studs and for eventually overseeing the
agricultural and technological infrastructure necessary to keep mounted warriors
in the field. In the ninth century armed horsemen had become vital to the defense
of England against Viking invaders. Alfred the Great’s (C.E. 871–899) laws held
that the theft of a stud horse was equal to theft of gold; during the rule of
Athelstan (C.E. 924–939) law prohibited the sale of native horses overseas so as
not to deplete the stock. For Anglo Saxon England, the horse was mandated as a
necessity for almost every walk of life, and those who owned or had access to
horses were required to join musters forming posses to search for criminals (Reese
1976, 25). With the Norman court in England came the office of the maréchal, a
traditional Frankish term for the farrier-veterinarian. This office was an early
forerunner of what was often referred to as the “Marshalsea,” and persists up
until the modern royal Master of the Horse, a title created in the fourteenth
century (Reese 1976, 34). The rolls of the late thirteenth century contain multiple
entries naming Ellis of Rochester, the King’s Farrier, or Sergeant, or Keeper, and
lastly, Master of the King’s Horses, whose job included purchasing and selling
royal horses, procuring harness, buying saddles, securing equipment and accom-
modations for royal horses, and arranging payments for chargers and palfreys for
an Easter festival, outfitting horses for the king’s son, and hiring smiths for the
king’s horses to be shod while away from the court (Reese 1976, 46).
During the fourteenth century the Marshalsea was an administrative office
responsible for arranging accommodations for the king’s own horses, no easy job
when the retinue was on the move. The chief clerk of the marshalsea was tasked
with payment of wages, accounts of hay, oats, litter, harness, carts and most other
necessities of horsekeeping, including livery (Johnson 1940, 212). When kings and

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large households took the show on the road, so to speak, the marshals were
working around the clock to coordinate both horses and the staff required to tend
them in sometimes staggering numbers.
J Knighthood and the Warhorse

It is difficult to recount in any accurate manner the tactics of medieval mounted
warfare. Chronicles tend to exaggerate numbers, with regard to both the size of
armies engaged in combat, and the numbers of casualties. Battle poetry tends to
focus on individual feats of bravery, often painting a chaotic picture of separate
man-to-man encounters on the battlefield (cf. thirteenth-century manuscript Y
Gododdin’s “Battle of Catraeth”; most clashes in Sir Thomas Malory’s fifteenth
century Morte D’Arthur). Any sense of organized fighting strategy, mounted or
otherwise, is less than complete, and often implied or colored with vague lan-
guage (Alcock 1987, 306).
In Germany the Latin sources of the Hohenstaufen Age (1000–1200 C.E.) give
the name ministeriales to knights. This term referred not only to a military role,
but also a social status, primarily of mounted fighting men. Lords could impose
fines upon families of this status. Sometimes these were heriots left unpaid by the
deceased, sometimes reliefs owed by the heir. The bishops of Bamburg, for
example, would only require payment, typically a hauberk or a horse, when fiefs
were inherited by indirect heirs. Few of these ministeriales were wealthy, and
finding suitable equipment, clothing, and horses was often a financial struggle.
Their lives were violent, often brutally so. These men lived in conditions far from
the image presented of courtly finery and manners depicted in famed European
romances; therefore a Count such as the legendary Dietrich would, as a practical
matter, task his young warriors’ fathers with provision of equipage and a horse,
with the lord often providing food for the young knight and fodder for his war
horse throughout the winter. When a family’s “best horse” was claimed as heriot
(death-tax), the family could ceremonially present the horse to bishop or lord,
then buy back the animal for a half-mark or an agreed-upon sum; in some cases
the cash alone would suffice (Arnold 1985, 24; 67; 84–85; 99).
There can be no doubt that the system of chivalry and knighthood that served
to fuse warrior status with social hierarchies in the Middle Ages had its origins in
Roman culture, where military accomplishments were often rewarded with land,
titles, political power, and wealth. As the Roman Empire shrank and gave way to
the various permutations and configurations of feudalism, the knight became a
more common fixture in European societies. However, rigidly defining his role
can be less than useful. The term “knight” derives from the Old English cniht, a

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term unhesitatingly applied to the fighting men who accompanied William I of

Normandy in the 1066 invasion of England. But “knights” in post-conquest Eng-
land were not necessarily all endowed with the same economic resources or social
status. Some were obviously rewarded with land and sufficient expenses to main-
tain the weaponry, equipment, armor, and horses needed to fulfill the role success-
fully—both at court and in military service. Others were not so well looked after by
their lords or their king. An eleventh-century knight in Britain may have been paid
as little as 30 s. to £2 in a year: a sum that might support his equipage but just
barely. And it would require that ongoing care and upkeep of horses needed on a
military campaign be covered by his ruling lord (Harvey 1976, 133–73).
By the late twelfth century, knights were, at least on occasion, set up with
particular fractions or percentages of income from sectors of land owned by a lord
or by the other substantive landholder of the Middle Ages: the church (Harvey
1976, 166). As the knight’s armor and weaponry increased in mass and weight
toward the end of the twelfth century, stronger, more heavily built horses were
needed to wear the heavy set of plate-armor—referred to in its entirety as “bard-
ing.” A war horse in full, late fifteenth-century barding would wear a chanfron
(chamfron, or shaffron), which protected the front of his face; a crineier (crinet),
made up of segmented plates that fit along the crest, protecting the top of the
horse’s neck; the crupper (croupiere) which attached to the back of the saddle,
rested along the top of the horse’s hindquarters and was held in place by a loop
under the tail; and the peytral, or chest-guard. Some horses were further protected
with mail which protected areas not covered by the metal plate armor (for exam-
ple, the lower half of the neck, or spaces between peytral and saddle). Finally, and
primarily for show during processions or demonstrations, the entire warhorse
might be draped in an elaborately embroidered and emblazoned fabric caparison,
typically decorated with any or all of the knight’s hereditary heraldic emblems.
Such elaborate equipment would need to be regularly cleaned and repaired,
the horses looked after, their care supervised, and their condition kept good
through regular schooling and exercise—a job best suited for a page or squire.
Full barding, added to the knight’s own armor, would also require several
sumpters, or pack horses, to carry it when the knight was on the move, whether
joining a muster for battle or on his way to a tournament. Typically he would need
at least five horses to set out with when called to war or en route to competition.
The thirteenth-century Règle de l’Ordre du Temple (ca. 1257–1268), a manual
created by and for the Knights Templar, describes management hierarchies that,
for less well-heeled knights whose primary ambition was the warrior life, must
have been a relief. Horses were bought and distributed by the Marshals, whose
duties were laid forth in detail in the Régle; horses were assigned to knights; a
knight could not request a specific horse (if he did so, he would be given one of

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the worst animals in the stables); the Marshal could be asked to replace a horse
that was a puller, a stopper, or a thrower; squires were organized and supervised
by a Confanonier (the standard-bearer); a knight who was assigned three horses
would need only one squire, or two squires if the Marshal saw fit to assign him
four horses. The Régle even establishes the specific pieces of clothing provided for
the knights (Upton-Ward 2008, 53; Bennet 1989, 7–20).
Discussion of medieval mounted warfare and jousting must always consider
the etymology of the common term for its elite horse: the destrier. From the Latin
dextrarius, the term can best be translated “adroit,” or “skilful”—a possible
reference to the ability of such horses to execute flying lead changes, sliding
halts, pirouettes, and half-passes on command. These were high-performance
horses in the best sense, equal to those of any modern equestrian sport. Able and
willing to pick up subtle cues from the rider’s aids—the hands, legs, and seat—the
destrier was bred to be submissive to his rider, while at the same time ferociously
athletic and seemingly fearless in carrying out commands during the racket and
din of battle.
Highly skilled, practiced, and maneuverable horses would bear all the traits
desired by William the Bastard and his mounted warriors whose harrying tactics
worked in such campaigns as those in the Domfront campaign of 1051. Offensive
strategies of mounted warfare frequently avoided pitched engagements, instead
implementing repeated patterns of shadowing and harassing, which required
“rapid movement, often with fairly small forces; it involved sudden attacks and
equally swift retreats” (Gillingham 1989, 154). While the lighter, faster courser
would be employed as a swift and ground-covering mount for reconnaissance,
the power and specialized maneuvers of the destrier would serve in the more
common war tactics of the medieval knight: raiding, harrying, pillaging, rava-
ging, and foraging while ravaging (Gillingham 1989, 148).
Such an exquisite animal would require a high degree of intelligence, a
consistent training program, and regular exercise under a skilled rider. Squires
and grooms who had received sufficient instruction on the backs of appropriate
schoolmasters would be entrusted with the war horse’s daily care. Such an animal
at the height of training and fitness would be closely guarded and greatly valued.
His ability to balance onto his haunches for quick turns, sliding stops, lateral
movements, and sudden impact would separate him from ordinary horses, who
typically carry themselves heavily on the forehand. His willingness to charge
directly at another horse is a distinct trait of the stallion. Mares and geldings are
certainly capable of lashing out; however, their nature favors flight rather than
fight. But the stallion’s natural tendency to bite, kick, and strike when pressed,
makes him an ally, not merely a conveyance; in modern terminology, the destrier
was a knight’s “smart weapon.”

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Late in the twelfth century creditors were permitted to attach the various
belongings and “chattels” of indebted knights, save that an active knight would
not be divested of his arms or his horses. Even knights of modest means, holding
rank but not necessarily participating in active service, were still to be left with at
least one horse, “and it must be a trained horse, lest he who is entitled by his rank
to ride, should be compelled to go on foot,” according to the twelfth century
British Dialogue of the Exchequer (Harvey 1976, 164).
Although much glamour and praise is lavished upon the destrier, it should be
equally noted that the hobelars, or light-horsemen, whose mounts are often
described as ponies, were used in tactically brilliant ways. Robert the Bruce
(r. 1306–1329), for example, used such horses for successful raids and harrying
campaigns (Prince 1940, 338).
K The Tournament
The tournaments, or “hastiludes,” held throughout England and the continent,
along with their sometimes unnerving levels of attendant mayhem, gambling,
and disorder could be justified by their sponsors and organizers as appropriate
pursuits for knights, whose fitness and skills should be kept sharp through
regular practice in times of peace. Initially, the tournament was laid out in the
form of a mock-battle, or melee. Teams were formed into “armies,” sometimes
numbering in the hundreds or more. The charge would be sounded and, espe-
cially in the case of poorly trained or unstructured units of both infantry and
cavalry, chaotic violence ensued. Horses and men not claimed for “ransom” often
littered the ground, sometimes seriously wounded, or even killed in the fray. As
the competition became more structured, focusing upon singular tests of skill and
strength such as the joust, the most valuable prize awarded in the tournament
remained the same: the horse.
By the mid-fourteenth century, the tournament horse had become distinct
from the horse ridden into war (Barker 1986, 174). The training of horses specifi-
cally for the joust had the effect of lowering risks for both riders and mounts. In a
sport which requires riders to strike each other solidly at full-gallop, a number of
accidents caused by inexperienced or frightened horses would be unavoidable.
The invention of the jousting barrier, or “tilt” surely saved many horses from
impact and resulting injury. Today’s competition jousting, influenced by twenti-
eth-century humane laws, requires disqualification of the competitor for even
slight contact with a horse. In the Middle Ages, killing or wounding a tournament
horse was also considered a serious error on the part of the competitor. Accidents
inevitably happened, however, so the care of injured horses was a financial

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consideration for those entering the lists; protective jousting equipment was
sometimes provided for horses as well as for riders. For his Windsor Park tourna-
ment in 1278 Edward I provided thirty-eight leather horses’ head protectors, and
thirty-eight leather cruppers (Barker 1986, 173–75). By the fourteenth century,
peripatetic lifestyles often ensured that knights participated in a significant
number of tournaments for various reasons, not the least of which was the
possibility of monetary gain. Warfare having changed a great deal in the previous
four hundred years, it would have been understood that the working knight
would have kept separate, specialized horses for tournament, in addition to the
coursers and destriers he rode into serious conflicts (Ayton 1994, 36).
L Equipment and Saddlery

In the first century Roman cavalry rode in padded saddles without stirrups but
with knobbed prongs, two in front (pommel) and two in back (cantle), against
which the rider’s thighs and seat could be securely braced. It is frequently noted
that the development of the stirrup singularly changed the shape of mounted
warfare, but recent discussions call this into question, particularly as the changes
in methods of wielding spears, swords, lances, battle axes and maces from horse-
back were probably followed by shifts and redesigns in saddlery, rather than
coinciding precisely. Metal stirrups from the tenth century forward are found in
London digs, however there is no way for archeology to prove or disprove the
existence of leather or rope stirrups in use as early as the fourth century in Europe
or the Middle East. One thing is certain: the development of high pommels (the
front structure) and cantles (the rear structure) of many saddles allowed riders to
absorb the lion’s share of a weaponry impact, to twist, lean, and shift upper body
weight without being unseated.
During the late fourteenth century, money wages among the London saddlers
rose as much as 200 to 300 per cent, from £2 and 5 marks to over £6 or even in
some cases as high as £10 (a mark equaled 13s 4d, or 2/3 of one pound). Saddlers’
servants were so well organized that in 1362, 1380, and 1396 the mayor and
aldermen, in response to the masters’ complaints, ordered the servants’ fraternity
dissolved. The saddlers retained a level of power within the city in part by
controlling the numbers of skilled laborers. Primarily they did so by limiting the
number of apprentices the masters might enroll (Thrupp 1948, 113).
Bits and bitting were as sophisticated in the Roman and Medieval periods in
England as they are today. Metals were somewhat different, manufacture was
different, but the shapes, designs, and functionalities were, with few exceptions,
similar to modern equipment. The most common bits were broken snaffle bits, a

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mild rig with side rings allowing direct yet smooth and somewhat yielding rein
contact with the horse’s mouth. Shank bits, too, are found by archeologists,
which allow leverage for more control, and often have a solid, curb bit. Double-
bitting for more advanced riding was possible (Clark et al. 2004, 43–45).
Possibly the most important innovation in equipment was the eighth century
development of the padded metal horse-collar for pulling. This replaced the chest
strap, which had a tendency to slip and break, or simply to choke a straining
horse. The padded collar placed the weight for hauling directly on the strongest
point of the horse’s shoulder; today’s collar is basically identical. The engineering
of this one piece allowed horses to pull much greater loads than in previous
centuries (Gans 2004, 180–81).
M Literature
Full treatises on horse training, or “breaking” as some would call it, from the
middle ages are rare, incomplete, and primarily imitative of Xenophon (Davis
1989, 100). However, by the thirteenth century the importance of applying a
certain amount of science, rather than blindly following Aristotle’s De Animalibus
became clear to the likes of Emperor Frederick II, who inspired his miles in
marestala (‛knight in the marshalcy’), Jordanus Ruffus of Calabria, to write an
important, observation-based treatise titled De Medicina Equorum (ca. 1250).
Because Jordanus was a trained veterinarian working in the royal marshalcy, his
work opened up possibilities for others employed in the marshalcy to write
observationally, rather than merely passing on conventional wisdom based in
authority (e.g., Aristotle, Vegetius, and the fifth century sources of the Hippiatri-
ca) (Davis 1989, 100–03; McCabe 2007, 1–3).
As time progressed, veterinary marshals, such as the anonymous fifteenth-
century English author of The Boke of Marchalsi, found themselves moved to put
down not only remedies for horse ailments, but also explanations for breeding
preferences in the conformation of an acceptable noble mount. For these baseline
qualities of style and soundness, according to the author, one should try to obtain
Spanish horses, because horses bred in “þe cuntre of Spayne are the beste, for þei
be folid in an heyʒe cuntre and in hard lond” [the country of Spain are the best,
for they be foaled in a high country, and in hard (rocky) land] (Boke of Marchalsi
1973, 15–16). These Spanish horses, the forerunners of today’s flashy Andalusian,
Lipizzan, PRE (Pura Raza Espñola) and Lusitano breeds, were for centuries
considered the finest obtainable horses throughout Europe. In the opening of
Chrétien de Troye’s Arthurian romance Erec and Enide, Arthur and his courtiers
ride on a hunt for the white stag, the high king mounted on a Spanish horse:

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“Devant aus toz chaçoit li tois sor un chaceor espanois” (On a Spanish hunter, the
king was leading them all in the chase; Chrétien, ll. 123–24, ed. Foerster 1890, 5;
trans. Owen 1993, 2). Beautiful, good sized, versatile, and graceful, with high-
arching necks, tapering heads, large, soulful eyes, small ears, high-held tails,
flared nostrils, and dainty feet, these horses resemble many of those in the
illustrations and statuary depicting knights at their best of form in sophisticated
artwork from the Middle Ages, such as the famous 1436 Ucello funerary monu-
ment to Sir John Hawkwood. By far the most entertaining and engaging work on
horsemanship and riding is Dom Duarte of Portugal’s 1438 treatise Livro Da
Encinança De Cavalgar Toda Sela (The Art of Riding on Every Saddle), in which
those who are noble (or aspiring to nobility) are advised to learn well the different
arts of equitation, including warfare, jousting, parade riding, and hunting.
The tradition of the medieval romance features knights, ladies, squires, and
various wandering characters, all cantering, ambling, and galloping across Eur-
ope. Even the author of the oldest existing poem in Old English, Beowulf, revels in
a description of warriors hurrying from the countryside all around, to celebrate
the hero’s triumph over Grendel. They ride their “shining horses,” leaping and
galloping méarum rídan / beornas on blancum … hléapan léton / on geflit faran
fealwe méaras (Beowulf 1977, ll. 854–55; 864–65). The wildly popular twelfth-
century La Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland) features swiftly galloping horses
with names such as Veillantif and Gramimund charging directly at each other
while the warriors flash their weapons.
The twelfth-century poet Chrétien de Troyes densely populates his Arthurian
romances with horses of all kinds, paying unusually close attention to the details
of horsemanship. His knights ride all over the British and French countryside
with many ladies and courtiers riding alongside. In Marie de France’s late
twelfth-century lai Lanval, the title character is revealed as a spoiled young
prince initially through his carelessness, in overriding his horse until it trembles.
The anonymous fourteenth-century epic romance Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight describes the elaborate armor and trappings of Gawain’s famous horse
Gringalet. Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, while not particularly detailed
or focused upon horses, is populated with them throughout, utilizing the war-
horse’s power and ferocity in battle alongside the gentle reliability of the palfrey
and gaited mule in support of the work’s overall concern with the glory and pain
of civil strife. Malory’s work features several sad and desolate scenes of battle
and its aftermath, showing among the carnage many a wounded or dead animal.
In one instance Lancelot’s mortally wounded horse tries to follow him to Melea-
gant’s castle.
Horses in these tales of adventure, love, and war are often painted with an
admiring hand, and with a sense of heroic status that elevates the animal along-

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side its noble rider. The poet who penned the Lament of the Nibelungen (Div
Chlage; ca. 1200), a mournful poem written in response to the bloody and
disastrous events chronicled in the Nibelungenlied (also dated ca. 1200), places
the war horse of the noble Rüedeger in the hands of pages who travel with envoys
who are tasked with bringing the sad news to the slain knight’s family and
retainers:
Ruedeger’s horse Bohemond then trotted in sadly as a page held it [in-hand]. When it did not
see its master, this horse tended to break free of its bridle and run off down the road. But
now, unfortunately, the man who had ridden this horse and often fought from its back, as
one would expect of a noble knight, had fallen in combat. [Rüedeger’s] daughter began to
observe the behavior of the pages and, in truth, she sighed deeply. (The Lament of the
Nibelungen, 136–37)
As the envoys and pages ride slowly up the road toward the castle, Rüedeger’s
daughter is certain that her father is dead. The people note that the pages slump
over their horse’s necks, the men are not singing as they do when returning home
victorious, and even the headstrong Bohemond has no spirit to resist being
handled by mere servants.
Horses serve to illustrate the station, wealth, and personal character of each
pilgrim in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The poet deftly places the materi-
alistic Monk on an expensively-bred horse, the Wife of Bath on a posh ambler, the
Squire on a fine horse, the threadbare Clerk on a rake-thin animal, the Merchant
on his high horse, and the unassuming Plowman on a mare. If one “reads” the
horses in the General Prologue, it is clear that Chaucer is interested not only in
estate satire, but in targeting clerical excesses and a need for reform (Brown
Campbell 2012, 182).
The romances and epics of the Middle Ages acknowledge the power and
necessity of the horse, although, as with most realms of medieval skill and art,
poets paint the highest levels of equestrian expertise with sweeping, broad
strokes, and little detail; often they provide only a delicate smattering of the day-
to-day business of arranging for fodder, grazing, grooming, watering, and other
practical demands of mounted travel. But throughout the Middle Ages, court
poets and singers maintain in their works a sense of duty, valued service, and
grace when the horse moves through their stories (Brown Campbell 2012; Rogers
2013). Even the lowliest courtiers were aware of the intensive and complex layers
of expense, labor, and infrastructure required to keep such animals in the field, in
service, in motion, and literally providing the traction that moved civilizations
forward, from the lowliest carter to the highest born popes and kings. And while
later centuries were to breed and valorize horses for speed and for sport, the
medieval horse was relied upon to serve with quiet and steady strength:

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I have three very fine palfreys—

no king nor count ever had a better one:
one is sorrel, one dapple-gray,
and one has white stockings.
In all truth, among a hundred,
there is none better than the gray:
the birds that fly through the air
go no more quickly than that palfrey,
No one ever saw it bolt or rear:
a child can ride it.
… whoever rides it does not suffer,
but rather goes more easily and gently
than if he were on a ship. (Chrétien de Troyes Erec and Enide 1987, 61)
Select Bibliography
Ayton, Andrew, Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under
Edward III (Woodbridge 1994).
Barker, Juliet R. V., The Tournament in England 1100–1400 (Woodbridge and Wolfeboro, NH,

1986).
Clark, John, ed., The Medieval Horse and its Equipment: c. 1150–c. 1450, rev. 2nd ed. (1995;
Woodbridge 2004).
Duarte, Dom, The Royal Book of Jousting, Horsemanship, and Knightly Combat: A Translation into
English of King Dom Duarte’s 1438 Treatise Da Encinança De Cavalgar Toda Sela “The Art of
Riding on Every Saddle,” trans. Antonio F. Perto (Highland Village, TX, 2005).
Gladitz, Charles, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World (Dublin and Portland, OR, 1997).
Hyland, Ann, The Medieval Warhorse From Byzantium to the Crusades (Conshohocken, PA, 1994).
Hyland, Ann, Equus: The Horse in the Roman World (New Haven, CT, 1990).
Langdon, John, Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in
English Farming from 1066 to 1500 (New York 1986).
Xenophon, “On the Art of Horsemanship,” Xenophon VII: Scripta Minora, ed. E. H. Warmington,

trans. E. C. Marchant (1925; Cambridge, MA, 1971), 297–363. [= Xenophon 1971a]


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Volume 2
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Handbook of
Medieval Culture

Edited by
Albrecht Classen
Volume 2
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Jacqueline Stuhmiller
Hunting, Hawking, Fowling, and Fishing
A Overview
In Genesis, God commanded Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and increase, fill the
earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air,
and every living thing that moves on the earth” (1:28). The medievals duly
exercised dominion over the wild creatures of the seas, skies, and land. They used
a variety of techniques to pursue, capture, and kill animals, and they did so for
reasons that ranged from the mundane to the highly symbolic. This article will
discuss the following activities, as they were practiced in Europe during the
medieval period: hunting (which I will define rather arbitrarily as the pursuit and
capture of wild mammals, either terrestrial or aquatic, and which I will also call
“the chase”), fowling (the capture of wild birds), fishing, and falconry or hawking
(hunting with raptors). Although the terms “falconry” and “hawking” are not
truly synonymous, I will use them interchangeably. I will also use “hunting,” “the
hunt,” and “field sports” to indicate all of these practices in a general sense.
Studies tend to focus on legal aristocratic sport hunting of the later Middle
Ages, and particularly on falconry and the most elaborate form of the aristocratic
chase, the hunt a force. Hunting for food, raw materials, profit, or pest control, as
well as non-aristocratic and illicit hunting, has received much less attention.
Much of this bias is due to the skewed distribution of the evidence: in general, the
later the date and the more exclusive the type of hunt, the more numerous, and
the more varied, are the extant cultural artifacts. Plebeian and subsistence hunt-
ing tend to be poorly documented, and poaching, for obvious reasons, often
leaves no trace of itself behind. In addition, although both fishing and fowling
were presumably ubiquitous wherever fish and birds could be easily caught,
these practices are rarely depicted in art or literature.
On the other hand, the available evidence tells the story of late-medieval
aristocratic sport hunting in exquisite detail. Over time, the aristocratic hunt
became an increasingly complex and mannered art form, continually refined and
elaborated in response to new influences. In a kind of perpetual cultural feed-
back loop, these sports informed the work of artists and writers, who created
everything from cynegetical treatises to allegories of the chase to tapestries, ivory
carvings, and manuscripts decorated with hunting motifs. These texts and art-
works, in turn, seem to have further fueled the popular fascination with aristo-
cratic field sports.

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698 Jacqueline Stuhmiller
The hunt, whether plebian or aristocratic, necessary or frivolous, was never

merely a form of recreation or a source of fresh meat. Depending on its context, it
could be a gesture with legal, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, aes-
thetic, ludic, erotic, supernatural, or religious ramifications. The medieval hunter
himself was something of an ambiguous figure: he could be a hero or a madman;
a gentleman or a barbarian; a righteous man, a sinner, Christ, Judas, or the Devil.
Not everyone approved of the hunt. In Book I of his Policraticus (ca. 1159),
John of Salisbury complains that hunting is an extravagant and useless activity, a
criticism that was familiar to his contemporaries. The hunter has no good quali-
ties, he insists: he is a brute, intemperate, acquisitive, and violent; negligent of
his duties and lacking any fear of God, he risks being punished for his insolence
with divine wrath. John considers the falconer to be less reprehensible than the
hunter only because hunting with birds is a more frivolous activity than hunting
with dogs. He does not mention fishing or fowling at all, presumably because they
were not common pastimes of the twelfth-century English aristocracy. It is im-
possible to take this hyperbolic and self-contradictory fulmination seriously,
however. When he demands, “Can you name any man of distinction who has
been an enthusiast in the sport of hunting?,” he must have known perfectly well
that he was asking an outrageous question. Hunting was the pastime not merely
of the courtiers he claimed to be criticizing but of the warrior aristocracy, the
clergy, and the great heroes of literature and history. Many men of distinction
were avid hunters, including Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Thomas à
Becket, Emperor Frederick II, Alfonso XI and Pedro the Cruel of Castile, Władys-
ław II Jagiełło of Lithuania, James IV of Scotland, François I of France, Pope
Leo X, and Emperor Maximilian I, to say nothing of literary figures such as
Odysseus, Cú Chulainn, Tristan, and Siegfried.
B Methods and Types of Hunting

The weapons used for hunting were often identical with those used in war:
swords, spears, lances, bows and arrows, and, rarely, crossbows. Other weapons
might also be used: mattocks for badgers, cudgels for seals, bolts for furbearers,
slingshots for birds, pronged forks for otters, and highly specialized equipment,
including poisoned blades, for sea mammals. Firearms were introduced at the
very end of our period, but they were unreliable and not particularly accurate, so
their importance in this discussion is negligible.
Terrestrial animals were hunted in a number of different ways, depending on
the species and the context. In general, if there was more than one way to catch
an animal, the most inefficient, expensive, and labor-intensive method was

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Hunting, Hawking, Fowling, and Fishing 699
considered to be the most prestigious. In many cases, the non-aristocratic and

aristocratic methods were almost indistinguishable, except for the greater ex-
pense of the latter. Larger and more aggressive quarry were usually more highly
prized, but local culture and local ecology ultimately determined which animals
were considered to be “noble” prey. For example, although the red deer was
generally regarded as a royal animal, in Iberia, the boar and the bear were
deemed nobler and worthier opponents; on the other hand, in the late-medieval
Pyrenees, even peasants were allowed to hunt bears. According to Edward of
Norwich (ca. 1373–1415), the hare was “king of venery” in England, a judgment
that perhaps reflects the fact that many larger animals had already been extir-
pated from the island by the fifteenth century.
Hunting methods that minimized the danger and difficulty for the hunter
were the most practical. Animals might be lured or chased into nets, traps, snares,
deadfalls, or pitfalls, or they might be driven over precipices. Predators could be
killed with bait laced with poison or needles. Wolf pups or bear cubs might be
taken from their dens, and bears might be attacked while hibernating. Wolves
were pursued into deep snow, where they tired and could be easily killed.
However, aristocrats generally considered these relatively safe and efficient tech-
niques to be worthy only of peasants, poachers, and the morally corrupt, at least
wherever and whenever the elite could afford to do something different.
Many species can be stalked: that is, pursued stealthily on foot until they are
within range of a projectile weapon. Disguises such as stalking cows (dummy
animals behind or within which a hunter conceals himself), carts covered with
foliage, and “costumes” made out of animal hide allowed the hunter to approach
animals more closely. Although stalking is a great test of the hunter’s skill, it is
necessarily a solitary and silent activity and is therefore better suited to poaching
or subsistence hunting than to royal sport. Another method of getting close to
one’s quarry was to lay out bait in order to attract animals or to stake out locations
that animals were known to frequent.
More prestigious than any of the previous were aristocratic game drives in
which beaters, with or without dogs, drove the prey into nets or into the sights of
archers positioned at hunting stations; the latter method is sometimes known as
“bow-and-stable hunting.” In fourteenth-century France, the sport of using
hounds to drive boar into nets was known as the deduit real, or royal hunt.
Although the game drive was the most important form of the chase in Scotland, in
general, it was considered to be an inferior type of hunt because it offered little
danger or physical challenge. Attitudes toward the game drive seem to have
changed somewhat near the end of our period. Elaborate and enormous drives
were staged as royal amusements, most notably in Germany, and depicted in the
paintings of Lucas Cranach the Elder (ca. 1472–1553) and the Younger (1515–1586).

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Various methods could be used to enclose and direct the movements of the
quarry. Man-made hedges or walls or natural features of the terrain (or, in later
centuries, fences or canvas screens) might be used to guide the animals toward
an ambush or drive them into a corral where they could then be captured or
slaughtered. Parks and preserves, sometimes designed to imitate the Garden of
Eden, held both familiar and exotic game animals. The sport of shooting em-
parked deer was fashionable among late-medieval English women, and Eliza-
beth I (1533–1603) was well known for her love of this pastime.
Coursing, or pursuing game with sighthounds, is an ancient sport: as early as
the second century C.E., Flavius Arrian described how the Celts in the region of
the Danube used hounds to run down hares. This hunt was most exciting when
the dogs were pitted against fleet-footed game in an open environment in which
the spectacle could be admired by an audience. Sometimes deer courses were
constructed to make the chase easier to observe.
The most prestigious hunt of all was the aristocratic hunt a force, which
achieved its most elaborate form in the late Middle Ages. In this hunt, mounted
hunters, accompanied by hunt servants and several specialized types of dogs
(including scenthounds, sighthounds, and mastiffs), located the quarry and ran it
down. The animal was often dispatched in a safe manner, though a hunter who
dared to face a large and dangerous beast in single combat won great respect
from his peers. This is the type of hunt that is widely celebrated in medieval art
and literature, and the only one considered to be suitable for a warrior or hero.
Fowling using nets, snares, or lime was known in the classical world, and these
methods were widely used to catch birds throughout the Middle Ages. The
medieval fowler could set out poison or use bait, tame birds of prey, decoys, or
bird calls in order to control the movements of wild birds so that they could be
more easily captured or shot. The elite considered such practices to be ignoble:
thus the brutish husband in Marie de France’s Laüstic (ca. 1170) uses snares and
lime to catch the nightingale that his wife claims to be admiring. Of course, in
places where wildfowl were an essential part of the diet, such as Norse Greenland,
there was no stigma in catching birds using any means necessary.
The differences between falconry and hawking are determined by avian biology.
Falcons can attain great speed because of their long, slim wings and narrow,
tapering tails; they kill their prey by diving down on it from above and knocking it
out of the air. Hawks have shorter, broader wings and long tails that give them
great maneuverability in close quarters; they seize their prey in mid-air and kill it
with their talons. Eagles were rarely used to hunt in medieval Europe; although
they could be potent symbols of royal power, they are too large to handle

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comfortably and they tend to have difficult temperaments. All hunting birds were
captured in the wild and tamed; they could not be bred in captivity. Raptors were
usually used to catch birds, even other birds of prey, but might also be trained to
take small mammals or to attack the heads of large animals so that hunters and
dogs could bring them down. Like coursing, hawking and falconry were spectator
sports that ideally took place in landscapes with sweeping vistas. They never
commanded the same prestige as did the more strenuous types of hunting,
however, because the birds of prey did all of the work.
Fish formed an important part of the medieval diet, especially during fast days
when meat was prohibited. Single fish might be caught with spears, basket traps,
hand nets, or baited hooks, or “tickled” (caught by hand). Schools of fish were
caught with weirs and large nets. Herbal piscicides or quicklime-based explosives
might also be used to kill or stupefy fish so that they could be easily collected.
Fishermen attracted their quarry with bait, tied “flies,” phosphorescing rotten
wood, or, probably less effectively, various magical devices.
Dogs, horses, and raptors were of course necessary partners in many kinds of
hunting; dogs, in particular, were indispensible for hunting almost every kind of
animal, from birds to bison. However, other animal auxiliaries could be used in
the hunt, too. Ferrets might be used to drive rabbits out of their burrows and
tamed polecats or weasels used to catch rodents. Cheetahs and caracals, the so-
called “hunting leopards” and “hunting lynxes” of Asia and North Africa, were
imported into Europe as early as the mid-eleventh century; they were particularly
popular in Italy (Masseti 2009). Domestic animals were sometimes used as
decoys, because a hunter can approach a herd of deer very closely if he hides
behind a horse or cow. Tame wild beasts could serve the same purpose: to take
one example, the Saami regularly used tamed reindeer to attract the wild herds
on which their livelihoods depended. Even fishermen sometimes utilized animal
help. Cormorant fishing, a fashionable practice that may have been imported
from China, is the subject of Vittore Carpaccio’s painting Hunting on the Lagoon
(ca. 1490) (Knauer 2003). In some parts of Europe, tame otters were used to catch
fish in the early modern period, a practice that might have also been used during
the Middle Ages (Gudger 1927, 208–18).

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C
I A Brief History of European Hunting
In the early Middle Ages, hunting seems to have been generally unregulated and
available to both rich and poor alike. Under both Roman and Germanic law, wild
animals were res nullius, the property of no one, and they belonged to the person
who captured them rather than to the person on whose property they were
captured. Agricultural production was not sufficient to feed the population, and
wild birds, animals, and fish filled in the gaps of the early medieval diet.
However, terrestrial game was apparently never any more than a supplementary
food source: the bones of wild animals comprise only a small percentage of total
bone assemblages found in most settlement sites from this period. Fish, on the
other hand, was probably an important dietary component in many areas, though
this is often hard to verify because fish bones are fragile and poorly preserved in
the archaeological record.
Little by little, hunting and fishing rights passed from communal ownership
into private hands. By the latter half of the seventh century, the Merovingians had
designated certain areas as forests: that is, areas that were governed by laws
restricting how the land was to be used, and by whom. “Forest” is an adminis-
trative designation, not an ecological one, and a forest might include pastures,
wetlands, and even fields and villages as well as wooded areas. The Carolingians
continued to restrict the privilege of the chase and by 1100, such restrictions had
become common in Western Europe. The wealthy tended to reserve for them-
selves the right to hunt the animals they considered to be “noble,” a category that
might include the three kinds of deer (red, fallow, and roe), chamois, ibex, wild
boar, bison (wisent), elk, aurochs, tarpan, wolf, lynx, bear, and large waterfowl.
The laws regarding hunting rights became steadily more restrictive; in many
places, commoners were not allowed to take any animals except small birds and
vermin. The common people constantly protested against the loss of their usu-
fruct rights, and their discontents helped spur such popular uprisings as the
Norman revolt of 997, the English Peasant Rebellion of 1381, and the German
Peasants’ War of 1525.
As the population grew and restrictions on hunting tightened, animal
flesh became a luxury and a status symbol rather than an ancillary food
source that was available to all. The rich hunted regularly, or paid someone
to hunt for them, in order to put choice meats on the table. It seems reason-
able to assume that the medieval poor also hunted whenever and wherever they
could, taking small animals and birds that were easier to catch and less likely to
be missed.

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Over time, kings gave away forests and their associated hunting rights to
members of the nobility and clergy in order to cement political alliances; this had
the unintended consequence of transferring power into the hands of local rulers.
At the same time, the enormous primeval forests diminished and fragmented as
more and more land came under cultivation. Pastoral and agricultural practices
that made use of natural areas (such as slash-and-burn agriculture and the
pasturage of livestock in the forest) were replaced by other practices that clearly
separated cultivated land from wild spaces. Non-agricultural land became less
important for the honey, reeds, game, and other wild produce that could be
harvested from it and more important as a source of timber, firewood, peat, and
charcoal (Bechmann 1990).
At the same time that the wilderness grew less wild and wild animals became
scarcer, the socioeconomic importance of hunting increased. The chase had always
been a demonstration of virility and raw power, but now it was also a marker of
noblesse, courtliness, wealth, and privilege. The more exclusive the hunt became,
the more elaborate its rituals grew. Hunting reserves and parks were created in
order to preserve game animals that could not survive in the dramatically altered
landscape. These playgrounds of the wealthy often had more in common with
factory farms than they did with modern-day nature preserves: especially in the
smaller parks, animals were frequently stocked in such high densities that they had
to be fed by hand and therefore became half-tame. Although the laws protecting
precious game animals and their habitats were often draconian, not everyone ob-
served them. Non-aristocratic poachers took game whenever they could, but illegal
hunting was not restricted to the third estate. Both the clergy and the aristocracy,
and even the nobility and royalty, were sometimes also guilty of poaching.
These general trends toward increasingly restrictive hunting regulations did
not apply everywhere, however. Wherever the land was inhospitable to agricul-
ture, fish and game were an indispensible part of the diets of people of all social
classes. In Scandinavia, for instance, the wilderness was considered to be com-
mon property and fishing and hunting remained important parts of the rural
economy throughout the medieval period. Even in societies in which hunting was
tightly controlled by the upper classes, commoners might still have some rights to
wild game. Although members of the Polish royalty retained the exclusive right to
hunt certain animals, peasants were allowed to take smaller game in large tracts
of the forest. French peasants were likewise allowed to catch small animals and
birds outside of hunting reserves until their rights began to be curtailed in the
mid-fourteenth century (Bechmann 1990, 32–34). Commoners were also generally
allowed to hunt birds and animals considered to be harmful to humans, although
they were usually forbidden to use the paramilitary techniques favored by aristo-
crats.

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Falconry is an ancient practice: it originated in Western Asia in the fifth century

B.C.E. and seems to have been imported into Europe via the Balkans. It was
brought to Western Europe by the Celts or Goths in the first centuries of the
Common Era and subsequently adopted by the Romanized ruling classes. The
first references to hunting with birds of prey in Europe occur in writings from the
mid-fifth century, and the Germanic Lex Salica (early sixth century) was the first
law code to contain legislation regulating its practice. Falconry spread north to
Scandinavia, where it is well attested in early Viking culture, and east to Byzan-
tium (Allsen 2006, 59). Beginning in the eleventh century, falconry experienced a
renaissance that began in the Norman kingdom of Sicily, which was a cultural
crossroads between the East and the West. Hunting with raptors was a highly
developed art form in the Muslim world, and aristocratic Europeans were quick to
imitate the elegant foreign fashions.
Falconry and hawking do not seem to have been restricted in the same way as
hunting was. Although it could be very costly to obtain, train, and keep the most
prestigious and exotic species of hawks and falcons, anyone, in theory, could
capture a wild bird and train it to hunt. In fact, hawking provided a important
supplementary source of food for peasants in some parts of Europe.
Marine and freshwater fishing provided an important food source for both poor
and rich medieval people. An intensive exploitation of marine fish began around
the year 1000 because overexploited and degraded freshwater fisheries were no
longer able to meet the needs of a growing population. Aquatic natural resources,
like terrestrial ones, were gradually co-opted by private ownership. By 1200,
fisheries on all but the largest rivers were under private, often monastic, control.
The wealthy had their own fishponds, and intensive fish-rearing operations were
in place by the end of the medieval period (Hoffmann 1996). Recreational fishing,
particularly angling, was enjoyed by non-aristocrats in the later Middle Ages, and
in some places (notably late-medieval Germany, Spain, and France), fly fishing
seems to have been considered a suitable pastime for the aristocracy, as well. It
was beloved by the Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519) and was enjoyed by such
literary heroes as William Wallace and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s (ca. 1170–ca.
1220) Schîonatulander (Titurel, ca. 1220) (Wolfram von Eschenbach 2003; Hoff-
mann 1985).

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II Hunting and Religious Law
The Church disapproved of hunting and hawking by the clergy, especially the
monastic clergy, for several reasons: it usually required the use of weapons; it
favored the active life over the contemplative one; the expense of keeping
hounds and hawks was immense; furthermore, hunting was thought to encou-
rage lust and lack of self-restraint. However, the fact that religious leaders had
to repeatedly issue laws forbidding hunting is proof that these laws were
impossible to enforce. Many eminent clergymen came from the ranks of the
aristocracy, and it was hard to keep them from practicing the aristocratic sports
to which they had grown accustomed. So many exceptions were made to the
rules against clerical hunting and hawking, and so many rules were broken by
defiant clerics, that the proscriptions against field sports became increasingly
lax (Thiébaux 1967, 264–65).
Although there is no legal prohibition against hunting in the Jewish scrip-
tures, barring that which warns the faithful not to hunt on the Sabbath, there were
a number of factors that prevented Jews from participating in the chase. The
rabbis strongly disapproved of hunting because of its cruelty and its association
with Gentile excess. Wild animals could not usually be ritually slaughtered, so
their meat was inedible. In addition, Christian laws frequently barred Jews from
bearing arms or hunting. Nevertheless, Jews did sometimes hunt for sport, for
wages, and for food. For example, the Jews of France engaged in hawking (Jacobi
2013) and the English records show that that Jews occasionally were guilty of deer
poaching (Birrell 1982, 19).
In the Islamic world, there were no strictures against hunting and falconry,
which were widely practiced for both food and sport. Any wild animal or fish
killed by a hunter was considered halal, except for wild pigs. However, pilgrims
on the hajj were not allowed to consume game.
D Manuals of Hunting, Hawking, and Fishing

Medieval manuals of hunting, hawking, and fishing provide a rare view into the
inner workings of these practices. However, it must be remembered that the
information that they contain is necessarily biased and incomplete. There are few
falconry and hunting treatises until late in the period, and they focus almost
exclusively on sport hunting, as well as on the highest-prestige techniques and
game animals. The earliest fishing treatises do not appear until the final years of
the Middle Ages. The manuals are often hard for the modern layperson to
decipher, at least in part because they were not necessarily intended to be

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practical guides for the beginner. The art of capturing wild animals was taught by
example, not by book-learning.
The earliest European hunting manual was Xenophon’s Cynegeticus (fifth c.
B.C.E.). Many of its elements would become de rigeur in later didactic texts. The
author defends hunting against its detractors and exalts it as the sport of heroes,
an invaluable tool for the training of the body and mind, the pastime of a virtuous
and pious man. He describes the various types of hunting dogs, their ideal
conformations, and their care and training; the natures of prey animals; and step-
by-step descriptions of several types of hunts. Xenophon’s work was followed by
several others with the similar title of Cynegetica, as well as several fishing tracts
titled Haleutica and at least one on bird-catching, Ixeutika.
After the fall of Rome, the genre of the hunting treatise disappears from Europe
for several centuries. The earliest medieval hunting manuals seem to have been
independently produced and include two anonymous manuals commissioned by
Louis the German (mid-ninth century) (Goldberg 2013), Sancho the Wise’s Los
paramientos de la caza (Navarre, ca. 1180), Guicennas’s De arte bersandi (the
Sicilian court of Frederick II, early thirteenth century), the anonymous La chace dou
cerf (France, ca. 1250), and William Twiti’s L’art de venerie (England, before 1325).
When hunting with birds of prey became fashionable in the Kingdom of
Sicily, falconry manuals began to appear in force. Several twelfth-century trea-
tises were produced in Sicily and, in the next century, Frederick II ordered the
translation into Latin of an Arabic manual on falconry and a Persian manual on
hunting known collectively as Moamin and Ghatrif. It was Frederick II himself
who wrote the earliest comprehensive manual of the sport, De arte venandi cum
avibus (before 1250). The interest in hunting with birds of prey rapidly caught on
in other parts of the continent, leading to the production of a number of falconing
treatises in both Latin and the vernacular.
In the fourteenth century, hunting manuals experienced their own renais-
sance and quickly became even more popular than those on falconry. Although the
earliest treatises had been produced in many different parts of Europe, France
quickly came to set the bar for cynegetical fashion; indeed, French hunting
terminology and ceremony have remained fashionable up until the present day.
Best known and most influential of the French hunting manuals was Gaston
Phébus’s Livre de chasse (1387–1389), which was revolutionary for its straightfor-
ward approach to the subject. Each self-styled great hunter hurried to write his own
manual, with the result that venatory texts were produced in many vernaculars.
Fishing manuals seem to have been unknown until the very end of the Middle
Ages; the first was a German text published in Heidelberg in 1493. The fishing
manuals are the most democratic and least pretentious of all, and seem to have
been written by commoners for unapologetically common audiences.

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Manuals of field sports borrow freely from each other, though their authors
often adapt standard information to local conditions. In accordance with the
medieval faith in auctoritas, authors sometimes claim that they have obtained
their information from the teachings of legendary figures (“King Dancus,” “King
Modus,” “Tristram”). Manuals often include a hodgepodge of material: informa-
tion on the care and medical treatment of animal auxiliaries; the natural histories
of wild animals; descriptions of various types of hunts; personal reminiscences;
folklore and traditional wisdom; allegories; and snippets from other literary
genres, such as bestiaries, encyclopedias, histories, and exempla. They may be in
verse, prose, or a combination of the two. One popular form is a dialogue between
a master or mistress and a pupil. Another oft-used form is a debate in which
sportsmen argue the relative merits of their respective pursuits.
As the middle classes grew richer and more literate near the end of the
medieval period, they began to imitate their social betters. As a result, hunting
and falconry manuals were some of the first books in print.
E The Uses of Hunting

There were many practical reasons to hunt: to obtain meat and other animal
products, whether for private consumption, gift-giving, trade, or sale; to destroy
predators and competitors; to exercise the body and keep battlefield skills sharp.
Many writers also claimed, though rather unconvincingly, that hunting built
strong moral character and helped men avoid sin.
However, the symbolic importance of the hunt often far outweighed any
practical benefits it was supposed to provide. Hunting sent strong messages to
one’s peers, superiors, and inferiors. It could announce masculinity, socioeco-
nomic privilege, political or military power, and good breeding. It forged bonds
between elites and proclaimed their mastery over other human beings and the
natural world. It could be used as a weapon by the poor against the rich, the rich
against the poor, or the rich against each other. It was an exquisite source of
pleasure to both participants and viewers, an art form and a source of artistic
inspiration, as well as a rich source of metaphor. Falconry served many of the
same functions as did hunting, but fishing had very little social, cultural, or
symbolic import.
Most obviously, hunting puts meat in the pot. Wild meats (gathered either from
the wild or from special operations dedicated to raising undomesticated animals
such as deer parks, fish ponds, swanneries, and heronries) were not only a source
of protein and social prestige but could also be valuable items of trade or sale. In

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late-medieval England, many wealthy houses surreptitiously bought venison

from deer poachers (Birrell 1982). In the late Middle Ages, Scandinavian and
Baltic fishermen supplied stockfish and other fish products to feed the rest of
Europe, while private fisheries and warrens turned a tidy profit closer to home.
The hunt often provided other valuable animal products, as well: skins, furs,
and hides; sinews, membranes, and organs; horns, antlers, and bones; teeth,
claws, ivory, tusks, and baleen; feathers and down; blubber, fat, and oil; and
body parts and blood used as amulets or in folk medicines, aphrodisiacs, magic
rituals, perfumes, and cosmetics. Animal products might be used by the hunters
themselves or sold, traded, or given as tribute or gifts.
The trade in animal products sometimes spanned vast distances. Beginning
in the ninth century, the pelts of furbearing animals were harvested from the so-
called “land of darkness” between Finland and Western Siberia and, by way of a
complex trading system, were exported to all parts of the known world, including
India and China (Martin 1986). The Basques hunted baleen whales in the Bay of
Biscay at least as early as the eleventh century; they began moving northward up
the coastline of Europe in pursuit of their quarry by the fifteenth century and
crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to exploit the coast of Labrador in the
sixteenth century. The resulting whale products, from meat to baleen to dye, were
sold in France, Spain, Flanders, and England (Proulx 1986).
The hunt was also a source of live animals, which could be valuable commod-
ities in their own rights. Typically, captured wild animals were trained to be
hunting auxiliaries or used to stock game parks or zoos. The latter had particular
symbolic import, as exotic animals were signs of a ruler’s power and great sphere
of influence. Many rulers, including Charlemagne, Henry I, and Frederick II, kept
menageries. Rare and unusual beasts were often given as gifts between rulers in
order to establish or reaffirm important political relationships. In one show of
goodwill, the Sultan Al-Kamil Muhammed presented Frederick II with a giraffe
and in return received a polar bear and an albino peacock. Gyrfalcons, especially
white ones, were particularly welcome gifts. Wild animals were not always
associated with elite company, however. By the end of the Middle Ages, itinerant
showmen exhibited creatures such as monkeys and bears throughout Europe; the
latter were often used in blood sports.
Many wild animals either compete with livestock for forage or with humans
for quarry, eat crops or wild produce that humans wish to keep for themselves, or
prey on domestic animals or humans. Human-animal conflicts became increas-
ingly common as the amount of land under cultivation expanded into areas that
had been previously occupied by wild animals. Destroying noxious animals was a
self-proclaimed aristocratic duty and a primary justification for the aristocratic
chase, though one that became less and less credible over the course of the

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medieval period. Although Charlemagne (late 740s–814) personally led hunting

expeditions in order to protect cultivated lands from the ravages of wild beasts,
by the end of the Middle Ages, vermin control was no longer the provenance of
aristocrats. The systematic destruction of wolves in late-medieval France and
England, for example, was largely achieved by the efforts of nonaristocratic
huntsmen. In truth, the ruling classes in the later part of our period were usually
more protective of their deer than of the crops that those deer often consumed.
The animals that caused the most damage and were the hardest to control—
crows, mice, moles, locusts—were naturally far beneath the notice of aristocratic
hunters.
An ancient justification for hunting, made by Xenophon and still being
expressed by Niccolò Machiavelli in the sixteenth century, is that it readies men
for battle: it hardens them to combat, accustoms their bodies and minds to the
deprivations and stresses of campaigning, familiarizes them with the local ter-
rain, and teaches them how to read the landscape and the weather. As has
previously been noted, aristocratic hunting used many of the same thrusting and
projectile weapons, and some of the same techniques, that were used against
human adversaries; it also taught men to work together as a military unit. The
boar hunt was particularly lauded as excellent preparation for battle because, at
least in theory, the final confrontation was a single combat against a worthy
adversary in which a moment of hesitation or misjudgment might cost a man his
life. In addition, armies on campaign often turned to hunting to feed themselves
when provisions ran low. Falconry, fowling, and fishing, which were not martial
pursuits, naturally did not offer the same benefits.
The chase a force was touted as a healthy pastime. Not only did it keep the
body in excellent condition, but the sweat induced by strenuous exercise expelled
poisons from the system. Hunting was also supposed to provide moral benefits to
its practitioners. According to the authors of many cynegetical treatises, it en-
nobled men and made them immune to all of the sins, particularly sloth, gluttony,
and lechery. Some believed that hunting could not change a bad man into a
virtuous one and that only someone who was already morally upright could be a
good hunter or falconer. Fishermen similarly touted the psychological and spiri-
tual benefits of their sport; fishing manuals claim that angling makes a man
happy, moderate, contemplative, and peaceful.
It should be noted that some people, such as John of Salisbury, who was
mentioned at the beginning of this article, expressed the opposite opinion, that
hunting was physically and morally harmful. The chase could be dangerous and
a hunting accident could suddenly deprive a people of their leader. Indeed, many
rulers died from hunt-related injuries, including Carloman II; Basil I; Fulk, Count
of Anjou and King of Jerusalem; and Mary of Burgundy. The moral issues

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surrounding hunting were not, of course, the same as they are today: with very
few exceptions, the medievals were not concerned about the pain and suffering of
animals, but about the potentially deleterious impacts that hunting might have
on human beings. Some worried that it was a waste of money, disrupted agricul-
tural activities, made men cruel, and inflamed their passions. There were also
worries that it kept men from their proper duties to their households, their lands,
their communities, and their God. Hunting was considered to be particularly
harmful for peasants, who might become too engrossed in it and thereby be
distracted from their agricultural labors. Many rulers who were passionate hun-
ters, including Giorgi II of Georgia and Elizabeth I, were accused of overindulging
themselves in field sports, to the detriments of their states. Likewise, clerics were
often accused of paying more attention to their falcons or dogs than they did to
their flocks.
All claims for the practical value of field sports aside, most aristocrats
probably pursued wild animals first and foremost for pleasure. Every aspect of the
hunt was aesthetically pleasing: the beauty of the forest at dawn, the music of the
hounds and horns, the graceful lines of a greyhound, the spectacle of dogs
running down a hare or a noble beast turning at bay, the precision and deftness
with which a skilled huntsman dismembered the carcass. There were many other
pleasures for the huntsman, too: the satisfaction of physical mastery and mental
challenge; the thrills of great speeds and mortal dangers; the joys of male
companionship and female admiration; the delight of a lavish dinner whose
meats were furnished by one’s own efforts; and, last but not least, the pleasant
feeling of exhaustion at the end of the day, made only more delicious by a hot
bath and a bed with clean sheets. Because the heroes of literature were often
superlative hunters, the chase offered a further pleasure: it allowed the hunter to
imagine himself as the protagonist of an epic or romance.
Falconry and hawking, in the aristocratic context, were also sources of much
pleasure. The falcon knocks her prey out of the sky with a single, dramatic swoop.
Exciting aerial duels ensued when a hawk was released upon a heron or crane.
Hawking parties offered not only aesthetic delights but also the pleasures of
social interaction with members of the opposite sex.
Most importantly, aristocratic hunting, in all of its forms, provided “a relief
from the tedium of free time,” as one Spanish hunting manual puts it (Alfonso XI
1983, xii).
Recreational fishing was not so stimulating to the senses as hunting with
dogs or raptors, but the angler surely enjoyed the mental challenges and peaceful
contemplation of his sport, as well as the thrill of mastering wild animals.
It is hard to know how non-aristocratic hunters and subsistence hunters
perceived their own activities, but there is no reason to think that they did not feel

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many of the same pleasures as their social betters. Certainly, the extant records
suggest that poachers of all social classes reveled in the thrill of breaking the law
and (if all went smoothly) felt the immense satisfaction of getting away with their
crimes.
The chase was not merely a source of tangible benefits, however; it was also a
highly symbolic performance. It was, first and foremost, an unparalleled display
of masculinity. Odysseus, sexual and military conqueror of the Mediterranean, is
marked by a scar gouged into his thigh by a boar’s tusk. The Germanic hero
Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) kills a giant boar and a bear in single
combat. On the other hand, a refusal or an inability to hunt could be an indelible
mark of impotence: in the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late
fourteenth century), Gawain does not participate in the daily hunts; instead, he is
sexually dominated and thoroughly humiliated.
Particularly in the later Middle Ages, the aristocratic hunt was a way to
display not only prowess and courage but the other chivalric virtues, as well.
Courtliness was foremost: a man demonstrated his good breeding by using the
correct terminology and demonstrating that he knew the nuances of venatic
ceremony. In Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan (ca. 1210), the hero so impresses
the hunting party from Tintagel with his knowledge of cynegetical vocabulary
and ritual that he wins for himself a place at Mark’s court. The hunt was
additionally a way of demonstrating loyalty and largesse: the meat was often
given away to favored associates or served at a banquet. Subduing the animal
kingdom was additionally an act of piety, insofar as it symbolically returned the
world to its prelapsarian state (Stuhmiller 2012).
As Thomas Allsen has elegantly demonstrated in The Royal Hunt in Eurasian
History, the aristocratic hunt was also a political tool. The ability to marshal a
grand hunt, or to hold and protect exclusive game preserves, was a potent
demonstration of command over vast monetary, human, and natural resources.
Since cynegetical and military prowess were in some sense synonymous, ostenta-
tious hunts were an effective way of intimidating one’s enemies. The hunt demon-
strated a man’s virility and, by extension, his inherent right to rule; the more
dangerous the hunt, the greater the symbolic weight. According to Notker Balbu-
lus (ca. 840–912), Charlemagne took the ambassadors of the Abbasid caliphate on
a hunting trip. They ran away at the sight of the bison and aurochs, but the
Frankish king killed the animals easily, making a subtle but powerful political
statement in the process. Although Charlemagne made it look natural, in truth,
every aspect of the aristocratic hunt was staged so as to show off the prowess of
the leader and his allies to best advantage (Allsen 2006).
Like the modern-day golf course, the medieval hunting-field was the site of
some of the most important political deals. The aristocratic hunt was a ritual

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means of cementing alliances—there is no stronger proclamation of one man’s

trust in another than his willingness to go into the forest with a group of armed
men—but for the same reason, it was also the perfect venue for an untraceable
assassination. In literature, both Siegfried (The Nibelungenlied 2004) and Bevis of
Hampton in the eponymous narrative are betrayed during hunts, and a number of
real-life rulers died in suspicious hunting-related accidents, including William II
of England and the Byzantine Emperor John II Komnenos. The Franks seem to
have had a special fondness for committing political murders in this way.
Since hunting has such strong political implications, it is unsurprising that it
is an important element in a number of European founding myths. In Hungarian
mythology, a stag leads the brothers Hunor and Magor into the land of Levedia,
where they found the Huns and Magyars. The Lithuanian King Gediminas (ca.
1275–1341) founded Vilnius based on a dream he had after hunting aurochs.
The aristocratic hunt was also a very effective form of socioeconomic display,
a public demonstration of privilege and leisure. The famous illuminations of the
Labors of the Months in the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry (1340–1416)
include two hunting scenes. August is an image of an aristocratic hawking party,
with the castle of Étampes in the background; November depicts the final mo-
ments of a boar hunt, presumably by non-aristocratic huntsmen who are procur-
ing meat for the duke’s table. These hunting scenes are placed alongside numer-
ous other visual representations of Jean’s great wealth in which his peasants
work his lands, shear his sheep, feed his pigs in his forests, or serve him in his
sumptuous hall.
Men used hunting to ingratiate themselves with others. An aristocratic hunt
might be staged to entertain visiting dignitaries or honor important guests. Gifts
of game might be given in order to create or strengthen alliances. The wealthy
might try to curry favor with their superiors by allowing them to hunt in their
private preserves; superiors, in their turn, might demonstrate their superiority by
curtailing the hunting rights of others. Naturally, the chase also demonstrated
aristocratic power over social inferiors. As it moved across the landscape, not
infrequently leaving ruined fields and mauled domestic animals in its wake, it
served as a tangible reminder that the lord had absolute power over the land and
its denizens.
Although the aristocratic hunt reinforced social hierarchies, it was also a
remarkably inclusive activity that could involve people from almost all social
classes. Members of the warrior aristocracy and the clergy were at its head.
Sometimes a high-ranking aristocrat might hold an honorary cynegetical title:
Edward of Norwich, for example, was Master of Game to Henry IV. However, it
was the professional huntsmen who did most of the real work and cared for the
animal auxiliaries. Forest officials guarded game preserves and judicial courts

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passed judgment on trespassers. Craftsmen were needed to make the hunting

equipment, household servants cooked and served the game, and peasants
were often pressed into service as beaters. The hunt could also be a source of
social mobility, and it was even possible for a non-aristocratic huntsman to
achieve knighthood by working his way up the ranks of the cynegetical hierar-
chy (Cummins 2003, 173).
Because hunting and hawking were so intimately bound up with socioeco-
nomic privilege, they were essential aspects of an aristocratic education. At least
in theory, high-born boys began to learn the art of hunting at the age of seven, as
did commoners who were destined to be hunt servants in wealthy houses.
Between the ages of seven and fourteen, Gottfried’s Tristan learns all of the arts
that are appropriate for a young male of his station: languages, reading, music,
riding, arms, hunting, and falconry. Girls might also be schooled in venery,
though it was not a standard part of their training for adulthood.
Even illicit hunting had strong symbolic import. Like legal hunting, it could
demonstrate prowess and masculinity. It was often used to send a message to the
game owner: peasants might havock a preserve in order to protest unjust treat-
ment, or an aristocrat might poach on a subordinate’s land in order to assert his
dominance. It could be a challenge, an act of vengeance or punishment, a means
of intimidation, or a jubilant expression of defiance.
F Symbolism of Hunting and the Hunter

In classical mythology and literature, the hunt is paradoxical. On the one hand, it
is associated with a number of heroes and heroines (Odysseus, Meleager, Orion,
Heracles, Atalanta, Camilla, Penthesilea, Hippolyta). On the other hand, it takes
place in liminal spaces and is often associated with madness, revelation, and
death. The hunter Actaeon is turned into a stag and ripped apart by his own dogs;
Pentheus is killed by his mother and aunts, who are in the throes of a Bacchic
frenzy and mistake him for a wild animal. The goddess of hunting, Artemis/
Diana, is a virgin, yet the hunt is often associated with erotic activity. Diana is
herself associated with both birth (in her aspect of Lucina) and death.
The cynegetical arts are likewise portrayed both positively and negatively in
the Hebrew Scriptures. Neither Nimrod nor Esau, both specifically identified as
hunters, received favor from God, though their sinfulness is never attributed to
their hunting, either. The many metaphors of hunting, fishing, and fowling are
likewise ambivalent. The wicked may hunt or trap the good (e.g. Psalm 118:110).
On the other hand, sinners may themselves be hunted or fished by God, or by
divine agency (Jeremiah 16:16, Amos 4:2). The evil man may in turn be caught in

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his own net (Psalm 9:16–17, 34:7–8). The wicked may be lions who hunt men
(Psalm 9), but God is also a lion hunting the wicked (Job 10:16), and the princes of
Israel are lions who hunt men and are in turn hunted by them (Ezekiel 19). In
addition, diverse agents, including death (Ecclesiastes 9:12), flatterers (Proverbs
29:5), unwanted obligations (Proverbs 6:2–5), and adulterous women (Proverbs
7:22–27) may be fishers, fowlers, or hunters. In contrast, in the New Testament,
fishing is an unequivocal metaphor for salvation. Jesus promised to make his
disciples “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19), and the Kingdom of Heaven is likened
to a net cast into the sea, full of fish (Matthew 13:47). Nets have a particularly
large range of meanings in the Bible: they can represent the snares of the wicked,
the toils of divine justice, or the community of the saved.
In the medieval context, the symbolism of the hunt is similarly multivalent
and ambivalent. Falconry and fishing were less symbolically charged than hunt-
ing though they, too, could carry a variety of meanings.
Hunting is often associated with positive attributes. In medieval literature,
hunting and hawking can establish the natural nobility, good breeding, or socio-
economic privilege of a character. Hawking (and, to a lesser extent, hunting) can
represent youth, high spirits, and a sanguine temperament. In addition, hunting
can be used to show the heroism, chastity, and honor of the hero or (if the hunt is
interrupted by an ambush) the cravenness of the villain. The chase is a handy plot
device that can be used to isolate characters, kill them, bring them into conflict
with each other, or keep them occupied while an event occurs elsewhere (Rooney
1993, 56–101). Since it necessitates a journey into the wilderness, the chase often
serves as a starting point for secular adventures and spiritual awakenings.
But field sports could have negative connotations, too: in particular, they
could be signifiers of worldly vanity and impermanence. In a Jewish context, a
depiction of the chase might symbolize the pursuit of Israel by her enemies
(Epstein 1997).
I The Religious Hunt
Because hunting is a sign of human control over the natural world, it is not
surprising that deities often use the hunt to reward, punish, or communicate with
their constituents—in other words, to remind them that humans are not the most
powerful beings on earth. The pre-Christian pantheons of Europe included many
deities, often female ones, associated with wild animals, hunting, and fishing,
though we cannot discount the possibility that the apparently large number of
native hunting goddesses might be at least in part due to statistical skewing
caused by the Roman influence on indigenous religions. As Christianity spread

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over the continent, these pagan huntresses were replaced by the male patron
saints of field sports (Almond 2009).
In saints’ legends, hunting is generally depicted as a worldly activity, some-
times harmful and sometimes benign, that must be nevertheless be relinquished
before a man can turn to God. Eustace was converted to Christianity when a
hunted stag, bearing a cross between its antlers, spoke to him in Christ’s voice,
a scene that is the subject of Pisanello’s painting The Vision of Saint Eustace (ca.
1440); the same story was also later associated with St. Hubert. While he was
hunting, Julian (later St. Julian the Hospitaller) was tricked by Satan into believ-
ing that his wife was cheating on him; when he returned home, he saw a man
and woman sleeping in his bed and killed them. They turned out to be his long-
lost parents and, in order to atone for his crime, he built many hospitals for
travelers and the poor. As a young man, St. Germain hung the trophies of his
hunts on a tree associated with pagan worship until the tree was cut down, the
trophies were burnt, and he was rather forcibly inducted into the clergy.
St. Giles (who is not a patron saint of hunting, unlike the other saints mentioned
here) was wounded by hunters while protecting the hind who was his compa-
nion and wet nurse.
Christians pictured Satan as a hunter, influenced by such verses as Psalm
90:3, “He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare and from deadly pestilence.” In
a letter to the English clergy, St. Boniface (ca. 675–754) refers to “the snares of
Satan, the fowler.” Paradoxically, hunting could also have positive religious
associations: Christ could be depicted as a hunter of men’s souls, or hunting
scenes could indicate victory over evil. In addition, a man could even be the
hunter of his own sins: in Livre de seyntz medecins (1354), Henry of Lancaster
compares the cleansing of sins by means of confession with the removal of foxes
from a den.
The hunts of two animals in particular, the stag and the unicorn, were often
associated with the Passion. According to popular belief, the unicorn can only be
captured when it willingly lays its horn in the lap of a maiden, a gesture that was
seen as symbolic of the way that Christ was brought into the world through the
Virgin Mary. In the final panel of the Unicorn Tapestries (1495–1505, The Cloister,
NY), the unicorn seems to come back to life after being slain, which is presumably
an allusion to the resurrection of Christ.
The stag had even stronger associations with the sacred than did the unicorn,
though the symbolism was often tangled and contradictory. In Psalm 41, the stag
searches for running water in the same way that the faithful heart searches for
God. According to medieval lore, the stag was essentially immortal, as it could
rejuvenate itself with snake venom. Like Christ, the animal was meek, but a
formidable enemy; the dogs and huntsmen that pursued it might represent Jews,

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Judas, or the devil. On the other hand, the deer might also symbolize the soul of
the pious man, pursued either by Christ or by sin and evil.
Ungodly as the hunt could sometimes be, it was nevertheless a common locus
for miracles. King Mirian of Iberia was stricken blind while hunting and only
regained his sight when he prayed to God. The Virgin saved King Denis of
Portugal from being killed by a bear. In addition, according to legend, several
religious houses were founded in response to miraculous events that took place
during hunts. King David I of Scotland is supposed to have founded Holyrood
Abbey (1128) after he was saved from being gored by a stag when it was startled
by the sudden appearance of a cross. Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria founded the
monastery of Polling in southern Germany (ca. 750) after the hind that he was
pursuing stopped suddenly, scraped away the earth, and revealed the Holy Cross.
Although they had generally positive secular associations, hawks and falcons in
religious contexts were frequently symbols of sin, bad character, worldliness,
vanity, luxury, or clerical misbehavior, particularly in the Parisian “Bibles mor-
alisées” (thirteenth–fifteenth centuries). However, there were also a great many
saints associated with hawking and falconry. In some cases, a bird symbolizes the
saint’s prior worldliness or corruption, and the act of giving it away signifies
conversion or reform. St. Bavo, a patron saint of falconry, was a dissolute noble-
man until he converted to Christianity and became a hermit; he is often depicted
holding a falcon and sword, symbols of his early life. When St. Hugo decided to
join the Cistercian order, he symbolically released his falcon to the wild. There are
also many saints who are incidentally associated with falcons, often because they
were either known to be hunters (St. Julian the Hospitaller, St. Hubert, St. Eus-
tace) or because they were of noble or royal birth (Oggins 2004, 128–34).
Fishermen did not seem to be tainted by worldliness, as hunters and falconers

sometimes were. The patron saints of fishing, including Andrew the Apostle,
Peter the Apostle, and Nicholas of Myra, seem to have been righteous men from
the beginnings of their lives. However—and this is surprising, given its overwhel-
mingly positive associations in the New Testament—fishing does not seem to have
been a particularly holy activity, either. St. Zeno of Verona is often depicted with
fish and tackle, but this is probably a reference to his success in converting
pagans to Christianity; St. Benno’s association with fish is quite incidental. The
Fisher King has some relationship to the Holy Grail, though he does not seem to
enjoy divine favor because he is a fisherman.

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II The Supernatural Hunt
White animals, particularly white stags and boars, could lead a hunter to the
Otherworld, fairyland, or the realm of the dead; or, alternately, white hunting
dogs or horses might accompany visitors from those other worlds. These encoun-
ters are especially prevalent in the Celtic tradition. The Welsh heroes Manawydan
and Pryderi, as well as the Breton hero Guingamor, follow white animals out of
our world and into the next. Pwyll, Lord of Dyfed, drives white-coated, red-eared
hounds from a stag carcass, an arrogant gesture that angers the dogs’ owner, the
lord of the Otherworld. The close association of hunting and the numinous finds
another expression in the motif of “The Three Living and the Three Dead” (or “The
Three Dead Kings”), which was commonly depicted in church frescoes: three
kings who have been hunting or hawking are accosted by three corpses who warn
them that death will soon take them from earthly pleasures.
Sometimes, the hunt is not a portal to or from the Otherworld but a manifesta-
tion of it. In the so-called Wild Hunt, stories of which are found in many parts of
Europe, otherworldly hunters are seen or heard pursuing their quarry, which may
be an animal, a mythological creature, or an unfortunate human (Lecouteux
1999). One of the best-known Wild Hunts of medieval literature is that described
in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca. 1348–1353) (Day 5, Novella 8; Boccaccio
2003). The nobleman Nastagio degli Onesti witnesses a spectral hunt in which a
spurned lover repeatedly chases and kills his cruel mistress; he cynically uses this
apparition to his own advantage.
III The Inverted Hunt
There is a special kind of symbolic hunt, often seen in the margins of manuscripts,
in which wild animals, wearing clothes and walking upright, hunt other animals
or humans. Such topsy-turvy hunts are a symbol of the mundus inversus, the
“world upside-down,” an often playful, but sometimes diabolical, imagined
inversion of world order. In the Hell panel of Hieronymous Bosch’s triptych The
Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1510), a hare, carrying the gutted body of a
young woman slung over a pole, blows a hunting horn. In Jewish manuscripts,
such inverted images could symbolize the desire to turn the tables on one’s
oppressors (Epstein 1997, 29–31).

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IV The Gendered Hunt
The aristocratic chase was, as has been shown, an almost exclusively masculine
sport. However, women might be present as spectators during certain aristocratic
hunts and were regular participants in the before-hunt picnics and after-hunt
banquets. There were a few women famed for their skill at the chase, though they
were considered very unusual: Ol’ga, princess of Kiev, T’amar of Georgia, Mary of
Burgundy, Diane de Poitiers, and Elizabeth I, to mention some of the most
prominent. Nonaristocratic hunting and illegal hunting seem to have also been
primarily male pursuits as well, though the extant records mention at least a few
female poachers.
Although there are a number of female hunters in classical mythology, there
are very few in medieval literature. In the cynegetical treatise Les livres du Roy
Modus et de la Royne Ratio (1379), women debate the relative merits of hawking
and hunting, though they eventually bow to the judgment of the Count of Tancar-
ville. In Jacques de Brézé’s Chasse (1481), the stag hunt is directed by a woman
who is identifiable as Princess Anne de Beaujeu, daughter of Louis XI. Such
literary depictions of huntresses are few and far between, however, and it is hard
to know to what extent they reflect historical reality.
Hawking, on the other hand, was enjoyed by many aristocratic women.
Artistic depictions of hawking parties from the later Middle Ages usually include
members of both sexes (see Fietze 2005, 59–63; Fietze also mentions a hunting
manual by a woman, Juliana Berners, b. 1388, her Boke of St. Alban, from the early
fifteenth century, and her The Art of Fyshyng, first printed in 1496).
Despite the fact that fishing seems to have been a male-dominated activity,
there was perhaps something a bit emasculating about it. In Chrétien de Troyes’s
Perceval (ca. 1190), the Fisher King is so named because his wounded thighs make
it impossible to ride and therefore to hunt or hawk, so he must angle for pleasure.
In Boccaccio’s Decameron (Day 2, Novella 10; Boccaccio 2003), the impotent and
ineffectual Messer Ricciardo takes his beautiful wife on a fishing trip and ends up
losing her to a virile pirate.
V The Erotic Hunt
Whatever else they may have signified, field sports, especially hunting and
hawking, had very strong erotic connotations.
In classical myth and literature, the hunt is frequently associated with erotic
love. Hunting is sometimes a prelude to sexual passion: after hunting, Narcissus
stops to refresh himself at a pool, sees himself reflected in the water, and becomes

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infatuated with his own image. It is sometimes retribution for illicit lust: Actaeon
catches a glimpse of the naked Diana while he is hunting and his punishment is
to be hunted by his own dogs. At other times, hunting is more obliquely asso-
ciated with love: Meleager chooses his beloved, Atalanta, to take part in the hunt
of the Calydonian boar, with disastrous consequences; Cephalus kills his jealous
wife Procris when he mistakes her for a wild animal; Venus’s lover Adonis is
killed by a boar.
Connections between sexual passion and the chase occur in several places in
the Hebrew Scriptures, as well. In the Song of Songs, both the bride and bride-
groom are hunters (the man is literally a hunter and the woman is a metaphorical
hunter of her beloved); however, at the same time, both are also compared to prey
animals (gazelle, stag, or fawn). Similar imagery is found in Proverbs 5, in which
the listener is abjured to find his joy in a wife, who is likened to a doe. In Proverbs 7,
however, it is the adulteress who is a hunter and the man drawn into her embraces
will be destroyed like a wild animal that walks unwittingly into a snare.
In the Middle Ages, male prowess at hunting was an irresistible attractant to
the opposite sex. The heightened emotional state created by the chase (or by
watching it or hearing about it) was a powerful aphrodisiac. Hawking and
falconry were not particularly sexy sports in and of themselves, but the mixed
company and enforced idleness provided opportunities for flirtation and court-
ship. The fecund month of May is thus often represented by an image of a
hawking party or a lone austringer or falconer.
The medievals, always inveterate lovers of punning, enjoyed playing with the
similarities between venari, “to hunt,” and venereus, “pertaining to Venus,” two
words that, incidentally, come from a common Indo-European root. Suggestive
hunting and hawking scenes were popular subjects for privately consumed visual
art. Many illuminations in the famed Codex Manesse (ca. 1304–1340) depict
couples hawking while engaged in amorous play, and erotically charged images
of the aristocratic hunt were popular motifs for personal items carved out of ivory
such as mirror cases and trinket boxes.
Romantic love and the hunt are especially closely connected in late-medieval
lais and romances. Both Guingamor and Partenope de Blois are hunting boar
before they meet their otherworldly lovers; Guigemar is wounded in his thigh
during the hunt of a white, hermaphroditic deer and can only be cured by the
woman who will become his lover. The hunt could also be an adjunct to love, or
more ambiguously connected with it. Chrétien’s Erec and Enide (ca. 1170) de-
scribes a contest in which men fight to give their ladies the privilege of removing
a sparrowhawk from a silver perch. After being banished from Mark’s court,
Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and Isolde in this eponymous romance (ca.
1210) live idyllically in the forest, hunting not for food but for pleasure.

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The trope of the love-chase is the most explicit linkage between eroticism and
the hunt. It seems to be fully developed first in Virgil’s Aeneid: Dido, in her love-
sickness for Aeneas, is compared to a hind that has been pierced by an arrow, and
their relationship is soon afterward consummated during a royal hunt. In his Ars
Amatoria, Ovid elaborates on the theme, likening the search for and seduction of a
partner to hunting boar, deer and rabbit; catching birds with snares and lime; and
fishing. Andreas Capellanus (late twelfth century) claims that the word amor comes
from amus, “hook,” because the lover has both been caught by, and also wishes to
catch, the object of his affections. The love-chase can take many forms but com-
monly depicts the lover as a hunter and the beloved as a hunted animal, usually a
deer or stag. However, it can also be associated with falconry and, in the satirical
mid-fifteenth-century English poem Piers of Fulham, the pursuit of the lover is
likened to fishing and fowling. Although the love in question is usually courtly, it
can also be more lowly or dishonorable. Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400) com-
pares Troilus’s rape-cum-seduction of Criseyde to the capture of a lark by a sparro-
whawk; Pandarus, the orchestrator of their relationship, is the austringer.
The love-chase metaphor is always, on some level, disturbing and proble-
matic, because sexual consummation—even if it is mutually desired—must neces-
sarily “kill” the “prey.” Hadamar von Laber’s Middle High German Die Jagd (mid-
fourteenth century) is unusual in acknowledging the double-edged sword of
sexual passion: the hunter greatly desires the stag but does not want to kill it, as
that would be dishonorable.
Although it is rarer, the lover can also take the role of the hunted beast. The
dreamer of the Roman de la rose (Guillaume de Lorris, ca. 1230–1240) is stalked
and shot by the god of love. In Jean Acart’s L’Amoureuse Prise (1332), the lover is
hunted by Amours and his dogs, and his body is savaged; only the pity of his
beloved can save him.
According to another, contradictory tradition, the hunt is a way to avoid the
pitfalls of romance. In the Remedia Amoris, Ovid counsels the unhappy lover to
turn his attention to hunting, fishing, or fowling in order to take his mind off of a
failed love affair. This tongue-in-cheek advice is later echoed, apparently in all
seriousness, by some of the late-medieval cynegetical manuals, which assure the
hunter that he will be kept too busy during the day, and be too tired at night, to
bother with romantic entanglements.
G The Environmental Impacts of Medieval Hunting

During the Middle Ages, many wild animals disappeared locally or regionally.
A few species, such as the Eurasian beaver, were hunted mercilessly for the

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products that could be made from their carcasses. Bears, venerated by pagan
cults, were slaughtered from France to the eastern and northern edges of Europe
in an attempt to uproot the old religions (Pastoureau 2011). In the later Middle
Ages, the wolf was methodically eradicated from many areas. Most animals were
not the victims of focused pogroms, however; they simply disappeared due to a
combination of habitat loss and overhunting.
In some cases, however, hunting had an unexpectedly salubrious effect on
native wildlife. As is true today, many medieval hunters, such as the Emperor
Maximilian I (1459–1519), were also game conservationists. The now-extinct aur-
ochs and the bison were extirpated from most of Europe by the end of the Middle
Ages, but managed to hold on for as long as they did because they were jealously
guarded by the Polish monarchs. The Eurasian elk was protected by the late-
medieval Scandinavian kings, and populations of red deer were carefully hus-
banded wherever aristocratic hunting a force was a popular pastime. Boar, which
had previously been eradicated from England, was re-introduced in order to
provide sport for aristocrats.
Hunting even helped some species spread far beyond their natural ranges.
Fallow deer, native to Asia Minor, and rabbits, native to the Iberian peninsula,
were imported to many parts of Europe by the Romans and, later, the Normans.
Select Bibliography
Aberth, John, An Environmental History of the Middle Ages (Abingdon and New York 2013).
Allsen, Thomas T., The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Philadelphia, PA, 2006).
Almond, Richard, Medieval Hunting (Stroud, Gloucestershire 2003).
Brusewitz, Gunnar, Hunting: Hunters, Game, Weapons and Hunting Methods from the Remote
Past to the Present Day (New York 1969).
Cummins, John, The Art of Medieval Hunting: The Hound and the Hawk (Edison, NJ, 2003).
Fletcher, John, Gardens of Earthly Delight: The History of Deer Parks (Oxford 2011).
Hoffmann, Richard C., Fishers’ Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle
Ages (Toronto and London 1997).
Hoffmann, Richard C., “Fishing for Sport in Medieval Europe: New Evidence,” Speculum 60.4
(1985): 877–902.
Hull, Denison, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London 1964).
Oggins, Robin S., The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England (New Haven, CT, and
London 2004).
Thiébaux, Marcelle, The Stag of Love: the Chase in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, NY, and London
1974).

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Illness and Death
A Concepts and Treatments of Illness

Modern scientific analysis has much to tell us about the presence and causes of
disease, a culturally neutral approach that archaeologists label “etic.” At the same
time, another strongly important dialogue is provided in “emic” scholarship, that
is, viewpoints within the culture that try to reconstruct the medieval worldview
from contemporary accounts (Green 2013). Both discourses have much to contri-
bute, and cross-disciplinary work is beginning to flourish, although different
training, vocabulary and points of view can make it difficult to break down the
barriers between specializations. In the following paper on illness and death, the
greatest focus is on the reconstructive “emic” approach that is a historian’s
strength, but while this is a valuable approach with much to offer, it does not form
the only path possible for discussing these universally significant phenomena.
Illness, as with most events in the medieval period, was understood to have a
strong spiritual dimension that overlapped its physical realities. Illness was often
seen as a punishment for sins, curable through God’s grace, the intercession of
the saints, or clerical cleansing through the sacrament of confession. Illness could
also be sent to try virtue and patience, following the biblical example of Job; in
the later medieval period especially, numerous saints (like Catherine of Siena,
1347−1380) and mystics (like Julian of Norwich, 1342−ca. 1416) prayed to have
bodily illness or infirmities granted them for the mortification of their flesh. Those
who suffered from extreme and prolonged illnesses, such as leprosy, were often
considered to be serving their sentence of Purgatory while in the mortal world,
and therefore these suffering poor were seen as meritorious in some degree. Their
prayers would speedily reach the ear of the Most High, and caring for them was
seen as equivalent with caring for Christ himself (Saunier 1993).
There were several overlapping theories as to the physical cause of illness.
Bad smells were thought to spread disease, and it was observed by experience
that touching the sick, or coming into close contact with belongings such as
bedding or clothing, also made people ill. But illness could strike from afar,
motivated by a malignant gaze or prompted by astral influences.
Within the body, imbalance was the greatest danger: the four humors (as
taught by the ancient medical doctor Galen, or Claudius Galenus of Pergamon
[129−ca. 200]), needed to maintain their proper proportions or else one’s health
suffered. Blood, which had hot and moist properties, was the most abundant in a

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Illness and Death 723
healthy body. Phlegm, cold, and moist, would be present at a ratio of one fourth
as much as blood. Yellow bile, which was hot and dry, should be one sixteenth,
while black bile, which was considered cold and dry, should only be present as
one sixty-fourth of the body’s venous fluids. This ideal balance was in fact
acknowledged to be rarely if ever achieved, as every individual body had its own
complexion, based on its predominant humor. The cheerful sanguine complex-
ion, based on a predominance of blood, was the most desirable. Phlegmatic
individuals were considered to be slow and sluggish; choleric people, who had
more yellow bile, were considered to be quick to anger; while the most dangerous
perhaps was the melancholic, suffering from too much black bile. Beyond dictat-
ing personality, the humors also decreed a person’s vulnerability to certain
diseases, and more generally one’s total state of heath.
To balance the humors was to help the body heal itself; this was commonly
done through both bloodletting and purging. The practice of bloodletting (phle-
botomy) was carefully aligned to humoral theory and was designed to remove
excess of certain humors (“bad blood”), as well as old “stagnant” blood that was
thought to decay within the body. Bloodletting could be done from arms or legs,
head, hands, or feet, depending on a person’s ailments, age, and the season of the
year. By the late medieval period, for example, many monastic communities
routinely incorporated preventative bloodletting several times a year, followed by
a few days’ recuperation in the infirmary. Purging could take the forms of an emetic
(vomiting), a laxative (evacuating bowels), or a diuretic (passing of urine). Cup-
ping was also used to draw humors away from areas of dangerous concentration
by applying suction to small areas of the body, such as by means of heated glass.
Balancing the humors was more complex than keeping the blood in order,
however. A person’s entire environment affected the body. The manipulation of
the six non-naturals was also important. These consisted of air, food and drink,
sleep and watch, motion and rest, evacuation (including sex) and repletion, and
passions of the soul. All of these were significant, though perhaps the most
carefully monitored of all was food and drink, especially by the late medieval
period. Foods that were similar to healthy humors could nourish a body while
foods of opposite complexion were corrective (Albala 2002, 86). Spices such as
pepper, ginger, and cinnamon were thought to be extremely hot and dry, and
thus their addition to food could be medicinal as well as pleasurable. White
bread, meat, and wine were all thought to be hot and moist in complexion,
making them ideal foods for the sick, whose blood needed strengthening. By the
late Middle Ages in particular, hospitals spent a significant portion of their budget
on meat for their patients; the well-known Florentine hospital of Santa Maria
Nuova, for example produced an especially nourishing chicken soup as a kind of
signature dish (Henderson 2006, 366).

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Hospitals also attempted to provide ideal environments for recovery with

warm, clean beds, plenty of rest, and good air circulation (Henderson 2006, 159).
They did not necessarily provide what we today would expect as “medical”
treatment; skillful management of the non-naturals was thought to be as impor-
tant, or possibly more so, than drugs or surgeries (Horden 2007). Moreover, many
hospitals refused to take in ill people whom that they found too difficult or
troublesome to treat. Leprosy was the most noted among these, but hospitals also
could reject persons suffering from plague, mental illness, wounds, or pregnant
women (Orme and Webster 1995, 58). The latter two often required the expert help
of surgeons or midwives, who most hospitals did not employ on a regular basis,
although some cities in Italy did keep public physicians on retainer (Nutton 1981).
In the earlier medieval period, hospitals were linked primarily with the
monastic tradition and their ideals of hospitality: the ideal monastery plan of St.
Gall, Switzerland (early ninth century) included an infirmary complete with its
own cloister, kitchen, refectory, bathhouse, and warming room; the plan also
included a separate structure used purely for bloodletting. Monasteries could
also provide care of sick laity, especially in the case of pilgrims, although the ill
were not necessarily separated from their healthier companions. For example,
the hospital of St. Thomas Eastbridge in Canterbury (founded ca. 1176) housed
both sick and well pilgrims who came to visit the shrine of the city’s namesake
saint.
This twelfth-century English foundation, patronized by the archbishops of
Canterbury, was indicative of the growth of urban hospitals affiliated with cathe-
drals, and the increasing shift of health care into the hands of secular clergy and
lay patrons. Bishops, canons, and wealthy lay individuals began to take up
responsibility for founding and supporting non-monastic establishments for the
poor and sick, although the two categories were not necessarily separated. The
distinction between hospitality and health care was not often clearly made. The
staff in such establishments fell into three rough groups. The first was the clergy
who performed divine services and offered spiritual comfort. The second was the
service staff, such as porters, grooms, and cooks. The third was the nursing staff
that tended the sick. Sometimes the latter two categories could overlap, as those
who nursed might also cook and clean. While these nurses were charged with
administering medicines and doubtless received apprenticeship training from
their older colleagues, they were not university-trained physicians. Some estab-
lishments employed older laywomen of good reputation, preferably those who
were at least 50 years of age, as menstruating females were thought to have an
adverse effect on the sick (Rawcliffe 1999, 150). Many preferred to have the
nursing brothers or sisters adhere to a religious rule, even if they were but tertiary
members of an order.

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Fig. 1: Interior of the hospital at Tonnerre, France, founded 1291 by Duchess Margaret of
Burgundy (1250−1308). The hospital was a convent-style complex, but its main building
combined a chapel with a large ward for the sick, a long and lofty hall well ventilated by large
windows, with post holes to contain the frames for bed curtains. The chapel at the far end also
contains the tomb of the foundress; altar and tomb would both be partially visible to the bed-
bound sick even past the intervening choir screen. Photo by author.
The Augustinians were particularly popular in hospitals as their rule permitted

more flexibility in providing time for nursing care. Examples of prominent hospi-
tals run by Augustinian sisters include the Paris Hotel-Dieu, founded in 651, and
St. Mary Spital in London, founded 1197 (Craemer 1963, 70). In others, nursing
brothers took charge, as at the large hospital of Tonnerre (1293), staffed by the
brothers of the Holy Ghost (Craemer 1963, 62) (Fig. 1). A late medieval manuscript
treatise written for the Paris Hotel-Dieu, Le livre de vie active by Jehan Henry
(d. 1483), describes the work of Augustinian nuns in restoring poor sufferers to
health both physically and spiritually. The sick are to be treated through contri-
tion, confession, and satisfaction; the first two are linked to the administration of
purgative medicines through the mouth, while the third is likened to restorative
and comforting electuaries (medicinal pastes or pastilles, often sweetened) (Can-
dille 1964, 23). Within the allegorical imagery are embedded descriptions of the

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Fig. 2: Illustration from La vie active of Jehan Henry, 1484. This treatise for the Augustinian
sisters of the Paris Hôtel-Dieu is both practical and allegorical. In this miniature, novices are
instructed how to care for the sick, by figures such as Justice and Prudence. Patients lie two to a
bed within the hospital ward. Photo courtesy of the Archives de l’Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux
de Paris.
sisters’ hard physical work day and night caring for their patients, feeding,
washing, and attending (Fig. 2). Not least of their labors was the enormous
amount of laundry they had to do, washing some 800 to 900 sheets each week.
Despite these efforts, Henry noted, no-one in the neighborhood could completely
escape the odors caused by patients suffering from bowel complaints, a prosaic
note not quite covered by textual effusions of the sisters’ charity and mercy.
Caring for the sick was hard, difficult, and odorous work, and the large wards
of hospitals were compounded with additional adjustments necessarily for treat-
ing large groups. A light burned day and night so that the staff on call could come
to tend the sick at any hour, and also so that patients could get up to use the privy
(or be helped to use a chamberpot if they could not walk.) The use of curtains
around the bed could provide some degree of privacy, but most patients shared a
bed with at least one fellow sufferer (Fig. 2). In some hospitals (especially the
women’s wards, which often received less funding and donor attention) the
patients could be crammed six or more in a bed, particularly in times of epidemic

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(Henderson 2006, 156). Even a patient lucky enough to have a bed to himself, as
in the particularly spacious and luxurious Savoy Hospital in London (founded ca.
1509), would still have been roused by the sound of morning prayers in the chapel
adjoining the hall (Fig. 1; also see the contribution on “Architecture,” by Charlotte
A. Stanford in this Handbook).
Some hospitals did have private rooms for the wealthy, though these tended
to be retirement residences rather than care centers per se for the sick. Such rental
arrangements or corrodies entitled a person or couple to room, board, and often
nursing care as needed, in exchange for cash or property bequests (Cullum 1991).
For those with sufficient resources, however, the most common nursing care was
to be found at home, where one could be served by familiar faces and in more
pleasant surroundings. If family members did not have the leisure or aptitude for
nursing, one could hire help. Beguines, the quasi-religious women who lived
communally and chastely but without professing vows or following a specific
rule, often earned their living by undertaking such home health care (as well as
the corollary of spiritual remembrance in praying for the dead). They, like the
clergy who visited the sick and dying, performed the role of health care profes-
sional as much as a physician, surgeon, or apothecary, for they ministered to the
soul. Their role was not limited to helping recovery during this life, but in guiding
patients through a peaceful and hopeful passage to the next.
I Medical Practitioners and Medicines
Health care practitioners were not always professionals, and their roles—and
training—could vary greatly. Generally speaking, a healer would be known as a
medicus or medica, but differentiation is noted through changing terminology,
beginning about the twelfth century. A physician (physicus) diagnosed and
advised, a surgeon (chirugus) performed manual operations that involved cutting
or letting blood, and an apothecary (apothecarius) primarily made and sold
medicines. The highest on the social and economic scale was usually the physi-
cus, who was usually at least literate (possibly able to read and write in Latin as
well), and, especially by the later medieval period, had usually attended univer-
sity (Jacquart 1981). The term doctore meant, literally, someone who could teach,
and did not necessarily have anything to do with medicine.
University training for medicine in the medieval west began possibly as early
as the eleventh century in Salerno, and spread to other centers like Montpellier
and Paris, though not every university offered courses in medicine. Clients’
interest in university medicine expanded after the twelfth century, and licensing
began to appear under the influence of powerful patrons such as the crown of

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Aragon (McVaugh 1993, 69). Licensing, like university training, was not a profes-
sional self-regulated process, but rather a concept forged through a larger social
context of clients’ expectations and legal ramifications. Competing theories and
approaches were common, both within the developing realm of specialized
practitioner groups as well as within the general sphere of medical practice.
Much of the university course of study was spurred by the rediscovery of
ancient thought as transmitted by the Islamic world, though texts and ideas
carried inevitable glosses and changes; when medical writers of the medieval
period discussed classical texts, they were not seeking a historicized viewpoint
but rather using an established authority to answer their own questions and
prompt their own ideas. Nevertheless, the humoral theory made its way from
translations of Galen, to the works of key medical writers such as Rhazes or Al-
Razi (854−925), and Avicenna or Ibn-Sīnā (ca. 960−1037) (Pormann and Savage-
Smith 2007, 15). The translation movement from Greek to Arabic flourished about
the ninth century and in mediated form was then introduced into the Latin West
through encyclopedic authors like Constantine the African (1017−1087), a medical
practitioner at Salerno and later a monk at Monte Cassino who translated at least
two dozen Arabic medical texts, and Gerard of Cremona (ca. 1114−1187) who
worked in Toledo translating medical and other scientific texts. The latter is
credited (though not with certainty) with translating Avicenna’s vast Canon of
Medicine (1025), which remained in use as a textbook at the medical school of
Montpellier up through the Renaissance.
Generally speaking, the textual tradition embraced by Western Europe
tended to focus on theoretical models, and university education tended to prefer
the weight of authority over empirical studies. In the field of surgery manuals, for
example, the Chirurgia Magna of Guy de Chauliac (ca. 1300−1368) which adhered
closely to textual sources was more popular and more widely consulted than the
pragmatic Surgery of Henry de Mondville (ca. 1260−1316) that dealt with personal
case studies (Pouchelle 1990). The eagerness with which university trained physi-
cians were embraced by wealthier patrons, especially in the later Middle Ages and
into the Renaissance, may well have been due to the logical coherence of their
system of care. The expectation of cure was not what it is today; only God (or
Nature) could fully cure, but a physician could at least provide a coherent frame-
work in which to place the frightening and painful phenomena of disease.
Such comfort was available primarily for the well-to-do. Persons of limited
means had to remain content with practitioners whose theoretical models were
less well developed, although they might have acquired considerable skills
through apprenticeship training. Increasing criticism was leveled against such
practitioners by university trained physicians who felt that an appropriate and
logical system of illness and health theory was essential for responsible care.

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Women, who were barred from attending the universities, were particularly
vulnerable to such criticism. Bruno of Longobucco (d. 1286), in his Surgery of
1253, condemned the “vile and presumptuous women [who] usurp and abuse this
art [of surgery], who, although they have faith [in what they are doing], have
neither art nor understanding … they do not practice wisely or from a sure
foundation [of knowledge] but they do so casually, not knowing at all the causes
or the names of the infirmities they claim to be able to cure” (Green 2008, 118). In
other words, empirical training was seen as inadequate by those who held to the
value of the medical theoretical framework as taught at the universities.
By the late medieval period, the gulf had widened between those who
diagnosed, and those who worked with their hands, such as midwives and
surgeons. Some of this was no doubt due to economic rivalry, as physicians,
surgeons, and apothecaries often competed for the same patients’ money. Eco-
nomic rivalry seems to have particularly hurt female practitioners, who were often
limited by the development of male-controlled guilds (Green 2008, 121). Guild
rivalry led to restrictions and prohibitions, often in favor of the physicians;
apothecaries, for example, could be prohibited from making diagnoses (Jacquart
1981).
Diagnosis frequently took the form of uroscopy. Given a container of a
patient’s urine, the physician was expected to be able to determine the balance of
humors and thus arrive at a recommended course of treatment, even if the patient
was not actually present. It was a process open to considerable error, as contem-
porary satirists recognized, but the flask of urine remained emblematic of a
physician’s trade, although the term physicus was as much a social marker as it
was a trade description; many physicians also practiced other professions. Perso-
nal consultation from such a learned individual was expensive, and asking him
to tailor specific treatment for an individual was also costly. Until the end of the
medieval period, there is little or no evidence of physicians serving as permanent
hospital staff (Orme and Webster 1995, 59). The poor were usually given general,
not customized, care, though there were notable exceptions, such as Florence’s
Santa Maria Nuova, and the Savoy Hospital in London, which followed the former
institution as a model (Orme and Webster 1995, 148−50).
Neither were surgeons regularly affiliated with most medieval hospitals. The
violent nature of a surgeon’s trade, which involved amputations and cauteriza-
tions, was often the province of wounds, breaks, and damage by foreign objects.
It was not always related to disease per se, which was thought to be caused by the
body’s imbalance or impalpable forces like vapors, rather than an arrow, sword,
or fall from a ladder. While surgeons might gain great practical skill from treating
battlefield wounds, this was not likely to connect them to hospital practice, as
most such institutions excluded the wounded. Surgeons might be hired to per-

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form bloodletting, but this was more expensive than general nursing therapy, and
there is little or no evidence that this kind of treatment was provided to the poor
in charity wards, although some establishments like monastic houses routinely
provided this kind of health service for their residents. Bloodletting, after 1215,
had to be performed by lay practitioners, as the Fourth Lateran Council forbade
clergy to shed blood, even in a medical context (Siraisi 1990, 26). Some women
held surgeons’ licenses, and though their training was usually of the empirical
rather than university kind, even critics acknowledged their skills in performing
operations in areas that men felt they should not decently handle—such as female
lithotomy (Green 2008). Other surgical practices, beyond bone setting and wound
treatment, included performing amputations and removing ills like fistulae and
cataracts. The risks of such procedures and their relatively low level of success
were well known. Al-Razi, who had written a treatise on cataract surgery, refused
to undergo such a process himself, preferring to lose his sight rather than risk
probable complications and certain pain (Savage-Smith 2000, 320). Success in
such matters often remained uncertain even up to the modern era; the noted
diarist Samuel Pepys (1633−1703), who survived being “cut for the stone” (a
lithotomy), was so relieved that he celebrated the anniversary of his surgery every
year by holding a dinner party (Diary entry of 26 March 1660, see Pepys 1970, 97).
Apothecaries sold drugs and other medicinal substances, but they faced stiff
competition from many other markets, as spice-sellers and small goods-dealers
often traded in various preparations more or less medicinal in nature. Many
remedies were in fact home grown and the well-educated housewife was expected
to know how to prepare and administer them. The dividing line between culinary
and nursing arts could be very blurred, and overseeing the creation of socially
proper, healthy food was a large part of a housewife’s responsibilities. Le Ména-
gier de Paris (1393) illustrates this, mixing spiritual advice, kitchen recipes, health
admonishments, and moral tales into a compendium addressed to a young bride.
Garden simples or single-substance remedies abounded, and most households
and hospitals had gardens in which to grow herbs for tisanes, poultices, or
balancing the humors in food.
Recipes for compounds also abounded. Many of these were easily made at
home, like the recipe for a beverage for an invalid that mixes barley water with
licorice, figs, and rock sugar (Le Ménagier de Paris 2009, 325). Complex medi-
cines, however, could contain dozens of substances, none of which might be
made up exactly the same, depending on its maker. Theriac was one such
compound, widely respected as a panacaea since the days of Galen. Though
recipes varied, theriac contained literally dozens of herbs, roots, spices, and oils,
as well as viper’s flesh (thought to keep poison at bay), all pulverized and mixed
with honey into an electuary or used as a salve. Exotic ingredients (such as

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cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, cloves, and opium) drove up the price in this and other
medicines. In some compounds, substitutes for rare and expensive ingredients
were sometimes used to make a “poor man’s version” which was often thought to
be more violent in its effects, and thus less desirable than the more expensive but
gentler and long-term “refined” treatment (Saunier 1993, 156−57). Though mod-
ern readers are highly skeptical of ingredients like gold leaf and powdered human
mummy, their place in the framework of humoral theory made them acceptable
to many consumers—and their very price may well have encouraged some
patients by the knowledge that they were getting the “best” the market had to
offer.
The question over whether medieval medicine really “worked” is one that has
created a great deal of debate both inside academic literature and out. A sub-
stance like opium, which is now known to be effective when used in modern
clinical settings, was not understood according to the same rationale as we would
now apply (Schalick 2003). The same is true of numerous substances seen as
nauseating then and now. The logic of the system is often ignored in favor of a
focus on individual ingredients and their potential effectiveness or lack thereof.
As a result, medieval medicine has been caricatured, as in Karen Cushman’s
Newberry Award winning novel Catherine, Called Birdy (Cushman 1994) where an
angry teenager mixes up extra dog dung in a medicinal compound for the father
with whom she is at odds. Other authors have vigorously defended it: the image
of mystery fiction writer Ellis Peters’ tolerant Benedictine Brother Cadfael (Peters
1977; 1994), creating enlightened remedies from his twelfth-century herb garden,
has also cast a long shadow in popular consciousness.
Remedies based on faith and magic have received even less credence in
contemporary opinion, but there is no doubt that these too were important in
promoting health and healing. Prayer and pilgrimage were common resorts for
those suffering from chronic conditions. The flourishing genre of hagiography
celebrated miraculous healings by saints or those whose biographers wished
them to be acclaimed saints. Beyond official church sanction, various forms of
magic were practiced. Charms were mingled with prayers to drive away ills such
as toothache, and amulets employing blessed images like a wax agnus dei or a
medal of a saint might be employed as talismans to drive away evil influences,
including disease (Duffy 1992). The church had an uneasy relationship with such
items, as such use could easily slip from pious veneration to superstition (see the
contribution on “Magic and Divination” by Christa Tuczay in this Handbook).

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II Pestilences and Plagues
Medieval individuals dealt with numerous ailments that modern individuals

would find appalling: toothache, rheumatism, arthritis, the high risk of death in
childbirth and early infancy. Diseases were a constant threat, although social
awareness of them could rise or fall. Social awareness of leprosy, which re-
sponded strongly with charitable reactions through the eleventh and twelfth
century, altered significantly in later times, although we do not fully understand
why. Leprosy indeed troubled populations long before the fashionable increase in
leper houses foundations in the eleventh century. Leper houses (or lazar houses)
were separate communities, usually founded on the edges of towns where the
lepers could ask passers-by for alms, had their own chapels, burial sites, resi-
dences and rules. The popularity of leper houses among donors meant that most,
if not all, lepers had separate dwellings and a community of their own, so that
they did not have to mix too freely with the general populace. The disease was
cruelly disfiguring, with deformed extremities, nasal collapse and unsightly sores
that smelled terribly. Lepers wrapped themselves up and kept apart to avoid
offense as well as to prevent infection. The clappers or bells that they carried,
however, were not just to warn healthy persons away but also to solicit alms, as
the disease made voices hoarse (Touati 2000, 185). Awareness of lepers swung
from loathing to near-veneration; some individuals even felt both reactions in
their lifetimes, like St. Francis of Assisi (1181−1226). Leprosy was popularly
thought to be caused by excessive sexual sin (Gilchrist 1995, 114) but others saw
Christ’s image in the suffering of lepers and showed extreme compassion to them
following Jesus’ declaration that “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt 25:40, King James Version).
Though there were at least three hundred leper houses founded in medieval
England alone (Rawcliffe 2006, 11) by the later medieval period such foundations
declined and many of them closed altogether, as did other smaller hospital
establishments that suffered economically (Orme and Webster 1995, 139−41). Yet
though donors began to focus instead on small almshouses and other institu-
tions, the disease was far from eradicated. Diagnosis of leprosy still meant linger-
ing suffering and social ostracism far past the medieval period (Demaître 2007).
Since medicine’s ability to alleviate only a relative few of the chronic condi-
tions that troubled much of the population was limited in any case, the logic of
humoral theory rarely met severe challenge. It came under greater strain when
massive mortality and suffering swept through. The most striking instance of this
was of course the pandemic of the great pestilence of 1347−1349, later known as
the Black Death. This dreadful disease struck down at least a third of the popula-
tion of Europe, though estimates vary, and some communities were wiped out

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altogether. It was universally considered to be a scourge from God to punish the

manifold sins of humanity, but other explanations were sought as well. Many of
them attempted to fit into the scientific models of disease available at the time.
The medical faculty at the university of Paris declared that planetary configura-
tions had corrupted the air, and the resultant evil vapors, intensified by winds
and unseasonable weather, penetrated to the lungs and heart very quickly (Hor-
rox, ed. and trans., 1994, 158−63). Others saw the cause as human malice, accus-
ing communities of Jews of poisoning the wells, thus sparking both judicial
torture and mob violence. The social upheavals that followed in the wake of
pogrom and plague were varied in the extreme. Jews were not the only scape-
goats; beggars and Catalans also formed convenient targets. Communities reacted
with hysteria and blame, or religious frenzy in the form of outpoured devotion,
and even public self-flagellation, although the most extreme reactions, like the
flagellant movement, died away within a year or two. After the first great out-
break, the plague did return in subsequent waves up through the early modern
period. But in later epidemics communities tended to redirect the accompanying
social violence away from the poor and outcast, instead taking the form of
tradesmen, artisans and even peasants organized against those in power (Cohn
2007, 11).
Individual reaction to the plague also varied widely, even in the first and
deadliest wave. The prologue of Boccaccio’s Decameron (1350−1351) claims that in
Florence “this scourge had implanted so great a terror in the hearts of men and
women that brothers abandoned brothers, uncles nephews, sisters their brothers,
and in many cases wives deserted their husbands. But even worse, and almost
incredible, was the fact that fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their
own children, as though they did not belong to them” (Horrox, ed. and trans.,
1994, 30). Similar language is used by numerous chroniclers, but other evidence
indicates that though the terror was no doubt very real, much of this language
was in fact formulaic, and other social pressures still applied. From a range of
motives, many healers did stay with clients, servants with masters, hospital staff
with patients. Many evidently felt compassion (Wray 2004). Surgeon Guy de
Chauliac confessed that he did not dare to flee Avignon lest he lost his good
name; he survived not only the first great outbreak but also a repeat wave of
epidemic in 1360 (Wallis 2010, 421). Servants stayed with noble masters as well.
The sudden death from plague of the bishop of Tournai terrified his household,
but they still carried his body to the episcopal palace and buried him honorably a
week later (Horrox, ed. and trans., 1994, 51). Recent evidence from plague ceme-
teries in England indicates that graves were laid neatly and bodies treated with
care even in times of epidemic, although cemeteries were often required to
employ mass burial pits, or open new sites altogether (Connell et al., 2012, 217;

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231; Gilchrist and Sloane 2005). And if many clergy fled, others arranged for the
consecration of additional cemeteries, organized penitential processions, and
reminded their flocks that in extreme need, laity and even women could hear
confessions-and thus the sick did not have to die without the sacrament of
penance (Horrox, ed. and trans., 1994, 271−72).
There was as little consensus for treatment as for cause, as the noxious vapors
that the medical community had diagnosed were believed so strong that remedies
were chancy. The medical authorities candidly recommended flight. For those
who could not or would not, purifying the air was important, either through fire
or sweet-smelling substances. The rich were advised to use costly perfumes like
musk or ambergris; the poor would have to make do with less expensive aro-
matics (Wallis, ed., 2010, 424). Purges were often administered, including blood-
letting, done according to careful calculations so as to draw off the corrupt matter
from an appropriate vein. Electuaries were common, especially the highly re-
garded theriac, while sharp-smelling substances were thought to resist decay.
Contemporaries recognized two forms of the plague: one with continuous fever
and coughing blood, which was swifter acting and claimed more lives, the other
also suffering fever but characterized by swellings in groin and armpits, termed
“buboes” or “apostemes.” It was noted that those whose swellings “ripened” had
a greater chance at recovery, as Guy de Chauliac noted in his own case: “The
external apostemes were brought to a head with figs and cooked onions mixed
with yeast and butter; then they were opened and treated as ulcers. The tumors
were cupped, scarified, and cauterized … I was ill for six weeks, in such great
danger that all my friends believed I would die; but … by God’s will I survived”
(Wallis, ed., 2010, 421). In the end, the deciding factor was divine favor-or divine
wrath.
Modern scholars have been strongly divided as to how to understand plague,
especially its causes. Much evidence has been unearthed in favor of Yersinia
pestis, the culprit for the 1894 Asian plague pandemic. Though the symptoms
seem to agree with many of the descriptions of fourteenth-century plague (nota-
bly sudden onset, highly virulent, buboes forming in lymph nodes, fever, and
chills), it is impossible to be precise about disease conditions more than six
hundred years ago, using only written evidence compounded from a very differ-
ent world view than that of modern scholars. Scientific and archaeological ad-
vances in aDNA (ancient DNA) testing have made it possible to identify the
presence of Y. pestis in numerous different deposits of skeletal remains (Haensch
et al. 2010). Nevertheless, this “etic” approach has not yet settled all the questions
that still arise: were all plague victims sufferers of Y. pestis? Has Y. pestis altered
significantly over the centuries, and what changes might it have undergone? How
exactly did it spread? Why did it hit some populations harder than others? These

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and other questions still deserve exploration (Little 2011). The continuing work by
the scientific community will no doubt prompt many new viewpoints and ave-
nues for discussion on the subject.
As to medieval understanding of the plague or any other ailment, medical
theory was not discredited so much as helpless in the face of overwhelming odds.
As a logical system it still had the power to comfort and cure as much as any
human endeavor might do. But religious consolation was more powerful, and
ultimately more important. Death was inevitable in any case (see the contribution
on “Death” by Hiram Kümper in this Handbook). The trauma of so much death in
times of epidemic reinforced and promoted the desire of the faithful Christian to
make a good end.
B Dying
The unprepared death was the death most to be feared (Ariès 1981, 11). Hell
loomed for those with unconfessed sins, and to die suddenly was to risk damna-
tion. The intense focus on spiritual care given to the sick was thus linked not only
to the belief that sin’s effects were often manifest in physical ailments. Hospitals
admitting patients would require them to attend confession, a spiritual cleansing
as important as a physical one (Saunier 1993). Those who were ill risked not only
earthly torment, but eternal, unless they were shriven.
A good death, therefore, was one for which the dying person, and the
community, had time to prepare. Such an ideal death for the late medieval
period is specified by the popular text of the Ars Moriendi (ca. 1450). This
anonymously authored fifteenth-century tract, originally in Latin, survives in
both a long and a short version. The latter, usually illustrated by a cycle of
eleven woodcuts, survives in hundreds of manuscripts and early printed copies
in multiple languages. These include two English translation print runs made by
William Caxton (ca. 1422−1492) in 1490 and 1491, with the title Arte & Crafte to
Knowe Well to Dye. The deathbed is a battlefield, and the powers of good and
evil struggle over the soul (Fig. 3). The dying man or woman (Moriens) is
presented with five temptations: unbelief, despair, impatience, vainglory, and
avarice for worldly possessions (O’Connor 1942, 7). He must overcome each in
turn, and focus on the cross for consolation. Moving through these stages of
temptation is not unalike the experiencing the stages of mourning diagnosed by
modern grief counselors, although the focus here is primarily on the experience
of Moriens himself.

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Fig. 3: Deathbed scene from the Ars Moriendi, ca. 1450. This woodcut is one of a series depicting
the battle for the dying soul. In this eleventh and final scene the dying man is comforted by a
monk, and looking toward the crucified Christ, breathes his last. His soul, in the form of a little
naked figure, is caught up by angels, while the conquered demons around the bedside exhibit
text scrolls describing their dismay. Reproduced from The Ars moriendi (editio princeps, circa
1450): a reproduction of the copy in the British Museum, edited by W. Harry Rylands; with an
introduction by George Bullen. Printed for the Holbein Society by Wyman & Sons (London 1881).
Photo courtesy of Brigham Young University Special Collections.

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But Moriens does not die alone. Besides the struggling angels and devils, the
dying man’s neighbors, friends, and family are expected to gather around the
deathbed, encouraging him, acting appropriately and saying prayers for his soul.
At the deathbed of Alice Gysbye in 1538, her neighbors arrived to find her already
unconscious, yet they “‘dydd cry and call meny tymes unto the seid Alice to loke
upon the sacrament then standing by hir, and knocked hir upon the breste but
[she] did nother looke upon the sacrament nother dydd make any knowledge or
countynaunce to yt.’ Women standing by called out “What wyll ye dye lyke a
hellhound and a best/ not remembering your maker’ and later that day one of
her friends pleaded at her bedside “Alice I am here, I pray you speke to me
and remember the passhion of Christ and speke for your soule helth’” (Duffy
1992, 322).
Also attendant at a deathbed would be a priest to catechize the dying
individual by asking a series of seven questions: did the dying person believe in
correct doctrine and reject heresy? Did he recognize he had offended God? Was he
sorry for his sins? Did he desire to amend his life if God permitted him to life? Did
he forgive all his enemies? Would he make all satisfaction? Did he believe fully
that Christ had died for him? The searching nature of these questions was meant
to ensure that no sin remained unconfessed, and that there was no possibility for
the attendant demons to snatch the soul away at the last moment (Daniell 1997,
36). After the dying man or woman’s responses-or, if unable to respond, then with
favorable responses assumed-the sacrament and extreme unction were given.
Extreme unction (or the last rites) consisted of anointing parts of the body with
holy oil blessed by the bishop. Typically eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, and feet
are anointed, though in cases of haste just one might be applied, on temples or
forehead. In the early middle ages, this sacrament was performed for the sick as
well as the dying, but by the twelfth century it had come to be used almost
exclusively on deathbeds. Indeed it was popularly supposed that if someone so
anointed were to recover, they were already as dead, and could not engage in
marital relations, eat meat, or make a will (Catholic Encyclopedia 1907−1912).
The last of these prohibitions indicates another common custom of the
deathbed. Wills were frequently made or amended within final hours. For persons
who had considerable property to bestow, it was possible to write a will years in
advance, yet the details could be refined down until nearly the last breath. Henry
VII’s will, which is the longest will of any medieval English monarch, shows long
term careful planning and also last minute adjustments made shortly before his
death on 21 April 1509, as the final copy still contains errors (Condon 2003, 106).
At the other extreme, those who had little property might bequeath their goods
orally to executors present at the deathbed. Even with the communal nature of
deathbeds and large numbers of witnesses to the details, oral contracts were more

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vulnerable to fraud or neglect (Daniell 1997, 33). Wills also dealt with burial and
funeral arrangements, sometimes in exhaustive detail.
When the last breath came, there was still the danger that the soul could slip
into sins of rage, despair, or disbelief. Until the very end, a crucifix was often held
up to keep the mind of the dying one on meek resignation and Christian accep-
tance (Fig. 3). Julian of Norwich recounts such an experience, how her body grew
cold and stiff and she could see only the figure of the crucified Christ, before she
returned to life (Julian of Norwich 1998, 5; 16). In a monastic community or for
persons who wished to adopt monastic virtues in their last moments, the body
would often be taken out of bed and placed on straw or ashes. Onlookers made
sure of death by placing a feather or straw over the lips to detect movement, or a
polished metal surface to check for mist.
If there was no sign of life, the body was to be prepared for burial. Usually the
body was washed and sewn into a shroud, or, if of high rank, dressed in
appropriate clothing and laid out for a short period of mourning and preparation.
For most this ceremony took place at home and was limited by practicalities, to
avoid the stink of decomposition. For great nobility, the need to gather large
numbers of people from far away meant that embalming might be practiced.
There might be a significant journey to bring the body to the site of burial as well,
and the body would have to rest in state overnight if the journey was long. French
and English monarchs created full size effigies of the body that could be dis-
played for weeks, often as long as a month after the actual funeral (Harvey and
Mortimer, ed., 1994, 6). Royalty also sometimes practiced excoriation, and burial
of the heart and entrails in a separate church from the one which would receive
the rest of the body. This had the benefit of allowing multiple religious commu-
nities to carry out commemorative rites in the presence of (at least part of) the
actual individual (Stanford 2007, 666). Such a practice required papal dispensa-
tion after 1300, as it violated bodily integrity and might interfere with the process
of resurrection (Brown 1990, 805).
Ordinary persons, however, were conveyed to a nearby church for funeral
services within a day of death. A priest would be placed in the church chancel or
choir, a lay person in the nave, and a vigil held. The next morning, a funeral mass
would be said, and possibly a sermon. Under most circumstances the body itself
would no longer be visible. Wrapped in a shroud, placed in a coffin, draped by a
pall, it would nevertheless be the focus of the ceremony, surrounded by candles
and heralded by tolling bells. The declaration of John Mirk (fl. 1403) that here was
“a myrroure to us alle: a corse browth to the chyrch” was meant as a powerful
reminder of the frailness of mortality and the inevitable end of all life (Mirk, 1905,
294.). The Christian example of a good death, however, could reflect hope, for
salvation was more important than earthly life. Nor did death exclude one from

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the community. The final step of burial, which took place either in or near the
church, underscores this point. The larger community of Christian souls encom-
passed both the living and the dead; all were gathered in worship together within
the embrace of the Church which healed the ills of sin.
Select Bibliography
Atkinson, David William, The English ars moriendi (New York 1992).
Henderson, John, The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven,
CT, and London 2006).
Horden, Peregrine, “A Non-Natural Environment: Medicine without Doctors and the Medieval
European Hospital,” The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, ed. Barbara S. Bowers
(Aldershot 2007), 133–46.
Horrox, Rosemary, trans. and ed., The Black Death (Manchester and New York 1994).
Jacquart, Danielle, Le Milieu Médical en France du XIIe au XVe siècle, en Annexe 2e Supplément
au ‘Dictionnaire’ d’Ernest Wickersheimer (Geneva 1981).
Little, Lester K., “Plague Historians in Lab Coats,” Past and Present 213 (Nov. 2011): 267–90.
McVaugh, Michael, Medicine before the Plague: Practitioners and their Patients in the Crown of
Aragon, 1285–1345 (Cambridge 1993).
Rawcliffe, Carole, Medicine for the Soul: The Life, Death and Resurrection of an English Medieval
Hospital, St. Giles’s Norwich, 1249–1550 (Stroud 1999).
Saunier, Annie, ‘Le Pauvre Malade’ dans le cadre hospitalier médiéval: France du Nord, vers
1300–1500 (Paris 1993).
Siraisi, Nancy G., Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and
Practice (Chicago and London 1990).
Wallis, Faith, ed., Medieval Medicine: A Reader (Toronto 2010).

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Mark T. Abate
Islamic Spain: Al-Andalus and the
Three Cultures
Spain and Portugal are unique among all Western European states in that Islamic
civilization played a crucial role in the historical development of their cultures.
Iberia was ruled by Muslims and constituted a part of Dar al-Islam (the “House of
Islam” or Islamic world) for several centuries. Although Muslim raiding parties
reached southern France and Rome, they maintained no long-term presence and
exerted no cultural influence. The only other inhabitants of Western Europe ever to
live under Islamic rule were Sicilians. Islamic rule in Sicily, however, was much
shorter in duration than in Iberia (approximately one-hundred-fifty-years as op-
posed to seven centuries) and left few cultural traces. This article focuses on the
crucial role of the Islamic period in the cultural creation of Spain. The Christian
period that emerged from the Reconquista was quite distinct and will be treated in
a separate article: “Convivencia: Conquest and Coexistence in Medieval Spain.”
Islamic Spain or al-Andalus (the “Land of the Vandals”) is a subject in which
history and myth have become so intertwined that disambiguating fact from
fiction has proven to be a fairly difficult task (Cohen 1991; M. R. Cohen 1994; Glick

2005; Lewis 1984; Stillman 1991; Ye’or 1985). As the land of the “three cultures”—
where Jews, Christians, and Muslims coexisted for centuries—Islamic Spain has
carried a heavy burden as the preeminent example of a functional pluralistic
society and emblem for “tolerance” itself in the European Middle Ages. Before the
twentieth century Islamic Spain was not a mainstream subject for scholars of
medieval Europe; it was an anomaly primarily of interest to Arabists and liberal
Jewish scholars. For the latter, Islamic Spain came to be seen as a “Golden Age”
for European Jewry, a counter-experience to the anti-Semitic persecution and
discrimination that dominated other areas in Europe. Jewish astronomers, mathe-
maticians, physicians, poets, ambassadors, government administrators—even a
military commander and virtual head of state—flourished and experienced rela-
tively few cross-confessional obstacles. Jewish Liberals in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries were searching for a “golden age” of their own in
Europe, a Liberal “golden age” that would be characterized by emancipation and
full equality for European Jewry. Islamic Spain seemed to have an almost proto-
Liberal dimension to it and, most importantly, demonstrated what Jews could
achieve—and what they could contribute to the societies they lived in—if given
the opportunity to become vested cultural partners. This proto-Liberal inter-faith
utopia died with the last remnants of al-Andalus itself in the late fifteenth century.

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Islamic Spain: Al-Andalus and the Three Cultures 741
The “land of the three cultures” became a land of one culture … a culture focused
on a new and almost diametrically opposed anti-Liberal concept: “purity of
blood” (note by the ed.: see the contributions to Revisiting Convivencia in Medieval
and Early Modern Iberia, ed. Connie Scarborough, 2014).
Following the Holocaust, Jewish history would never be written or read in the
same way (Nirenberg 1994). Anti-Semitism, intolerance, and persecution came to
be viewed as symptoms of a civilization-wide sickness that needed a diagnosis.
The history of European Jewry was no longer just of interest to Jews and Protestant
historians critiquing the historical record of Catholicism; it had a wider signifi-
cance for the development of Western Civilization itself (Nirenberg 1994). As more
non-Jews took interest in Jewish history and as more scholars began focusing on
tolerance and intolerance as historical problems, Spain’s historical transition from
a land of three cultures to one based on bloodline bigotry gained increasing
attention. Liberal Jewish scholars had long since claimed that Jews in Islamic
lands overall fared much better historically than Jews in Christian lands. Living
under the “crescent” was by no means perfect but there Jews experienced higher
levels of toleration and deeper levels of integration than those living under the
“cross.” Ironically, the “Golden Age” construct was taken up by anti-Zionist Arab
scholars who used al-Andalus as an excellent example of the peace and harmony
that existed between Arab and Jew before the “disruptive” influence of Zionism
poisoned relations. Al-Andalus meant many things to many people; the idea of the
interfaith utopia could (and still can) transcend what the evidence has to offer.
Currently, the main cultural and ideological context for the debate on coex-
istence between the “three cultures” of al-Andalus is multiculturalism. Specialists
in the field today see the “interfaith utopia” as a myth although they generally
agree that an interesting modus vivendi emerged among the three cultures, one
which practiced coexistence as a pragmatic necessity. Coexistence, however, is
not multiculturalism (at least not in the sense that the term is generally used
today) and any attempt to depict al-Andalus as a “multicultural” society would be
anachronistic. Medieval people—whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim—had no
sense of cultural relativism and certainly would not understand, much less
appreciate, concepts such as the “celebration of diversity” or equal respect for
differing lifestyles. Co-existence in al-Andalus was grudgingly practiced rather
than altruistically embraced and its roots were in pragmatism and personal
benefit rather than mutual goodwill. Like its Christian counterparts that began
emerging in the eleventh century, coexistence in al-Andalus was based on a
system of segregation that resembles Jim Crow and Apartheid far more than
melting pots and multicultural beliefs. Distasteful as coexistence based on segre-
gation may seem to modern sensibilities, it created a functional pluralism in al-
Andalus that lasted for centuries.

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742 Mark T. Abate
A Islamic Law and Dhimma Status

I Legal Identity
The status of Muslims, Jews, and Christians in al-Andalus was an integral part of
Islamic law so their treatment was defined and regulated by divine command
rather than human whim or expedience (Tritton 1930; Dennett 1950; Schacht
1964; Ye’or 1985; M. R. Cohen 1994; Stillman 1998; Kennedy 2004). Pre-Islamic

and early-Islamic Arabia experienced a reasonable coexistence among pagan,

Jewish, and Christian tribes. The Medina of Muhammad—the first and most
perfect Islamic state—was a religiously pluralistic community itself (though not
without conflict) and early Arab expansion following the Prophet’s death resulted
in the rapid absorption of mass populations of non-Muslims. The conquerors,
although in power and in control, quickly found themselves to be a minority in
their own now extensive realm. The Islamic state was not yet one which empha-
sized proselytizing in any way. If anything, conversion to Islam by the conquered
was discouraged or at the very least energetically ignored. Part of the reason was
simply the Arab chauvinism of the Umayyad period. God was indeed the only God
and the message of Islam was one of uncompromising divine unity; the human
community, however, was seen as polyglot and suspicion existed regarding the
viability of non-Arabs becoming full, “true” Muslims.
Suspicion was further fueled by (or originally generated from) economic
considerations. Muslim conquerors seized public lands belonging to the Persian
or Roman state but left private property largely undisturbed in exchange for the
population’s submission to Islamic political hegemony. The jizya poll tax was
collected from the non-Muslim population to finance the support of the new Arab
ruling classes. Arab masters were paid a state pension from the jizya that appears
to have been pro-rated to reflect how early one converted, with the largest salaries
going to the earliest Arab members of the umma. Conversions to Islam of con-
quered indigenous, inevitably, would lead to a relentless erosion of the tax base
needed to support relocated or immigrant Bedouin. In economic history almost
every problem has a solution and in this case it was the emergence of Muwallad
status. Muwallads, non-Arab converts to Islam, were what can be adequately
described as probationary Muslims or Muslims-in-training. They were ostensibly
“adopted” into an Arab clan and lineage, were subject to all the religious stric-
tures of Islam, and in every way except one were considered Muslims. They were
still required to pay the jizya poll tax although, supposedly after sufficient
Arabization, pure Islam would be realized along with an end to the financial
liability. Fiscal expediency and Arab chauvinism found common ground in creat-
ing a class of non-Arab Muslims who were still effectively not Muslims in terms of

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taxation. The status became hereditary; and the expected end to it, along with
dreams of fiscal equality, disappeared on a seemingly multi-generational horizon.
The long term result was the eventual Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty
with discontented Muwallads, by then the undisputed majority of the population,
being the real weight in the coup’s glove. Among the many things granted in the
“Abbasid Compromise” was the end of Arab chauvinism and the Muwallad fiscal
handicap it justified and supported.
Christians and Jews not wishing to convert to Islam were “People of the Book”
and thus “Protected People” Muwallads were by and large a socio-economic
category with religious implications; dhimmi were a religious category with
socio-economic dictates. Jews and Christians were flawed Muslims. Moses and
Jesus were both Muslims, despite the opinions of Jews and Christians, and some-
how their understandings of the message revealed to Abraham became twisted
into the beliefs of Islam’s two ugly cousins. Prophetic precedent and Quranic
roots were crucial in that they fixed the treatment of Jews and Christians in the
sphere of divine rather than human discretion. Muhammad’s Medina was a
pluralistic state in which religious autonomy was granted in exchange for civic
loyalty and service. Jews were undeniably members of the first Islamic state.
Muhammad’s relations with Jewish and Christian regional powers were defined
by the jizya: submission to hegemony in exchange for protection and continued
religious freedom.
II The Dhimmi
Quranic roots for dhimma status are beyond question although the shape it took
in practice had flexibility. The first problem was the occasional confusion of
Quranic Arabic in some instances for latter generations (M. R. Cohen 1994). Jizya

was quite clear but the four words that followed were not and stymied genera-
tions. The roots lay in the phrase to “make small” so it was understandable that
many subsequent jurists, particularly in light of some hadith, interpreted it in
terms of modesty requirements, sumptuary laws, humility regulations, or occa-
sionally worse. Possible interpretations of Quranic injunctions crystallized in the
so-called Pact of Umar. Ostensibly a letter from newly conquered Christian
subjects to the Caliph Umar the document is most likely the product of numerous
conquest negotiations and treaties combined with aspects of Byzantine/Roman
legislation regarding Jews which most likely played a significant role in the
emergence of Islamic policy toward religious minorities. Although the document
itself represents no specific treaty it provided a conceptual framework for the
regulation of Christian and Jewish subjects.

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The jizya was an act of financial and political submission that symbolized the
acceptance of the new order by the conquered. Beyond being an important source
of revenue, its yearly payment served as an annual reminder of power relation-
ships. The jizya was the means by which Christians and Jews essentially pur-
chased basic religious freedom and the right to group semi-autonomy. Both of
these were predicated on creating and maintaining a degree of separation be-
tween the religions. The entire system itself was created on the foundation of
segregation. Dhimmi communities, in their own urban quarters (in many respects
rural regions are terra incognita), lived under the authority of their own represen-
tatives who regulated internal affairs, followed their own religious laws, as-
sembled in their own houses of worship, and even had their own civil (but not
criminal) courts with their own judges presiding. The modern saying “fences
make the best neighbors” comes to mind. Segregation, far from being seen as a
social anathema, was one of the most important things that medieval majorities
and minorities wanted and agreed upon. Arguably such segregation minimized
potential conflict. What we today call mainstreaming would be considered un-
palatable and dangerous. Segregation allowed minorities to preserve better their
cultural traditions and distinctiveness and protected majorities from what was
seen as religious contamination.
III Dominance and Submissiveness
Muslim jurists themselves were divided on whether the jizya was technically a
form of punishment or a fee for services rendered. The totality of the dhimma
arrangement and its historical implementations seem to have combined both.
Relative religious freedom and limited self-rule, along with the provision of
municipal services and defense, was about as good as tolerance could get in the
Middle Ages. The dhimma contract, however, contained several stipulations that
were discriminatory and guarded against the potential emergence of any sort of
complete equality. Dhimmi were citizens but they needed to remain second class
ones (which is of course better than not being a citizen at all). Dhimmi paid twice
the commercial taxes that Muslims did. They were prohibited from state service,
from employing Muslim servants, and implicitly from any activity that would put
them in a position of authority over Muslims. Dhimmi homes had to be at a lower
elevation than Muslim homes and churches or synagogues could not be higher or
more ornate than local mosques. New dhimmi places of worship could not be
built and technically old ones could not be repaired. Dhimmi could not ride
horses, carry arms, or convert to any religion except Islam (i.e., Jews could not
become Christians and Christians could not become Jews). Dhimmi were required

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to wear distinctive clothing that identified their religious affiliation. They could
not add honorifics to their name, had to stand in the presence of Muslims, and
sometimes were subjected to ritualized humiliation such as receiving a slap on
the nape of the neck when paying the jizya—which some quipped served as their
receipt.
Naturally these “stipulations” were designed to reinforce, symbolically, the
dominant-submissive power relationship and reaffirm Muslim superiority ritua-
listically even if they happened to be a numerical minority (surely a concern in
the immediate aftermath of conquest). Some of this discriminatory legislation had
economic dimensions: tax differences created extra sources of revenue for the
state and distinctive clothing prevented dhimmi from “passing” as Muslims and
receiving unwarranted fiscal discounts. Certainly the fiscal difference would
provide an incentive for conversion to Islam if the Muwallad tax disability were
removed. Some of the discriminatory stipulations in the dhimma arrangement,
however, seem to be rooted in something different, maybe deeper, than just the
symbolism of power and economic status.
Public displays of religiosity serve as the best window through which to view
this deeper dynamic. Unfortunately, at least for our purposes, the window pro-
vides an almost panoramic view for Islamic-Christian relations but an obstructed
if not blocked one for Islamic-Jewish relations. From the Islamic perspective, Jews
were religiously wrong on several important points of religious truth; Christians,
however, were not only equally wrong in their own way but were also considered
to be flagrant idolaters. Crosses, in particular, were a powerful affront to Muslim
eyes that had no equivalent for Judaism. Jewish communal rites and rituals were
mostly conducted indoors while many medieval Christian rituals were held out-
side, making the latter far more visible, irksome, and in need of more regulation
than the former. It is also worth remembering that regarding ritual, Islam and
Judaism are far more similar to one another than either is to Christianity (Peters
2006). Christian expressions of religiosity, then, were much more high profile
sources of potential conflict than those of Judaism and provoked more responses
(M. R. Cohen 1994).

Religious icons of any sort were not to be present in the greater public area as
they would be offensive to Muslim sensibilities. Their presence in the semi-
autonomous Christian precinct and behind the closed doors of churches could be
ignored. Funeral processions could cause problems as public displays of religios-
ity and hence ostentatious reminders of difference. Church bells were a particular
problem as their ringing could obviously not be contained within a Christian
neighborhood. This audible reminder of difference would naturally spill into
public and Islamic space, remind Muslims of the idolatry taking place out of sight,
and possibly drown out the muezzin’s call to prayer. At times, for special occa-

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sions such as Easter celebrations, Christians could apply for a permit to use bells
but this often resulted in antagonizing local Muslim populations and generating
popular protest. A rough, imperfect, but somewhat useful analogy could be the
“don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the United States military regarding homosexuality
(though that policy still contained a firm don’t do dimension that dhimmi status
did not). Dhimmi expressions of religiosity were considered offensive if within
public sight or hearing but, if discretely tucked away in “the closet,” so to speak,
could be grudgingly tolerated by ignoring them. Economic concerns are comple-
tely absent from this dynamic. Symbolism of power, to the extent it can be
detected, is minimal. The dynamic is rooted in emotion. The differences were
clearly seen as offensive, could produce spontaneous outbreaks of resentment,
and were handled accordingly.
These policies were certainly discriminatory especially by modern standards.
But they were not solely or even primarily punitive. Essentially they were expres-
sions of the Islamic sense of “modesty.” Public display of potential sources of
conflict—ostentatious displays of wealth, an unveiled woman, or religious sym-
bols seen as idolatry—were frowned upon. Concealing such potential sources for
conflict was a way to reduce the social friction that could lead to outbursts.
Dhimmi were considered guests in Islamic society, guests with clearly defined
legal rights but guests nonetheless. “Politeness” and modesty toward the host
was expected. Violating this sense of modesty would result in inevitable conflict
and, ultimately, in the necessary revocation of the invitation. It should be noted,
however, that the degree of enforcement of these stipulations varied widely over
time and place. Sometimes they were rigorously and even excessively enforced,
such as under Almoravid and particularly under Almohad rule. At other times
many stipulations were ignored as new churches and synagogues were con-
structed and Christians and Jews rose up in the ranks of state service.
B Converts to Islam
I Berbers and the Ethnic Issue
Dhimmi status, with the notable exception of the martyrs of Cordoba movement
discussed below, was not an explosive issue. Normally it was simply accepted. In
light of what could be the results of conquest by a foreign power the terms were
clearly quite good: retaining the possession of private property, retaining the right
to practice one’s religion, and semi-autonomy in the regulation of day to day life
were obviously preferable to such possibilities as death, despoilment, enslave-
ment, or expulsion. Although the structure of medieval Islamic society seems

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completely fashioned around religion as the sole source of communal identity,

this was not the case, particularly in Islamic Spain, and there was a sharp divide
here between theory and reality. Ethnic distinctions and differentiation not only
existed but were the primary source of conflict, violence, and instability in al-
Andalus for the first three centuries of its existence. Umayyad Iberia had a decent
grip on handling the differences between religious groups but never quite solved
the problems presented by ethnicity.
Muwallad status, mentioned above, was the greatest source of contention for
Umayyad rule both in the East and in Iberia. Converts to Islam who were stigma-
tized and discriminated against simply for not being Arab was a problem that
increased in intensity proportional to the demographics of conversion. The Abba-
sids in the East rode this wave of discontent into a revolution that overthrew the
Umayyads of Damascus (Kennedy 2004). Wisely, one of the earliest major orders
of business for the new Abbasid Caliphate was to abolish the Muwallad distinc-
tion. The Muwallad distinction, however, had a longer life in Umayyad Iberia
where it wreaked havoc and eventually became a major cause in the collapse of
the Cordoban Caliphate (Makki 1992).
The Islamic conquest of Iberia was the natural extension of the conquest of
North Africa. Particularly in the early period, separating the North African and
Iberian ventures can only cause confusion and misunderstanding. Conquest of
the Maghrib brought about the conversion of numerous Berbers who, naturally
for the Umayyads, were accorded the status of second-class Muslims. The original
invasion force that began the conquest of Iberia in 711 was composed almost
entirely of Berbers with a sprinkling of Arabs in positions of leadership. Only
seven of the 12,000 men in Tariq’s army were Arabs. Some of the Berbers, more-
over, were actually Christians. The second contingent was mostly Arabs from the
East with Muwallads. Arabs themselves were a minority. In the conquest Berbers
tended to get less valuable land than Arabs; whether this was due to discrimina-
tory practices or Berbers choosing mountain land because it was similar to their
North African homeland is uncertain as is what role, if any, this played in the
future Berber revolts. Perceptions of discrimination, however, undoubtedly were
the driving force (Glick 1978; Scales 1994; Glick 2005).
Islamic Spain, during the first decades of its existence, experienced a curious
balancing act of ethnicities and interests. Arabs, demographically insignificant
but culturally dominant, were the ruling class and the purveyors of “true” Islamic
culture. Subsequent Arab immigration, which increased but was never truly
significant, succeeded in installing more Arabs in the upper ranks of the state and
the cultural elite but accomplished little in terms of getting any demographic
momentum. Berbers were by far much larger in numbers than Arabs and, milita-
rily speaking, they were by far the most powerful group in al-Andalus. Like the

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Arabs they had divisions along clan lines and certainly saw themselves as less
homogenous than most modern observers would. Religiously speaking they had
some diversity as well: most were Muwallads but there still were Christian and
pagan members in their ranks.
Transforming the Berber population were the related yet significantly distinct
twin processes of Islamization and Arabization. Islamization, the conversion of
non-Muslims to Islam, was the earlier and easier process (Glick 2005). In Islam
the means for conversion is simple: one recites the shahada, the profession of
faith, and conversion is complete (though after talking the talk the convert is
expected to walk the walk). As we have seen in the previous discussion of
Muwallads, however, those who read into Islam a universal message for an
egalitarian community were to be disappointed with the Umayyad interpretation
of the religion. Conversion opened doors but, in this early period, it did not open
all of them. Arabization, the acculturation of non-Arabs and their adoption of the
Arabic language and associated lifestyle, was a slower and more cumbersome
process. Imitating the cultural elite and adapting to the language and mores of
political power, Arabization would have appeared to be a solid means for
advancement. Certainly there were many Berbers who Arabized quickly, particu-
larly the older and the urban communities. Arabized Berbers spoke and wrote
Arabic; some even forged false Arab genealogies to hide their ethnic origins
which, all things being considered, is the most compelling proof of desired
assimilation. Some were partially Arabazied, being bilingual, while still others,
particularly the numerous herders in the countryside and in the mountains, were
not Arabized at all.
The failure of Islamization to produce equality for Berbers resulted in a revolt
that began in North Africa and quickly spread to al-Andalus in 740–741. Kharijism
was a strain of Islam that vehemently rejected the Arab chauvinism of the
Umayyads and trumpeted the universal message of Islam and the equality of all
believers. Non-Arabs, Kharijites claimed, should face no barrier and could even
become caliphs. This message of ethnic egalitarianism found a receptive and well
armed audience among Berbers in the Maghrib who found in it an ideological
weapon with which to fight Arab snobbery. In response to the revolt an estimated
12,000 troops were sent from Syria, The Kharijite Berber revolt in Africa scored
several initial victories against Arab troops and incited Berbers in al-Andalus to
revolt. This Berber revolt, the first but not the last, was difficult to suppress. It was
finally put down by the Syrian troops who, although suffering defeats in North
Africa, eventually succeeded in Iberia and in the end settled there.
Arabization, though it certainly helped the careers of many successful Ber-
bers, did not have a profound impact on lessening the social distance between
Arab and Berber. Many Arabs expressed fear of “Berberization,” that the language

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and culture of these rubes and herders would inevitably infect Arab culture. The
wide Arab-Berber gap remained and produced a string of Berber revolts against
the Arab state from the eighth century through the tenth century. There also
existed steady streams of Berber immigration from North Africa that essentially
never ended. Degrees of Arabization varied greatly among the Berber population
which was itself in almost perpetual flux. The need to confront Christian expan-
sion from the north, moreover, led to the increasing recruitment of Berber troops
from Africa, creating another large and fresh Berber bloc that would heavily
impact the fate of al-Andalus and, eventually, play a significant role in its
fragmentation. The eleventh century was cataclysmic regarding Arab-Berber hos-
tility. The Berber Revolt of 1008–1031 was a major part of the fitna—the chaos—
that ended the caliphate and ushered in the division of al-Andalus into petty
states. The collapse of central authority and order was, almost predictably,
punctuated with Arab-Berber and Berber-Arab ethnic slaughters.
II Muwallads/Neo-Muslims of Christian Origin
Eventually the largest group of Muslims in al-Andalus would be the converted

Hispano-Roman-Visigothic population itself. This created an enormous Muwallad
or “Neo-Muslim” population. Their conversion was one of the most important
transformations, if not the most important transformation, in the evolution of
Islamic Spain. It is also one of the least documented. Sources are surprisingly
silent on the religious conversion of this estimated seven million conquered
people. Most but not all Neo-Muslims came from Hispano-Roman stock. There
were exceptions. The saqaliba (Slavs), for example, were freed slaves, and free
foreign Christians migrated from across the Pyrenees to the north and from Africa
to the south in search of a better life, eventually converted to Islam as well.
Contemporary chroniclers spent much more time describing the Arab-Berber
conflicts than dealing with the religious conversion of Christians, at least until the
Muwallads themselves became participants in significant revolts and shoved their
way into the historical record. Rates and dates regarding Hispano-Roman conver-
sion to Islam have been the subject of great debate but a convincing picture has
emerged placing most of the activity happening before 1000 (Bulliet 1979; Epalza
1992; Fletcher 1992; Glick 2005).
Muslim conquerors did not solicit conversions by exerting direct pressure on
the Hispano-Roman population. They observed the Quranic dictate that there was
“no compulsion in religion” and the combination of the Arab chauvinism of the
Umayyad period with the existence of the dhimma arrangement produced a
marked disinterest in converting the native population. Fiscal complications were

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also certainly a major concern as they were everywhere in the Islamic world.
Conversions would have negative effects on tax revenues. Muslim rulers might
not have been blatantly obstructing conversion but they were not pushing it
either. Occasionally they invited it, as was sometimes the case in the pardoning of
Christians convicted of capital crimes if they converted to Islam.
Initiative regarding conversion, then, was in the hands of the conquered
themselves. There were several benefits to be gained by conversion. Tax liabilities
would be reduced. In cities and towns, providing a degree of Arabization accom-
panied conversion, advancement and better access to power would seem possi-
ble. Regarding the rural hinterlands we know little. We are not even sure how
really Christianized the rural Hispano-Roman population was in the first place; if
Christianity was already weak in the hinterlands conversion would be much less
complicated (Epalza 1992). Economically it seems that terms for Muslim share-
croppers and tenant farmers were better than those for Christians; so conversion
to better one’s condition might not have been a solely urban phenomenon.
Possible motives, however suggestive they might be, provide little in terms of
direct evidence for determining how—and particularly when—significant conver-
sions happened.
Richard Bulliet, in his Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, transformed
the discussion with the use of onomastic evidence (quantitative analysis of name
changes), along with available genealogical information in biographical diction-
aries (a common enough literary genre in medieval Islam), to chart a logarithmic
curve in conversion rates in the wake of Islamic conquests (Bulliet 1979). His
approach in short: when examining a series of names within a given family the
first transition in the sequence from an indigenous name to an Islamic name
indicates the first convert to Islam. Available onomastic data is then pooled and
statistical samples graphed. Although the statistical sample in al-Andalus is
small enough to make its statistical viability questionable it is consistent enough
with larger available samples in other regions to make it compelling. Conversion
phases are categorized as follows: early adopters, early majority, late majority,
and laggards. The process is cumulative with increasing conversion producing
more momentum for yet more conversion. According to this schematic conver-
sion rates were sluggish into the ninth century and then began exponential
growth in the tenth century. By the beginning of the ninth century approximately
8% of the Hispano-Roman population had converted; by the middle of the ninth
century it had risen to about 12–13%; it then doubled within the next 50 years to
25% before doubling again to 50% within another 50 years; during the next
50 years it increased by about another 25% bringing it to 75% of the population;
and at the turn of the century, around 1100, the process was basically complete
closing at approximately 80%. Interestingly and significantly, the pattern of

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construction and expansion for the Grand Mosque in Cordoba for the ninth and
tenth centuries dovetails nicely with Bulliet’s curve (Fletcher 1992). Architectural
embellishments to project better the power of the state were certainly part of the
equation but so, too, obviously was the need to accommodate incrementally
more people.
Conversion could have happened more rapidly than the onomastic evidence
and curve suggests. Tax registers for the province of Cordoba in the mid ninth
century, when the numbers are crunched, put the conversion rate a bit ahead of
Bulliet’s curve, with the Christian population already down to about 28% at the
time (Barcelo 1984–1985). Mikel de Epalza posited an interesting “judicial” theory
regarding conversion in a two-tiered system suggesting dual but early dates for
“conversion.” From the Islamic perspective, Christians were able to retain their
religious status if they so chose and if they were organizationally able to support
and maintain it. This required a religious hierarchy capable of reproducing itself.
Bishops in a Christian sense can reproduce in the hierarchy by ordaining priests
and, although priests can conduct baptisms and essential functions of a parish,
they cannot reproduce by ordaining subsequent priests. A bishop shortage would
create a priest shortage that, in turn, inevitably resulted in a collapse of baptisms.
From both the Christian and Islamic perspective baptism was essential to Chris-
tian status. Unable to maintain the essential prerequisite for Christian identity
populations, particularly the rural ones, would “convert” to Islam and become
legal Muslims by default. This change in legal status would have been rapid and
widespread, an eight-century phenomenon that would have been concluded
within a few generations. Major urban centers would naturally be better equipped
to provide required religious services and resist such collapse and religious
forfeiture. Rural regions, however, might have been organizationally and hence
legally doomed. The second tier in the process, a true rather than judicial
Islamization, is hard to describe qualitatively much less quantitatively. Certainly
it would have been a much slower process but there is little means to calculate its
depth much less generate a rough timetable (Epalza 1992).
Another important factor to consider in the religious transformation of al-
Andalus is the segmented agnatic kinship structure practiced by both Arabs and
Berbers. Familial importance was defined through male relationships. The struc-
ture favored endogamous marriages as they keep power concentrated within the
kin group. Exogamous marriage primarily occurred through powerful groups
attracting women from weaker ones. The stronger the group was the fewer women
it would lose, the more external women it would attract, and the more endoga-
mous it would become. Islamic law, moreover, privileged the male in inter-
religious marriage. Muslim men could take Christian or Jewish wives in a mixed
marriage—with any children produced by the marriage being born Muslim—but

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Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men was prohibited. When Arab Muslims
assumed the positions of power throughout the peninsula it created a quandary
for local Christian elites. Intermarriages would seem to be the best strategy for
integration into the new power structure but all Christian elites could do was to
offer their daughters in marriage, daughters who in turn would produce Muslim
children. The only alternative power-minded Christians had were pursuing posi-
tions in the church that, due to celibacy, would result in no offspring at all. It was
a zero-sum game (Guichard 1976; Glick 2005).
Muwallads, presumably ones from well to do backgrounds in particular, had
opportunities for advancement. They could serve in the state bureaucracy as well
as be scholars in residence at court. Based on name patterns it would seem that
second and third generation Muwallad converts existed in scholarly court life in
Cordoba, such as the courtier-physician Yahya ibn Ishaq in the court of Abd al-
Rahman III and pharmacologist and physician ibn Juljul shortly thereafter (Glick
2005). The evidence, however, as is unfortunately so often the case for such
matters in Islamic Spain, is anecdotal and insufficient to draw any substantive
conclusions.
III Muwallad Revolts
Muwallad Neo-Muslims, however, were generally held in disdain by the Arab

ruling class and experienced significant discrimination. They were criticized for
their “stammering” pronunciation of Arabic, derided for cowardice, and chastised
for a lack of gratitude to Arabs who raised them out of the mire. Racial epithets
like “sons of white women” (and many more) were hurled at them (Glick 2005).
Averroes, himself of Muwallad lineage but living just as that distinction was
fading, still felt the need to address ethnicity. Old Andalusian families, he wrote,
had straighter hair and lighter skin than Arabs to the east because of the tempe-
rate climate in Iberia; its natural effect was to make Andalusians physically
resemble natives over time (and since it was similar to Greece apparently gave
them a special aptitude for philosophy). Like the Berbers, Muwallads of Hispano-
Roman descent, they were greatly dissatisfied with the failed promise of Islamic
egalitarianism at the hands of Arab ethnocentrism. Like the Berbers, some of
them revolted. These revolts could be quite serious, with several of them even
creating virtually independent territories of varying size (Guichard 1976; Fletcher
1992; Scales 1994; Glick 2005).
The Muwallad revolt of Umar ibn Hafsun to the south, which lasted about
forty years (879–918), was the greatest and most serious. The family supposedly
stretched back to a Visigothic count and its Muwallad status began in the early

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ninth century. Umar ibn Hafsun himself cuts a colorful character. As a young man
he apparently killed a neighbor in a dispute, was disowned by his family, fled to
Morocco, then returned to the mountains of Ronda to begin a career as a bandit.
Defeated by the state in 883 he was pressed into service for the emirate army and,
ironically, was deployed to fight against the Banu Qasi. As a soldier in the emir’s
ranks he served with distinction. His experience in the Cordoban army, however,
was not a pleasant one. He was harassed about his Muwallad background by
Arabs and so he eventually deserted. Returning to his previous mountain base he
developed a following as the protector of the regional peasantry against the
abuses of the state. Guerilla tactics were used against the state with impressive
results, succeeding enough to disrupt the stability of the road to Cordoba. A
contingent dispatched from Cordoba captured one of ibn Hafsun’s fellow-Muwal-
lad commanders and publicly crucified him between a dog and a pig. This public
atrocity, rather than dampening enthusiasm, seems to have had the opposite
effect; ibn Hafsun’s following and sphere of influence grew. Eventually he was
conducting negotiations with Christians to the north, Maghrebis to the south, and
even with the Abbasid caliphate itself.
Countless Muwallads throughout al-Andalus rallied in support as did
many Mozarabs (Arabized Christians discussed below). Contemporary testimony
claimed that he controlled land from Algeciras to Murcia. Muwallad revolts
sprang up throughout the peninsula. Certainly at the time it appeared to be
possible that the rebellion could bring the Umayyad state down. In 899 ibn
Hafsun dramatically announced his conversion to Christianity. The move surely
endeared him further to the remaining Christian population and might have given
him more traction with Christian states to the north (carrying favor and support
from Leon certainly being a major consideration in his conversion announce-
ment). Apparently, however, it sucked much of the wind from the sails of his
Muwallad base of support. Restoration of Christianity to the peninsula was not
one of their goals. Dissent or at the very least confusion set in among the ranks.
Enthusiasm waned. Ibn Hafsun’s forces, although they had experienced defeats
before at the hands of emirate troops, took a real beating in 904. The rebellion
was truncated, maybe crippled, but by no means done. Ibn Hafsun, in his base at
Bobastro, lived his life out as a rebel leader until 917. In the following years
discord and quibbling among his sons resulted in Bobastro being a much easier
mark for Cordoba. In 927 Bobastro was taken. Ibn Hafsun’s bodily remains were
exhumed and shipped to Cordoba for public crucifixion. The revolt of ibn Hafsun
takes on additional significance when measured alongside Bulliet’s curve. Re-
volts of old elites—frequently converted old elites—against the new order are
almost standard historical features that accompany the conversion curve at a
specific point. Chronologically, the revolt of ibn Hafsun and other Muwallad

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rebels is later than parallel revolts in the east but, more importantly, they appear
at the same stage on the conversion curve graphs.
The Muwallad distinction disappeared during the taifa period. Chronologi-
cally this was later than the fading of the distinction in the East but in terms of
measurable demographic trends it was consistent. The Muwallad distinction and
handicap could not be maintained once Muwallads themselves were a clear
majority. At that point, the cusp of which Averroes himself lived, Muwallads
became fully vested Muslims that were for all intents and purposes indistinguish-
able from old, Arab Muslims.
C Mozarabs
I Mozarab Identities
Mozarab is the general term that modern historians use for Christians who had
lived under Islamic rule in Spain, both those who were direct subjects of al-
Andalus itself and those who were later absorbed by the Catholic states from the
north through conquest. Mozarab is a useful and necessary term for describing this
Christian population but it can be too blunt a tool when discussing specific details
about or significant differences among them. Not all Mozarabs shared the same
experience. Nor did they even all come from the same ethnic lineage. Majority of
the Mozarabs descended from the Hispano-Roman-Visigothic population that
resisted the forces of Islamization (religious assimilation) although not Arabiza-
tion (a process of acculturation). These Arabized Hispano-Roman-Visigothic peo-
ples can, in a sense, be seen as “original” Mozarabs. Some of the Christians of al-
Andalus, certainly a much smaller amount, hailing from the far north of the
peninsula or immigrating from North Africa or even the Near East, are labeled
“Neo-Mozarabs.” Not only were they ethnically different but they could have
significant differences in terms of rites and liturgy. A third type of Mozarab that
emerged later in Spanish history were Muslims who converted to Christianity in
large numbers during the initial Christian conquests from the north. Their experi-
ences were so strikingly different that they need an additional label of their own.
Although it makes for a confusing typology, it has been suggested they be labeled
“New-Mozarabs” (which would cause hopeless confusion with Neo-Mozarabs) or
“Converted Mozarabs” which, unwieldy as it might be, seems better than other
more bulky possibilities. Experiences certainly varied for all Mozarabs inclusively
according to when and where in the peninsula they lived, whether they were
sharecroppers, monks, or urban artisans, and numerous other possible factors
that defy enumeration (Guichard 1985; Epalza 1992; Burman 1994; Glick 2005).

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Muslims did not refer to their Christian dhimmi population as Mozarabs.

Instead they used a wide array of other terms: “Nazarenes,” “Keepers of the
Covenant,” “Romans,” or “Protected People.” The word itself, although it prob-
ably comes from the Arabic word for “Arabized,” was used in Christian sources
not Arab ones. It originated a pejorative and polemical term used by Christian
purists, ferociously resisting acculturation, to describe with disgust their co-
religionists who were adapting the conquerors’ language and culture. Mozarabs
lived in major urban centers, with Cordoba and Toledo having very large popula-
tions, where they could more easily perpetuate church structure around bishop-
rics. Mozarabs existed in significant numbers in rural agricultural communities as
well. We know that there were frequent uprisings of Mozarab peasants lasting
into the tenth century and it seems that many Mozarab migrants settling in Leon
were wheat farmers.
To what extent Mozarabs were truly “Arabized,” ironically, is a source of
debate (Glick 2005). Surely trying to answer such a question adequately would
entail sensitivity to differences in time, place, and possible degrees of Arabiza-
tion. Common sense would seem to imply some degree of linguistic adaptation
particularly in urban environments. From navigating markets on a daily basis to
the possibility of accessing better employment opportunities in pluralistic urban
settings, particularly over generations, there would be sufficient motivation for
many to learn the new language and probably some of the cultural customs that
went along with it. The countryside is always an enigma. In rural, mostly homo-
genous agricultural villages there probably would have been less incentive.
Naming patterns among early Mozarab immigrants to Leon, many of whom seem
to have been agricultural workers, are particularly interesting and suggestive. The
picture that emerges is one in which husbands had Arabic names and wives
Romance names. This gendered cleavage regarding names, although it could
have other explanations, suggests bilingual Mozarabic men capable of speaking
Arabic in public and monolingual women who, not needing to negotiate their way
through an Arabic speaking public sphere, spoke the Romance language of the
household and the immediate Christian community. In any case centuries later,
when Toledo was conquered by Christians from the north, the large Mozarabic
population of the city was almost entirely monolingual and spoke only Arabic.
II Martyrs of Cordoba and Arabization
As is the case with Berbers and Hispano-Roman Muwallads, a major source for
our information about the early Mozarabs comes from an explosive confrontation.
The “martyrs of Cordoba” movement began, unassumingly enough, on June 3,

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851 when a Christian man named Isaac in Cordoba requested an audience with
the qadi to receive instruction in Islam. As the qadi began discussing Islam Isaac
began to shout curses about the Prophet Muhammad. Dumbfounded and out-
raged, no doubt, the qadi’s first reaction was to jump up and punch Isaac in the
face. The qadi’s advisors intervened and he settled down. The assumption in the
court came to be that Isaac was either drunk or had some sort of mental break-
down. Isaac responded that neither was true and, knowing that such blasphemy
against the prophet was a capital crime, was zealously seeking martyrdom for his
religion. Confused, the qadi had Isaac confined to a cell while the case was
referred directly to the amir. Shortly after, no doubt realizing what they had on
their hands, the state obliged Isaac and executed him, completely unaware that
this was not a singular event but the opening salvo of an organized movement
(Colbert 1962; Wolf 1988; Coope 1995).
Isaac is a very revealing figure. A good place to begin in contemplating his
significance is by starting with his very name. Isaac (Ishaq) is not a normative
European Christian name. It is, however, common enough among Muslims, Jews,
and Arab Christians at the time and, thus, would be as unobtrusive and unre-
markable a name as possible in going about his daily life. Just the sort of name
one would give a boy if they wanted him to blend. Isaac came from a Cordoban
Christian family of wealth and status. He undoubtedly had a good education with
excellent instruction in the Arabic language. Isaac was a state employee, only
three years before his martyrdom, who had risen to the rank of secretary—which
was no mean position in the Islamic state, particularly in the city of Cordoba. We
can detect in the making of Isaac the traces of a family plan, a way of charting a
career path, a strategy for making a horizontal move from the old power structure
into the new one. The plan was working well until Isaac had some sort of religious
experience that resulted in his quitting the post of secretary and retreating to the
monastery of Tabanos to the north of the city. There the bureaucrat became the
radical.
Over the rest of the decade many martyrs came forward in protest, publicly
insulted Muhammad, and were duly executed for blasphemy or, for those who
were technically and legally born Muslim, executed for apostasy. Several of the
martyrs came from the organizational center at Tabanos itself. Life details of the
martyrs speak volumes regarding the cultural change that had been taking place
in the society. Many, particularly among the women martyrs, came from mixed
Muslim-Christian marriages. Since these particular members were legally Mus-
lims they did not need to defame the Prophet to achieve martyrdom as their
embracing of Christianity was apostasy, itself a capital crime, and some were
executed on this charge. Religious fervor, in these cases, often fused with family
conflicts. Columba, for example, originally fled to the monastery to escape from

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an arranged marriage. In the case of Leocritja, a girl who ran off to live with
Christians and disrupted the whole household, she certainly knew she was play-
ing with fire but does not seem to have been necessarily aware of the fact that she
would eventually be executed. She had an aunt who was a nun and a brother who
was ferociously observant in his Islamic faith. Leocritja intentionally and enthu-
siastically flaunted her Christianity to her brother. It had a bad end. The martyr-
dom movement reveals a wide spectrum of various interfaith dynamics taking
place both in society and within families. We only know about them because, like
the end of Leocritja’s life, they all came to a public bad end and found their way
into the historical or hagiographic record. We can only imagine how widespread
these types of dynamics were in families that had no problems that would result
in executions and lived silently ever after.
Two well-known masterminds behind this movement—and it was an orga-
nized movement—were a priest, Eulogius, and a pious and learned layman
named Paul Alvarus (Sage 1943). Both were rabidly radical in their complete and
utter rejection of the processes of Islamization and Arabization taking place about
them. Somewhat surprisingly, a disproportionate amount of their attention was
focused on the latter. The leadership shares some resemblance to today’s terror-
ists who recruit and form young people, often with their very own families
unaware of the activity, into martyrs to be used as high profile political weapons.
Also like today’s terrorists, Eulogius and Alvarus were a radical minority that not
only did not represent the views of the majority of the population but were
scorned by it as trouble makers, rabble rousers, and fanatics who made every-
one’s lives more difficult by prompting state crackdowns. Differences certainly
could even exist within the same family: Eulogius’s brother worked for the Islamic
state until he was fired for his family connection during the martyrdom move-
ment. At least, however, in the end Eulogius practiced what he preached; he
sought out and achieved martyrdom himself rather than just wastefully hurling
the youth against the enemy.
Eulogius and Alvarus were not alone in the general nature of their views.
Their stance was exceptionally extreme and most rejected their martyrdom meth-
od for solving the problem. They seem, however, to have had some clerical
community support in their rejection of the religious and cultural changes taking
place, particularly in their claim that official church leaders had become colla-
borators. A new manifestation of Donatism, gilded with accusations of simony,
emerged at the time and seems to have split the Cordoban church. Collaboration-
ist church leaders, the argument went, defaulted on their spiritual charge and
were therefore no longer worthy of office, the duties of which they were not
performing properly anyway. They were given their offices by the Muslim state in
exchange for money or favors which clearly made them spiritually unfit to

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execute their duties. This put Saul, the poor bishop of Cordoba, in a vice:
Christian radicals attacked him from one side as a collaborationist while on the
other side the Islamic state jailed him in the mass arrests trying to round up
dissenters. Eventually he made what may have seemed to be the only rational
choice: he fled the city. Of particular interest is Eulogius’s confrontation with the
Archbishop Reccafred: Eulogius refused to conduct mass on his behalf, an
obvious challenge to his authority in light of this neo-Donatist debate and accusa-
tions of simony. What is even more interesting is that while Eulogius eventually
backed down from the confrontation with the Archbishop some other members of
the Cordoban clergy did not.
Archbishop Reccafred condemned the movement for what can only be ob-
vious reasons. Radical priests, including Eulogius, were rounded up and jailed.
Although those already martyred were not condemned, Christians in the commu-
nity were now prohibited from courting martyrdom. The move had little impact
on either potential martyrs or the Islamic state; if anything it just intensified the
clash within the Christian community. Radicals continued as planned and mar-
tyrs trotted themselves out for execution. The emir ordered the dismissal of all
Christian state employees unless they converted to Islam (which some did). His
subsequent decisions, to destroy all recently constructed churches, to execute all
Christian males, and reduce all Christian females to prostitution were not en-
forced as, in the light of the following new day, they were recognized visceral
reactions and a recipe for disaster. The most important results of Reccafred’s
condemnation was that it pushed Eulogius and Alvarus to write apologetic
defenses of the movement which have become our main sources for the entire
subject. In these works we have a great amount of details and an extensive roster
of cultural complaints both of which, when treated judiciously, help flesh out the
Cordoban Mozarab community.
Discussing the radicals’ view toward and rejection of Islamization is hardly
worth the effort; of course they opposed religious apostasy and for reasons that
are not difficult to discern. Arabization, however, is a different story, more
complicated and interesting, and one about which the radicals had much to say
in their writings. There was, of course, some overlap in that it was to be feared
that Arabization might lead to Islamization. The radicals were very upset with
those co-religionists who claimed that the differences between Christianity and
Islam were only cosmetic or at the very least minimal. Such a view could make
those holding it more susceptible to apostasy eventually and, perhaps just as
significantly, to heterodox beliefs. Cassians, those curious Cordoban Christians
who adhered to halal dietary restrictions, rejected relics, and were iconoclasts is a
case in point. More grave still was the Adoptionism held by some Mozarabs.
Adoptionism can be explained just as well as being a form of syncretism between

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Christianity and Islam as it can as being a variant of Arianism (and it could very
well have been a blending of residual Visigothic Arianism, Catholicism, and
Islam). Proposing that Jesus was born fully human and then was subsequently
spiritually “adopted” by God would pose fewer problems than pure Catholic
Christology when in Muslim company. Arabization for extremely career-minded
but spiritually tepid Christians could result in the end with religious treason.
When the emir of Cordoba, in the upheaval of the martyrdom movement, ordered
the firing of all Christians in government administration unless they converted, it
did not take much soul searching for Gomez, a Mozarab tax collector, to renege
on his baptism and recite the shahada. Eulogius and Alvarus might have been
fanatics but they were not wrong in their assessment of the changes taking place.
The picture of Cordoba’s Mozarab community that emerges is one of signifi-
cant Arabization particularly, but not only, among the youth. Qualitatively we
can learn much but quantitatively—with the exception of Bulliet’s curve—we are
in the dark. According to Alvarus, Cordoban youth were “highly regarded” for
their fluency in Arabic but were completely losing their knowledge of Latin. They
collected, discussed, and praised Arabic works of literature while showing a
disturbing indifference to their Christian traditions. Alvarus had a particular
dislike for Christians who tried to blend in (simulatio) with Arab Muslims in
markets and at court. Most outrageous and offensive to the radicals were Christian
men who chose to be circumcised to assimilate and gain political benefit. Disturb-
ing accounts accompanied condemnations; for example, descriptions of the
unseemly, matted mounds of grey pubic hair and how difficult it was for the knife
to cut through the thick, toughened foreskins of elderly Christians wanting to
further their careers. Significantly circumcision, so important to both Arabs and
Christians in Cordoba, was really, for both, much more a cultural than religious
issue whether they realized it or not. The Quran does not require (or mention) it
and Paul considered it irrelevant. There were, however, Muslims in the state
bureaucracy who refused to work with anyone who was not circumcised and the
radicals themselves saw circumcision as a sort of high treason regarding identity
(Coope 1995). Loss of culture rather than loss of religion seems to have been the
primary fear lurking behind the polemic.
In an ironic postscript to the movement, we should note that Hafs ibn Albar
al-Quti, Paul Alvarus’s son (Hafs son of Alvarus the Goth), demonstrated that the
youth of Cordoba could master Arabic and Arabic literature and still remain
staunch Christians. Hafs created a verse translation of the Vulgate Psalms that
followed the rules of proper Arabic poetry, possibly a response to his father’s
criticism that Cordoba’s youth was losing its Latin. He also wrote the first Arabic
defense of Christianity against Islam by a western Christian. In the early tenth
century we find bishops such as Bishop Rabi ibn Zayd and Bishop Abu al-Harith

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studying Arabic philosophy with no conception at all that it might skew their
leadership of their flocks. Arabization could lead to Islamization but it need not
and often did not (Burman 1994).
III Mozarab Status
How were Mozarabs generally treated during the Umayyad period? Criticism from
the radicals again provides a valuable source of details. It seems that cultural
assimilation could go far in transcending any religious handicap regarding state
service. As was the case with Isaac fluency in Arabic and a good education
opened doors. Cultural issues rather than religious identity seemed to be the
greatest source for possible friction. Culturally speaking, the more Christians
imitated Arab behavioral norms, even while maintaining their religious practices,
the better their prospects were regarding professional advancement. Muslims
refusing to work with uncircumcised men, as noted above, is an excellent exam-
ple. Differences in hygienic habits were a source of such cross-cultural conflict.
Consumption of pork, frequently a cause of particularly deep disgust for Muslims,
complicated interactions especially close ones. An obvious strategy for ambitious
Christians wanting both opportunities for advancement and desiring to remain
Christian would be to live as close as possible to Arab behavior norms—to become
Arabized—while keeping their faith a more private matter and resist Islamization.
Arabization to some might have seemed to be skirting along the border of Islam
while to others, such as the radicals, it would be proof of pushing straight through
it. The emergence of the Cassians, Christians in Cordoba who adhered to Islamic
dietary laws, makes perfect sense regarding what it was and where it emerged. In
many ways it appears to have been an “Arabized” approach to Christianity in
which the religious core was maintained while practices that would disgust the
Arab elite (such as eating pork) or offend (idolatry) have been shaved away.
Although the state bureaucracy seemed to be remarkably flexible regarding
Mozarab employment this was not necessarily reflective of the position of Mozar-
abs overall as a population. Again, accommodations must always be made for
differences (which could have been substantive) deriving from such variables as
urban versus rural, location in the peninsula, and of course dates. Mozarab
integration into society certainly differed in regard to acceptance at court and the
state elite as opposed to the general population. Eulogius, for example, revealed
that the state evidently permitted Christians in Cordoba to use bells on occasion
but it prompted “insults and curses” from the local populations at large. Revolts
by Mozarab peasants in the countryside indicate existing tensions that a Mozarab
courtier might never understand as does Mozarabic support for Muwallad revolts.

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Mozarabs from Toledo and Merida revolted during the reign of abd al-Rahman II
and the latter community even wrote an appeal to Louis the Pious for assistance.
Mass migrations of Mozarabs from al-Andalus to the newly emerging Christian
states in the north indicate that many Mozarabs believed their lot would be
much better under Christian rule and voted with their feet. To what extent these
examples represent a religious divide is, and probably always will be, open to
debate. They could be symptomatic of genuine religious clashes or they could
simply be normative class tensions, the type that also existed in homogenous
societies, which acquired a somewhat stronger flavor due to the religious plural-
ism that so happened to exist.
D Jews
I Jews in Islamic Spain
Jews, although resident in Iberia since the Roman period, left barely any trace in
the historical record of early al-Andalus. Under the Emirate we know hardly
anything. During the Caliphate we can begin to paint a few portraits of Jewish
courtiers. In the taifa kingdoms the evidence grows and gets very interesting
regarding Jewish courtiers and the upper class but is still completely unsatisfying
regarding the majority of Jews or anything about their experiences (Ashtor 1973–
1984; Lewis 1983; Scheindlin 1992a).
Despite the paucity of sources some provisional statements can be made
regarding Spanish Jewry and their relationship to early Islamic society. Spanish
Jews were severely traumatized by Visigothic anti-Judaism (though claims that
Jews assisted Muslim conquerors in overthrowing the Visigoths have absolutely
no credible historical evidence). They were of course dhimmi so the rough
contours of their status can be understood through these terms. Numerically
they were a minority and compared to Muwallads or Mozarabs they were a
fraction of the population. Their small numbers here is important: the state never
had any fear of a “Jewish revolt” of that they would be a fifth column for an
invasion force of co-religionists. Many lived in the countryside but much more
were associated with an urban environment. Most importantly Jewish commu-
nities, due to Diaspora experience as well as linguistic similarity, were excellent
cultural adaptors in Arab lands. Literacy rates were high and bilingualism or
multilingualism was not rare. Jewish communities thrived in North Africa and
the Near East at the time in comparison to Christian Europe and, though disaster
could strike the communities particularly during times of economic or political
crisis, they developed a symbiotic relationship with Arab states that was rela-

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tively stable. It is also worth noting that Jews had been accustomed to many
forms of second-class citizen status for generations; they were, so to speak,
experienced in living with and through legal inferiority in a way that Iberian
Christians were not before 711.
Al-Andalus did, however, see the rise of some Jews to political power in a way
that exceeded that of other Arab states, both in their numbers and in the heights
of office, enough for many scholars to dub Islamic Spain as a “Golden Age” for
Jews (Ashtor 1973–1984; Scheindlin 1992a; Lewis 1983; Stillman 1998). Much of
what we know about the Jews of al-Andalus, in fact, comes by way of the lives of
prominent Jewish courtiers. The picture that emerges is narrow, one dimensional,
and certainly tells us nothing about the majority of Jews. Many Jews living in al-
Andalus may have seen nothing “golden” about it at all. Still what evidence we
have is interesting and paints a remarkable portrait.
II Hasdai ibn Shaprut
Hasdai ibn Shaprut begins the real chain of evidence. He is the first of the great
rabbi-courtier-intellectuals to achieve great contemporary and historical impor-
tance in Islamic Spain. Abd al-Rahman III’s approach to dhimmi, probably to
make relations more efficient and hopefully amiable, worked through single
representatives for a religious community. Selection seems to have been based on
connections to the court and trustworthiness in the eyes of the state rather than
on any sort of dhimmi stamp of approval. Hacks from powerful families were
surely common. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, however, was a scion but no hack. Born in
Jaen in 910 to a wealthy Jewish family, he developed just the sort of pedigree
needed to climb the ranks of political power. A physician fluent in Hebrew,
Arabic, and (somewhat surprisingly) Latin, Hasdai first joined the caliphal court
in a medical capacity. The trust he earned from caliph and court is evident in the
diplomatic and fiscal functions he came to serve. He was trusted with important
tasks requiring excellent interpersonal skills, intelligence, and tact. He could be
trusted with state money. As Abd al-Rahman’s personal physician he was trusted
with the very life of the caliph. Court trust was the primary prerequisite, from the
state’s perspective, for formal leadership and representation of a dhimmi commu-
nity. The state wanted collaborators it could trust. Hasdai’s respected position
within the Jewish community itself was a valuable bonus (Ashtor 1973–1984;
Glick 1992; Scheindlin 1992a; Scheindlin 1992b; Glick 2005).
Hasdai was capable of serving two masters at the same time and serving them
both very well. His service to the caliph and state was distinguished. One could
not ask for a more capable, loyal, honest, or dedicated civil servant. His service to

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the Jewish community was fascinating in that he not only served as a good
steward for the interest of Andalusian Jewry but assumed the role of advocate for
foreign Jewish communities, using his position of power in the Cordoban court to
put some weight in the glove of his personal pleas for tolerance toward Jews. He
wrote a letter to the wife of the Byzantine emperor asking for intervention in the
persecution of Jews in their realm. He was heavily Arabized but still a faithful Jew
loyal to the community; he used his position to benefit his co-religionists without
violating the trust his Arab employers placed in him. He wielded great power but
was certainly no capo.
High culture and scholarly pursuits are the most fascinating areas that
Hasdai’s life and career reveal. Jewish intellectual life’s vitality and vibrancy often
synchronized with the trends in host civilizations. The interface between Jewish
and Arab high culture was exceptionally pronounced and the Andalusi experi-
ence was a major beneficiary. Hasdai ibn Shaprut was both a product and
perpetuator of a fascinating transformative process for Jews in Spain. His own
education was that of the penultimate aristocratic Arabized Jew. He had a tradi-
tional education in Biblical and Talmudic studies. He also had, with the exception
of Islamic studies, the education of a contemporary Arab aristocrat. He was
trained in adab—the Arab humanities—which emphasized proper behavior and
etiquette, conversance in and respect for scholarship, and a mastery of Arabic
poetry and its conventions, poetry itself being in so many respects the mirror of
the Arab soul and an important component part of Arab political culture. Fluency
in Arabs philosophy was also part of Hasdai’s curriculum as was, obviously, the
sciences which molded him into an excellent physician, a physician of sufficient
ability to be recruited into the caliphal court.
Philosophy, science, and poetry were important parts of Arab court life. Many
rulers like Abd al-Rahman III were great patrons of scholarship and supported
intellectual circles into which gifted Jews could be seamlessly integrated. The
breadth and depth that a scholarly project could reach can be seen in the work
done on Dioscorides’s Materia Medica at Abd al-Rahman III’s court. The Byzan-
tine emperor sent a Greek copy of the text to Abd al-Rahman as a gift. The Materia
Medica was already known to the court through an earlier Arabic translation but
acquisition of this Greek copy provided opportunities for better adaptations of its
pharmacological information for use in Spain. The goal of the project was to
synchronize the terms for flora, as mentioned in the text, with native species and
the Andalusi vernacular words for them. Nicholas, a Byzantine monk, was sent to
the caliph by the emperor to assist and was joined by a Greek speaking Arab from
Sicily. Hasdai ibn Shaprut was a member of the group, with other members
presumably selected for linguistic skill, botanical knowledge, or a combination of
both. This pharmacological and naturalist school outlived the caliph himself and

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continued to expound and expand upon the original group’s efforts and contin-
ued to attract young new scholars (Glick 1992; Glick 2005).
Hasdai ibn Sharput’s greatest achievement and most historically significant
contribution to Andalusi Jewish life was the absorption, assimilation, reconstruc-
tion, and transmutation of Arab adab into a Hebrew counterpart. While a member
of the Arab scholarly circle at the caliphal court, Hasdai ibn Shaprut created his
own parallel Jewish circle of scholars, his own Jewish intellectual court, that
modeled a new approach to Judaism and Jewish culture based on the Arab
tradition that was as sharp a break as possible from the previously existing
traditions of rabbinic literature and synagogue poetry. Furthermore, just as he
saw himself as an advocate for the protection of Mediterranean-wide Jewry, he
recruited foreign Jews in furthering the aims of his new Jewish scholarly circle to
supplement native Jewish talent. The emblematic example of such international
recruitment was Dunash ben Labrat from Baghdad. While in Iraq he was already
experimenting with adapting the rules of classical Arabic poetry to Hebrew and
his arrival at Shaprut’s “court” had revolutionary effects.
III The Arab Influence on Jewish Intellectual and Religious Life
Arab approaches to and uses of poetry were extremely sophisticated, possibly

more so than that of any other culture of the time. Poetry was extremely political.
Odes could emphasize the importance of the lineage of families or celebrate and
magnify the stature and achievements of a paying patron. Opponents could be
lampooned and degraded in a powerful way that struck deep roots in the minds
of all. The pre- and early-Islamic origins of this can be seen in the fact that
Muhammad himself, after the surrender of Mecca, offered a general amnesty to all
his opponents except those who attacked him through poetry—they were to be
given no quarter and were duly executed. Poetry was also at the very heart of
Islam as a religion. In the Quran God had chosen to give his direct verbatim
commands to the faithful through perfect Mudari Arabic. What was proffered as
the most significant proofs of the divine origins of the Quran was that it was the
most beautiful and perfect poetry that anyone had ever heard and that it could
not be matched or imitated. For later generations, proper understanding of the
Quran was inextricably linked to an understanding of classical Arabic, its poetic
conventions, its rules, and particularly its grammar. The firm belief that the Quran
was the literal, verbatim speech of God understandably created an obsession with
and extremely well defined approach to lexicography and grammar of the lan-
guage, the language of revelation, which increasingly became more distant and
more “classical” in proportion to the passage of time. Arab Muslims, needless to

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say, were exceptionally vested in both secular and religious poetry for cultural,
political, and spiritual reasons.
Arabiyya, the study and perfection of classical Arabic and its ancillary sub-
jects, important to both the construction and interpretation of sharia as well as
daily political life in court, was Hebraized in Shaprut’s circle. This laid the
foundation for a substantive transformation of Spanish Judaism that paved the
way for the Golden and Silver Ages in Andalusian Jewish literature. Biblical
Hebrew became the subject of intensive study and use and, like the Mudari Arabic
of the Quran, it began to eclipse the current form of Hebrew in rabbinical
literature and synagogue poetry, itself produced over the course of centuries of
exile. In a way it was similar to Renaissance Europe’s privileging of classical over
ecclesiastical Latin. Talmudic studies, which Shaprut promoted tirelessly, came
to have a family resemblance with hadith scholarship. Halaka, if not receiving an
Arabic makeover, was at the very least absorbing some critically important
concepts and techniques from the Hebraized arabiyya his school was creating. In
this Jewish version of Arabiyya and adab, biblical Hebrew became the analogical
equivalent to Mudari Arabic and the Bible the equivalent to the Quran. Beyond
this swapping of particulars the general structure appears to have remained
basically the same. Any feelings of inferiority in comparison to the dominant Arab
culture, at least for the Jewish elite, would be cured through the process. Judaism
would be just as rigorous, just as dynamic, and just as respectable as the religion
and culture of the Arabs; this fact would now be observable and measurable (Roth
1983; Scheindlin 1992a; Scheindlin 1992b).
Biblical Hebrew for this new generation of Jewish intellectuals, like the
Mudari Arabic of their Muslim models, was a classical language that was studied
and glorified by the elite but not used for every day purposes. Jews still spoke and
wrote in the colloquial Arabic that was all around them. Linguistically on a daily
basis there would have been little that distinguished them. In Arab speaking
lands not only was normal business written in Arabic but even Jewish theological
works and the responsa of rabbis. Still some degree of Hebrew was required for
religious purposes even if those requirements did not play a large role in higher
religious thought or in administration. Judeo-Arabic was the interesting product
of this situation. Within the Jewish community the Hebrew alphabet was much
better known overall or at the very least better known at an earlier age. So the
emergence and use of Judeo-Arabic for internal community use, Arabic written in
Hebrew characters, not only is not surprising but given the intercultural logic of
the community was almost predictable.
Although this Hebraized arabiyya and adab undoubtedly transformed Jewish
intellectual and religious life among the elite, historically speaking the whole
venture’s greatest point of interest could be in the fact that it began the first post-

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biblical movement in secular Hebrew poetry (itself without doubt a response to

the Arabic impetus), a trend that resulted in the majestic Golden and Silver Ages
in poetry for Spanish Jewry that has no true contemporary equal.
IV Two Jewish Grand Viziers
Samuel ha-Nagid (Ismail ibn Naghrila) was the personification and zenith of the
Jewish achievement in al-Andalus. Born in Cordoba in 993, Samuel, like Hasdai,
came from an aristocratic family that provided him with the best Arabic and
Jewish educations possible. He had a firm grounding in the Arab humanities, in
Talmudic studies and rabbinic literature, and his education was rooted in the very
synthesis, the Hebraized arabiyya, which emerged from ibn Shaprut’s circle.
Samuel was multilingual: in addition to being fluent in Arabic and Hebrew (in
both cases classical and colloquial) he also spoke a Berber dialect, a Romance
dialect, and knew Latin. As a young man of twenty he experienced the collapsing
of the caliphate first hand by living through the Berber sack of Cordoba, his home
city, in 1013. Fleeing the fitna, the family migrated to Malaga, which was then
absorbed into the emergent Zarid taifa kingdom of Granada. Samuel rose quite
high in state service and became part of the court of the Granadan King Hubbus.
In the power struggle for succession between Hubbus’s sons, Samuel backed the
right candidate. When the new king Badis victoriously assumed the throne of
Granada in 1038 Samuel became the chief vizier and an army general. From that
year until his death in 1056, Samuel was the second most powerful man in the
Kingdom of Granada (Ashtor 1973–1984; Scheindlin 1992a; Scheindlin 1992b).
Samuel called himself “the New David” and if this self-given moniker seems
presumptuous it does so only at first glance. It had been a long time indeed since
a Jewish warrior poet led thousands of troops into battle and then returned home
to run the state. Solomon ibn Gabirol, one of the great Golden Age poets and
admittedly part of Samuel’s entourage, composed a panegyric poem to Samuel
that compares him to his namesake the prophet Samuel: both gathered together
exiles, both led them into a new land, both sought out understanding, and both
made use of the treasure seized from the unbeliever. One can scan the entire
panorama of medieval Jewry and find nothing quite like him. Vizier, warrior,
diplomat, poet, rabbi, Talmudic scholar, patron of Jewish scholarship, and Nagid
(head of the Jewish community), he had risen to the pinnacle of power in his
society. Through his poetry he celebrated and lamented clashes on the battlefield
and jabbed at his political at court. As a patron of Jewish scholarship his generos-
ity extended beyond Spain and into the Jewish communities of the east. He had
more than his fair share of detractors and opponents both among fellow Jews and

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among Muslims. Jews whose ultra-pious religious scruples could not endure
collaborationism and Arabization criticized his fraternization with and service to
the Muslim elite along with his composition of secular and love poetry. Muslim
rulers of rival taifa states, some of whom faced Samuel on the battlefield, attacked
Badis for placing a Jew in the highest position of power in his kingdom. Jealousy
and political competition were surely the main motives for Samuel’s Muslim
opponents within court but, given the anti-Judaism that existed in Granada, his
Jewish identity would have been an appealing target in political intrigues. His
poetry is a valuable source for interesting details about the functioning of the
Zarid court and for understanding how many enemies Samuel himself had.
The strength of this anti-Jewish sentiment in Granada, and the extent to
which it could be manipulated and used, can be seen in the horrific events
surrounding the fall of Samuel’s son Joseph. Samuel took great care in molding
Joseph into a suitable successor in what was most likely an attempt at dynasty
building. Joseph was twenty-one when, following the death of his father, he
assumed the position of grand vizier to Badis. Ten years later he was murdered
and the Jewish community of Granada was massacred by angry mobs.
The match strike that produced the murder of Joseph and the massacre of the
Jewish community was an accusation of poisoning the crown prince at dinner. The
powder keg was the Muslim jurist-courtier Abu Ishaq. Using the death of the prince
as a pretext (the prince died after a dinner at Joseph’s home) Abu Ishaq went on the
offensive. Through vitriolic anti-Jewish polemic and poetry, Abu Ishaq impeached
the authority of Joseph and riled up commoners against the vizier and his commu-
nity. Granada and Badis, Abu Ishaq stated, raised Jews up to positions of great
power while other Muslim rulers and states treated them like dogs. In Granada,
Jews divided the city and countryside among themselves and grew fat on the taxes.
In Granada, Jews wore magnificent robes while Muslims went about in rags. In
Granada, Jews had been puffed up with pride and, though they should be lowly,
become exceedingly arrogant. In Granada, the faithful were forced to humbly obey
apes. In Granada, Jews were as wealthy as King Badis himself. In Granada, Jews
had become the well-fattened ram and it was time to slaughter it as a sacrifice to
earn God’s favor. Slaughter was exactly what Abu Ishaq achieved. Pogroms were
rare in the Arab world but they could happen and the massacre of Granadan Jews
was an unfortunate example. It should also be kept in mind that both in court and
on the streets, anti-Jewish sentiment must have been running fairly high. Abu
Ishaq was able to magnify and manipulate anti-Judaism but he surely could not
have created it whole cloth, at least not the murderous type of anti-Judaism that
would lead to massacre in such a short period of time.
Jewish courtiers were not a rarity in the taifa period (Ashtor 1973–1984;
Wasserstein 1985; Scheindlin 1992a; Scheindlin 1992b). The rabbi-courtier became

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768 Mark T. Abate
a common enough figure in taifa courts. Jews in positions of power could natu-
rally help their communities but there was always a personal risk involved. Latent
anti-Judaism always had the potential to explode. Jews being in positions of
power was a technical violation of the dhimma contract and, given the right
variables in court or on the ground, this could be used against them. Abu Ishaq
was the most notable and certainly the most tragic example of this but he was by
no means unique. Dhimmi officials were valuable and trusted partly because their
vulnerability forced certain degrees of loyalty. Without the protection of the state
the dhimmi courtier could experience a brutal fall. Rulers appeasing angry
populations by sacrificing dhimmi officials, although not common, were not
unheard of occurrences in the medieval Arab world.
Jewish courtiers might fall but the new tradition of Arabized Hebrew and
Hebraized arabiyya, and the fundamental transformation of Jewish poetry, did
not. Solomon ibn Gabirol, a beneficiary of Samuel ha-Nagid’s patronage, gave us
a taste of each. Ibn Gabirol’s original patron, the Zaragozan Jewish courtier
Yekutiel ibn Hassan, was killed after finding himself on the wrong end of palace
intrigues; this prompted Gabirol’s migration to Granada. A poet with an excep-
tionally strong philosophical bent, western Europeans reading him in Latin
translation of his major philosophical work The Fountain of Life were completely
unaware of the fact that he was a Jew (Scheindlin 1992b; Loewe 1989). This is
ironic as ibn Gabirol was one of the earliest and most influential poets applying
Arab techniques to synagogue poetry. Moses ibn Ezra (ca. 1055–ca. 1135) was an
accomplished poet in both liturgical and secular venues and perfected the Arab
structure for odes in the new Spanish Hebrew poetry. He wrote two works on the
composition and criticism of poetry in Arabic. That one of his theoretical master-
pieces on Hebrew poetry, The Book of Discussion and Conversation, was actually
composed in Arabic almost provides a conceptual synopsis of the transformation
taking place (Ashtor 1973–1984; Scheindlin 1992a; Scheindlin 1992b).
Judah Halevi is the most appropriate note on which to end discussion of the
new Spanish Hebrew poetry as well as the taifa Jewish courtier. Examination of
his early career reveals Halevi to be the consummate rabbi-courtier-poet-physi-
cian. Regarding poetry he might have had the best ear in all of Spanish Jewry
living under Islam. He was a successful physician, served as an admirable state
official, and was an overall person of note. Yet in the end he rejected everything
about his life and respectable career and set out for redemption in Jerusalem.
Whether or not he ever made it to Jerusalem is unknown (Ashtor 1973–1984;
Scheindlin 1992b).

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E Coexistence Among the Three Cultures of

al-Andalus
Samuel ha-Nagid, in one of his more than 1,000 poems, pointed out that he was
who he was, and achieved what he achieved because he was of use to someone
powerful and that if he lost that usefulness he would lose everything. His son
Joseph, who quickly went from asset to liability, was the unfortunate proof of his
father’s poetic prophecy. Coexistence in al-Andalus sprang not from lofty ideas of
tolerance but from pragmatism and cross-confessional usefulness which led to an
imperfect but very real cultural symbiosis.
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in al-Andalus led largely segregated lives. The
basis for this segregation was cultural, social, and legal. The social structure that
regulated interfaith relations, in almost all respects, was geared toward maintain-
ing a degree of separateness and religio-cultural distance. It was a form of
religious apartheid rather than some sort of medieval melting pot. Our modern
sense of multi-culturalism would be as understandable to medieval Andalusians
as the color green would be to someone blind from birth. This was what, in
general, all parties desired. Stability based on segregation is offensive to our
current sensibility but that does not mean it could not have been the foundation
for a reasonable modus vivendi among a people of the past—particularly the
people and the past that constitute our subject.
Co-mingling certainly took place with fascinating and fruitful results. This was
a concession that ideals had to make to reality. When rules were bent, laws and
conventions overlooked, and cultural borders crossed, it was due to a calculus of
cost-benefit analysis made by particular individuals or groups in particular cir-
cumstances. When families like those of Isaac (the first Cordoban martyr) and
Hasdai ibn Shaprut provided their sons with an Arab education, for example, it
was surely calculated to achieve an advantage. When rulers such as Badis techni-
cally violated the dhimma arrangement and made Jews or Christians courtiers and
state bureaucrats, they did so because they would gain from it. When an urban
Mozarab chose to have two names, an Arabic one and a Romance/Latin one, or a
rural Mozarab decided to support and participate in a revolt led by a Muwallad
rebel, it was done for the purpose of bettering their own positions. Motives of
individuals could aggregate and propel a movement: a major motive and driving
force behind Arabized Golden Age Hebrew poetry was to put Jewish poetry on par
with Arabic poetry, show that it was not a poor cousin aesthetically and culturally,
and in the process erase any sense of communal and religious inferiority.
The dhimma contract provided a legalistic baseline for inter-faith relations
rooted in religious revelation. This revealed baseline provided a solid foundation

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770 Mark T. Abate
for religious minorities that was common to all Islamic states. Theoretically it
provided “bookends,” so to speak, in how monotheistic religious minorities
would be treated: theoretically their position and status could get only so low
and, theoretically, could only get so high. They had rights that could not be
violated yet they also had a ceiling that could or should not be breached.
Generally speaking this should be seen as a beginning, with defined parameters
for end results, in ascertaining how dhimmi should be treated. The rules could be
bent in favor of dhimmi: Christian churches using bells in Cordoba during the
lifetime of Eulogius or a Jew rising to the heights of power like Samuel ha-Nagid
are notable examples. Yet the possibility of a jurist like an Abu Ishaq becoming
incensed at violations of the dhimma arrangement or advocating a much stricter
application of the dhimma arrangement was always a possibility. Puritanical
zelots could insist on the strictest interpretations of the dhimma arrangement or,
as in the case of the Almohads, abrogate the dhimma arrangement altogether due
to perceived impropriety.
During the early existence of al-Andalus and throughout the Umayyad emi-
rate there was a period of adjustment, accommodation, and integration. Unity
and equality of all believers was a theory that had limp, at best, applications and
manifestations in reality. Berbers quickly realized that although all Muslims were
supposed to be equal Arab Muslims were more equal than others. Neo-Muslim
Muwallads realized that regardless of their conversion to Islam they were still the
“sons of white women” and were not allowed an equal stake in the society that
was beginning to crystallize. Jews, with so many generations of adaptation and
accommodation to subordinate second class status, adjusted very quietly but very
well in this transitional period. Arabization and Islamization, two very distinct yet
often inter-related processes, proceeded. A common Arab educational and intel-
lectual culture began to emerge that would reach fruition in the caliphate and
taifa periods. Jews and Christians came to convert to Islam over time but many,
even though becoming full participants in the Arab culture, retained their reli-
gious identity. Participation in this Arab culture provided increasing opportu-
nities for advancement during the caliphate and particularly during the taifa
period.
The taifa period, though characterized by fragmentation and weakness for al-
Andalus, was a crucial epoch in cross-confessional relations in Islamic Spain
(Ashtor 1973–1984; Wasserstein 1985). Surely most important was the gradual
fading of the Muwallad distinction. Consistent with Bulliet’s conversion curve
which suggests the balance tipped toward a recognizable Muslim majority via
converts, the Neo-Muslim Muwallad distinction by and large evaporated. The
swamping of the original population of Muslim elite conquerors by exponentially
increasing numbers of converts shifted the center of demographic gravity to an

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extent in which such chauvinistic distinctions in society at large were no longer

tenable. Most Muslims now were of Muwallad origin, were in the majority, so
discrimination toward Neo-Muslims was much harder to maintain. Weakness,
moreover, a salient feature of the taifa states, often can favor a sort of functional
meritocracy. Multiple fragmented states, each of which needed an effective
bureaucracy to make it work, expanded the numbers of civil servants required to
make them run. The expansion of rabbi-courtiers throughout the taifa states was
surely a result. More need created more opportunity for skilled professionals
capable of performing the task. In addition to pure talent and ability, Jewish
courtiers were also valuable in their weakness and vulnerability. They could not
be fifth columns for a major outside power and they needed to be loyal for
protection internally against possible explosions of anti-Jewish sentiment. Weak-
ness, in this case, created a fruitful multi-confessional efflorescence.
Select Bibliography
Ashtor, Eliyahu, The Jews of Moslem Spain (Philadelphia, PA, 1973–1984), 3 vols.
Burman, Thomas E., Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c. 1050–1200
(Leiden 1994).
Cohen, Mark R., Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ, 1994).
[= M. R. Cohen 1994]

Coope, Jessica A., The Martyrs of Cordoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass
Conversion (Lincoln, NE, 1995).
Glick, Thomas F., Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, 2nd rev. ed. (1979; Leiden
2005).
Glick, Thomas F. and Oriol Pi-Sunyer, “Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish
History,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 11 (1969): 136–54.
Harvey, L. P., Islamic Spain 1250–1500 (Chicago 1990).

Jayyusi, Salma K., ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Leiden 1992).
Mann, Vivian, Thomas F. Glick and Jerrilynn Dodds, ed., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and
Christians in Medieval Spain (New York 1992).
Nirenberg, David, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
O’Callaghan, Joseph F., A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, NY, 1975).
Wasserstein, David, The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain,
1002–1086 (Princeton, NJ, 1985).
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter, Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge 1988).

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Miriamne Ara Krummel
Jewish Culture and Literature in England
A Historical Context and Cultural Backdrop:

Being Jewish in Christian England
The story of how the medieval English Jews lived their lives in eleventh-,
twelfth-, and thirteenth-century England intersects with the realities of the Jews’
historical situation. Thinking about the contingent realities of Jewish lives
brings us to the Christian community’s view of Jews and the Jews’ own view of
themselves and how the Jews themselves navigated the fraught culture of
medieval England. A powder keg, of sorts, resulted after the Normans claimed
the seats of power in 1066. This combustible site that was medieval England in
the eleventh century involved the English (that is, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes,
and other Germanic tribes) who had arrived in the fifth century; the Norman
French who took control over the country in 1066; and the Jews who were
imported into England by the Normans (Cohen 2006; 2004; Roth 1964). Each
group performed their roles well: the English were angry about their subjuga-
tion; the Normans displaced the English and set the Jews to work in assisting
with the development of an Anglo-French empire; and the Jews recognized their
powerlessness and worked fastidiously in their role of servitude (Edward I 1810,
221a; Stow 1992, 217–18). As serfs, the Jews occupied a hybrid identity that was
sometimes-English, sometimes-French, and sometimes-Jewish but never whole,
always an “erroneous, inauthentic, not one’s own” (Radhakrishnan 2003, 318).
For the most part, the Jews of England attempted to balance two spheres, living
lives of complex identity politics framed by a battle ground between the self-as-
Other and the self-as-Jewish. These sites materialized in the global and local
spheres, involved the public and the private civic worlds, and resonated as
either Anglo-French or Jewish. The global performance of Jewishness played out
in the public sphere: these Jews made a living in the Anglo-French economy,
often as moneylenders; these English Jews knew the Anglo-French language,
had Anglo-French names, and were familiar with the ways of the Christians,
their customers (Lipman 1967; Roth 1964; Richardson 1960; Bartlet, 2009, 19).
The local sphere was a private one: these Jews knew Hebrew, had Jewish names,
followed the laws of the Jewish community, and found their personal passions
fulfilled as writers, “artisans, fishmongers, cheesemongers, teachers, vintners,
scribes, household attendants, physicians, goldsmiths, merchants, ladder-ma-
kers, fencing-masters, landlords, peddlers, innkeepers, cross-bowmen, ser-

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Jewish Culture and Literature in England 773
geants-at-arms, and synagogue officials” (Krummel 2011, 46). The combination

of a public and private English Jew speaks to the besieged nature of these two
identities trying to thrive in one alienated person. This chapter presents the
culture and writing of the medieval English Jew.
All the Jews of England encountered some form of the Christian anxiety about
the contact between the Old Testament and the New Testament and the New
Testament’s reliance on the Old Testament (Moore 1987, 27–45; Stow 1992; Lang-
muir 1990). Searching for the early beginnings or even later iterations of this
drama over and hostility about the close contact between the books of the Old
Testament and the New Testament takes us beyond the scope of this chapter, but
suffice it to say that Ambrose’s (ca. 340–397) work in Cain and Abel contributed
profoundly to the lexicon of anti-Judaism (Ambrose 1961, 359–437; Nirenberg
2013). As a case in point, Ambrose’s attempt to dispense with the efficacy of the
Old Testament quite likely sets the stage for later anxieties about the English
involvement in the Christian world (Krummel 2011, 94–97). Ambrose argues that
once the New Testament came into being, the Old Testament became outmoded
and that the appearance of Ecclesia and Christianity displaced/replaced Synago-
gua and Judaism: “[w]hen one number is added to another, something new arises.
The original number disappears” (Ambrose 1961, 360; Krummel 2011, 88). Am-
brose later clarifies this point with specifics: “[t]hese two brothers, Cain and Abel,
have furnished us with the prototype of the Synagogue and the Church. In Cain
we perceive the parricidal people of the Jews, who were stained with the blood of
their Lord, their Creator” (Ambrose 1961, 362). Abel, by default, represents Chris-
tians, Ecclesia, and Christ. Ambrose’s formulation contributes to a one dimen-
sional view of a people as a thing, Jews as “the Jew,” and this static vision entraps
the Jews in a dangerous world in Christendom. Ambrose’s argument resonates
throughout Norman England and materializes as, at best, a tense relationship
that continuously wrestled with reconciling Jews as either “the ‘bad’, current Jew”
or “the ‘good’, antique Hebrew” (Bale 2010, 137). The image of “the ‘bad’” Jew, a
spectral Jew, fed the fantasy of a dangerous and feared monster prone to abuse
Christians frozen in the Old Testament story of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel—
as documented in an image from a thirteenth-century English Psalter (see Fig. 1;
Bale 2010, 130; Kruger 2006; Krummel, 2011).
Hence, the problem with Ambrose’s metaphor: medieval Jews had not dis-
appeared. In fact, their worshipping practices and lives disturbingly evolved with
ritual practices that spoke of a scriptural modernization of standard texts (Cohen
1999, 317–63). And so, Jewish presence created an irreconcilable tension because
the practices of contemporary Jews of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centu-
ries were not confined to the Old Testament or what the Jews knew of as the
Hebrew Bible or Tanakh.

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774 Miriamne Ara Krummel
Fig. 1: “Cain Prepares to Murder Abel.” Psalter, England, ca. 1270–1280. MS. K. 26, folio 6 recto.
Photo: Cambridge University. By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College,
Cambridge.

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Medieval English Jews thus lived in a nearly impossible world to navigate. On the
one hand, these Jews were haunted by fabricated images of themselves, and on the
other hand, these Jews had to suffer the complexities of a hybrid identity and the
inevitable tension that erupts from a state of hybridity (Radhakrishnan 2003;
Cohen 2004, 34). Sethina Watson proposes a disarmingly possible third option
that both bridges and weds these two possibilities—namely, the reality of Christian
“doubt” as the outcome of “living, and believing, in the presence of the other”
when “the gaze of a known unbeliever became a vehicle through which partici-
pants could observe, and perhaps doubt, themselves” (Watson 2013, 14). Either
way, these Angevin Jews, to quote Kenneth Stow, lived a life of “severe Jewish
trauma”: perceived as “evil and perversity incarnate,” the Jew both occupied a
“firmly defined legal and constitutional status” and remained “the mythical
enemy of the Christian polity” (Stow 1992, 4). When this drama between Christians
and Jewish identities could no longer be sustained by the monarchs throughout
Europe, the rulers who had once protected the Jews turned to expulsion as the final
solution (Mundill 1998). England has the dubious distinction of being the first of
these countries to expel its Jews (Stow 1992, 281). Even more, a marginal doodle in
Matthew Paris’s Flores Historiarum [Flowers of History] captures the likely violence
of the English Expulsion endured by the Jews of England (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: “Violence and the Jewish Expulsion.” Flores Historiarum, England, early fourteenth
century © British Library Board. MS. Cotton Nero D.II, folio 183 verso. Photo: British Library.
Reproduced by permission of the British Library.
The small amount of writing by English Jews that has survived speaks of a tension
that emerges from a “power-dynamic” that rewrote reality in such as way that the

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powerless Jews were imagined as having power while the powerful Christians
were believed to have none (Bale 2010, 24; Krummel 2009). This chapter brings us
to see this challenging world occupied by medieval English Jews.
B The Jewish Ghetto in Angevin England

The word “ghetto” first appears in 1516 (OED). This word refers us to the sixteenth
century Jewish ghetto, which was a gated site in Venice founded on “the old iron
foundry on a tiny island in a corner of the city” (Stow 2001, 40). A ghetto,
therefore, has come to signal a contained site that prevents a minority group from
contaminating the civic practices of the majority society (Stow 2001, 40). As a
gated site, the “ghetto” figures as the antithesis of free movement and civic
independence. The etymological tradition of the word, “ghetto,” thus circles back
to the impulse to situate Jews on a legally decreed parcel of land. Such a tradition
imperils conversations that adopt a more expansive view of the impulse to
ghettoize Jews and the desire to confine Jews to a “quarter in a city” (OED,
“ghetto,” def. 1). Strictly speaking, as Robert C. Stacey reasonably points out,
“[t]here were no Jewish ghettoes in medieval England” (Stacey 1992, 264). Never-
theless, evidence points toward another possibility. Jews clearly felt safer con-
gregating together and situating their residences in close proximity. As Charlotte
Goldy writes, Oxford had an identifiable “Jewish district” that spanned “an area
of about three blocks by two blocks, along Fish Street between Carfax and
St Frideswide Street (Goldy 2008, 136). Most members of the Oxford Jewish com-
munity opted to live close to rather than far apart from each other. Such evidence
suggests that there was a marked Jewish district—an open or ungated “ghetto.”
This Jewish area, however, was not entirely Jewish: within these measurements
“a Christian vintner” had established himself and asserted his business presence
among this Jewish community and a Dominican priory also situated itself in this
same Jewish district “to encourage apostasy” (Goldy 2008, 136; 137). A Jewishly
owned house became (and continues to remain) a space claimed by, and remem-
bered for being claimed by, Jews—as the lingering memory of a Jewish house
testifies (see Fig. 3; Krummel 2011, 7–14).
In the thirteenth century in England, Jews start to encounter the other part of
the definition of “ghetto”: “the quarter in a city … to which the Jews were
restricted” (OED, def. 1). In this desire to establish what will come to be known as
a “Jewerye” in Middle English and in fourteenth-century England, the medieval
English desire to restrict the Jews’ movement predates the concept and definition
of a “ghetto.” The construction of a separate civic space for English Jews suggests
that we push back the date for containing the Jews in one physical location. Yet

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Fig. 3: “Aaron the Jew’s House in Lincoln, immediately below the Jew’s Court, on Steep Hill.”
Photo: Albrecht Classen.
the actual construction of a separate civic space for the Jewish minority in
England predates even the appearance of the Middle English word, “Jewerye.”
The desire to limit the civic and social space that Jews could occupy surfaces in
Edward I’s (1239–1307) 1275 “The Statutes of Jewry,” a decree with an undeniable
predilection for constructing restricted Jewish living quarters. Admittedly, the
word, “ghetto,” does not appear in Edward I’s decree; nevertheless, Edward I’s
decree documents the desire to create a type of ghetto, a “quarter in a city … to
which the Jews were restricted” (OED, def. 1). While the 1275 “Statutes of Jewry”
accepts the reality of “Intercourse” between Jews and Christians, this “Inter-
course” is overridden by the desire to put an end to any possible cheek-to-jowl
living situations: “the King granteth unto them [that is, the Jews] that they may
gain their living by lawful Merchandise and their Labour; and that they may have
Intercourse with Christians, in order to carry on lawful Trade by selling and
buying. But that no Christian, for this Cause or any other, shall dwell among
them” [le Rey lor grante kil vivent de marchaundise leaus e por lor labur e kil
communient ove les Crestiens per leument marchaunder en vendaunt e en echa-
taunt. Mes ke par cest encheson ne per autre nul Crestien ne seit cochaunt ne

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levaunt entre eus] (Edward I 1810, 221; Krummel 2011, 35). Since the two religious
groups in England at this time were Jews and Christians, it is evident that Edward
I’s decree is imagining a Jewish ghetto when it decrees, “no Christian, for this
Cause or any other, shall dwell among them.” Compare Edward I’s separate civic
space with the fourteenth-century use of the word, “Jewerye.” The Middle English
Dictionary records three uses of the word, “Jewerye,” in its various forms: one, in
The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (ca. 1325); two, in The Cartulary of
Osney Abbey (1349); and three, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1340?–1400) “Prioress’s
Tale” (ca. 1390).
Even though Chaucer sets the “Prioress’s Tale” in an elsewhere site (namely,
“Asye” [Chaucer 1987, Fragm. VII, 488]), Chaucer’s “Jewerye” embodies what an
English ghetto, as described by the 1275 “Statutes of Jewry,” would resemble.
First, the Jewerye in the “Prioress’s Tale” is clearly not a gated site and one where,
it seems, Jews and Christians live near, although not next to, each other: “thurgh
the street men myghte rise or wende, / free and open at eyther ende” (Chaucer
1987, Fragm. VII, 493–94). Second, the Prioress initially represents the movement
of Christians as an innocent passage through the Jewerye—“thurgh the street men
myghte rise or wende.” But then later in her tale, through the actions of her
character, the litel clergeon, the Prioress insinuates a more unsympathetic display
of Christian ritual as the litel clergeon thoughtlessly compels the Jews to listen to
his religious song about Mary “[t]wies a day” as “[t]o scoleward and homeward
when he went” (Chaucer 1987, Fragm. VII, 348–49). The Prioress’s Jews in “Asye”
experience what the English Jews had to endure as they yearly witnessed proces-
sional marching through their area of town while the Christian members of the
community celebrated “feast days and … wound their way through Jewish neigh-
borhoods in an aggressive assertion of Christian dominance and Jewish subjuga-
tion” (Stacey 1992, 265). Third, the presence of a Christian building, denoted as
“[a] litel scole of Cristen folk ther stood / Doun at the ferther ende, in which ther
were / Children an heep” (Chaucer 1987, Fragm. VII, 495–97), suggests the
presence of a Church where young Christian children would be educated (Courte-
nay 1987, 15–17; Greatrex 1994, 178). The presence of a Christian institution in the
midst of a Jewish community also circles us back to the actual situation with
thirteenth-century medieval English Jews whose synagogues would be “confis-
cate[d]” and “turn[ed] into churches” (Stacey 1992, 265) or, alternatively, when a
Dominican priory is “opened … to encourage Jewish apostasy” (Goldy 2008, 137).
Chaucer’s Prioress immortalizes one aspect of medieval English Jewish liveli-
hood at the beginning of her tale when she characterizes the Jews as being
“[s]ustened by a lord of that contree / For foule usure and lucre of vileynye”
(Chaucer 1987, Fragm. VII, 490–91). The Prioress’s characterization of Jews being
“sustened by a lord” for the purposes of “foule usure and lucre of vileynye” is both

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accurate and inaccurate. Without a doubt the medieval English Jews were involved
in the monelending industry. Because of this state-authorized financial business, a
fair number of records survive about and of the Jews. Some of those records, such
as the Norwich 1233 Exchequer Roll, contain libelous images like those immorta-
lized in “Norwich Moneylenders” that depicts a Jewish woman, Avegaye, and a
Jewish man, Mosse Mokke, consorting with a devil figure, Colbin (see Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: “Norwich Moneylenders.” Issues of the Exchequer of 1233, E. 401/1565, m.1. Photo:
Public Records Office. In custody of the Public Record Office.
Despite the reality of such unfortunate libels, though, the medieval records
perform a double role of, on the one hand, recording Antisemitic libel and, on the
other hand, enabling us to visualize actual Jews living on the ground in medieval
England. In this latter role, the records serve as a boon to scholarship by enabling
us to reconstruct the lives of Jews that would otherwise be lost (Mundill 2003,
56–57; Bartlett 2003, 117–21). The scholarship of Suzanne Bartlet, Charlotte
Goldy, Robin Mundill, and Robert Stacey (among others) attests to this point.
While we have to approach these financial records carefully, the financial records
do enlarge the narrative about Jewish presence and make it possible for us to
trace the actual lives of physically present Jews; however, these records also have
the potential to narrow our vision of the roles performed by Jews in the cultural

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economy. The records of financial exchange, for instance, make it possible for us
both to trace the lives of “pregnant wives imprisoned in the Tower of London at
the time of the coin-clipping trials of 1278/9” (Bartlett 2003, 124) and to retell the
stories of Jewish businesswomen (see Goldy and Bartlet). Still we must proceed
cautiously as we celebrate our knowledge and discoveries. We should be wary of
two problems. One, the abundance of these records can suggest that Jews were
only involved in the moneylending profession and, thus, innocently obfuscate
our vision of the other professions held by Jews. Two, the many records of
financial exchange can disrupt our memory of how much the moneylending
industry fed into the Jews’ servitude in the position of slaves to the king. Jews
were, because of the moneylending industry, Edward I’s “Bond-men”—“whose
Bond-men they are” [ky serfs yl sunt] (Edward I 1810, 221a). As Bond-men to the
kings of Norman England, especially Henry III (1207–1272) and Edward I, English
Jews were enmeshed in a complicated financial relationship with their monarchs.
This relationship often framed a Jew’s entire adult life. The 1275 “Statutes of
Jewry” sets twelve as the age when male and female Jews will start being
responsible for paying a yearly Easter tax of three pence to the King (Edward I
1810, 221a). In fact, the financial records, if nothing else, instantiate the like-
lihood that the Normans imported Jews to England to work as their financial arm.
The moneylending industry in the end only served to promote the estrangement
between the English and the Jews who were becoming increasingly associated
with money in the role of usurer as the doodle in the margins of Matthew Paris’s
Flores Historiarum indicates (see Fig. 5).
Already troubled by the Norman colonization of England and its country-
side (Cohen 2004), Jews came to represent all the evils of displacement. In fact,
looking backwards from the present makes us see this Jewish libel as a histori-
cally unfortunate reality because the lion’s share of the loans are taken out by
the “townsmen or villagers” not the “members of the rural gentry” (Lipman
1967, 93). Edward I would also later use these loans and the Jews’ earnings to
his own personal advantage (Close Rolls 1925). Living at once double lives of
freedom and of servitude because of the moneylending industry, Jews were
simultaneously protected and at risk. So long as the Jewish businessman or
businesswoman maintained a successful moneylending industry, Jewish busi-
nesses were permitted to remain solvent; Jews could avoid becoming destitute
and wealthy Jews could offer some financial support to their local Jewish
community. Such financial assistance was simultaneously of deep importance
to the Jewish community and to the specific Jew because becoming destitute
and/or breaking with the Jewish community often resulted in apostasy (Stacey
1992). Henry III was the first monarch to create a solution for the financially
destitute and culturally alienated Jews: the Domus Conversorum.

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Fig. 5: “Jewish Usurer.” Flores Historiarum, England, early fourteenth century © British Library
Board. MS. Cotton Nero D.II, folio 180 recto. Photo: British Library. Reproduced by permission of
the British Library.

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C England’s House for the Converted Jews

Known by its Latin name, Domus Conversorum, this House of the Converted Jews
was erected in 1232 in London and in Oxford under the direction of Henry III
(Stacey 1992, 267; Mundill 1998, 100). England has the dubious honor of being the
“only country, where a king founded a home for converts” (Adler 1939, 281). In
erecting a Domus Conversorum, Henry III was responding both to the Third
Lateran Council, issued in 1179, and Pope Innocent III’s (1160?–1216) words,
recorded in 1213, that—in both cases—expressed a certain desire for more converts
to Christianity (Adler 1939, 280).
Henry III’s Domus simultaneously presents itself as a refuge for Jews and as a
money-making venture for the crown. On the one hand, the Domus appears to be
a sanctuary of sorts for destitute Jews (Adler 1939, 288; Stacey 1992, 270–71). On
the other hand, all Jews who entered had to relinquish all personal holdings to
the king, and inquiries were held to make certain that any Jews who entered the
Domus were, in fact, turning over all of their rightful inheritance and possessions
to the crown (Stacey 1992, 267; Adler 1939, 291–93). For embracing Christianity
these converted Jews were then recycled and made useful in the English Christian
society through salaried positions in the military, the royal household, or in the
Domus itself as its Warden (Adler 1939, 294–99; Stacey 1992, 276–78).
The medieval Domus in London remained open for a number of generations
following the 1290 Expulsion because despite conversion, the stain of being
Jewish was clearly not easily removed. A thirteenth-century image from an
English Psalter speaks of the indelibility of the Jewish mark—the mark of Cain,
often interpreted as horns atop a Jew’s head (see Fig. 6; Auslander 2011).
Robin Mundill counts thirty-five converted Jews in the London Domus be-
tween the years 1280 and 1308 (Mundill 1998, 100). Mundill’s accounting indi-
cates that even after conversion, a formerly-Jewish identity continues—in the
Christian imaginary—to haunt a currently-Christianized body. Of the stories of
Domus Jews, there are two which are particularly troubling. The first story is of a
Christian woman, Susanna (fl. 1200s), who married a Jew who had converted in
the thirteenth century. From 1245–1247, the Domus was a place of refuge for
Susanna, whose “marriage to a converted Jew had rendered her position in the
Christian society of Lincoln an uncomfortable one” (Stacey 1992, 278). Susanna
was marked as “the non-Jewess” and lived for two years among twenty formerly-
Jewish women and nineteen formerly-Jewish men (Adler 1939, 288 n. 1). The
second story is of a Jewish woman who converted in the Domus, left the Domus
to marry a Christian from Exeter, bore his children, and then found herself back
in the Oxford Domus until her death. This woman’s name is Claricia of Exeter (fl.
late 1200s–1300s). Claricia converted in the Domus before 1280, left the Domus in

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Fig. 6: “Cain: Marked and Exiled.” Psalter, England, ca. 1270–1280. MS. K. 26, folio 6 verso.
Photo: Cambridge University. By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College,
Cambridge.

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1308, and after marriage and raising a family, returned to the Domus in 1356 with
two of her children (Stacey 1992, 274). Claricia, a woman who presumably found
herself incapable of being able to live among the English and outside the Domus,
remains one of the last “surviving representatives of Jewish culture in medieval
England” (Stacey 1992, 283).
The numbers of converted Jews were never particularly high but were large
enough to be visible and for apostasy to be felt by the small band of Jewish
communities. In the peak years of conversion during Henry III’s years as king,
there were about 300 Jewish converts in a population of Jews that circled around
5,000 (Stacey 1992, 269; Mundill 1998, 256; Lipman 1967, 36–37). Men who
converted chose such names as Hugh, John, Nicholas, and William; popular
names among the women converts were Christiana, Isabella, and Joan (Adler
1939, 288 n. 1). As a point of comparison, Jewish women who did not convert
tended to adopt Anglo-French names whereas most of the Jewish men kept the
traditional biblical names (Bartlett 2003; Davis 1888). When Geoffrey Chaucer was
writing, the Domus Conversorum remained a part of the English landscape in
Oxford and in London and may have continued its existence all the way down to
the seventeenth century (Roth 1964, 134). During Chaucer’s years the Domus was
filled with English Jews who were Norman imports. The lifetime of this role for the
Domus extends through the fourteenth century. In its final years, the Domus was a
place of sanctuary for converts who were emigrating from France, Flanders, Italy,
Sicily, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco (Roth 1964, 134; Adler 1939, 306).
D Jewish Men, both English and French:

Writing and Recording Their Lives
The Jews living in England were quite likely Jews who had found ways to remain
committed to their Jewish faith while simultaneously recognizing the limitations
of the laws that they had carried with them in such books as the Mishnah and the
Talmud. Simha Goldin rightly points out that these deeply essential books for
passing down the Jewish tradition confronted immediate limitations in Europe.
Created in the Middle East, both volumes of halakhah—books of Jewish law and
Jewish ritual—found themselves in different temporalities and climates other than
the ones in Europe (Goldin 2011, 14). Goldin notes that new traditions were
created and agreed upon as Jews labored assiduously to keep their Jewish tradi-
tions alive and current. The Jews in their separate local communities formed
“practical solutions for the situations in which they found themselves” (Goldin
2011, 15). Takanah, “ruling[s] … accepted by the community” that became legally

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binding, were the outcome of updating Jewish ritual (Goldin 2011, 15). Takanah
were productive solutions to a changing Jewish world.
The takanah of the Jews of England speaks of worship practices and writings
that were well aware of the precariousness of the position of the English Jews in
Norman-French society. The most compendious of these visions of the English
Jews’ version of takanah are by Jacob ben Judah of London (fl. late 1200s) and
followed in size by the contributions of Meir ben Elijah of Norwich (fl. late 1200s).
A third writer who may have lived in England is Berachiah haNaqdan (fl. 1150s).
Each of these writers’ work memorializes a different written tradition: Jacob’s Etz
Hayyim [Tree of Life] captures the unique scriptural and religious practices of
Jews living in England; Meir writes what A. M. Habermann has styled Piyyutim
v’Shirim [Liturgical Poems and Songs] (Habermann in Lipman 1967, 1); and
Berachiah records the creative desire that seeks conversation with the ancient
fabulistic tradition.
Jacob’s siddur [prayer book] was composed, Israel Brodie calculates, in 1287
(Brodie, ed., 1962, Preface). Brodie describes this volume as “voluminous” (Bro-
die, ed., 1962 Preface) and by all extant documents, Brodie’s description con-
tinues to hold true. Mostly filled with ritual practices for the high holidays, such
as Rosh ha-Shanah [New Year], Yom Kippur [Day of Antonement] and other days
marked by the Jewish calendar, for example Purim [Festival of Lots] and Hanuk-
kah, there are also more quotidian practices included in Etz Hayyim such as daily
and shabbat worship in addition to the prayer over the washing of hands. Tucked
away in this Etz Hayyim are three poems by Jacob and an additional piyyut whose
authorship remains uncertain (Einbinder 2000, 146 n. 6; Brodie, ed., 1962, 127–29;
Kaufmann 1981, 32). Characteristic of the time, Jacob deploys acrostics to limn his
poems (Elbogen 1993, 228–29; Einbinder 2002, 132; 140). Jacob’s acrostics also
identify his authorship of the poems: two open with yud-kopf-vet, spelling “Ya-
kov” or “Jacob,” and one with aleph-nun-yud yud-kopf-vet, which spells “Ani
Yakov” or “I am Jacob” (Kaufmann 1891, 32). One piyyut does not include an
identifying acrostic that signifies Jacob’s authorship (Jacob ben Judah of London
1962, 127–29; Einbinder 2000, 146 n. 6). In all, what is important about these
poems, embedded carefully in Jacob’s siddur, is their presence: as David Kauf-
mann remarks, these texts attest to yet more evidence, along with Meir of
Norwich’s poetry, of the presence of “the Hebrew Muse … on English soil”
(Kaufmann 1891, 32; Einbinder 2000, 149).
Arguably, the English Jewish poet most well-known in late twentieth century
and early twenty-first century is the thirteenth-century Meir b. Elijah of Norwich.
In 1967, Vivian D. Lipman’s The Jews of Medieval Norwich brought Meir of Norwich
into view. Lipman is cautious, however, about providing any clear-cut details
regarding Meir’s life (Lipman 1967, 157). In fact, the presence of an acrostic in one

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of Meir’s poems provides one of the conceivably reliable links to Norwich; other-
wise, Lipman finds it difficult to pinpoint one identity to Meir the poet (Lipman
1967, 157–59). Meir’s autobiographical acrostic, conveniently graphed in the only
modern edition of Meir’s work, translates to “I am Meir son of Rabbi Eliahu from
the city of Norwich which is in the land of the isles called Angleterre” [ani Me’ir
b’Rabi Eliahu me’medinat Norgitz asher ba’aretz ha’i hanikrat Anglatira] (Meir
ben Elijah of Norwich 2013, 47; Krummel 2009, 6–10). This piyyut, entitled “Who
is Like You?,” also bears witness to a “now-lost Anglo-Judaic language” with the
words, “Norgitz” and “Anglatira” (Krummel 2011, 53–55). “Norgitz” was certainly
some sort of “Anglo-Jewish creole” because as Keiron Pim points out in his
Introduction to the modern edition of Meir’s poetry, “the population at large
termed the city Norvic” (Pim 2013, 11). In 1971, A. M. Habermann’s entry, “Meir
Ben Elijah of Norwich,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica started a conversation about
one of Meir’s piyyutim (sing. piyyut) that Habermann named, “Curse my foe with
execration” (1971, 1253). Now known by the title, “Put a curse on my enemy,” as
renamed by Susan L. Einbinder after she translated Meir’s piyyut into English
(2000, 156–59), this piyyut without question “refers to the afflictions suffered by
English Jews” (Einbinder 2000, 153). Miriamne Ara Krummel goes one step further
to suggest that Meir was “[c]amouflaging disturbing historical incidents within
religiously figuring rhetoric” as a way of talking about “traumatic memories” that
were too painful to discuss without embedding them in religious references
(Krummel 2011, 57).
The third Jewish writer that I discuss here represents yet another authorial
tradition. Berachiah haNaqdan wrote fables with embedded content about the
ways to survive as a Jew in the complicated Anglo-French culture. Berachiah was
quite familiar with the Norman-French culture, having probably come to England
from Rouen—an area that Cecil Roth believes the English Jews departed from for
England after the 1096 massacres (Roth 1964, 6). Norman Golb traces Berachiah’s
family to Rouen in the 1150s (Golb 1998, 318–23). Should Berachiah have left
Rouen for England sometime in the twelfth century, he would have found a
community of Jews whose practices were somewhat similar to his own. Paul
Hyams believes that Berachiah composed his famous Mishlei shu’alim or Fox
Fables in Oxford in the late twelfth century (Hyams 1974, 285), and if so, we can
include these fables as yet more evidence of a sort of takanah as the animals
attempt to navigate their Jewish lives in a Christian sphere.
Berachiah’s Fables 24 and 38 echo aspects of the English Jewish experience
in the twelfth century. Fable 24 narrates a tale of frogs that have become angered
by their king who fails to protect them and cannot articulate clear solutions for
survival. The king’s lack of clarity leads these frogs to “transgress the law and
change the statute” (Berachiah haNaqdan 2001, Fable 24, 52). The frogs direct

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their affections toward a different king who quickly betrays them and “smote
them a great smiting, and maligned them, and hated them yet more” (Berachiah
haNaqdan 2001, Fable 24, 53). Berachiah’s Fable 24 could very well be a warning
to the English Jews not to turn away from adonay (God) and not to be troubled by
a silent god. Given that the Anglo-French monarch does not protect the Jews
either, departing from adonay translates to losing the camaraderie of the Jewish
community and the protection of adonay. Another fable, Fable 38, also evokes the
English Jewish experience that Berachiah himself would have known well. In this
fable a Hare and her family “journey forth and go to a field where there is none to
track and chase us” (Berachiah haNaqdan 2001, Fable 38, 73) despite the advice
to remain where they are. Venturing out, the Hare and her progeny encounter
genocide as they are “tarred,” “smote,” and “desolated” (Berachiah haNaqdan
2001, Fable 38, 74). Fable 38 moralizes that it is better not to move than to move.
The moral of Fable 38 resonates with Jewish history and reminds us of the Jews’
departure from Rouen in the eleventh century and the process of being too-soon
unwelcome in England as evidenced by a series of ritual murder charges in the
twelfth century that began with Norwich in 1144 (Dundes, ed., 1991; Auslander
2005; Johnson 2012) and were later followed by Gloucester in 1168, Bury St
Edmunds in 1181 (Hill 1948, 224; Bale 2003, 130), York in 1190 (Dobson 1974; Rees
Jones and Watson, ed., 2013), and Lincoln in 1255 (Matthew Paris, 1968). As with
the Hare’s finding herself and her family “tarred,” “smote,” and “desolated,” the
English Jews encountered a series of traumas in the guise of ritual murder charges
that were built upon “hatred, hysteria, and self-interest” (Hill 1948, 228). The
danger Jews faced is immortalized in the words of Thomas of Monmouth (fl. 1149–
1172), a twelfth-century religious who writes the hagiography of William of
Norwich (1132–1144), the first boy martyr of England. Framed by Thomas as “the
righteous judgment of God,” an untold number of Norwich Jews are either
“exterminated or scattered” (Thomas of Monmouth 2011, 97). Thomas then nar-
rates the intimate details of the Jew Eleazar’s death—a Jew set upon by the squires
of a financially troubled knight. The knight’s squires “laid their heads together,
and one of them … was sent to fetch the Jew. … the others … hid themselves in a
wood through which he had to pass. When the Jew arrived there, the esquire
leading him on, he was immediately seized by the others, dragged off and killed”
(Thomas of Monmouth 2011, 98). Despite the daily hardships and occasional
traumas, there is—as we can see with Jacob ben Judah of London, Meir ben Elijah
of Norwich, and Berachiah haNaqdan—substance in the writing that has sur-
vived. Even more, Paul Hyams reminds us that “[a]t least nine thirteenth century
rabbis with extant writings … lived in Cambridge, Lincoln, Northampton, Nor-
wich, and Oxford as well as London” (Hyams 1974, 285).

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E Jewish Women, Both English and Jewish:

Building Lives
Lamentably, no writing of medieval English Jewish women has survived, but we

can reconstruct these women’s lives through the public records; through docu-
ments from the Exchequer, and through the shetaroth [Hebrew deeds]. To be sure,
the stories we tell about medieval English Jewish women can sometimes seem to
be even more spun out of whole cloth than the tales we tell about the English
Jewish male writers, yet all of the Jews—whether men or women—involve making
important scholarly interventions that forge links out of nearly absent material.
As Norman Golb cautions us, “details” of these northwestern European Jewish
writers “are lost” (Golb 1998, 324–25). We scholars, therefore, have to look to
records and deeds for “clues that, if properly evaluated, make possible a recon-
struction” of the medieval Jews’ lives (Golb 1998, 325).
Even as early as twelve years [duzze anz] women were subject to being taxed
in England: “each one, after he shall be Twelve Years old, pay Three pence yearly
at Easter of Tax to the King, whose Bond-man he is; and this shall hold place as
well for a Woman as a Man [ke checun pus kil aura passé duzze anz paie tres
deners per an de taillage au Rey ky serf il est a la Pasche e ceo seit entendu ausi
ben de femme com de houme] (Edward I 1810, 221a). Who were these women who
were taxed? The presence of a yearly Easter tax suggests that these women
worked alongside men. Recent scholarship interrogates this question. Until quite
recently, this field of medieval Jewish studies in England had been dominated by
the considerations of the Jewish men in medieval England, but new research has
introduced us to the lives of English Jewish women. As a result, there is much
cutting edge work being done to reconstruct vivid pictures of these English Jewish
women. Scholarship, thus, pays homage to these English Jewish women’s lives in
as accurate a way as possible.
Simha Goldin concludes that in the twelfth century, it became possible for
Jewish woman to participate in the Jewish community (Goldin 2011, 237). The
English records support Goldin’s observation by documenting Jewish women’s
participation in the moneylending industry. Sometimes Jewish women ran busi-
nesses following their husbands’ deaths, and sometimes the women worked as
partners to their living husbands. By the thirteenth century, there were a total of
forty-one English Jewish women “dealing in loans or associated transactions”
independent of men (Bartlet 2000, 31; 46). Up until the twelfth century, there had
largely been two domains—one for women and one for men. Goldin remarks upon
an important sea change that occurred in the Jewish male leadership when they
became “aware of the central role played by women … and worked towards

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improving their status” (Goldin 2011, 237). One of the outcomes of this improve-
ment involved a woman’s legal status in marriage. In Goldin’s words, “the more
significant change was the empowering of the woman by making divorce condi-
tional on her consent. Instead of being connected passively to a man who forms
and dissolves the family unit,” women were given the power and authority to
oppose the man’s desires (Goldin 2011, 238).
Most vividly, two scholars—one American and one British, Charlotte Goldy
and Suzanne Bartlet—have effectively traced the English Jewish women’s lives
and revealed how these English Jewish women ably navigated the Jewish and
Christian civic communities. Charlotte Goldy links historical threads to compose a
biographical sketch of Muriel of Oxford (d. ca. 1253). Goldy’s reconstruction of
Muriel’s life makes real Goldin’s observations. Goldy reconstructs the setting of
the divorce of Muriel of Oxford who was born in Lincoln but traveled to Oxford in
1217 after her marriage to David of Oxford (d. 1244) (Goldy 2008, 134; Bartlet 2012,
44). Around 1240, David of Oxford attempted to divorce Muriel because, Goldy
presumes, David suspected that Muriel was infertile: “the couple was successful
economically but also childless” (2012, 228). David wants a child at all costs and
arranges for a get [bill of divorce] and convenes a beit din [rabbinic court] to hear
the case and grant the divorce. David’s divorce from Muriel is not so easily
attained, however, and Muriel “most likely assert[ed] her right to deny her
consent” (Goldy 2008, 134). David pursues the matter to its conclusion and takes
the issue of his divorce from Muriel all the way to the royal curia (Goldy 2012, 229).
The royal curia grants David his wishes, but in this move David also damages the
independence of the Jewish beit din (Goldy 2012, 229). David remarries Licoricia of
Winchester (d. 1277), and with Licoricia has a son, Asher (b. 1242) (Bartlet 2012,
45–46; Goldy 2012, 229; 240). David dies two years after his son is born—the child
whom he might have divorced Muriel to create. Licoricia, however, lives on for
another thirty-seven years, dying a terrifically horrible and rather mysterious
death: “[o]n a spring day early in 1277, the bodies of Licoricia and her Christian
maid, Alice of Bicton, were found by a woman described as Belia, … lying on the
floor, having died of stab wounds” (Bartlet, 2009, 109).
Before their divorce and while Muriel was still married to David, Muriel joined
David in operating their moneylending business and oversaw “smaller loans to
women and students” (Goldy 2012, 236–37; 240). Goldy believes that Muriel
traveled in the public civic sphere and finds it likely that Muriel made loans to
Christians, as well as to Jews (2008). This aspect of Muriel’s professional life
represents a second dramatic change in women’s positions in the Jewish commu-
nity. Starting in the twelfth century, Jewish women began to claim a “position in
the Jewish economic world … in giving loans to Christians, in travelling from one
place to another to deal with financial matters and to protect their financial

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interests” (Goldin 2011, 239). By the thirteenth century, Jewish women constituted
a “visible” presence in “the pipe rolls” (Bartlet 2003, 113). These Jewish working-
women are effectively establishing family businesses and amassing a great deal
of wealth, even sometimes landing in the Tower of London because of their
wealth (Bartlet 2000, 35–46). Because of this visibility, Suzanne Bartlet is able to
bring three businesswomen back to life: Chera (d. 1244?), Belia (d. 1270s?), and
Licoricia (2012, 31, 35–47; 2009). Charlotte Goldy, in turn, could not have woven
Muriel’s tale of infertility and eventual divorce from David without the records of
Muriel’s involvement in the economic sphere. Likewise, without the records of
financial transactions, Suzanne Bartlett would not be able to bring the lives of
Chera, Belia, and Licoricia to our awareness. Miriamne Ara Krummel, turning to
the shetaroth, retells the story of Belaset (fl.1200s), daughter of Rabbi Berachiah
ben Rabbi Moshe (fl.1200s). Belaset’s wedding in Lincoln turned into a moment
of trauma because of the regrettably nearby death of a young Christian boy, Hugh
of Lincoln (1245–1255) (Krummel 2008, 124; 2011, 98–100). Such labor has its
difficulties, though. Bartlett admits something that all of us who trace women in
the records soon discover: following the lives of English Jewish women is “hard”
because the women “often end up disappearing without any final verdict” (Bart-
let 2003, 125). Even so, Jewish women were being educated and permitted to
conduct worship for women (Goldin 2011, 241–42), which was an epic achieve-
ment that compelled medieval Jewish men to recognize “sometimes derisively,
but for the most part in amazement and with esteem that there is a female
consciousness” (Goldin 2011, 242). And perhaps a less pleasant outcome of the
women’s developing stature is being recognized by Edward I in “The Statutes of
Jewry” as needing to be marked by the Jewish badge—“in the Form of Two Tables
joined, of Yellow Felt, of the Length of Six Inches, and of the Breadth of Three
Inches” [en fourme de deus tabbles joyntes de feutre iaume de la longure de sis
pouceres e de la laur de treis pouz] (Edward I 1810, 221a). The yearly Easter tax
[paie tres deners a la Pasche], which “shall hold place as well for a Woman as a
Man” [seit entendu ausi ben de femme com de houme] served to add insult to the
injury of the badge.
F Making England Judenrein

Tracing the lives lived and the texts written by medieval English Jews confines us
to a study of the Jews in Norman, or Angevin, England largely because the Jews
came in with the Normans (sometime after 1066)—invited in by William the
Conqueror (ca. 1027–1087) himself (Mundill 1998, 16). The Jews who had entered
into England while it was under Norman rule were expelled from England while it

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was still under the guidance of the Norman monarchy. The English medieval
Jews, therefore, only knew England under the rule of the Angevin monarchy since
the Expulsion occurred while England was being led by the great, great grandson,
Edward I, of the Anglo-French monarch, William the Conqueror, who had origin-
ally invited the Jews to England. The Jews’ seemingly brief but certainly mean-
ingful stay situates the medieval English Jews in a sort of “oblivion”—a state of
being that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen attributes to Meir of Norwich whom Cohen
describes as “the poet of a community at the edge of oblivion” (Cohen 2006, 177).
More than Meir, though, all of the medieval English Jewish men and women were
situated at the edge of oblivion. Some of those poets, such as Yom Tob of Joigny
(who resided in York at the time of the massacre), must have written poetry,
especially because York was probably a center of Jewish Studies (Roth 1949, 21;
Dobson 1974, 14). Certainly, Yom Tob, remembered as “witty as well as erudite,”
left behind some verse, a few religious compositions, and “an elegy on the
Martyrs of Blois 1171” (Roth 1949, 21–22; Dobson 1974, 19), but Yom Tob’s narra-
tive about his 1190 march to oblivion in York—if Yom Tob ever contemplated one
in his last moments—perished in the flames along with the Jews who sought and
were denied sanctuary in Clifford’s Tower (Dobson 1974, 28). There were no
Jewish survivors of this night and day. Those Jews who the next morning
expressed an interest in baptism met with another fate as Richard Malebisse and
his fellow “conspirators” slaughtered those remaining Jews who had not chosen
to end their lives in kiddush ha-Shem [sanctification in the name of God] (Watson
2013, 6).
The English Jews were in England long enough to consider the country their
home for at least five generations but not long enough to be seen as actual
denizens of England—remaining always as Norman imports. In 1290, the English
Jews had to face expulsion and were given “less than five months between
18 June and 1 November 1290” (Mundill 1998, 253) to organize all of their goods
and to arrange for a safe passage to their next destination. No one has yet
discovered a record of the Expulsion edict (Mundill 1998, 254), but the narrative
of Expulsion may well have been imagined when “The Statutes of Jewry” was
being composed. Dated to 1275, “The Statutes of Jewry” concludes, “this Licence
to take Lands to farm shall endure to them only for Fifteen Years from this Time
forward [ceo per pendre a ferme ne lur dorra for quinz anz de cet hure en avaunt]
(Edward I 1810, 221a; Krummel 2011, 29; 36). We do not have incontrovertible
proof of the whereabouts of the English Jews after the 1290 Expulsion, but
presuming the demesnes of France as the likely candidate for the English Jews’
next locale means that the English Jews had to face yet another expulsion from
France in 1306—a mere sixteen years after the English Expulsion (Jordan 1989,
203–06). Robin Mundill lists a number of other possible locales: in addition to

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France “some families may have got as far as Spain, Savoy, Germany and even
Gozzo”; Jews who faced expulsion but who wanted to remain in the general area
“may well have fled to Scotland, Wales, and even Ireland” (Mundill 1998, 255).
Either way, until the end of their stay, Jews could not escape an enduring
association with an alleged financial acuity that sometimes involved the “un-
earned profits of avarice and usury” (Tomasch 2000, 248). At the moment of their
Expulsion, Jews continued to be represented by the money they had amassed so
much so that Edward I was compelled to insist thrice in the 1290 Close Rolls “not
to intermeddle with the goods and chattels” of the departing Jews (Close Rolls
1925, x). Of course, there reappears also the restoration of “the pledges of Chris-
tians in their possession to those to whom they belong” as a reminder of the Jews’
uncomfortable state of servitude to the king who claimed final control over the
Jews’ records of sale (Close Rolls 1925, x). Even more disturbing is Edward I’s use
of the Jews’ quitclaims to show favor to his friends. Asserting final possession
over the Jews’ sureties and bonds is a gesture shared by both Edward I and Henry
III who “reward[ed] his servants, soldiers and courtiers by excusing their entire
debt or interest on” the loan (Bartlet 2012, 33). In 1290, Edward I similarly rewards
William le Brun and Isolda, William’s wife. This couple benefits tremendously
from Edward I’s desire “to show favour to William and Isolda for their good and
long service to him and his consort” when Edward I erases “all debts that they
may be exacted” (Close Rolls 1925, ix). To the end the Jews could not escape the
association with wealth and left England in 1290 sandwiched in between servi-
tude and safety “from Richard I onwards”: the king’s Jews were reassured that
they would receive “protection” (Bartlet 2012, 34) if only to enable the monarchs
to use the Jews for their own monarchical ends. As the July 18, 1290 Close Rolls
specifies, Edward I decreed “orders [to] the sheriff to cause proclamation to be
made throughout his bailiwick prohibiting any one from injuring or wrongdoing
the Jews” (Close Rolls 1925, x). Jews were forced to stand by as the king relin-
quished his friends of their debts to the people who had lent them money.
During this short history of the Jews in England, there was much activity and
quite a bit of history-making, so I remain reluctant to depart this chapter by
inadvertently subscribing to the “lachrymose school” that David Nirenberg cau-
tions us against in his Communities of Violence (Nirenberg 1996, 90). Instead, I
want to leave this chapter with the vision of Salo Witmeyer Baron who quite some
time ago, nearly one century before Jeffrey Cohen and Anthony Bale, suggested
that we study past narratives with nonstandard lenses, cautioned us not to forget
that the medieval ghetto was also a place of community and of Jewish law, where
Jews could live and worship as Jews (Baron, 1927; Cohen 2000, 1–8; Bale 2013).
Baron liberates Jewish communities from the view that the ghetto hampered
Jewish freedom. In medieval England it remains clear that despite the efforts to

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erode Jewish belief, Jews did not stop being Jews and began documenting Jewish
history, telling Jewish narratives, and keeping Jewish records. Perhaps, the social
support system in the Jewerye made it possible for Jews to find some protection
and enabled Jews to write, worship, run businesses, and welcome such esteemed
visitors as Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–ca. 1167), Joseph [ben Baruch] of Clisson (fl.
1200s), and Berachiah haNaqdan to visit (Einbinder 2000, 150). Whether the past
of medieval Jews “hold[s] the promise of some strange beauty … that the domi-
nant narrative will not yield” (Cohen 2013, 292) or reveal “a diaspora world of
intricate, malleable, interpenetrating, and difficult identities” (Bale 2013, 304),
any remembrance of the English Jews in medieval England must not neglect to
remember that the narrative of “Anglatira” is a classic Jewish story that mixes
sadness and joy, defeat and survival, a life that is at once committed to a Jewish
past and preparing for a Jewish future.
Select Bibliography
Bale, Anthony, “Afterword: Violence, Memory and the Traumatic Middle Ages,” Christians and
Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts, ed. Sarah
Rees Jones and Sethina Watson (Rochester, NY and Woodbridge 2013), 294–304.
Bartlet, Suzanne, “Three Jewish Businesswomen in Thirteenth-Century Winchester,” Jewish
Culture and History 3.2 (2012): 31–54.
Berachiah haNaqdan, Mishlei shu’alim [Fox Fables], trans. Moses Hadas (Jaffrey, NH, 2001).
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, “The Flow of Blood in Norwich,” Speculum 79.1 (2004): 26–65.
Einbinder, Susan, L., “Meir b. Elijah of Norwich: Persecution and Poetry among Medieval English
Jews,” Journal of Medieval History 26.2 (2000): 145–62.
Goldy, Charlotte Newman, “Muriel, A Jew of Oxford: Using the Dramatic to Understand the
Mundane in Anglo-Norman Towns,” Writing Medieval Women’s Lives, ed. Charlotte Newman
Goldy and Amy Livingstone (New York 2012), 227–45.
Krummel, Miriamne Ara, Crafting Jewishness in Medieval England: Legally Absent, Virtually
Present (New York 2011).
Meir ben Elijah of Norwich, Into the Light: The Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich, trans.
Ellman Crasnow and Bente Elsworth, ed. and intro. Keiron Pim (Norwich 2013).
Mundill, Robin R., England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 1262–1290 (Cambridge
1998).
Paris, Matthew, English History from the Year 1235 to 1273. Vol. III. (1854; New York 1968).
Stacey, Robert C., “The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-Century England,”
Speculum 67.2 (1992): 263–83.

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Oliver M. Traxel
Languages
A Introduction
Our knowledge of the languages used in medieval times is highly restricted due to
the nature of the evidence that has come down to us. We are heavily reliant on
written material, which is generally not representative of spoken language. The
formal style and register of written language may exclude many colloquialisms
that were in common use at the time. Certain words may not have been put down
in writing until much later, or their earliest occurrences may have appeared in
manuscripts that are no longer extant. In fact, entire languages may first be
attested in post-medieval sources though they certainly existed before, such as
Romanian, Lithuanian and Sami. Moreover, the date of any particular manuscript
need not reflect the language used at the time as it may contain copies of earlier
texts. It may therefore preserve certain linguistic forms that were no longer in
contemporary use, though it may also display linguistic updating on the part of
the scribe. Similarly, a manuscript text may contain different dialectal features
depending on the origin of the scribe and his amount of linguistic interference
during the copying process. Finally, medieval manuscripts do not represent the
language of all social classes but rather that of the authors or scribes, which
generally came from an educated and often ecclesiastical background. However,
occasionally we may encounter authorial ideas about the language of specific
classes and dialects, though not necessarily depicted correctly, as seen, for
example, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s two northern students in his The Reeve’s Tale
(Chaucer 1987, 78–84).
The following sections focus on the languages of Europe that are attested in
writing between the fifth and the fifteenth century. They are grouped according to
their major Indo-European language families and complemented by a chapter on
non-Indo-European languages. Due to its special status Latin is treated in greater
detail. If not mentioned otherwise the respective languages are still in use today,
though all have undergone several linguistic changes. The entries contain infor-
mation on various aspects. Where applicable, a diachronic subdivision is pro-
vided; however, it must be pointed out that such distinctions can only be approx-
imate as no clear dividing lines can be drawn and there are always phases of
transition. If there is evidence of different dialectal areas these are presented in
the traditional broader sense for reasons of simplification, due to the many
individual isoglosses which would require more detailed subdivisions. In all

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cases some primary key texts or authors are mentioned for illustrative purposes
and, where relevant, some comments on the role and use of certain languages are
also given. The end of each section mentions those languages which were parti-
cularly influential though there are often more which played a less significant
role. Due to reasons of space and the intention to give a fairly complete account
most entries are very brief and simplified and do not pay any attention to post-
medieval developments. In fact, the aim of this article is to provide a quick
reference tool for everyone who is interested in obtaining some concise informa-
tion on medieval languages and it hopes to encourage the reader to delve deeper
into this complex field. Therefore the heading of each section contains references
to some linguistic surveys which elaborate the subject matter and which should
also be consulted for further bibliographical material. If not covered sufficiently
within these publications some additional studies concerning topics of particular
significance are provided within the main text. Generally, preference is given to
secondary literature written in English; however, occasionally some important
works in other languages are also mentioned.
The amount of literature on languages is vast. Here is a selection of some
publications which cover a large amount of the languages spoken in Europe and
also pay attention to their medieval stages. For a chronological presentation of
medieval Romance and Germanic languages aimed at historians see Wolff (1971).
Individual Romance languages are treated in Harris and Vincent (ed., 1988),
which also has an introductory chapter on their origins. The oldest stages of the
Germanic language family are surveyed in Robinson (1992), whereas König and
van der Auwera (ed., 1994) focus mainly on the later development. Information
on both early and modern Celtic languages is found in Ball and Müller (ed.,
2009). The Romance, Germanic and Celtic languages attested on the British Isles
are covered in Price (ed., 2000). On early Slavic history, language and writing see
Schenker (1995), whereas some introductory comments on the historical linguistic
background of individual Slavic languages are contained in Comrie and Corbett
(ed., 1993) and in particular Schenker and Stankiewicz (ed., 1980). A general
overview of Indo-European languages is provided by Fortson IV (2010) and Ramat
and Ramat (ed., 1998). For some brief information as well as useful general
bibliographies on all languages presented in this article including non-Indo-
European ones see Brown and Ogilvie (ed., 2009) and in particular Price (ed.,
1998).

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796 Oliver M. Traxel
B Romance Languages
I Latin
(cf. Harrington and Pucci, ed., 1997; Hexter and Townsend, ed., 2012; Mantello and Rigg,
ed., 1996)
Any survey of medieval European languages must start with Latin. Not only was it
the ancestor of the large amount of medieval and modern languages belonging to
the Romance family, but it was also employed in various functions throughout
the Western European Middle Ages, where it could even be regarded as a lingua
franca in both written and spoken discourse, however, without any native speak-
ers. Moreover, the Latin alphabet, a further development of the Greek alphabet
incorporating Etruscan influence, is one of the most wide-spread writing systems
still in use today (Wallace 1989). It is uncertain when Latin ceased to be spoken as
a native language and when one can talk of a Romance vernacular variety
developing out of it. In fact, the form of Latin spoken by the general population
within the Roman Empire differed significantly from written Latin already before
the beginning of the medieval period. It is known as Vulgar Latin and consisted of
a number of geographical varieties which eventually developed into individual
Romance languages. The earliest written evidence of a vernacular is not attested
until the ninth century when we find French sentences contained in the Stras-
bourg Oaths (see below, Section B.III). It is also difficult to establish when exactly
the period of Medieval Latin began. A particularly common view is that the Latin
of late antiquity continued to be written until the sixth century, as employed, for
example, by Boethius, but this line is drawn on literary rather than linguistic
grounds. In fact, during the early Middle Ages, forms of Latin could vary consider-
ably due to vernacular interference, which could cause problems in scholarly
exchange. In order to raise the standard of Latin and to provide a uniform
language for general use by Western Christianity a program of reform was
initiated by Charlemagne during the late eighth century. The Carolingian Renais-
sance, for which scholars like Alcuin of York, Paulinus II of Aquilea, and Theodulf
of Orléans were recruited, also saw the development of a particular script known
as Caroline minuscule (McKitterick 1989). This legible lower-case book hand
remained in use for several centuries and was revived by Italian humanists like
Dante Alighieri during the later Middle Ages. In fact, these humanists are also
responsible for ending the Medieval Latin period as they incorporated several
classical features into their Latin, thereby beginning its Renaissance form (see
below). However, others continued to write Medieval Latin until the fifteenth
century.

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The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire

during the fourth century played a significant part in the rise of Latin throughout
Western Europe, whereas Greek and Church Slavonic became the religious lan-
guages of the Eastern Orthodox Church (see below, Sections E.I and G). The
Vulgate version of the Bible, translated from Greek and Hebrew by St Jerome
during the late fourth century, became the standard work of Western European
Christianity. The works of early Church Fathers like Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
were also widely read. Missionary activities spread such texts and thereby also
the Latin language throughout the newly Christianized countries. Latin manu-
scripts were copied and studied in newly founded libraries and monastic schools,
such as Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon England,
which in turn produced further scholars writing in Latin, such as the Venerable
Bede (672/3–735) (DeGregorio, ed., 2010). Initially, the dominance of Latin pre-
vented the use of most vernacular languages for written purposes, but gradually
these came to be attested, in many early cases in the form of glosses to Latin
manuscripts. Latin texts considered to be of particular importance could subse-
quently be translated into the vernacular, as initiated, for example, by Alfred the
Great, king of Wessex during the late ninth century (see below, Section C.I.1). The
Latin alphabet also replaced scripts used for pre-Christian writings, such as
Germanic runes and Irish ogam (see below, Sections C and D.II.1). While many
Latin texts were ecclesiastical and comprised, for example, homilies, sermons,
hagiographies and liturgies, use of this language was by no means restricted to
religious purposes. Mantello and Rigg (ed., 1996) include dozens of chapters
devoted to individual fields and literary genres where Latin played a significant
role, for example administration, law, philosophy, science, historiography and
trade. In order to gain knowledge of this widely employed language pupils were
educated with the help of Latin grammars, in particular those by Aelius Donatus
(ca. 350) and Priscian (ca. 500). These textbooks remained in use throughout the
Middle Ages, which accounts for the relative linguistic stability of Medieval Latin.
The first vernacular grammar of Latin was compiled by the Anglo-Saxon monk
Ælfric of Eynsham around the turn of the millennium, who also appended it with
a glossary (see below, Section C.I.1). Moreover, there are several Latin colloquies,
which were intended to teach conversation in Latin and demonstrate that this
language was not only written but also spoken (Stevenson, ed., 1929).
Medieval Latin is distinguished from classical Latin by several features. These
can usually be ascribed to linguistic changes during the Late Latin period,
influence from other languages, or cultural developments. Since scholars writing
in Latin were generally bilingual, interference from their own vernaculars can be
spotted rather frequently. One crucial phenomenon was the introduction of
Christianity, which required the adequate linguistic expression of new religious

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concepts. The translation of the Vulgate Bible from Greek and Hebrew resulted in
the adoption of both grammatical constructions and loanwords from these lan-
guages. Throughout the Middle Ages scientific and philosophical texts were
translated from Greek and during the twelfth century also from Arabic, which left
traces in the language. Other vernacular material could also be rendered into
Latin, such as the tenth-century Germanic epic poem Waltharius by Ekkehard I of
St Gall (Kratz, ed. and trans., 1984) or one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which accompanies the original Old English text (Baker, ed., 2000). There are also
macaronic works, which mix Latin with vernacular languages, as found, for
example, in some poems of the Carmina Burana (Beatie 1967). Moreover, under
vernacular influence new forms of Latin poetry developed, which could contain
rhyme and were based on accent rather than syllable length. Generally, Medieval
Latin characteristics appear in various linguistic categories. Phonological influ-
ence is found in some spellings, for example e or hooked ę instead of ae or oe
(letus, celum), ci instead of ti before a vowel unless preceded by s or x (eciam), or
loss of initial h- (abet). Hypercorrection into unhistorical forms is also possible
(hostium for earlier ostium). Occasionally, we encounter morphological confu-
sion, for example with regard to inflectional endings, deponent verbs or gender.
Syntactic changes are often the result of foreign influence. One example case is
the transformation of the classical accusative and infinitive construction for
reported statements into a subordinate clause introduced by a conjunction (quod,
quia or quoniam), as found, for example, both in the Greek Bible source used for
the Vulgate translation and many vernacular languages. The increasing use of
prepositions, the indication of definite as well as indefinite articles (ille or ipse vs.
quidam) and a more systematic word order can also be ascribed to vernacular
influence. The largest difference to classical Latin can be seen on a lexical level.
Classical Latin words could acquire additional meanings (convertere “convert”) or
be used as a basis for new derivations (entitas). The character of borrowings
generally reflects the manner of contact between the respective languages; Greek
loanwords are found mostly in the fields of religion (angelus) and scholarship
(apostrophus), Arabic ones are often scientific (alchimia) and Germanic ones
frequently concern war (werra) or law (bannus). A particularly remarkable phe-
nomenon is the occasional reborrowing of Romance words which had developed
out of Vulgar Latin into Medieval Latin (change vs. changia). Latin itself also
exerted enormous influence on other languages, as will be seen throughout the
rest of this study, not only in the field of loanwords but also in various types of
loan formation and semantic loans (Gneuss 1955).
During the late thirteenth century a new attitude toward Latin emerged with
the beginning of Humanism (Ijsewijn and Sacré 1990–1998). Italian scholars like
Lovato dei Lovati (ca. 1240–1309) and Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) started looking

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Languages 799
back at classical models for their Latin works in order to purge the language from
medieval innovations. For example, Medieval Latin spellings were often restored
to their classical form, though only gradually and not consistently. Initially,
mainly classical Latin verse was emulated, but during the following decades this
also extended toward prose, with Cicero being one of the most revered writers.
However, especially during the fifteenth century, we also encounter the view that
new words are to be preferred to the wrong usage of classical ones, as put
forward, for example, by Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457), who wrote several treatises
on the Latin language. Indeed, cultural developments could demand the forma-
tion of new words (peruvianum “tobacco”) or the semantic widening of existing
ones (publicare “publish”). Moreover, some Medieval Latin words had to be
retained as they denoted post-classical concepts (senescallus “seneschal”). To-
ward the end of the Middle Ages the use of Humanistic Latin spread beyond Italy,
which marked the general end of the Medieval Latin period and the beginning of
Neo-Latin. Finally, one Latin work written during the Humanistic period deserves
particular attention as it reflects a striking contemporary understanding of the
nature of vernacular languages and thereby serves as an introduction to the
following sections: Dante Alighieri’s incomplete treatise De Vulgari Eloquentia
(ca. 1303) provides a classification of European languages into three major
groups, namely an Eastern one including Greek, a Northern one comprising
Germanic languages and a Southern one consisting of Romance languages (Dante
Alighieri 1996). The latter group may be subdivided according to their expressions
for “yes,” namely oc-languages (from Latin hoc), oïl-languages (from Latin hoc
ille), and si-languages (from Latin sic). Dante Alighieri distinguishes fourteen
Italian dialects in order to establish on which of these the contemporary Italian
literary language was based. He concludes that it occupies a special position in
that it contains elements from various dialects. Dante Alighieri’s work is remark-
ably different from earlier medieval ideas about language and thereby foresha-
dows Renaissance linguistic scholarship.
II Italian
(cf. Benincà et al. 1998; Maiden 1995)
The linguistic situation in Italy during the Middle Ages is an extremely diverse
one since the vernaculars that developed out of Latin often differed to a large
extent from one another. In some instances it is even debatable whether these can
be considered dialects of a single language at all or whether they should be
regarded as separate languages. This applies in particular to the northern vari-

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eties known as Dolomitic Ladin and Friulian, which may be considered part of the
Rhaeto-Romance language family (see below, Section B.VIII), as well as Sardi-
nian, which can itself be subdivided into different dialects. Another closely
related language is Dalmatian, which was spoken along the Croatian Adriatic
coast and is attested mostly in two letters dated to the fourteenth century (Price
1998b). Two major dialect areas of Italian may be distinguished, which are
divided by a line running approximately along the northern borders of Tuscany
and Marche. The northern dialects comprise Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetan,
Ligurian and Emilian-Romagnol, whereas south of this line we find Tuscan as
well a number of dialects grouped into Central, Upper Southern, and Far South-
ern, the latter of which also includes Sicilian. Several of these are attested already
during the medieval period. The first written evidence considered to be Italian
rather than Latin is known as the Placiti Cassinesi, which are four legal docu-
ments containing vernacular testimonies in an Upper Southern dialect dated to
960–963. In fact, many early Italian texts written between the tenth and the
thirteenth century belong to a Central or Upper Southern dialect, which can be
ascribed to the productivity of the Benedictine monasteries in the respective
regions. The thirteenth century saw the rise of Sicilian as a significant literary
language due to many esteemed poems composed by the “Sicilian School.”
Its prestige status was soon surpassed by Tuscan with the language of Florence
being held in particularly high regard. This position can be attributed to several
influential authors writing in this dialect, in particular Dante Alighieri (1265–
1321), Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) (Barański and McLaughlin,
ed., 2007). This linguistic variety of the “Golden Age” is also the predecessor of
the modern Italian standard, as codified during the sixteenth century. Latin
continued to be used as a literary language throughout the Middle Ages, in
particular in official documents and scholarly works, and some elements were
also incorporated into the vernacular literature. Further linguistic influence can
be observed from one Italian dialect on another and also from the neighboring
languages, the extent of which, however, differs from dialect to dialect. In
particular Sicilian shows a large amount of foreign elements due to its turbulent
history, which includes both Greek, Arabic and Norman settlements. Hebrew and
Aramaic influence is found in Judeo-Italian, the dialect of the Italian Jews, who
also used the Hebrew alphabet and referred to this variety as Latino or Volgare
(see below, Section J.I.1).

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Languages 801
III French
(cf. Ayres-Bennett 1996; Price 1998d; Rickard 1989)
The Romance languages spoken in an area corresponding approximately to the

former Roman province of Gaul can be subdivided into two major categories
named after their forms derived from the Latin expressions for “yes” (cf. above,
B.I). The northern half comprises varieties of the Langue d’oïl (from Latin hoc ille),
whereas the southern half is the region of the Langue d’oc (from Latin hoc), also
known as Occitan (see below, Section B.IV). There is also a distinct third group
located in the central east around Lyon as well as western Switzerland and north-
western Italy, which is called Franco-Provençal and during the medieval period
appears mainly in legal texts dated to the thirteenth century (Price 1998c). The
medieval Langue d’oïl consists of many dialects, of which the northern varieties
Picard and Walloon have even been classified as separate languages. Other
important dialects are Central French or Francien in the Île-de-France, Lorraine
in the north-east, Norman in the north-west and the south-western varieties of
Angevin, Poitevin, and Saintongeais. The Old French period lasted approximately
from the earliest evidence, found in the ninth century, to the thirteenth century.
The first written use of French is documented in the Latin Strasbourg Oaths of 842,
which contain vernacular pledges by Charles the Bald and Louis the German for
mutual support against their brother Lothair. Old French is attested as the
language used by Louis’s and also Charles’s army, whereas Charles himself as
well as Louis’ army swore in High German. However, since the only surviving
manuscript is dated to the late tenth or early eleventh century, it is not clear
whether the language of the text is represented accurately. The earliest manu-
script containing an Old French text is dated to the late ninth century; it is the
Sequence of St Eulalia, the dialect of which is closely related to Picard. Many texts
written during the eleventh and twelfth centuries are in Anglo-Norman, the
courtly language of England after the Conquest of 1066 (Trotter 2000; see below,
Section C.I.1). For example, the earliest surviving copy of the Chanson de Roland
is attested in this variety. However, the spoken dialect was by no means as
uniform as the written evidence seems to suggest. The scarcity of texts in other
dialects before the middle of the twelfth century may be explained by the high
status that Latin still enjoyed on the continent. During the fourteenth century
Central French emerged as the dominant variety due to the political importance
of the respective region. It became the standard language of the Middle French
period, which lasted until the end of the Middle Ages. Generally, literary genres in
medieval French literature are vast and include romances, fabliaux, hagiogra-
phies, lyrics and plays. Linguistic influence is mainly from Latin, but there are

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also many Germanic elements due to early Frankish rule. In Norman we find
several Norse loanwords, and Anglo-Norman also shows some English influence.
IV Occitan
(cf. Davies 1998b; Paden 1998)
Whereas the Langue d’oïl in the north of France developed into various French
dialects (see above, Section B.III), the Langue d’oc in the south, which came to be
known as Occitan, also comprised several major varieties: the northern part of the
Occitan region was the area of the Limousin, Auvergnat and Vivaro-Alpine
dialects, the south-eastern part belonged to Provençal, and in the central south
Languedocian was spoken. There may be a sixth Occitan dialect, namely Gascon
in the south-west, but this variety has also been classified as a separate language
(Davies 1998a). Occitan is first attested in the late tenth century and appears both
as brief insertions within Latin documents and in the form of short poems; the
earliest of these is probably the seventeen-line charm known as Tomida Femina, a
marginal addition to a Latin legal text. Indeed, most Old Occitan texts are poetic
in nature. There are some religious and didactic poems, but the most remarkable
evidence is found in the lyrical verse of the troubadours (Paden and Paden, trans.,
2007), as seen, for example, in the works of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071–
1127). During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a common Occitan language
was employed in these poems which did not reflect any spoken variety but
incorporated linguistic features from several dialects and was therefore merely
literary in nature. The lyrics of the troubadours were popular far beyond the
Occitan region and around 2,500 poems have survived. When French political
influence on the southern regions increased during the fourteenth century the
literary Occitan language went out of use and French came to be preferred for
written purposes, though Occitan dialects continued to be spoken. Occitan is
much closer to Vulgar Latin than French due to stronger historical links with
Rome in the respective areas. Linguistic influence can be observed mainly from
other Romance languages, in particular French, but there are also several Germa-
nic loans from the early Middle Ages as a result of the Visigothic conquest as well
as later Frankish political authority.

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V Catalan
(cf. Nadal and Prats, 1982–1996; Wheeler 1998)
Catalan is the other representative of the Langue d’oc and therefore closely
related to Occitan (see above, Section B.IV). Initially, it was spoken in the area
around the eastern Pyrenees. As a result of the reconquest of Arabian territories
the Catalan language spread south, first to the regions around Barcelona during
the ninth century and later along the further eastern shores of the Iberian
peninsula during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Invasions brought it also to
the Baleares as well as parts of Sicily and Sardinia. Single Catalan words appear
within Latin documents dated to the ninth century, but it is not until the twelfth
century that we find the first coherent Catalan texts: these are a fragmentary
translation of a Latin law code of the Visigoths known as Forum Iudicum and the
religious Homilies d’Organyà. The thirteenth century saw an increase in the
production of vernacular prose texts. Linguistically, these are rather uniform,
which suggests the use of a written standard, as employed by the royal chancery.
Among the most noteworthy works of this period are those of theologian and
philosopher Ramon Llull (1232–1315) as well as some law codes and the first two
of four major historical chronicles. This literary language is also found in later
medieval texts, as seen, for example, in Joanot Martorell’s chivalric novel Tirant
lo Blanch. Initially Catalan poets composed in the Occitan language due to the
popularity of troubadour verse (see above, Section B.IV), and it is not until the
fifteenth century that we find poems in the Catalan language, as employed, for
example, by Auziàs March (1397–1459). Due to its common origin with Occitan
many early Germanic loanwords are also found in Catalan. Later contact with
Arabic speakers led to the adoption of several elements from this language
(Corriente 2008). Political relations with Spain, in particular Aragon, also had
linguistic implications, though not as extensively as during the post-medieval
period.
VI Spanish
(cf. Penny 1998b; Penny 2002; Pountain 2001)
During the Middle Ages the Iberian peninsula was home to several populations
who marked its linguistic history. The Romanised community was conquered by
the Visigoths, who ruled from the fifth until the eighth century. In 711, the Arab
invasion resulted in their dominion of the largest part of the region for several

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centuries (see below, Section J.I.2). In the north there were also the non-Indo-
European Basques, whose territory extended to south-western France (see below,
Section J.V). The Romance language spoken in Al-Andalus, the region occupied
by the Arabs, can be classified as a separate language called Mozarabic (Penny
1998a). Mozarabic was written in an Arabic or Hebrew script and appears mainly
in the jarŷas, short poems of oral origin which were attached to Arabic or Hebrew
lyrics known as muwaššahat (Zwartjes 1997). Leaving aside the other Ibero-
Romance languages Catalan in the east (see above, Section B.V) and Galician and
Portuguese in the west (see below, Section B.VII), Old Spanish consists of three
major dialect areas, all of which originated in the northern parts of the peninsula:
Asturian-Leonese was spoken around León, Castilian around Burgos, and Navar-
ro-Aragonese around Huesca. The earliest written evidence appears during the
eleventh century in the form of some Castilian words in a Latin legal document
from Valpuesta as well as Navarro-Aragonese glosses to a Latin manuscript
which also contains the earliest attestation of the Basque language (Wolf 1991;
see below, Section J.V). In 1085, after the reconquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI,
king of León and Castile, Asturian-Leonese and in particular Castilian formed the
basis of the dialect used in the new Spanish capital. Written Castilian was
standardised under Alfonso X el Sabio during the thirteenth century. Its impor-
tance as the dominant literary language of Spain is demonstrated by the appear-
ance of Castilian elements in Navarro-Aragonese texts even before the Union of
the Crowns in 1469. Besides lyrics there are two other important genres of Old
Spanish poetry: firstly, the Mester de Juglaría, secular poetry of oral origin, the
most prominent representative of which is the epic Cantar de Mio Cid from ca.
1200, and secondly, the Mester de Clerecía, religious poetry written, for example,
by Castilian priest Gonzalo de Berceo (ca. 1190–1264). Prose texts flourished
under Alfonso X el Sabio, who commissioned a history of Spain called Primera
Crónica General and in whose footsteps many works from different genres were
written, for example legal and scientific texts or the didactic and moralistic El
Conde Lucanor by his nephew Don Juan Manuel. An important source for loan-
words in Spanish is Arabic due to many centuries of Muslim dominion, which
also influenced the other Ibero-Romance languages to a large extent (Corriente
2008). Besides elements adopted from the neighboring Romance languages Old
Spanish shows some Basque influence whereas early Visigothic rule has hardly
left any linguistic traces. The variety of Old Spanish employed by the Sephardi
Jews, which is known as Judeo-Spanish or Ladino and was written in a Hebrew
script, also shows some linguistic influence from Hebrew and Aramaic (see
below, Section J.I.1).

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Languages 805
VII Galician and Portuguese
(cf. Castro 2006; Mackenzie 1998; Parkinson 1998)
The common origin shared by Galician and Portuguese has led some linguists to
argue that these may still be regarded as dialects of one and the same language,
separated only by political borders. Though this is certainly true for the most part
of the Middle Ages, both languages diverged significantly from about the four-
teenth century onward, for which reason they may be treated separately when
referring to later medieval texts. However, initially one can definitely talk of a
common Galician-Portuguese language. Its original area was the north-western
part of the Iberian peninsula approximately north of the river Douro. The first
attestation of Galician-Portuguese words is found within Latin documents dated
to the ninth century. The reconquest of Arab territories between the eleventh and
the thirteenth century led to its spread further south. Portugal declared its
independence from the kingdom of León and Castile in 1139, whereas Galicia
remained under Spanish control. However, it is not until the late thirteenth
century and the rise of the southern city of Lisbon as the political and literary
center of Portugal that the way was paved for separate linguistic developments.
Portuguese was recognised as the official language of Portugal; it replaced Latin
in functions of the chancery and appears in many documents. The Galician-
Portuguese literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is particularly
remarkable in the field of lyrical verse, which can be subdivided into different
categories of cantigas and is reminiscent of the Occitan poetry of the troubadours
(see above, Section B.IV). Even the Spanish King Alfonso X el Sabio (see above,
Section B.VI) composed lyrics in the Galician-Portuguese language. Other literary
genres include religious texts, romances and historical works, often translated
from other Romance languages. The written Galician tradition declined during
the fifteenth century when the use of Castilian for official purposes increased,
whereas Portuguese remained strong within its independent kingdom. Medieval
Galician-Portuguese shows some influence from Arabic, especially in the south-
ern dialect, due to its closer contact with Arabic speakers (Corriente 2008).
Spanish influence appears predominantly in the north as a result of its political
supremacy.

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VIII Rhaeto-Romance
(cf. Benincà et al. 1998; Haiman and Benincà 1992; Price 1998e; Söhrmann 1998)
The Rhaeto-Romance languages are usually divided into three groups: Romansh,
Dolomitic Ladin, and Friulian. An alternative view put forward by some linguists
is that the latter two may be considered to be dialects of Italian (see above,
Section B.II). Nowadays, Romansh is found in the canton of Graubünden in
south-eastern Switzerland, though place names suggest that it originally had a
wider distribution. The few surviving medieval sources are restricted to five words
in a Latin manuscript from the tenth or eleventh century, an interlinear transla-
tion of a Latin homily from the early twelfth century, and a fragmentary document
from Müstair dated to 1389. Dolomitic Ladin, which is still spoken in several
valleys of the Dolomites, is not attested during the Middle Ages. There is some
medieval evidence of Friulian from the Friuli-Venezia Guilia region in north-east-
ern Italy, in particular from the town of Cividale (Helfer 2008). The respective
texts began to appear during the thirteenth century and are mainly administrative
documents and translation exercises into Latin, the official language of the area.
There is also some love poetry resembling the Italian Dolce Stil Novo, for example,
Piruç myò doç inculurit (“My sweet rosy little pear”), which was added to a Latin
document dated to 1380, possibly by notary Antonio Porenzoni. The few surviving
texts show some linguistic influence from the neighboring German, Slavic and
Italian languages.
C Germanic Languages
I West Germanic
1 English
(cf. Baugh and Cable 2013; Blake, ed., 1992; Hogg, ed., 1992; Robinson 1992, 136–75)
The origins of the English language are found in the fifth century when Angles,
Saxons, Jutes and Frisians from the continent started settling in Britain and
thereby confined the earlier Celtic inhabitants to the northern, western, and
south-western regions of the island (see below, Section D.I). For reasons of
convenience these Germanic tribes are usually treated together under the name
“Anglo-Saxon.” The traditional division into four major Old English dialects has
its origins in their areas of settlement: the Saxons in the south spoke West Saxon,

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Languages 807
the Jutes in the south-east spoke Kentish, and the Angles in the middle and
northern regions spoke Anglian, which can be subdivided into Mercian and
Northumbrian respectively. The earliest Anglo-Saxon script consisted of runes,
possibly introduced from Frisia, and the first runic inscriptions in Britain are
found on bones and artefacts in the south and east of the island (Page 1999). The
Latin alphabet was adopted as a result of the conversion to Christianity, which
happened on two fronts: during the middle of the sixth century in the north by
Irish missionaries, and in 597 in the south when Augustine arrived in Canterbury
having been sent from Rome by pope Gregory the Great. The amount of Old
English literature is larger than that of any other West Germanic language
(Treharne, ed., 2010). The first longer text to be composed was the law code of the
Kentish king Æthelberht at the beginning of the seventh century, but it survives
only in a twelfth-century manuscript. The earliest extant evidence is the Latin-Old
English Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, which is dated to the end of the seventh century.
Most Old English texts survive in the West Saxon dialect, which can also be
subdivided diachronically into two stages. Early West Saxon was used at the court
of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex from 871–899, whose educational reform
produced many important religious and historical texts, often translated from
Latin (Greenfield and Calder 1986, 38–67). From the later tenth century onward a
standardized Late West Saxon form was employed at the Benedictine School of
Winchester (Gneuss 1972), as used, for example, in the many homiletic, hagio-
graphic and other works by Ælfric of Eynsham (Magennis and Swan, ed., 2009).
Ælfric was also responsible for compiling the first Latin grammar written in any
Germanic language. Though the bulk of Old English verse was written mainly in
the West Saxon dialect, Anglian features were incorporated very frequently and
many poems, such as Beowulf (Orchard 2003), were probably composed much
earlier than the four surviving major poetic codices dated to around the year
1000. The largest amount of lexical influence in Old English is from Latin, mostly
in the field of religion, but there are also some Norse loans of an every-day nature
due to Danish settlements in the north-east from the second half of the ninth
century onward (see below, Section C.II).
Politically, the Middle English period began in 1066 with the Norman Con-
quest of Anglo-Saxon England, which also had huge linguistic implications. But
although Anglo-Norman became the language of the nobility and was used for
many literary works (Trotter 2000; see above, Section B.III), Latin remained the
language of administration. Old English manuscripts continued to be copied well
into the twelfth century for reasons of preaching, preservation and private read-
ing (Swan and Treharne, ed., 2000). Linguistic change can be observed in the
Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a year-by-year account of
events copied and continued by two scribes during the twelfth century, the later

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of which used many features commonly regarded as Middle English (Bergs and
Skaffari, ed., 2007). In 1258, the significance of the English language had to be
recognised by the Norman-speaking royalty when the barons forced king Hen-
ry III to agree to the Provisions of Oxford, England’s first written constitution,
which was issued in both Latin, French and English (Richardson and Sayles
1933). Nevertheless, it took more than a hundred years until English rather than
French was recognised as the language of legal proceedings in the Statute of
Pleading, which was enacted in 1362. The first king with a native command of
English was Henry IV, who came to the throne in 1399. The Middle English dialect
areas correspond roughly to those of the Old English period with South-Western
being used in the south, South-Eastern in Kent, West Midland and East Midland
in the divided former Mercian region, and Northern in the north. The London
dialect had a special status as it was the language of Geoffrey Chaucer (Chaucer
1987) as well as the basis of the Chancery Standard employed during the fifteenth
century (Fisher 1977). The range of Middle English literature is vast and comprises
various genres with the French-influenced romances being among the most
remarkable ones (Treharne, ed., 2010). Generally, the French language had an
enormous impact on Middle English in many semantic fields, such as govern-
ment, law, fashion and food, with early loanwords coming from Anglo-Norman
and later ones from Central French. Linguistic influence can also be observed
from a number of other languages, such as Latin and Norse, as well as Dutch and
Low German as a result of trading relations in the later medieval period.
2 Scots
(cf. Aitken 1998; Görlach 2002; Smith 2000)
The Scots language can be seen as a direct continuation of the Northumbrian

dialect of Old English, as found in the south-eastern Lowlands between the
seventh and the eleventh century. Its linguistic character was significantly influ-
enced by the subsequent influx of English speakers from the Scandinavianized
areas of north-eastern England, in particular within urban communities, which
extended across a larger territory throughout the Lowlands. The emergence of a
Scots language distinct from English might therefore have its roots in the twelfth
century, though only some isolated words within Latin texts are attested from
this period and it may be regarded merely as a variant of a Northern Middle
English dialect. Due to the initial use of French at court and Latin as the official
language it is not until 1375 that we find the first substantial work written in
Scots, namely John Barbour’s epic poem The Brus, which survives, however, only

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Languages 809
in two late fifteenth-century manuscripts. From the composition of this text until
approximately 1450 it is customary to speak of Early Scots. This period also sees
a change in its official status when it superseded Latin as the main literary
language and also came to be used in Parliament. At the time Scots was still
called Inglis, while Scottis referred Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language of the
Highlands, a terminology which changed during the fifteenth century (see below,
Section D.II.2). Toward the end of the Middle Ages the most productive period of
Scots began, which is called Middle Scots and lasted from the middle of the
fifteenth to the seventeenth century. Among the most significant early poets of
Middle Scots, known as the Makars, are Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and
Gavin Douglas. At the time the Scots language also spread to the Orkney and
Shetland Islands, where it was confronted with North Germanic Norn (Barnes
2000; see below, Section C.II). One of the most striking features of Early and
Middle Scots vocabulary is its retention of several Old English words lost during
the Middle English period. Linguistic influence can be observed from Norse,
French and Scottish Gaelic, while Latin elements are particular prominent in the
works of the Makars.
3 Frisian
(cf. Bremmer Jr. 2009; Robinson 1992, 176–98; Salverda 1998)
The West Germanic language that is most closely related to English is Frisian,
with which it forms the Anglo-Frisian subgroup. Sometimes both languages are
said to be part of a larger Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic group, which is,
however, slightly problematic as some features regarded as Ingvaeonic appear
only in other West Germanic languages or Old Norse (Robinson 1992, 257–59). At
the beginning of the Middle Ages Frisian was spoken along the North Sea coast
approximately between the rivers Rhine and Ems, but during the following
centuries their areas of settlement extended both south as far as Bruges and north
to the Jutland peninsula. Political independence was lost when the largest part of
the Frisian territories was incorporated into the Frankish kingdom and divided
into three regions, as depicted in the Lex Frisionum, which was commissioned by
Charlemagne. Before the Christianization from Anglo-Saxon England, which
began toward the end of the seventh century, there are only some controversial
runic inscriptions in Frisian as well as single words within Latin texts. Due to the
status of Latin as the official literary language it is not until ca. 1200 that we find
the first attestation of Frisian in the form of interlinear glosses within a Latin
Psalter (Langbroek 1990).

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The first proper manuscripts written in Frisian appear toward the end of the
thirteenth century and contain mostly texts of a legal nature. This concentration
on one genre may be ascribed to the continuing political pressure on the Frisians
and their attempts at showing independence by putting their older oral laws into
written form. The Old Frisian period lasted until the sixteenth century and may be
subdivided on both chronological and geographical grounds: Classical texts in
East Frisian are found approximately until the year 1475, and post-classical texts
in West Frisian appear from that point onward until around 1600. West Frisian
texts cover also other genres, such as charters, chronicles and historiographic
verse. Linguistic influence can be observed mainly from Latin, both before and
after the Christianization, as well as from the neighboring Germanic languages,
with Low German also replacing Frisian in the eastern region toward the end of
the Middle Ages.
4 Dutch
(cf. Donaldson 1983; Robinson 1992, 199–221; Vismans 1998)
The first evidence of the Dutch language may be a brief fifth-century runic
inscription found on a sheath mounting (Mees 2002). However, it is uncertain
whether we can already classify it as Old Dutch or merely as belonging to its
otherwise unattested ancestor language Old Frankish. The surviving texts are
dated mainly to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries and are usually divided
into two major dialects: Old West Low Franconian, spoken in Flanders, Brabant,
and Holland, and Old East Low Franconian, spoken in Limburg and the Rhine-
land. Evidence of West Low Franconian is scarce, and besides some names and
short phrases within Latin texts as well as a transcription of an East Low Franco-
nian version of the Song of Songs there is only a three-line love poem in the form
of a Probatio Pennae. East Low Franconian survives mainly in later fragmentary
copies of interlinear glosses to a now lost Latin Psalter, known as the Wachten-
donck Codex. During the Middle Dutch period, which lasted from the twelfth to
the fifteenth century, three major dialect areas can be distinguished, though these
may also be subdivided: the coastal dialect group consists of the dialects spoken
in Holland, Zeeland and Flanders, south-eastern dialects were spoken in Brabant
and Limburg, whereas the north-eastern dialect was derived from Low German
but incorporated several Dutch elements. The earliest known poet was Hendrik
van Veldeke, who wrote his works during the second half of the twelfth century in
the Limburg dialect. Other well-documented dialect areas are Flanders, as used,
for example, by Jacob van Maerlant, and Brabant, as represented in the mystical

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Languages 811
hymns of Sister Hadewych, all of which are dated to the thirteenth century.
Middle Dutch literature comprises several genres, such as romance, hagiography,
didactic poetry and drama. Besides some Latin loans found already in Old Dutch,
linguistic influence can be observed mainly from the neighboring languages,
such as German and in particular French, both as a result of literary influence and
later medieval Burgundian political supremacy in the south.
5 Low German
(cf. Robinson 1992, 100–35; Sanders 1982; West 1998; Young and Gloning 2004, 139–47;
175–84)
During the early Middle Ages the territory of the Saxons corresponded approxi-
mately to northern Germany between the rivers Rhine and Elbe and was subdi-
vided into the provinces of Westphalia, Angria, and Eastphalia. Their subjugation
by Charlemagne during the late eighth century resulted also in forcible conver-
sions to Christianity and more peaceful missionary activities. The stage of Low
German attested between the eighth and the twelfth century is known as Old
Saxon. Besides some glosses within Latin texts or some short passages, such as
baptismal vows, there are also two poetic biblical epics dated to the ninth
century, namely a fragmentary version of Genesis and the Heliand, which deals
with the life of Christ (Cathey, ed., 2002). Middle Low German is taken to begin
with the rise of the Hanseatic League during the late twelfth and early thirteenth
century and lasted until the sixteenth century. The language of the Hanseatic
League had the status of a lingua franca around the North and Baltic Sea and was
written in a standard based mostly on the dialect of the city of Lübeck. It was used
alongside Latin within documents, mostly pertaining to trade and legal matters.
Another significant dialect is Eastphalian, as found in the thirteenth-century
historical Sächsische Weltchronik and the law book of the Sachsenspiegel, which
combines earlier oral law with written Latin texts. Due to several translations from
Latin into both medieval language stages of Low German there is a significant
amount of linguistic influence from this language. Some elements were also
adopted from other West Germanic languages, though their similarity makes it
often difficult to distinguish these. Middle Low German itself acted as an impor-
tant source for languages spoken within the Hanseatic League, such as most
North Germanic languages, Estonian and Latvian.

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6 High German
(cf. Robinson 1992, 222–46; Wells 1985; West 1998; Young and Gloning 2004)
High German is distinguished from Low German by a number of sound changes

known as the High German Consonant Shift, which happened to various extents
in the German dialects south of an isogloss known as the Benrath Line. Five major
dialects may be distinguished, all of which have been named with alternative
terminologies: West Central German or Rhenish Franconian, East Central German
or East Middle German, North Upper German or East Franconian around the river
Main, West Upper German or Alemannic in south-western Germany and Switzer-
land, and East Upper German or Bavarian in south-eastern Germany and Austria.
The geographical distribution of these dialects varied throughout the medieval
period and East Central German is not found during the earliest stages since most
of the respective territory was settled by Slavs. Moreover, these dialects may also
be subdivided even further, for example the larger Alemannic dialect group
includes also the dialect of Swabian. The earliest evidence of High German is
found on archaeological artefacts from the sixth and seventh centuries and is
written in runic script (Looijenga 2003). At the time various missionary activities
were already taking place, for example from Ireland, which also introduced the
Latin alphabet. Generally, Latin was the main literary language during the Old
High German period, which started properly in the eighth century with the
emergence of glosses and glossaries, such as the Abrogans, which has been called
the first book in the German language. In fact, many German translations of
religious texts were conducted during this period, with Notker Labeo of St Gall
being among the most important scholars in this context. There is also some
evidence of non-religious literature, such as charms or the epic poem Hilde-
brandslied, which also includes linguistic features from Old Saxon. The eleventh
century sees a temporary decline in the production of High German texts, but
from the beginning of the Middle High German period during the twelfth century
a large amount of literary genres are covered. Besides the epic poem Nibelungen-
lied (see the studies in McConnell, ed., 1998) there are adaptations of French
romances, such as Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein, lyrics, as found in the Codex
Manesse, and works by mystics, such as Mechthild von Magdeburg. Middle High
German developed into New High German during the fourteenth century with the
most significant work of that period being the Lutheran Bible translation of the
sixteenth century. Linguistic borrowings are mainly from Latin in religious con-
texts and French due to literary influence during the Middle High German period.

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Languages 813
7 Yiddish
(cf. Baumgarten 2005; Katz 1998b; Weinreich 2008)
During the tenth century High German became the base language of the Ashkena-
zim, the Jewish communities settling along the river Rhine, who developed it
further into Yiddish. While Hebrew and Aramaic were employed as the main
literary languages (see below, Section J.I.1), Yiddish was used orally as well as in
secular writings and some other texts of Ashkenazi origin (Katz 1985). Its script is
based on Hebrew with the addition of obsolete consonant symbols in order to
represent vowels. Due to frequent persecutions during the Middle Ages many Jews
migrated to Eastern Europe, thereby creating two major dialects, namely Western
Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish, which can be subdivided even further. Apart from
some earlier names, evidence of Yiddish is first found in 1272 with the inclusion of
a brief blessing within a Hebrew prayer book known as the Worms Mahzor. The
earliest larger text collection is found in the late fourteenth-century manuscript
Cambridge, University Library, MS T.-S.10.K.22, which besides several religious
texts also contains an epic poem treating Germanic themes, known as the Dukus
Horant. Other Yiddish literary genres are romance, folk tales, and lyrics. The
largest amount of linguistic influence on Yiddish is from Hebrew and Aramaic, but
there are also some French elements due to early regions of settlement, and some
Slavic influence can be observed in the later Eastern Yiddish dialects.
II North Germanic
(cf. Bandle et al., ed., 2002–2005; Faarlund 1994; Haugen 1976; Robinson 1992, 69–99)
The North Germanic languages, which have also been called Nordic or Scandina-
vian, were rather uniform during the Middle Ages and they might even be
considered dialects rather than separate languages. In fact, it has been suggested
that expressions like Danish tongue found in several medieval texts might refer to
all North Germanic languages rather than merely a single one (Uhlmann 2005,
2026). There are no dialectal distinctions before the eighth century. This early
period has been termed variously, such as Ancient Scandinavian or Proto-Norse.
It is usually taken to begin with the earliest runic inscriptions, which are found on
bone, metal or wood artefacts in various parts of Scandinavia from the approxi-
mately the second century onward (Page 1987). During the eighth century the
twenty-four characters of the early runic alphabet, called the Elder Futhark, were
reduced to sixteen and became the Younger Futhark. At around the same time

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linguistic changes also resulted in the emergence of two major subgroups of

North Germanic, namely Old West Norse and Old East Norse. Old West Norse was
spoken by the Norwegians, who started spreading their language to further
regions as a result of Viking conquests and settlements. These included the Faroe
Islands, Iceland, Greenland, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, the Heb-
rides, the Isle of Man and parts of the Scottish coast, and Ireland, in particular
Dublin. During the following years their language remained relatively homoge-
neous and it is often generally referred to as Old Norse. The variant found on the
Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands is called Norn (Barnes 2000). Some
linguistic changes during the eleventh century may justify a split into several
varieties, in particular Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic, but it not until the
fourteenth century that we find larger linguistic divergences which mark the
beginning of the Middle Norwegian and Middle Icelandic periods. Old East Norse
also spread beyond Scandinavia through Viking activities and it was brought to
England by the Danes and to the Baltic region and parts of Russia by the Swedes.
Old East Norse developed into Old Danish and Old Swedish approximately during
the twelfth century. Another variety, namely Gutnish, spoken on the island of
Gotland, had split off at an earlier date. The gradual Christianization of the North
Germanic countries, which began during the ninth century, but was not fully
completed until the twelfth century, introduced the Latin alphabet, though runes
continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages. Since Latin became the main
literary language it is not until the late twelfth century that we find the earliest
substantial vernacular writings in the new script. While the Old East Norse branch
is represented predominantly by law codes, the western languages Old Norwe-
gian and in particular Old Icelandic contain a vast amount of literature, which
due to few linguistic changes ever since can still be read and understood by
Icelanders today (McTurk, ed., 2005). Among the most well-known works are both
Eddic and Skaldic poetry as well as several prose texts, for example the Younger
Edda by Snorri Sturluson, a large amount of sagas in various subcategories, such
as the family saga Grettis Saga, and legal texts, such as Grágás. All North
Germanic languages display some degree of Latin influence as a result of the
Christianization. Icelandic remained relatively free from other foreign influences,
whereas the Scandinavian mainland adopted several loans from Low German due
to trading relations with the Hanseatic League during the later Middle Ages (see
above, Section C.I.5).

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Languages 815
III East Germanic
(cf. Bennett 1980; Lehmann 1994; Robinson 1992, 43–68)
The East Germanic group comprises several languages which are very poorly
documented. In fact, only Gothic is evidenced to a larger extent, whereas
languages like Burgundian or Vandalic have survived merely in the form of
personal or place names. The sixth-century historian Jordanes wrote about the
origins and subsequent migrations of the Goths, who, coming from Scandinavia,
settled in Eastern Europe approximately between the rivers Danube and Dnieper
during the third century. The river Dniester divided them into Visigoths living in
the west and Ostrogoths living in the east. Hunnic invasions during the last
quarter of the fourth century triggered further migrations, during the course of
which the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 before moving on to southern France
and Spain. The Ostrogoths established their temporary rule in Italy toward the
end of the fifth century. Both linguistic branches were gradually assimilated by
other vernacular languages in the course of the following centuries, though
Gothic continued to be spoken in Eastern Europe, as discovered on the Crimean
peninsula during the sixteenth century. Gothic is the oldest attested Germanic
language. Most of it is found in the Bible translation of Wulfila (ca. 311–383), a
Visigothic bishop, who converted the Goths to Arian Christianity. Besides some
notes and fragments the only other substantial text is an anonymous commen-
tary on the Gospel of St John, known as the Skeireins. For his translation Wulfila
created a specific alphabet which draws heavily on Greek but shows also some
Latin and runic influence. The most significant surviving manuscript is known
as the Codex Argenteus or Silver Bible, which was written in Ostrogothic northern
Italy, possibly at Ravenna, during the sixth century (Munkhammar 2011). It was
copied in silver and golden ink onto purple vellum and contains the largest part
of the four Gospels (today in Uppsala, Sweden). Since Wulfila translated the
Bible from Greek, linguistic influence on Gothic can be observed mostly from
this language, which is obvious not only with regard to vocabulary but also in
several syntactic constructions.

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D Celtic Languages
I Brythonic (p-Celtic)
1 Welsh
(cf. Davies 2000; Willis 2009)
At the beginning of the Middle Ages the Celtic languages, which had been spoken
in large parts of Western and Central Europe in pre-historic times, had been
confined to the British Isles (Eska 2009; Jackson 1953). By the mid-sixth century
the Anglo-Saxons had conquered large parts of Britain, thereby restricting Celtic
territories even further (see above, Section C.I.1). The invaders called the encoun-
tered British tribes wealas (“foreigners”), from which we get the modern term
Wales as opposed to the Welsh equivalent Cymru. Apart from place names there is
no written evidence of Welsh until the eighth century, for which reason the
language of this period is called Primitive or Archaic Welsh. At the time it was
spoken approximately in the regions of modern-day Wales. The language of
Cumbria may be a dialect of Welsh or a separate language called Cumbric, but it
is not attested in writing and became extinct during the eleventh century (Price
2000a). Since the Roman occupation and later Christianization of Britain Latin
had been the literary language of the Celts. Initially, vernacular material was
transmitted only orally, such as the Welsh poems ascribed to Aneirin and Talie-
sin, who lived during the sixth century, though their works survive only in much
later manuscripts (Bromwich, ed., 1980). The first extant writings from the eighth
century mark the beginning of the Old Welsh period. These occur mostly in Latin
manuscripts, in particular in the form of glosses, notes or additions, such as the
earliest coherent Welsh text, namely the brief Surexit Memorandum, which is
appended to a Latin book on St Chad and deals with the settling of a lawsuit
(Jenkins and Owen 1984). The Middle Welsh period, which lasted approximately
from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, is marked by several orthographic
changes. It produced a large amount of written material within various genres,
such as historical, scientific, legal and religious literature. One of the most
important prose works is the collection of romances known as Mabinogion, which
is preserved in two fourteenth-century manuscripts, but is probably about two
centuries older (Roberts 1992). Linguistic influence on Old and Middle Welsh is
mostly from Latin, but there are also several English loanwords due to frequent
contact between these two peoples.

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Languages 817
2 Cornish
(cf. George 2009; Payton 2000)
The development of the Cornish language during the Middle Ages is almost
parallel to that of Welsh, though the diachronic subdivisions are dated about a
century later and the extent of its literature is not quite as rich. The Primitive
Cornish period without any written material lasted approximately from the sixth
to the ninth century when we find the earliest Cornish words in a gloss to a Latin
copy of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae (Sims-Williams 2005), which
marks the beginning of Old Cornish. Due to the continuing status of Latin as the
literary language as well as English political supremacy vernacular sources from
this language stage are rather sparse and consist mainly of brief glosses, notes
and lists of names. Toward the end of the period there is also a longer Latin-
Cornish glossary containing 961 entries, which is known as the Vocabularium
Cornicum, based on Ælfric of Eynsham’s glossary and dated to the late twelfth
century (Graves, ed., 1962). The largest amount of Cornish literature was written
during the Middle Cornish period, which lasted approximately from the thirteenth
to the late sixteenth century. There are mostly religious texts, in particular
homilies and saints’ lives as well as a noteworthy cycle of three mystery plays
known as Ordinalia (Bakere 1980). Though Cornish was initially spoken through-
out Cornwall, toward the end of the Middle Ages the use of this language had
been restricted mainly to the western half. Just as in Welsh, Latin was initially the
dominant language for the adoption of loanwords, as is evident in ca. 19% of the
lexicon contained in the Vocabularium Cornicum (George 2009, 532). Later sources
show a dramatic increase in borrowings from English, which also became the
main literary language during the Middle Cornish period.
3 Breton
(cf. Humphreys 1998; Press 2009)
Breton is closely related to Cornish since its speakers migrated from south-
western Britain at various stages between the fourth and the eighth century, a
process which was not triggered but could have been intensified by increasing
Anglo-Saxon pressure in this region. In Brittany the immigrants encountered
speakers of a variant of Gaulish, another Celtic language, which despite the
Romanization of France had not become extinct yet, but is attested only in the
form of names and inscriptions dated to the pre-medieval period (Eska and Evans

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2009; Schrijver 1998). There is probably some substrate influence from Gaulish on
Breton, which may also account for some obvious peculiarities in the modern
Gwenedeg/Vannetais dialect found in the south-east of Brittany. With some minor
territorial variation Breton has been spoken to the west of a line extending
approximately from the town of Sant Brieg/Saint Brieuc to the estuary of the river
Gwilen/Vilaine. Apart from a few Latinized names no written evidence exists
before the late eighth or early ninth century when we can talk of the beginning of
the Old Breton period. The earliest Breton words are found in a manuscript bifolio
kept at Leiden which includes thirty names of plants and ingredients within a
Latin medical text (Lambert 1986). Many more isolated names and glosses are
found in various Latin manuscripts, but these do not offer any coherent sen-
tences. Though the Middle Breton period is usually taken to start in the eleventh
century due to some particular linguistic changes, vernacular evidence remains
fragmentary until the fifteenth century when we eventually find a large amount of
Breton literature in both verse and prose. The texts are mostly religious in nature,
though some themes in French and English Arthurian literature suggest a Breton
romantic tradition. Noteworthy is also the Catholicon by Jehan Lagadeuc, a
Breton-French-Latin dictionary which survives in a manuscript dated to ca. 1464
and was first printed in 1499 (Guyonvarc’h, ed., 1975). The Middle Breton period
lasted until the seventeenth century. Besides Latin influence as a result of transla-
tions and its function as the earliest literary language, the French element in
Middle Breton is particularly strong due to its official status in the medieval
Duchy of Brittany (Piette 1973).
II Goidelic (q-Celtic)
1 Irish Gaelic
(cf. Ó Docharthaig 2000; Ó Murchú 1998; Stifter 2009)
The Celtic language of Ireland belongs to a different branch than Welsh, Cornish
and Breton. Both the name of this branch, Goidelic, and the modern English name
of the language, Gaelic, are derived from the Old Irish word for “Irish-speaking
Celt,” namely Goídel. The earliest evidence is found on standing stones and is
written in a script known as ogam (McManus 1991). It consists of fifteen conso-
nants and five vowels which are represented in the form of one to five straight
lines or dots placed in relation to a vertical long line. Most of these brief inscrip-
tions are dated to the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, which is called the Primitive
Irish period. Around a quarter of these are found in Wales and the south-west of

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Languages 819
Britain, which is proof of some Irish settlements in these areas (Price 2000b). The
Christianization of Ireland from Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries introduced
the Latin alphabet and laid the foundations for the Old Irish period, which lasted
from the seventh to the ninth century. The earliest evidence is found within
continental Latin manuscripts, such as the Codex Wirceburgensis, which contains
Irish glosses on the Pauline Epistles, dated to the late seventh and eighth centu-
ries. The Book of Armagh from the ninth century contains both Latin and Irish
religious texts with particular emphasis on St Patrick (Ó Cathasaig 2006). Many
manuscripts from the Middle Irish period, which lasted from the tenth to the
twelfth century, are written in a mixture of Old Irish and modernised forms and are
thought to be copies of earlier texts. They represent various genres and comprise
religious, grammatical, legal, historical and legendary texts in verse and prose, as
found, for example, in the Book of the Dun Cow and the Book of Leinster from the
twelfth century (Ní Mhaonaigh 2006). The Early Modern Irish period, which lasted
from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, sees an increasing move from
monastic literacy to lay schools producing professional poets as well as the
introduction of continental literary themes, such as love poetry and travel litera-
ture (Caball and Hollo 2006). Linguistic influence during the earlier periods is
mostly from Latin in the form of religious loans, but Norse settlements from the
ninth century onward introduced some seafaring and domestic words (Greene
1976), and the Anglo-Norman invasions of the twelfth century resulted in the
adoption of some military as well as legal terms (Risk 1968–1975).
2 Scottish Gaelic
(cf. Gilles 2009; MacKinnon 2000)
The history of Scottish Gaelic is closely linked with Irish Gaelic due to the arrival
of Irish settlers in Scotland starting during the fifth century, which resulted in the
gradual replacement of Cumbric and Pictish with their language. This common
origin is also evident in the name of the country itself since Scotia was Latin for
“Ireland.” Moreover, the Germanic Scots language (see above, Section C.I.2)
referred to Scottish Gaelic as Irische or Ersche (“Irish”) from the fifteenth century
onward when the earlier term Scottis came to be used for Scots itself (Görlach
2002, 5). Celtic Christianity and the Latin script were introduced in 563 with the
foundation of the monastery of Iona by the Irish missionary Columba. Despite
subsequent different developments in the spoken form, written Scottish Gaelic
was basically identical with Irish Gaelic until the twelfth century, and the few
texts originating in Scotland before then, mainly from Iona, are preserved mostly

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in Ireland and generally treated alongside Irish evidence (Clancy 2006). The first
of only very few extant medieval manuscripts displaying any particular Scottish
Gaelic features is the Book of Deer, a Latin gospel book which contains notes on
the foundation of and grants to the monastery of Deer (Jackson, ed. and trans.,
1972). By the fifteenth century Scottish Gaelic had been restricted to the Highlands
as a result of the increasing advance of Scots from the south. Just as in Irish Gaelic
early lexical borrowings are mostly from Latin, and some loanwords were
adopted from the earlier British inhabitants of Scotland and from the ninth
century onward from the Norse settlers in the west and the far north (Stewart
2004). Other loanwords are from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English and
later Middle Scots (Thomson 1983). Finally, it must be noted that Manx, the
language of the Isle of Man, developed parallel to Scottish Gaelic and started
diverging only toward the end of the Middle Ages with its first attestations dated
to the sixteenth century (Broderick 2009).
E Slavic Languages
I Old Church Slavonic
(cf. Huntley 1993; Lunt 2001; Picchio 1980; Schenker 1995)
The earliest attested stage of the Slavic language family is generally known as Old
Church Slavonic. The creation of a specifically devised alphabet inspired by Greek
and called Glagolitic (Old Church Slavonic glagolŭu “word”) is generally ascribed
to Saints Cyril and Methodius, two Greek brothers who began converting Moravia
to Christianity in 863. However, some Slavic writings in a different alphabet had
existed already before their mission (Cubberley 1993). During the tenth century
another script was devised, which was also based on Greek and named Cyrillic
after one of the missionaries; it gradually superseded Glagolitic in its use. The
oldest surviving manuscript in Old Church Slavonic is known as the Kiev Missal or
Fragments, which is written in a Glagolitic script and dated to the tenth century
(Schaeken 1987). Most early texts were written in the Bulgarian schools at Preslav
and Ohrid, for which reason the respective variants have also been called Old
Bulgarian; it may be subdivided into an Eastern (Preslav) and a Western (Ohrid)
branch, the latter of which is sometimes referred to as Old Macedonian. Some
linguistic changes evident in texts from the twelfth century onward, such as the
denasalization of vowels and simplification of case endings, mark the beginning
of the Middle Bulgarian period, which lasted approximately until the fifteenth
century (Scatton 1993). Old Church Slavonic was used mainly as a literary and

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Languages 821
liturgical language and retains several archaic features which have become lost
in later Slavic languages, such as a rich system of nominal declensions. Besides
containing many Greek elements as a result of early Christian translations, in
particular with regard to syntax, it also has several loanwords from Latin and
German, which are evidence of contact with the Western Church (Auty 1976).
II South Slavic
(cf. Koneski 1980; Naylor 1980; Pinto 1980; Stankiewicz 1980)
As a written language Old Church Slavonic came to be used generally throughout

the Slavic countries. As a result several varieties developed, all of which incorpo-
rated features from the regionally spoken languages. For this reason early texts
written within the respective countries represent mixtures between the spoken
vernaculars and literary Old Church Slavonic. These appear increasingly from
approximately the twelfth century onward and may be referred to as different
recensions of Church Slavonic (Mathiesen 1984). Besides the Bulgarian and
Macedonian variants there are more recensions which were written in the Slavic
countries lying roughly south of the river Danube. One of the earliest Serbian
manuscripts is known as the Miroslav Gospels, which is dated to the 1180s and
written in a Cyrillic alphabet (Vrana 1961). There are also some earlier Serbian
texts in Glagolitic, which was the script initially favoured in the Croatian recen-
sion, as seen, for example, in the Baška Stone Tablet, dated to ca. 1100 (Fučič
1999). Later Croatian texts could also be written in Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Other
Church Slavonic variants are Bosnian, as seen, for example, in the early eleventh-
century Humac Tablet, which contains Cyrillic as well as some Glagolitic letters
(Nosić 2001), and the Slovenian Freising Manuscripts from the late tenth century,
written in Latin script (Kudorfer 2004). Despite the continuing use of regional
varieties of Church Slavonic there are also some texts which incorporated a larger
amount of vernacular elements; these are mostly written in Croatian and deviate
to a more significant extent from the rather artificial liturgical language used
throughout the medieval period, as seen, for example, in the Law Codex of
Vinodol, dated to 1288 (Barada 1952). The dominant role played by Church
Slavonic is to be blamed for our scarce knowledge of the contemporary vernacu-
lars, which were influenced to such an extent that several linguistic features from
Church Slavonic are still found within the modern languages.

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III East Slavic
(cf. Issatschenko 1980; McMillin 1980; Shevelov 1980)
When the Kievan Rus’ state under Vladimir the Great adopted Christianity in 988
the use of Old Church Slavonic also spread to the East Slavic region. As with the
South Slavic languages it became influenced by the spoken vernacular resulting
in a literary variant generally referred to as the Russian recension of Church
Slavonic, which employed a Cyrillic script. The oldest surviving text, the Novgo-
rod Codex, is a palimpsest written on wax tablets which is dated to ca. 1000 and
was discovered in 2000 (Zaliznyak 2003). Russian Church Slavonic remained
relatively uniform until the middle of the thirteenth century when the Mongol
invasion marked the end of the Rus’ era. The north-eastern part including Moscow
was now ruled by the Tartars, whereas the south-western part including Kiev
became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which also resulted in a linguistic
separation. Despite temporary Mongol political supremacy the literary Church
Slavonic used in the north-eastern region continued to be used. With the power of
the Grand Duchy of Moscow increasing during the later medieval period the local
dialect also gained larger significance. Two varieties developed in the south-west,
namely Belarusian or Belorussian, based on the dialect of Minsk, and Ukrainian,
based on the dialect of Kiev, though both are sometimes grouped together under
the name Ruthenian (Moser 2005). In contrast to Ukrainian and Baltic Lithuanian,
Belarusian is frequently attested in texts written within the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, where it achieved official status during the fifteenth century. Politic
dealings with Poland, which ultimately led to a union during the sixteenth
century, also influenced the Belarusian language, in particular in the field of
vocabulary.
IV West Slavic
(cf. Auty 1980; Schenker 1980; Polański 1980)
In contrast to the South and East Slavic languages, which were significantly
influenced by the adoption of Orthodox Christianity, the West Slavic languages
differed to a greater extent from these due to their contact with the Western
Church. As a result the Latin alphabet was also preferred to Cyrillic or Glagolitic
scripts. West Slavic can be subdivided into three major groups. The earliest
written evidence of Sorbian or Wendish, spoken approximately between the rivers
Elbe and Oder, is dated to the sixteenth century, though the language itself is

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much older. The second group comprises both Czech, previously often referred to
as Bohemian, and Slovak, which hardly differed from one another until the end of
the medieval period. The Prague dialect came to be employed as a Czech stan-
dard, as seen, for example, in the many translations of biblical texts encountered
from the late thirteenth century onward. There is also evidence of some earlier
glosses and single words within various manuscripts. At the beginning of the
fifteenth century, the Latin alphabet used for Czech was modified in the work De
Orthographia Bohemica, possibly written by theologian Jan Hus, which used
diacritics in order to bring it closer to the actual pronunciation of the language
(Schröpfer, ed., 1968). Linguistic influence can be observed from Latin, in parti-
cular in the form of religious and administrative loans, as well as German due to
continuous commercial contacts, especially with the Slovaks as a result of settle-
ments within their region (Rudolf 1991). The final West Slavic group is known as
Lechitic and comprises several languages of which only Polish is attested during
the Middle Ages. Initially, Latin had been the only literary language in Poland,
and apart from some individual words within Latin manuscripts it is not until the
fourteenth century that we find a significant amount of texts in the vernacular,
beginning with the Holy Cross Sermons (Kortlandt and Schaeken, ed., 1998).
Besides Latin, close contact with Czech and German resulted in the adoption of
several loanwords from these languages.
F Baltic Languages
(cf. Fortson IV 2010, 414–45; Schmalstieg 1974; 1998)
The Baltic languages share several linguistic features with Slavic due to their
common ancestry, for which reason they are sometimes grouped together under
the name Balto-Slavic. The only language of the Baltic branch attested during
the Middle Ages is Old Prussian, though it was not the only one spoken at the
time. In fact, some personal names are known from Curonian, a language that
belongs to the East Baltic branch and thereby the same one that contains
Lithuanian and Latvian, the first texts of which appear during the sixteenth
century. West Baltic Old Prussian, which became extinct during the early eigh-
teenth century, is found only in translations from German, in particular three
catechisms and one vocabulary dated to the sixteenth century. But there is also
earlier evidence, such as the Elbing Vocabulary, which survives in a late medie-
val copy of a German-Old Prussian glossary compiled around 1300, and the
two-line Basel Epigram, which is dated to 1369 or slightly later. In fact, the first
reference to the Prussian people appears in a ninth-century geographical work

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written in Old Bavarian, where they are called “Bruzi” (Havlík, ed., 1969).
Linguistic influence by German occurred since the thirteenth century when the
Teutonic Order started conquering the Prussian territory along the Baltic coast,
approximately between the rivers Vistula and Neman, which resulted in the
adoption of several German loanwords (Smoczyński 2000). By the sixteenth
century, only the population of the Sambian peninsula was unfamiliar with
German, for which reason bilingual catechisms were printed. Old Prussian is
rather conservative and preserves several elements from Proto-Indo-European
which are not found in other Baltic languages.
G Greek
(cf. Browning 1983; Horrocks 1998; 2010)
At the beginning of the Middle Ages the Greek language already had a long
written tradition. Inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, which consists of 24 letters
adapted from the Phoenician script, are first attested during the eighth century
B.C.E. (Woodhead 1981). Influential works composed before the Middle Ages
include the classical literature of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. in the Attic
dialect of Athens as well as the New Testament written in the contemporary Koine
of the first century, which was also used by many early Church Fathers. Patristic
literature of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. shows some classical influence by
its inclusion of Attic elements within the Koine language. Politically the medieval
Greek period started with the rise of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire
during the fourth century and ended with the Ottoman conquest of the capital city
in 1453. During this time the Greek language is attested in three main varieties
which could also influence one another to certain degrees: writers drew either on
the classical Attic language or the early Christian Koine, or they used a later form
of the Koine which approximated the contemporary spoken vernacular. The
choice of a particular variant also depended on the respective textual genres and
the intended audience. During the early Middle Ages authors of historiographical
texts favoured the classical language in order to emphasize continuity and tradi-
tional learning, whereas hagiographies aimed at a wider audience and were
therefore written in the more popular Koine. The significance of the Attic variant
is demonstrated by its frequent use throughout the medieval period, for example
in the Alexiad, a twelfth-century biography of Emperor Aléxios I Komninós,
composed by his daughter Anna Komniní. The approximately contemporary verse
epic Diyenís Akrítis, on the other hand, contains many elements taken from
spoken language. However, it is not until about two centuries later that we find a

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Languages 825
larger amount of texts written in the vernacular, in particular romances, which

show Western European influence (Beaton 1996).
The Byzantine Empire came into contact with several languages during its
turbulent history. Early loans are mainly from Latin, mostly in the fields of politics
and everyday life. Slavic, Arabic and Turkish invasions as well as the temporary
loss of Constantinople to Italian and other Western European Crusaders during
the thirteenth century resulted in the adoption of loanwords from the respective
languages. However, Greek influence itself on other languages is probably much
greater due to the dominant role of the Orthodox Church within Eastern Europe
and the translation of many Greek texts in the newly converted countries. More-
over, the Greek alphabet was used as a basis for various scripts, in particular
Gothic, Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Armenian (see above, Sections C.III and E.I, and
below, Section H). Greek also had an impact on other parts of Europe and it could
be taught alongside Latin in church schools, as is shown by the example of
Canterbury and its Byzantine Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, who occupied this
office from 668–690 (Lapidge, ed., 1995).
H Armenian
(cf. Ajello 1998; Fortson IV 2010, 382–99; Godel 1975; Nersessian 1998)
Lying roughly south-east of the Black Sea and extending toward the Caspian Sea
the territory belonging to the Armenian people changed continuously during the
Middle Ages. Their language can be subdivided into classical Armenian, also
known as grabar (“literary”), and Middle Armenian, with the eleventh century
serving as the dividing line. The Armenian adoption of Christianity at the begin-
ning of the fourth century resulted in the need for biblical translations and other
Christian texts. For this purpose monk and theologian Mesrop Maštocʿ (ca. 360–
440) devised a specific alphabet, known as erkatʿagir (“iron letters”), which was
inspired by Greek and originally consisted of 36 letters before the addition of
another two in Middle Armenian. The fifth century saw several writers use this
alphabet, the most famous of whom is probably Eznik of Kolb, who criticised non-
Christian religions in his Ełc ałandocʿ (“Against the Sects”). Unfortunately, all
manuscripts from this period have been lost, though there are some fifth-century
stone inscriptions from Nazareth (Stone et al. 1996–1997). The earliest surviving
manuscript containing Armenian is dated to 862 and known as the Queen Mlkʿe
Gospel (Janashian 1966, 16–24). In contrast to classical Armenian, Middle Arme-
nian is attested in various dialects, the most significant of which was spoken in the
Kingdom of Cilicia existing from ca. 1080–1375 before it was conquered by the

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Mamluks (Boase 1978). Throughout the Middle Ages Armenian came into contact
with various languages which influenced its development. The most important one
is Greek, which in addition to some Syriac texts served as a basis for several
translations conducted during the classical period, which is particularly evident in
vocabulary and syntax. At the time Armenian had already adopted a large number
of Iranian loanwords as a result of Persian subjugation during the pre-Christian
period. The lack of dialectal varieties in classical Armenian suggests its intention
as a standard language, and it is indeed this form which is still employed in
liturgical use today. It is likely that it was increasingly confined to writing and that
by the end of the period it differed significantly from the spoken form. Several
features found in Middle Armenian may be ascribed to this linguistic divergence,
such as the increasing use of agglutination. Though this development may have
emerged independently it could have been reinforced by comparable structures
found in Turkish, as spoken, for example, by the Seljuks, who conquered large
parts of Armenia in the eleventh century (Kafesoğlu 1988). Seljuk influence may
account for several loanwords adopted from Arabic, their scholarly and religious
language, and Persian, which was used at court and for secular literature.
I Albanian
(cf. Demiraj 1998; Elsie 1991; Fortson IV 2010, 446–58)
Written evidence of Albanian does not appear until the very end of the Middle
Ages. However, the Latin Directorium ad Passagium Faciendum, which can be
dated to 1332, mentions the existence of books in the Albanian language using the
Latin alphabet (Elsie, trans., 2003, 28–30). None of these have survived and,
leaving aside a disputed text from the early fifteenth century (Elsie 1986), it is not
until 1462 that we find the first certain Albanian words in the Formula e pagëzimit,
a baptismal vow attested in a Latin letter written by Pal Engjëlli, archbishop of
Durrës. The short sentence in the vernacular suggests that it was intended for
those unfamiliar with Latin to understand the spoken process of baptism. There
are three more short texts from the later fifteenth century, namely a curse within a
Latin play, the anonymous Easter Gospel or Pericope, and a vocabulary compiled
by German traveller Arnold von Harff, before more substantial evidence started to
be printed in the post-medieval period. The dialectal subdivision into northern
Geg and southern Tosk, which still exists today, was already evident at the time,
with the river Shkumbin serving approximately as the dividing line. The Albanian
main territory along the south-eastern Adriatic coast and extending into the
Kosovo mountains was complemented by some later medieval settlements in

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Languages 827
southern Greece and Italy. As a former Roman province it is not surprising that
Albanian vocabulary contains many Latin elements, which must have been
adopted a very early stage, as is shown by later sound changes. Several morpho-
syntactic parallels to other Balkan languages, in particular Greek, Bulgarian and
Serbian, are probably the result of mutual influence on one another.
J Non-Indo-European Languages
I Semitic Languages
1 Hebrew and Aramaic
(cf. Glinert 1998; Katz 1998a; Sáenz-Badillos 1993)
Each Jewish community in medieval Europe employed at least three languages.

Depending on their regions of settlement the Jews generally adopted a form of the
local vernacular as their spoken language. It could also be used for specific
writings, generally in the Hebrew alphabet, and appeared predominantly in secu-
lar contexts, but later also for other purposes. Among the most prominent varieties
are Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-Arabic, all of which incorporate lin-
guistic elements from Hebrew and Aramaic and also show regional variation. A
special case is Yiddish, which developed from a dialect of Old High German into a
language in its own right (see above, Section C.I.7). Besides such vernaculars the
traditional languages Hebrew and Aramaic continued to be used but were mostly
restricted to written contexts. Their alphabets are closely related to one another
and consist of 22 consonant symbols each. Though Hebrew and Aramaic were not
used for spoken communication, texts in these languages could be recited. There
were significant differences in the pronunciation of Hebrew texts between the
Sephardi Jews of the Iberian peninsula and the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern
Europe. The pronunciation of Sephardi Hebrew as well as its grammar is described
by some Jewish scholars, for example Judah ben David Hayyuj, who lived in
Córdoba during the tenth century. In particular, Muslim Spain played an important
role in the creation of Hebrew texts. Many liturgical poems, known as piyyutim,
were composed and there were also several philosophical and scientific works,
often translated from Arabic. One particularly important text is the Mishneh Torah,
a religious law code written by Córdoban scholar Moses ben-Maimon, also known
as Maimonides, during the twelfth century. Hebrew literature also flourished in
non-Muslim countries. We find Hebrew liturgical poetry in Italy from the ninth
century onward and subsequently various prose and verse texts in this language

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throughout Christian Europe, for example a large amount of biblical commen-

taries. In fact, Hebrew may be regarded as a lingua franca of the Jewish commu-
nities. A similar case can be made for Aramaic, but in contrast to Hebrew, Aramaic
was used mostly for Talmudic and Kabbalistic writings, such as the Zohar, which
survives in a copy from thirteenth-century Spain. Linguistic influence on Hebrew
and Aramaic texts can generally be observed from the vernacular languages of the
respective regions of composition. Arabic occupies a special position in that it not
only provided several loanwords for Sephardi Hebrew but also influenced its meter
and grammar. Also noteworthy is the frequent formation of new words involving
native Hebrew morphemes in order to express certain philosophical concepts.
2 Arabic
(cf. Agius 1996; Corriente 1997; Price 1998a)
The Arabic language first appeared in Europe when the Muslims started conquer-
ing the main part of the Iberian peninsula from the south in 711. The variant
spoken in the regions belonging to Al-Andalus is known as Andalusi Arabic and
was used at least until the end of Arab rule in 1492. Though the official language
was close to classical Arabic, there are several texts which incorporate more
informal elements, for example collections of proverbs or the zajal poems com-
posed by Ibn Quzmān, who died in 1160 (Buturovic 2000). These provide an idea
of the spoken language, which shows some influence from Romance, in particular
on a lexical level and in the introduction of new phonemes and suffixes (Corriente
1992). The script of Andalusi Arabic is generally Arabic though some texts written
in the separate Judaeo-Arabic variety employ the Hebrew alphabet (Blau 1999).
Arabic was also employed by some Jewish communities in the Muslim regions.
There were several dialects of Judeo-Arabic, all of which were written in a Hebrew
script and show some lexical influence from Aramaic and Hebrew. Another
variant of Arabic is called Siculo Arabic, which was spoken in Sicily from 827
onward when the Arabs started occupying large parts of the island. Despite Roger
the Norman’s conquest in 1091 Arabic continued to be employed as an official
language alongside Latin and Greek, which had been used on the island since
Byzantine times. The existence of three literary languages in Sicily at the time is
illustrated, for example, in the Trilingual Psalter from Palermo, which was written
slightly before 1153 and contains copies of the psalms in all three languages in
their respective scripts (Pattie 1995, 46–47). However, during the following dec-
ades the importance of Arabic declined and both the written and the spoken form
gradually ceased to be used. In contrast to Andalusi Arabic, it is difficult to point

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out linguistic characteristics of the Siculo Arabic vernacular due to the formal
nature of the surviving material, which incorporates some Latin and Greek loan-
words but otherwise resembles classical Arabic.
3 Maltese
(cf. Borg and Azzopardi-Alexander 1997; Cremona 1998)
There is only one known medieval text in the Maltese language, namely a 20-line
poem by philosopher Peter Caxaro called Cantilena, which is written in Latin
script (Wettinger and Fsadni 1968). The text is dated to the 1470s, though it is
extant only in a sixteenth-century copy. The language is derived from Arabic,
which had reached Malta in 870 as a result of the Arab conquest, and is closely
related to the variant used in Sicily. Earlier languages spoken on the island
include Greek, as it had been part of the Byzantine Empire since 535. Though
there is some evidence of classical Arabic being used in Malta since the invasion,
as is shown in some twelfth-century epitaphs, it probably differed from the
spoken form, which eventually developed into Maltese. Arab rule ended in 1090
when Roger the Norman invaded Malta, but initially Arabic continued to be used
even in official documents. However, gradually first Latin and subsequently also
Italian in its Sicilian variant became the literary languages of Malta, though the
vernacular was hardly affected by these developments. In fact, the Cantilena
contains merely one Romance loanword with the rest consisting of Arabic ele-
ments. The large amount of Italian loanwords found in modern Maltese is of post-
medieval origin, while its grammar hardly shows any foreign influence.
II Finno-Ugric Languages
1 Hungarian
(cf. Abandolo 1998; Bellér-Hann 1998a; Imre 1988)
During the ninth century Europe was under frequent attack by the Magyars
coming from the Ural mountains, who eventually started settling in the Car-
pathian Basin from 895 onward (Róna-Tas 1999). The name of their language,
Hungarian, may be derived from Turkic on-ogur (“ten arrows”), which denoted an
alliance of tribes including the Magyars found in the northern Caucasus region
during the early Middle Ages. Hungarian belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the

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Uralic language family, which also includes the Finnic and Permic languages.
The language stage of the medieval period is generally referred to as Old Hungar-
ian. Before the Latin alphabet was adopted as a result of the conversion of
Hungary to Christianity in the year 1000 a specific script called rovás (“carve”)
was used, which resembles runes but is derived from an Old Turkic script. Though
initially found only in some brief inscriptions, it continued to be used in vernacu-
lar contexts for several centuries. The entire alphabet is reproduced in hand-
writing at the end of a book from Nikolsburg printed in 1483 (Jakubovich 1935). As
Latin was the official language of Hungary since the Christianization most early
vernacular evidence is found within Latin manuscripts, such as the founding
charter of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany, which is dated to 1055 (Bárczi 1951). It
is not until 1192 that we find a longer Hungarian text, namely the Halotti beszéd és
könyörgés (“Funeral sermon and prayer”), which is regarded as the first coherent
text in any Finno-Ugric language (Ruspanti 1980). The later Middle Ages saw the
foundation of the first Hungarian university at Pécs in 1367 and the appearance of
several texts in the vernacular. These are mostly of a religious nature, culminating
in the translation of the Hussite Bible by Prague students Tamás Pécsi and Bálint
Úljaki during the 1420s and 1430s. Before the Magyar invasion of Europe frequent
contact with Turkic peoples resulted in several early borrowings from their
language. Significant languages which influenced Hungarian afterwards are
Latin, Slavic and German, especially in religious and political fields.
2 Finnic Languages
(cf. Hakulinen 1961; Kurman 1968; Suhonen 1988; Viitso 1998)
The Finnic group comprises a number of languages spoken around the Baltic Sea
which are very poorly attested throughout the Middle Ages. Old folk tales like the
Finnish Kalevala were transmitted only orally and not written down until much
later (DuBois 1995). The earliest piece of evidence is a three-line charm inscribed
on a piece of bark which is known as Novgorod Birchbark Document no. 292 and
can be dated to the early thirteenth century (Vermeer 1991). It belongs to the
Karelian language and is written in a Cyrillic script, which suggests scribal
influence from the Russian recension of Church Slavonic. Linguistically it is
closely related to Finnish, of which only two sentences found in a German travel
book dated to the middle of the fifteenth century are attested from the medieval
period (Wulf 1982). The Finnish language was not written down more extensively
until the sixteenth century when Mikael Agricola, bishop of Turku, started trans-
lating religious literature in a specifically devised orthography (Lehtimäki 1986).

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Similarly, there is very few written evidence of the Estonian language before the
sixteenth century when the first Christian texts started to appear. In fact, only
some isolated names and words appear in Medieval Latin literature, in particular
the Chronicon written by German missionary Henry of Livonia during the early
thirteenth century (Henricus Lettus 2004). The Northern Crusades, in which
Swedes, Danes and Germans started invading the Baltic region during the late
twelfth century (Christiansen 1997), had both political and linguistic conse-
quences. In particular Swedish, which became the language of government in
Finland, has had a large influence on Finnish and is still recognised as an official
language there today. There are also many loanwords from Low German, espe-
cially in Estonian due to Hanseatic trading relations (Hinderling 1981).
3 Komi
(cf. Greller 1998; Hausenberg 1998)
Komi is the only language of the Permic branch of Finno-Ugric with any medieval
documentation. It is found in the regions around the Vychgeda and Kama rivers
in what is now the north-eastern part of European Russia. The ancestor of the
largest modern Komi dialect, namely Zyrian, is attested in some fragmentary
religious texts dated to the fourteenth century. They are written in a specifically
devised script called abur, which combines Greek and Cyrillic elements with
native Komi marks. The invention of this alphabet can be ascribed to Russian
missionary Stefan Khrap, who brought Christianity to the Komi and became
bishop of Perm in 1383 (Ferguson 1967). The process of using the native language
for conversion purposes is remarkable as in many other cases mentioned above
Christianity initially prevented the development of a native literature. The surviv-
ing texts are mostly copies of translations conducted by Stefan himself and are in
a standard which may be called Old Permian. After the sixteenth century this
tradition declined and Church Slavonic gained more importance in religious
writings with the Cyrillic script replacing abur also for native texts.
III Georgian
(cf. Hewitt 1998; Rayfield 2010)
Out of the four Kartvelian or South Caucasian languages only Georgian is attested
during the Middle Ages. It was spoken in the regions between the Black Sea and

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the Caspian Sea known to the Romans as Colchis and Iberia, which became the
Kingdom of Georgia in the early eleventh century. The language stage of the fifth
to the eleventh centuries is usually referred to as Old Georgian, whereas Medieval
Georgian developed in the twelfth century and lasted until the eighteenth century.
This division has political and literary rather than linguistic reasons since it
coincides with the beginning of the so-called “Golden Age” under the rule of
Queen Tamar in 1184 and the composition of the national epic Vepkhistqaosani
(“The Knight in the Panther Skin”) by poet Shota Rustaveli in her honor. The
earliest Georgian inscriptions, which are found on churches, are dated to the fifth
century and appear as a result of the Christianization, probably in the 330s. For
this purpose, a specific alphabet called mrgvlovani (“rounded”) or asomtavruli
(“majuscule”) was created, which consists of 38 letters and has been connected
with Mesrop Maštocʿ, inventor of the Armenian alphabet (see above, Section H). A
second script called k’utxovani (“angular”) or nusxuri (“minuscule”) was intro-
duced during the ninth century, though letters of the earlier alphabet were
retained in the function of capitals. There are a large number of Georgian texts,
which initially are mostly religious in nature, such as the earliest known example,
namely The Passion of Queen Saint Shushanik, which was composed in the late
fifth century, but survives only in a much later manuscript. In the eleventh
century a third script called mxedruli (“military”) was devised to be used for the
increasing amount of secular literature, such as the Vepkhistqaosani, whereas a
combination of the two earlier scripts called xucuri (“ecclesiastical”) was favoured
for religious texts. Linguistic influence on Georgian is mostly from Greek due to
the frequent translation of literature written in this language, but there are also
several Persian elements, which were partly adopted through the medium of
Armenian, but are also evidence of close contact between these peoples (Gippert
1992).
IV Turkish
(cf. Andrews 1976; Bellér-Hann 1998b; Kerslake 1998)
The Turkish language first appeared in Europe during the eleventh century when
the Seljuks invaded Armenia, Georgia and the Anatolian part of the Byzantine
Empire (Kafesoğlu 1988). However, it was not a written language at the time, since
Persian was their official court language and Arabic was used for scholarly and
religious purposes, for which reason we can talk of a trilingual society. It was not
until the late thirteenth century that Turkish gained its status as an administrative
and literary language as a result of the end of Seljuk rule and the subsequent rise

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of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the
Turkic language family; the medieval form attested between the thirteenth and
fifteenth century is called Old Ottoman. Its script is derived from Arabic and was
in use until 1928, though beginning with the sixteenth century several texts were
also transcribed in the Latin alphabet. Due to the initially low status of the
Turkish vernacular many texts reflect much older stories previously told only
orally, such as the epic poems contained in the Book of Dede Korkut, which was
first written down during the fifteenth century (Nerimanoğlu 1999). Foreign
linguistic influence on such Turkish folk literature is not as strong as in the poems
written in the Persian divan style, which besides Persian meter also incorporated
many Persian and Arabic loanwords. In fact, during the fifteenth century, the
Persian and Arabic influence on the Turkish literary language grew significantly
due to the Ottoman recognition of their high linguistic status in the Islamic world.
This development can also be observed in the adoption of several morphological
and syntactic structures and is one of the features which led to the beginning of
the Middle Ottoman period during the fifteenth century. The spoken language, on
the other hand, remained relatively unaffected by Persian and Arabic, which
increased the gap between these varieties.
V Basque
(cf. Redknap 1998; Trask 1997)
Though Basque is significantly older, there is hardly any linguistic evidence that
is dated earlier than the sixteenth century. This lack of documentation may be
ascribed to the continuous political instability and the supremacy of Romance
languages for official purposes within the Basque regions during the Middle Ages.
With some minor variation these lay approximately between the rivers Ebro and
Garonne in what is now northern Spain and south-western France, as is con-
firmed by the evidence of place names. The Romans called the tribes in this
territory Vascones and Aquitani, who spoke dialects of a language which cannot
be attributed to any Indo-European language family. As it has no certain relatives
facilitating its classification it probably represents a Pre-Indo-European language
spoken by early settlers within these areas. The oldest instances of medieval
Basque consist of only a few words, as found, for example, in the Glosas Emilia-
nenses, which are dated to the eleventh century and comprise both Basque and
Spanish (Navarro-Aragonese) marginalia within a Latin manuscript (Wolf 1991;
see above, Section B.VI). Some words appear also in Latin charters and vocabu-
lary lists. It is not until the late fourteenth century that we find a slightly longer

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text on a partly damaged manuscript page, namely a prayer or charm consisting

of eight lines (Gifford 1964). Foreign influence on Basque is predominantly from
Romance languages, both from Latin and later vernaculars, which is hardly
surprising given the amount of contact between the respective speakers. Romance
elements are found mostly within the Basque lexicon, but there are also some
phonological and grammatical features (Michelena 1995).
VI Pictish
(cf. Forsyth 1998; Price 2000c)
A language which has been associated with the Brythonic branch of the Celtic
language family (see above, Section D.I) is Pictish, which was spoken approxi-
mately between the rivers Forth and Clyde and the Cromarty Firth in the north-
east of Scotland, but became extinct during the ninth century. Only a few isolated
place and personal names as well as some stone inscriptions, mostly in the ogam
script, have survived. Since the linguistic status of Pictish is uncertain it has not
been included in the section on Celtic languages; like Basque, it might as well be
a Pre-Indo-European language (see above, Section J.V).
K Conclusion
The previous sections have shown that a large number of languages existed
during the Middle Ages; however, their degree of attestation may vary consider-
ably. In some cases written evidence may appear only toward the end of the
medieval period, such as Albanian or Maltese, or even later than that. There are
also languages of which only individual words are attested, mostly in the form of
personal or place names, and which became extinct during the Middle Ages, such
as Burgundian or Pictish. In many cases the oldest evidence of vernacular
languages consists merely of single words or brief passages, either in an early
script on stones or artefacts, such as Germanic runes or Irish ogam, or in the form
of glosses to Latin manuscripts. In fact, literacy was generally promoted through-
out Europe as a result of missionary activities and the necessary distribution of
Christian texts, which were initially written mostly in Latin or Greek. It is also for
this reason that the development of written vernacular literatures was often
delayed, moreover since Latin also came to be employed in official functions
throughout Western Europe, where it even achieved the status of a lingua franca.
Other medieval linguae francae were Hebrew and Aramaic within the Jewish

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Languages 835
communities and Low German in the Hanseatic trading regions around the Baltic
Sea. The status of Latin in Western Europe was only gradually superseded by
individual vernacular languages, which were generally written in the Latin alpha-
bet. Adaptations of the Greek alphabet can be observed mainly in Eastern Europe,
as seen, for example, in the Cyrillic or Gothic scripts. In the Slavic countries Old
Church Slavonic became the main literary language, which continued to be used
for religious purposes even after the emergence of vernacular texts. Generally, the
vernacular languages were heavily influenced by religious texts, which is often
evident in loanwords, loan formations, semantic loans and also syntactic con-
structions. But linguistic impact of one language on another one can also be
ascribed to other reasons, such as the translation of further literary genres,
conquest, trading relations or other forms of interaction between two popula-
tions. The type of contact is generally also reflected in the semantic nature of the
respective loanwords. Unfortunately, as mentioned at the beginning of this sur-
vey, it is not possible to give an exhaustive picture of the languages used in
medieval Europe, though the extant written evidence at least provides some idea
of what the linguistic situation at the time probably looked like.
Select Bibliography
Ball, Martin J. and Nicole Müller, ed., The Celtic Languages, 2nd ed. (1993; London and New York
2009).
Brown, Keith and Sarah Ogilvie, ed., Concise Encyclopedia of the Languages of the World (Oxford
2009).
Comrie, Bernard and Greville G. Corbett, ed., The Slavonic Languages (London 1993).
Fortson IV, Benjamin W., Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (2004;
Oxford 2010).
Harris, Martin and Nigel Vincent, ed., The Romance Languages (Oxford 1988).
König, Ekkehard and Johan van der Auwera, ed., The Germanic Languages (London and New York
1994).
Price, Glanville, ed., Languages in Britain and Ireland (Oxford 2000).
Price, Glanville, ed., Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe (Oxford 1998).
Ramat, Anna G. and Paolo Ramat, ed., The Indo-European Languages (London and New York
1998).
Robinson, Orrin W., Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic
Languages (London 1992).
Schenker, Alexander M., The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology (New Haven, CT,
and London 1995).
Schenker, Alexander M. and Edward Stankiewicz, ed., The Slavic Literary Languages: Formation
and Development (New Haven, CT, 1980).
Wolff, Philippe, Western Languages AD 100–1500, trans. Frances Partridge (London 1971).

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Scott L. Taylor
Law in Literature and Society

Reflections
The peculiar problem of law in the Middle Ages is the issue of law within stateless
societies. With the collapse of the Roman empire in the West, legal subjectivity
already present to some degree in the lex Romana, degenerated into the rampant
legal pluralism lamented by Agobard of Lyons (ca. 769–ca. 840). Even in the High
Middle Ages, when territorial states had begun to emerge, they were not states in
the modern sense of possessing sovereignty, the monopoly on the legitimate use
of force, but continued to share jurisdiction with the church and multifarious
lesser bailiwicks such as aristocratic feudatories and communes. As a conse-
quence, various theocratic, hierocratic and feudal theories persisted throughout
the medieval epoch.
The paucity of early medieval political theory and the diversity of later
medieval theory undoubtedly contributed significantly, aside from contemporary
cultural concerns, to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century efforts to
dichotomize medieval political thought, and given the legal emphasis, juristic
thought as well, into descending versus ascending, corporate versus individual,
Romanist Herrschafts- versus Germanic genossenschaftliche theories of authority,
and hence, the font of law (von Gierke 1868–1881; Ullman 1949). Although
elements of such dichotomies can certainly be found in the writings and practice
of the Middle Ages, perhaps a more significant dichotomy was that between
parochialism and pretensions to universalism. The latter naturally appealed to a
clergy dedicated to the presumption of a single Christendom, though that theory
would be sorely pressed by the great East-West schism of the eleventh century.
Discrete communities were frequently dedicated to the customary laws of their
gentes, both because of familiarity and identity. More often than not, it would be
monarchs as successors to the barbarian communities who were confronted with
the difficulty of combatting both an inefficient parochialism inhibiting legal
innovation on one hand, and an unwanted universalism subjecting them to
foreign authority on the other. Many, whose predecessors had been resistant
initially to Roman law and anxious to establish their own independent legal
status in the early Middle Ages, by the High Middle Ages would adopt Roman law
as an antidote to legal pluralism within their emerging states, sometimes under
the guise of instituting another form of antiqua consuetudo.

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Law in Literature and Society 837
Of course, such discussions introduce the issue of the extent to which law
represents a closed system. Legal functionalists such as Maitland (Pollock and
Maitland 1898) and Milsom (1981) rejected the tendency of historical jurispru-
dence to treat law formalistically, emphasizing theory over praxis, and insisted
instead in examining law, and in particular legal innovation, as a response to
problems and forces within society, and therefore comprehensible only within its
social, economic and political context. Implicit within such concerns is the notion
of “primacy of law,” the idea that in important respects, law preceded and
legitimized government, rather than vice versa, a concept easily harmonized with
Genossenschaftsrecht.
B Legacy of Antiquity: Myth and Reality of the

Common Law
There are two reasons for the fundamental import of Roman law to European law
generally. The first was the practical reality that although barbarian law existed,
it was not to be codified in any sense until after the conversions, and then by
clerics whose only legal knowledge consisted of whatever familiarity they had
with the Roman civil law. The second was the Eusebian vision of a Christian
Roman Empire as God’s providential plan for the regnum Christi through the
person of the emperor. This view would predominate in the writings of Ambrose
of Milan (ca. 334/40–397), who continued to equate pax Augusta with pax Christi.
Despite his conflicts with Valentinian (321–375) and Theodosius I (ca. 346–395),
most notably disciplining the latter as filius ecclesiae, Ambrose’s end was the final
triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, as described twenty years later in
the Contra Symmachum of Prudentius (ca. 348–404/410). If this were not clear
enough from his episcopal actions, his clerical enchiridion, De officiis ministror-
um, modeled after Cicero’s De officiis, manifests clearly Ambrose’s equation of the
classical res publica with the Corpus Christi, the congregatio fidelis: indeed, the
bona fides Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.) described as the very foundation of justice,
Ambrose turns to faith in Christ. Along these same lines, the commentaries on the
Pauline epistles attributed to Ambrosiaster (fl. ca. 380) are notable for their
attribution of political authority to divine and natural law, the latter already
losing some of its stoic character in favor of an increased Biblicism, and the
insistence on the emperor as God’s earthly vicar. Ambrosiaster also equates rule
with the image of God, the emperor being most possessed of this quality, woman,
lacking rule altogether, being totally devoid of the image of God. Leo the Great
(ca. 400–461) in mid–fifth century took for granted the equation of plebs romana

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838 Scott L. Taylor
and plebs Dei, characterizing Peter and Paul as the Romulus and Remus of a
Roman palingenesis. The issue addressed by the predecessors of Gelasius I (pope
492–496), therefore, was the proper distribution of power and authority within a
Christian Rome. Gelasius’ famously ambiguous sententia, Duo est, in its definition
of the spheres of auctoritas sacrata pontificum and regalis potestas, while directed
at disabusing the notion of sacral kingship, left open to future debate whether
these two powers were separate and complimentary, or whether the secular was
subordinate to the clerical. In either case, all these authors presupposed a single
political–religious structure, governed according to the lex Romana.
Central to medieval law, indeed, European law generally, was the great
compilation of Roman law ordered by Justinian (482–565), which would be
dubbed by early publishers the Corpus Juris Civilis, and not uncommonly referred
to as the “ius commune” on the argument that it was common to all the peoples
once within the old Roman Empire, and when so used includes as well the canon
law, and is occasionally called the “civilis sapientia,” since legists considered the
Corpus to represent the epitome of reason in civil governance (Cortese 1962–1964;
Bellomo 1989). The Corpus is divided into the Code itself, consisting of twelve
books subdivided into titles, and comprising Imperial decrees originally judicial
in nature, but ultimately becoming more quasi-legislative in character toward the
later Empire; the Digest or Pandects, made up of fragments from the jurists and
arranged topically, divided into fifty books, subdivided into titles, and further
subdivided into sections frequently referred to by their numbered fragments,
usually designated laws (leges), or the unnumbered prefatory text, called the
principium; the Institutes, essentially a text book of legal principles, and the only
monolingually Latin portion of the Codex, similarly divided into titles and sub-
divided further into a principium and numbered “leges” often cited by incipit, or
opening words; and the Novellae, the only part of the collection that remained
open, and which originally had 168 laws promulgated between 535 and 545. In
the Middle Ages, this latter portion was known through unofficial collections of
134 laws, referred to as the Authenticum, or by the Latin High Middle Ages, 96 of
those laws, divided into nine collations; or alternatively, the collection of 122
constitutions, called the Epitome of Julian.
However, in truth, much of the West had never been subject to Justinian and
his collations, and Italy itself was made subject to its provisions only by reason of
Justinian’s decree of 554 following the reconquest from the Ostrogoths. The latter
had deliberately continued Roman law in its earlier presentation, and in Southern
France, it was continued in the “Roman Law of the Visigoths,” or Alaric’s Breviary,
based upon the earlier Theodosian Code, and the Institutes of Gaius, as well as
other anthologies. Within a few years of Justinian’s death, much of northern Italy
would be overrun by the Lombards, including the Benevento, Lombardy itself,

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whose capital was Pavia, and Tuscany, including Florence, Pisa, and Siena, and
in these areas Lombard law would predominate, though by 1000, Lombard law
would be generally taught, practiced, and interpreted through Romanist princi-
ples. The remaining areas, including Rome itself and Ravenna, maintained an
unbroken legacy of courts and bar in which the Institutes, the first nine books of
the Code, together with Julian’s Epitome were known and regarded as authorita-
tive. The last three books of the Code together with the entire Digest would be
forgotten until the late eleventh century.
In the area of ecclesiastic law, collections such as the Didache, or Doctrine of
the Twelve Apostles, began to emerge as early as the end of the first century.
Sometimes, these works appeared in the guise of apocalyptic visions, such as the
second–century Shepherd of Hermas. Others, such as the third–century Traditio
apostolica ascribed to Hippolytus (ca. 170/75–ca. 235), are largely devoted to
liturgy; while the expanded Didascalia apostolorum appends material on treat-
ment of widows and orphans, Jewish-Christian relations, and rules for fasting and
penance (Gaudemet 1985). With the accession of Constantine (ca. 285–337) and
the end of the persecutions, the role of law within the Church was transformed. In
particular, church councils became a more frequent aspect of ecclesiastic govern-
ance, and the decrees and canons of the councils became the major source of
canon law. At the same time, being essentially incorporated into the imperial
bureaucracy, the church inevitably became more hierarchical in structure, and by
381 when the First Council of Constantinople recognized the pentarchy of Alexan-
dria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, had reached the organiza-
tion of patriarch, metropolitan, bishop and priest that dominated medieval men-
tality. During this period also arose the earliest claims of Petrine supremacy, and
decretals of the bishops of Rome, which began to appear with greater regularity
in canonical collections such as the Dionysiana and the Hispana, the latter
appearing successively as the Collectio hispana chronologica and the Collectio
hispana systematica. Finally, from Constantine forward, the emperors specifically
recognized the jurisdiction of bishops over issues involving doctrine and morals.
The audientia episcopalis hence had the status of public courts.
C Early Middle Ages: Juristic Syncretism and

Pluralism
While Roman law by the later imperial period had come to be viewed as a product,
inter alia, of a legis lator, the emperor himself, who since he bore the law, could in
some sense be viewed as legibus solutus, the successor Germanic kingdoms of the

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840 Scott L. Taylor
West emphasized the character of law as the immemorial custom of a people. As a

result, law was generally regarded as personal, rather than territorial: regardless
of location, Burgundians were subject to Burgundian law, Romans to Roman law,
etc. And in particular, everywhere as provided by the laws of the Ripuarian
Franks, ecclesia vivit lege Romana. As elsewhere in the West, lex Romana meant
primarily the Theodosian Code, with its novella and its anonymous interpretatio,
which was cited by canonists until recovery of the codex Justinianus during the
crisis over investiture, when, as suggested by Walters’s research (1993), reception
of the new text was embraced almost immediately and exclusively.
The primary function of a king was to uphold the applicable custom, not
displace it with new law: the law is “discovered,” not made. Late in the fifth
century, kings began to publish written versions of these laws, beginning with the
Visigoths and the Burgundian laws of King Gundobald (r. ca. 480–516). Should
circumstances necessitate a modification of or addendum to the received body of
law, such revisions were subject to the consent of the community, typically
speaking through some form of council or Witengemote, and in principal, whose
approval was to be reinforced by popular acceptance, either manifest as by
Lombard custom reflected in the mid-seventh-century Edict of Rothari; by agree-
ment of local magistrates to enforce them, as with the Carolingian scabinei; or
merely tacitly, as seems to be envisioned in the Edictum Pistense of 864. Lacking
both advisors with sufficient technical expertise and a bureaucracy to apply
enactments at the local level, royal legal innovation was largely restricted to ad
hoc judgments or particular privileges, highlighting the extraordinary nature of
the extensive Carolingian capitularies or the legislative traditions of the Anglo-
Saxon kings.
Not surprisingly, although a number of the Germanic kingdoms were initially
hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the Visigothic and Ostrogothic
regimes, the Goths having initially adopted Arianism, once converted to the
Roman faith, despite a desire to retain power within the warrior elite, the redac-
tion of laws fell to clerics as the literate apparatchiki of the once barbarian realms,
accounting for their memorialization in Latin and the privileges and immunities
frequently extended to the clergy and ecclesiastic property (W attenbach and
Levison 1952–1957; King 1972). As a consequence, it is difficult to determine what
portion of these laws represents preliterate German mos, and what is simply
Roman accretion (Wormwald 1977). There is good reason to believe that the
portions of the “barbarian” codes dealing with personal injury tariffs are reflec-
tive of earlier Germanic custom, since indicative of a private law mentality
uncharacteristic of Roman law (Wormwald 2003; Oliver 2011).
Meanwhile, church governance and canon law generally followed the same
pattern as civil governance in the wake of the collapse of imperial authority.

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Monasteries had traditionally viewed themselves as self–governing communities,

eschewing by in large both episcopal and royal authority. The secular clergy
adopted practices particular to their bailiwicks, with local councils and synods
assuming the principle role in generating canons and rules, while at the same
time the power of metropolitans waxed against Rome, but waned against Chris-
tian kings who as self-styled protectors of the Church, undertook to preside over
synods, fill clerical vacancies, persecute heretics and enforce Christian morality,
leaving bishops as little more than arbiters of clerical behavior and disputes.
During this period, then, in addition to synodal adoptions, a primary source of
law for the faithful was the spate of penitentials that began to appear in the
middle of the sixth century. Another new source of law was the compendium now
known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. Attributed to “Isidore Mercator,” it
contained a vast number of legitimate canons and papal letters interspersed with
fraudulent canonical material, apparently in an effort to boost episcopal and
papal authority in the archdiocese of Reims sometime in the ninth century. It
became one of the most pervasive canonical collections of the middle ages,
genuine and fraudulent canon being copied and disseminated indiscriminately
until the forgery was unmasked in the sixteenth century by a protestant clergy-
man (Fuhrmann 1972–1974). A legitimate collection was also compiled in 774 by
Pope Adrian I (d. 795) at the request of Charlemagne (ca. 742–814), who directed
that the new Hadriana, essentially a revision of the older Dionysiana, would along
with the Hispana serve as the fundamental legal authority in the bishops’ courts
throughout the realm. The Carolingians likewise issued capitularies for church
reform and discipline, many of which found their way into subsequent canonical
collections.
The radical decentralization of power characterizing the ninth and tenth
centuries for the church marked the zenith of the Eigenkirchentum, whose practi-
cal realities required new collections, the most significant being the two books of
Abbot Regino of Prüm (d. 915), the Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis
ecclesiasticis, and the early eleventh-century Decretum of Burchard of Worms (ca.
965–1025), in twenty books, the last two of which were circulated separately
under the titles the Corrector and the Speculator (1931–1932; Fournier and Le Bras
1972).
D The Reform Papacy and the Legal Palingenesis

The degeneration of clerical discipline frequently characterizing the Eigenkirchen-
tum early drew resistance from such establishments as the Burgundian monastery
of Cluny, whose reforming zeal attracted not only clerical attention, but by the

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eleventh century, the support of like-minded monarchs such as Otto III (980–
1002) and Henry III (1017–1056), the latter appointing Bruno of Toul as Pope
Leo IX (d. 1054) in 1048, who brought with him such luminaries as Frederick of
Lorraine (Stephen IX) (d. 1058), Humbert of Moyenmoutier (1000–1061), and
Hildebrand (Gregory VII) (ca. 1030–1085). For these men, law was a principal tool
of reform, and, as James A. Brundage (1995) points out, they identified four
tactical objectives: (1) the compilation of fresh collections of law demonstrating
the ancient foundations of their reform efforts; (2) the creation of new laws filling
lacunae in the existing corpus; (3) the development of procedural mechanisms;
and (4) the institution of more efficient means of detection and prosecution of
offenders. With regard to the former, a number of new collections appeared in the
late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, including the Collectio canonum of
Anselm II of Lucca (1036–1086), the collected canons of Cardinal Deusdedit (ca.
1040–1100), and the anonymous Collection in Seventy-Four Titles. The ambitious
reformer, Ivo of Chartres (ca. 1040–1115), compiled a vast compendium entitled
the Decretum, as well as the more compact Panormia. Ivo has also been credited,
however doubtfully, with the Collectio tripartita. As to new law, the reform papacy
immediately began the issuance of new canons, reaching a crescendo during the
reigns of Gregory VII (ca. 1020–1085) and Urban II (1042–1099). The mechanisms
available to the reforming popes were somewhat limited. By tradition, the multi–
purpose synod acted as necessary in the role of a court. Less unwieldy, and used
increasingly, was the papal legate, who could serve variously as judge, prosecu-
tor and/or investigator. On the local level, episcopal visitations were the primary
tool for detection and correction of irregularities, but were frustrated by various
claims of exemption.
The search for precedent justifying the reforms impelled Gregory VII to
appoint commissioners to comb the libraries of Italy for legal ammunition in his
efforts to combat lay investiture in particular. It is probable that copies of the
Digest were discovered during this quest. Doubtless, the Pandects remained
undiscovered in the seventh decade of the eleventh century, but was cited in a
Tuscan judgment of 1076. It is certain that the papal agents uncovered the
Authenticum. The uncovering of the Codex Iustinianus, however, hardly signified
its comprehension. According to Radulfus Niger, writing in his Moralis Regum, ca.
1189, a certain Peppone (or Pepo) (d. ca. 1100) was the rising dawn of the civil
law renaissance subsequently propagated by Irnerius (Warnerius, Guarnerius)
(d. 1130). The latter seems to have been self-taught, beginning ca. 1100 to copy
and edit the lost Codex Secundus, variously called the Littera Bononiensis or
Vulgata, in distinction to the surviving Littera Pisana, referred to as the Florentina
since its capture in 1406. The Codex S. apparently already had the Greek of Book
29 translated: the remainder was either omitted or still in Greek, and Irnerius did

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not know them, or those in the Code. He interpolated passages from the Authenti-
cum into the Code in places where they would have been included had they not
been novellae. Of the Authenticum, he included only 97 “constitutions” as he
denominated them. These he grouped into nine “Collations.” The whole of the
corpus he divided into five volumes: The Digest, divided into the Old Digest, the
Infortiatum and the New Digest; the fourth volume, consisting of the first nine
books of the Code; and the Parvum Volumen, containing the Institutes, the
Authenticum and eventually the last Tres Libri of the Code. The Greek passages
were eventually translated by Burgundio (fl. 1150) from the Littera Pisana, but the
Bolognese canon left lacunae until the Renaissance, with the exception of some
older manuscripts which copied them in Greek. His teaching, if any, seems to
have been limited to the Four Doctors, Bulgarus Bolgarini (d. 1166/67), Martin
Gosia (ca. 1100–ca. 1166), Ugo da Porte Ravennata (d. 1171), and Jacobus (d. 1178),
and that largely as a matter of tradition. It is with this generation, ending with the
death of Jacobus in 1178, five years before the Peace of Constance, that the law
school at Bologna began. Concentrating on the academic study of the Codex
Justinianus, with practical training limited largely to the moot court, the proceed-
ings of which were sometimes reported by students under the rubric Questiones
Disputate, to be distinguished from the Questiones Dominorum, frequently more
aptly entitled Dissensiones Dominorum, the majority of which were between
Bulgarus and Martin, whose disagreements included not least the former’s devo-
tion to strict law, the latter’s critical tendencies which earned him, and subse-
quent adherents known as “Gosians,” including in the third generation Roger
(d. ca. 1170) and Placentine (d. 1192), a reputation as champions of equity. In
addition to their teaching, the Four Doctors left glosses and distinctions, as well
as apparatus, collections of glosses in the order of the text, but omitting the text
itself, occasional summule, commentaries on the subject of a whole Title, and
tractate, being comments on particular subjects. The latter would become more
significant in future generations, but surely these first baby-steps represent a
significant moment in the efforts at legal systemization (C ortese 1992; Kantoro-
wicz and Buckland, ed., 1938).
The prestige of the law school had a number of repercussions. One was to
spur Tuscan cities from Lombard to Roman law, including Pisa in 1161, Siena in
1176. In ca. 1151, Conrad III (d. 1132) had directed the exclusive use of Roman law
in Rome itself. A second was the growing prestige afforded jurisperiti, with
protections for law students away from home by constitution of Frederick I (ca.
1123–1190) at Roncaglia, and limitations on serving as judge or consultant (e.g.,
without five years law study) provided by Bolognese statute also of 1158. But
perhaps no consequence of the legal palingenesis was more far reaching than
Gratian’s systematic compilation of canon law, the Decretum, or Concordia dis-

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cordantium canonum, whose very title reveals the dialectical method employed by
the Camaldolese monk in a unique integration of source, distinction and com-
ment. Completed perhaps as early as 1140, over the next thirty years copyists
added material omitted by Gratian as “Paleae.” Texts from the civil law were also
added as canons, and Gratian’s commentary was augmented by such civilians as
Bulgarus and James. Also added to the Decretum were two theological treatises:
De penitentia to Part II, and De consecratione, constituting Part III. The Decretum
was glossed before 1148 by Pocapaglia and Rolandus published a commentary
entitled Stromata between 1143 and 1145. As J. A. Clarence Smith (1975) suggests,
Gratian’s approach did for canon law what Irnerius had done for civil law. As the
latter had severed the cord binding civil law to philosophy and rhetoric, Gratian
separated the study of canon law from that of theology. And while legists and
canonists might disagree on the ultimate imperial supremacy, they would be
henceforth regarded as pari generis.
As a consequence of this severance of law from theology and philosophy,
which arguably represents the genesis of the “professionalization” of law, from
the late twelfth centuries forward, religious and secular literature become increas-
ingly critical of advocates, and the metaphor that lawyers sell their tongues as
prostitutes hawk their members becomes a standard medieval trope. It occurs in
the letters of Peter of Blois (ca. 1135–post 1204) and the sermons of Jacques de
Vitry (ca. 1180–1240), and is at least implicit in the Summa de arte praedicatoris of
Alain de Lille (ca. 1128–1202) (P.L. 210:187). By the time Étienne de Bourbon
(1190/95–ca. 1261) assembled his Anecdotes historique, the legal profession had
become synonomous with greed and trickery as well. The antics of lawyers as
“ambulance chasers” was reflected perhaps as early as 1200 in the anonymous
French text, Dit des avocats, and the law schools, particularly Bologna, as the
source of perverse trickery, in La Bible of Guiot de Provins (fl. ca. 1200).
E The Thirteenth Century: The Ascendancy

of Procedure
I Juris peritii and Popular Government
Despite jaundiced views in some circles, the juris peritii were to play an important
role during the period of innovation that witnessed widespread adoption of the
podestà system and emergence of popular government in the Italian communes.
Studies have suggested that while these learned lawyers overwhelmingly
stemmed from noble families, their consilia were integral to legitimization of

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regimes founded on “legality” and to judicial systems capable of rationalizing an

increasingly complex politico–judicial system. At the same time, these profes-
sionals manifested a dedication to what essentially constituted a distinct legal
culture, evidencing what one author termed “an emerging affinity” between
learned law and democratic principles (Menzinger 2011).
II The Glossators
Practical politics of the communes aside, the first half of the thirteenth century
also represented the heyday of the glossators. Somewhere between 1208 and 1210,
Azzo (fl. 1198–1230) published his Summa on the Code, which was never super-
seded during the middle ages. His plethora of glosses on the Old Digest, as well as
the Code, represent a veritable Apparatus. In 1215, Joannes Teutonicus (fl. 1210–
1245) completed his Apparatus on the Decretum, which became the Glossa Ordi-
naria, supplemented circa 1245 by Bartholomew of Brescia (d. 1258). Around the
same time, Tancred (fl. 1185–1235) completed the standard gloss to the first three
compilations of the Decretales extravagantes. These compilations, ultimately five
in number, were displaced in 1234 by the Liber Extra, promulgated by Pope
Gregory IX (Hugolinus) (ca. 117–1241) in 1234. Apparatus on the Liber Extra were
completed circa 1240 by both Goffredus de Trano (d. 1245) and Bernard of Parma
(d. 1266), that of the latter becoming the glossa ordinaria. As Sinibald Fieschi,
Innocent IV (ca. 1200–1254) composed a Commentary on the Liber Extra which
was never superseded; while about the same time, Hostiensis (d. 1271) completed
his definitive Summa, and nearly twenty years later his overly long Lectura there-
on. By 1230, Accursius (ca. 1185–1263) had completed the initial apparatus which
was to become the Glossa Ordinaria on the Justinian Corpus, and without which
the text of the Corpus would scarce be published before 1627. It was probably he
as well who added as a tenth collation of the Authenticum, the Libri Feudorum, a
collection of the customary law made by Oberto dall’Orto (fl. 1133–1158), and on
which Pillio (d. post 1207), a student of Placentine, had written a Summa in the
late twelfth century. His son, Francis Accursii (ca. 1234–1293), would compose the
standard Casus on the New Digest mid-century, about the same time as Vivian
Toschi composed the standard casus on the Code, the Old Digest and the Infortia-
tum. In the last half of the century, jurists such as James of Arena (d. post 1296),
Martin Sylliman (d. 1306) and Dino of Mugello (d. ca. 1303) were diligently
assembling additiones to the glossa ordinaria—essentially, glosses on the glosses.
These years saw also the publication of the great procedural treatise, Speculum
judiciale (1st ed., 1271; 2nd ed. 1290), whose medieval ubiquity gained for its
author, William Durand (1231–1296), his sobriquet of the Speculator (Smith 1975;

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846 Scott L. Taylor
Kantorowicz and Buckland, ed., 1938). However, the importance that both legists
and canonists read into the scant textual references indicating the need for an
ordo meant that procedure was a topic of concern from the twelfth century
onward (Fowler-Magerl, ed., 1994; Litewski 1999).
III The Rationalization of Procedure
Indeed, there appears a dominant tendency in late thirteenth–century and four-

teenth–century legal scholarship to emphasize procedure in all aspects of teach-
ing and writing. The trend appears in English practice, and manifests a certain
ossification of the common law in the reign of Edward I (1239–1307), visible not
only in the larger treatises of Fleta and Britton, but in the vast literature of shorter
tracts such as the Hengham Summae. However, the continent manifests a similar
development in the emphasis of both legists and canonists, as doctrine takes a
secondary position to practice, and more and more, to use Maine’s famous
phrase, the substantive law is “gradually secreted in the interstices of procedure.”
(Maine 1883, 389) Indeed, much legal literature of the period abounds in games of
wits as litigants stalwartly demand their customary rights and royal functionaries
no less determinedly undertake to maneuver them into accepting new procedures
during a period of legal transition.
It is true that outside Italy efforts were made to suppress the teaching of civil
law qua civil law. It was barred at Paris in 1219, though this seems in significant
part an attempt to avoid distracting budding theologians with discovery of a new
and lucrative vocation. Indeed, in 1229, the year of the Treaty of Meaux, the
papacy instituted the university at Toulouse as a bastion against heterodoxy,
which quickly became a center for the teaching of the very civil law whose
practitioners the troubadours and jongleurs found subversive of Occitan culture
(Ourliac 1979). As Peire Cardenal (ca. 1180–1278) wrote, “Etends-vu, toi qui t’es
fait legiste et qui supprime publiquement le droit d’autrui.” Indeed, hostility in
the midi was so extreme toward Roman law, that one town actually prohibited the
employment of any civil or canon lawyer as attorney for the city (Coutumes de
Pamiers). In the preceding century, the Angevins had made every effort to prohi-
bit it altogether. John of Salisbury (1115/20–1180) (Policraticus 8.22) describes the
burning of law books, and the injunctions against Vacarius (d. post 1198) and the
teaching of Roman law, or as Roger Bacon (ca. 1214–1294) (Compendium studii
578) called it, leges Ytalie, indicating a similar sense of the foreignness of this
legal corpus. Instead, in England one witnesses the proliferation of professional
manuals emphasizing custom and practice, such as the treatise generally known
as Glanvill, ca. 1187–1189, or the monumental De legibus et consuetudinibus

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Angliae composed by Henry of Bracton (d. 1268) sometime before 1250. In France,
too, there was a wave of compilations, beginning with Le tres ancien coutumier de
Normandie, ca. 1199, with French translation ca. 1250, and a larger compilation,
Summa de legibus Normandie in curia laicali, ca. 1255. Despite its title, the
Establissements de Saint Louis, 1273, is largely a compilation of the Customs of
Orléans and the Touraine. Mid-century also appeared Li Livres de justice et de plet
and Le conseil de Pierre de Fontaines. The most significant of these treatises was
the Coutumes de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir (ca. 1250–1296), ca. 1280.
Early coutumiers were also assembled for Champagne, Bretagne, and the Lille
region.
Yet, wherever such compilations were assembled, even the most superficial
reading will reveal the extent to which the compilers substituted Roman law,
particularly procedural law, where no local alternative was available. One of the
great achievements in the reign of Henry II (1133–1189), the writ of novel
disseisin, is manifestly the Roman interdict Unde vi, with English slipcovers,
whether borrowed directly or from the canon law of spoliation, which lacuna
Gratian had filled with the same interdict. It should not be entirely surprising,
therefore, if beginning in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, in a
development that would ultimately transform Western law, Romano-canonical
judicial procedures based on oral and written evidence came to displace custom-
ary procedures for determining guilt and punishment resting on immanent
justice. The widely debated reasons for this transformation fall into two schools
of thought. The first attributes the change to sociological factors, including
widespread skepticism and the growth of urban centers at the expense of small,
isolated communities (Radding 1979; Hyams 1981); the other elitist perspective
maintains that the ordeal disappeared largely because, on theological principles,
the church withdrew its sanction by canon of Fourth Lateran Council, as well as
the rise of an intellectual apparatchiki trained in the ordines iudiciorum, trial
procedures founded upon the Roman law (Bartlett 1986; Pennington 1993). An
alternative explanation, however, is that even where monarchs were hesitant to
embrace the civil law, the new procedures offered advantages over earlier
process (Taylor 2012a). For example, across Europe, from England to Hungary,
the conviction rate by such means as ordeal seems to have been less than fifty
percent, perhaps in England as low as one in three. Henry II attempted to
compensate for this inefficiency by the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, providing
that juries of twelve men of every hundred and four of every township provide
the names of anyone accused or suspected of robbery within the twelve preced-
ing years, which suspects were rounded–up, those of ill–repute and found with
stolen goods being summarily dispatched, the rest being submitted to trial by
cold water, those convicted losing a foot, and after the Assize of Northampton in

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1175, their right hand as well, those passing but of ill–repute being abjured to
quit the kingdom.
Aside from the obvious cynicism in Henry’s use of the ordeal, the Angevin
assizes are notable for the use of the presenting jury. Whether founded upon the
Danish jury of presentment or the Frankish inquest, the procedure certainly was
used from the days of the Conqueror forward, although Bongert argues that
Henry II’s version was once distilled through the practice common in Anjou. With
the jury, denunciation emerged as an alternative to appeal, i.e., accusation, which
had been until then the primary method of bringing offenses to bar, accounting to
no small degree for the want of distinction between civil and criminal pleas. Well
before the innovations of Innocent III (1160–1216), it was mentioned in the ordo,
Hactenus magister, written circa 1167 in Cologne by the canon Renerus, most likely
under the influence of Gerard Pucelle (1115/20–1184) (Fowler-Magerl, ed., 1994).
Such ordines may explain the treatise written in Henry’s day, commonly known as
Glanvill, which divides pleas into criminal and civil, reserving the most serious as
pleas of the crown, a taxonomy thitherto unknown in English law.
Although the use of jurors in the inquest was known on both sides of the
channel, from the mid- to late twelfth century they began to diverge in practice;
certainly by the 1194 establishment of the custodies placitorum coronae, when the
Angevin system moved toward a double presentment involving multiple juries of
vicini who acted somewhere between witnesses and fact-finders, with no pre-
scribed rules of evidence, and whose verdicts were in some sense an evidence
rather than a judgment. In France, where and when jurors tried cases rather than
the bailli or seneschal, officers who were religiously rotated by the reign of
Louis IX (1215–1270), to assure their total fidelity to the crown, the jurors func-
tioned more passively in the role of enqueteurs, who heard and presumably
weighed evidence including testimony and documents, according to ever more
precise hierarchical standards of proofs. By the end of the twelfth century, and
before 1215, in either location, the defendant appears to have had a choice of
standing on an inquiry or inquest or going to the ordeal; after 1215, the alternative
was battle, an alternative limited in inquests, and over time even in appeals. Well
before the ban on ordeal, at least in England, the defendant could purchase from
the crown the right to put himself on the country, i.e., the multiple juries of the
assize, a prerogative gladly extended by the Angevin monarchs who as always
were happy to grant any privilege that contributed to the treasury. The procedure
was risky, the juries trying guilt typically being the same as had made the
presentment until it was established in the fourteenth century that indictors were
to be excluded from the trial jury. Exceptiones recognized by Francophonic courts
were dilatory or preemptive pleas. Generally, the only defense to felony was
complete denial. In the Angevin realms, the writ De odio et atia, another contri-

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butor to the fisc, was available perhaps as early as 1178 to challenge what today
would be called overcharging the offense (Hurnard 1969). In the early thirteenth
century, the ordo, Olim, by Otto Papiensis became quite popular, particularly in
England, and in 1234, the Anglo-Norman canonist composed the ordo, Scietiam,
dealing extensively with exceptiones (Fowler-Magerl, ed., 1994), but the evolution
of the defensive plea was a slow, and often costly, one.
In the interim, Innocent III would offer his own variation on the inquest, to–
wit, inquisitorial procedure, not only without defining the rights of defendants,
but in many cases restricting them under the rubric rei publicae interest, ne
criminal remaneant impunita, a doctrinal phrase borrowed from a treatise com-
posed circa 1190 by a French canon (Fraher 1984). At the same time, the ban on
clerical participation in ordeals played into the hands of royal functionaries
already anxious to eliminate the ordeal. Perhaps Fourth Lateran’s injunction was
intended, as one writer has commented, “to bring home to monarchs and other
lay authorities the lesson that their capacity to govern depended upon the
cooperation of church authorities” (Brundage 1995). If so, it was a challenge that
many monarchs were happy to accept. Magnates and professional jurists also
stood to gain by acts of ecclesiastical self-limitation, particularly in an age witnes-
sing the expanding ubiquity of capital punishment, at least until the curia of
Boniface VIII (d. 1303) recognized the episcopal possession of purely secular
jurisdiction obviating the need for advocates to exercise high justice. But it was
kings who could see the opportunities for controlling the administration of justice
as well as the power and revenue to be derived from their role as ultimate
appellate authority, a function scarce available where judgment was of God.
Indeed, not only would they have eliminated unilateral ordeal, but the slow,
costly, and almost as unpredictable wager of battle as well, had they a means of
compelling defendants to accept trial by jury or inquest, which ultimately they
undertook to achieve by jailing noncompliant suspects.
IV Orléans and Roots of the mos italicus
Simultaneously, across the Alps from its berceau the civil law was finding expres-
sion, first at Orléans and Angers, and in the Midi, following a lull of almost a
century marked by the departure of Placentine ca. 1185, at Montpellier, and
another at Toulouse (Meijers 1959). Guy of Como (d. post 1263), a student of James
Baldwin (d. 1235), author of the standard casus on the Institutes and a noted
Bolognese “Gosian,” was teaching at Orléans at least by 1243. This critical
approach to the law, combined with dialecticism the students, all Masters of Arts,
brought to analysis, probably accounts for the reputed Glossa Aurelianensis,

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though no such apparatus existed per se. Rather the term was dubbed by Italians
contemptuous of Orléans’s lack of reverence for the glossa ordinaria, inter alia.
This general inclination for criticism reached fruition beginning in the third
generation with James of Revigny (d. 1296), who studied at Orléans with John of
Moncy (d. post 1265), Guichard of Langres (d. pre 1260?) and Simon of Paris (d.
1273), and then successively, with Peter of Belleperche (d. 1308), a student of
James’s pupil, Ralph of Harcourt (d. 1307). These two would significantly affect
the future of civil law through their influence on Cino of Pistoia (1270–1336/7),
with whom the mos italicus can be said to have begun.
V Legal Romanticism in Literature
Medieval romance, vis-à-vis law, presents an interesting problem of interpreta-

tion. Some writers such as Bloch (1977) have pointed to the various instances of
ruse and connivery in medieval romance as examples of society’s own recognition
of the weaknesses in the customary judicial system. Yseut plots to have Tristan,
disguised as a beggar, carry her on his shoulders across a muddy river, so she is
able to triumph in an ordeal by oath by truthfully swearing that no man but king
Marc and the beggar who carried her across the river had ever been between her
legs (Beroul [fl. 1170–1190], Le Roman de Tristan, similarly in Gottfried von Strass-
burg’s Tristan, ca. 1210, and in many later Tristan versions). Similarly, following
their illicit union, Lancelot defends Guinevere’s honor by killing her accuser, Kay
(Chretien de Troyes [fl. 1165–1180], Le chevalier de la charrette). In Romance de la
Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart (fl. 1200–1222), the heroine, Lienor,
entraps the wicked seneschal by tricking him as to her identity, then demanding
justice from the king by jugement de Dieu. Likewise, in the fabliau, Le villain qui
Conquist Paradis par Plait, a clever peasant argues his way into heaven. In Le
Roman de la Rose, Jean de Meun (ca. 1240–ca. 1305) relates Livy’s (59 B.C.E.–
17 C.E.) tale of Appius and Virginius, where the father, having been ordered to
produce his daughter, to save Virginia from infamy delivered her head to the
judge, only to be saved by the townspeople, who incarcerate the judge. All these
stories could be interpreted as subversive of the technical law. Yet the authors
clearly communicate, and considering the popularity of the stories, the readers
and listeners clearly appreciate, that Virginius does not merit punishment, nor do
Tristan and Iseult, while the maiden of the rose deserves vindication, the evil
seneschal warrants humiliation, the peasant really does merit paradise, and while
Lancelot and Guinevere ultimately receive punishment of another sort, they do
not really deserve to die. Therefore, contrary to Bloch and others, such stories are
not an indictment of customary justice, but a vindication (Taylor 2012a).

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F The Fourteenth Century: The Ubiquity of Lex

I The Commentators and the Mos Italicus
The first quarter of the fourteenth century witnessed the completion of the corpus
iuris canonici. The Liber sextus was promulgated by Boniface VIII by the bull
Sancrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae in 1298, and dispatched to the students at
Bologna, Padua, the Curia Romana, and significantly, Orléans and Toulouse.
John XXII (d. 1334) promulgated the Constitutiones Clementinae by Quoniam nulla
in 1317. This closed the medieval canon, though a small private collection of
decretals was assembled between 1325 and 1327 by Zenzelinus de Cassanis (d.
1354). These Extravagantes Johannis XXII were not published until 1500, since
which time they have been considered part of the Corpus. Giovanni d’Andrea (d.
1348), a student of Martin Sylliman, composed the glossa ordinaria on the Sext
and the Clementines in 1304 and 1326, respectively. He also annotated shortly
before his death in 1348 William Durand’s Speculum, which thenceforth rarely
appeared without his annotations.
More significant was Cino Sinibuldi of Pistoia. Although he studied with Dino
and Francis Accursii at Bologna, the greatest influence on his great Commentary
on the Code was Peter of Belleperche (d. 1308), and from Peter, James of Revigny
(d. 1296). With Cino, the commentary became the favored juristic literary form;
more important, Cino adopted a dialectical approach and an accompanying
critical attitude particularly toward the glossa ordinaria that had characterized the
school of Orléans. His student at Perugia, Bartolo da Sassoferrato (1313/14–1357),
studied as well with James Buttrigar (ca. 1274–1348), a student of Martin Sylliman,
and Rainer of Forli (d.1348), both adherents of the Accursian tradition of nostri
doctores. With Bartolo, the mos italicus proper emerges as a synthesis of the two
traditions, emphasizing four traits identified by Kelley (1979) : a methodological
concern for history and first causes; a formalism centered on legal subjectivity; a
systematic attempt to comprehend and order human nature and experience
through equity and interpretation; and a general deference to Romanist tradition
and authority. For the rest of the Middle Ages, Bartolo’s Commentary on the
entirety of the Justinian Corpus would be accorded an authority approaching that
of the Corpus itself. His students, Baldo (ca. 1319–1400) and Angelo Ubaldi (ca.
1327–1400), would join him in teaching at Perugia. Baldo’s learning was particu-
larly broad, and he commented on the Titles of the Corpus, a lectura on the first
three Books of the Extravagantes, annotations to the Speculum iuris, and the
glossa ordinaria on the Libri Feudorum and the Peace of Constance, as well on
annotations to Martin Sylliman’s work on feudal law. He also left a number of
worthy consilia, pro parte and sapientis, indicative of both his demand and his

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extensive public career, including at Florence during the precarious guild govern-
ment from 1378–1382, where he crafted reasoned opinions maintaining the se-
paration of jus commune and municipal statute, protecting both private rights
from capricious and unrestrained public action and the independence of law from
political expedience (Fredona 2011).
The last of the great civilian commentators was Bartolomeo da Saliceto
(d. 1411) whose uncle and tutor was a student of James Buttrigar. Also at Bologna
was Joannis de Lignano (ca. 1320–83), who despite commenting on the entire
Corpus iuris canonici, is best remembered for his treatises, De bello, De represaliis,
and De Duello, which have been credited as precursors of modern international
public law. Of particular note as a canonist, despite being degreed utroque and
spending nearly twenty years as judge and vicarius of the Podesta of Bologna and
consultant to the Republic of Venice, was Peter of Ancarano (d. 1416), author inter
alia of a Commentary on the Extravagantes and lectura on the Sext and the
Clementines, who taught at Bologna from 1390 until his death in 1416.
II Concepts of Due Process
It is the first quarter of this century noted particularly for the recurrent theme of
minimal due process, which while a subject of thought for some twenty or thirty
years preceding, was a topic of immediate concern as a result of the general
constitution issued by Henry VII (d. 1313), Ad reprimendum, justifying the trial in
absentia of Robert of Naples (1277–1343), and the Clementine responses, Pastor-
alis cura and Saepe contigit. Bartolo, one of the few civilians to write a commen-
tary on Ad reprimendum, squarely aligned himself with the Clementine constitu-
tions, as well as being among the first jurists to cite civil and canon law with
equal authority. Conceding that certain procedural niceties could be eliminated
in the trial of a cause, as authorized by the phrase “sine strepitu et figura iudicii,”
he nonetheless maintained that any judge was bound to fulfill the minimum
requirements of the law of nations and natural reason. While particular forms of
action were of legislative creation, the right to petition was fundamental to
natural equity, as were notice, opportunity to be heard, exceptions, delays and
proofs (Pennington 1993).

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III The Spread of Legal Consciousness and Social

Transformation
Outside Italy, legal transformations had severe consequences for social balance.
It is not difficult to attribute the English Peasant Revolt at least in part to the
developments in English common law (Taylor 2012b). To understand the crisis of
1381, it is necessary to consider the impact of thirteenth-century legislation on the
pattern of landholding and services in England. In particular, the 1290 statute
Quia emptores and proceedings Quo warranto (Sutherland 1963), expanded at
least from the Statute of Gloucester twelve years earlier, facilitated the alienation,
and as important, partability of freeholds, and terminated the creation of new
manors with appurtenant rights of court-baron. In many respects, as Stubbs
(1880) had suggested long ago, this development benefitted tenants generally,
sokemen or those holding lands in socage, a tenancy by inferior but certain
services of husbandry, and copyholders, essentially tenants at will, since it ended
the constant multiplication of mesne or intermediate, lords standing between
tenant and landlord, each jockeying to claim various rents and prerogatives. By
enhancement of the security of leasehold tenure, it contributed as well to the
tendency away from direct farming toward leasing evident in English agriculture
after 1300 (Volokh 2009), thereby accelerating simultaneously the tendency
toward manumission, freeholders having no entitlement to maintenance and
being more susceptible to rent increases. Those lords who continued in direct
management were often compelled toward a sort of “welfare feudalism” to assure
the smooth functioning of their estates, affording more influential peasants
unprecedented degrees of freedom, as well as unprecedented access to courts
outside the manor, given the commercial realities of the patchwork English
manorial system (Briggs 2008). Besides, those actually in villienage—a proble-
matic classification since it is not always easy to determine when villienage was
personal, and when it was tenurial—frequently had claims to freedom as a
consequence of jury service or the holding of free tenements, and English law
generally favored liberty. The result was to diminish seriously the de facto, if not
de jure, distinctions between tenancies, even petty serjeanties, technically a
tenure by knight service due to the monarch, but petit insofar as the service rather
than personal consisted of rendition of a token implement of war, becoming
socages in effect. Some lords, realizing that historic rights were slipping away,
took measures to recall and safeguard their historic rights. Such was the case in
Darnall and Over, manors belonging to the Cistercians of Vale Royal in Cheshire,
where the abbot in asserting his prerogatives over the villeins, or serfs, found
himself confronted with litigation by peasants claiming to be free. Most lords were
not so vigilant.

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With the demographic collapse following the first wave of plague in 1347,
however, lords were desperate to retain whatever labor services they could claim.
They began to drudge up long since commuted and often petty obligations
against which the peasantry chafed, and they resurrected whatever profitable
rights to court-baron, that incident of manorial jurisdiction appertaining to copy-
holders as well as freeholders owing suit and service to the manor, they may have
possessed, which customary rights had the added advantage of withstanding the
more liberal common law. Indeed, old court rolls were searched for the pedigrees
of erstwhile sokemen in the prospect of discovering not only that they were bond,
but that as a consequence any of their freeholdings could be forfeitted to their
lord (Dyer 1984). Such proceedings were employed as well to intimidate peasants
as by the Abbey of Meaux, when the villeins rebelled at Waghen in the late 1360s,
much as peasants in Kent, in which shire there appears to have been no personal
villeinage, had withheld services at Oxford and Wingham, both manors of the
archbishops of Canterbury, in the 1350s and would do again in the 1380s. Still,
resistance was recurrent, as in Chevington, where seventeen of the tenants of
Bury-St. Edmunds refused reaping services in 1375 (Dyer 1988), and was perhaps
best expressed by John Robynes of Shipton-on-Stout, who led a 1378 refusal of the
tenants to hoe the prior’s demesne or to stand in his court on grounds that “non
esset nisi stultitia” (Dyer 1992). Some of the tenants most resentful of these
obligations seem to have been freeholders of one tenement, but had acquired
another technically in villein socage requiring the performance of various labor
services, and hence subject to the famous prescription of Bracton (d. 1268): et
semper tenebitur ad incerta. By the 1360s, in addition to the extension of the
jurisdiction of the justices of the peace to cases under the Statutes of Labourers, it
was not unusual for the courts to reinforce obligations of all types by the develop-
ment of writs in assumpsit, allowing damages for either nonfeasance or misfea-
sance (Palmer 1993). Furthermore, commencing in that same decade, and con-
trary to precedent, the courts began countenancing actions of debt for the
recovery of personal judgments, a practice Blackstone described as “being gen-
erally vexatious and oppressive, by harassing the defendant with the costs of two
actions instead of one.”
Peasants, too, learned to use the system to their advantage, both as indivi-
dual litigants and as consortia. Parliamentary records from 1377 indicate peasants
were collecting levies from their fellows to cover the expenses of resisting their
lords’ demands, conduct anticipated as early as 1327 when the villeins of Great
and Little Ogbourne in Wiltshire pooled their monies to finance their litigation
(Harding 1987). As a consequence, England which had already become arguably
the most litigious country outside the northern Italian city-states, became even
more litigious to the glee of the barratrous lawyers who with their innovative

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pleadings and theories prospered as never before in a system ever more rife with
champerty, bribery, and jury intimidation. Even John Gower (ca. 1325–1408), who
despised the rebellious peasants, painting their portrait as crazed beasts run
amuck in the first book of his Vox clamantis, in the sixth book seems to recognize
the lawyers’ role in breaking down the social fabric, writing:
Sompnia perturbant quam sepe viros sine causa,

Non res set sompno visa figura rei;
Sic tibi causidicus fingens quam sepe pericla,
Est ubi plus rectum, diuaricabit iter:
Mente tibi loquitur dubia, nam nemo dolose
Mentis secures vocibus esse potest;
…
Causidici nubes sunt ethera qui tenebrescunt,
Lucem quo solis nemo videre potest;
Obfuscant etenim legis clarissima iura,
Et sua nox tetra vendicat esse diem… (Gower 1902, ll. 213–18; 225–28)
[So often dreams disturb men without cause,

Not the thing but a phantom of the thing perceived in sleep;
So how often a lawyer, pretending danger to you,
Will divert your course, when it is straightest:
With doubtful mind he speaks to you, for no one
Of fraudulent intent can speak with certain voice.
…
Lawyers are clouds that darken the skies,
That no one can see the light of the sun;
They obscure the manifest justice of the law,
Their loathsome night passes itself off for day…]
IV The Genesis of Basoche and Legal Farce
In the fourteenth century, we also see emerge amid the legal literature and more
particularly the treatises devoted to procedure, variously entitled Ordines iudicarii
or Libelli de ordine iudiciorum, including fictive trials or processus apparently
designed to demonstrate certain issues of procedural and substantive law, an
imagined trial of humanity before Christ with the Virgin as defense counsel,
which relies heavily on mime and the grotesque, borrowing heavily not only from
the aforementioned dialogues but from the devotional literature portraying the
Virgin’s intercessory role as well (Taylor 2005a). The precise origins of the text are
somewhat clouded, not only by the early as well as questionable attribution to
Bartolus of Saxoferrato, but also by the long recognized occurrence of the text in

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at least three distinct genera. Although the modern reader is struck immediately
by what seems the transparent playfulness of the foregoing tale, a standard of
humor certainly to be cautioned against, it cannot be over–emphasized that the
text was treated by its readers or hearers quite seriously as an exercise and primer
in legal procedure (Taylor 2005b). Beginning with the oldest manuscripts, hardly
a phrase was denied extensive gloss with citations to the Roman and canon law.
The more difficult question is whether contemporaries found this tale amusing as
well as enlightening. Aside from its distribution, and its translation into the
vernacular, a few medieval manuscripts provide a clue, describing the work, for
example, as “delectabilis.” Even the fourteenth-century manuscript located by
Robert Jacquin (1962) bearing the description of “Opusculum puerile,” which he
interpreted to signify a student exercise, probably should be translated as “an
exercise in boyish humor,” else why transcribe it, let alone annotate it. But if it
was humorous to its original audience of lawyers, why so? Granted, only such an
audience could fully appreciate the sophistication of the legal arguments and the
quality of the plethora of citations accompanying the text.
By mid-fourteenth century, however, the Processus had undergone a transfor-
mation. Beginning at least with the low Norman poem, L’Advocacie Nostre-Dame,
the Processus began to appear variously in poetry or prose, in Latin or in the
vernacular, but devoid of legal citations and legal subtleties, and not infrequently
with lengthy encomia to the Virgin Mary (Taylor 2011). These editions certainly
were not intended for the same audiences as the original Processus, nor can the
humor, if any, be identical to that of the original, the bulk of whose jest is opaque
to all but the initiated. Neither can they be read as humorless, since if anything,
the gestures and antics of both Satan and the Virgin are accentuated, giving more
the feel of mime than the Processus itself. Indeed, the popularized versions of the
Processus Sathane represent a precursor of both Basoche and carnival: Basochien
since there is something of the confraternal professionalism inherent in that
tradition, Basoche literally referring to the enactments of the clerks of the Palace
of Justice―i.e., legal apprentices, some of whom would ultimately become advo-
cates, most of whom would labor on eking out their existence as perpetual law
clerks. Like so many confraternal associations, these clerks periodically presented
farces or satires in a carnivalesque atmosphere, particularly during their heyday
of 1450–1650. The tradition, however, is not limited to nor primarily rooted in the
Basoche per se, but is indicative of the comedic traditions of other social and
profession organizations as well, such as la Mere Folle de Dijon also founded in
the fourteenth century. In any event, the Processus Sathane undoubtedly predates
Basoche per se. It is true that some scholars such as Enders (1992) follow Faber
(1875), in placing the foundation of the Basoche itself in 1303, arguing that its
purpose was to initiate apprentice lawyers before being permitted to practice

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before the Parlement de Paris. However, there was no parlement before 1309; nor
does there seem to have been any organization of the bar until the reign of Philip
Valois and the initiation of Le Confraternite de St. Nicholas (Ordonnances des Rois
de France de la Troiseme Race, t. II, 176–78). Indeed, both the timing and the
devotion of the confraternity seems to have been dictated by a 1340 ordinance of
Philip Valois (1293–1350), compelling all enrolled advocates of the Parlement de
Paris to contribute one hundred sous to finance daily masses in the palace for the
king and his family (Delechenal 1885, 408–10). It would seem odd if apprentice
lawyers were organized before the lawyers themselves. Further, the clerks were
largely “paralegal personnel” who nonetheless had official recognition according
to an ordinance of 1345 (Ordonnances du Louvre, t. ii, 225). No such recognition
appears in the rather detailed letters of some 46 items issued by Philip in 1327
confirming the regulations that commissioners appointed by Charles IV (le Bel)
(1294–1328) had made for the reformation of the Chastelet de Paris. Ordonnances
des rois de France de la Troisiem Race, t. 11, 1–10. It seems unreasonable, there-
fore, to hypothesize anything like significant Basochien activity until the second
half of the fourteenth century at earliest (Taylor 2005a; 2011).
V Tropical Reconciliation of Law and Theology
Interestingly, by the mid–fourteenth century, at least in theological circles, a new

and more cooperative and practical trope of law, specifically canon law, as the
handmaiden, Hagar to theology’s Sarah was emerging. Initially, the analogy
appeared almost passingly in Robert Holcot’s Super sapientiam Salomonis (ca.
1290–1349), but would be pursued at length by Jean Gerson (1363–1429) in his
harangue to the licentiates in canon law, Conversi estis. For Gerson, the division
between theology and canon law should be nothing more than a convenient
division of labor, as organs of the same body. While not discussing jurists and
legists, they are mentioned in passing in another address, Dominus his opus
habet. The same metaphor is used by Nicholas Kempf (ca. 1415–1497) in the
aftermath of the collapse of the Council of Basle, suggesting not as is sometimes
asserted that canon lawyers and ecclesiastical bureaucrats were responsible for
spiritual malaise, but the Pope, here represented by Abram, who has failed to
order the relationship between Sarah and Hagar, theology and canon law (Martin
1992).

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G The Late Medieval Period, 1400–1550:

Law and the Modern State
I Law and politics in the Italian City–States
With the Schism of 1378, many of the leading Italian jurists found themselves
preoccupied with politics, including Baldo, John of Legnano, and Francis Zabar-
ella (ca. 1339–1417). While the latter composed Commentaries on the Extrava-
gantes and the Clementines, the abortive Council of Pisa in 1409 and the election
of John XXIII (d. 1419) caused him to give up his chair at Padua, and he was made
Bishop of Florence and Cardinal. He and Peter of Ancarano would both die during
the subsequent Council of Constance, but before the election of Martin V (d. 1431),
against whom Nicolas Todeschi (Panormitanus) (1386–1445), a student of Zabar-
ella, and author of an influential Commentry on the Extravagantes and a The-
saurus singularium in jure canonico decisivorum, would intrigue at Siena (1423–
1424), but then execute the mandate of Eugenius IV (d. 1447) to disperse Basel in
1432, failing which he returned to conciliarism, ultimately receiving the Cardina-
late from Felix V (anti-pope, 1439–1449; d. 1451) and dying in 1445 before the
collapse of Council and anti-pope.
It was once common to argue somewhat simplistically that Florentine law-
yers, at least from 1434, dedicated their professional skills to enhancing executive
power and hence facilitating the principate (Martines 1968). More recent studies,
however, suggest that the legal profession in the Italian city states, including
Florence, continued to issue consilia reflecting a professional independence and
a dedication to equitable concerns, even if as Isenmann (2011) suggests, by
generating justifications for emergency legislation departing from normal legal
procedures, they may have inadvertently led to a state of institutionalized emer-
gency, legitimizing the suspension of accountability and hence paving the way
for a concentration of power ultimately engendering the modern state (Armstrong
and Kirshner, ed., 2011).
II Law and Crown in France
Meanwhile, France was to see a new spate of coutumiers, perhaps spurred by the
Pragmatic sanction of 1438, which in making Parlement the standard–bearer of
Gallicanism (Roelker 1996), would give impetus to what Vittorio De Caprariis
(1959) called “juridical nationalism,” analyzed at length by Kelley (1970). The
bulk of legal literature consisted of Commentaries on the Customs by legal

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practitioners, notably on those of Berry by Nicolas of Bohier (1508), on those of

the Duchy of Burgundy by Bartholomew of Chasseneuz (1517, rev. 1528), of Poitou
by Andrew Tiraqueau (unpublished), of Nivernais by Guy Coquille (1590), and of
Brittany by Bertrand D’Argentre (1568). With the official redactions of custom in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the French crown finally succeeded in
establishing a model of justice dispensed from above, in which an insurmounta-
ble gulf existed between the court and the litigants. To the extent the jurisdiction
of the communes was permitted to remain after centuries of conflict with the
crown, it was because it suited monarchical pragmatism, relieving royal courts
from hearing a plethora of relatively insignificant civil and criminal cases (Hamel
2011). Literature dealing with Roman law did so from the perspective of French
practice, such as the Practica Forensis of John le Masuyer (d. 1450), or John
Imbert, who in addition to his four volume Institutiones Forenses Galliae (1542),
published an Enchiridion Juris Scripti Galliae Moribus et Consuetudinibus Recepti
(1556). The greatest of these, the so-called “prince of legists,” was Charles Du
Moulin (1500–1566), who believed in the unity of law, albeit not Roman law, but
the underlying unity of the various Customs, as he expressed in Oratio de
Concordia et Unione Consuetudinum Franciae (Thireau 1980). At the same time, he
commented extensively on the Roman law, and in his determination to demon-
strate that the text of the law, Roman or customary, provided an equitable norm
for new circumstances, he was clearly a Bartolist.
III Law and Economy in Germany
In Germany, late medieval developments proved to have rather contradictory

consequences. There, an agrarian crisis that began around 1310 and continued to
the sixteenth century resulted in precipitous declines in grain, and hence, land
prices (Brady 1998). As a consequence, the process of devolution already under-
way accelerated with the acquiescence of lords who preferred rents to services. As
the manor disintegrated into legally distinguishable components of Grund-
herrschaft, Leibherrschaft and Gerichtsherrschaft, Gemeinden, or communes,
evolved to fill the vacuum, frequently agreeing to joint liability for any rents or
dues on the communal lands (Wunder 1986). The assemblies of property holding
peasants, aside from regulating community affairs were also in charge of crop
rotation, regulations pertaining to agricultural work and management of commu-
nal resources. As manors continued to disintegrate, these communes claimed as
common lands much of the vacant pastures, fields, woods and streams, along
with the legal rights thereto and the jurisdiction thereof (Blickle 1973). As in
England, those most vigilant of their traditional rights and prerogatives were the

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great ecclesiastic lords, who more often than their lay brethren, jealously guarded
and often harshly imposed their seigneurial rights, probably accounting at least
in part for the anticlerical flavor of peasant risings in both regions.
As a consequence of the depression in agricultural prices, farmers were
pushed toward crop diversification, intensification of markets, associations with
industry and the development of processing activities: in short, with commercial
markets. Ironically, the success of such attempts to avoid the vagaries of tradi-
tional agriculture had two consequences of disadvantage to the peasants. First,
such an economy demanded simpler and more uniform procedures than those
afforded by the German law, and the obvious model for such legal reform was the
Corpus juris civilis. In 1495, Maximilian I (1459–1519) reconstituted the Reichskam-
mergericht, providing that half its judges were to be university trained lawyers,
which qualification soon engulfed the entire body. Other tribunals were soon
inspired by this move, along with the practice of courts referring cases to uni-
versity faculties, much in the manner by which governments in the Italian city-
states sought consilia. In this way, German law was to become perhaps more
Romanized than that of any other region, at least outside the Italian peninsula
(Taylor 2012b).
Second, this commercialization, coming as it did at the same time as territor-
ial princes undertook to establish their authority, placed a strain on the nobility
for cash, which only intensified with the inflationary pressures of the sixteenth
century, as the money supply exploded due to New World specie, as well as the
rapid expansion of German mining. This largely accounts for their efforts, com-
mencing in the mid-fifteenth century to recover any rights that could generate
cash. Toward this end, Roman law, at least chez Irnerius and Placentius, whose
views including the denigration of custom would provide the foundation for the
new juridical science of the civil law, was particularly useful in overcoming
customary rights whether to common lands or jurisdiction, as was its tendency to
equate villeinage with the severe Roman law of slavery, and which tended to look
at servitude as did Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), in Aristotelean terms, as
would his disciples, Ptolemy of Lucca (ca. 1236–1327) and Giles of Rome (ca.
1243–1316). Indeed, it can be argued that as in England in mid-fourteenth century,
Germany in the fifteenth witnessed an aristocratic effort to revitalize serfdom,
albeit more prolonged and more successful than the endeavors of their cousins
across the channel.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that while English peasants frequently
sought protection of the common law against customary law, one of the most
frequently heard demands in the plethora of German peasant revolts that pre-
ceded the great Bauernkrieg (Peasant War) of 1525 was the prohibition of Roman
law or foreign jurists, in the name of establishing das alte Recht, often evidenced

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by the apposite Weisthümer, which in turn incorporated the ideas of the Sachsen-
spiegel (Kisch 1990; Dubozy, ed. and trans., 1999). Read against this background,
the appeal of the Twelve Articles to contemporary Lutheran ideology seem little
more than a sixteenth–century “modern language redaction” of traditional pleas
founded on centuries old principles. In 1514, in Württemberg, where Duke Ulrich
had attempted to liquidate his inherited debts by a system of taxation involving
the reduction of weights and measures, the Arme Konrad emerged, to which the
Duke made some concessions and called the Landtag, or diet, which drew up a
list of grievances, paragraphs 15 and 16 of which lamented the plague of learned
lawyers over–running the courts and driving up the cost of litigation, as well as
playing havoc with local agreements and customs to the injury of the common
man (Franz 1963). This was a lament that had been heard in poems of social
criticism by writers such as Hans von Westernach (mid-15th century) for over half
a century (Classen 1987; Strauss, ed. and trans., 1971; Liliencron, ed., 1966).
On the very eve of the Bauernkrieg, peasants in June, 1524, irate at demands
they abandon the harvest in order to collect snail shells to serve as spools for
the ladies of the manor, rose up against Count Sigmund von Lupfen (1461–
1526), sore pressed financially due to the prodigality of his father, and turned to
Duke Ulrich of Württemberg (1487–1550), who was seeking a cause to return
from exile imposed by the Habsburgs, circumstances that would serve as the
catalyst for the great 1525 uprising. Ultimately, the complaints of the Stühlingen
peasants were arbitrated and transferred to the Imperial Chamber Court, and the
list of fifty-nine articles is among the most complete of complaints by the
peasants against the nobility, detailing the degree to which a desperate lord
would undertake to finesse the legal system for profit, including confiscation of
both stolen and personal property of thieves, charging victims or their survivors
for costs of criminal trials, denial of many traditional peasant prerogatives such
as wood-gathering, prohibition of trade in salt or fowl, assertion of preeminent
rights in treasure trove or other found property, levying of new taxes, claims of
new banal servitudes, and of course, jury intimidation. Although a number of
these claims would be addressed and negotiations with lords often produced
what Blickle (1998) has labeled “contracts of lordship” which softened the
burdens of serfdom, restored customary rights, reduced labor services, and
improved opportunities for legal appeals, with Weisthümer themselves continu-
ing to proliferate until about 1600, and often reflecting these new and nego-
tiated “customs,” any benefits were short–lived. For as it happened, the 1559
judicial reforms of Ferdinand I (1503–1564), confirmed in the Interim of 1597,
would give the owners of estates the power to administer all matters of lower
judicial authority, eliminating in one stroke the power both of Leibherren and of
Vögte, as well as the jurisdiction of the communes. While improving in many

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respects the position of the housed peasantry, who avoided the sometimes
meddling powers of the commune and gained relatively free alienability of their
land, in many regions of the empire, the contract of emphyteusis created a new
kind of conditional ownership, which along with the impartibility of property
would create a symbiosis between peasant and state as householders were
forced to function as unpaid bureaucrats of the regime (Rebel 1983).
H Conclusion
To some extent, then, law in the Middle Ages can be viewed as an important
aspect of the emergence of the European nation state from conglomerates of
diverse peoples residing in the vacuum resulting from the collapse of the Western
Roman Empire. And until the renaissance of the twelfth century, law as a subject
of literary endeavor was largely a topic of philosophy, rhetoric and theology, and
primarily within the province of clerics to expound, or to collect and redact. With
the palingenesis, however, Irnerius and Gratian severed the traditional bonds,
allowing law to assume its place as a discrete profession and to develop its own
procedures. This did not result in law becoming a closed system, as jurisperiti
were influential in dealing with practical problems requiring innovation. It did
mean, however, that limits existed as to what could or could not be justified, as
witnessed by assorted consilia. Phrased somewhat differently, law was neither the
formal system suggested by some historical prudential studies, nor nakedly
functionalist.
The emergence of lawyers as a separate profession at a time of legal transition
likewise made them a topic of concern among secular writers, for whom they
appeared the personification of legal change, sometimes desirable, more often
alien and subversive of community standards as embodied by local custom. In
many respects, then, public disapproval of legal innovation was expressed as
attacks upon lawyers generally. At the same time, the public was not unaware of
which legal changes favored their social and economic well–being, and which
threatened their interests.
To a significant extent, the success of regimes in establishing successful
states was not a matter of descending or ascending theories. Roman law was
interpreted by some of the Florentine jurisperitii, including Bartolo, first to defend
the prerogatives of popular governance, and subsequently by justifying emer-
gency legislation, to pave the way for the principate. Du Moulin basing his views
on custom asserted a Gallicanism favoring uniformity under the French king.
English incrementalism succeeded in convincing the bulk of its populace that
innovations were customary rights of Englishmen. Rather, success depended

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largely on a regime’s ability to justify its innovations, if not in the short run, then
at least in the long. And this certainly points to the palpability of the primacy of
law in the West.
Select Bibliography
Bellomo, Manlio, Società ed istituzioni in Italia tra medioevo ed età moderna (Catania 1977).
Brundage, James A., Medieval Canon Law (London and New York 1955).
Calasso, Francesco, Medio evo del diritto, vol. 1: Le fonti (Milan 1954).
Coing, Helmut, ed., Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren europäischen Privatrechts-
geschichte, vol. 1: Mittelalter (1100–1500) (Munich 1973).
Garcia y Garcia, Antonio, Historia del derecho canonico, vol. 1: El primer milenio (Salamanca
1967).
Hartmann, Wilfried and Kenneth Pennington, ed., The History of Medieval Canon Law in the
Classical Period, 1140–1234: from Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (Washington,
DC, 2008).
Hommel, Carolus Ferdinand, Litteratura iuris (Leipzig 1761).
Naz, Robert, ed., Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique (Paris 1935–1965), 7 vols.
Savigny, Friedrich Carl von, Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter (Heidelberg
1834–1851), 7 vols.
Smith, J. A. Clarence, Medieval Law Teachers and Writers, Civilian and Canonist (Ottawa 1975).
Stintzing, Johann August Roderich von, Geschichte der populären Literatur des römisch–
kanonischen Rechts in Deutschland (Leipzig 1867).

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Literature
A Voice, Orality, “Literature”

Paul Zumthor (1987) correctly suggested that the very word “literature,” derived
from the Latin litterae (letters), might not be suitable to describe the complexity
of medieval texts. For in the Middle Ages, the litterae (that is to say classical
literature) were studied and enjoyed by the happy few who were able to read.
Thus, a person who was able to read and possessed a certain education was a
litteratus. However, many early medieval texts such as songs or epic poems
were composed, transmitted, and enjoyed by a great number of people who had
no formal education and were not lettered, as it were. For instance, the Chanson
de Roland (Song of Roland), which evokes events dating back to the eighth
century, was created at an unknown date and transmitted orally until the
twelfth century, when it was finally written down. There are nine extant manu-
scripts containing this text (the oldest being the Bodleian manuscript Digby 23,
written in Anglo-Norman some time between 1140 and 1170), and it is very
probable that the versions of the Chanson recorded in these manuscripts are
only a fraction of the many versions that circulated orally in medieval France.
Although nowadays we would call such texts “literary,” it is obvious that
“literature” is a modern label that has been applied to a medieval reality simply
for lack of a better word.
Twentieth-century criticism has provided ample evidence as to the crucial role
that voice and performance played in the composition, transmission, and recep-
tion of both ancient and medieval texts. What would later be called “orality”
began with the studies of Antoine Meillet (1923) and Milman Parry (1930; 1932;
1971) on the presence of formulae in various ancient texts, most notably Homeric
epic. Meillet and Parry believed that Homer’s works were “entirely composed of
formulae handed down from poet to poet” (Meillet 1923). Such formulae were
memorized by poets in order to compose verse more quickly and they served as
mnemonic aids to performers who needed to commit longer pieces to memory.
Rhymes and alliterations, too, allowed actors to remember various epic and lyrical
texts. Homer’s famous epithets, such as his “rosy-fingered” dawns and “swift-
footed” Achilles, were part of a larger repertoire that helped performers memorize
characters and their defining features. Therefore, many of the famous texts of the
ancient world came to be regarded as products of a rich and vigorous oral
tradition, and not of a highly literate society, as scholars had previously assumed.

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This approach soon revolutionized Medieval Studies as well, as many of

Meillet and Parry’s conclusions were relevant to the understanding of medieval
texts. The idea that sizable segments of medieval “literature” were in fact oral or
hybrid (oral and written) texts was approached by critics with the frenzy of
explorers discovering a new continent—and truly, the new continent was quite
vast (see Lord 1960; Finnegan 1977; Scholz 1980; Ong 1982; Stock 1983; Zumthor
1987; Doane and Pasternak 1991; Green 1994; Richter 1994; Coleman 1996; Vitz
1999). Indeed, medieval texts display an abundant number of “oral” traits. For
instance, in many epic poems, the narrator promises to “tell” a good story and
incites the listeners to “listen.” In the Lai de Guigemar (The Lay of Guigemar),
Marie de France (ca. 1170–ca. 1200) addresses a courtly audience and asks them
to listen to her story: “Oëz, seignur, que dit Marie” (“Hear, my lords, what Marie
has to say,” Guigemar, v. 3). Similarly, the Roman de Renart (The Romance of
Reynard the Fox, early twelfth-thirteenth centuries) begins with a narrator di-
rectly addressing the audience: “Seigneurs, oï avez maint conte / Que maint
conteres vos aconte” (“My lords, you have heard many stories told by many
storytellers,” vv. 1–2). In contrast, such texts hardly ever mention readers or the
act of reading. They also contain considerably fewer references to writing and do
not present the narrative as a written piece; the narrative is in fact almost always
presented as a form of oral storytelling. That is perfectly natural since texts such
as Beowulf or the French chansons de geste, like Homer’s epic poems, were meant
to be performed orally and enjoyed aurally (by listening). The analysis of “oral”
traits first targeted texts in verse for these presented the most obvious cases of
oral creation, transmission, and reception. However, it soon became obvious that
even prose texts displayed a certain number of “oral” characteristics. In some
cases, verse had simply been de-rhymed and turned into versiprosa (Godzich and
Kittay 1987). In other cases, prose texts such as chronicles were meant to be read
aloud in front of courtly audiences (Bratu 2012b), which explains the presence of
these “oral” traits.
Although some critics tended to see orality and literacy as polar opposites
(Ong 1982), more recent research has shown how complementary voice and
writing really were in the Middle Ages. Thus, a song or epic poem could be
composed and transmitted viva voce for generations and then eventually written
down. Very often, the voice was embedded in the very process of writing, as many
authors dictated their texts to scribes. Scribes were used both by aristocrats who
could not write themselves and by writers (such as Froissart) who occasionally
used the services of scribes. Once written down, however, the text was not
confined to the written page forever, as the text could be read aloud, whether
by individual readers who read the text for themselves or in front of courtly
audiences. Paul Saenger (1997) has amply proven that before silent reading

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(re)appeared at the end of the Middle Ages, most people would oralize the text
that they were reading in a low voice. Princes and kings often had a “prelector,”
to use Joyce Coleman’s expression (Coleman 1996), who would read a text out
loud for their (often illiterate) master. In general, courtly audiences preferred that
texts be read out loud or performed by seasoned readers or actors. For instance,
Froissart (1337–1405) writes in the third book of his Chroniques (Chronicles) that
he personally read passages of his own Meliador to count Gaston Febus de Foix-
Béarn. Christine de Pizan (1364/65–ca. 1430) notes that Charles V of France had a
favorite prelector in the person of Gilles Mallet. Thus, voice and writing were seen
by medieval people as two types of support for a text which, far from being
inimical, were perfectly compatible and interchangeable, depending on the cir-
cumstances. Thus, a text could be dictated orally to a scribe, written down,
oralized through reading or performance, written down again in a different form
or version, and so on. In some cases, we are dealing with “amphibious” texts
which could be both read aloud and silently (see also Bratu 2010). In other cases,
as Green (1994) has pointed out, we are dealing with texts which use “oral”
terminology simply because of the force of habit, although the authors did not
necessarily intend them to be read aloud.
B Manuscripts and Mouvances

As we noted earlier, the massive presence of “oral” traits is one of the features
that differentiates medieval “literature” from modern texts. The existence of a
manuscript culture, as opposed to the culture of print, is another fundamental
difference between medieval and modern texts. When discussing Stendhal’s Le
rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black), nineteenth-century critics could afford to
spend most of their time discussing the author’s style, Julien Sorel or Madame de
Rênal’s “psychology,” the significance of the two colors mentioned in the title,
and so on. That is primarily because for most modern texts, there is such a thing
as a unique, final or “official” version of the text, authorized and signed by the
author himself. With most medieval texts, however, discussions of style, text
structure or ideology are necessarily preceded by a discussion of the available
manuscripts (or witnesses).
A number of nineteenth-century critics treated medieval texts as if they were
the product of modern authors. Scholars such as Joseph Bédier, for instance,
believed that their primary duty was to look for the “original” text authored and
authorized, as it were, by the writer himself. Should the “original” not be found,
critics took it upon themselves to search for the version that they believed was the
closest to the original and discarded the others as “imperfect” or “inferior” copies.

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Of course, what these critics ignored was that they were using a methodology that
was entirely inappropriate for medieval texts. Like in the case of orality, twenti-
eth-century criticism (Chaytor 1945) saw the emergence of what could be called
manuscript studies, which operated a Copernican revolution in the understand-
ing of medieval texts. It soon became obvious that manuscript culture operated
differently from print. In a manuscript culture, the author may or may not have
been the actual writer or scriptor of the manuscript (or one of the manuscripts). In
some cases, we do possess autograph manuscripts signed by the original author.
Such is the case, for instance, with Lambert de Saint-Omer’s Liber Floridus (The
Book of Flowers, twelfth century), Thomas Hoccleve’s (1368–1426) poetry (Henry
E. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, HM 111 and HM 744, and University
Library, Durham, MS Cosin V.III.9), and many of Christine de Pizan’s (1364/65-ca.
1430) writings: Le Livre de deux amans (The Debate of Two Lovers, Brussels 11034;
Chantilly 492; London 4431), Les Fais d’armes et de chevalerie (The Book of Deeds
of Arms and Chivalry, Paris BNF 603), La Mutacion de Fortune (The Book of the
Mutation of Fortune, Brussels 9508), and others.
However, even when we do possess autograph manuscripts (which is not the
norm in medieval studies), these manuscripts may contain different versions of
the same text. Sometimes, these versions represent different stages of the author’s
work. For the first book of Froissart’s Chronicles, for instance, critics speak of
three text stages: the first stage, represented by a number of manuscripts (Austin
48; New York Pierpont Morgan 804; Paris BNF 2640, 2657, etc.); the second stage
in the Amiens manuscript 486; and the third stage in the Rome (BAV 869) manu-
script. Medieval authors may have also changed their respective texts in order to
adapt them to changing circumstances, to make them more palatable to the
audiences, dedicatees or grandees of the day, and so on (on medieval patrons, see
Holzknecht 1966; McCash, ed., 1996; Croenen and Ainsworth 2006). In certain
cases, critics might be able to argue that a certain manuscript is more faithful to
the author’s “final” vision of the text (such as the Rome manuscript of Book I of
Froissart’s Chronicles), but even then it is a matter of educated speculation and
not an absolute certainty. In most cases, however, we do not possess an auto-
graph manuscript either because that initial witness was lost or because it has
simply never existed. As mentioned earlier, many writers dictated their texts to
scribes, who often embellished or modified the text as they saw fit (see Avrin
1991). Of course, more meticulous writers were likely to dictate the entire text to
the scribe, paying close attention to every detail or at least to the general aspect of
the text. Certain authors, such as Christine de Pizan or Guillaume de Machaut,
were indeed very attentive to every aspect of their books (including the physical
appearance of the manuscript) and to how these fit into their overall oeuvre. In
other cases, however, it is entirely possible that the “author” may have given the

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scribe general indications as to the composition of the book and allowed him to
elaborate and embellish on his own. In the latter situation, it is obvious that the
border between “author” (as source of the intellectual content of the text) and
scribe (as actual scriptor of the text and potential co-author of a certain sections
of the book) is rather porous. But even when such “original” texts existed, the
vagaries of medieval book production could change the content of the book (see
Shailor 1991; Rouse and Rouse 2000). Medieval scribes (Reynolds and Wilson
1974) performed a wide array of changes to the texts that they copied in their
scriptoria. At a time when literacy differed widely from country to country and
from region to region, scribes with varying degrees of orthographic, philological,
and literary competence produced (sometimes radically) different versions of the
same text. In some cases, scribes chose to “improve” or “update” the spelling of
certain words. In vernacular languages, there were no official spelling rules. As a
result, scribes from Picardy or from the Anglo-Norman realm often adapted the
spelling of a text to their local dialect, in order to make it more easily comprehen-
sible for local audiences. As insignificant as such changes may seem, they could
change the overall tone of a text. In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer (1343–1400) is
acutely aware of such issues that may affect an author’s work. He takes leave of
his work (“Go, litel bok”) which, although a topos found in many medieval
writings, expresses perfectly how anxious certain medieval writers must have felt
before handing over their work to scribes to have it copied in several exemplars.
Then, Chaucer explicitly mentions the lack of spelling standardization in English
which, he hopes, will not affect the reception of his work: “And for ther is so gret
diversite / In Englissh and in writyng of oure tonge, / So prey I God that non
myswrite the, / Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge …” (Chaucer 1988, Troilus
and Criseyde, 5.1793–6). Chaucer voices again such authorial concerns when he
addresses Adam, his personal scribe, wishing him a scalp infection unless he
improves his copying in the future: “Adam scriveyn, if ever it thee bifalle / Boece
[Boethius] or Troylus for to writen newe, / Under thy long lokkes thou most have
the scalle / But [unless] after my makyng [composition] thow write more trewe. /
So ofte aday I mot thy werk renewe, / It to correcte and eke to rubbe and scrape, /
And al is thorugh thy negligence and rape [haste]” (Chaucer 1988, Chaucers
wordes unto Adam, his owne scriveyn, 650).
In some cases, scribes did not limit themselves to mere “cosmetic” changes.
Oftentimes, they could—and did—change whole passages in order to adapt the text
to new circumstances, highlight or diminish the role of a certain fictional or
historical character, change the ideological bias of a text, and so on. This naturally
led to the existence of a significant number of manuscript “mutations” or mou-
vances, to use Zumthor’s more elegant phrase from his landmark study Essai de
poétique médiévale (Toward a Medieval Poetics, Zumthor 1972). In the second

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chapter of the Essai, Zumthor notes that there is a sharp contrast between, on the
one hand, the manuscripts of select late-medieval French poets such as Guillaume
de Machaut (1300–1377) and Charles d’Orléans (1394–1465), and most other med-
ieval manuscripts on the other. The former manuscripts, Zumthor noted, contained
the name of the author in a fairly fixed text with few variants. However, Zumthor
believed that most medieval manuscripts presented a combination of authorial
anonymity and high textual instability. In many cases, these mouvances involved
not just spelling or dialectal modifications but also changes in the structure of text.
Zumthor believed that anonymity and mouvances were closely related phenomena
since they were both symptoms of a culture which ignored the (fundamentally
modern) idea of “intellectual property.” Thus, many scribes did not see a text as
“belonging” to its author and did not deem it inappropriate to change the text as
they saw fit (see Heinen, ed., 1989). Zumthor also believed that another reason for
this rather nonchalant attitude toward texts was the intrinsically “vocal” (or
“oral”) nature of medieval culture. Spoken words did not have an “owner,” only
utterers. Similarly, scribes believed that texts were not sacred immutable entities—
hence all the modifications that they performed on them (Zumthor 1987, 160–8).
Thus, Zumthor believed that mouvance or mobility was the intrinsic quality of
medieval manuscripts. As a result, our modern notions of “works” or “writings”
(oeuvre) are paradigmatically inappropriate for a good understanding of medieval
“literature.” He argued that we should instead focus on the complex unit consti-
tuted by all the extant manuscripts of a “text” and all the traces left behind by the
various “authors,” scribes, prelectors, and so on. Thus, a “work” was not a static
text but a dynamic process which involved creation, modification, transmission,
growth, and re-modification in the process of transmission.
Equally important in this broader conversation on medieval manuscripts is
Bernard Cerquiglini’s concept of variance (Cerquiglini 1989, trans. 1999). Cerquigli-
ni believed that Zumthor’s mouvance evoked oral culture to such an extent that it
was not the most suitable term for understanding manuscripts. Variance, that is to
say the idea that medieval manuscripts vary from each other, depending on the
scribe and on the context in which they were produced, was a more appropriate
concept for manuscript culture. Moreover, Cerquiglini insists much more than
Zumthor on willful changes performed by scribes because for Cerquiglini, the
literary work is fundamentally a “variable” devoid of a primary source (“The
literary work, in the Middle Ages, is a variable … The fact that one hand was the first
is sometimes, undoubtedly, less significant than this constant rewriting of a work
which belongs to whoever recasts it and gives it a new form,” Cerquiglini 1999, 57).
Thus, changes and variants are not scribal “errors”; instead, they are an intrinsic
part of what medieval manuscripts are: dynamic, constantly chaging oeuvres.
Machan (1994, 184), too, believes that medievalists have focused too much on the

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“original,” “authorized” text instead of analyzing “the work behind a document”

(for a similar approach to Cerquiglini and Machan’s, see Millett 1994; for a different
perspective, see Jacobs 1998). In essence, Cerquiglini and Machan’s propose to
replace the “best-text” method used by Bédier (1928) and other medievalists with
an analysis of what we would now call the manuscript tradition of a text.
In an interesting conclusion to his study on variance, Cerquiglini argues that
the complexity of medieval manuscripts can be replicated and preserved by
modern interactive multi-dimensional technology. While in traditional books,
variants tended to be relegated to the bottom of the page or to the appendix,
computer technology allows us to create texts with links and hyperlinks which
replicate medieval manuscripts much more closely.
C Authorship and Anonymity

When Cerquiglini and others maintained that the initial source of a text is “less
significant than this constant rewriting of a work which belongs to whoever
recasts it and gives it a new form” (Cerquiglini 1999, 57), it is obvious that the
“best-text” method is not the only target of the French author’s criticism. The
other target is the very notion of authorship in medieval literature. For many
critics of the second half of the twentieth century, medieval literature was quin-
tessentially anonymous or multi-authored to such an extent that it was impossi-
ble to speak of a single author or of a clear “authorial intention” (intentio auctoris)
in a given text. Fortunately or unfortunately, medieval authorship has often been
analyzed depending on the critical fashion of the day. In the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, many critics were adepts of Gustave Lanson’s “man-and-
work” method, which flourished at a time when biographical information was
abundant about contemporary and recent authors. It is relatively easy to discuss,
say, Baudelaire’s biography and his work since so much biographical information
is available about him. For medieval authors, however, critics did not possess the
same amount of biographical information. In the second half of the twentieth
century, structuralist and post-structuralist critics essentially argued that even if
we did know more about the author’s life, such data would not be relevant to
explain a specific text.
As we noted in the case of Bernard Cerquiglini, some structuralists and post-
strucuturalists even believed that the notion of medieval author was cumbersome
and needed to be done away with in critical discourse. Like Cerquiglini, many
critics argued that the notions of “author” and “authorship” were fundamentally
alien to medieval culture (“l’auteur n’est pas une idée médiévale,” Cerquiglini
1989, 25). In fact, the debate on the role of authorship in literature in general

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started approximately three decades prior to the publication of Cerquiglini’s Eloge

de la variante (In Praise of the Variant). As we noted elsewhere (Bratu 2012a), the
opening salvo of the debate on the “death of the author” was fired in 1968 by
Roland Barthes in his famous essay “La Mort de l’auteur” (“The Death of the
Author,” Barthes 1968). Like Foucault in his “Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?” (“What is
an Author?,” Foucault 1969), Barthes intended to reorient the attention of readers
and literary critics toward the text itself, while eliminating the author from (or at
least diminishing his role in) the process of text production. The primary target of
Barthes and Foucault’s criticism was the empirical author, with his “life” and
“psychology” which, the two French critics argued, failed to explain the text itself.
Barthes’s and Foucault’s manifestoes influenced generations of medievalists,
as well as the overall debate on authorship in medieval studies. In some of Paul
Zumthor’s writings, one cannot fail to notice a certain unease when the critic
discusses authorship-related issues. For instance, in the Essai de poétique médié-
vale, when analyzing the use of the first person pronoun in troubadour poetry,
Zumthor argued that the “I” of the troubadours was very much impersonal and
had little to do with the actual identity of the empirical author. Zumthor even
argued, in a nearly Barthesian manner, that the medieval poet was determined by
language rather than vice versa (“Le poète [médiéval] est situé dans son langage
plutôt que son langage en lui,” Zumthor 1972, 68). However, we need to keep in
mind that Zumthor’s perspective on medieval authorship was informed by his
studies on the “oral” nature of medieval culture and, as is well known, “oral”
cultures place a premium on efficacious texts and performances rather than
authorship. As we noted earlier, “oral” cultures tend to modify texts as they see fit
with little concern for what the original “author” or performer intended the text to
be. The claim that the notions of “author” and “authorship” were alien to
medieval culture as a whole is simply an exaggeration. Like many oral creations
omit the name of the “author,” many medieval texts do indeed omit the name of
the original writer but that is not the case with all medieval texts. Anonymity,
whether intentional or not, is indeed widespread in medieval texts but it constitu-
tes only one side of the story.
The other side of the story is, of course, that certain medieval writers made
every possible effort to have their name and reputation preserved for posterity.
Zumthor himself noted that certain troubadour razos and vidas show an obvious
interest in the poet’s identity and life. Of course, the “life” of the poet presented in
these texts is often embellished and fictionalized but it is nonetheless obvious
that medieval readers were quite interested in the author’s literary persona, if not
also in the “life” of the empirical author. Elsewhere (Zumthor 1975), too, Zumthor
admitted that certain medieval writers, such as Eustache Deschamps, Christine de
Pizan, or Charles d’Orléans, put considerable effort into constructing a literary

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persona that, independently from one’s opinions on the empirical author, needed
to be discussed as a literary phenomenon.
Another angle of attack against medieval authorship was philological. Cer-
quiglini (1989) argued that authorship had little to no room in a medieval world
where most manuscripts were anonymous and the others were written and
modified by so many scribes. As we noted earlier, Cerquiglini argued that even
when we know the author of a manuscript, the “initial” text was probably
modified so many times by so many different hands that it is nearly impossible to
detect the original intentio auctoris. While it is true that many medieval manu-
scripts are fundamentally palimpsestic, this argument too is a sweeping (and very
ideological) generalization that does not account for all medieval manuscripts.
Cerquiglini’s thesis does not take into account autograph manuscripts or the fact
that, in spite of interventions performed by different scribes at different times and
in different geographical areas, many manuscripts preserve the same text by and
large. Of course, in some cases, scribal interventions may have been quite
intrusive, but the fact remains that in most cases, scribes performed relatively
minor changes while preserving the text in a reasonably faithful manner. It would
be more accurate to argue that occasionally, scribes could improvise themselves
as (partial) co-authors of the text, but the claim that authorship was a notion alien
to the Middle Ages is evidently excessive.
Discussing authorship in a positive manner became more frequent during the
1980s, when a number of landmark studies brought valuable insights into various
aspects of medieval authorship. Alastair Minnis noted in his Medieval Theory of
Authorship (1984) that although the Bible has always been considered a sacred,
divinely-inspired text, late-medieval thinkers paid increased attention to the hu-
man authors as “efficient causes” of this fundamental text of Christianity. Thus,
toward the end of the Middle Ages, Minnis contends, the human author was very
much believed to be a topic worthy of intellectual investigation. Michel Zink noted
in his La Subjectivité littéraire (1985; The Invention of Literary Subjectivity,) that
many late thirteenth-century French texts revealed what he called an “invasion of
authorial subjectivity.” Sylvia Huot showed in her From Song to Book (Huot 1987)
that while early French poems used to be gathered in generic multi-author chan-
sonniers, the thirteenth century saw a rise in the number of single-author codices.
Huot suggested thus that authors gradually became the central axis around which
manuscripts were organized toward the end of the late Middle Ages. Zink and
Huot’s books were followed by an impressive number of critical works that were
equally instrumental in reassessing and redefining medieval authorship (Buschin-
ger, ed., 1991; Berthelot 1991; Dronke 1996; Marnette 1998; Holmes 2000; Zimmer-
mann, ed., 2001; Coxon 2001; Cheney and de Armas, ed., 2002; Calame and
Chartier, ed., 2004; Greene, ed., 2006). A number of shorter studies (Marnette

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1999; Emerson 2001; Guenée 2005; Kangas et al., ed., 2013) also enriched the
conversation on the medieval author. Non-medievalists, too, attempted to reas-
sess the idea of the author in a post-post-structuralist context (Burke 1992).
Finally, beyond our modern interpretations of medieval authorship, it is
equally important to remember how medieval people themselves saw this issue.
With regard to the issue of anonymity, it might be useful to remember the
prologue to the Vita sancti Martini (The Life of Saint Martin) by the fourth-century
Christian historian Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363–425). In the prologue, Sulpicius
Severus asks his spiritual brother Desiderius to erase the title of the book and his
name so that readers may pay attention to the text itself (materia) and disregard
the identity of the author (“suppresso, si tibi videtur, nomine libellus edatur.
Quod ut fieri valeat, titulum fronti erade, ut muta sit pagina et, quod sufficit,
loquatur materiam, non loquatur auctorem,” in Severus 2010, 8). Also, Gregory
the Great (540–604), one of the major authors of the early medieval period, wrote
in the preface to the Moralia in Job (Morals on the Book of Job) that since the Holy
Ghost is the real author of a book, the identity of the human writer (scriptor) is
irrelevant (“Cum ergo rem cognoscimus, ejusque rei Spiritum sanctum auctorem
tenemus, quia scriptorem quaerimus, quid aliud agimus, nisi legentes litteras de
calamo percontamur?” in Gregory the Great 1849, 517. “When then we understand
the matter, and are persuaded that the Holy Spirit was its Author, in stirring a
question about the author, what else do we than in reading a letter enquire about
the pen?”). But these were Christian authors for whom anonymity was not a mere
literary issue but a matter of faith. Their anonymity (which was not so successful
after all …) was part of the larger religious doctrine on the humility of man before
God. Indeed, humilitas was a virtue that many medieval writers tried to emulate
but not always successfully. In fact, many writers paid lip service to the virtue of
humility while cultivating their own literary persona and doing their best to have
their names publicized as much as possible. As for texts that did not have an
author, they were regarded as “apocryphal” and they were believed to “possess
an auctoritas far inferior to that of works which circulated under the names of
auctores” (Minnis 1984/2010, 10). In other words, a text without an author was a
text void of any authority and authenticity; a text that no one had authorized, as
it were; a text on which nobody wanted to stake his or her reputation. It would
therefore be erroneous to think that everyone believed, like Sulpicius Severus and
Gregory the Great, in the virtues of anonymity.
The word “author” is derived from the Latin auctor (from the verb augere, “to
grow” and possibly from the Greek autentim, “authority”) which, according to
Marie-Dominique Chenu, means “someone who produces something, such as a
state, a building, and more specifically a book” (Chenu 1927, 82). Auctor also
designated someone who created an authoritative work, as opposed to the word

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actor, which referred to an individual who produced something in a material

sense (from the Latin agere, “to do” or “make”). For example, Livy would have
been considered the auctor of Ab urbe condita libri (The History of Rome), in the
sense that he was the source of the ideas developed in the book, while Livy’s
scribe, as producer of the book manuscript, would have been the actor.
Later, medieval writers differentiated between the actual auctor of a text, the
scriptor (that is to say the scribe or copyist), the compilator (that is to say the
person who compiled a text from several sources), and the commentator (who
simply comments on other people’s texts). In the thirteenth century, Saint Bona-
venture (1221–1274) discussed and explained these terms in his commentary on
Peter Lombard’s Libri sententiarum (The Sentences). The discussion started with
the question whether Peter Lombard (1096–1164) should be called the “author”
(and not, more modestly, the causa efficiens) of the Libri sententiarum, since God
is regarded as the “author” of all things and, more specifically, the supreme
author of all teachings (“Ille solus dicendus est auctor libri, qui est doctor sive
auctor doctrinae; sed, sicut dicit Augustinus in libro de Magistro: “Solus Christus
est doctor”: ergo solus debet dici huius libri auctor,” Bonaventure 1882–1902, 14).
Bonaventure points out that there is absolutely no indication that God wrote the
Libri sententiarum “with his own finger,” which is why Master Peter Lombard is
the only one who can be considered the author of this text (“Constat quod Deus
hoc opus non scripsit digito suo, ergo habuit alium, creatum auctorem; sed non
est dare alium nisi Magistrum,” Bonaventure 1882–1920, 14; It is evident that God
did not write this book with His own hand. Therefore, the book had another—
human—author, and it can only be attributed to the Master [i.e., Peter Lombard]).
Bonaventure then continues his analysis of the differences between the different
types of writership and argues that “[t]he method of making a book is fourfold.
For someone writes the materials of others, adding or changing nothing, and this
person is said to be merely the scribe. Someone else writes the materials of others,
adding, but nothing of his own, and this person is said to be the compiler.
Someone else writes both the materials of other men, and of his own, but the
materials of others as the principal materials, and his own annexed for the
purpose of clarifying them, and this person is said to be the commentator, not the
author. Someone else writes both his own materials and those of others, but his
own as the principal materials, and the materials of others annexed for the
purpose of confirming his own, and such must be called the author” (Bonaven-
ture 1882–1902, 14–15; translation from Minnis 1984/2010, 94). Thus, Bonaven-
ture, who was most certainly everything but naïve in regard to what scribes could
do with a text, makes a very clear distinction between scribes on the one hand,
whose duties he describes as primarily manual and on the other hand the author,
who is responsible for the intellectual content of the text. The hierarchy, based on

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the amount of intellectual input in the process of writing, is very clear: scribes are
at the very bottom, with compilers above them, then commentators (like Bona-
venture himself in relationship to Peter Lombard’s book), and authors (such as
Peter Lombard) at the very top of the pyramid of human authors.
Above this pyramid of human authorship stood, like a watchful eye, Christ
himself, the teacher and author (“Christus … doctor et auctor”) of all things. In
fact, the hierarchical difference between scribe and author seems so clear for
Bonaventure that he does not feel he has to spend too much time elaborating on
it. Bonaventure seems much more concerned with distinguishing between the
respective roles of God and the human author, for according to Bonaventure,
there are two types of teaching. The first consists in restoring one’s sight (“visum
restituit”) and that is God’s attribute, whereas the second consists of pointing the
finger in a certain direction to show someone something already visible, which is
what human authors do.
The auctores enjoyed such a prestige that they were assiduously studied in
medieval schools. Alastair Minnis (Minnis 1984/2010, 13) correctly points out that
“[e]very discipline, every area of study, had its auctores. In grammar, there were
Priscian and Donatus together with the ancient poets; in rhetoric, Cicero; in
dialectic, Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius; in arithmetic, Boethius and Martianus
Capella; in astronomy, Hyginus and Ptolemy; in medicine, Galen and Constantine
the African; in Canon Law, Gratian; in theology, the Bible and, subsequently,
Peter Lombard’ Sentences as well.” The auctores’s texts were considered the most
authoritative and they formed the basis of the entire system of education in the
Middle Ages. It is obvious from Minnis’s list that the first and foremost auctores
were ancient Greek and Roman writers; however, the presence of Peter Lombard
in this list shows that the auctoritates system was not a closed one. For a writer to
be an auctor, his work had to be authentic and to possess intrinsic worth (Minnis
1984/2010, 10). Authenticity, at a time when scribal falsifications were abundant,
was indeed a relevant criterion. The intrinsic worth, however, was a somewhat
subjective criterion. As we noted elsewhere (Bratu 2012a), one’s auctor was
another’s amateur and vice versa. Bonaventure did think that Peter Lombard was
an auctor, but without the accolades bestowed upon him by many other intellec-
tuals, Lombard may have never been considered a major author. However, the
lack of very clear criteria for the status of auctor prevented the system from
ossifying and allowed newcomers such as Peter Lombard and others to enter the
Pantheon of authorial excellence.
In the twelfth century, the word “author” appeared in the French vernacular,
spelled acteur, aucteur or auctour. Thus, Old French did not really differentiate
between auctor and actor, as the vernacular word usually corresponded to the
meaning of auctor, rather than actor. In the fourteenth century, it appears in

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Middle English as well, spelled autor, autour, or auctor. As we mentioned else-

where (Bratu 2012a), the Old French words acteur, aucteur or auctour referred
primarily to God as creator of the world and moral author of the Bible. Christine
de Pizan, for instance, speaks of “our creator, God, father and author of every-
thing” (“nostre createur, Dieu, le pere de tout acteur,” Pizan 1959–1966, II,
v. 9010, 183) and as “infinite wisdom and creator of all things” (“Dieu, sapience /
infinie, acteur de toute fourme,” Pizan 1936–1940, I, 32). In Guillaume de Ma-
chaut’s Prise d’Alexandrie (The Capture of Alexandria), God is also mentioned as
“creator and author of the whole world” (“creatour, / Qui de tout le monde est
actour,” Machaut 1877, 237). Such examples appear not only in French, for Dante,
too, refers to God as the “true author” (“verace autore”) in the Paradiso (canto
XXVI, v. 40). In The Parson’s Tale, Chaucer speaks of “[t]he auctour of matrimo-
nye, that is Crist” (v. 808). Naturally, the famous authors (auctores or auctoritates)
of the ancient world, such as Aristotle, Ovid, Virgil, Cato, and Caesar, were also
called auteurs or autours. In Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la paix (The Book of
Peace), the word aucteur appears next to Seneca’s name (Pizan 1958, 175; see also
Tobler and Lommatzsch, ed., I, 687–88).
Given the prestige associated with this word, a vernacular writer from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries would have never dared compare himself to God
or to ancient authors by calling himself or herself an auteur. Although many
vernacular writers from this period such as Marie de France, Wace or Benoît de
Sainte-Maure did suggest that they deserved this title, they could not commit the
literary heresy to call themselves authors. However, Alastair Minnis (Minnis 1984)
was certainly right to argue that as the prestige of vernacular writers reached
its zenith during the late Middle Ages, many of them came to be considered
“authors” as well.
Several centuries after the emergence of literature in vernacular languages,
many vernacular authors felt that their time had come to be recognized as authors
as well. Indeed, as we showed elsewhere (Bratu 2012a), toward the end of the
Middle Ages, an increasing number of vernacular writers, such as Froissart and
Christine de Pizan, were bold enough to claim the prestigious title of author.
D Latin and/versus Vernacular

In the early Middle Ages, most European literature was written in Latin. Even after
the decline and eventual demise of the Roman Empire in the West in the fifth
century C.E., Latin remained the lingua franca of European intellectuals. Although
the Empire that had quasigeneralized the use of Latin had collapsed, the fast-
growing Christian church continued to use Latin—paradoxically, the language of

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their former oppressors—as its language of communication, culture, and ritual. It

is therefore not surprising that the early Middle Ages produced an abundance of
theological, philosophical, and literary texts in Latin. Although nowadays we
would consider theology and philosophy as separate disciplines from literature,
many medieval scholars did not see their writings as strictly religious texts. Many
of their writings were informed by classical authors; moreover, many of them
wrote a variety of texts, from poems to letters and from religious to philosophical
treatises. For instance, Jerome (347–420), known primarily for his translation of
the Bible into Latin (known as the Vulgate), also wrote a number of a chronicles,
several vitae (Vita Pauli monachi, Vita patrum, Vita Malchi monachi captivi, Vita
Hilarionis), as well as a De viri illustribus (On Illustrious Men) in which he adapted
the classical model of the book dedicated to outstanding men to the needs of
Christian hagiography. Classical authors had produced a number of such works.
Besides the numerous anonymous texts bearing the title De viris illustribus or De
hominibus illustribus, it is important to remember that Cornelius Nepos had written
a De viris illustribus and an Excellentium imperatorum vitae (Lives of Illustrious
Emperors), while Suetonius’s Lives also served as a model for Jerome’s work and
later for Gennadius of Massilia’s De viris illustribus (fifth century). Thus, like
classical authors, early medieval writers had encyclopedic tendencies and many
early medieval texts, whether theological, philosophical, polemical or poetic,
were inspired from the rhetorical and literary tradition of the ancient world. The
same model of encyclopedic erudition is evident in the writings of Augustine of
Hippo (354–430), author of a number of works which are religious, philosophical,
and literary at the same time: De beata vita (The Happy Life), Contra academicos
(Against the Academicians), Soliloquia (Soliloquies), De libero arbitrio (On Free
Will), De magistro (On the Teacher), Confessiones (Confessions), De civitate Dei
(The City of God), Epistulae (Letters), to name only the most important ones.
Prosper of Aquitaine (ca. 390–455), too, authored religious texts, such as De
vocatione omnium gentium (The Calling of All Nations) and Capitula, as well as a
history of the world (Epitoma Chronicon), instead of several texts that are both
religious and literary (the Sententia, which are a collection of sentences or max-
ims, and the Epigrammata, which contain 106 verse epigrams). The writings of
Venantius Fortunatus (530–600) follow the same pattern: he wrote eleven books
of poetry, a poem on the life of Saint Martin of Tours, church hymns such as Vexilla
Regis prodeunt (Royal Banners) and Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium (Sing,
My Tongue, the Savior’s Glory), prose vitae on the lives of Saint Germain of Paris,
Saint Rémi of Rheims, Saint Médard of Noyon, Saint Aubin of Angers, saints
Marcel and Radegund, a poem on the cathedral of Paris (De ecclesia Parisiaca),
and four panegyrics in honor of four Frankish kings (Sigibert, Charibert, Chilperic,
and Childebert II).

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Other writers, such as Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594) found it useful to write
down the history of their time, and it is thanks to Gregory’s Historia Francorum (The
History of the Franks) that we possess a wealth of information on the history of early
Frankish kings. A great admirer of the ancient world, Gregory complained that his
contemporaries did not appreciate literature and arts as much as past generations.
In addition to his history of the Franks in ten books, he also wrote the Septem libri
miraculorum (Seven Books of Miracles), a collection of legends on Christian martyrs
and confessors, a treatise on stars (De cursu stellarum), and several other texts that
are now lost (a commentary on the Psalter, a preface to a treatise by Sidonius
Apollinaris, etc.). His intellectual formation owed a great deal to Virgil, Martianus
Capella, and Sallust (the latter being constantly quoted by Gregory in his works).
Gregory of Tours was not the only one who believed that it was his duty to continue
the intellectual endeavors of times past and reverse the cultural decline of his age.
Considerable efforts were made to preserve the culture of the ancient world by the
likes of Boethius (480–525), who translated some of Aristotle’s works into Latin,
and Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636), who collected in his Etymologiae (The
Etymologies) most of the knowledge available during his time.
Of course, not all early medieval writers were encyclopedic intellectuals.
Although an ecclesiastic, Sidonius Apollinaris (430–ca. 490) wrote mostly literary
texts. His Carmina contain 24 poems, including a few panegyrics on different
emperors inspired from authors such as Statius, Ausonius, and Claudian. These
texts were all written before 469, that is to say prior to the date when Sidonius
Apollinaris became bishop of Clermont. In addition to the Carmina, he also wrote
a considerable number of Epistulae (Letters) based on the Symmachian model.
Once again, most of these early medieval Latinate intellectuals were asso-
ciated one way or the other with the Church. Augustine was bishop of Hippo;
though a layman, Prosper of Aquitaine was a disciple of Augustine; Sidonius
Apollinaris was bishop of Clermont; Venantius Fortunatus was bishop of Poitiers,
and Gregory had the same function in Tours; Isidore was Archbishop of Seville.
Others were simple monks, such as Bede (673–735), the author of the Historia
ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People).
This was normal at a time when the Church was not only a religious institution
but also one of the few institutions that preserved classical and medieval manu-
scripts in their monasteries.
It would be useful to remember here the case of Cassiodorus (ca. 485–585),
the founder of the monastery and the monastery school of Vivarium, in southern
Italy. This monastery possessed an impressive number of manuscripts for accord-
ing to Cassiodorus, a good Christian needed to be familiar with secular texts as
well. In his Institutiones (The Institutes), he made it very clear that classical
authors could be in certain cases just as useful (and certainly as eloquent) as the

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Bible. Of course, a Christian like Cassiodorus did not believe that classical authors
could supplant Scripture but he most definitely saw them as an important supple-
ment. That is why he considered that it was a monk’s duty to help preserve
classical and contemporary manuscripts by copying and, if possible, decorating
or illuminating them (on medieval illuminators, see Alexander 1992). At a time
when Italy’s relics were being destroyed by Ostrogothic armies, Cassiodorus took
it upon himself to (at least attempted to) reverse the decline and destruction of the
arts. Of course, not all medieval monks shared Cassiodorus’s love of ancient
(secular) literature but it is most definitely thanks to people like Cassiodorus that
monasteries became active centers of preservation and production of culture in
the Middle Ages.
During the Carolingian era, too, most intellectuals were associated with the
Church in one way or the other. Eginhard (ca. 775–840), the historian of the
Carolingian court and later secretary of Louis the Pious, was educated by the monks
of the abbey of Fulda. After completing the Vita Karoli Magni (The Life of Charle-
magne), he founded a Benedictine monastery and served as its abbot until his
death. Alcuin (ca. 735–804), the man that Einhard called “the most learned man in
the world” and the author of numerous poems, epistles, didactic and hagiographic
writings, was the student of Archbishop Ecgbert of York and became abbot of Tours.
Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856), a Benedictine monk and later archbishop of
Mainz, authored an important encyclopedia titled De rerum naturis (On the Nature
of Things) and many treatises on education, grammar, as well as scriptural com-
mentaries. Hincmar (806–882), also a prolific writer, author of theological and
political texts (on predestination and free will, on churches and chapels, on the
governance of the palace, on the person of the king, and much more—De praedesti-
natione Dei et libero arbitrio, De ecclesiis et capellis, De ordine palatii, De regis
persona et regio ministerio, Instructio ad Ludovicum regem), was archbishop of
Rheims. At this time, literature in vernacular languages, though not inexistent, was
far from the level of sophistication reached by Latin literature. Maybe only in Greek
(or Byzantine) literature can we find a significant number of literary, historical, and
encyclopedic texts that could come close to the level attained by Latin literature.
Thus, the Hellenophone areas of Europe produced a remarkable number of histor-
ians such as Evagrius (sixth century), Agathias (530-end of the sixth century),
emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905–959, author of two treatises, On
Ceremonies and On the Governance of the Empire), Michael Attaliates (eleventh
century), princess Anna Komnena (eleventh-twelfth centuries, author of the Alex-
iad), John Kinnamus (twelfth-century continuator of Komnena’s history), Nicetas
Choniates (ca. 1155–1215), George Akropolites (thirteenth century), George Pachy-
meres (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries), and emperor John VI Kantakouzenos
(thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, author of a History in four books).

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We should also mention here the Greek-Byzantine tradition of chronicling,

which began with the Chronographiai (Chronicle) in five books of Sextus Julius
Africanus (ca. 160–240), and was continued later by John Malalas (ca. 491–578),
Theophanes the Confessor (ca. 760–818), and John Zonaras (twelfth century). Like
the Latin West, Byzantium could boast a number of encyclopedic scholars.
Photius (ca. 810–893), also known as Photius I of Constantinople since he
exercised the function of Patriarch on Constantinople between 858–867 and 877–
886, was the author of the Myriobiblion (The Library), in which Photius essentially
reviewed and summarized 279 books that he had read. Michael Psellos (1018–
1078), known primarily for his Chronographia, also wrote a number of philosophi-
cal and religious texts, didactic poems, epitaphs for several patriarchs, panegy-
rics, epistles, satires, and other texts. Of the lesser-known encyclopedists, we
should mention Maximus Planudes. Planudes was a thirteenth-century compiler
of a collection of texts known as the Greek Anthology and author of treatises on
Greek grammar and syntax, of a biography of Aesop. He also translated Claudius
Ptolemaeus’s Geography into Latin and several other texts into Greek: Cicero’s
Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio), Caesar’s De bello gallico (The Gallic
War), Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (The Con-
solation of Philosophy), and Augustine’s De trinitate (On Trinity).
In addition, there were numerous other literary genres that flourished in
Byzantium. Such is the case with poetry (see, for instance, John Geometres, or
Theodore Metochites’s Poems), epigrammatic literature (the epigrams of Agathias,
Georgius Pisides, Christopher of Mitylene, Theodore the Studite), panegyrics (a
major name here is Paul the Silentiary, from the sixth century), begging poems
(Theodore Prodromos in the twelfth century and Manuel Philes in the twelfth-
thirteenth centuries), satires, and popular poetry or folksongs (such as the Digenis
Akritas). The discussion on Byzantine literature would be incomplete without
mentioning another important genre, which is the Byzantine novel. In the twelfth
century, during the Comnenian period, the ancient Greek romance novel was
rediscovered and brought back to life in a Christianized form. Of the many novels
that were created during the Middle Ages, only a few survive: Aristandros and
Kallithea by Constantine Manasses, Hysimine and Hysimines by Eusthatios Mak-
rembolites, Rodanthe and Dosikles by Theodore Prodromos, and Drosilla and
Charikles by Niketas Eugenianos. As we will see later, the twelfth century marks
the rise of vernacular novels in the West as well. Toward the end of the Middle
Ages, we have several other Greek novels: Belthandros and Chrysantza, Kallima-
chos and Chrysorroi, and Livistros and Rodamini. However, just like Latin literature
flourished in the areas were the Roman Empire had once existed and where the
Catholic Church was still dominant, Greek literature flourished in part thanks to
the Byzantine Empire. Like Latin, Greek literature benefitted from the presence of

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an imperial institutional architecture to back it up. But the other vernacular

languages, such as German, English or French, took much longer to create their
own vernacular literary tradition.
In the wider Germanic realm, we have a certain number of texts pre-dating
the twelfth century. It should be mentioned that we possess a number of Runic
inscriptions that, while not necessarily literary, attest to the existence of writing
in this area. The number of Runic inscriptions, from the British Isles to Scandina-
via and what is now Germany nears a total of 6,500. Out of these, over 300 are
written in Elder Futhark (from the second to the eighth centuries). The oldest
surviving rune is on the Vimose Comb and dates to ca. 160 C.E. The Vimose Comb
is a large comb found in the bog of Vimose, on the island of Funen in Denmark,
and the inscription reads “harja,” which is believed to be either a personal name
or maybe simply the word for comb (“harjaz”). We also have approximately 100
items with inscriptions in Anglo-Frisian Futhorc from the fifth to the eleventh
centuries and nearly 6,000 items in Younger Futhark, most of them on rune
stones and dating from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. We know that literary
texts were recorded in Runic script but very little has survived. There are, for
instance, Old English rune poems from the eighth or ninth century. Unfortu-
nately, the only manuscript recording the poems, the Cotton Otho B.x. was
destroyed in a fire in 1731, and all subsequent editions of the poems are based on
George Hickes’s 1705 facsimile.
However, Caedmon’s Hymn, apparently composed in the seventh century, is
considered to be the oldest text in Old English. The Hymn is a short poem
composed by a certain Caedmon, who is considered the first Old English poet. The
poem was preserved both in Latin and in vernacular in Bede’s Historia ecclesiasti-
ca and, according to Bede, its author lived at the abbey of Whitby (Northumbria)
in the seventh century. In short, the Hymn is a religious poem in which the poet
praises God as the guardian of heavens (“hefaenricaes uard”). Beowulf, one of the
most famous poems of English and world literature, is contained in a single
manuscript (the Nowell codex) and was composed by an anonymous Anglo-
Saxon poet some time between the eighth and the eleventh century. It would be
impossible to speak of Old English literature without mentioning Alfred the Great
(849–899), whose intellectual abilities were absolutely remarkable. One of the
declared purposes of his reign was the improvement of education in England and,
in particular, of education in the native tongue of his country. It is thanks to
Alfred’s determination that fifty Psalms, together with Gregory the Great’s Liber
regulae pastoralis (The Book of Pastoral Care), Boethius’s De consolatione philoso-
phiae, Augustine’s Soliloquia, Orosius’s Historiae adversum paganos libri septem
(Seven Books of History against the Pagans) and other texts were translated into
Old English. It is also during Alfred’s reign that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was

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composed. Literature in Old English did not cease to exist after the Norman
conquest of 1066 but it was certainly transformed after this event, just like the
country itself.
In the German-speaking realm, the Codex Abrogans is the oldest book written
in Old High German, dating back to the second half of the eighth century. The
manuscript (Codex 911), now preserved at the Stiftsbibliothek in St. Gall, is a
glossary from Latin to Old High German. The codex, attributed to Arbeo, Bishop
of Freising, contains approximately 3,670 Old High German words (and ca.
14,600 examples) and it is an essential text for the history of the German
language. We should also mention the Merseburger Zaubersprüche (Merseburg
Incantations), which are two magic (pre-Christian, pagan) spells which are
believed to date back to the eighth or ninth century and are recorded in a
theological manuscript from Fulda (Codex 136 f. 85a) dating from the ninth or
tenth century. Das Wessobrunner Gebet or Wessobrunner Schöpfungsgedicht (The
Wessobrunn Prayer), dating from approximately 790 and recorded in a manu-
script produced around 814 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, Clm. 22053 III,
fols. 65b-66a), is also among the earliest recorded texts in Old High German.
Named after the Benedictine Wessobrunn Abbey in Bavaria and composed by an
anonymous author, the poem contains a praise of Creation in verse in the first
part and a prayer in prose in the second part.
The first truly literary text is generally considered to be the heroic Hildebrands-
lied or Lay of Hildebrand from the ninth century. The lay contains 68 lines of
alliterative verse and it tells the story of two warriors who meet on the battlefield.
The older warrior, Hildebrand, asks his younger opponent, Hadubrand, who he is.
Not knowing who his adversary is, Hadubrand responds that he did not know his
father but the elders and sailors had told him that his father was a certain
Hildebrand. The latter answers that he would not fight a kinsman, thus implying
that Hadubrand is his son. However, Hadubrand believes this is only a ruse and
engages in battle with his opponent. Unfortunately, as this is only a fragment from
a larger poem, we do not know the outcome of the battle, though we can be certain
that it will be tragic (see Haubrichs, ed., 1988; Classen 2002). Another important
example of ninth-century epic poetry is the Muspilli, a fragment of which survived
as marginalia in a codex which belonged to Louis the German (Bayerische Staatsbi-
bliothek Munich, cim. 14098). The poem is believed to be a Christianization of the
pagan Ragnarök. In the first part, the poem discusses the life of the soul after the
death, whereas the second part describes a battle between heaven and hell over a
human’s soul. This is followed by another battle between the Antichrist and
Elihjah, and the poem ends with a description of the Resurrection and Judgment
Day. In addition to these important epic poems, we also possess a few other texts,
such as the Kasseler Gespräche (Kassel Conversations, a collection of Latin phrases

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translated into Old High German, ca. 810), Hrabanus Maurus’s Old High German
translation of Tatian’s Diatessaron (ca. 830), Otfrid of Weissenburg’s gospel har-
mony known as the Evangelienbuch (composed between 863–871), the religious
Petruslied (Song of Saint Peter, ca. 880, from Bavaria), the Georgslied on the life of
Saint George (from the 880s), and the Ludwigslied (The Song of Louis, ca. 881–882,
which describes and celebrates the victory of Louis III of France over the Vikings at
the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu on August 3, 881). Interestingly enough, the
Ludwigslied is preserved in a ninth-century manuscript (formerly belonging to the
Saint-Amand monastery, now Bibiliothèque Municipale de Valenciennes, Codex
150, fols. 141v-143r) which also contains one of the oldest texts in Old French, the
Sequence of Saint Eulalia, which we will discuss shortly. Although literary crea-
tions in Old High German are more numerous than in other vernacular languages,
they still cannot compare to the sheer amount of texts produced in Latin. Moreover,
like in French literature, it is really from the end of the eleventh century on that
German vernacular literature develops at a dramatic pace.
In France, there are relatively few texts prior to the twelfth century, and the
texts that we inherited from this period could hardly compete with the output in
Latin. Ironically, what is considered to be the very first text in “French” (or
Romance), the Serments de Strasbourg (Oaths of Strasbourg), appears in a Latin
text from the tenth or eleventh century, Nithard’s De dissensionibus filiorum
Ludovici pii (On the Dissensions of the Sons of Louis the Pious, Bibliothèque
Nationale de France ms. cod. lat. 9768). In fact, the very first poem in Old English
was mentioned in a Latin text as well. The Oaths of Strasbourg were taken in 842
and they were an agreement between two of Charlemagne’s grandsons, Charles
the Bald, the king of West Francia, and Louis the German, ruler of East Francia.
Moreover, the two half-brothers pledged to oppose the eldest brother, Lothair I.
The oaths were recorded in three languages: medieval Latin, Old French, and Old
High German. The Old French text still strikes modern readers as an intermediate
form between Latin and French (“Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro
commun saluament, d’ist di in auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si
saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per
dreit son fradra saluar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid
nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit”). It should
be noted, however, that it is far from certain whether this is the actual oath that
the two brothers took; also, since the Old French text was written by a Latinate
who essentially had to improvise in order to render the Old French text, it is also
uncertain whether this was indeed how the text sounded in Old French. Between
the ninth and the twelfth centuries, there are very few texts in Old French. The
Cantilène de Sainte-Eulalie, for instance, is the oldest piece of Old French hagio-
graphy and it was composed around 880, that is to say a few decades after the

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Oaths of Strasbourg. Also known as the Sequence of Saint Eulalia, the text is a
29-verse poem on Eulalia, a Christian martyr killed during Diocletian’s repression.
In the poem, however, she is allegedly martyred by emperor Maximian. Although
she survived being burned at the stake, she was eventually decapitated and her
soul ascended to heaven. Also in terms of hagiography, we have La vie de Saint
Léger (The Life of Saint Leger) from the end of the tenth century, and La vie de
Saint Alexis (The Life of Saint Alexis) from the eleventh century. It is only from the
twelfth century on that literary productions in Old French become more numerous
and more consistent.
Thus, the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century marks
a new phase in the development of vernacular literatures. From this period on,
the amount of vernacular literary texts increases dramatically and the gap
between texts written in Latin and respectively in vernacular languages is gradu-
ally narrowing. In spite of the emergence of vernacular literatures, Latin literature
continued to exist—and thrive—until the end of the Middle Ages (and far beyond
that mark, if we consider that texts in Latin—or neo-Latin—were written well into
the nineteenth century). Most religious and philosophical treatises continued to
be written in Latin, along with many historical writings. Eleventh-century prelates
such as Berengar of Tours and Marbodius of Rennes (author of various saints’
lives and theological treatises and also of many hymns and lyric poems) wrote
their works in Latin; the same can be said about the historians Marianus Scotus
(author of a universal history named Chronicon) and Adam of Bremen (author of a
history of the bishops of Hamburg, the Gesta Hamburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum).
In the twelfth century, too, Latin continued to be the lingua franca of European
philosophers and theologians, as we can gather from the works of Abelard
(author of numerous treatises on dialectics, theology, and ethics, such as Dialecti-
ca, Theologia christiana, Ethica, and of a more personal story focused on his
misfortunes, the Historia calamitatum) and Aelred de Rievaulx (author of several
religious treatises, such as De anima or On the Soul). Among twelfth-century Latin
historians, we should mention Abbot Suger (author of a history of Louis the Fat,
the Vita Ludovici regis), Aelred of Rievaulx once again (in addition to his religious
treatises, he also wrote a genealogy of the English kings and a life of Edward the
Confessor, known as Genealogia regum anglorum and Vita Sancti Eduardi, regis et
confessoris respectively), Otto of Freising (wrote a history of the Emperor Freder-
ick I, Gesta Frederici imperatoris), and William of Tyre (author of a Historia, later
translated into Old French), to name only a few. Adam of Saint Victor, the
Archpoet, and Peter of Blois wrote poems, hymns, and sequences in Latin.
In the thirteenth century, too, major theologians continued the tradition of
Latinate erudition. Such was the case with Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon (see his
main work, the Opus maius), Thomas Aquinas (author of a summa against the

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Gentiles, Summa contra gentiles, of a theological treatise known as the Summa

theologica, and of a work on being and essence, De ente et essentia, to name only
the most important ones), Siger of Brabant (wrote on the soul, logic, nature, and
the eternity of the world respectively in his treatises De anima intellectiva, Quaes-
tiones logicales, Quaestiones naturales, and De aeternitate mundi), and Duns
Scotus (see his treatise on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Quaestiones subtilissimae super
Metaphysicam Aristotelis). Also in the thirteenth century, Saxo Grammaticus
wrote the first full history of Denmark under the title Gesta Danorum.
In the fourteenth century, the philosopher William of Ockham wrote his
treatises, quite predictably, in Latin: Summa logicae (The Sum of Logic), Quaes-
tiones in octo libros physicorum Aristotelis (On the Eighth Book of Aristotle’s
Physics), Expositio aurea super artem veterem Aristotelis (Golden Exposition of the
Ancient Art of Aristotle), and others. The historian Ranulf Higden wrote his
Polychronicon in the same language. In fact, Latin literature was revived under
the influence of humanism, which led to the emergence of what is sometimes
referred to as Renaissance Latin. Renaissance humanists believed that medieval
Latin had added too many terms that were not in the spirit of the Latin language
and that these terms had to be purged from “pure” Latin. Moreover, such purifica-
tion could be achieved by returning ad fontes (Tracy 1987), that is to say to the
sources of Latin antiquity. Thus, they believed that Latin could be de-Gothicized,
as it were, by returning to Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. Moreover, one needed to
spell Latin correctly: aevum and etiam; not, as medieval scribes often wrote, evum
and eciam; gothic script needed to make way for the humanist minuscule,
inspired from the Carolingian minuscule which, in turn, was inspired from
ancient Latin script. Major vernacular writers, such as Dante (see his De vulgari
eloquentia), Petrarch (author of De viris illustribus, De remediis utriusque fortunae
or Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul, and of a guide to the Holy Land known as
the Itinerarium), and Boccaccio (Genealogia deorum gentilium, that is to say On
the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles), wrote in Latin as well as in vernacular.
In the fifteenth century, the works of humanists such as Lorenzo Valla (author of
a book on the elegance of Latin, De elegantiis Latinae linguae), Leonardo Bruni
(author of a history of Florence, Historia Florentini populi), Antonio de Nebrija (an
introduction to Latin know as Introductiones latinae), and Marsilio Ficino (author
of a treatise on the Platonic theology of the immortality of the soul, the Theologia
platonica de immortalitate animae) show how vibrant Latin remained until the
autumn of the Middle Ages and beyond.
In parallel, interest in vernacular languages increases toward the end of the
Middle Ages and during the Renaissance. Antonio Nebrija, whom we mentioned
earlier as the author of the Introductiones latinae, also wrote the very first
grammar of the Spanish language, La Gramática de la lengua castellana (The

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Grammar of the Castilian Language) in 1492—the same year as Columbus’s voyage

to the Americas. In addition, he also wrote a Latin-Spanish (1492) and a Spanish-
Latin (1495) dictionary. In 1517, he published a book on spelling in Spanish
(Reglas de ortografía española, that is to say The Rules of Spanish Spelling).
Nebrija’s work was crucial for the development of critical and intellectual interest
in vernacular languages—Spanish in particular. Thus, the sixteenth century in
Spain was a period of intense debates on the nature of the Spanish language, on
orthographic and stylistic rules, and proof thereof are the numerous books
published on this subject, such as Juan de Valdés’s Diálogo de la Lengua (Dialo-
gue on Language, 1535), Andrés Flórez’s Arte para bien leer y escribir (The Art of
Reading and Writing Well, 1552), Martín Cordero’s La manera de escribir en
castellano (How to Write in Castilian, 1556), and Cristóbal de Villalón’s Gramática
castellana (Castilian Grammar, 1558). In Italy, Pietro Bembo argued in his Prose
della volgar lingua (Writings on Vernacular Eloquence, 1525) that Petrarch should
be considered as the perfect model for writing in Italian. In north-western Europe,
the rise of Protestantism, with its insistence on the need for the common folk to be
able to understand the Gospel and mass in their own language, was crucial in the
development of “national” vernacular languages. Martin Luther’s translation of
the New Testament into German in 1522 and of the Old Testament in 1534 was a
crucial landmark in the history of the German language.
In France, too, the debate on the importance of the vernacular language is
intensifying. In 1529, Geoffroy Tory defended the French language in his Champ-
fleury. It is after the publication of this book that Francis I of France chose Tory
as his official publisher and printer in 1531. Eight years later, on August 10, 1539,
Francis I adopted the edict of Villers-Cotterêts which, in articles 110 and 111,
prescribed that French (not Latin) be used in all judicial and official documents.
This was indeed a landmark decision in the history of the French language. The
debate on the literary merits of French continued well into the second half of the
sixteenth century, and one of the most notable texts in this debate was Joachim
du Bellay’s Défense et illustration de la langue française (Defense and Illustration
of the French Language, 1549). Du Bellay’s Défense et illustration is an excellent
example of the confidence that vernacular writers mustered all over Europe
during the Renaissance but it also illustrates some of the dilemmas and para-
doxes of the vernacular-versus-Latin debate. On the one hand, Du Bellay argued
that writing in French was at least as worthy an endeavor as writing in Latin; on
the other, Du Bellay claimed that French had to purge its “Gothic” accretions
and purify itself by drawing inspiration from the classics, most from notably
Greek and Latin auctores. Thus, although reviled as the archrival of vernacular
languages, Latin literature did not cease to be seen as a worthy source of
inspiration.

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E Major Genres of Medieval Literature

I Epic and Lyrical Poetry
As we noticed earlier, some of the early medieval poems, such as Caedmon’s

Hymn and the Cantilène de Sainte Eulalie, were religious in nature. But the
“bestsellers” of the day were, in fact, epic poems narrating battles between armies
or individual heroes. Such was the case with the German Hildebrandslied or the
Old English Beowulf. The latter poem is the story of Beowulf, a Scandinavian Geat
hero, who comes to the rescue of the Danish King Hrothgar by killing Grendel,
Hrothgar’s enemy. The victorious Beowulf then returns to Geatland in Sweden
and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon but he
dies from the wounds sustained from the battle and is buried in a tumulus in
Geatland (see Orchard 2003; Carruthers 2011).
In France, epic poems were called chansons de geste because they usually
glorified the deeds (gesta in Latin, geste in Old French) of various heroes. Initially,
many of these poems circulated orally and were written down at a later date,
between the eleventh and the twelfth centuries. One of the most famous chansons
de geste, the Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland), narrates events which
supposedly took place during Charlemagne’s reign. In the Song, Charlemagne is
portrayed fighting the Muslims in Spain. The last pocket of Muslim resistance is in
Saragossa, ruled by king Marsilla, who promises to convert to Christianity if the
Franks return to their homeland. Charlemagne accepts the offer and needs to
select a messenger to Marsilla’s court. Roland, one of Charlemagne’s best war-
riors, proposes Ganelon, his father-in-law, as a messenger but Ganelon is not at
all happy to embark on such a dangerous mission. Plotting his revenge against
Roland, Ganelon tells the Saracens how to ambush Charlemagne’s rear guard
which will surely be led by Roland. The Saracens ambush the vastly outnumbered
Franks in Roncevaux (Roncesvalles). The “wise Oliver” asks Roland to blow his
“olifant,” a horn made from an elephant tusk, but the all-too-proud Roland
refuses to ask for help. Later, Roland realizes that he cannot possibly win this
battle and belatedly blows the olifant so hard that his temples burst; alas, Roland
dies but the saints take his soul to Heaven. Charlemagne kills Baligant, a major
Muslim leader, then conquers Saragossa and returns to Aix, where Ganelon is
eventually sentenced to death for treason and killed (see Delbouille 1954; Duggan
1973; 1976; Haidu 1993).
Chansons de gestes were so popular that they gave birth to numerous cycles
of gestes. The King’s geste, which includes the Chanson de Roland, the Pèlerinage
de Charlemagne (The Pilgrimage of Charlemagne), Fierabras, Aspremont, the
Chanson de Saisnes (The Song of the Saxons) by Jean Bodel, Huon de Bordeaux,

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Berthe aux grands pieds (Bertha Broadfoot) and Les Enfances Ogier (Ogier’s Youth)
by Adenet le Roi, Ogier le Danois (Ogier the Dane) by Raimbert de Paris, and
others), usually focuses on Charlemagne or one of his successors. The geste of
Garin of Monglane narrates the deeds of William of Orange and includes, among
others, La Chanson de Guillaume (The Song of William), Le Couronnement de Louis
(The Coronation of Louis), Le Charroi de Nîmes (The Cartage of Nîmes), La Prise
d’Orange (The Capture of Orange), Aliscans, Le Moniage Rainouart (Rainouart in
the Monastery) by Graindor de Brie, Floovant, Aymeri de Narbonne by Bertrand de
Bar-sur-Aube, Les Enfances Guillaume (William’s Youth), Le Moniage Guillaume
(William in the Monastery). The geste of Doon of Mayence (Gormond et Isembart,
Girart de Roussillon, Raoul de Cambrai, Doon de Mayence) focuses on rebels,
traitors, and revolts. In addition to these three main cycles, there is also the
Lorraine cycle (see Garin le Loherain) and the Crusade cycle, which includes La
Chanson d’Antioche (The Song of Antioch), Les Enfances Godefroi (Godfrey’s
Youth), La Mort de Godefroi de Bouillon (The Death of Godefrey of Bouillon),
Matabrune, etc. Most of these texts were composed between the twelfth and the
fourteenth centuries but chansons de geste were composed until the end of the
medieval period, which shows just how popular these poems were.
Indeed, epic poems were composed, transmitted, and enjoyed all over Eur-
ope. In Spain, El Cantar de Myo Çid (or the Poem of the Cid), presumably
composed in the twelfth century, narrates the story of El Cid, a Castilian hero who
married Doña Ximena, the cousin of King Alfonso VI, and was sent into exile by
the King for allegedly stealing money from him. In order to restore his honor, El
Cid fought against the Moors and reconquered Valencia for the King of Castile and
Leon. Later in the Poem, El Cid’s daughters marry the princes of Navarre and
Aragon, thus laying the bases for the unification of Spain (see Menéndez Pidal
1963; Lacarra 1980; Deyermond 1987; Fletcher 1989). In Scandinavia, the Poetic
Edda contains a number of mythological poems but also a series of lays focusing
on the deeds of mortal heroes, which form three cycles: the Helgi Hundingsbani
cycle, the Niflung (or Nibelungs) cycle, and the lays of Jörmunrekkr, the king of
the Goths (see Glendinning and Bessason, ed., 1983; Acker and Larrington 2002).
Another type of epic narrative are romances. However, unlike in the chansons
de geste, the authors of most romances did not draw inspiration from medieval
historical events. Many romances tend to focus on the courtly behavior of the
heroes, and their topics are often inspired from ancient texts or local folklore.
Thus, romances possess a certain number of features that differentiate them from
other types of epic, which is why we will discuss them in the next section.
Lyric poetry is the other major type of text in verse practiced in the Middle
Ages. Some lyric poems were, as we mentioned earlier, religious in nature, while
others were mostly secular in terms of content. Such is the case with the trouba-

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dour poetry, which emerged in eleventh-century Occitania, and later spread to

northern France (where such poets were known as trouvères), Italy, Spain, Portu-
gal, Germany (this type of poetry was known as Minnesang). The word troubadour
comes from the Occitan verb trobaire, which means to compose, create, discuss,
or invent, and it is related to the northern French verb trouver, to the Italian
trovare, etc. The verb is presumably derived from the late or medieval Latin verb
tropare, which meant to compose a poem (by using tropes, hence tropare). There
is a wide range of theories regarding the sources of troubadour poetry, and many
critics detected various (possible) influences on troubadour lyric, such as Arabic,
pre-Christian, Christian Marianist, Cathar, Neoplatonic, Goliardic, and folkloric
influences (see Riquer 1975; Boase 1977; Akehurst and Davis, ed., 1995; Gaunt and
Kay, ed., 1999).
The earliest known troubadour is the Duke William IX of Aquitaine (1071–
1126), although it is believed that Eble II of Ventadorn, whose works have not
survived, composed troubadour poetry before William. The tradition seems to
have originated in an area consisting of Aquitaine and Poitou, and spread from
there to all of Languedoc, Catalonia, northern Italy, and northern France. Many of
the early troubadours, such as William of Aquitaine, Cercamon, Marcabru, Jaufre
Rudel, were noblemen, some of very high rank. Others, such Peire de Maensac,
Peirol, Uc de Pena, and Raimon de Miraval, were poor knights. Lower-class
troubadours, such as Elias de Barjols, Salh d’Escola, Perdigon, or Arnaut de
Mareuil, became more common later in the Middle Ages.
The favorite topics of troubadour songs were chivalry and courtly love, and
there were several styles of troubadour poetry: trobar leu (light), trobar ric (rich),
and trobar clus (hermetic). This type of poetry could be practiced in a very wide
variety of subgenres, such as albas (morning or dawn songs, in which dawn
approaches while someone alerts the lover that the jealous husband is nearby),
cansos (love songs), canso de crozada (crusader songs), dansas or balladas (dance
songs), ensenhamens (didactic poems), gaps (boasting songs), maldits (a song in
which the lover is complaining about the lady’s behavior, refusal, etc.), sirventes
(usually a satire narrated by a soldier), tensos (debates), and others. Although the
golden age of troubadour poetry is situated between the 1170s and the 1220s,
troubadour poems continued to be produced until the late thirteenth century by
poets such as Bernart d’Auriac, Joan Miralhas, Raimon Gaucelm, and Joan Esteve
(known as the “school of Béziers”).
However, the influence of troubadour poetry extended far beyond the thir-
teenth century, and also far beyond the borders of Occitania. In Germany, for
instance, the earliest Minnesänger, Der von Kürenberg and Dietmar von Aist,
composed Minnelieder in the late twelfth century. At that time, many Minnesän-
ger, such as Friedrich von Hausen, were influenced by Occitan troubadours. Later

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poets, such as Heinrich von Morungen, Reinmar von Hagenau, Walther von der
Vogelweide, and Neidhart innovated and tried to break away from the Occitan
influence (see Taylor 1968; Sayce 1982; and Schweikle 1989/1995). In Italy, many
a city magistrate (podestà), such as Rambertino Buvalelli, Luca Grimaldi, Perce-
val, and Simon Doria, wrote troubadour poetry as well (on troubadour music, see
Aubrey 1996).
Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265–1321) himself was tremendously influenced by
troubadour poetry. In his De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular),
Dante constantly cites Giraut de Bornelh, Thibaut de Navarre, Bertrand de Born,
and Arnaud Daniel, calling them “viri illustri” and “doctores eloquentes,” along
with classical authors such as Ovid, Virgil, and others. Some themes of trouba-
dour poetry also influenced the Italian dolce stil novo or stilnovismo, which
emphasized love (amore) and gentilezza (gentleness, noblemindedness). But
whereas love in troubadour poetry was both emotional and physical, stilnovist
love was more intellectual, if not metaphysical (for a poet who rejects stilnovist
ideals, see Cecco Angiolieri). The main representatives of stilnovist poetry were
Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti—both of them are also quoted abundantly in
Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia—and Dante himself. Love is also the main topic of
Dante’s Vita nuova (The New Life, ca. 1295), which contains 42 chapters with
commentaries on one ballata, four songs, and 25 sonnets. One of the songs is left
unfinished, as it is interrupted by the death of Beatrice (di Folco) Portinari,
Dante’s muse. Naturally, Dante’s most famous poetic work is the Divina Comme-
dia (The Divine Comedy), a massive lyric-cum-epic poem that Dante composed
between ca. 1308 and his death, in 1321. This first-person poem, divided into three
canticas, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise (each composed of 33 cantos), narrates
Dante’s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. These travels have been
interpreted in different ways: as a fictional imaginary trip by the narrator, as a
means for Dante to settle scores or promote various writers and historical char-
acters, as an allegorical journey of the soul toward God. Undoubtedly, the Divine
Comedy is one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages, which draws on
various intellectual sources, such as Christian theology, Thomistic philosophy
(which is why it has often been called a Summa in verse), and other literary texts
of the ancient and medieval world.
The Divine Comedy also became a prime example of writing in Tuscan
vernacular, a foundation which Petrarch and Boccaccio later built upon. With
Petrarch (1304–1374), Italian literature enters the era of humanism—an era of
rediscovery of classical texts. Indeed, Petrarch’s classical education vastly influ-
enced his poetic works, known collectively as the Canzoniere (Song Book). The
Canzoniere consists of three parts: poems composed during the lifetime of his own
muse, Laura; poems written after Laura’s death; and the final part, also known as

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the Trionfi (Triumphs). Like troubadour poetry (the other major source of inspira-
tion for Petrarch), the poems of the Canzoniere focus on love. However, Petrarch-
an love is neither primarily physical like in (some) troubadour poetry nor mostly
intellectual as in Dante. The influence of Petrarch on medieval and later literature
was tremendous. Let us not forget that Chaucer adopted and used a section of the
Canzoniere in his Troilus and Criseyde, while French Renaissance writers Clément
Marot and Joachim du Bellay were great admirers (and, in part, imitators) of
Petrarch. It is also Petrarch who developed the pattern and structure of what is
nowadays known as the Italian sonnet. The sonnet’s fourteen lines were divided
into an octave (the first eight lines of the poem, sometimes subdivided into
two quatrains) and a sestet (the remaining six lines). The octave usually has an
a b b a / a b b a rhyme pattern, while the sestet generally has a c d e / c d e pattern.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), the other important member of the triad of major
medieval Italian writers, is primarily known for his Decameron, but we should
also remember him for his poetry. Among his most important poetic works are the
narrative poems Filostrato (written in the 1330s, and which served as a source of
inspiration for Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde), the Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia
(The Theseid, Concerning the Nuptials of Emily, ca. 1340–1341, and which, again,
inspired Chaucer for his own Knight’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales), the Amor-
osa visione (Vision of Love, 1342), a collection of sixteen eclogues known as the
Bucolicum carmen (Bucolic Poem, written in the late 1360s), and a collection of
Rime (Rhymes, finished in ca. 1374).
As we noted earlier, Italian writers were a major influence on Geoffrey
Chaucer (1343–ca. 1400), England’s most celebrated medieval writer. Next to
Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Romance of the Rose (Chaucer seems to have trans-
lated part of it into English) and Greek-Roman mythology were the other major
sources of inspiration for the English writer. For instance, one of his early poems,
the Book of the Duchess (written between 1369 and 1374), which commemorates
the death of Blanche of Lancaster (John of Gaunt’s wife), is replete with mytholo-
gical characters; moreover, the poet dreams that he awakens in a room with
stained glass windows which depict scenes from the history of Troy and from the
Romance of the Rose. His Anelida and Arcite (written in the late 1370s) draws on
Boccaccio’s Teseida and Statius’s Thebaid, while his House of Fame dream-vision
poem (written ca 1379) echoes the works of Ovid, Virgil’s Aeneid, Boccaccio, and
Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the incipit of Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules, the
narrator is reading from Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio), and
when he falls asleep, Scipio Africanus guides him thorough the celestial spheres
just like Virgil had guided Dante in the Divine Comedy. We mentioned earlier the
sources for Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde; in the Legend of Good Women, too,
which contains ten stories on virtuous women, Chaucer draws inspiration from

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the Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as from Vincent of Beauvais and
Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Trojae (History of the Destruction of
Troy). Even in his most famous work, the Canterbury Tales, written in the 1380s,
there are numerous parallels with other texts. This collection of tales (most of
them in verse) is presented as the result of a storytelling contest organized by
pilgrims traveling together from Southwark to Canterbury; the parallel with
Boccaccio’s Decameron, in which narrators tell tales during their journey away
from plague-ridden Florence, is quite obvious; moreover, just like Boccaccio who
ended the Decameron with an apology, Chaucer wrote a Retraction. In many of the
Canterbury Tales, literary influences range from the Bible and classical authors
such as Ovid and Virgil, to Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and the triad of
Italian writers that we mentioned earlier. Later, Chaucer himself became a source
of inspiration for other writers, such as John Lydgate, who wrote sequels to
Chaucer’s unfinished Canterbury Tales, Robert Henryson, John Dryden, and
others.
Thus, with names such as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and others
(such as Jean Froissart, Guillaume de Machaut, Juan Ruiz, John Gower, the [anon-
ymous] Monk of Salzburg), the fourteenth century is a period of major intellectual
and literary achievements, which bears certain resemblances with what is often
called the “twelfth-century Renaissance” (the troubadours, the Goliards, Marie de
France, Chrétien de Troyes, Jean Bodel—see Haskins 1927; Benson et al. 1991;
Swanson 1999; for a different view on this topic, see Jaeger 2003).
The last medieval century, too, boasts a considerable number of major poets.
We should mention here Christine de Pizan, author of poems such as L’Epistre au
Dieu d’Amours (Letter to the God of Love), L’Epistre de Othéa a Hector (The Epistle
of Othea to Hector), Le Chemin de longue estude (The Long Road of Learning), and
others (on other medieval female poets, primarily German, see Classen 1991;
1999; 2000; 2004; 2007). Other famous poets of this period were Alain Chartier
(authored numerous poems, the most famous being La Belle dame sans merci or
The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy), Martin le Franc, François Villon (known
primarily for his Testaments and his Ballade des pendus or Ballad of the Hanged
Men), and the “Grands Rhétoriqueurs” (Georges Chastellain, Jean Molinet, Jean
Marot, Jean Meschinot, Guillaume Crétin, Jean Lemaire de Belges, and others—
see Doutrepont 1909) in France; Hugo von Montfort, Oswald von Wolkenstein,
and Michael Beheim in the German-speaking realm; John Lydgate (wrote The
Siege of Thebes and The Fall of Princes) and Thomas Malory (known for his Le
Morte d’Arthur) in England; Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Angelo
Poliziano (see his Stanze per la giostra or Joust Stanzas), Luigi Pulci (author of
Morgante), Iacopo Sannazaro, and Matteo Maria Boiardo in Italy; Juan de Mena
(author of the Laberinto de fortuna or Labyrtinth of Fortune, inspired from the

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Divine Comedy), Diego de San Pedro, Jorge Manrique, and Íñigo López de Mendo-
za y de la Vega (also known as Marquis of Santillana) in Spain; and Ausiàs March
(author of poems on love, death, and morality, known as Cants d’amor, Cants de
mort, and Cant spiritual) in the Catalan-Valencian realm.
II Romance, Short Stories, and Prose
The word “romance” comes from the Old French word “romanz,” which initially
referred to any text written in Romance (that is to say Old French), as opposed to
Latin. The phrase “mettre en romanz,” for instance, meant writing something in
French or translating a text from Latin (or another language) into French. Over
time, however, the word “romanz” came to refer to larger pieces written in
French, which are indeed the medieval precursors of early modern and modern
novels.
As we mentioned earlier, romances constitute the other major type of epic
narrative. However, whereas most of the chansons de geste and many epic
narratives from the Matter of France clearly had a bellicous, nearly “nationalistic”
message, texts belonging to the Matter of Britain and the Matter of Rome dealt
with heroes from far-away lands and often from a remote past (especially in the
Matter of Rome). Let us mention that medieval audiences were very much aware
of the difference in tone between the three types of epic narratives or “matters”;
the first discussion of this tripartition of epic appears in the twelfth century in
Jean Bodel’s Chanson de Saisnes, where he writes of the three Matters of France,
Britain, and Rome (“Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant, / De France
et de Bretaigne, et de Rome la grant”). If the texts of the Matter of France could be
interpreted as fictional-cum-political texts, in which the role of the emperor or of
the king, of the vassals, and the actions of such and such character could be read
in a political key, the Matter of Britain and of Rome seemed more fictional and less
political. Moreover, with their emphasis on courteousness and courtly values,
these romances really struck readers (or listeners) as different from the more
muscled chansons de geste. One could argue that modern novels evolved out of
medieval romances, in particular out of the Matters of Britain and Rome
(although, in truth, certain texts of the Matter of France could strike the reader as
fairly romanesque as well).
Unlike what its name suggests, the Matter of Rome contained texts pertaining
to the ancient world, both ancient Greece and Rome. Since Homer’s actual works
were not available to medieval audiences, most of the information on the ancient
world came from other sources, such as Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius’s
narratives of the Trojan war. Although these narratives were far from reliable, the

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twelfth-century poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure based most of his Roman de Troie

(The Romance of Troy) on these texts. Together with the anonymous Roman de
Thèbes (The Romance of Thebes), the Roman d’Enéas (The Romance of Eneas) and
the Roman d’Alexandre (The Romance of Alexander), these French romances were
known as romans antiques because the action took place in ancient times.
Although these romances pretended to inform medieval audiences on the deeds
and love affairs of ancient heroes, it is quite obvious that they contain a great deal
of anachronistic elements. In the romans antiques and, later, in the anonymous
Sir Orfeo and in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, “ancient” heroes often participate
in knightly tournaments and engage in knight-errantry, just like the heroes of
romances from the Matters of France and Britain; thus, these “ancient” heroes are
in fact the embodiment of medieval ideals of chivalry.
The Matter of Britain is the name given to a collection of stories set in Britain,
Brittany, and Wales. Most of the texts which compose the Matter of Britain derive
their content from a series of Latin texts, the most important being the ninth-
century Historia Brittonum (The History of the Britons, usually attributed to
Nennius), and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century Historia regum Britanniae
(The History of the Kings of Britain). The Historia Brittonum is a fictional (though
presented as historical) account of the settlement of Britain by Brutus, a Trojan
descendant of Aeneas. Geoffrey of Monmouth incorporated and adapted this
account, including the story of King Arthur, into his own Historia Regum Britan-
niae. For instance, Geoffrey of Monmount argued that the Celtic tribe of the
Trinovantes derived their name from Troi-novant, that is to say “New Troy.” That
is how the legend of King Arthur was born; according to this legend, Arthur was
the legendary leader of the Britons who fought against the Saxon invaders, whose
alleged castle was in Camelot (the Britonic locus of both chivalry and courtliness),
and whose knights would gather around the Round Table, embark on chivalric
quests (the most virtuous of whom, such as Perceval and Galahad, would even-
tually find the Holy Grail).
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s text was quickly translated/adapted into Anglo-Nor-
man by Wace in his Roman de Brut (The Romance of Brut) and Roman de Rou (The
Romance of Rou), and later into a plethora of other texts in different languages:
Béroul’s Tristan, Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide (Erec and Enide), Cligès,
Lancelot, Yvain, Perceval, in some of Marie de France’s Lais (such as the Lai de
Yonec, Lai de Lanval, Lai de Frêne), Robert de Boron’s Estoire dou Graal (The Story
of the Grail), Hartmann von Aue’s Erec and Iwein, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s
Parzival, Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan, Thomas of Britain’s Tristan et Iseult;
the anonymous L’âtre périlleux (The Perilous Cemetery), Layamon’s Brut, Ulrich
von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet, Rustichello da Pisa’s Roman de Roi Artus (The
Romance of King Arthur), Gyron le courtois, and Meliadus de Leonnoys, as well as

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the Post-Vulgate Cycle in the thirteenth century; the anonymous Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, and some of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the four-
teenth century; Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in the fifteenth century. Needless to
say, many of the authors (whether known or anonymous) of these romances
adapted the text to their needs and according to their imagination, and added or
eliminated characters and events as they saw fit. Some stories emphasize chival-
ric or courtly values, while others emphasize spiritual, Christian values. In some
stories, Arthur is the main character while in many others, he is a marginal
character, and other times Arthur is barely mentioned (see Norris, ed., 1991).
It should also be mentioned that up to the early 1200s, Arthurian literature
was written primarily in verse. From the thirteenth century on, however, an
increasing number of Arthurian (and other) texts were written in prose. For
instance, the Vulgate (or Lancelot-Grail) cycle, which comprised the Estoire del
Saint Graal (The Story of the Holy Grail), the Estoire de Merlin (The Story of Merlin),
the prose Lancelot, the Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest for the Holy Grail) and
the Mort Artu (The Death of Arthur), were written in French prose. This cycle was
followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle, which was also written in prose. Of course, all
romances were not written in prose after the thirteenth century. The tremendously
important thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose), for in-
stance, was written in verse. This allegorical dream-vision romance was composed
in two stages. The first part, containing 4,058 lines, was composed by Guillaume
de Lorris around 1230, while the second part, containing over 17,000 lines, was
composed by Jean de Meung around 1275. In the first part, a courtier wooes the
lady he loves in a walled garden, while in the second part, we are introduced to a
number of allegorical characters (Reason, Genius, Love, and many others).
It is obvious that the prose romances of the thirteenth century announce early
modern and modern prose novels, while certain types of short texts, such as Marie
de France’s lais, Chaucer’s tales or the mæren by Heinrich Kaufringer (ca. 1400)
and by other late medieval German poets constitute the embryos of what will later
be called novellas (see Grubmüller 2006). The genre of the fabliaux, too, could be
considered as a precursor to the modern short story (they are also related to
fables, though they often contain theatrical elements that would relate them to
drama as well). The word fabliau (fabliaux in the plural) is of Picard origin and it
is derived from the Latin fabula. Fabliaux were short comic tales of approximately
three to five hundred lines composed (usually in octosyllabic verse) by clerks and
jongleurs from the northeast of France. Most fabliaux were anonymous but some
of them were composed by well-known poets, such as Jean Bodel, Rutebeuf, and
Philippe de Beaumanoir. This was a fairly long-lived genre, which had its golden
age between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, and gradually disappeared
after the sixteenth century. Joseph Bédier (1893) counted approximately 150

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fabliaux written between 1150 and 1340, most of them originating in Picardy,
Artois, and Flanders. The content of the fabliaux was usually satirical and often
included sexual, obscene, and scatological references. A typical fabliau would
thus contain references to avaricious priests, thieves, adulterous men and wo-
men, cuckolded husbands, rustic-mannered peasants, etc. Although the tongue-
in-cheek humor of the fabliaux made it popular with the masses, writers did not
shy away from incorporating fabliau material into their works. Such is the case
with Boccaccio and Chaucer, who wrote fabliau-type tales in their writings—the
Decameron and the Canterbury Tales respectively. Later, Molière and Voltaire will
also incorporate fabliau material into their own creations (Dubin, trans., 2013;
Crocker, ed., 2006; Burr et al., ed., 2007).
Wlad Godzich and Jeffrey Kittay (Godzich and Kittay 1987) have explained
very well in their excellent study the processes that led to the success of prose in
the Middle Ages. In the first place, we need to remember that the opposition
between verse and prose in the Middle Ages was not as stark as we might imagine.
In fact, we find examples of prosimetrum, that is to say a mix of verse and prose,
in many medieval texts, such as in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, the
chantefable Aucassin et Nicolette (Aucassin and Nicolette, from the twelfth-thir-
teenth century), in Philippe de Novare’s chronicle (thirteenth century) or in
Dante’s Vita nuova from 1295 (see also Godzich and Kittay 1987, 46–70). In other
cases, Godzich and Kittay show that many versified composition went through a
process of dérimage in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which implied the
elimination of rhyme from a versified text and its transformation into prose (God-
zich and Kittay 1987, 27–45). However, it is also true that for many writers, such
as historians, chroniclers, authors of religious texts and some authors of ro-
mances, prose seemed a more appropriate medium for their creations. For histor-
ians and chroniclers especially, prose seemed a more serious medium, as op-
posed to the verse used in the chansons de geste, which were replete with legends
instead of actual historical facts (see Godzich and Kittay 1987, 139–75). After all,
most of the Bible itself was written in prose, so prose must have been, from a
medieval perspective at least, the medium of truth, as opposed to verse, which
served to embellish and exaggerate. Moreover, political and administrative texts
were also written in prose, as verse would have obviously undermined the
seriousness of the document. Thus, toward the end of the Middle Ages, verse
compositions remain extremely popular but overall, verse is retreating and gradu-
ally yielding the passage to prose. Indeed, during the autumn of the Middle Ages,
most historical (as opposed to literary-legendary), religious, political, philosophi-
cal, and autobiographical texts tended to be written in prose, and an increasing
number of romances and (what we would nowadays call) novellas were equally
written in prose.

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III Medieval Theater
In the ancient world, theater was extremely popular. After the fall of the Roman
Empire, theater entered a period of decline and it was only toward the end of the
Middle Ages that it started becoming popular again. In the eastern half of the
Roman Empire, theatrical performances in the form of mime, pantomime, trage-
dies, and comedies, continued to be staged until the sixth century, when Emperor
Justinian decided to shut down all theaters. It should be remembered that Justi-
nian saw himself as a Christian emperor and, for certain theologians, theater was
a pre-Christian remnant that was regarded with suspicion. Furthermore, actors
were impersonating characters that could be evil or immoral, which could con-
stitute an impediment for their salvation. It was also widely believed that actors,
especially itinerant ones, led dissolute lives. Tertullian, Tatian, and Augustine,
for instance, believed that acting was sinful because it mocked God’s creation
(Wise and Walker, ed., 2003, 184). As a result, theaters were shut down, actors
were excommunicated, denied the sacraments (marriage, burial, etc.), and for-
bidden to have any relationship whatsoever with Christian women.
However, the attitude of the Church gradually became more flexible. Over
time, the shadow of the “immoral” theater from imperial Rome disappeared or at
least faded. Moreover, the Church was in dire need of new ways to instruct the
poor and illiterate; after all, mass itself was a performance meant to allow the
congregation to experience God. At a time when the vast majority of the popula-
tion was illiterate, dramatized Bible passages seemed the best way to allow the
common folk to become familiar with the content of the Bible. At first, local
churches and priests dramatized the Passion of Christ for Easter and Jesus’s birth
for Christmas. Such is the case with the dramatic passage known as the Quem
quaeritis? (Whom Do You Seek?), which was used for Easter or Christmas mass.
This dialogue dates back to the tenth century and it consists of a short exchange
between an angel and the three Maries who come to look for Jesus in the
sepulcher. The angel asked, “Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae?” (“Who
are you seeking in the sepulcher, o followers of Christ?”). The answer was “Jesum
Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae!” (“Jesus of Nazareth the crucified, o Hea-
venly Ones!”). The angel replied, “Non est hic; surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite,
nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchro” (“He is not here, for He has risen, just as He
foretold. Go and announce that He is risen from the sepulcher,” see Petersen
2000). We also know that around the same time, Æthelwold, bishop of Winche-
ster between 963 and 964, composed a text titled Regularis Concordia (The
Monastic Rule) which contains a short play accompanied by directing advice. We
should also mention here the German canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (ca. 935-
ca. 973), who wrote, apart from religious narratives and chronicle text, six plays

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as a counter-model for Terence’s pagan comedies. Interestingly enough, Hrotsvit

wrote in the preface of her plays that she composed them in order to allow
Christians, that is, mostly her fellow sister in the monastery, but then also else-
where, to read classical literature without feeling guilty. Hrotsvit’s preface is proof
of the ambivalent attitude of medieval scholars toward theater: awareness of the
non-Christian nature of (some) theater (plays) and desire to revive (and Christia-
nize) a form of literature that had fallen into neglect. Nonetheless, the very fact
that a bishop such as Æthelwold and a canoness like Hrotsvit saw theater
favorably attests to the changing attitude of the Church toward theater.
By the twelfth century, liturgical dramas were played in front of churches and
cathedrals by fraternities and groups of lay folk all across Europe. The Church not
only approved of but also sponsored such events, sometimes on its own, and other
times with the help of the local community. In England, for instance, plays were
sometimes patronized by both the Church and local guilds of craftsmen. The first
French drama, written also in the twelfth century by an unknown author, was the
Jeu d’Adam (The Play of Adam). This is a play narrating the story of mankind, from
the fall of man up to the prophets who foresee Christ’s arrival and redemption of
humanity through his crucifixion. In addition to these plays, a few other theatrical
texts survived from this period, all religious in nature: La seinte resurrection (The
Holy Resurrection, in Norman French), the Sponsus (The Bridegroom, in French),
and the Auto de los reyes magos (The Play of the Magi Kings, in Spanish).
Mystery (plays in which the gates of hell and the entrance to Paradise were
generally depicted) and morality plays (plays with a clear moral message, mostly
inspired from the Bible or from saints’ lives) were also remarkably popular during
the central and late Middle Ages. Hildegard von Bingen (ca. 1098–1179), for
instance, was the author of a morality play, the Ordo virtutum or Order of the Virtues
(on the patronage and writings of medieval nuns and abbesses, see Caviness 1996;
Martin, ed., 2012). Such plays were staged all over Europe; according to Brockett
and Hildy (Brocket and Hildy 2003, 86), approximately 127 European towns hosted
and produced mystery and morality plays. In some cases, the plays were part of
larger cycles of plays which were often staged as part of what we would nowadays
call a festival. Thus, in the British Isles, the city of York hosted and produced 48
plays, Wakefield 32, Chester 24. However, in 1210, Pope Innocent III banned the
clergy from performing in public, which led not to a secularization of theater but to
the transfer of the duty to perform in plays from clergy to laity. Innocent III’s papal
bull notwithstanding, moralities, miracles (plays focusing on saints’ lives), and
mysteries continued to be written and performed by laymen near churches and
cathedrals, and the Church continued to support such events.
Indeed, mysteries and morality plays remained popular throughout the Mid-
dle Ages (Julleville 1880). In fifteenth-century France, there are numerous exam-

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ples of mysteries written by consecrated writers (Rutebeuf, Jean Bodel, Eustache

Marcadé, Simon and Arnoul Gréban) and performed over several days by hun-
dreds of actors. Such is the case, for instance, with the Mystère de la Passion (The
Mystery of the Passion, 1420–1430), generally attributed to Eustache Marcadé, the
anonymous Mystère du siege d’Orléans (The Mystery of the Siege of Orleans), the
Passion by Arnoul Gréban (written in 1452, it had four hundred characters and
was performed over four days), the Mystère des Actes des Apôtres (The Mystery of
the Acts of the Apostles) by the Gréban brothers (nearly five hundred characters),
Jean Michel’s Passion and Résurrection (late fifteenth century). Around the same
time in England, the Castle of Perseverance and Everyman were two popular
morality plays. Like Le Jeu d’Adam, the Castle of Perseverance narrates the story
of mankind from birth to death, whereas in Everyman, the character Everyman
manages to escape death but eventally resigns himself to the unavoidable nature
of death. Pierre Gringoire’s Mystère de Saint Louis (The Mystery of Saint Louis),
written around 1514, proves that mysteries were popular even during the Renais-
sance. Miracles and mysteries have been played all over Europe, from Spain (the
Misteri d’Elx or The Mystery Play of Elche) to Germany, where the Oberammergau
Passion Play has been played since 1634 (the most recent representation dates
back to 2010 and the next one is scheduled for 2020).
In terms of non-religious plays, farces, sotties (short satirical plays), and
pastourelles (short plays involving a shepherdess) were the most popular genres.
Among these, the most prominent are Adam de la Halle’s pastourelle Jeu de Robin
et Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion, 1288), the anonymous farce Le Garçon et
l’aveugle (The Boy and the Blind Man, the earliest French farce, dating back to the
1260s-1280s), Eustache Deschamps’s Farce de maître Trubert et d’Antrongnart
(The Farce of Master Trubert and Antrongnart), and several fifteenth-century
farces such as La farce de maître Pathelin (The Farce of Master Pathelin, 1464–
1469) and La Farce du cuvier (The Farce of the Washtub).
Also during the late Middle Ages, the stigma associated with theater actors is
gradually starting to wear off and clusters of professional actors are starting to
emerge. Both Richard III and Henry VII of England, for instance, had small
companies of professional actors who performed at court. These groups usually
performed in the great halls of aristocratic or royal residences, and their growing
success created the need for permanent theaters that were built in England in the
sixteenth century. Thus, little by little, theater regained its deserved place in the
republic of letters by the end of the medieval period, and it is this very late-
medieval effervescence that paved the way for English Renaissance theater, for
the Italian commedia dell’arte and the Spanish Golden Age theater, as well as for
France’s Renaissance and neo-classical theater.

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Select Bibliography
Cerquiglini, Bernard, In Praise of the Variant, trans. Betsy Wing (Paris 1989; Baltimore, MD,
1999).
Cerquiglini, Bernard, Éloge de la variante (Paris 1989).
Chaytor, H. J., From Script to Print: An Introduction to Medieval Vernacular Literature (Cambridge
1945).
Coleman, Joyce, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France
(Cambridge 1996).
Dronke, Peter, Poetic Individuality: New Departures in Poetry 1100–1500 (Turnhout 1996).
Godzich, Wlad and Jeffrey Kittay, The Emergence of Prose: An Essay in Prosaics (Minneapolis,
MN, 1987).
Zumthor, Paul, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris 1972).
Zumthor, Paul, La Lettre et la voix de la “littérature” médiévale (Paris 1987).

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Albrecht Classen
Love, Sex, and Marriage

Reflections
I The Critical Issues, Worldly Society, the Church, Literature,
and Medieval Culture
Every society, and medieval society as well, has been deeply concerned with the
legal and social implications of sex and marriage as two of the most powerful
forces determining human life. People have approached these two critical aspects
of human society with suspicion, but also with great curiosity, whether we
consider eighth-century Ireland (Cáin Lánamna) or fifteenth-century Italy (Poggio
Bracciolini; Franco Sacchetti) Most law books are filled with concrete stipulations
as to who can marry whom at what time and under what circumstances (Duby
1994; P. L. Reynolds 1994; McCarthy, ed., 2004; McSheffrey 2006), especially

because marriage arrangements have a deep impact on property and inheritance

rights with respect to the progeny. Contrasted with this, we can deduce how free-
ranging love was, as encapsulated by the idea of courtly love, an idea regarded
with great suspicion and disapproval, although the Church never succeeded in
suppressing it—far from it. In fact, from the high Middle Ages onwards we find a
plethora of historical, literary, and artistic documents that confirm overwhel-
mingly the fundamental relevance of sex and love, especially outside of the bonds
of marriage, in determining many aspects of social life, causing countless pro-
blems as a matter of course, and also creating much excitement (Salisbury, ed.,
1991; Payer 1993; Karras 2005).
The Christian Church struggled hard from very early on to control weddings
and marriages, and it managed to accomplish a part of this goal—having the
priest serving as the only authoritative figure concluding a marriage—by the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, as reflected by an emerging matrimonial liturgy.
This followed directly upon the establishment of the Gregorian reform which
instituted strict celibacy for all ecclesiastics, thus separating them from the laity,
as Honorius Augustodunensis formulated it most clearly (Cartlidge 1997, 15; Red-
dy 2012). Major legal aspects played a significant role, pertaining to the bride’s
consent, betrothal, dowry agreement, the wedding feast, and other rituals (Brun-
dage 1987a, 34). These, however, did not leave any room for the issue of the erotic
within love, which subsequently courtly poets explored extensively. The famous

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legal and theological scholastic Peter Lombard (ca. 1100–ca. 1160) subordinated
sex to consensus, which later Pope Alexander III (1159–1189) confirmed. Marriage
thereby assumed a didactic, theological, ethical, and moral function, allowing
both partners to work together in the improvement of their religious standing
(D’Avray 2008). Not surprisingly, divorce was completely out of the question for
the average person, although we know of a number of papal dispensations in the
case of special circumstances, such as the woman’s or man’s infertility (e.g.,
Eleonore of Aquitaine [1122/1124–1204]). Perhaps for this, and many other rea-
sons, we witness the rise of a public discourse on emotions, primarily about love,
only by the twelfth century, a time when courtliness developed, chivalry gained
public recognition, and the themes of eroticism and sexuality gained their first
foothold in medieval Europe (Dinzelbacher 1986). Although previous scholarship
tended to identify the Provence or France as the cradle of courtly love and the
public discourse on marriage, we can now confirm that the same ideas and new
emotional concepts gained traction in Old Norse society (Bandlien 2005) and
elsewhere as well. In the centuries before, however, the dominant idea, strongly
advocated by the Church, the scholastics, and other intellectuals, focused on
celibacy or purely spiritual relationships (Brooke 1989).
Gaston Paris, in a seminal article from 1883, had outlined the points that
courtly love was defined by: a. by illegitimacy; b. by the man’s submissiveness
under his beloved lady; c. by the demands on the male lover to strive for an
improvement of his inner character and outer behavior in ethical and social terms;
and d. by a kind of performative element. These categories can be confirmed and
yet also contradicted, as scholarship has argued vehemently over the true mean-
ing of (courtly) love in the Middle Ages ever since (Bumke 1991, 360–413). There
are certainly some fundamental features commonly shared by all poets of courtly
love, but by way of a closer analysis, we would have to accept that virtually every
literary text and every theological treatise approached the topic from a somewhat
different angle and pursued varying concepts. This means that the topic of ‘love
and marriage’ can only be dealt with if we recognize it as a huge kaleidoscope with
an endless number of facets, many contradictory to the other, perhaps best defined
as a discourse to which a multitude of poets, philosophers, theologians, as well as
artists and composers, contributed (Lazar 1964; Cátedra 1989; Classen, ed., 2004;
Schultz 2006). Some scholars even question the full existence of that discourse, or
challenge their colleagues to test their claims based on literary and art-historical
evidence in light of legal and religious conditions (Newman, ed., 1972).
The discussion of love and sexuality only gains in importance once a society
can enjoy the leisure and resources necessary for the development of a love
discourse both within and outside of the bonds of marriage. This observation
holds particularly true in light of the development of courtly literature since the

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early twelfth century when the relationship between the genders gained in new
importance as reflected, above all, by troubadour poetry. Certainly, the Church
increasingly imposed its will on the ordinary people by way of forcing them in the
course of time to accept the priest as the only person fully in charge of carrying
out a legal wedding, and this especially since the twelfth century. But contempor-
aneously secular society created significant spaces for the exploration of illegiti-
mate love, that is, for courtly love, but for the joys of sexual satisfaction outside of
the bonds of marriage as well (D’Avray, 2008).
II Early Middle Ages
Revealingly, we cannot say much about love and marriage in the early Middle
Ages because the literary vernacular sources remain mostly silent about these
aspects; instead, we hear mostly about religious and military themes. Legal
documents, by contrast, are more explicit with regard to marriage contracts since
those regulated the most powerful political, dynastic relationships and had a
considerable impact on the development of influential families across Europe
(Sheehan 1991; Meek and Simms, ed., 1996; Bullough and Brundage, ed., 2000).
Heroic epics and war poems reflect on existential strife, honor, and military
conflicts, while religious narratives focus on the soul’s salvation, on protecting it
from evil, and on the dangers resulting from this world’s temptations. Both legal
and religious documents, by contrast, constantly addressed the conditions that
made marriage possible among what people, but this will not concern us here
(Brundage 1987a).
By contrast, neither Beowulf nor Roland, neither Siegfried nor El Cid (Rodrigo
Díaz de Vivar) in their respective national epics from the early Middle Ages or,
when composed in the twelfth century, harking back to older times or continuing
archaic traditions, ever fully turns his attention to courtly love or is interested in
wooing a woman; instead, each of them is concerned with his own honor, with
the struggle to survive existential threats, and with the military challenges deter-
mining his life. Admittedly, both Siegfried (Nibelungenlied, ca. 1200) and Rodrigo
(El Poema de Mio Cid, ca. 1207) are married, but in their public lives, they are only
concerned with their male roles as warriors and knights, which certainly involves
protecting their wives while we do not hear anything about their erotic relation-
ship or passions. They have to prove themselves in competition with other men,
which dominates those narratives. This does not mean that there are no com-
ments on their love affairs and marriages (see Roland in the eponymous Chanson
de Roland, who is supposed to marry his beloved Aude, his comrade Oliver’s
sister, but he dies, like Oliver, in the brutal battle with the Saracens). These,

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however, only figure in the background and have no specific bearing on the
hero’s comportment and public performance.
III The High Middle Ages
Next to the focus on God and the quest for the soul’s salvation, no other topic was
of greater concern and interest for aristocratic audiences since at least the high
Middle Ages than courtly love, normally associated with an extra-marital affair,
hence also sex. After all, medieval society practically knew only arranged mar-
riages which primarily served to create progeny and hence to secure and stabilize
the continuation of the family/dynasty under the law. Honorius Augustodunensis
emphasized in his Elucidarium (Book II, questio 48), completed shortly before
1200, the need to marry outside of one’s own kin to avoid any form of incest.
Countless Church synods and councils examined what issues would prohibit
marriage, and a plethora of book illustrations provided further instructions
throughout the Middle Ages (Lett 2011, 102–06). Perhaps just because there was
probably little excitement in and with this model, however, irrespective of the
countless legal complications that would have resulted from it, poets were
invited, or at least allowed, to develop alternative concepts or to probe critically
what love and marriage might mean outside of the purview of the Catholic
Church. The literary canon is filled with narratives, poems, and plays that address
love in a myriad of manifestations; we could almost write the history of that entire
cultural period in light of this topic alone. Love and marriage, hence the relation-
ship between the genders—here disregarding the highly problematic issue of
sodomy/homosexuality—constitute some of the most critical concerns for every
adult person both in the past and today in Europe. Medieval art, though mostly
determined by religious themes, also reflects, whenever secular themes were
allowed to enter the ‘stage,’ the great interest in eroticism, sexuality, and mar-
riage. The most famous example proves to be the Codex Manesse, or the Manesse
Songbook (early fourteenth century, today housed in the University Library of
Heidelberg, Germany), but there are countless other manuscript illustrations,
miniatures, initials, wood (misericords) and ivory carvings (combs, mirrors, etc.),
stone sculptures, tapestry (Tristan tapestries in the convent of Wienhausen, near
Celle, northern Germany), and other artistic media where the themes of love, sex,
and marriage found vivid expression. Numerous wall frescoes in castles and later
in urban dwellings as well depict erotic scenes, often directly borrowed from the
literary canon of that time.
C. S. Lewis had already observed this remarkable fact in 1936, drawing direct
lines of connection between the world of courtly love and love in our modern

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times, emphasizing, however, how little the Germanic cultures untouched by

Roman values and ideas contributed to the discourse of love (Lewis 1938, 3).
Modern scholarship has not disagreed with him in essence, but has considerably
widened the perspective and recognized the often rather radical contradictions,
diatribes, tensions, conflicts, and even intellectual and literary fights over the true
meaning of courtly love, conjugal love, fin’ amor, bridal mysticism, eroticism, and
sexual passions (Boase 1977; Baldwin 1994; Cartlidge 1997; Classen 2004b).
Courtly love can also be regarded as a rhetorical exercise, or as the result of public
imagination, as Douglas Kelly has suggested (Kelly 1981). By the same token, it
would not be too far-fetched to recognize in courtly love simply the other side of
the same coin, that is, the theological and medical discourse prevalent at that
time, aiming at the physical and spiritual well-being of all people (Busse 1975). To
be sure, love itself proved to be the essential catalyst for an individual’s character
development and his/her striving toward personal perfection; hence, it carried a
strong ethical, moral, religious, and even political meaning, irrespective of the
seemingly highly intimate expressions by the poets (Ferrante et al., ed., 1975). Yet,
there was always an element of playfulness, or performativity, associated with
love, too; hence, the countless allusions to sex more or less hidden in the back-
ground of all erotic discourse. These became increasingly stronger and more
revealing in the late Middle Ages (Marty-Dufaut 2002; Ruhe and Behrens, ed.,
1985; Classen 2011b).
IV Twelfth-Century Literary Topics
Similarly, in the twelfth-century vernacular culture the issue of erotic passions,

sexuality, and marriage did not matter for a long time; instead, we commonly
hear of the matière de Troie, the matière de Rome, hence of the adventures of
Aeneas/Eneas escaping from a burning Troy, meeting Queen Dido of Carthage,
reaching the shores of Italy, fighting for the hand of the princess Lavinia, defeat-
ing his opponent Turnus, and ultimately establishing the foundation of Rome
(Roman d’Eneas [ca. 1170] or Heinrich von Veldeke’s Eneit [ca. 1180–1190]). Like-
wise attractive were the accounts of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian
Empire, until the new theme of the bridal quest in the goliardic epics (Byzantine
narratives) gained traction in the late twelfth century (Oswald, Orendel, Herzog
Ernst [ca. 1170–1220]). Finally, King Arthur and his Round Table, as introduced by
Chrétien de Troyes, deeply occupied the public’s mind, but even in that fictional
sphere, the main focus regularly rests on the individual knight’s adventures
which he experiences outside of the court and about which he reports after his
return. Middle High German poets such as Hartmann von Aue (Erec [ca. 1180] and

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Iwein [ca. 1200]) expressed as much their interest in these themes as the Middle
English ‘father of the English language,’ the late medieval Geoffrey Chaucer (e.g.
Troilus and Criseyde [ca. 1390]).
The theme of courtly love, in all its intensity and perhaps even in its destruc-
tiveness, entered the picture only with the figures of Tristan and Isolde, and
Lancelot and his love of Guinevere. Similarly, in the anonymous Old French
Partonopeus de Blois (ca. 1160–1170) and in its various European variants, such
as Konrad von Würzburg’s Partonopier und Meliur (ca. 1280), the male protago-
nist struggles long and hard to win the hand of his beloved. Dante was to reflect
on this phenomenon as well in the fifth canto of his Inferno (ca. 1310–1320) with
the appearance of the lovers Paolo and Francesca who were lost once they had
read about courtly love and began to kiss each other (Edwards and Spector, ed.,
1991).
Significantly, the theme of love was also embraced by twelfth- and thirteenth-
century scholars and theologians, though not narrowly in the erotic sense of the
word. Hugh of St. Victor’s (d. 1141) The Praise of Charity; his The Betrothal Gift of
the Soul; In Praise of the Spouse; On the Substance of Love; and his What Truly
Should Be Loved?, then Richard of St Victor’s (d. 1173) On the Four Degrees of
Violent Love, Achard of St. Victor’s (d. 1170) Sermon 5 and Adam of St. Victor’s two
sermons might serve here as prime examples of the religious interpretation of
love, which often carried strong sexual tones, as the unification with the Godhead
was at times explicitly described in terms of copulation (Feiss, ed., 2011). More-
over, the ideal of friendship, as developed, above all, by the Cistercian abbot
Aelred of Rievaulx (ca. 1130–1167), aimed at loving relationships among intellec-
tuals and then at building strong bonds between the human individual and God
(Classen and Sandidge, ed., 2010; see also the contribution on ‘Friendship’ to this
Handbook). In the thirteenth century, many female and some male mystics
embraced the concept of love in order to express their ardent desire to merge with
the divine bridegroom, Christ (Hollywood 1995; Kocher 2008).
B Survival and Continuation of Classical Love

Poetry in Medieval Latin Poetry
In learned literature, however, composed in Latin, the memory of what Roman
poets such as Ovid, Catullus, or Tibullus had already said about erotic love was
preserved and handed down throughout the generations because the study of
Latin in monastic schools required a variety of reading materials from the classi-
cal period in preparation for the study of the Bible (Gibson et al., ed., 2006). This

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is expressed in two fairly late examples, the Latin songs compiled in the Cam-
bridge Songs (Carmina cantabrigiensia, end of the eleventh century), and those
preserved in the Carmina Burana (ca. 1220–1240), mostly in Latin, but a good
number of them also in a hybrid of Latin and Middle High German.
The former are a collection of poems copied by English scribes who drew from
a wide range of classical sources. Nearly three dozen of them have not been
recorded anywhere else, and their themes range from panegyrics and dirges to
political poems, comic tales, religious poems, admonitory poems, didactic songs,
Spring poems, as well as to love poems (nos. 27–28, 39–40, 46, 48–49). The poets
treat common erotic pleadings to a young woman (“amica”) to join the man in
revelry (nos. 27, 29), they praise a woman’s beauty (no. 39), deal with a man’s hope
that his beloved will join him in the season of Spring (no. 40), discuss basic
behavioral ideals in matters of love which young women should obey (no. 46), and
describe a lover’s sorrows (no. 48). Most poignantly, perhaps, “Ven<i> d<ilectis-
sim>e” (no. 49) formulates a man’s passionate desire and longing for his lady, the
verses filled with sighs and laments: “in languore pereo” (1, 5; I am dying with
desire). These erotic songs might well be among the earliest in medieval Latin
poetry in which heterosexual desire finds its literary expression. As C. Stephen
Jaeger notes, “They are poems of longing and suffering in love, and it is not at all
unlikely that that mode of feeling was gaining acceptance among the forms of
ennobling love … .” (Jaeger 1999, 57).
The Carmina Burana, compiled sometime during the early thirteenth century
(perhaps ca. 1230) on the basis of earlier, twelfth-century sources, follow more or
less the same design, bringing together songs treating a wide range of topics,
mostly adding a hilarious tone of voice, a new kind of playfulness, and an
experimentation with classical motifs, images, and metaphors (Walsh, ed. and
trans., 1993). The collection is divided into three major sections: the first compris-
ing moral-satirical songs; the second love songs; and the third, drinking and
gambling songs.
The erotic songs describe male longing and desire, which at times translates
into aggressive efforts to force the woman to grant her love, i.e., her sexual body
for his pleasure. Although these songs are all composed from a male perspective,
there is no doubt that some of them virtually idealize rape. At times, however, the
female voice rejects the man and ridicules his wooing, such as in no. 79, “Estivali
sub feruore.” Typical Spring motifs often characterize these songs, as we can
often observe in courtly love poetry, but these do not blind us to the obvious
sexual allusions everywhere, although the male perspective dominates through-
out. The rich web of allusions to classical mythology underscores the definite
interest in utilizing the love discourse to familiarize the readers/listeners with this
knowledge, here presented in the vein of love poetry.

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Even grammatical explanations enter the picture, such as for the direct object
and a transitive verb, which refers, however, to the beloved, such as in no. 88
(“Lvdo cum Cecilia, nichil timeatis!”). We clearly sense the basic interest in
utilizing this classicizing love poetry for pragmatic, didactic purposes within a
university or school setting where young clerics were trained for their future
service to the Church and had to study Latin, here by means of composing their
own love songs. This explains the vast range of themes in these love songs that
deal with conflicts with the ladies and shed light on the competition with the
clerics who also woo the young women, Moreover, the poets refer to dance
scenes, engage in discussions with their mistresses, appeal to their friends to be
bold enough to take their girls to a dance (no. 96), discuss the love affair between
Dido and Eneas (no. 98), and the history of Paris who had chosen Aphrodite, and
thus had been granted Helena as his beloved (no. 101).
Love is regarded as a sickness (amor heroes) which the goddess Venus
imposed on the singer (no. 104) whom Cupid wounded with his arrow (no. 105).
Love emerges as a threatening power against which no human strength can
achieve anything (no. 107). In other songs love seems to be a fury causing the man
to lose his mind (no. 110). Whatever the case might be, the poets never consider
marriage as an option; instead, love is a game which they all enjoy playing. In
almost every song, a new thematic strand is touched upon, all intimately corre-
lated with love, including references to the multitude of birds and animals, to the
season of Spring, to the many friends who also like to join a dance or the game of
love (no. 162), to the pain which love can cause (no. 164), and to the stunning
beauty of the beloved (multiple times).
The degree of experimentation with the wide gamut of images and topics,
which ranges from complaints about love pangs to drastic descriptions of violent,
sexual conquests (no. 185), confirms the overarching interest in exploring the love
discourse as a basis for learning Latin, classical mythology, and rhetoric, all
major topics in twelfth-century church and monastic schools. In other words, here
we encounter learned poetry that fulfilled specific didactic purposes that are
hidden behind the primary erotic motifs. Although we can discover at times an
interest in conquering women’s love by brute force, all these songs are character-
ized by a lightness in tone and a willingness to play with the erotic subject
matter—all of them, of course, from a male perspective.
This phenomenon coincided with or brought about the rise of courtly culture,
first manifesting itself in southern France in the early twelfth century. There,
courtly poets, commonly identified as troubadours, later accompanied by female
counterparts, called trobairitz (such as the Comtesse de Dia, see below), began to
explore the meaning of love and eroticism, involving all members of the secular
courts. In other words, the relationship of the genders emerged as a significant

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topic for the public discourse, hence courtly love poetry. The first known poet,
William the Ninth (Guillaume le Neuf, 1071–1126), still experimented in almost
extreme fashion, with various genres and the essence of the poetic discourse,
combining fairly simple expressions of erotic longing with astoundingly enter-
taining songs in which sexual conquest and playfulness dominate.
C Poetic Manifestations of Courtly Love

I Troubadours
Subsequent generations of courtly love poets limited themselves to a variety of

genres determined by the themes of desire and longing, such as Bernart de
Ventadorn, Peire Vidal, or Bertran de Born. However, some poets also explored
specific genres in which sexual fulfillment was conceived as a concrete possibi-
lity. In the dawn songs, we normally hear of a couple waking up early in the
morning, alerted by the guardsman, and after lamenting the need to separate,
they join one more time in love making, before he then departs. In the pastourelle,
a nobleman encounters a country maid, talks to her, seduces her, and returns
home to the court to brag about his experience.
All these general statements would need further analysis, since many poets
pursued variant approaches to the individual genres, themes, and topics. How-
ever, we know for sure that courtly love poetry basically ignored the topic of
marriage, which was of much greater interest for authors of courtly romances.
We would have to wait until the late Middle Ages for the topic of marriage to
enter the world of erotic poetry as well (Hugo von Montfort, Oswald von Wol-
kenstein, see below), while marriage itself was examined from many different
perspectives throughout the late Middle Ages in theological, philosophical, and
literary texts.
Much depends, of course, on the genre in which the gender relationship was
explored. In most courtly romances the knightly protagonists strive hard to win
the hands of their beloveds, to marry, and then to encounter social problems
because they have ignored their public obligations (Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et
Enide, or his Yvain; parallel to them the German translations by Hartmann von
Aue). However, some romances such as Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan or
Chrétien’s Lancelot operate with the concept of adultery and problematize adul-
terous love altogether, radically contrasting it with the theme of arranged mar-
riage, which is viewed negatively, bringing about suffering for those forced to
accept an old man as husband. Of course, high medieval aristocracy was deeply
concerned with standardizing its marriage practices in order to close off its own

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estate from those in lower levels, to guarantee the dominance of patriarchy, and
to accommodate the rule of the Church even within people’s private lives. Many
courtly romances confirm this observation drawn from historical sources, while
courtly love poetry radically contradicted it. However, we could also argue, based
on Georges Duby’s conclusions, that the idea of courtly love served as a kind of
compensation for the considerable tensions within aristocratic society and pro-
vided some space for free game with the human emotions (Duby 1978, 15–22).
II Courtly Values in troubadour Poetry
In early love poetry we detect, quite surprisingly, a heavy emphasis on ethical

ideals because the concept of courtly love often aimed at social values. The love
doctrine as espoused by poets and romane writers, identified amor as cortezia,
and cortezia as amor. The knight and lover addresses a lady, and in that way
attempts to demonstrate his cortezia, his courtliness, which is defined by his valor
(personal value), social recognition, or honor (pretz), virtuosity and prowess
(proeza), generosity (largueza), self-containment and self-control (mezura), rea-
son and rationality (pretz), and youthfulness (joven), joyfulness (joi), proper
behavior (bel captenemen), and the ability to express himself in a courtly fashion
through verse and song). Disregarding the pastourelle and the alba, courtly love
poetry aims at formulating the ideals of service in the name of love (as a verb:
servir). This service finds expression in humility (umilitas) and obedience (obedi-
ensa) toward the courtly lady (domna), who could easily be stand-in for the court
at large, the lord, and courtly society in general. The treatment of love thus proved
to be a powerful instrument in the education process of the young people of the
aristocratic class. The lover is expected to sing a song of praise of his lady (lauzar)
and yet to keep her name a secret (celar).
Despite this obvious contradiction, the culture of courtly love made perfect
sense for courtly society because they were thus able to play with one of the
strongest human drives and feelings, the erotic instinct, without being forced to
live out the often difficult consequences in reality, which would have led to
endless complications and conflicts among the members of the nobility. To add a
significant note of tension, essential for the dramatic development of this public
performance, the poets regularly refer in highly negative terms to the jealous
husband (gilos) and to courtly spies (lauzengiers). The request for sexual fulfill-
ment can be observed everywhere, and many poets openly toyed with uninhibited
allusion to sexuality (Classen 2011b), but in most cases it is denied, viewed as
contemptible (fals’ amor), or it simply remains in the narrative shadow. However,
a close analysis of many courtly love poems, beginning with those by Guillaume

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le Neuf, reveals how much sexuality lurks behind the polite and refined language
of courtly love (Mölk 1981, 24–25; Paterson 1993; Paterson, ed., 2010).
III Women’s Voices in Courtly Love: The trobairitz
Similar observations can be made with regard to northern French poetry, gener-
ally identified as trouvère songs, and to Middle High German poems, known
collectively as Minnesang (see the classic anthology Moser and Tervooren, ed.,
1977; Müller, ed., 2009). This genre also found great favor at Italian courts,
especially in the south and the north, and belonged to the school of the “dolce stil
nuovo.”
Wherever we look, we face a mostly male world in which the poets might
grant a female voice to surface, but only within the fictional dimension. The only
remarkable exception proved to be the Old Occitan female poets, the trobairitz,
many of whom voiced rather negative views about the entire notion of ‘courtly
love’ because they lament women’s unfair treatment at the hands of men, result-
ing in social slander and contempt. These women poets generally pursued highly
ethical values through their poetry and emphasized, for instance, the relevance of
sincere and honest love, which they as women ought to be entitled to (Rieger, ed.,
1991). Thus, the typical female perspective adds remarkable components to the
discourse on love, such as in the dialogue poem involving N’Alaisina Yselda and
Na Carenza (no. 1) where the two women debate whether marriage is to be
pursued or not, since living alone would be a very hard way of life, while bearing
children would be equally difficult and unpleasant. The issue is not resolved,
although Carenza emphasizes that Yselda should at least choose a worthy noble-
man from whom she would then receive a noble son. In many tensos, debate
poems, a male lover tries to convince his lady to listen to his wooing and accept
him as her lover. This led to many variations, such as in “S.ie . us quier conseill,
bell’ami’ Alamanda” (no. 4), where the man appeals to this woman to serve as his
go-between and to convince her lady to embrace his love.
When individual women appear as speakers—historically verifiable or not—
they tend to explore the ethical dimension of love, such as N’Azalais de Porcair-
agues who insists in “At em al freg tems vengut” (no. 27) that women would be
well advised not to entrust their love to high ranking lords; instead they should
only look for men who honestly loves them irrespective of social status.
In her case, as she explains, her friend commands a heart of gold and can be
fully relied on as a lover. Na Castelloza, by contrast, bitterly complains about her
former lover’s distance from her, whom she now proceeds to praise in public to
attract his love. Although she is aware of how much society disapproves of a

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woman actively pursuing a man, she does so out of deep love (no. 29), insisting
on the deep feeling which she has for him. Nevertheless, she still criticizes him
because he has not yet responded to her own wooing, which makes him appear
cold and unappreciative. In “Ia de chantar non degr’aver talan” (no. 30) she goes
even one step further and appeals to her lover to grant her at least a friendly face,
otherwise she would die from grief. She announces that she would always hold
him dear in her heart, irrespective of whether he would ever respond to her
requests.
From the moment in which she has caught sight of him she has been
completely in his power. Full of desperation, the singer begs her beloved to turn
his attention to her, otherwise her grief would drive her crazy. Clara d’ Anduza, in
her “En greu esmay et en greu pessamen” (no. 33) underscores the intensity of her
love, which is in danger of being destroyed by envious courtly spies. The poem
serves as a testimony of her absolute loyalty, which no one would be able to
undermine. She assures her friend that she would never waver in her love for him
or might take another man as her lover. To confirm her deep feelings, she
concludes her song with a reference to the profound anger and wrath that fill her
heart because she cannot see her friend.
Most famously, the Comtessa de Dia sings a song about the joys of love and
youth which inspire her (“Ab ioi et ab ioven m’apais,” no. 34). She openly
announces that her friend is the happiest man on earth, which in turn makes her
happy and joyful as well. To her own delight, she knows that she can trust his
loyalty, and in turn she pledges her own to him. She knows of his ethical values
and warns people not to try telling her anything negative about him because that
would be only lies. Not embarrassed or ashamed of admitting it openly, the
Comtessa emphasizes that it is completely proper for a lady who strives for high
honors to grant her love to a knight who stands out through his nobility, bravery,
and generosity.
Once a noble lady would publicly confess her love, those who are friendly to
her would then only say friendly things to her. For her love in its ideal form is
characterized by ethical values and makes the one who loves embrace these him/
herself. Only in the last stanza does the poet address her lover by name, Floris,
emphasizing his noble spirit (“valensa”), and begging him to come to her and
accept her as his mistress (“vostra mantenessa”). However, in the subsequent
poem, “A chantar m’er de so q’ieu no volria” (no. 35), the Comtessa bitterly
complains about having been betrayed by him who seems to have disregarded all
her dedication to him and her own courtly education (“cortesia”). But she insists
that he would never be able to criticize her for having failed in her love of him.
Moreover, she is proud of the superlativedegree of her love, which superseded
even his, and yet she chastises him for his arrogance and hubris (“orguoilla”).

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The Comtessa bitterly comments that it was not right that another woman
won his love and stole him away from her. In fact, she challenges all other
women, claiming that she herself commands the highest degree of loyal love.
With her song she still hopes to reach out to him and reawaken his love for her,
yet not without adding the subtle warning that “trop d’orguoill ant gran dan
maintas gens” (37; to great arrogance brings damage to people).
Most curiously, in “Estat ai en greu cossirier” (no. 36), she reflects on a lost
lover whom she had denied sexual satisfaction, although now she would be more
than willing to grant him his wish and hold him in her arms, naked. She assures
him, through this poem, that she would have great desire to embrace him instead
of her husband, if only he had promised her to fulfill all her wishes. The Comtessa
indicates that true love cannot be found in marriage, a theme which echoed
throughout all courtly love poetry (and is also fervently supported by the con-
temporary learned Abbess Heloise, Abelard’s mistress and later wife; see below),
but is here expressed more explicitly than elsewhere, and which adds another
dimension, as it is spoken by a female poet. In “Quan vei los praz verdesir”
(no. 38), she projects herself as a woman who easily awakens at night, filled with
deep desire for her lover. She puts this in most direct terms: “A Deus, com serai
garida / s’aissi devengues / una noit per escarida / qu’a me s’en vengues” (13–16;
Oh God, how happy I would be if it would be possible that he could come to me
one night). However, this would require from her, or any other woman longing for
such an experience, absolute loyalty. The Comtessa then warns women who do
not have a lover to guard themselves against the force of love because it would
hurt badly and brutally, killing its innocent victim as the love wound could not be
healed by any medical doctor.
The opposite situation can be encountered in the anonymous song “Ab lo cor
trist environat d’esmay” (no. 42) because here the lover seems to have died, which
fills the singer with endless pain. She pledges never to love any other man here in
this world. With his death she turns her back toward all love and happiness:
“d’amor e de ioi me depart” (16). In fact, she would like to retire from this world
and die herself. While everyone else around her enjoys life by singing, dancing,
and dressing nicely, she has plunged into mourning and laments the love of all of
her own happiness. She emphasizes the dead man’s extraordinary virtues and
honors, which make her pledge never to love any other man again.
The fact by itself that we encounter female voices who contributed in such an
outspoken manner to the discourse of love in the early twelfth century deserves
full attention, alerting us to the need to probe more deeply whether we could not
find other women poets in medieval Europe (Klinck and Rasmussen, ed., 2002).
This seems to be case at least in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Germany where
a number of voluminous song books contain a good number of anonymous songs

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that strongly suggest female authorship, especially because they pursue very
similar themes and use, though in German, very much the same language (Clas-
sen 2004b).
Parallel cases can also be discovered in Old Norse poetry (Straubhaar, ed.,
2011), though there the poets rarely, if ever, talk about love. Instead, in line with
all Norse literature, the themes focus on fighting, exile, conflicts, strife, prophe-
cies, and threats. Overall, these Norse poems present women as monstrous
figures, as challenges and dangers to the men folk, while the trobairitz and their
late medieval German counterparts explore essentially the whole gamut of issues
pertaining to love, sex, and marriage, mostly from a characteristically female
perspective (Doss-Quinby et al., ed. and trans., 2011).
IV Courtly Love Poetry in Northern France: The trouvères
Apart from the early troubadours, in the middle of the twelfth century French
poets to the north embarked on the same project—obviously influenced by their
southern predecessors and contemporaries—to discuss the issue of love in a
multitude of poems (van Deusen, ed., 1994; Payen 1966–1967; Wilkins 1988;
Doss-Quinby 1994). These trouvères composed ca. 2,100 songs between the
twelfth and the thirteenth century, focusing on the traditional concept of courtly
love in its myriad of manifestation (Rosenberg et al., ed., 1998; Sigal 1999). Some
of the major figures were Marcabru, Jaufre Rudel, Rigaut de Berbezilh, Bernart de
Ventadorn, Gaucelm Faidit, Conon de Béthune, Bertran de Born, Jehan Bodel,
Audefroi le Bastart, Adam le Bossu, Gace Brulé, Thibaut de Champagne, Perrin
d’Angicourt, and Adam la Halle. They enjoyed, above all, utilizing the genre of
the pastourella, and this considerably more than their Provencal and German
coevals, but they quickly varied the essential set-up, eliminating the debate
between shepherdess and knight, or focusing on a debate between shepherds and
their female counterparts only. Sometimes we encounter poems in which the
female protagonist does not belong to the peasant class, and others in which she
laments being married to an old and jealous husband (malmariée; even Christine
de Pizan includes such a poem, a “balade,” in her collections of poems, ca. 1400–
1405, and again others which reflect on a variety of love conflicts and sexual
seductions (Mölk 1981, 37–48).
As is rather typical of the entire genre, irrespective of the language used, the
poets express the lovers’ laments, their despair and frustration, and yet also
underscore their continued hope to win their ladies’ love, such as in the anon-
ymous “Li chastelains de Couci ama tant” (no. 82). If the dream of love cannot be
fulfilled, the poet warns about deadly consequences. Gace Brulé refers to the

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birds that he had heard singing back home in the Bretagne, while he himself now
lives in the Champagne. They remind him of his unfulfilled love and awaken the
old erotic dreams that remain so elusive for him (no. 99). Sorrow and sadness
permeate many of these songs because the lover feels deeply frustrated and does
not perceive much hope of realizing his desires, such as Gontier de Soignies who
is even thinking about retiring into an hermit’s cell (no. 113). His song does not
address pleasurable topics, but he still hopes that it will please his audience.
Love captures, wounds, and bounds its victims, not demonstrating, as Gau-
tier de Dargies emphasizes in “Cançon ferai molt maris” (no. 117), any mercy. But
some poets also voiced criticism against their societies because, as we hear from
Thibaut de Blaison in his “Amors, que porra devenir” (no. 121), he cannot afford
to reveal the name of his beloved, even if he were quartered, because hypocrisy
and treachery rule everywhere, which would destroy the anonymous lady’s
reputation. Then again we hear of exorbitant praise of the beloved lady’s beauty,
such as in Guiot de Dijon’s “Chanteir m’estuet por la plux belle” (no. 125), or of a
lover’s desperate plea to his lady to grant him her love, such as in Moniot
d’Arras’s “Dame, ains ke je voise en ma contree” (no. 128).
Thibaut de Champagne emphasizes in his “Mauvez arbres ne puet florir”
(no. 148) that life without love is not possible, and that a man who does not love
would not, symbolically speaking, bear fruit and would then die. God Himself
would see to it that the lover would be rewarded, although the poet does not
specify what that would imply concretely. In this regard, even the greatest love
pangs would have to be regarded as worthwhile because they transform and
improve him like gold that is refined. Richard de Fornival praises his lady for two
character qualities in his “Gente m’est la saisons d’esté” (no. 150), her noble heart
and her noble appearance, one conditioning the other: “De gentil cuer gentil
pensé, / De gent cors gent contenement” (10–11).
V Courtly and Post-Courtly Middle High German Love Poetry:

Minnesang
Insofar as the purpose here cannot be to discuss the many different genres
utilized by the Middle High German love poets, or Minnesänger, suffice it here to
examine briefly the various approaches to the topics of love and marriage, if the
latter even attracted any interest. Similarly as in the Old Occitan (troubadours)
and Old French (trouvères) regions, in medieval Germany many poets came
forward who composed, especially between ca. 1170 and 1220, the bulk of the
most famous Middle High German courtly love poetry: Minnesang. The majority of
them were collected in the early fourteenth century in the Manesse song book, but

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the tradition of love poetry did not, of course, come to an end by then (Effinger et
al., ed., 2010).
Minnesänger such as Der von Kürenberg, Friedrich von Hausen, Heinrich
Veldeke, Heinrich von Morungen, Albrecht von Johannsdorf, Rudolf von Fenis,
Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Otto von Botenlauben entered
a heated poetic competition as to who was capable of composing the most
innovative, passionate, and emotional love poems in which a male voice mostly
formulates his suffering and longing for a lady. Sometimes the genre changes from
a wooing song to a messenger song, and then there were crusade songs, debate
songs, dawn songs, and so forth, but none of the Minnesänger ever turned to the
theme of marriage in any specific way. Instead, just as in the Medieval Occitan and
Old French traditions, the Middle High German poets ignored marital bonds
altogether and delighted in playing with the range of possible emotions between
men and women, perhaps everything in the vein of a game for didactic, political,
or ethical purposes (Schweikle 1995; Müller 2001; Boll 2007; Müller, ed., 1986).
Several remarkable exceptions, however, deserve to be mentioned here, any
one of which might have paved the way for future developments in the history of
medieval German love poetry. On the one hand, Wolfram von Eschenbach signals
in one of his dawn songs how much it would help if the two lovers could wake up
early in the morning, knowing that they would not have to separate avoiding
being caught because they would be married (Bumke 2004, 34–39; Sayce 1982,
213). In all of his seven dawn songs, Wolfram succeeds in providing more
intensive and passionate images of the erotic situation early in the morning, with
the two lovers mourning the necessity to depart from each other, but then joining
one more time in love making. But in “Der helnden minne ir klage” (no. V), the
narrative voice addresses the watchman, who has traditionally served to alert the
lovers to the imminent danger resulting from the dawn, and suggests that the
entire situation would be better if the lovers were actually married and hence
would not have any need “to leap up / and get away because of morning” (2,
4–5). Love and marriage should not be polar opposites, as the entire genre of
courtly love poetry, and especially of the sub-genre of dawn songs, implies.
Wolfram suggests, instead, that lovers should marry each other and enjoy a
happy life together, fully in the open: “ein offeniu süeziu wirtes wîp / kan solhe
minne geben” (2, 9–10; a man’s sweet wife, acknowledged openly, / is able to
provide such love) (Bumke 2004).
The other example, Walther von der Vogelweide, deserves particular atten-
tion (Walther von der Vogelweide 1996). On the one hand he added remarkable
critical reflections on the meaning of love in his poetry; on the other, he revealed
the extent to which this kind of love poetry was not only an esoteric, aesthetic
discourse, but in reality predicated as well on physical, bodily desire, such as in

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“Si hât ein küssen, daz ist rôt” (no. 30, IV). Instead of talking about his beloved
lady in generic terms, praising her beauty in topical terms, Walther refers to a
specific situation in which he had been able to espy her naked. Here we encounter
a voyeur who admits that he would have been disinclined to advise her to cover
herself because he delighted in gazing at her exposed body. However, she did not
notice him, and yet her appearance made him fall in love with her. As a poet, he
now can only remember the passion that filled him when he had seen her
stepping out of the bath.
In “Herzeliebez frowelin” (no. 26) Walther launches both a defense of his
personal approach to love and a biting attack against all the other courtly poets
who turn their attention only to ladies of high social standing without compre-
hending what the true feeling of love would be like. Walther identifies his lady as
a “Herzeliebez frowelîn” (heart-beloved young lady), and he bitterly rejects all his
critics who had reprimanded him of improperly directing his song to a person of a
lower social status. Defending himself, he underscores that the other poets would
not even know the meaning of true love or might never have felt it themselves in
the true sense of the word because they have always paid attention only to the
lady’s wealth and physical appearance. However, a lady who commands nothing
but her bodily beauty would not be worth of being loved, especially because
hatred could easily follow among all her wooers. True love, by contrast, begins in
the heart, and the perception of beauty would then be only of secondary impor-
tance. A man who loves a woman would automatically regard her as beautiful,
while a beautiful woman would not necessarily be able to attract love.
Walther emphasizes that he would rather take aring out of glass, an object of
lesser material value, as a gift from his lady than a ring out of gold from a queen,
and this irrespective of any public criticism. What matters in love amounts to
loyalty and constancy because these two ethical values would protect him from
ever feeling heart aches. He would never even consider a woman as a potential
mistress if she were not not to command those qualities. In short, Walther
associates true love, whether courtly or not, with deep and honest feelings which
would not be conditioned by external, material, or social factors.
In his typically brilliant fashion, Walther even goes so far as to raise the
fundamental question as to what the basic meaning of “minne” (courtly love)
might be in his song “Saget mir ieman, waz ist minne?” (no. 44). Although he
claims to have an inkling, he still would like to know more, especially because
love hurts so badly in his heart. He would prefer to identify love as a sensation
that produces happiness, whereas painfulness should not be associated with
love. The only true goal should be true love in which both hearts share the same
feeling: “minne ist zweier herzen wunne” (II, 3; love is the delight of two hearts).
In other words, love cannot be harbored by one heart alone, hence he appeals to

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his lady to carry a part of his burden, that is, to love him back (III), but he feels
deeply confused about his lady and attributes this bad condition to his own status
as lover who cannot fully perceive reality anymore (V, 7).
Moreover, in “‘Nement, frowe, disen cranz’” (no. 51) Walther projects a love
relationship characterized by simplicity, honesty, and mutual love. As a proof of
that ideal, he refers to a wreath of flowers which he had presented her with and
which she had happily accepted although he had only picked the flowers on a
meadow where he hopes to pick more with her. Her response spoke volumes, as
the poet emphasizes, because she demonstrated her inner nobility, blushed,
bowed her head toward him, displayed embarrassment, and yet indicated her
love for him. Tragically, however, as the poet then reveals, he had only dreamt of
this experience and felt deeply disappointed upon waking up (IV). Subsequently,
he searches throughout the entire summer for the one woman whom he had seen
in a vision, and is asking each lady to lift their headgear for him so that he can
better recognize the one whom he is looking for.
Most famously, Walther also created a true love utopia in his song “Under der
linden” (no. 16), in which a female voice reflects upon her love experience far
away from the court in a meadow near the edge of the forest. She went there all by
herself, and was welcomed by her lover who had already prepared a bed out of
petals for them. The two lovers kissed each other a thousand times, and then
obviously turned to love making, as the impression of her head on the petals still
can reveal. Although the female voice pretends that she would be deeply embar-
rassed if anyone would find out what they both had done together in the bed of
flowers, the entire poem is predicated on poetic voyeurism and most skillfully
operates with elements of fictionality and imagination to enhance the erotic
dimension (Köbele 2009).
Only a nightingale had been their witness, and yet now the woman sings
about this erotic adventure herself, seemingly all by herself, but apparently
addressing, in a dramatic setting, the entire court society. The more she insists on
the secrecy, the more the audience is invited to share her erotic and sexual joys,
as the onomatopoetic refrain “tandaradei” clearly signals. Moreover, resorting to
the second personal plural in “seht, wie rôt mir ist der munt” (II, 9; see how red
my lips are), she herself gives away that secret. The evidence of the bed also
speaks a clear message because everyone who would pass by it would be able to
recognize where her head had been resting (III, 7–9), which would trigger a
sympathetic laughter (III, 3–6) (Classen, ed., 2010). As A. C. Spearing has ob-

served, “The poem purports to exclude possible watchers, yet its secrecy has been
penetrated not only by the nightingale but by these persons named as ir and
ieman. Each stanza not only reveals what the poem claims to conceal, but calls
attention to that revelation by its very words” (Spearing 1993, 28).

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Taking both poets into consideration, we observe how much their love poems
intricately intertwine the erotic with the metapoetic discourse, examining both
the role of the poet within his society and the relevance of courtly love and its
social function. Whereas Wolfram suggests, at least in one of his dawn songs, that
a happy marriage would be by far preferable over an illicit love affair, Walther
indicates how much he is concerned with freeing himself from the constraints of
traditional love discourse, experimenting with astounding variations in the cus-
tomary gender relationship, trying to achieve a new degree of emotional intensity
based on veritable trust, loyalty, hence love outside of the courtly world.
VI Italian Contributions to Courtly Love: Dolce stil nuovo
We also would have to address the large corpus of love poetry composed by South
Italian, Sicilian—Dante was the first to coin the term “Sicilian School” in his
De vulgari eloquentia (ca. 1303–1304; 1996, 1.12.2)—, and other Italian poets (ca.
1230–ca. 1250), but they basically varied from their European neighbors only to
some degree, and they did not embark on any radically innovative approaches to
the topics of love, marriage, and sexuality. This is not deny their extraordinary
poetic beauty and relevance for medieval Italian literature, or the innovative
nature of their work reflecting a new political-cultural unity at the Magna Curia
under the rule of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, but poets such as Guido
delle Colonne, Pietro della Vigna, Giacomino Pugliese, Frederick himself, or
Percivalle Doria did not essentially add much innovative material to the discourse
at stake here, disregarding various attempts to spiritualize the beloved, as later
specifically promoted by Dante Alighieri in his Vita nuova (ca. 1283–1293/95) and
Petrarch (1304–1374) in his sonnets collected in his Canzoniere (ca. 1348–) (Blanco
Valdés 1996; Savona 1973; Bertelli 1987). Scholars have agreed on the major
efforts by these poets to innovate the formal structure of their songs, especially
with the development of the sonnet, the simplification of the Provencal canzone,
and a very rich utilization of vernacular metaphors, allegorical references, and
motifs, but this is not the topic of our investigation (Leonardo, ed., 2000–2001;
Favati 1975; Suitner 1977; Bertelli 1987).
However, the Dolce stil nuovo provided a range of more passionate images
and metaphors of love, reflecting on the intensification of the artificiality of that
culture, which was deeply influenced by their Provencal predecessors, the Ger-
man Minnesang, and possibly even Arabic lyrics (Ruta, ed., 2001; Antonelli et al.,
ed., 2008; Jensen, ed. and trans., 1985). Once again, these male poets lament the
coldness of their ladies, praise their beauty, invoke the torment which they
themselves suffer from love—both here and in many other courtly love poems an

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essential ingredient—and implore their female addressees to have mercy on them,

otherwise they would die from their unfulfilled desires (see, esp., Guido delle
Colonne, “Ancor che l’aigua per lo foco lasse”). Nevertheless, despite all grief,
these poets clearly express the deep joy which these feelings of love create in
them (Rinaldo d’Aquino, “Per fin’ amore vao sì allegramente”). To be sure, erotic
love necessitates loyal service, patience, and trust, all of which might eventually
lead to a reward, though we never hear of an actual fulfillment. After all, courtly
love is predicated at large on secrecy and concealment, even though all these
erotic poems served for public performance, as Jacopo Mostacci expressed expli-
citly in “Mostrar vorria in parvenza”: “Amor si de’ celare / per zo che più fine
ene / ca nulla gioi’ c’ a esto mondo sia” (3, 1–3) (see also Walther von der
Vogelweide’s poem “Under der linden”).
D Theory of Courtly Love, Literary Games,

or Scholastic Masterpieces
I Andreas Capellanus
One of the most enigmatic treatises on courtly love was composed by the Parisian
cleric Andreas Capellanus, De amore, ca. 1180–1190 for the French court of Philip
Augustus, perhaps at the request of Marie de Champagne, daughter of King Louis
VII of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine, if we want to believe the author’s own
statement. He closely followed the model created by Ovid (43 B.C.E–18 C.E.), Ars
amatoria from ca. 2 C.E. in which he offers, probably satirically, advice to men on
how to select a woman whom he could love, how to win that person in love, and
finally how to preserve that love. After all, as the poet emphasizes, “Love is a kind
of warfare; avant, ye laggards! these banners are not for timid men to guard”
(II, 233–34, here p. 85).
Andreas claims to follow Ovid’s example, who informs women how to be
attractive to men in body and mind, how to respond to a wooer, and how to keep
that love (Ovid 2003; Ovidio 2007). Ovid suggested to his male readers to submit
themselves under women like in a military order, while he encouraged women to
arouse jealousy in their lovers to maintain their attention. Ovid went even one
step further and discussed the various positions women should take during love-
making to take advantage of their own womanly bodies (Ovidio 2007, 769ff.).
Subsequently, however, in his Remedies for Love, Ovid outlines his precepts of
how to avoid love if that is a person’s wish, which involves, first of all, avoiding
leisure as the surest path toward kindling love, staying away from erotic litera-

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ture, especially love poetry, or letters from the beloved, and being aware of
solitary places because solitude can easily reawaken the memory of love.
Andreas, on the other hand, mostly presents dialogues involving a male lover
and his recalcitrant lady, intermingled with specific rules pertaining to love,
formulated by the God of Love, King Arthur, and also his own patron, Marie de
Champagne (Capellanus 1982; Andreas aulae regiae capellanus 2006). Andreas
concludes the second book with a short and beautiful Arthurian tale illustrating
how a man (a Briton) can win his lady’s love through valiant, knightly behavior,
conquering a hawk for her by overcoming a number of challenges by guardsmen
and knights. Once he has taken hold of the hawk, he perceives a scroll attached to
a golden chain hanging from the perch. The rules of love, formulated in specific,
unambiguous, almost legal language, are written on the scroll, which he brings
his lady as well. Afterwards, upon her urging, he makes these rules known to all
lovers who are thus informed, for instance, that “Marriage does not constitute a
proper excuse for not loving” (1). The rules also declare that jealousy is an
essential component of love (2); that one can only love one person only (3); that
love cannot be forcefully exacted (5); that “One should not seek love with ladies
with whom it is disgraceful to seek marriage” (11); that honesty forms an essential
component of love (18); that a person truly in love is always in fear of losing his
beloved (20); and “There is nothing to prevent one woman being loved by two
men, or one man by two women” (31).
Once the Briton has handed over these rules to his lady, she calls in the entire
court and shares the rules with every member, and all agree that these rules should
determine love’s practice throughout the entire world. Love outside of the bonds of
marriage is thus announced to be the central value, in complete reconfirmation of
virtually everything which has been argued about in all the dialogues in the
previous text. However, Andreas expressed a rather ambiguous position vis-à-vis
love in the prologue, and emphasized its problematic nature. He declared his
willingness to expound on its essence and character because he himself commands
much experience in this area, and because he is driven by didactic ideals, being in
charge of educating his student Walter, who was suddenly gripped by the power of
love (“novum amoris militem”) and afraid of losing control over his life. Andreas
affirms that this is the effect which love can truly have, as he knows through
personal experience—just as Ovid had posited (I, 29)—and that he feels impelled by
the mutual affection between them to provide a thorough critical discussion of this
curious phenomenon. But he does not indicate what the ultimate purpose of his
treatise might be, concluding with the comment that ultimately Walter’s “progress
in love will be more circumspect if you are learned in its lore” (31).
Andreas seems to view love rather critically because it subjugates man,
prevents any clear thinking, and would be inappropriate for a “man of sense” (31).

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Nevertheless, knowing that Walther is in the clutches of love causes Andreas

“mental anxiety” and worry for which he finds no words (31). This is a strong
statement for a master in rhetoric like him, but it might simply underscore the
satiric nature of this text. Nevertheless, for a long stretch the author approaches
the topic of love in the most serious and learned of terms, defining its name,
origin, and nature, illustrating its effects on people, and presenting many different
dialogues between a man and a woman in which the former consistently, though
virtually never with any tangible success, woos for a lady’s love. In most cases, the
social class difference makes it practically impossible for the man to achieve his
goal, but the dialogues themselves still present powerful rhetorical models which
could be easily adapted by a wide range of readers for their own purposes. Even
when a nobleman addresses a common woman, she rejects his pleadings for a
number of cogent arguments, though the conclusion remains ambiguous, as when
she points out: “I shall reflect, and be careful to let in the worthier man only after
much weighing of counsel” (95). Surprisingly, not even in those situations where
there is no social barrier between the two, the woman remains resistant and does
not grant him his wish. In order to cut through the ongoing dilemma, especially
with regard to love versus marriage, two speakers, a man of higher nobility and a
noble lady, write a letter to the Countess Marie of Champagne who unequivocally
responds by writing on the first of May, 1174 (157) “that love cannot extend its sway
over a married couple. Lovers bestow all they have on each other freely, and
without the compulsion of any consideration of necessity, whereas married part-
ners are forced to comply with each other’s desires as an obligation, and under no
circumstances to refuse their persons to each other” (157).
Most amazingly and puzzlingly, at the end Andreas turns around completely
and condemns love outside of the bonds of marriage in the strongest possible
terms, contradicting himself in unmistakable terms, thus demonstrating his skills
as a dialectician also in the area of courtly love. Devoting one’s efforts to love
would be a waste of one’s talents and inappropriate for the learned person. His
own rules and literary debates should only be regarded as reading material
offering entertainment and recreation (287). His student Walter should realize
that by filling a woman’s heart with love he himself would be able to restrain from
it and gain eternal rewards from God. In his estimation, “Each and every wise
man is bound to renounce all acts of love, and always to oppose Love’s com-
mands for many reasons, but especially for one … No person could be pleasing to
God by any good works as long as he seeks to devote himself to Love’s services,
for God loathes … those whom He sees committed to Venus’ tasks or engaged in
any form of sensual pleasure outside marriage-relations” (287).
Those who abandon the eternal joys of salvation for a moment of sensual
pleasure here on earth would be utter fools (289). The entire third book is filled

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with a pervasive diatribe against the erotic element, against love outside of the
bonds of marriage, against women at large, and against carnal pleasures alto-
gether: “Love gives rise to hateful indigence, and paves the way to the prison of
poverty” (293). Speaking the language of a priest, Andreas notes: “Love causes
everyone unbearable suffering in this life, and infinitely greater pains after death”
(293). Addressing Walter directly, he wonders: “Why then do you look for love, if
it causes you to be accounted wicked and blasphemous before God and men?”
(295). Andreas sharply rebukes all clerics who devote themselves to love as grave
sinners, and lambasts the laity if they turn to love because it would deprive them
of wisdom, honor, and public respect (297).
Truly astoundingly, after having presented countless women in the previous
dialogues as highly intelligent, wise, rhetorically endowed, chaste and virtuous,
clearly opposed to the male wooers and their inappropriate appeals to grant them
love, Andreas has only negative things to say about all women, for instance:
“There is no woman to be found who is bound to you with such affection and firm
constancy that she will remain loyal to her love if some man approaches her with
the slightest offer of gifts” (307). In fact, Andreas reveals his own satirical
approach even here when he makes absolute his remarks about women, casting a
negative shroud over all of them: “All women are thieves through avarice; we
know they have pockets. There is no woman alive … that an offer of money does
not breach her virtue” (307). Or: “all women are drunkards, fond of drinking
wine” (317), or: “All women are also free with their tongues” (317), or: “no woman
can keep a secret” (317).
Although Andreas claimed to follow Ovid, and although he had made the
greatest effort to present women as vastly superior to men in their ethics, intelli-
gence, morals, and rhetoric, he ridicules them all in the end, and rejects love
outright, urging Walter to guard himself from loving women under any circum-
stances, keeping only God in mind as the only one worthy of being loved.
Ultimately, we face a treatise that escapes critical investigation and constantly
assumes new positions that contradict each other. Any one-sided interpretation is
in grave danger of misleading us, albeit many scholars went just that way, or
simply abandoned all hope to pin down Andreas’s treatise in their interpretive
efforts (Cherchi 1994; Monson 2005; Allen 1992; Haug 2004; with an emphasis on
communication theory, Classen 2002c, 53–107). We can be certain that Andreas’s
treatise was of central significance for the learned culture of its time, either
prescriptively or descriptively, but we cannot say for sure how he truly viewed
courtly love, marriage, or sexuality. He might have harbored stronger affections
for Walter than he could admit openly, or he might have played a genial literary
game with the entire notion of courtly love. Then again, he also might have
enjoyed displaying his own rhetorical skills and his mastery of classical Roman

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literature (Ovid). C. S. Lewis famously remarked that for Andreas “Love is, in

saeculo, as God is, in eternity. Cordis affectio is to the acts of love as charity is to
good works” (Lewis 1938, 42).
Ultimately, here we can identify a critical point in the discourse of courtly
love, drawing from many different sources, and primarily addressing a learned
audience, skillfully experimenting with a range of rhetorical approaches and
literary genres (letter, definitions, dialogues, rules and laws, Arthurian narrative,
didactic teaching, etc.). Significantly, Andreas was not at all the first or the last to
invest in this discourse on love and to examine critically, if not rather satirically,
the issue of love versus marriage. Fritz Peter Knapp now concludes that Andreas
did not announce a double truth; instead, he formulated a double untruth. His
treatise represents an effort to bring to light the impossibility of straddling the
abyss between, on the one hand, the Christian world view, combined with the
concept of the afterlife, and the need, on the other, to come to terms with the
natural demands of this world, especially with sexual lust. Much speaks in favor
of this reading, but it does not convince either completely (Andreas aulae regiae
capellanus 2006, 591–632). I myself have argued that Andreas played out a
brilliant game of rhetorical strategies to demonstrate how much basic human
communication underlies all existential concerns and concepts, as illustrated by
the fundamental contradictions which characterize this treatise, since communi-
cation continuously faces contradictions, dialectical approaches, and confusion
(Classen 2002c, 53–107; Classen 2013a).
II Abelard and Heloise
Several decades before him, the two famous lovers, the philosopher Peter Abelard
(1079–1142) and his student, then mistress, finally his wife, and subsequently the
Abbess of the Paraclete monastery, Heloise had exchanged famous letters in
which they explored in a highly sophisticated and learned manner what the
meaning of their relationship was really like and so had explored in great detail
how these topics fit into the domain of theology and philosophy. After they had
fallen in love with each other, and after she had a conceived a child with him,
they had been forced by her uncle Fulbert to get married. This was certainly not
out of the ordinary, but for a clerical philosopher, like Abelard, this was rather
embarrassing and disapproved of by the Church. They tried to keep their marriage
a secret, which infuriated Fulbert so much that he had a gang of men break into
Abelard’s quarters and castrate him, which caused a huge uproar in Paris. Later,
Abelard arranged for Heloise to become the abbess of a new foundation (Para-
clete), while he retired to a monastery as well. After she had learned of his

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autobiographical treatise, Historia calamitatum (History of My Miseries), she

embarked on a correspondence with him, in which she addressed the issues of
love and marriage, insisting that she had never wanted to marry him in order to
preserve the purity of their love.
Whether this famous correspondence was authentic or not, whether Abelard
created it himself or whether a later writer, such as Jean de Meun, might have
made it up, cannot be discussed here (Mews 2005; Kolmer 2008; Godman 2009;
Oberson 2010). What matters, by contrast, is the great interest by the intellectual
elite during the twelfth century in the topics of love and marriage, and later
throughout the entire Middle Ages and beyond, considering its fundamentally
dialectic nature (Classen 2013a). It might not be possible to draw a direct connec-
tion between the letters, which these two lovers exchanged, and Andreas’s
treatise. We can be certain, however, that all these texts belong to the same
learned discourse, which developed parallel to the explosion of vernacular love
poetry and made the topic of courtly love to a most learned matter which deeply
concerned the intellectuals as well.
III Matfre Ermengaud and Juan Ruiz
Matfre Ermengaud pursued very similar strategies in his Breviari d’amor (begun
1288), presenting an orthodox, scholastic treatise of almost encyclopedic proper-
ties, yet containing also clear references to courtly love. As Michel Bolduc now
argues, “Matfre’s Breviari, while teaching caritas, simultaneously shields the
primary figures of fin’ amors” (Bolduc 2004, 68). The highly contradictory nature
of courtly love found its most poignant expression in the Spanish work by Juan
Ruiz, Libro del buen amor (ca. 1340), where we can never be sure whether he is
talking with tongue-in-cheek or seriously, promoting the ethical value of love in
contrast to conjugal love, or whether he intended his verse narrative as a warning
and criticism of courtly love.
E Love and Marriage in Courtly Romances

In most courtly romances, the central issue does not hinge on the experience of
love, but on honor and individual performance within the social context of the
court. In many of the Middle High German pre-courtly romances, such as Oswald,
Orendel, or König Rother, the protagonist explores the East in a quest to find a
bride. In the romances created by Chrétien de Troyes, which soon became the
model for all European Arthurian poets, especially in Erec and Yvain/Iwein, the

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hero quickly wins the hand of a lady, marries her, and then faces serious
problems regarding his social standing as a knight. Many times the marriage
ultimately proves to be the central framework for the ethical and religious pro-
blems at stake, especially because the hero’s wife regularly comes to his rescue
and supports him in many ways. Most curiously, however, in the many different
Tristan romances, marriage emerges as the most painful hindrance to the prota-
gonists’ happiness, similar to the case of Abelard and Heloise, and the love which
affects both partners equally is of profound power, far removed from the concept
of courtly love as discussed in the troubadour or Minnesang tradition. However, it
still proves to be opposed to marriage and hence to society which tends to impose
rigid limits and always attempts to regulate and channel that love into marriage
(Tomasek 2007, 196–204).
In Gottfried von Straßburg’s version from ca. 1210, we encounter a whole
series of married couples, each representing a different approach to marriage.
Tristan’s father Rivalin falls in love with King Mark’s sister, Blancheflor, but he
marries her only after he has learned that the war back home had been renewed
and that she has become pregnant. He joins hands with her, however, only once
his advisor Rual has pointed out the danger for his dynasty and his illegitimate
son if he does not publicly marry Blancheflor. Tragically, both parents then die,
and young Tristan is raised by Rual and his wife Floræte, who represent an ideal
married couple. Later in his life, Tristan reaches his uncle Mark’s court and proves
to be a kind of prodigal child. Mark is so charmed by his nephew that he pledges
never to marry and to make the young man his heir. But soon the circumstances
change, and Tristan arranges Mark’s marriage with the Irish princess Isolde.
Tragically, however, the two young people have inadvertently drunk a love
potion—certainly a powerful symbol—and begin an affair that will last until the
end of their lives.
Sadly, in the meantime, Mark himself is deeply in love with his own wife, and
soon realizes that she does not return his feelings, which results in many conflicts
and mortal danger for the lovers. In none of the many versions throughout the
Middle Ages does this most problematic relationship find a happy outcome,
despite numerous references to Tristan’s subsequent marriage to another woman,
also called Isolde (Gottfried von Straßburg 1980).
Both in Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval (ca. 1170) and in Wolfram von Eschen-
bach’s Parzival (ca. 1205) the protagonist happily marries, but then departs on
quest to find his mother, who has actually died long ago. Subsequently, it takes
the protagonist years to achieve the predestined goal of his life, to relieve the
suffering Grail king by asking a crucial question. Once that has finally happened,
Perceval/Parzival is appointed as the successor, and only then can he finally
rejoin with his wife, whom had dearly missed over the many years. The focus,

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however, rests only marginally on marriage, although the narrators refer to it

numerous times. Parzival’s father first marries the black queen Belacane, then the
Christian queen Herzeloyde, impregnating both, but he never stays and dies
during some battle in which he fights on behalf of an Eastern prince. The topics of
chivalry, knighthood, religion, and the quest for the Grail dominate this romance
in Old French and Middle High German, while marriage figures only as an
institution of some narrative, but certainly not central importance (Schumacher
1967).
By contrast, the contemporary Anglo-Norman writer Marie de France (fl. ca.
1160–ca. 1200) examined this issue from quite a different perspective when she
composed her short verse narratives, her lais (Burgess 1987). Some are determined
by utopian and fairy-tale like features, such as “Guigemar” and “Lanval,” in
which rather fanciful love relationships develop, the first resulting in a happy
marriage, the other in a dream-like escape with the beloved to Avalon. In others,
the lovers prove to be deeply troubled and have difficulties in achieving their
amatory goals, waiting many years to realize their wishes (“Milun”), or dying in
their efforts out of a lack of self-control and rationality (“Equitan”). In “Equitan,”
we observe debates between the king and his seneschal’s wife which bear con-
siderable parallels with those contained in Andreas Capellanus’s treatise. In “Le
Fresne,” the lovers almost lose each other because the social constraints force the
prince to marry another woman. Only because Le Fresne is recognized at the last
minute as of high noble birth, can she marry the man whom she deeply loves.
However, we do not hear anything else about her future life as wife and queen.
The hope of the two young people in “Deus amanz” to get married is dashed
because he fights too hard and arrogantly tries to prove his strength during a
public challenge, refusing to take the wonder drug that would have allowed him
to carry her up to the top of a mountain, which no other man has ever accom-
plished. He achieves that feat, but then dies because of heart failure, whereupon
she follows him out of grief into his death.
Most remarkably, in “Eliduc” we encounter several marriage arrangements.
At first Eliduc is happily married, but must leave his country because he has lost
his lord’s favors. Fighting for another lord, he meets a young princess who falls in
love with him, which he accepts, feeling the same passion for her. Later, he elopes
with her, but she seems to die during the voyage across the sea once she has
learnt from a sailor, who is scared of drowning due to the stormy weather and
who regards her as responsible for God’s wrath, that Eliduc is already married.
Once he has reached dry land, the protagonist places the body of his new beloved
on an altar in a former hermit’s cell, where his actual wife later discovers the
young woman and revives her. Realizing how deeply Eliduc is in love with the
new princess, she abdicates her position as wife out of love for him, and enters a

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monastery, granting Eliduc and the young woman the right to marry and to lead a
happy life together. At the end, however, both join the older woman and a
convent, which overcomes all possible conflicts and makes us believe that God
approved this odd arrangement in the name of love (Whalen, ed., 2011; Kinoshita
and McCracken, 2012).
Marriage itself, whether dealt with explicitly or only indirectly, is often
described as the social norm for the romance heroes during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. But we hardly hear more details about actual married life. In
the pan-European verse narrative Floire and Blancheflor, for instance, two young
people are raised together, although she is the daughter of a Christian slave
(formerly a queen) and the son of a pagan king. When his parents decide to sell
Blancheflor, their son almost commits suicide, but his mother prevents the act at
the last minute, and then the parents allow him to go on a search for his beloved.
He ultimately finds her in the harem of the Babylonian king and can convince the
latter to grant them freedom and the right to get married. Soon after, Floire’s
father dies and he succeeds him on the throne, taking his wife with him as the
new queen (Grieve 1997).
The situation is fairly similar in the Old French “chantefable” Aucassin et
Nicolette, where again the narrative concludes with the protagonists’ wedding
and a quick comment on their long life in a happy marriage (Pensom 1999). In the
late thirteenth-century verse romance Mai und Beaflor, the female protagonist
marries her beloved Mai, Count of Greece and conceives a son from him. However,
subsequent complications force her to leave the country secretly and to return
home to Rome with her son without revealing her identity to her father; the latter
had earlier tried to rape her, which had forced her to escape, setting the narrative
into motion. Believing that she has died, Mai travels to Italy to request forgiveness
for his matricide, which he had committed out of revenge for her evil plotting
against her daughter-in-law, from the Pope. In Italy he encounters his young son,
and then recognizes, to his great delight, his wife again. When her father con-
fesses his guilt publicly and then resigns, Mai succeeds him as the new Emperor
of Rome, making room for this idealized married couple.
In the pan-European Amis et Amiloun—also Amicus and Amelius; in the Ger-
man version by Konrad von Würzburg (ca. 1270–1285), the title is by then En-
gelhard—two friends face severe challenges and help each other to the utmost,
proving their true friendship. The first can marry his beloved, the Danish king’s
daughter, after his friend has killed an envious courtier on behalf of the other.
Since both friends look so much alike, no one has surmised that the person
fighting against the accuser was not the one who was truly the culprit. Years later,
this friend contracts leprosy and becomes terribly disfigured, whereupon he is
virtually ostracized. When he seeks help from his friend, he has already given up

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all hope because he knows that he could never ask his friend for the blood of his
two children. However, the other immediately kills them, heals his friend, and
then God resuscitates the two little ones, approving the absolute value of friend-
ship. The narrative, however, is predicated on the critical fact that both of these
friends are happily married and have children of their own. We are not even
informed about how the friend, who is in the meantime suffering from leprosy,
found his wife and what his relationship might be with her. Nevertheless, the
essential background of this romance proves to be the happy marriage which
even results in progeny, a fact which is often ignored by other romance writers.
If we turn to the highly unusual late-medieval heroic epic Kudrun (ca. 1250),
which certainly belongs to a very different genre and yet provides us with good
evidence in the present context, we can learn much more about marriage and the
standard gender relationship prevalent at that time. This might be the more
surprising feature of this text, considering the heroic framework in which, as we
have seen above, love and marriage play the least important roles. In the first
section, the narrator presents a royal couple whose son Hagen is kidnapped by a
dragon. While the king is about to break down in tears, although a major courtly
festival is underway, his wife reprimands him and sustains him in this difficult,
almost heart-breaking moment. In the subsequent sections, we are told about one
generation after the other, each determined by a powerful couple who have gotten
together after bitter heroic battles, supporting each other and living a good life.
In the end, however, the main protagonist Kudrun is kidnapped by one of her
wooers whom she had rejected. After a devastating battle in which her father is
killed, it takes ten years for a new army to grow up with which Kudrun can
eventually be rescued, but subsequently, she embraces a completely new mar-
riage policy and establishes peace through unheard-of diplomatic links connect-
ing the various families by way of marriages. In Kudrun, there are no specific
traces of a love discourse, since the major interest rests in the heroic features and
military operations. However, solid marriages prove to be the key instrument in
that profoundly military society to overcome major conflicts and to establish
peace—the very opposite proves to be the case in the earlier Nibelungenlied where
conflictual, mismatched marriages lead to the downfall of the entire society. In
fact, here marriages are concluded not out of love at all, but because it serves
powerful political agendas and strategies.
Considering yet another genre, in the contemporary verse narrative Mauritius
von Craûn (ca. 1220–1230) courtly love clashes with marital love, and the outcome
is the destruction of both. Mauritius makes every possible effort to convince his
lady, the Countess of Beamont, to love him, and organizes a fabulous tournament
on her behalf, which she had demanded from him as the ultimate condition for a
love affair (Fischer 2006). But in the evening, when Mauritius is waiting for his

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lady to arrive, he briefly falls asleep, and at that very moment she enters the room,
observing the sleeping man. She immediately decides to reject him and all future
lovers, affirming that she is content with her marriage. Although the chamber-
maid tries to convince her not to go that route, warning her of serious conse-
quences for the whole concept of courtly love, the Countess leaves her sleeping
lover and returns to her husband. After Mauritius has awoken, he eventually tries
to force his way into the marital bedroom, scares the husband out of his wits, and
lies down next to his lady, while the Count rests unconsciously on the ground.
The subsequent sexual tryst could be read as rape, or simply as a grotesque
travesty of courtly love (Classen 2011b, 53–82). But whatever it might be, Maur-
itius afterwards gets up from bed, returns the symbolic ring, and abandons his
lady for good because he felt betrayed by her. Nothing remains for her but to
lament and mourn the loss of her lover. Although the final scene with her
standing on the buttresses of the castle clearly echoes the setting of a traditional
dawn song, there is no hope for her that Mauritius will ever return. Love has come
to a tragic end, and this also seems to apply to the erotic relationship between the
genders at large because the social foundations of courtly society seem to have
been undermined as well (Classen 2006).
F Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Late Middle Ages

However, the late Middle Ages witnessed the enormously prolific development of
the short verse or prose novella, as represented by Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca.
1350), Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400), Heinrich Kaufringer’s tales
(ca. 1400), Franco Sacchetti’s Trecento Novelle (ca. 1410–1420), Poggio Braccioli-
ni’s Facetie (ca. 1460), and Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (1560), not to
mention the large number of jest narratives from the sixteenth century which
continued the medieval tradition in a variety of ways (Classen 2009a). A signifi-
cant majority of them are predicated on the intense negotiations and debates
between men and women as to sexuality, marriage, social and economic issues,
and then also as to the individual power position within the communal frame-
work (Grubmüller 2006). The gamut of themes found in these intriguing and
popular collections of narratives proves to be astounding, but at closer analysis
we can identify very few yet powerful issues common to them all, insofar as the
question as to the proper, happy, fulfilling, or necessary relationship between the
genders has occupied people’s minds throughout times, at least since the high
Middle Ages (Kiefer, ed., 2009). Virtually everywhere, we observe conflicts, ten-
sions, and strife, but what would be literature all about if not basic problems
people have always faced with each other. Mismatched marriages as to person-

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ality, social status, religion, and culture are the topics of countless tales. Cotermi-
nously, age discrepancies, adultery, revenge taken by cuckolded husbands, and
many other topics occurring in everyday life are the central themes which Chau-
cer or Kaufringer pursue.
I Late-Medieval Reflections on Marital Love
Many late-medieval authors addressed the topic of marital love, without comple-
tely ignoring the issue of adulterous love. Christine de Pizan (1363–ca. 1430) lost
her husband Etienne du Castel early in her life in 1390, and mourned this loss in
many of her ballads and other texts (Willard 1984; Margolis 2011). In her Livre du
duc des vrais amans (Book of the Duke of True Lovers), however, she thematizes
the conflict a young princess incurs through her love affair long before her
marriage and the criticism which she faces publicly and privately (Christine de
Pizan 1995). Most famously, Christine has a Dame de la Tour, Sebile de Mont
Hault, send her several letters in which she reflects long and hard on the nature of
love and its dangers for unmarried people, threatening to undermine their social
status (“deshonneure,” 176).
In strong contrast, Johannes of Tepl (ca. 1350–ca. 1415), a famous German
Humanist in Bohemia, based his brilliant debate poem Der Ackermann aus Böh-
men (The Plowman from Bohemia), in which Everyman (Plowman) argues with
Death over the meaning of life, on the mournful experience of having lost his
wife. In fact, many of the early statements constitute a paean on his wonderful
wife, the mother of his children. Her loss motivates him to attack Death most
bitterly and to praise his marital partner in most laudatory terms (Kiening 1998,
367–403). Contemporarily, the Swiss public notary Heinrich Wittenwiler includes
a whole chapter on the precepts of marriage in his peasant satire, or moral
allegory, Der Ring (ca. 1400; The Ring). These are highly detailed, but ultimately
do not profit the foolish peasant couple Bertschi Triefnas (translated as ‘Bert with
the Dripping Nose’) and Mätzli Rüerenzumpf (translated as ‘Metzli Who Touches
the Penis’) because, during their wedding festivities, a fight breaks out between
two farmers which quickly explodes into a veritable war between the two villages.
The conflict results into complete Armageddon, and while Mätzli is killed along
with all other peasants of her community, Bertschi withdraws into the Black
Forest and ends his life as an hermit, without having learned anything about how
to lead a better life (Lutz 1990).
The highly regarded German-Tyrolian poet Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/
77–1445) was the first to develop some extraordinary marital songs in which he
depicts the happiness which he and his newly-wed wife Margaretha of Schwan-

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gau enjoy together (Müller and Springeth, ed., 2011; Spicker 2011). In these songs
Oswald does not even shy away from openly talking about sexual pleasures,
describing them in graphic terms, resorting to the generic framework of the
pastourelle, detailing how they both enjoyed their time together either in a bath
tub or in the meadow (Müller 2011). We might even get a glimpse into their
subsequent marital life, as when the poet later felt deeply frustrated about his
lonely existence in the Alpine world and turned to beating his children, when
their mother comes rushing to their defense against her violent husband (Schwob
1977; Baasch and Nürnberger 1986). However, either way, we cannot ignore the
literary nature of these statements intended for public performance; hence, they
are not to be confused with straightforward autobiographical comments.
Chaucer included a number of tales in his Canterbury Tales in which the
issues of sexuality, loyalty, and trust within marriage play a significant role, such
as in “The Miller’s Tale,” “The Franklin’s Tale,” and “The Merchant’s Tale.” The
Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her own tale, makes astonishingly frank remarks
about the sexual component in marriage, and then focuses in the tale itself, on
what all women really want from men in married life, that is, sovereignty (Pakka-
la-Weckström 2005; Beidler 1996; Desmond 2006). Not surprisingly, the entire
romance Troilus and Criseyde is predicated on the same range of issues, love,
loyalty, passion, and sexuality, although the outcome for the male protagonist
proves to be rather tragic since he is losing in the battle for Criseyde’s love in the
competition with his male opponent in the Greek camp (Pugh and Weisl, ed.,
2007; Pugh and Smith Marzec, ed., 2008).
A profoundly problematic relationship between husband and wife comes to
the fore in the Old Spanish, Old French, and Early Modern German version of
Queen Sibille (Königin Sibille), the latter translated from French into German by
the Countess Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken in 1437. Here Charlemagne is
misled by the false impression that his wife might have committed adultery with
another man, actually a monstrous looking black dwarf. Apart from the latter’s
ardent desire, indeed, to sleep with the queen, in reality the representatives of a
political group opposed to the king utilize this strange figure to endanger the
queen’s life and hence to undermine the king’s position. Charlemagne at first
wants his pregnant wife to be burnt at the stake, but then ‘only’ expels her from
his court, forcing her to deliver their son in the wilderness, and then to seek help
against her own husband from her father, the Emperor of Constantinople, the
pope, and many other people, including her son, by then grown up to a strong
warrior. In the end, Charlemagne is forced to acknowledge that he has been
wrong, and then accepts his wife once again. Throughout the prose novel we
sense deep frustration over the irrational distrust, jealousy, and personal insecur-
ity which determine the king’s exasperating reactions, constantly pitting him

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against the one person whom he actually loves the most in his life (Bloh 2002;
Haubrichs and Oster, ed., 2013).
We encounter the same interest in the topic of marriage virtually everywhere
in the late Middle Ages, both in literary texts and in travelogues, in Shrovetide
plays and pilgrimage accounts. For instance, Marco Polo repeatedly discusses
marriage in his famous account about his travels to China (ca. 1298), informing us
about different practices in the East, offering strong contrasts, we may say, to the
Western world, in a way Orientalizing the Asian cultures. When a husband goes
on a journey for more than twenty days, his wife immediately takes another
husband. “And the men, wherever they go, take wives in the same way” (Polo
1958, 83). Both here and in countless subsequent travel accounts sexual practices
and forms of marriages serve as cultural markers to identify differences especially
to the European countries (Polo 1958, 175). To intensify the exotic character of the
Khan’s court in China, Polo reports that the ruler has many concubines, and adds
that the suburbs are filled with prostitutes: “For I assure you that there are fully
20,000 of them, all serving the needs of men for money” (Polo 1958, 129). But Polo
also reports about marital customs among other peoples very similar to those
practiced in the West. With respect to the Tartars, he comments: “The wives are
true and loyal to their husbands and very good at their household tasks” (Polo
1958, 98). Nevertheless, he still thought it most curious and exciting to remark on
the large number of prostitutes in the cities and the concubines at court.
Much in the same vein, John Mandeville delighted his audience with refer-
ences to the Emperor’s sexual escapades, choosing a new woman every night for
his pleasures (trans.1983, 132–33). Two hundred years later the Low German
knight Arnold von Harff includes in his pilgrimage account many examples of
how to ask women/prostitutes in different languages for their sexual favors. Late
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century verse and prose novels such as Melusine (Jean
d’Arras, 1393; Couldrette, ca. 1400; Thüring von Ringoltingen, 1456) and the
anonymous Fortunatus (first printed in 1509) are characterized by their strong
emphasis on marital love (Classen 2014b).
II Contradictions in the Discourse of Love and Marriage
It would be hard to search for any text from the Middle Ages in which there is no
word about love, sex, and marriage. Theologians such as St. Augustine and
Thomas Aquinas dealt with that complex of issues just as much as chroniclers,
legal authors, allegorical writers (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun in their
Roman de la rose), and poets and romancers (see Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight). The interest in everything associated with sexuality and marriage went so

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far as to incorporate critical reflections upon gender transgressions or cross-

dressing, as in the anonymous Roman de Silence and in John Gower’s Confessio
Amantis (McCarthy, ed., 2004). But we must not overlook the deeply contradictory
tension permeating medieval society because we can cite as many examples
which confirm the broad fascination with the erotic and sexual in all their
manifestations, as we can list examples which underscore the vehement opposi-
tion to and reaction to everything associated with these aspects (Karras 2005, 2–3;
158–59). We have seen this already in Andreas Capellanus’s treatise and in Juan
Ruiz’s Libro de buen amor.
The prose novel Melusine (1456) by the Swiss writer Thüring von Ringoltingen,
based on the French verse romance by Couldrette (ca. 1400) and, more distantly,
on the prose version by Jean d’Arras (ca. 1392–1394), examines the problematic
nature of marriage between a man and a woman who is half human and half snake
(Schnyder, ed., 2008; Tang 2009). Together they have twelve children, and they
seem to be happily married, but finally he learns of her true nature and, in a rage,
reveals it to the public, which constitutes a breach of his own oath not to
investigate her whereabouts on Saturdays, and forces her to abandon the human
world, to the great chagrin of her husband. For a long time, love, marriage, and
sexuality form a harmonious unity, granting happiness to the couple, but her
otherness can no longer be hidden, and in a most tense situation, he curses her as
a member of the fairy world, which catapults her out of the human sphere, causing
severe suffering for both of them. Marriage fails here, but not because of a lack of
love. Instead, Melusine’s foreignness and Raymund’s personal weakness ulti-
mately destroy all emotional bonds and make it impossible for the wife to sustain
her human existence, irrespective of her husband’s incessant pleadings.
The number of further literary examples in which love and marriage consti-
tute the central interest is legion, so we had better break off here, and try to reach
at least a preliminary conclusion. The tradition of courtly love poetry, for in-
stance, continued well into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as documented,
for instance, by a wealth of song books, most of which are dominated by rather
common love songs expressing the wide range of emotions involved (that is,
longing, anger, frustration, delight, loneliness, sorrow, lust, and passion), and
operating with the usual genres, such as dawn songs, pastourelles, wooing songs,
messenger songs, and the like (Classen and Richter 2010). But we also observe a
growing interest in marital songs that address the husband’s or the wife’s nega-
tive character traits or misbehavior respectively. When we turn to prose narratives
and plays, love and marriage everywhere become the central concern (Schnell
2002; Schnell, ed., 1997; Classen 2005a).
At the same time, we discover an increasing interest in discussing sexual
themes more openly, as demonstrated, for instance, in the anonymous Cent

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Nouvelles Nouvelles (ca. 1450–1460) or in Poggio Bracciolini’s Facetiae (ca. 1450)

(Classen 2011b). Concurrently, didactic writers published treatises on how to lead
a happy married life, such as Albrecht von Eyb (ca. 1473) (2008; for contemporary
texts, see Jansen et al., ed., 2009, 1008–78), while many others satirized it in stark
and drastic terms. This also finds its confirmation in late-medieval art, whether
we think of allegorical drawings, book illustrations, gargoyles, misericords, or
corbels, many of which openly reflect sexual themes for a range of moral,
didactic, and religious reasons (Bein 2003; Harpe, ed., 2008; Salisbury, ed., 1991).
G Conclusion
While the topics of love and marriage were exclusively of interest to noble and, to
some extent, clerical audiences during the high Middle Ages, in later centuries
urban authors increasingly addressed them as well, generally reflecting a signifi-
cant shift in power to the cities, which soon enough became the new centers
of literary production and performance. Here, of course, a different but rather
restrictive set of ethical norms played a major role, and yet the literary texts are
filled with sexual allusions and accounts of transgressive behavior inside and
outside of marriage. Anticlerical criticism, which became so popular during the
fifteenth century, mostly targeted monks or priests who committed adultery with
women in their parishes or were guilty of sexual crimes, violating their own vows
of celibacy (Beine 1999). At the same time, prostitution, brothels, and the crime of
rape seem to have been very common considering the many literary and chronicle
accounts, and legal documents about these aspects (Bullough 1964; Karras 1998;
Hemmie 2007). And, more than ever before, the theme of marriage was publicly
debated and investigated from many different perspectives especially since the
fifteenth century (Murray, ed., 2001; Donahue 2007; Rasmussen and Westphal-
Wihl, ed. and trans., 2010).
In short, there is no denying that the topics of love, sex, and marriage were of
central significance for the medieval and also for the early modern world, and
they have proven ever since to be foundational for all of Western literature and
culture, touching upon religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, medicine, phar-
macy, art history, and even the history of architecture, of food, clothing, music,
etc. Studying the history of sexuality, love, and marriage offers enormous oppor-
tunities to understand the fundamental value system, culture, mentality, and
socio-economic structures of any given society (Toulalan and Fisher, ed., 2013).

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Classen, Albrecht, Der Liebes- und Ehediskurs vom hohen Mittelalter bis zum frühen 17. Jahrhun-
dert (Münster et al. 2005). [= Classen 2005a]
Classen, Albrecht, ed., Discourses on Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early
Modern Literature (Tempe, AZ, 2004).
Jaeger, C. Stephen, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia, PA, 1999).
Karras, Ruth Mazo, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others (New York and London
2005).
Lewis, C. S., The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, rpt. ed. (1936; Oxford and

London 1938).
Müller, Ulrich, ed., Minne ist ein swaerez Spil: neue Untersuchungen zum Minnesang und zur
Geschichte der Liebe im Mittelalter (Göppingen 1986).
Newman, F. X., ed., The Meaning of Courtly Love (Albany, NY, 1972).

Payer, Pierre J., The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto and Buffalo,
NY, 1993).
Reynolds, Philip Lyndon, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage
during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden and New York 1994).
[= P. L. Reynolds 1994]

Schnell, Rüdiger, Sexualität und Emotionalität in der vormodernen Ehe (Cologne 2002).

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Magic and Divination
A The Notion of Magic in Antiquity

In the ancient Mediterranean world, magic was considered a morally neutral act
that a person could carry out toward either beneficial or harmful ends; the Greco-
Roman world condemned only harmful sorcery as illegal. Literary and non-literary
sources cast some light on the figure of the classical sorcerer, offering a wide array
of terms in both Greek and Latin. In Greek, practitioners of magic were called goetes,
magoi, and pharmakeis; their craft is called goeteia, mageia, and pharmakeia. Each
term and craft had a distinct meaning. It has been argued that goetes were originally
shamans, who in an ecstatic state conveyed the spirits of the dead on their perilous
journey to the other world (Luck 1990, 15–21). Another meaning of goetia, as used
and understood in medieval and early modern times, was summoning up corpses,
i.e., necromancy whereas the often conflated term necromancy became the syno-
nym for black magic in the Middle Ages (Harmening 1979, 205–07).
In antiquity it was known that the term magos derived from Persia and
originally denoted a Medic priest and his ritual performance. Herodot (480/490–
424 B.C.E.) mentions magicians as Medic priests, dream interpreters, and royal
advisers. Xanthos of Lydia (mid-fifth century B.C.E.) relates violations of incest
taboos and a relation to Zoroaster. In later sources, magicians are predominantly
Persian (Strabo 2000–2001, 16; 2; 39). The etymology of Old Persian magu is
unclear; presumably it is related to Indo-German * magh, meaning “being able.”
(Frenschkowski 2010, 857–957).
The term “sorcerer” in Pre-Hellenic Greek was used with the pejorative mean-
ing of “charlatan” and occasionally “court schemer” (Bremmer 1999, 1–12; 2002,
1–11; and 267–71; Frenschkowski 2010, 857–957). Old Persian inscriptions use
magu- for Zoroastrian priests. The Persian sorcerer is connoted negatively as
jadūg, meaning demon worshipper. In his Natural History (Pliny 1944–1969, 30;
1–18) Pliny (23–79 C.E.) claims a relation between Iranian magic, folk-medicine
and magic. Generally speaking, the early Greek concept of magicians concerns
the magic of non-Greek, that is, of aliens. Authors such as Strabo (64–24 B.C.E.),
Plutarch (46–120 C.E.), and Pausanias (110–180 C.E.) reported that Eastern Asia
Minor, Mesopotamia, and Persia had knowledge about magic and magicians. In
Sassanid times religious dialogues with Christianity are evident; educated Chris-
tians reported irritating customs of magicians like incest and the exposure of
corpses for consumption by vultures.

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938 Christa Agnes Tuczay
The semantic field of magic in Roman culture is not generally thought of as

deriving from an Iranian background, but is explained as the exertion of power,
thus becoming a central abbreviation for illegitimate practices. Antique lan-
guages express different connotations for the semantic field of magic. Greek goes
originally meaning “shaman” soon took on the meaning of “sorcerer” and later
“charlatan” and “juggler.” Goes was later replaced by the term magos. Neo-
Platonism especially strove toward precise notions. In Latin a rich semantic field
of words opened up but soon the term magia and magus were generally used
(Dickie 2001, 12–17; Luck 1990, 15–21).
Stoic philosophy provided the concept of sympathy, a theoretical frames that
allowed the interpretation of magical rites as sympathetic interdependances and
was used to legitimate divination. The development of a philosophical theology
and scientific medicine led to a differentiation and limitation of the term magic
(Graf 1996, 35). In his Natural History, Pliny (23–79 C.E.) assumed that different
opinions of magic coexist. Basically, he considers magic as deceitful art that has
derived from three different disciplines: medicine, religion, and astrology. Le-
gends circulated around famous philosophers like Pythagoras (540–510 B.C.E.),
Empedocles (495–435 B.C.E.), Democritus (460–380 B.C.E.), and Plato (428–348
B.C.E.), who were said to have traveled far to learn the art of magic. Pliny lists
many magic books under the name of Democritus, obviously those falsifications
of Bolos of Mendes. He also mentions many names of famous magicians like
Dardanos, Janes, Moses, and others. Human sacrifice and cannibalism are stated
as allegedly typical magical rites. The abolition of these rites among the peoples
was considered a Roman achievement (Graf 1996, 9–14).
In late antiquity, especially in Neo-Platonism, intellectuals differentiated
between higher and lower, legitimate and illegitimate forms of magic. In Philos-
tratos’s (170/172–247/250 C.E.) Life of Apollonious, the term magician is used as
the honorable Persian name for just, divine men, and true Pythagorean philoso-
phers far above a folk sorcerer operating in market places. In his apologia, About
Magic, Apuleius of Madaura (125–180 C.E.) contrasts true magic defined as seek-
ing union with the gods with efforts of low poisoning and other criminal practices
(Graf 1996, 61—82; Habermehl 2002, 285–314).
While Plato (428–348 B.C.E.) had viewed magic critically and defined it as
manipulation of men, in late antiquity Neo-Platonism developed theories of
magic together with the theory of the sympathy of the universe. The sympathy
concept of magic served as an important interpretation of man as microcosm.
Magic is defined as a system working purposefully and automatically, operat-
ing via charms and conjurations and affecting application of sympathetic rela-
tions between the mundane and the celestial worlds: gods, demons, stars, ani-
mals, plants, stones, limbs, etc. This specific theory is by no means a general

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Magic and Divination 939
understanding of antique magic. The union of the soul with the divine via magic
is impossible although attempts were made to attain the beatific vision through
grimoires (Mathiesen 1998, 143–62). In the last phase of Neo-Platonism, Proclus
(412–485 C.E.) tried to legitimize magic with his thesis of the relationship between
the ideal and the real world. In the new Neo-Platonist concept of higher magic,
theurgy, acquisition of occult powers becomes the status of superior wisdom
(Gwynn 2010, 126).
The Old Testament is overflowing with references to sacred magic. Despite
the assumption that sorcery had stopped with the birth of Jesus, in the first few
centuries after His death an extensive literature developed about Simon Magus, a
magician and contemporary rival to the Apostle Peter. As Rome became Christian,
however, an important change took place. Classical daimones, supernatural
spirits upon whom magicians often called to perform acts of sorcery, were
gradually transformed into Christian demons. While daimones had been ambiva-
lent spirits, demons were considered evil, the legions of Satan battling against the
Church and all Christian society. Thus early Church Fathers, especially St. Augus-
tine (354–430 C.E.), followed by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 C.E.), condemned
any magic that involved dealing with demons, regardless of its apparent effects
(Peters 1978, 3).
The new Christian concept of magic defining it as operating with demonic
agencies changed the official views of practitioners of magic after Rome became
Christian. In the late antique world, the sorcerer himself involved in the perfor-
mance of harmful maleficium was no longer important because Satan was the real
author of the evil involved. This de-emphasis of the human agency in sorcery
helps explain why for centuries the Church displayed hesitation, verging at times
on outright disinterest, in persecuting practitioners of magic.
Older research considered the testimonials of antique magic as folk belief that
merged into Neo-Platonism and consequently into Christianity. But recent opi-
nions hold that the well-defined gap between popular and learned magic de-
veloping in the late Middle Ages does not apply to antique magic in general.
Nevertheless, popular magical practices are documented according to Origen’s
(184–253 C.E.) pamphlet, Against Celsus, and on the other hand there is a
tendency to make rituals more complex. Interestingly enough, the use of child
mediums in revelation magic came into fashion, and trances in magical rituals
and divination continued throughout the Middle Ages. Recent research questions
the role of the village magicians and their compromising role in village society
(Kee 1988, 120; Frenschkowski 2010, 857–957; 871).

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B Norse and Celtic Magic

Apart from occasional references to “strange” customs by Roman historians such
as Tacitus (56–117 C.E.) and condemnations by early medieval monks, we have
only very few written sources on Nordic or Germanic sorcery. The most important
of these are the Norse runic inscriptions found throughout Scandinavia, Iceland,
England, and even parts of Europe where Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons
traded. Scholars agree that narrative sources from the post-conversion period still
reflect the customs and mentality of the pre-Christian era, the thirteenth-century
Icelandic sagas being the most important Norse literary monuments. It is not
always possible to ascribe precise magical intent to runic inscriptions, but in
many cases it is indubitable. The sagas preserve ancient beliefs and often refer to
magical practices (Mitchell 2011, 41–73; McKinnell 2005, 97–100).
The magicians of the sagas are almost always sinister characters who have
learned their magic from teachers. There is no hint that magical rituals or
practices formed part of pagan Norse religion, although Christian missionaries
had fought and written against these as the Devil’s work. While the sorcerers’
magic sometimes makes reference to the gods, it rarely involves appeals to them.
Sorcery and heathen worship were conceived as essentially different things,
although Christian writers conflated them. There is also evidence for non-Germa-
nic beliefs; Sami and Finnish influences can be traced. Icelandic magicians are
depicted as trance diviners and trance mediums much like shamans (Buchholz
1968; 1971 passim; Mitchell 2000, 335–45).
Anglo-Saxon laws repeat their concern regarding magical procedures. They
are the earliest European vernacular sources elaborating not altering the general
condemnation of magic and, moreover, they employ an interesting range of
specialized vocabulary of magic. Magic generally is termed scinnlac or “magical
art,” scincræft or “magical skill,” and galdorcræft or “enchantment skill.” Magic
associated with drugs or poison, Latin veneficium, is referred to as lyblac or
lybcræft, and practitioners of the iatromagic lyblæca. Old English provides the
later important term wiccean (Peters 2002, 202–03). Celtic literature from the
twelfth and subsequent centuries, handed down to us in later medieval versions,
also contains magical themes, and its pagan elements are remnants of an earlier
culture. In the Irish tradition fairies are very prominent protagonists with magical
abilities. Celtic literature is full of battles or duels between druids, looked upon as
practitioners of demonic sorcery, and their Christian adversaries, often well-
known saints (Birkhan 1997, 896–933).

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C Medieval Magic and Theology

Medieval magic looks back to classical and biblical precedents. Although one of
the most influential thinkers, St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.), directed his
central work, De Civitate Dei, against the pagan world, he engages with Greek and
Roman philosophy. In his Confessions, Augustine frequently refers to Manichaean
doctrine and practices. Although distinctly different, Manichaeism and Neo-Pla-
tonism agree on a few basic ideas: that matter is evil and perverts the human
spirit; the human spirit contains some spark of the divine that must escape the
material world to re-join the ultimate Good; and that true reality is not the one
that people see around them. Therefore he employs the Platonic model of the
cosmos developed in Plato’s (428–348 B.C.E.) Timaeus which had an immense
impact throughout the Middle Ages, along with Calcidius’s (fourth century C.E.)
commentary on it (Jenkins 1953, 131–40).
Augustine discusses the relationship of his views to the natural theology of
the Platonists whose ideas resemble those of the Christians but who believe in a
hierarchic model of gods, men, and demons. Augustine’s understanding of the
spirit world changes the Platonic view of the demons as being either good or evil
to a more conflicted idea of the universe in which the demons are angels that have
turned away from God. Augustine consistently associates demons with magic,
which he condemns and distinguishes from religion. Interestingly enough, in his
De divinatio daemonum he especially denounces astrology, although before his
conversion he himself had been a semi-professional astrologer. He also rejects the
concept of the Neo-Platonist Porphyry, who argued for white magic, or theurgy,
and contrasted magic effected by demons with miracles which happen through
faith. Augustine treats magic extensively in Books VII–X. Further condemnations
in De Doctrina Christiana 2, 88–89 (Jenkins 1953, I: 131–40; Brown 1970, 17–45;
Harmening 1979; Linsenmann 2000, 31–98). Miracles are worked both by God and
by demons, but there are three categories of wonderworkers: firstly magicians
who have summoned demons and entered into pacts with them; secondly good
Christians who depend on God’s help to work miracles; and thirdly evil Christians
and heretics who rely on God but are not followers of Christ (Flint 1991, 277–348).
Unlike agents of the true God, the members of the first and the third group sought
only vain glory.
After Augustine’s fundamental exegesis, Christian authorities generally
agreed that no magical performance occurred by magicians’ own skills, but rather
with the aid of demons and their illusory arts (Jenkins 1953, 131–40). Augustine’s
contrasting of demonic and angelic powers was consequently followed by the
contrasting of magic and miracle. Angels assisted Moses in his competition with
Pharaoh’s magicians (10, 8, and 382). Demonic marvels are deceitful and malevo-

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lent (10.11, 387). Thus the demons delude mankind through magical practice.
Augustine relates a series of marvels effected by demons and his condemnation is
accompanied by a keen awareness that the genuinely marvelous and its counter-
part the monstrous are both aspects of God’s creation. Augustine does not doubt
the possibility of magic nor its demonic qualities. In the early Middle Ages magic
was generally linked to paganism, as commonly reflected in stone sculptures on
capitals or baptismal fonts. While anxieties over pagan ritual were subsequently
replaced by concern about heresy, interest in the malevolent power of demons
increased.
After Augustine, one of the most influential early medieval writers was
Isidore of Seville (560–636), who introduced Aristotelian thinking to medieval
theology. In the twenty books of his Etymologiae he commented on beliefs and
attitudes of his contemporaries. This work presents the most circulated and
influential treatment of magic in the early Middle Ages and at the same time the
cultural and intellectual history of magic in its learned and popular practice.
Isidore seems to have been influenced not only by the Theodosian Code but also
by intellectuals like Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.), and to a great extent by biblical
statements. Following Augustine’s views, he also reflects on contemporary beliefs
and practices. In book VIII, De magis, he places magic in the clerical context and
clearly differentiates between magic paganism and heresy. Isidore is one of the
first of a long line of theologians who identify pagan gods as humans who became
deities through the involvement of demons who deceived mankind. He starts the
history of magic with the Persian magi. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 C.E.) aug-
mented the pact theory by speaking of implicit and explicit pacts with evil, which
alleviated the later witchcraft-accusations that concentrated among other issues
on the satanic pact (Harmening 1979, 115–16; Tuczay 2003, 105–13).
A contemporary of St. Augustine, Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium (fourth
century) narrates in his The Life of St. Basil the story of an enamored slave’s pact
with the devil. Archbishop Basil of Caesarea has a slave who craves for a senator’s
daughter. He visits a magician for help who demands that he reject Christ with a
written contract. When the devil appears by night at a pagan cult site, the slave
swears his rejection of Christ and so earns the love of the desired senator’s
daughter. Basil cancels the contract when informed about his servant’s calami-
ties. The first account of the story of Cyprian stems from the fourth century that
was handed down to posterity (Radermacher 1927, 5–41). In the version by
Jacobus of Voragine (ca. 1230–1298 C.E.) in his Golden Legend, Cyprian is from
early on fascinated by Egyptian magical practices which he soon absorbs. He
becomes famous for being able to master the elements and for shape shifting,
indeed for mastery of the art of necromancy. His love for the Christian virgin
Justina, however, is not requited because even the demons he sends to gain

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victory over her are defeated. Therefore Cyprian acknowledges Christ’s greater
power, destroys his magic books, converts to Christianity, and becomes a bishop.
Justina lives as an abbess in the monastery (Life of St. Justina: Peters 2002, 81–86).
A similar story is presented by the Greek religious tale of Helladius (Proterius)
where the rejection of love is followed by a pact with the devil (Anthemius in
Radermacher 1927, 261–70).
The scholastic thinkers established a well-designed concept following the
older tradition of a formal pact with the spirit world. Lucan (39–65 C.E.) reports of
traffic with the gods via pacts. The story of the demonic pact stems from the
Orient. A well-known tale relates how an imposter craves for the throne and
succeeds with the help of demons. In a story in Schahname, the devil Iblis seduces
overambitious young men with whom he had a contract to commit atrocities.
Among the pact stories, the best-known is the story of Theophilus, the forerunner
of the sixteenth-century Faust, based on a Greek source and first related by the
tenth-century canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. In the redaction of the Golden
Legend, Theophilus is the right hand of the Bishop of Adona in Sicily and his
successor. In his humbleness he refuses to take up the priestly office and remains
advisor. The new bishop deprives Theophilus of his functions and he seeks advice
with a Jewish magician who makes him denounce God and Christianity and sign
a pact with Satan. He regains his official functions but soon regrets his satanic
pact. When praying to the Virgin Mary, whom he had not forsworn, she has mercy
and delivers his pact back to him so he can rest in peace (Kieckhefer 1989, 172–75;
Tuczay 2003, 105–20).
The fear of many theologians that the occult sciences might be the play-
ground of demons was the on-going topic of the public discourse, especially in
the later Middle Ages. The questions were to what extent the demons were able to
influence humans and how to determine the physical presence of demons. The
tradition of the angelic magic, then not termed magic and in fact sustaining the
ideas of theurgy, depended on rituals combining prayer asceticism and incanta-
tions, usually to gain visions and/or knowledge. An especially remarkable exam-
ple is the ars notoria ascribed to King Solomon, in which prayer and rituals to
conjure angelic powers are presented. The Liber sacer sive juratus or the Sworn
Book by an unknown magician calling himself Honorius of Thebes the alleged son
of the mathematician Euclid (300 B.C.E.) describes rituals to summon angels,
demons, and spirits, and to achieve divine vision (Kieckhefer 1998, 143; 250–65).

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D Canon Laws on Magic

The association of magic and paganism in the early Middle Ages is the primary
focus of the earliest laws concerning the crimen magiae. The terms maleficus and
veneficus are often used interchangeably. The accused could chose trial by ordeal
and various laws mention ordeals by water also employed in the twelfth century
for theft, adultery, and homicide Ordeals by fire, water, or hot iron were forbid-
den, only the water ordeal reemerged in the seventh century. The common
practice was that Church officials tried cases of magic, while punishment was
administered though secular law (Bailey 2006, 110; Kieckhefer 1989, 19–56).
Magical arts and their practitioners are addressed in many texts and genres of
theological writing: canon law, penitentials, handbooks, moral treatises and
sermons. They indicate not only the practice but also the enduring interest.
Theological discourses prove the increasing anxiety about magic and also reflect
the changing focus from paganism to heresy and later to witchcraft.
The penitentials written from the early sixth century onwards provide in-
sights into contemporary magical practice. A recurrent question is that of whether
magic has harmed an individual. The late sixth-century penitential of Theodore
recommends ten years of punishment for serious sacrifice to demons, seven years
for medical magic, and three years for divination. The “crimen magiae” is treated
with varying degrees of severity, depending on the practitioner: whereas a woman
performing diabolical incantations has to do penance for forty days, the diviner
performing auguries observing omens from birds has to do penance for five years
(Austin 2009, 118–21).
Hincmar of Reims (806–882) addresses the subject in his treatise De divortio
Lotharii et Teutbergae, thus following the argument of St. Augustine, and Isidore
of Seville in his discussion of magic as inspired by the devil, which is especially
interesting for his certainty regarding the genuinely destructive potential of magic
at all levels of Christian society. Hincmar adds details of illusions, divination by
animals, bones or organs, and medical magic such as charms, ligatures, or
amulets. Treatises and handbooks repeated and expanded the traditional rulings
and prohibitions (Hansen 1900, 141–44; 179–88).
Throughout the early Middle Ages sorcerers were generally depicted not as
powerful agents of evil, but as unfortunate victims of the deceits and temptation
of the Devil. Therefore the Church imposed on them only correction and penance,
rather than calling for severe persecution. By the thirteenth century, however,
clerical authorities began to take magic and its practitioners more seriously. One
main factor behind this shift was the rise of various types of learned magic,
including astronomy, alchemy, and spiritual and demonic magic, among the
educated elites of Western Europe. Taken from Arab, Greek, and Jewish texts,

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learned magic aroused much interest among scholars and intellectuals. Espe-
cially in Spain—in Toledo, Salamanca, or Seville—there were rumors about uni-
versities teaching the magical arts (Kieckhefer 1989, 116–40; Peters 1978, 194–
206; Tuczay 2003, 152–64).
The Church remained convinced that demonic power lay hidden behind even
apparently innocuous magical practices. The darkest aspects of magic, involving
explicitly demonic invocations and raising the dead, were actually practiced by a
“clerical underworld of necromancy” (Kieckhefer 1989, 151–77). Medievalists have
long noted how the rise of demonic sorcery contributed to the idea of witchcraft
in the early fifteenth century (e.g., Peters 1978). Although the concept of witch-
craft was partly rooted in learned sorcery, witches were not just sorcerers with a
few diabolical features; the nature of their power and their interaction with
demonic forces made them enemies of God.
Clerical minds conflated two quite distinct magical systems. By the end of the
thirteenth century, clerical authorities were generally familiar with the essential
system of learned magic. In Western Christendom there also existed a widespread
and diffuse system of common spells, charms, blessings, potion-making, talis-
mans, and amulets employed by many people at all levels of medieval society,
including many clerics. Learned demonic sorcery was a highly structured variety
of magic limited to a small clerical elite; necromancy operated through a very
complex and detailed invocation of demons, sometimes lasting for days, and
focusing on the right time, season, and requisites. These summoning formulae,
often derived from Arabic or Hebrew magical concepts and usually grounded to
some extent in Church rituals were laid out and transmitted in books of spells
written in Latin. Thus only those with the prerequisite ritual training and Latin
literacy could perform this magic. Though clerical authorities seemed to ignore
that they were dealing with two different systems, a desire to fit common, every-
day magical practices into the “diabolized” intellectual framework established by
learned magic laid the foundations for constructing the concept of witchcraft
(Kieckhefer 1998, 250–65).
E Healing Magic
Magic and religion or magic and Christianity in many respects stand in opposi-
tion to one another or represent the so-called other side of the coin: angels versus
demons, miracles versus magic, exorcism versus possession, genuine divine
powers versus false powers: there is no denial that the boundaries of those
oppositions overlap: miracle and magic are difficult to distinguish in their
effect; prayer and ritual also bring similar results; charms invoke angels and

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demons. Clear parallels between rituals, saints, and prayer can change the
weather or produce marvelous cures, holy water works against evil (Kieckhefer
1989, 57–84).
Evidence of healing magic such as the Old English Lacnunga suggest the
survival of pagan Pre-Christian charms and remedies that were thought to draw
on occult forces in nature to protect against mysterious influences of the cosmos.
Through the Anglo-Saxon period sermons and other religious writings echo the
concerns of law codes and penitentials as well as of the Bible and its exegetic
writings about the use of magic to harmful ends, but also suggest the merging
of pagan and Christian rituals and charms (Storms, ed., 1948, 274; Skemer 2006,
21–74).
Iatromagic or healing magic demonstrate this overlapping of both areas. The
mysterious causes of diseases often were sought and found in the interaction of
supernatural forces. Human intervention in illness and recovery in medieval
times can illustrate the powerful role of destiny in human existence. When illness
was attributed to malevolent forces, then apotropaic objects or rituals that oppose
such forces were applied. The patristic writers show a differentiation in their view
of authorized medicine and illicit magical medicine. Taking into account that
Christ was seen as the great surgeon and healer and illness often as punishment
for unethical behavior, the line was blurred because Christian objects like relics
and tombs of saints were thought to heal or protect, and the classical idea of
incubation survived into the High Middle Ages (Kieckhefer 1989, 56–84; Kee 1988,
81 and passim; Tuczay 2012b, 252–55).
F Natural Magic and Magical Tricks or Praestigium

A range of beliefs and practices relate not to supposed demonic power but to the
ability of human beings to improve their condition and create beneficial items
through the manipulation of natural forces. This natural magic was distinguished
by its practitioners both from artificial magic that made use of machines and
technological processes. Demonic magic functioned by superseding natural laws
through demonic invention. The natural magician sought to explore the workings
of nature for speculative or utilitarian purposes through a pseudo-scientific
program of experimental research (Thorndike 1926–1958, passim; Kieckhefer
1989, 92; Göttert 2001, 87–89).
Among the many elements described here, one very important point stands
out: while practitioners of natural magic might distinguish it from demonic
illusion, it involved deceiving the human senses. Whereas the devil was known to
craft sensual delusions for witches, jugglers, and magicians, the latter used

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sensory illusions to perform many magical tricks which depended on known

failings of the human senses. They also played on standard human assumptions.
Bruno Roy interprets literary representations of such magicians as exaggerations
of actual illusionists operating in this period (Roy 1986, 29–39). Indeed, numerous
late medieval treatises titled experimenta contain tricks clearly designed as en-
tertainment. Reginald Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft of 1574, calls juggling a
deceitful art, and he provides the most complete survey of contemporary techni-
ques for visual deception (Scot 1930, 321–52). Notable among Scot’s descriptions
was what was known as the John the Baptist trick, which he claims to have seen
for himself. In this trick, the magician decapitates himself and puts his own head
on a plate. Descriptions of other such tricks abounded. It certainly reminds of the
beheading game in the English romance Sir Gawein and the Green Knight and the
magician Gansguoter in Heinrich von dem Türlin’s Crône (late thirteenth century)
(Tuczay 2003, 305–30; 315).
Even if it would be wrong to perceive natural scientists as forerunners of the
nineteenth-century stage magicians, the complicated devices that created stage
illusions surely can be compared with a technological tradition extending back
through the early modern and medieval periods, and even to ancient automatas
such as those Hero of Alexandria (10–70 B.C.E.) constructed for entertainment
(Amedick 2003, 42–56).
A special type of magic, the Praestigium, was invented by Mercurius (Hermes
Trismegistos) and is equated with blinding the eyes (praestringere oculos) (Etymo-
logiae 8.9.33). Isidore’s short but meaningful statement could be seen as a rational
explanation for illusions; later notions of natural magic surely derived from such
theories of ocular deception. Isidore did not overemphasize demonic involvement
in praestigium, unlike Thomas Aquinas, who defined illusionary tricks as blind-
ing by which demons communicate with the curious, thus linking the prestige
firmly with demonic pacts (Harmening 1979, 204; Göttert 2001, 138–140; Daxel-
müller 2001, 121–23).
Roger Bacon (1214–1292) known as the doctor mirabilis, was among the most
brilliant scientists of the Middle Ages. He was but one of many examples of
learned men in the Middle Ages who strongly opposed most branches of magic
but came to be considered a magician himself, especially in sixteenth-century
legendary material. Causes for the legends lie in the extensive treatment of magic
in his writings, and his experiments in optics. Especially his treatises on concave
mirrors made him suspicious. Despite the later legends, however, he unambigu-
ously separated magic, which he saw as demonic, from science and technology.
In Oxford he composed his De mirabile potestate artis et naturae (On the Marve-
lous Power of Magic and Nature), which is an extensive letter addressed to
William of Auvergne (1228–1249). In this treatise Bacon draws the important

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distinction between magic that works by suggestion and natural science. For him
a juggler was praestigiator, and prestiges would have been the term used by his
contemporaries for the visual deceptions they caused (Butterworth 2005, 7–25).
According to him, prestige might involve anything from high class illusion to low
class duping, providing the crucial elements of artifice and imposture were
present (Clark 2007, 78–109).
G Medieval Romances and Magic

Like ecclesiastical writers, authors of medieval romances also seized upon magi-
cal topics, thus illustrating the conflict between Christian religion and demonical
magic in their own poetical thinking. The emphasis on spectacular technology is
characteristic for romance and developed in the narration of the adventurous
stories. Although romance writers cannot be depicted as “experimental” scien-
tists with actual knowledge of complex technology or the arts of illusion, they are
nevertheless familiar with such possibilities. Magicians of the romances are often
presented as masters of technology, as inventors and creators of marvellous
illusions like the sorcerer-illusionist in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale in his Carterbury
Tales (ca. 1395–1400). The mechanical magic of the romances such as fountains,
automatic objects and warriors thus combines natural magic with the knowledge
of mechanics (Haage 1986, 53–72; Tuczay 2003, 305–30; 308).
Great masters of illusion in the romances were the magicians Nectanebos and
Merlin, both able to shape-shift and assume different bodily appearances. While
Nectanebos in the Alexander romances is a pagan and his magic therefore always
presented as wicked pagan art (Weinreich 1911, passim), the origin of Merlin’s
magical abilities as revealed in the “Matter of Brittany” seems more complex and
it would be too simple merely to label him a pagan druid. Christian authors
explained his abilities due to the fact that his mother had intercourse with a
demonic lover (Stoneman 1994, 117–29), which parallels him to many famous
nobles of dubious ancestry, who often claim a fairy as their ancestress. Robert De
Boron (d. 1212) understands Merlin as a son of the devil. Other famous figures
include the Roman poet Virgil (70–90 B.C.E.), depicted as a grand constructor of
technical devices (Spargo 1934, passim), similar to Klingsor in Wolfram of Eschen-
bach’s Parzival (ca. 1205) his descendant and successor. The latter’s malevolent
deeds result from his emasculation. Quite often a satanic pact is among others
reasons sexually motivated. The pagan Roaz of Glois reasons in Wirnt of Graven-
berg’s Wigalois (late thirteenth century) for his pact seem to be mere acquisition
of marvellous powers. Interesting enough his own guardian demon follows him
wherever he goes (Tuczay 2003, 305–30; 317).

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That physical science was regarded as a miracle or a diabolical art by the

ignorant is the real issue that the author of the romance of Perceforest seems to
discuss. The magician Aroés bedazzles his subjects with heavenly and hellish
visions, thus promoting his godlike image, and in the poet’s eyes represents the
vice of superbia or vanity. The aim of the deception is to make his subjects aboulic
(Lods 1951, 102). Eventually the knight Gadifer reveals his refined debauchery as a
series of slick optical tricks with the help of a magical ring. The unveiling ring
appears in several medieval literary accounts; the knight is able to perceive all
objects in their true form. When he looks at the magician’s impressive construc-
tion he sees an endless row of phials reflecting the light just as modern magicians
use mirrors for their tricks. Hero of Alexandria (10–70 B.C.E.) for example was
presumed to be the constructor of automata that worked with mirrors.
From the thirteenth century onwards, optical illusions created by magicians
or the devil became, if not a standard, then at least an oft-used motif. In the
German medieval maere (droll stories), many of which deal with female adultery,
one husband who observes his wife’s adultery is even made to believe that the
devil has deluded him (for example in Jacob Appet’s Der Ritter unterm Zuber (ca.
1245) (Jacob Appet 1996, 544–65, and other similar works). In the Prose Lancelot
(ca. 1250; Lancelot 1948–1974, I 86–89, 129–30, 154–55, 475–77, 570–71, 628–29;
II 229–31) numerous illusions are interspersed into the tale: lakes, beasts, and
other apparitions are caused by the devil but can be revealed by a magic ring, or
more conveniently a voice from heaven declaring that the vision is not a demoni-
cal illusion at all. Sorceresses like Morgan la Faye are not only masters of illusion
but can circle the world in a flash. All of them acquire their magical abilities
through a pact with the devil (Kieckhefer 1989, 111–12; Tuczay 2003, 299–330).
As noted above, in later legends the Latin poet Virgil “became” a famous
magician who built automata and inventions (Spargo 1934, passim; Ernst 2003,
173–96). Around this image a rich legendary material blossomed. He was depicted
as having gained knowledge to construct magical artefacts and inventions by
releasing demons from a bottle, as in the Aladdin stories (Amedick 2003, 13–14).
Virgil’s aim was not to entertain but to safeguard Rome; his inventions were a
public service, in contrast to other ancient inventors like Hero of Alexandria (first
century) or Philo of Byzantium (280–220 B.C.E.), whose inventions were enter-
taining and practical but aimed only at creating momentary diversions.
In medieval courts two varieties of magical practitioners seem to have been at
home: astrologers or diviners (or both) who acted as advisors, and magical
entertainers, masters of performing arts. But if we look at medieval courtly
literature (that in a way reflected reality when it comes to preferences and values)
we actually find the two branches intertwined. Sinister magicians manipulated
their subjects and one of the standard feats of heroic knights was to defeat such

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magicians and expose their diabolical tricks (Goulding 2006, 135–63). Beneficial
magicians aided the protagonist and in this case the more entertaining and
functional side of magical skills were emphasized: he might entertain the hero, or
helps deceive enemies with illusions, or even construct war machines (Tuczay
2003, 200–10; 205).
While the authors of antiquity explained prestige as mechanical tricks by
means of clever devices, demonologist elaborated that those who believed them-
selves to be transformed into animals were suffering from demonic deception via
manipulation of the brain through bodily spirits and humors. Here the focus fell
on the devil’s power to dazzle the eyes. The question was, by what means: some-
times by fashioning true bodies, but more often by creating imaginary visions
formed from the air. Distinguishing between those categories was rather difficult,
since our senses naturally lead us to believe that a body is present when there is
in fact only a spectral image. So the person who sees the transformation is fooled
by their own interior or exterior senses (Clark 2007, 123–60).
H Divination
The ancients and after them the medieval mind divided divination not according
to the content supernormal apprehended, but according to the method of appre-
hension. They distinguished “technical” or ominal (ominous, portential) from
“natural” or intuitive divination. The natural divination was supposed to occur in
the state of trance, but, nevertheless, the medieval thinkers linked the visions of
mediums with spirits, angels or demons, which appeared and answered the
question.
The most influential of all Greek religious institutions, the oracle of Delphi,
owed its influence entirely to the powers attributed to a woman in trance, the
Pythia. The belief was held almost universally by pagans and Christians alike,
over a period of more than a millennium. The Pythia had unique status in Greece
but was not unique in kind. Plato (428–348 B.C.E.) couples her with priestesses of
Dodona and others. But apart from the official oracles in Ancient Greece, later, in
the Middle Ages, there is evidence for persons who possessed or claimed to
possess the gift of automatic speech. They were known as belly-talkers or ventri-
loquists, since they were believed to have a daemon in their bellies which spoke
through their lips and predicted the future. It seems that like modern mediums
they spoke in a state of trance. In the Middle Ages they went by the more
respectful names of pythones.
In the Egyptian magical papyri, both Greek and Demotic, we find spells by
which a magician may induce this state. The great Paris papyrus gives an

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elaborate recipe for summoning a god to enter into a child or adult and speak
through him. Origen writes that a Pythonic spirit possesses some persons from a
tender age. And the example of the slave-girl in the Acts of the Apostles (16:16–18)
who had a Pythonic spirit and made a great profit for her masters is well known. If
there is any further evidence of divinatory instructions, how to “deal” with spirits
is the aim of the paper (Harmening 1979, 178–216; Tuczay 2012b, 33–35).
The medieval theologians were especially fascinated by the “divinatio per
pythones.” The fact that there had been a trance possession phenomenon cannot
explain on its own the obvious broad interest Christian theology has shown in the
matter. The pythonissae quite often were famed to prophesize “the truth.” And
hence it had to be ascertained to what extent the demon’s work was involved in
the divinatory arts. In many societies, mediumship is deliberately sought, ritually
controlled and channeled, and acquires high religious and social importance, as
was the case of the mystics especially the women in the Middle Ages who
experienced visions and revelations (Tuczay 2012b, 235–41).
Isidore’s (560–636 C.E.) divination system followed Varro (116–27 B.C.E.) and
distinguished between geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy and pyromancy. He
also categorizes magicians according to their zones of influence and by their
functions. Enchanters generally employ words, whereas the arioli call up demons
to which they had made bloody sacrifices. Haruspices or diviners are magicians
who are able to know favourable days and times and predict the future from the
entrails of animals. Augures observe the flight of and predict developments
through them. The meaningful Antique sign system is traded almost completely
in the Middle Ages, although it is modified by the Christian context. According to
Isidore , the Magi of the Gospel were famous Eastern astrologers (Isidore of Seville
1997, 35–42).
He mentions sortilegers or casters of lots with all their known varieties and
salisatres who predict good or evil from bodily movements. Isidore in his pioneer-
ing Etymologiae remarks that after the prediction of Christ’s birth, astrological
magic was forbidden and magi and malefici were from then on equated. He rejects
almost all forms of divination because of the involvement of demons. The Jewish
condemnation of necromancy to summon the dead to gain knowledge of the
future is vehemently repeated, as is the denunciation of hydromancy employing
water and sometimes blood to conjure demons. Geomancy, aeromancy and
pyromancy use demons, haruspices and soothsayers read the entrails of animals
to forecast favourable times, augures interpret the sounds and flights of birds,
astrologers the signs of the stars, mathematici study the stars and plants in
relation to days of birth, as do horoscopi, who predict individual fates. Sortilegi
cast lots or divine through particular, often sacred books and writings. Salisatores
read bodily movements to predict the future. Isidore made a distinction between

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astronomy, the study of the actual movement of the heavens, and astrology, the
study of the powers behind these. Like Augustine, he accepts natural astrology
(Isidore of Seville 1997, 35–42).
Divination was condemned yet godly signs were not only accepted but
awaited dreams sent by God or by demons. While in Antiquity oracular dreams
were thought to be sent by gods to all humans and according to Artemidor
(second century) the intelligent trained professionals were able to interpret them,
Christian belief reduced the receivers of oracular dreams to holy and ethical
persons and kings (Tuczay 2012b, 242–76). Christian lot casting using the Bible or
other sacred books was viewed ambivalently. St. Augustine himself related a story
in his confessions of a hearing-omen that a voice told him to pick up a book and
read: tolle lege. As he opens the bible he is guided by a passage in the New
Testament instructing him to follow Christ (Tuczay 2012b, 100).
The late medieval German court physician Johannes Hartlieb (1410–1468)
wrote a treatise on magic and superstition: puoch aller verpoten kunst as warning
for Duke Albrecht II of Bavaria. This remarkable work on learned magic, divina-
tion and in some parts on witchcraft not only gives prove to the increasing interest
on learned magic but also the upcoming “witch craze” (Tuczay 2012b, passim;
Bailey 2007, 135).
I Theories on Magic
Magic as an alternative culture came into focus in nineteenth-century religious
science and anthropology. Long-time evolutionist models prevailed that saw
magic as a primitive antecedent of religion or science. Frazer employs the cate-
gories of sympathetic magic and contagious magic. Although Frazer’s theories are
no longer fashionable the cognate aspect of magic remains. Marcel Mauss under-
stands magic as a social network; Malinowski emphasizes the development of
rational thinking in relation to religion (Frenschkowski 2010, 857–957).
Ethnological studies have described since magic as a cultural subsystem that
works on specific conflicts in society, fulfills imaginative wishes and offers
explanations for good and bad luck. Magic in these theories is interpretation
within the religious system (Graf 1996, 9). Within the cultural subsystem of
religion, oppositions develop that allow it to categorize practices and practi-
tioners as legal or illegal. Magic is a special case of social deviance; while
magicians themselves do not always define their own activities as religious,
popular discourse terms magic as anti-religion.
A useful contemporary theory of magic has to differentiate precisely between
the analysis of historical terms and notions of magic and the development of a

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modern cultural scientific terminology and has to take either the individual or the
collective social aspect of magic into account. Following Evans-Pritchard, the
question still remains which people have to use magic and in which situations.
Magic continues to be a category of alteration. Minorities in society became
projection fields for magic: in Old Norse magic it was the Sami, in continental
medieval magic it was Jews and heretics (Mitchell 2011, 41). A somewhat proble-
matic notion is the modern popular concept of the “magical world view,” since it
does neither apply to antiquity nor the Middle Ages. Furthermore is it not possible
to exclude magic from antique or medieval culture. Also, the terms legitimate and
illegitimate magic are a construct perceived differently in different periods of
history (Otto 2011, passim).
Select Bibliography
Bailey, Michael D., Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the
Present (Lanham, MD, 2006).
Dieckie, Matthew W., Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London 2001).
Flint, Valerie, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, NJ, 1991).
Harmening, Dieter, Superstitio: Überlieferungs‑ und theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur
kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubensliteratur des Mittelalters (Berlin 1979).
Kieckhefer, Richard, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge 1989).
Mitchell, Stephen, Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages (Oxford 2011).
Otto, Bernd-Christian, Magie: Rezeptions- und diskursgeschichtliche Analysen von der Antike bis
zur Neuzeit (Berlin 2011).
Peters, Edward, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Philadelphia, PA, 1978).
Tuczay, Christa Agnes, Kulturgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Wahrsagerei (Berlin 2012).
[= Tuczay 2012b]
Tuczay, Christa Agnes, Magie und Magier im Mittelalter (Munich 2003).

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Alain Touwaide
Medicine
A The Challenge of the History of Medieval

Medicine
Medieval medicine defined as I will do below is still largely under-researched.
Slightly paraphrasing the title of a recent article by English medieval historian
Peregrine Horden, one might ask what is wrong with it (Horden 2011). The topic is
vast, as the period corresponds to more than a dozen centuries, and the area
under consideration embraces at least three major civilizations: the European
West, Byzantium, and the Arabic World. Rather than a question of vastness of the
chronological and geographical extension, the problem might be that medieval
medicine has been largely overshadowed by the prestige and influence attributed
to classical medicine—specifically, Greek medicine—considered as the founding
moment of Western medicine. In this view, subsequent periods often qualified as
Dark Ages until not so long ago, have been frequently seen as intermediaries that
made it possible for Greek medicine to arrive to the Renaissance, when it was
brought back to the forefront. If this was particularly true for the West, it was also
for Byzantium and the Arabic World considered as the heir and follower of
antiquity, respectively. It is probably premature to try and present a panoramic
view of medicine during the Middle Ages. Although a substantial amount of work
has been produced over the past fifty years, research has not yet investigated the
topic in such a way to allow for a presentation of this kind. Manuscripts are still
largely uncatalogued (for the Greek manuscripts of medicine, see Touwaide 1991;
1992a and b; 2008a; 2009a), texts have not been identified well enough and their
contents has not been properly studied. Consequently, many works are still
unknown and a fortiori unpublished in the form of scholarly printed editions. Of
those that are available, several have not been published in editions that meet
current philological standards and still need to be read in Renaissance printed
versions (this is particularly the case of most of the founding works of Arabic
medicine and many late medieval treatises). This essay includes a survey of the
current state of research, with its starts and fits, its methods and results, and also
its lacunas and limitations.

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Medicine 955
B Methodological Issues
Like any other human groups, the populations who inhabited Europe and the
Mediterranean area during the period conventionally identified as the Middle
Ages—with all their diversity from the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, the
Mediterranean façade and the Caucasus in the East to the Atlantic Ocean and
Scandinavia in the North—devoted much attention to health. They were all the
more motivated to do so because repeated major phenomena had a severe impact
on their living conditions, from the arrival of new populations in the medieval
space with their different nutritional habits and load of diseases to climate
changes, environmental catastrophes, ravaging epidemics and famines to men-
tion just some.
This chapter surveys the current state of knowledge about medieval medicine
through the development of medical history during the past fifty years, even
though it frames this development in the context of medical history from the early
nineteenth century on. It is not limited to the Western Middle Ages defined as the
period from the bi-partition of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance (particularly
for the end of the Middle Ages, characterized by such major facts and processes
as the Fall of Constantinople, the development of the printing press, the end of
the Reconquista with the capture of Granada, and the discovery of New Worlds).
When appropriate, it takes into consideration the antecedents of phenomena that
happened during the time frame defined above, as well as the possible long-term
continuity of medieval medicine. Similarly, it examines the history of medicine in
the several societies in contact and interacting during that period, the West,
Byzantium and its neighbors, the Arabic Empire in all its diversity, and, as far as
possible, the populations newly entered in these societies. The distinction of
political entities tending to correspond to geographical areas—though in a fluctu-
ating way because of frequent changes of their respective territory and bound-
aries—should not be taken stricto sensu and suggest that the entities under
consideration were autonomous worlds whose medical history unfolded indepen-
dently and en vase clos.
Complementarily, this presentation is not narrowly limited to these worlds,
but mentions the possible contacts with peoples and groups outside the geogra-
phical areas under consideration in as much they interacted with the groups
under study. Nevertheless, the presentation refers to these political entities for
commodity reasons, and also to the periodization traditionally used in the history
of medieval medicine (which offers some correspondence with major phases of
Western medieval history), namely late antiquity, early Middle Ages, Salerno, the
post-Salernitan period and the early Renaissance. Characteristically enough, such
Western periodization is reflected in the segmentation of Byzantine and Arabic

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956 Alain Touwaide
history, with the early Byzantine period, the middle Byzantine period character-
ized by the emergence and affirmation of the Arabic World, the Crusades, the
Byzantine Empire in exile and the raising of the Mamluk World, followed by the
late Byzantine period corresponding to the fall of the Arabic Empire in the East
and a supposed decline in the history of Arabic science.
In this chapter, medicine is considered in its broadest meaning, thus includ-
ing all the sets of theories, data and practices that contributed to the knowledge
of humans, their health, their diseases and the restoration of health, as well as the
actors related to such knowledge with their activities, their education, their
professional status, and the regulation of their profession, their possible instru-
ments and other material, the substances they used to restore health together
with the preparation of medicines, and the places where they exercised their
activity. I also consider the patients, their health, their susceptibility or, on the
contrary, their immunity or tolerance to disease, their illnesses—be it at the level
of the individuals or the groups, that is, epidemiology—and the personal experi-
ence of health and disease including the psychological impact of such conditions,
the reactions of patients toward medicine, and their interaction with health
professionals.
C Early Historiography
Any presentation of medieval medical history must start with a survey of historio-
graphy, as the approaches and methods of previous centuries have generated a
perception of medieval medicine that has persisted in research and scholarly
literature until not so long ago.
Although medicine during the medieval centuries changed over time, it was
always deeply rooted in the classical heritage, be it in Byzantium and its neigh-
boring cultures (Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic or Coptic for instance), in
the Arabic World and its amalgam of ethnic groups (from Mesopotamia to the
eastern Mediterranean shores, and in Sicily, northern African and al-Andalus), or
in the West in all its extension (from northern Africa to Scandinavia and from the
Balkans to the Atlantic Ocean). This classical lineage went together with contribu-
tions of the several populations who occupied or entered the medieval space at a
certain point in time. Changes in populations repeatedly modified both what
could be called public health and, consequently, the art of healing. Whatever the
amalgamated human components, the classical heritage left a strong imprint on
medicine throughout the whole medieval time period and the multiple ethnic
contexts: medicine was mostly a learned discipline whose substance was ex-
pressed in—and transmitted through—written works of different forms: theoreti-

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Medicine 957
cal treatises, practical manuals (both sometimes provided with illustrations) or

notebooks. The practice of medicine did not leave written traces, except short
prescriptions, orders for materia medica, and invoices (such as pieces of papyrus
or the many documents preserved in the Genizah of Cairo), or registers of hospi-
tals, and literary accounts of personal medical stories, for example. As a conse-
quence, knowledge of medieval medicine in modern erudition until recently
relied almost only on written documents, specifically manuscripts and their texts.
The nature of such primary sources greatly determined the profile, agenda and
methods of most inquiries into the history of medieval medicine for a long period.
Inventory of collections, catalographic descriptions of manuscripts and accurate
identification of texts or reference works were fundamental. History of medieval
medicine was predominantly—and still is most of the time—a philological disci-
pline aiming to provide critical editions and studies of texts with or without a
translation into a modern language, together with commentaries, word indices
(complete or selective and, in this case, possibly also thematic) and specialized
dictionaries (for example of plants names and plants), prosopography of physi-
cians, and any kind of repertorium making it possible to expand and illustrate the
collection of available texts.
In this perspective the nineteenth century has been a turning point. It broke
with the encyclopedic antiquarianism of previous times and the editorial practice
in use until then, mostly dominated by Renaissance printed editions (particularly
editiones principes) often credited with a philological value that only late twen-
tieth-century research proved to be often overstated. A first attempt toward a
renewal of critical editions was made by the German physician and historian of
medicine Karl Gottlob Kühn (1754–1840), who edited the Opera omnia of Hippo-
crates (3 vols., 1825–1827) and Galen (20 volumes, 1821–1833), together with
Aretaeus (1 vol., 1828), and hosted in his collection Medicorum graecorum opera
omnia quae exstant the edition of Dioscorides (2 vols., 1829–1830) by Kurt Spren-
gel (1766–1833). If Sprengel’s edition relied on a renewed heuristic of manu-
scripts, those by Kühn were based on Renaissance editions and also included
prefaces in the antiquarian way of previous centuries (see for example Acker-
mann 1821 about Galen). Subsequently, the French lexicographer and historian of
medicine Emile Littré (1801–1881) provided a critical edition of Hippocrates’s
Oeuvres complètes (10 vols., 1839–1861). Following these monumental achieve-
ments of personal erudition and printing entrepreneurship, history of medicine
began to consider manuscripts and their history as witnesses of medical history,
instead of only seeing them as vehicles of texts and, consequently, selecting the
supposed best one(s) for editorial purposes (that is, returning to the supposed
original form of the texts under consideration) and neglecting all the others
(allegedly transmitting corrupted versions of the texts). Although searching for

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958 Alain Touwaide
medical manuscripts throughout European collections had already started in the

late eighteenth century with such erudite as Friedrich Reinhold Dietz (1804–
1836), who died prematurely having published however several important con-
tributions based on his search for manuscripts (Dietz, ed., 1832; 1833; 1834; 1836),
it was not systematically pursued until the activity of the French historian of
medicine Charles Daremberg (1817–1872) who traveled to several countries, vis-
ited libraries and private collections, and personally inspected many items which
he briefly described, together with their contents (Daremberg 1853). He had
indeed planned a Collection des médecins grecs (which was not limited to classical
antiquity but included the early Byzantine period), of which he announced the
program but published only the part devoted to Oribasius (Daremberg 1847).
This model of historiography was echoed, though in a slightly different way,
in the Collectio Salernitana by one of Daremberg’s contemporaries and colleagues,
the Italian physician, historian of medicine, and political thinker, Salvatore De
Renzi (1800–1872). De Renzi uncovered and personally inspected many manu-
scripts and archival documents which he edited in collaboration with Daremberg
and the German historian of medicine August Wilhelm Eduard Theodor Henschel
(1790–1856) in his massive Collectio published in five volumes between 1852 and
1859 (De Renzi 1852–1859). In spite of its imperfections (particularly in the edi-
tions, which do not correspond to present-day critical and philological standards),
this epoch-making work has been extremely influential and has been submitted to
a critical analysis only recently (Jacquart and Paravicini Bagliani 2008).
Daremberg’s model of historiography was followed toward the end of the
nineteenth century, by the Greek scholar living in Paris George A. Costomiris
(1849–1902) who expanded Daremberg’s work in direction of Byzantium (Costo-
miris 1889; 1890; 1891; 1892; 1897). Almost at the same time the French physician
and historian of medicine Auguste Corlieu (1825–1907) provided a general pre-
sentation of Byzantine medicine based on a historical paradigm that can be
defined as portrait gallery (Corlieu 1885) and does not substantially differ from
the antiquarianism of earlier periods, particularly the early history of Byzantine
medicine by the Englishman John Freind (1675–1728) published in 1725–1726.
Corlieu’s overview was shortly followed by two others: a short one by Karl
Krumbacher (1856–1909), an eminent representative of the rising school of By-
zantine studies in Munich (Krumbacher 1897), and a more substantial one by
Iwan Bloch (Bloch 1902). Theirs were based on a direct contact with primary
sources which both Krumbacher and Bloch personally explored and whose data
they presented in a descriptive, linear way. Interestingly, Iwan Bloch’s treatment
is divided into two periods: the third and fourth centuries (including what became
identified more recently as the late antiquity) and Byzantine medicine (compris-
ing all the time period from Christianity to the Fall of Constantinople).

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For the Arabic World, Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) catalogued the

Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts of several libraries (and also of a private collec-
tion of medical codices) and published on this basis a synthesis on the Arabic
translations of Greek works, including–but not specifically devoted to–medical
treatises (Steinschneider 1889–1993). This work was immediately followed by
another, similar one on Hebrew translations (Steinschneider 1893). Slightly later,
the German Orientalist Carl Brockelmann (1868–1956) compiled a monumental
Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur in 2 volumes, which included sections on
medicine (Brockelmann 1898–1902) and was repeatedly expanded (Brockelmann
1937; 1938; 1942).
The nineteenth century inventories of manuscripts and editions of classical
Greek medical treatises started to be replaced from the early twentieth century
onward by the inventories and editions of the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (CMG).
The Corpus was launched in collaboration by the Prussian and Danish Academies,
specifically the German historian of ancient philosophy Hermann Diels (1848–
1922) and the Danish historian of ancient science Johan Ludwig Heiberg (1854–
1928). This audacious program was completed by a Supplementum Orientale for the
edition of the Greek treatises known only through their Oriental, viz. Arabic,
translations, and flanked by a similar Corpus Medicorum Latinorum (CML).
In good philological method, the CMG opened with an inventory of the manu-
scripts containing the works to be edited, with a particular focus on Hippocrates
and Galen (Diels, ed., 1905). For each of the treatises preserved under their names
(be they authentic or not), this inventory provides a list of Greek manuscripts
(presented by city and library names in alphabetical order) together with a similar
list of the codices containing their Latin and Arabic translations accordingly,
sometimes also including Syriac versions. Typically enough, some physicians of
the post-classical period were considered, although they were relegated in a
second volume whose title is significant: Die übrigen Ärzte (The remaining physi-
cians) (Diels, ed., 1906). These remaining physicians (that is, the medieval ones)
were not many, however, and most of them date back to the early Byzantine world
(until the capture of Alexandria by the Arabs), even though some of the late
Byzantine period were considered. These first two lists were rapidly followed by a
first supplementum (Diels, ed., 1907), not followed by any other since.
Although these lists of manuscripts provided the material for a reconstruction
of the history of the texts during the Middle Ages and, on this basis, of medieval
medicine, they did not generate such a reading of the history of text. Consultation
of manuscripts was dominated by the search for the ancestor of the subsequent
tradition, whose members were further ignored. The approach to text production
proceeded in a similar way by reconstructing the genealogy of texts and searching
to reach the most ancient ones considered as representing the most authentic

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form of ancient medicine, without taking too much into consideration subsequent
developments, that is, medieval medicine. Such analysis resulted from a rigid
genealogical paradigm of identification of sources (Quellenforschung) that did not
consider differences between closely related texts as resulting from accretions
deposited in successive layers on an original matrix.
Several editions were published in the CMG during the twentieth century,
with only a limited number of medieval, viz. Byzantine ones: Oribasius (fourth
century C.E.; Oribasius, Opera omnia 1926–1933), Aetius (sixth century; Aetius
Amidenus, Libri medicinales 1935; 1950; 1911; 1905; 1909; 1901) and Paul of Egina
(seventh century; Paulus Aegineta 1921–1924), followed more recently by Jo-
hannes of Alexandria (Pritchet, ed., 1982; Iohannes Alexandrinus 1997) and
Stephanus of Athens (or Alexandria) (Westerink, ed., 1985–1995; Duffy, ed.,
1983). If some editions of Arabic texts were published, they were translations of
Greek classical texts (Galenus arabicus 1963; 1969; 1970; 1988). As for Latin texts,
a corpus of anonymous or pseudepigraphic late-antique texts (Pseudo-Apuleius;
De taxone; Sextius Placitus; and Antonius Musa) was published (Antonius Musa
1927), and also the major works by Marcellus identified as coming from Bordeaux
(Marcellus 1968) and by Caelius Aurelianus (Caelius Aurelianus 1990–1993).
Arabic translations of Hippocrates were also published independently from
the CMG: Regimen in Acute Diseases (Hippocrates arabicus 1966), Surgery (Hippo-
crates arabicus 1968), Nature of Man (Hippocrates arabicus 1968), Airs, Waters,
Places (Hippocrates arabicus 1969), Humors (Hippocrates arabicus 1971), and
Sperm with Nature of Child (Hippocrates arabicus 1978).
Shortly after the launch of the CMG and the CML, the geography of medieval
medical history changed with the transfer of European scholars to the United
States, who brought with them the approaches and methods of the scholarly
traditions of their countries of origin. The Belgian historian of science George
Sarton (1884–1956) was a pioneer. As early as 1915, indeed, he moved to America
where he introduced both the philological method and the broad scope typical of
Belgian erudition at that time. Embarked in the compilation of a general history
of science, he planned to publish nine volumes of which he could complete only
three, covering the time period from antiquity to the fourteenth century (Sarton
1927–1948). With premonitory intuition, he did not limit himself to Western
science, but included all areas for which a scientific activity is documented during
the time period under consideration. In treating each period he distinguished, he
did not present available data in a compartmentalized way, but highlighted the
simultaneity of the different contexts active during these periods. Typically for
him, when he started preparing the second volume (devoted to the Arabic World),
he did not only study Arabic, but he traveled to the Middle East searching for
manuscripts.

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More than 15 years later (actually in 1932), Henry Sigerist (1891–1957) moved
to the United States. A Swiss-born, Sigerist studied philology and Oriental lan-
guages before earning a degree in medicine and devoting himself to the history of
medicine. After some years as director of the Institute for the History of Medicine
at the University of Leipzig (1925–1932), he moved to the United States, specifi-
cally to the newly created Institute for the History of Medicine of Johns Hopkins
University which he directed from 1932 to 1947. A medical historian with broad
interests, he studied medieval manuscripts and created a collection of photo-
graphs at Johns Hopkins University (Schalick 1997). On the basis of the manu-
scripts he consulted, he published a set of texts (together with Ernest Howald)
according to the model of the German philologico-historical school, with a special
focus on the early Middle Ages (Sigerist 1923; Antonius Musa 1927, for example).
Later on, he surveyed early medieval medical literature (Sigerist 1958).
In his move to America, Sigerist took with him his Leipzig student and
assistant Owsei Temkin (1902–2002) who later on directed Hopkins’ Institute for
the History of Medicine for ten years (1958–1968). With pioneering instinct,
Temkin gave a new orientation to the history of medieval medicine: he moved the
focus from chronologically and geographically circumscribed questions to long
term history across different time periods, geographical areas and human groups.
He did so about the concept of epilepsy (Temkin 1945) and Galen’s theories
(Temkin 1973), for both of which topics he followed their transformations through
time and space.
Research on medieval medicine in Europe was mostly focused on the West
and the inventory of manuscripts and texts, documentary studies, and analysis of
specific questions of medical thinking. The Latin manuscripts predating the great
expansion of medicine of the post-Salernitan period were inventoried by the 20th-
century Italian historian Augusto Beccaria who catalogued all such manuscripts
known in the 1950s (Beccaria 1956), whereas his French colleague Ernst Wickers-
heimer (1880–1965) did the same for the codices in French collections ten years
later (Wickersheimer 1966).
Medicine in Byzantium was the object of occasional editions of texts and
studies, some of which might have been seminal had them received the attention
they deserved. This is specifically the case of the publications by the French
physician and historian of medicine Antoine Edouard Jeanselme (1858–1935) on
Byzantine hospitals and diet calendars (Jeanselme 1930; 1924; Jeanselme and
Oeconomos 1921; 1925). A clinician who consulted Byzantine manuscripts, Jean-
selme used indeed information from hospital manuals to attempt a first recon-
struction of the medical activity in hospitals.
During the same time, the American school was exploring different and
innovative approaches to the study of medieval medicine. Lynn Thorndike (1882–

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1965), who taught in different universities before being at Columbia University

from 1924 to 1950, was interested in long-term phenomena and in massive collec-
tions of material from primary sources. As early as 1923 he started publishing a
monumental eight-volume history of magic and experimental science that covers
the period from early Christianity to the end of the seventeenth century (Thorn-
dike 1923–1956). Together with Pearl Kibre (1900–1985), who earned a doctoral
degree in Medieval History and History of Science from Columbia University in
1936, he compiled a catalogue of incipit of scientific treatises resulting from
systematic browsing of medieval manuscripts (Thorndike and Kibre 1937). Kibre
herself, who taught at Hunter College in New York, pursued this line of investiga-
tion by systematically tracing the manuscripts of Latin translations of Hippocratic
works across periods (the work was published in several installments in Traditio
between 1975 and 1982, and further edited as a volume in 1985). Loren Carey
MacKinney (1891–1963), as for him, did undergraduate work in the United States
and at the University of Grenoble (France) and earned a Ph.D. in Medieval History
from the University of Chicago. Later affiliated with the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was interested in illustrations from medieval manu-
scripts related to medicine. Well before the recent inclusion of illustrations among
the primary sources for historical investigations, he collected photographs of any
kind of illustration in medieval manuscripts that were related to medicine, which
are now at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD, with copies at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On this basis, he compiled an inven-
tory of such illustrations which he published in 1965 (MacKinney 1965).
Study of the history of Arabic medicine did not proceed in parallel. It was the
object of occasional contributions by such individuals as the German ophthalmol-
ogist Max Meyerhof in Cairo (1875–1945) (see for example Meyerhof 1930b; 1932;
1948), the Egyptian Dominican George Anawati (1905–1994) based at the Institut
Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales (IDEO) in Cairo (Anawati 1959, for instance),
Bishr Faris (1907–1963) in Egypt (Faris 1953), Cesar Dubler (1915–1969), author
with Elias Teres, of a voluminous study on the fortuna of Dioscorides’s De materia
medica which included the first edition of its Arabic translation (Dubler and Teres
1953–1957), Juan Vernet Ginés (1923–2011) in Barcelona, who specialized on al-
Andalus (Vernet 1978), or, more recently, the German philologist Albert Dietrich,
who devoted his activity to the Arabic treatises on materia medica and their
lexicology (Dietrich 1988; 1991; 1993). These and other contributions on specific
topics in the history of Arabic medicine went against a general interpretation of
Arabic medicine and science among Western scholars as an epiphenomenon of
Greek medicine, whose knowledge it usefully completed, according to a historio-
graphic model best illustrated by the catalogue of Greek manuscripts published
by the CMG (Diels, ed., 1905; 1906; 1908). As early as 1938, however, the Italian

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scientist and historian of science Aldo Mieli (1879–1950) emigrated to Argentina

for political reasons, departed from this Western scholarly tradition and stressed
the specificity and contributions of Arabic science in a work of synthesis that
included contributions by Max Meyerhof and other contemporary Arabists (Mieli
1938). He was followed later on by Juan Vernet Ginés who did the same for al-
Andalus (Vernet 1978).
It is only recently that comprehensive catalogues of Arabic authors, texts and
manuscripts comparable to those published for Byzantium and the West were
compiled. Strangely enough, two such works came to light at almost the same
time in Germany: one in Frankfurt by the Turkish-born historian of Arabic written
production Fuat Sezgin (who also republished in the form of collected studies
most of the articles on history of Arabic medicine originally appeared in journals
across the world from the nineteenth century onward) (Sezgin 1970) and the other
by Manfred Ullmann in Tübingen (Ullmann 1970), who also wrote a brief survey
of Arabo-Islamic medicine (Ullmann 1978; for a similar synthesis, Jacquart and
Micheau 1990), compiled a dictionary of the Arabic terms generated from Greek
during the translation period in the Eastern Arabic Empire (Ullmann 2002; also
Endress and Gutas 1992–2013), and, more recently, worked on Dioscorides’s
Arabic translation(s) (Ullmann 2009).
D First Transformations
In the 1970s history of medicine engaged into a process of transformation gener-
ated by both internal and external forces. The context was more favorable than in
previous years. The Wellcome Historical Medical Library founded in London by
Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936) substantially developed its activity in the 1960s
particularly by creating an Academic Unit. Also, institutes and chairs of history of
medicine multiplied in Germany and Switzerland. They developed their research
and teaching programs with some specializing in the history of medieval medi-
cine and others in the history of pharmacy. This bourgeoning expanded through-
out Europe and contributed to boost earlier centers or to generate new ones.
Internal forces operating in the history of medicine—not only medieval—led
to shift the focus from the texts and their authors (which are the sources of
knowledge) to the ultimate object of these texts and the raison d’être of medicine
(the patients themselves, who are the beneficiaries of medical knowledge) with
their diseases (the target of medicine) and their health (the goal of medicine). A
book was emblematic of this transformation: Le triangle hippocratique. Le malade,
sa maladie et son médecin, by the French historian of ancient and Roman medi-
cine and of medical erudition Danielle Gourevitch affiliated with the Ecole Pra-

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tique des Hautes Etudes (Gourevitch 1984). Although the work deals with anti-
quity, it exemplifies the transformation in course in the history of medicine.
Medical historiography began to move away from a history mostly devoted to the
physicians, their works and their theories. Instead, it started considering medi-
cine in action with the patients and their diseases, both being the conditio sine qua
non for medicine to come into being. Together with the physician, these elements
created the locus for medicine to be implemented in an interactive relationship
between the three components of the triangle.
Each tip of the triangle became a specific field in the medico-historical
investigation. Thanks to the analysis of their relationship with the patients,
physicians could be approached in a different way: no longer as the producers of
knowledge, but also as the providers of a service. Such shift generated an
increased attention to the practice of medicine, from the medical setting (e.g., the
hospital) to medical ethics, including methods of learning, writing of case stu-
dies, instruments and methods for the consultation for example.
The patients, in particular, were approached with their subjectivity, particu-
larly the way they were living their own body, their health and their disease(s),
the experience of disease and its psychological sequels, or the cure itself, with its
itinerary and its constraints, its expectations and disappointments, or also extra-
medical practices, rituals and objects. The attention to the physicality of patients
took a special dimension when it was about women. The female body became a
topic of medico-historical investigation in its own right, whereas it had been
almost off limits until then and was mostly uncharted. Its exploration was
particularly suitable for the development of multidisciplinary approaches—since
this was the term at that time—that brought together physiology, psychology,
sociology and economy among others, and brought to light and dismounted the
empowerment of male medicine and discourse on the female body. Research
brought to light—or hinted at—a female medical world with such figure as the
legendary Trotula (Green 2001), or birth control and abortion practices whose
knowledge was circumscribed within the feminine world (Riddle 1997).
In this new approach to medicine, the analysis of diseases moved from
theoretical concepts and nosology (the physicians’ viewpoint) to case studies and
histoires vécues (the patients’ existential experience). Research on this point was
best heralded by the physician and historian of medicine of Croatian origin Mirko
D. Grmek (1924–2000) who had broad medico-historical interests and spent most
of his career in France, particularly at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
Having previously edited the papers of the French physician Claude Bernard
(1813–1878), who developed experimental medicine, Grmek had an acute sense of
pathology. In his approach to ancient diseases, he promoted the retrospective
diagnosis, that is, a process by which historians of medicine explain the diseases

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described in ancient medical literature by means of twentieth century nosological

entities (Grmek 1983). Such approach generated a wholly new field of investiga-
tion whose legitimacy was not unanimously recognized in the medico-historical
community for a long period (for example and recently, Leven 2004). An episte-
mological debate followed, with some historians claiming that retrospective diag-
nosis is impossible since pathogens evolved from past to present day. In these
conditions, it is impossible, according to them, to equate ancient and modern
nosological entities. Proponents of the retrospective diagnosis, instead, argued
that diseases could be identified, particularly by complementing textual descrip-
tions by means of archaeological human remains (specifically macro-traces of
diseases on human skeletons) (e.g., Henneberg and Henneberg 1995 about syphi-
lis). Although the retrospective diagnosis was used as a powerful analytical tool—
provided it relied on sufficient evidence including osteopathology—the debate on
its legitimacy has not been closed until very recently, when molecular biology
entered the field of medical history (for instance, Sallares 2002).
Grmek went on in his analysis of the history of diseases and created the concept
of pathocoenosis, which can be defined as the set of diseases affecting a determined
population (Grmek 1983). In Grmek’s view, this set is not defined by the genetic
make-up of the populations (with their susceptibility or, on the contrary, their
immunity or tolerance to certain diseases), but by the biology of the pathogens,
which creates commonalities of, and exclusions between, pathogens. Potentially a
productive epistemological and heuristic tool, this concept has not been much
applied, however, possibly because another approach to populations’ diseases
emerged in the meantime with the development of molecular biology.
Later on, Grmek shifted focus, concentrating more on medical thinking in an
all-encompassing, multi-authored and multi-volume panorama of the history of
Western medicine from antiquity to the twentieth century (Grmek and Fantini,
ed., 1993 for antiquity and the Middle Ages).
While this internal force was transforming the history of medicine, among
others its medieval component, an external force was shaped: codicology and text
history. Although the question has been discussed, the paternity of codicology
defined as the discipline devoted to the scientific analysis of manuscripts, goes to
the French Hellenist and Byzantinist Alphonse Dain (1896–1964) (Dain 1949). The
line of investigation he inaugurated was further pursued by the French philologist
Jean Irigoin (1920–2006) (Irigoin 1952) and, further on, by several scholars parti-
cularly the following: the Belgian philologist Paul Canart at the Vatican Library;
the Italian historian Guglielmo Cavallo in Rome; and the German philologist,
paleographer and codicologist Dieter Harlfinger in Berlin, with the group of all
these scholars forming what Paul Canart called the Berlin-Rome axis. Particularly
with Dieter Harlfinger who started his work on the manuscripts of the Aristotelian

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corpus, codicology became an inquiry into the material vehicle of texts, whose
history it contributed to reconstruct in great detail, allowing us to reach the actors
behind the actual texts in the manuscripts. In this view, each manuscript has the
potential to become the witness of an intellectual activity previously not taken
into consideration as the research on the history of texts mainly aimed until then
to identify the best manuscript for editorial purposes, thus neglecting all the other
codices.
This focus on the materiality of manuscripts as a source of information was
completed by the analysis of the very process of copy. It was the merit of Joseph
Mogenet (1913–1980), a classicist and a historian of Greek astronomy at the
University of Louvain in Belgium. Mogenet wanted to go beyond the mechanistic
approach to copy used until the early 1950s. He aimed to explore the psychology
of copyists, that is, their behavior in the act of copy. He developed a simple, yet
efficient approach that allows to account for the transformations of all kinds
(involuntary or not) introduced in texts by copyists. His method is both coherent
and realistic (Mogenet 1950).
With all these new epistemological instruments history of medieval medicine
had powerful investigative tools that made it possible to explore more in depth
both the written document (codicology and copyists’ psychology) and the dis-
eases affecting medieval populations (retrospective diagnosis and pathocoeno-
sis), also including the individual experience of medicine. More than anything
else, it was open to the concepts of transformation(s) in the transmission of texts
and differentiation(s) in epidemiology. This was a major shift. Previous history of
medicine and of texts mostly operated, indeed, on the basis of a concept of
continuity with a special reference to classical antiquity considered as a touch-
stone for the analysis and understanding of subsequent periods. Such approach
did not allow for a perception of possible specificities linked with determined
groups. In matter of texts, transformist thinking opened the door to a perception
and analysis of the contributions made in—and by—each manuscript. In this
view, manuscripts were no longer seen as increasingly deforming a lost original,
but as elements of an uninterrupted chain of actors contributing to the making of
a body of data in constant evolution.
E Transition Processes
Surprisingly, history of medieval medicine did not immediately take advantage of
the new approach to disease that was developing, perhaps because documentary
basis was not yet sufficient as the subsequent evolution of research may suggest.
As early as the 1980s medical historiography benefitted, instead, of the renewal

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of textual analysis. In so doing, it verified the validity of Temkin‘s intuition—of

continuity going together with differentiations—which Temkin had applied to the
analysis of epilepsy from antiquity to the Middle Ages and the reception of
Galen’s system (Temkin 1945; 1973, respectively).
Very soon such transformationist thinking made it possible to better investi-
gate phases in the history of medieval medicine that had been identified as crucial
without having been clarified however. This was the case of the early medieval
activity of translation of Greek medical treatises into Latin, of the transfer of Greek
medicine to the Arabic world, and of the development of the supposed school of
Salerno. Typically, these transitions were thought of in terms of new localizations
characterized by a move of a school understood as a group of individuals exercis-
ing a teaching activity in a physical locus from one precise city to another in a new
territory. Such historical reconstruction may have been shaped on the model of the
history of the School of Athens, which was closed in 529 by the Byzantine emperor
Justinian (b. 482; emp. 527–565). Its teachers and, probably also, their students
moved to Alexandria and later to Constantinople as the toponyms—of Athens and
of Alexandria—attached to the name of Stephanus indicate (Wolska-Conus 1989).
As early as 1930 Max Meyerhof already proposed such an approach in his
epoch-making reconstruction of the transfer of medicine from the Greek to the
Arabic World. According to him, this transfer went by land from Alexandria to
Baghdad through Antioch and Harran (Meyerhof 1930a) in an itinerary that
proved to be incorrect (Lameer 1997). For the West a similar reconstruction from
one determined place to another (actually from Alexandria to Ravenna) was
proposed by the Italian Augusto Beccaria in a set of three articles on early-
medieval Latin translations of Hippocrates and Galen published from 1959 to 1971
(Beccaria 1959; 1961; 1971). Beccaria’s work was further deepened by a group of
classicists from Italy and Spain who explored almost simultaneously the transi-
tion from classical antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: Innocenzo Mazzini in
Ancona (Mazzini 1981; 1983), Nicoletta Palmieri then in Milano and now in Saint-
Etienne (France) (Palmieri 1981), and Manuel Vásquez Buján in Santiago de
Compostela (Vásquez Buján 1986). All of them focused on Hippocrates and Galen,
the selection of translated texts, and the translation process. The general inter-
pretation suggested a migration from Alexandria to Ravenna (which was the
capital of Theodoric [471–526] from 493 to 540 and then the seat of the Byzantine
exarchate until 751). According to Manuel Vásquez Buján, however, the possibi-
lity of another locale between northern Africa and Italy should not be excluded,
including movements going not necessarily northward, but possibly also south-
ward. Whatever the place, such teaching reproduced the teaching model of the
Alexandrian school, including the classical texts selected by its faculty to create a
coherent set of class text books.

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For the Arabic World, the reconstruction proceeded according to a similar

scheme (from one location to another, from one school to another), although the
itinerary proposed by Meyerhof was no longer accepted. The newly proposed
route proceeded in two phases, passing first through the Syriac world and the
translation activity of Sergius of Res’ayna in the sixth century (Hugonnard Roche
1990; Strohmaier 1994; Bhayro 2005; Serikoff 2013). In the second phase, transla-
tion activity took place in Baghdad in the ninth century, at the so-called Bayt al-
Hikmat considered as a translation bureau (below).
This interpretative method of tradition, geographical in nature, was further
refined with a more detailed analysis of the translations, their actors, their context
and possible structures, and the rationale of their translation activity. The analy-
sis of the translation of Greek medicine into Arabic was substantially modified. In
this view, the role played by the Syriacs was not limited to a sixth-century relay
on the road from Byzantium to the Arabic World. Thanks to the translation
experience available among their communities, they played a fundamental role
when the Arabic World embarked into a process of assimilation of earlier medi-
cine (not limited to Greek sources but also including others from the East). A
leading Syriac figure was Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) who was assisted in his
enterprise by such collaborators as Istifan ibn Basil (whose names hint at a
Christian origin) and other translators, later on also including his own son.
Typically, Hunayn translated Greek medicine in an evolutive way: he started
translating first from Greek into Syriac and then from Syriac into Arabic; only later
on, did he translate directly from Greek into Arabic. In spite of this modification,
the localization process characteristic of that-time medico-historical research was
still present. The early activity of translation of the Syriacs was situated, indeed,
in a school located in the Persian city of Gondishapur (south-east of Baghdad)
credited with a medical university. Their subsequent activity was located in
Baghdad in the so-called Bayt al-Hikmat supposed for a long time to have been a
translation office, whereas further research showed that it may have been more
an informal group of translators (Balty Guesdon 1992; 1994; 2008).
The transfer of Arabic medicine to the West from the late eleventh century on
was reconstructed with similar keys (Schipperges 1964; 1976). It has been attributed
to the personal activity of Constantine (d. after 1087), identified as the African as he
came from Qairawan. According to his traditional biography, Constantine moved
from his native town to Cassino where he started a prolific activity of translation
from Arabic into Latin. On this basis, a school is supposed to have formed in the
town of Salerno, whose activity attracted students from all over Europe. Such
institutionalized vision of the interest in Arabic medicine in Southern Europe is
now revised, even though there actually were translators located in specific towns
(e.g., Toledo in Spain; Burnett 1995 and 2001) and organized in articulated groups.

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F Negotiating the Past

These and other, similar studies opened the way to an analysis of the possible
transformation(s) of knowledge in the process of transmission be it intra- or inter-
cultural. Whereas it was generally accepted that medieval medicine was largely
dominated by Galen’s vast oeuvre and theoretical thinking (namely his concep-
tualization of human anatomy, physiology and pathology) as well as by Hippo-
crates, that is, the Corpus Hippocraticum, a reexamination of manuscript evidence
led into a somewhat different direction.
Before anything else, a reading of the manuscript tradition revealed that the
influence of these two set of works was differentiated according to the topics,
whatever the period. The teaching program of the school of Alexandria in the fifth
and sixth centuries, mostly based on Galen, is significant from that viewpoint
(Iskandar 1976; Pormann 2004a). Commented Galenic treatises formed six major
units besides the general principles of medicine according to the schools that
flourished in previous centuries (taught through Galen’s treatise On Sects for
Beginners), normal anatomy (based on Anatomy for Beginners; Bones; Muscles;
Nerves and Veins and Arteries); physiology (with Natural Faculties); pathology
(Causes and Symptoms of Diseases; Affected Parts; and Differences of Fevers);
diagnosis (Short Book on Pulse); prevention and cure of diseases (Preservation of
Health and Method of Healing); and evolution of disease and recovery (Crises and
Critical Days [De diebus criticis]). If Galen’s works dominated in the fields of
anatomy, physiology, pathology, and method for therapy, they did not in phar-
maco-therapeutics. This discipline relied mostly, if not only, on Dioscorides’s De
materia medica, be it in Byzantium, in the Arabic World or in the West. In
Alexandria, the teaching of remedial therapy was based on Dioscorides’s treatise,
reorganized in alphabetical order as Galen’s treatise on the topic and commented
on possibly by Stephanus of Alexandria (Wolf 1581).
The Fall of Alexandria in the seventh century and the transfer of medical
studies to Constantinople did not necessarily transform the physiognomy of
Galenic studies, all the more because a new approach to medicine had developed
in the meantime (below). It is probably not insignificant that, in subsequent
centuries, several Galenic and other Greek medical treatises have been best
preserved in Southern Italy than in the main part of the Byzantine Empire (Cavallo
1980; Ieraci Bio 1989). The reason often evoked for such differentiated tradition
(Greek speaking groups isolated in the Latin West which were cut from the living
roots of their culture and consequently defended their identity by preserving their
culture in a more conservative way, without too much input from outside) may no
longer be valid, as research increasingly brings to light dense and continuous
exchanges between the metropolis and the territories at the edge of the empire.

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Nevertheless, the factors that contributed to the modification of medical thinking

may in effect not have been the same in the heart of the empire and in its
periphery, not because of the distance from the capital, but because of different
local parameters, including an increasingly divergent genetic make-up of popula-
tions (resulting not only from local conditions, but also from contacts with local
heterogeneous populations) and, therefore, a different epidemiology.
Not all the Corpus Hippocraticum either was studied in Alexandria. Hippo-
cratic treatises commented on reinforced or complemented the Galenic program
by providing a more specialized approach. If the general principles of medicine
(through the Aphorisms), physiology (Humors) and evolution of disease (Prognos-
tics) paralleled and complemented selected Galenic treatises, embryology (Nature
of Child), special pathology (Diseases of Women and Fractures) and epidemiology
(Epidemics) added a dimension to the Galenic program and added to a more
complete coverage of the variety of specialized knowledge contributing to the
making of medicine.
Later on, the Hippocratic literature was more extensively studied in Byzan-
tium. The treatises were reorganized in a very different way as their grouping in
manuscripts indicate: 1. Surgery, Fractures, Joints, Wounds in the Head; 2. Lever-
age, Bones; 3. Airs, Waters, Places, and Dentition; 4. Nature of Woman, Diseases of
Woman; 5. Regimen 1–3, Regimen 4, Diseases 1–3, Affections, Internal Affections,
Sacred Disease; 6. Diseases 4, Crises, Wounds, Haemorrhoids, Fistulae, Eyesight,
Prorrhetic; 7. Nutriment, Coan Prognoses, Humors, Ancient Medicine, Art; 8. Oath,
Law, Aphorisms, Epidemics 2–7, Nature of Child, On the 7 Months Child, On the
8 Months’ Child, Virgins; 9. Prognostics, Epidemics 1, Nature of Man; 10. Glands,
Heart, Fleshes, Physician, Anatomy; 11. Infertile Women, Excision of the Fetus. If
some major unitary topics can be recognized in these groupings such as trauma-
tology (nos. 1 and 2) and gynecology and obstetrics (nos. 4 and 11), not all such
groupings seem to be thematically coherent, but reflect rather some organic
clusters with internal complementarities. One of such clusters brings together
prevention of disease, diseases and what is now called neurological diseases
(no. 5); one deals with diseases and their evolution, followed by external diseases
and troubles of vision (no. 6), whereas another is devoted to the general principles
of medicine and medical deontology together with pediatrics (no. 8) and one is
mainly about internal organs and a complement of deontology (no. 10).
Not all such groups of Hippocratic treatises and not all treatises within the
groups had the same fortune in Byzantium. Of the works on traumatology, for
example (no. 1), Wounds in the Head is known by two manuscripts (ninth and
twelfth centuries), whereas the other three treatises (Surgery, Fractures, Joints)
have been regularly transmitted through the centuries, with a total of ten codices
from the ninth to the fourteenth century and a gradual increase except during the

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thirteenth century, when Constantinople was occupied by the Latin troops of the
Fourth Crusade (1204–1261): one manuscript in the ninth and one in the eleventh
century, two in the twelfth, one in the thirteenth and five in the fourteenth
century. The Epidemics (divided in two groups: books I and III, and books II and
IV–VI) where continuously transmitted with a regular increase from the eleventh
to the fourteenth century, no decrease during the thirteenth century, and a total
of nine manuscripts. Airs, Waters and Places, instead, does not seem to have been
much read, as it is attested by only one manuscript in the twelfth century,
contrary to the Regimen in Acute Diseases, which is known through 10 codices,
2 for each of the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, 1 for the thirteenth (that is, a
decrease most probably as a result of the Fourth Crusade) and a strong increase
during the fourteenth century (5 items). The treatise with the most substantial
tradition in Byzantium, however, is the Aphorisms, of which no less than
30 manuscripts are known from the period of the tenth to the fifteenth century,
with no decrease, but an increase during the thirteenth century (contrary to the
other treatises above) and a number of manuscripts without equivalent for any
other Hippocratic treatise during the fourteenth century: 19 codices.
In the West before the transformation of medicine following the translation of
Arabic medical literature into Latin started during the eleventh century (below)
there was a proliferation of treatises reflecting the Latin heritage (census in
Sabbah et al. 1987 with a supplement in Fischer 2000; more recently Cassius Felix
2002; Alphita 2007; Alphabetum Galieni 2012). During the fifth and sixth centuries
(that is, at a time when scholarship in Alexandria radiated throughout the
Mediterranean up to Italy, particularly—but not necessarily only—to Ravenna)
interest in the Hippocratic collection seems to have focused on the Aphorisms,
Prognostics and Diseases of Women, complemented with Airs, Waters, Places,
Nature of Man, Weeks, and Regimen. Whereas we recognize the Alexandrian
program in the first three, we may interpret the others as substitutes of their
Galenic equivalents, with Nature of Man on physiology substituting On the Natur-
al Faculties; Airs, Waters, Places on epidemiology possibly replacing the Galenic
treatises on pathology (Causes and Symptoms of Diseases) although it shifts the
focus from anatomo-pathological description and analysis to environmental
causality; Weeks for disease evolution represented by Crises and Critical Days in
the Alexandrian Galenic program, and the Hippocratic Regimen for both the
treatment of disease and the preservation of health, just as the Galenic treatise on
the same object (Method of Healing and Preservation of Health). From the ninth to
the eleventh/twelfth centuries, there was a significant shift: Airs, Waters, Places is
attested by only two ninth-century manuscripts, Diseases of Women by two during
the period eigth/ninth century and one in the eleventh century, contrary to the
Aphorisms whose number of codices constantly increased from the eighth to the

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twelfth century in a way not different from Byzantium: 2 (eighth century), 6 (for
each of the ninth and tenth century), 8 (eleventh century) and 9 (twelfth century).
The medical works newly redacted from the fourth to the eleventh century—
excepting for the moment the Arabic world, whose itinerary was slightly differ-
ent—may give an impression that contradicts this picture, by reinforcing the
Galenic dominance and, at the same time, by expanding the range of source-
texts in presence. In the Byzantine world, indeed, the all-encompassing encyclo-
pedias of Oribasius in the fourth century (Oribasius 1926–1933), Aetius in the
sixth (Aetius Amidenus 1935; 1950; 1911; 1905; 1909; 1901) and Paul of Egina in
the seventh (Paulus Aegineta 1921–1924) are largely based on Galen, even though
their sections on remedial therapy owes more to Dioscorides than to Galen. The
same is valid for Theophanes Chrysobalantes (previously known as Theophanes
Nonnos; Sonderkamp 1984; 1987) in the tenth century (Theophanes Chrsysoba-
lantes 1568; 1794–1795) coming after the reorganization of the Byzantine world
further to the Arab conquest and the iconoclastic crisis with its redefinition on
culture, knowledge and science.
In the West, the Pseudo-Apuleius (Howald and Sigerist 1927), the Medicina
Plinii (Önnerfors, ed. 1964) and the Physica Plinii (Önnerfors 1975), together with
the Latin translation(s) of Dioscorides possibly dating back to the sixth century
(Hoffmand and Auracher 1892; Stadler 1897, 1899, 1902 and 1903; Mihaescu 1938)
and the Ex herbis femininis attributed to Dioscorides ([Dioscurides], Ex herbis
feminis (Kästner 1896 and 1897), the synthesis of Caelius Aurelianus of dogmatic
inspiration (Bendz 1990), and the medical encyclopedia of Marcellus allegedly of
Bordeaux (Niedermann 1968) expand the range of classical texts used as sources,
into which they introduce local data in a way often seen until recently as an
impoverishment of the classical tradition, whereas it actually absorbs the daily
practice of the art of healing into learned medicine with all its possible back-
ground of irrational beliefs, practices and operations.
The case of the Arabic World is different. The Arabo-Islamic troops conquered
almost unexpectedly, without meeting with too much resistance, an empire that
covered a vast portion of the world of that time, from the Arabic Peninsula to Asia
Minor, and from the shores of the Mediterranean to deep into the mainland. This
unforeseen conquest resulted, among others, from the antagonism that opposed
the Persian and the Byzantine Empires, which consumed their energy in a long
war. If the Byzantine Empire won this Persian war, it was nevertheless exhausted
and could not oppose much resistance to the Arabo-Islamic troops to which it
abandoned a substantial part of its territory and also all that of the defeated
Persian Empire. The geo-political entity newly created by the Arabo-Islamic
troops corresponded to—or was neighboring—several brilliant civilizations as
Byzantium and Persia, the Syriacs at the borders of the Byzantine empire and,

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further on in the East, India. Strategically enough, the conquerors took advantage
of the experience and knowledge of the enemies they defeated in order to build a
new political entity and also to provide it with a specific culture. Whereas in
Byzantium the legacy of the past was both a burden and an advantage, together
with a feeling of pride—as this legacy imposed to its heirs to defend and illustrate
it, without necessarily leaving much space for a more original identity—and, in
the West, this heritage from the past had not necessarily been integrally preserved
and was not always well understood, in the Arabic world it immediately provided
the basis for a new culture to be built, instead of having to be created anew (for a
more traditional view of the Arabic World as the follower of Antiquity, see
Strohmaier 1993). This was more so the case because the dynasty of rulers in the
Arabic world in the ninth century, the Abbasids, created a new capital—Baghdad
—and wished to provide it and its empire with a new culture worth the empire it
was governing. Translation and, through it, assimilation of previous science and
knowledge were an efficient short-cut that proved extremely productive, without
posing problems of self-identity or recovery as in Byzantium and the West,
respectively. Furthermore, in the Arabic World such assimilation gave a cachet to
the science developed in that way together with a sense of continuity that was
politically and strategically convenient (Gutas 1998; Saliba 2007; for the example
of a Greek work translated into Arabic and assimilated into Arabic medicine,
Pormann 2004).
G Integrating the Present

Such view focusing on the major achievements of antiquity, besides resulting
from a specific historiography inherited from the Renaissance, the antiquarianism
of subsequent centuries and nineteenth-century German Romantic fascination for
Greece as the founding period of the Western world, does not take into considera-
tion new developments arisen both inside and outside the medical field stricto
sensu, already in antiquity and in the early medieval centuries (Temkin 1962 on
the duality of Byzantine medicine).
The major inside development of medicine was the transformation of reme-
dial therapy (Touwaide 1993). With the urban development characteristic of the
Roman Empire, remedial therapy underwent a major transformation. Urbanized
populations and their physicians in the large cities of that time were cut from the
countryside. This might contribute to explain the creation of vast gardens in Rome
and smaller ones in Pompeii, for example, aimed to bring nature back into cities,
as Pliny put it (Touwaide 2007a). This increased distance from the natural
environment certainly accounts for a rupture with the traditional method of

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healing, that is, the Hippocratic remedial therapy consisting in collecting the
substances for medicines from the immediate natural environment of patients.
Even though fresh plants could be either grown or collected in the wild and then
be conveyed to Rome, they were not necessarily in good enough a condition to be
used as ingredients for medicines.
The process of substitution probably needs to be framed in this context.
Traditional interpretation takes at face value the principle resulting from the
apparently auto-biographic tale opening the Pseudo-Galenic list of substitution
(Galenus 1821–1833, 19.721–47) according to which a necessary medicinal sub-
stance not available at a certain place at a determined point in time could be
replaced by another with equivalent therapeutic properties. It might be that such
lists reflect rather different natural environments and floras, and also a tension
between the therapeutic prescribed by canonical texts (Dioscorides, De materia
medica complemented by Galen, On Simple Medicines Mixtures and Properties)
and the actual practice of healers (Touwaide 2012).
Prepared compound medicines, more suitable for a long term conservation,
were an appropriate response to these phenomena: urbanization of society,
distance from the wild, and integration of actual practice into the heritage of the
past. Such medicines were increasingly used in therapy from the first century C.E.
onward (Watson 1966; Touwaide 1994), all the more because they mixed a wide
range of substances, constituting what we could call broad spectrum medicines.
This technical transformation generated a new type of literature represented as
early as the second century by the treatise De antidotis of Galen (Galenus 1821–
1833, 14.1–209). This genre proliferated later on with the so-called antidotaria of
the early medieval centuries now identified by the names of the cities where their
manuscripts are preserved (e.g., in chronological order: Bruxelles antidotarium
[sixth century], London antidotarium [sixth/seventh centuries], St. Gall antidotar-
ium [ninth century], Bamberg antidotarium [ninth/tenth centuries], some of which
have been edited and studied by Sigerist 1923; see also Opsomer 1989). Although
the examples above refer to the West only, this new orientation of medicine and,
consequently, of medical literature was also at work in the East. For Byzantium, it
is not as well known as in the West because available manuscripts do not predate
the ninth or the tenth century. Furthermore, when this new genre of medical
literature is perceptible, it is in the form of amalgamated lists of compound
medicines which are particularly long and do not necessarily seem to be orga-
nized. Such lists are not well identified and are poorly catalogued, most probably
because they are considered to result from a collection-oriented activity dis-
connected from the practice of medicine that generated such collections. As a
consequence, this genre has often been neglected in medico-historical research,
especially when it is compared to the tradition of the great medical literature

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represented by the Corpus Hippocraticum and Galen’s works and consequently

considered as a product of lesser value (Hunger 1978, 2.304), just like the iatroso-
fia produced among the Greek speaking populations in the Ottoman empire from
the Fall of Constantinople to the Independence of Greece and even later (Tselikas
1995; Karas 1994; Touwaide 2007b). Disinterest becomes rejection if such thera-
peutic collections include religious invocations, incantations and magic formu-
lae.
Such religious component in medicinal prescriptions hints at the outside
factor that impacted medicine during the early Byzantine period. With the diffu-
sion of Christianity and its further adoption as the official religion of the Roman
empire by Constantine in the early fourth century, care for the poor and the sick
modeled on Christ’s example became more of a social concern and impacted the
exercise of medicine (Amundsen 1996; Ferngren 2009, for instance). The best
representatives of this new orientation of the art of healing are the twin brothers
Cosmas and Damianos (Julien et al. 1993). Probably born sometimes around 250
C.E. in Asia Minor, they were converted to Christianity by their mother Theodota.
They practiced medicine without asking any remuneration in the Christian spirit
of charitable assistance and were therefore identified as the anargyroi (anargyri).
During Diocletian’s persecution (303–305), they were summoned to adore the
pagan gods, something that they did not accept to do. They were martyrized
sometimes in the years 285–287, became considered saints and were the source of
a medico-healing cult that included therapeutic miracles (Deubner, ed., 1907;
Festugière 1971; David-Danel 1958). The analysis of the most ancient tales of their
miracles brought to light a close similarity with Greco-Hippocratic medicine
(Temkin 1991). Healing methods were revealed to the patients through dreams in
which the twins indicated to patients how they should cure their disease exactly
as was the case in the sanctuaries of Ascklêpios. The best example of this
Asclepian healing process is the second-century hypochondriac rhetor Aelius
Aristides (117–181 C.E.) who wrote down his incubatory dreams with a great many
detail in his Sacred Tales (Behr 1968; also Israelowich 2012). The medicines that
Cosmas and Damianos prescribed were very similar to those of the Corpus Hippo-
craticum, including silphium. Churches were dedicated to the two saints, one of
which was in Constantinople. In the sixth century, the emperor Justinian visited it
because it could not be healed of his illness by learned medicine. Since he was
cured by the holy twin brothers, he restored the church that had suffered the
damage of time—something that hints at an existence long before Justinian’s visit
in mid-sixth century—and enlarged it, thus giving the weight of imperial authority
to this healing cult.
The important point is not so much the role of the religious therapeutic
intervention than the disappearance it provokes of the healing mechanism and,

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beyond it, of the pathological process of disease which, in turn, is based on the
normal physiological way of functioning of the body. Until not so long ago it was
argued that early Christians saw diseases as a punishment and a way to redemp-
tion and salvation through suffering (Larchet 1991; Perkins 1995). Be that as it
may, the transformation of medicine through Christianity is much deeper. A new
anthropology was developed as early as the fourth century with Nemesios of Ems,
author of On Human Nature (Morani 1987). It resulted in dematerializing body
processes, thus also eliminating both pathological troubles and health recovery.
This disembodiment of medicine is reflected in the therapeutic miracles per-
formed not only by Cosmas and Damianos but also by many healing saints
(Festugière 1971) among whom Artemius (Crisafulli and Nesbitt 1997), for in-
stance.
In an apparent contradiction this process merged with the increased use of
broad spectrum medicines, particularly those made of multiple ingredients. Their
administration, based on the external identification of one or more of the major
symptoms of the disease(s) they were reputed to treat, did not require to inquire
further about the processes of the pathology they were supposed to cure. The
generalization of the use of such medicines had an impact on therapeutic com-
pendia, made of lists of formulae for such medicines in which each such formula
had a typical structure: a title indicating the name of the physician who devel-
oped it and its major indication (that is, the name of one or more pathologies), the
list of the ingredients, and the modes of preparation and administration.
The association of multiple-ingredients, multi-purposes medicines and reli-
gious healing concurred to generate an immaterial, disembodied medicine in
which the analysis of bodily processes—be they those of health or those of
disease—was no longer necessary. This approach may contribute to explain the
lower interest in classical medicine—particularly its Galenic, analytical form—and
the preference given to Dioscorides, De materia medica in the field of remedial
therapy for example. A form of more therapy-oriented medicine, not so much
accompanied by physiological and, conversely, pathological descriptions and
analysis, is already perceptible in the work of Alexander of Tralles (sixth century)
(Puschmann 1878–1879; French transl. Brunet 1933–1937).
Subsequent phenomena of renaissance were characterized by a return to
theoretical thinking in the form of Galenic medicine. This was particularly the
case in the Byzantine Empire in the tenth century during the so-called Macedo-
nian Renaissance after the Iconoclastic crisis which did not only define the status
of images within Greek culture, but also the place to be given to the ancient
legacy, including science (Lemerle 1971; Wilson 1983).
The debate about the interaction of medicine and religion did not happen in
the Islamic world. There is a medicine of the Prophet, but it does not seem to have

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impacted the exercise of medicine. On the other hand, the rules for daily bodily
hygiene and yearly maintenance of health (the ramadan) were not seen as extra-
neous and did not impede the practice of science.
Both in Byzantium and in the West many of the saints who populated the
daily life of people were credited with miraculous healing capacities (Magoulias
1964; Festugière 1971; Horden 1982). Several of them were specialized for certain
diseases. The same is valid about the therapeutic interventions of individuals
with an exceptional status as the kings of France whose contact was supposed to
treat scrophula.
H The Places of Medicine

Another fundamental impact of religion on medicine is the development of the
hospital. The creation of this structure specifically aimed at the treatment of the
sick has been long attributed to the Arabic world (for a study of an Arabic
hospital, Meyerhof 1948 for instance, with a more recent overview of the question
of the birth of the hospital in Horden 2004; 2005; 2008). A renewed analysis of
documentation (started as early as Kousis 1928), specifically of Byzantine hospital
foundation acts (Pournaropoulos 1960; Codellas 1942; Philipsborn 1961; Pantok-
rator typikon 1974, trans. 2000; Halkin 1977–1979; Volk 1983; Birchler-Argyros
1998, with the reservations of Kislinger 1987) and Byzantine manuscripts contain-
ing therapeutic manuals of hospitals, led to locate the concept of this new
medical place in the Byzantine world, particularly the religious communities of
central Asia minor (Miller 1984; 1985). Indeed, Fathers of the Church as Gregory of
Nazianzos (329/30–ca. 390) and Basil (d. ca. 364) had received a classical medical
education. When they later became in charge of spontaneously regrouped Chris-
tians who fled society, or had more official functions, they needed to organize a
medical service out of which the hospital was believed to have developed. A
recent reexamination of this thesis (Crislip 2005) has slightly modified this recon-
struction and moved the origin of community-serving medical structures to Egypt
and the first religious groups autonomously constituted in the desert in the fourth
century.
Whatever the case, from that time on the main locus for the delivery of
community-oriented medical service has been the hospital throughout the medie-
val space (for an analysis of the Byzantine hospital in general, Horden 2006;
2007; for a specific institution Miller 1990). Such structure had different sizes and
functioning rules according to the areas. In Byzantium, hospitals cannot be traced
before the tenth century because of the limitations of extant documentation.
Those that can be traced have been created by the imperial authority, had very

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different sizes (from twelve to hundreds of beds in the Lips and Pantokrator
hospitals, respectively; Delehaye 1921; Pantokrator typikon 1974, trans. 2000),
received an endowment and had their organization regulated up to the very last
detail by their act of foundation. Such documents specified the number of physi-
cians to be present in the hospital, their ranking and titles, together with their
duties and salary. Similarly, they explicitly determined the number of assistants
and their rounds, and any other element of their duties together with all the
material to be available. Also, acts of foundations seem to have included the
possibility of out-patient services (Pantokrator typikon 1974, trans. 2000).
Preserved manuscripts indicate that Byzantine hospitals had therapeutic
formularies in the way of the collections of formulae for medicines alluded to
above, something that hints at a practice of medicine of the type that went
together with this kind of compendia, that is, without much analytical examina-
tion of the patients (Birchler-Argyros 1998; Bennett 2000; 2003; Horden 2013).
For the most recent period of the Byzantine Empire, namely during the four-
teenth and fifteenth century, a hospital in Constantinople, that identified as the
hospital of the King (actually the king of Serbia Uros Milutin III [b. ca. 1285; king
1321–1331]), was a complex structure, as it brought together a hospital, a school
and a library which had a substantial collection of classical medical texts.
Significantly enough it generated a revised edition of Dioscorides, De materia
medica, and had several copies of its text provided with illustrations representing
the plants used for therapeutic purposes (Touwaide 1985; 2006a). It is highly
probable that this activity of both text revision and book production was linked
with the hospital, and that the clinical experience in the hospital guided text and
book production.
In the West, hospitals were initially more modest, as infirmaries in monas-
teries. This was in line with the monastic rule of Benedict of Nursia (480–543),
further implemented, for example, by Cassiodorus (ca. 480–ca. 575) at the Viva-
rium. There, some medical texts were available and were studied, including a
possible Latin translation of Dioscorides, De materia medica, provided it was not
an early medieval remake of the treatise such as Ex herbis femininis. Early mon-
astic infirmaries were made for the treatment of the sick members of the monastic
communities. Later on, Western monastic structures were larger and took a more
important role in society, including a major involvement in the management of
health (Agrimi and Crisciani 1993, trans. 1998). Among their new functions, they
included the provision of medicinal plants to the community through a garden
intra muros, something that does not seem to have been present in the Byzantine
hospitals as far as we can judge from extant documentation. St. Gall in the early
eighth century is the prototype of this new structure. Preserved documentation is
an exceptional source for the understanding of the place of medicine in early

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monasteries. St. Gall plan indicates indeed that there was a house for the physi-
cian, a pharmacy, a ward for critically ill individuals and a room for bloodletting
(Horn and Born 1979). Also there was a kitchen for the preparation of food for
hospitalized members of the community, a bath and chapel. The range of plants
in the garden was not extended (16 species), but large enough to cover most of the
daily necessities. St. Gall became the prototype of a new kind of institution that
propagated through the northern medieval world and was further illustrated by
Hraban Maurus (ca. 780–856) at Fulda, Walafrid Strabo (ca. 808–849) at Reiche-
nau, and, later on, by Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179). The monastery of Lorsch,
whose codex medicus has been rediscovered some 20 years ago (Stoll, ed., 1992),
encapsulates all the streams that contributed to the making of Western medicine
at that time. It is a formulary in the way of the Byzantine ones. It includes a history
of classical medicine and a poem that associates Cosmas and Damianos with
Hippocrates and Galen, followed by some notions of surgery, pharmacy, dietetics
and prognostic, and some of the Aristotelian Problemata (Stoll, ed., 1992). An
alternative to religiously inspired medicine was the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, dating
back to the seventh century. Both charitable and social in nature, it resulted from
an initiative of civil society.
Hospitals in the Islamic world were not substantially different from those in
the West apart from the fact that they were not linked with religious structures
(mosques). Nevertheless, they have been considered the model of Byzantine
hospitals. Be that as it may, several hospitals functioned in all the large cities of the
empire and were often flanked by a school (madrasat) (Meyerhof 1948; Micheau
1996, for instance). They had therapeutic formularies in the way of their Byzantine
predecessors and equivalents (Sbath 1933; for example Sabur bin-Sahl 1994; 2003;
2008; Ibn-al-Tilmid 2007). This Arabo-Islamic tradition was pursued in Asia minor
by the Seljuks, who built a network of such institutions across the area from the
thirteenth century on. Typically enough, Seljuk hospitals were spectacular archi-
tectural structures, many of which have resisted the damage of time.
I Medicine in Action
Whatever the place and the period, medieval medicine mainly focused on the
treatment of the sick (Eftychiades 1983a; van Minnen 1995; Stannard 1999a and b;
Van Arsdall and Graham, ed., 2012). Nevertheless, in the Arabic world it was also
explorative and theoretical since its very beginning. In the late period of Byzan-
tium and the West also, it became again a scholarly discipline in the way of
ancient medicine, possibly because of an Arabic influence (Eftychiades 1983a and
b for Byzantium; García Ballester et al., ed., 1994; French 2001 for the West).

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In the Arabo-Islamic World, medicine investigated much the human body (for
instance Iskandar 1962; more recently, Álvarez-Millán 2000). Taking Galen’s
works as a starting point and using the humoral system to explain body pro-
cesses, physicians and scientists deepened and corrected where appropriate the
knowledge of normal human anatomy and physiology of their Greek sources
(e.g., Abu-Asab et al. 2013). Contrary to their Greek colleagues, they generated
visual representations of human anatomical structures and organs, which are
more conceptual than naturalistic and exact (MacKinney 1965; Brandenburg
1982). The best known result of such investigation is the discovery of blood
circulation by ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288) (Fancy 2006). But this is not the only one:
Arabic physicians explored particularly the structure of the eye, for example,
which they also represented graphically, and visual perception (Lindberg 1976). A
special attention was devoted to psychology, including mental disorders (Dols
1984), and the pursuit of happiness through wisdom and philosophy.
Besides the structure and function of normal human body, Arabic physicians
analyzed the diseases affecting the populations in the Empire. To do so they used
both the humoral system of Greek medicine and the so-called six non-naturals
defined by Galen, that is, elements whose imbalance would contribute to the
appearance of a disease (air; food and drink; sleeping and waking; motion and
rest; excretions and retentions; dreams and the passions of the soul) (for Avicen-
na, for example, Abu-Asab et al. 2013). Not only did they build medical theories
on the basis of such overarching principles, but they also described the clinical
signs of diseases with great exactness. The best known example is the description
of smallpox and measles by abû Bakr ar-Râzî (865–925 C.E.), which has been a
model of clinical observation for centuries.
The most achieved accomplishment of the Arabic World in the field of
medicine was remedial therapy. Arabic physicians systematically inventoried and
catalogued the natural resources (plants, minerals or animals) to be possibly used
as substances for the preparation of medicines. A work similar to that made in the
East by al-Biruni in the Kitâb as-Saidana (Al-Biruni 1973) on the drugs from the
Eastern part of the Arabic empire and beyond (up to India) in the tenth/eleventh
century (Meyerhof 1932; Said and Hamarneh, ed. 1973; Habib 1977; Ehsan Elahie
1977; Anawati 2004), was performed later in the West by al-Ghafiqi (Steinschnei-
der 1879; Meyerhof 1930b; Meyerhof and Sobhy, ed., 1932; Meyerhof 1940–1941)
and ibn al-Baytar, the latter of whom authored the most comprehensive encyclo-
pedia of materia medica of the Arabic World (Ibn al-Baytar 2002 with a French
translation 1877–1883; also Ibn al-Baytar 1990). In such descriptive inventories,
these and other physicians took Dioscorides’s De materia medica as a basis and
used its analytical model to describe the plants, minerals and animals of the
many of the natural environments covered by the Arabic empire. They also

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included pictorial representations of most such substances in their works (Tou-

waide 1992–1993).
Arabic physicians also devised specific theories to account for the action of
medicinal substances on the human body. As early as the ninth century, al-Kindi
created a mathematical model to possibly measure the final property of a remedy
resulting from the mixture of several ingredients (Levey 1966). His efforts were
pursued by ibn-Sina who theorized the transformation of the properties of each of
the ingredients of such medicine by proposing that a new property resulted from
the interaction of all such components.
After the Eastern Arabo-Islamic Empire was conquered by the Mongols in
1258, Persians pursued the work done by their Arabo-Islamic predecessors (Af-
khami 2004; Alʿam 2004; Russel 2004; Sajjadi 2004). Located between the Chi-
nese empire in the East and the Byzantine one in the West, they transmitted their
medical expertise and local medico-pharmaceutical traditions to these empires
(below).
Although prevention of disease through regimen was generalized in the
medieval world according to a diffuse Hippocratic principle (for an early Byzan-
tine example, Grant 1997), it took a particular dimension in the Arabic world,
among others because of the search for an equilibrated life style that aimed to
contribute to individual happiness. Not only were the qualities of all foodstuffs
precisely described (including the best moment of the year to absorb them and
their best regional qualities, their digestibility, their nutritive potential or, in-
stead, their noxiousness), but also all human activities were analyzed and their
benefit to human health evaluated, be it sexual intercourse, physical exercise or
singing, playing or listening to music (the latter as a psychological adjuvant in the
case of mental distress for example). This genre of literature, which was not
totally new since there was a Hippocratic precedent, has been particularly devel-
oped in the Arabic World. With ibn Butlân (1038–1075) it even generated a new
mode of presentation, in which relevant information was tabulated: each row was
devoted to one substance or an activity, and the several columns contained the
data related to that substance or activity according to the descriptors above. This
new genre, identified as taqwim as-sihah in Arabic, meaning Tables of health, was
transmitted to the West where it was known under the title Tacuinum sanitatis in
a phonetic transcription of its Arabic name.
In Byzantium and the West, the approach to materia medica as a field was
different. Compared with the practice of Hippocratic physicians (Aliotta et al.
2003), the vast work of Dioscorides (Dioscorides 1906–1914) appears indeed to be
an encyclopedia that was not necessarily made for daily use in the practice of
therapeutics. Furthermore, although Dioscorides himself specified that he or-
dered the different medicinal substances by groups, he did not specify what these

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groups exactly were. As early as the second and third centuries, Galen divided the
whole field by natural kingdoms (plants, minerals and animals) and organized
the several chapters within each such part according to the alphabetical order of
the substances’ Greek name. This order was reproduced from Oribasius to Paul
of Egina and even later. On the basis of Dioscorides’s alphabetized section on
plants, circa 400 chapters were selected in order to create what is now called the
alphabetical herbal of Dioscorides, whose most ancient manuscript is the famous
codex medicus graecus 1 of the Austrian National library in Vienna, traditionally
dated to 512 but possibly earlier. The rationale for this selection seems to have
been usefulness. Significantly enough, such reduction brought the number of
vegetable materia medica back to an order of magnitude similar to that in the
Corpus Hippocraticum. The West adopted a similar strategy of reduction of the
range of medicinal substances. It proceeded in a different way, however, by
focusing more on local plants that could be found in the natural environment and
the orchards.
Throughout the Middle Ages, most of the attention of medicine was devoted
to the treatment of disease. No epidemiological data—that is, quantified informa-
tion about the frequency of each disease or type of disease(s) according to places
and times—has come to us (for a modern attempt on Byzantine Crete based on
bio-archeology, for example, see Bourbou 2010). Nevertheless, hypothesizing that
ancient treatises of remedial therapeutics reflect with some exactness both the
variety of the diseases affecting the populations for which such treatises had been
written, and the frequency of each of such pathologies in these populations at the
time when these treatises were written, the epidemiology of the populations who
inhabited the Mediterranean region during the medieval period can be recon-
structed with some plausibility (Touwaide 2004b). Excepting epidemic diseases
as plague—be it the so-called Galenic Plague (Gourevitch 2013), the Plague of
Justinian in Byzantium in the sixth century (Little 2008), the several waves of
plague that swept through the Eastern Mediterranean from ca. 1348 to ca. 1466
(Congourdeau 1999), or the so-called Black Death (ca. 1347–ca. 1351) that deci-
mated fourteenth-century populations in the West—whose magnitude and effects
can be estimated from other sources, such reconstruction generates the ranking
that follows (Touwaide 2004b; 2007b; also Horden 2000), in which the hetero-
geneity of categories (by diseases or by affected organs or functional systems)
reflects the differentiated nature of the information provided by textual documen-
tation. Diseases of the digestive and respiratory systems were probably the most
frequent, closely followed by those of the urinary tract. Gynecological and post-
partum complications come in fourth position. Skin affections constitute the next
category in terms of quantitative importance. Malaria is the next. Even though it
was not necessarily well perceived as a nosological entity but was vaguely

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assimilated to fever processes, the periodicity of its attacks of fever was well
perceived. Joint pain seems to have been omnipresent, be it due to age or to
alimentary habits (gout). Interestingly enough, such epidemiology, as far as it is
representative of medieval population, is not so different from current, modern
epidemiology of Western societies, except malnutrition and denutrition, which
were constantly present in the Middle Ages and were a causal factor for further
complications (without being a disease in itself). Insufficient nutrition and its
perverse chain of consequences increased dramatically in periods of climatic
harshness and consecutive food rarefaction. These processes can be best per-
ceived through ergotism. Under precise climatic conditions ergots developed on
wheat. Bread made with flour produced from contaminated spikes had a typical
color and was highly toxic. Nevertheless, it was consumed, generating a broad
series of physical troubles, from mental disorders to necrosis and consecutive loss
of limbs (Matossian 1989) represented in a vivid way in Jerome Bosch’s paintings.
Diagnosis used both urine analysis and pulse as investigative techniques to
identify patients’ affections. In urine analysis, color, consistence, possible depos-
its and layers were significant (Touwaide 2002c; Angeletti et al., ed., 2009). They
were described in specialized treatises often accompanied by chromatic tables in
circular shape allowing for an identification of a pathology. Similarly, pulse was
scrutinized for possible special signs denoting a disease. All its possible varia-
tions were accurately described with a great lexical variety in order to precisely
identify every single state characteristic (intensity, frequency, intervals, for ex-
ample).
Observation of diseases and their evolution included astrological speculation
based on the belief that astral conjunctures have an impact on the sub-lunar
world, specifically human health. Astronomical calendars and notation of zodia-
cal configurations—sometimes presented in a tabular form—were used to predict
the cycle(s) of diseases (for the Greek texts, for instance, see the Corpus Codicum
Astrologorum Graecorum). Many such treatises were ascribed to Hermes Trisme-
gistus, Egyptian priests or humans who had reached an almost mythical status as
Alexander the Great.
Treatment relied on three major techniques: surgery; bleeding, cupping, and
cauterization; and pharmaceutical remedies. Surgery, whose available techni-
ques had been the object of an encyclopedic description by Paul of Egina in his
Epitome medicinae (Paulus Aegineta 1921–1924; on Byzantine surgical instru-
ments, Bliquez 1984; 1999, for instance), was greatly developed in the Arabic
world by the Andalusian abu al-Qasim al Zahrawi (936–1013) (Albucasis 1973). It
is remarkable that the representations of surgical instruments in the manuscripts
of his Chirurgia can be used to understand the descriptions of surgical interven-
tions in Paul of Egina’s medical encyclopedia, something that allows to identify

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the Greek as the source (or one of the sources) of the Arabic. Similarly, both the
illustrations of instruments and the descriptions of interventions by al-Qasim
provide keys to understand the manual of the late medieval French surgeon Guy
de Chauliac (ca. 1300–1368) (Guigonis de Caulhiaco 1997). Surgery was used not
only for major and minor interventions (from separation of siamese children to
the extraction of kidney or bladder stones, and the treatment of all cases of
wounds) but also for orthopedics, including bone manipulations, fractures and
bandages (all of which are best known through the so-called tenth-century Greek
manuscript of Niketas provided with graphic representations of the several tech-
niques described in the text [Bernabò, ed., 2010]) (e.g., Savage-Smith 2000 on
Arabo-Islamic surgery; Park 1998 on late medieval surgery).
Bleeding, cupping, and cauterization were minor interventions. Whereas
bleeding (by means of a razor or by applying leeches) aimed to deplete excesses
of the physiological humors (specifically blood) supposedly responsible for the
pathologies to be treated, cupping was used to attract the matter allegedly caus-
ing a disturbance to a specific point of the body in order to reduce its effect on the
affected organ. Similarly, cauterization was applied on certain points of the body
to burn pathological matter, to make the matter of the body denser by eliminating
the excess of moisture or to close wounds. All these techniques of depletion,
derivation and burning of the pathogenic cause were complemented by applica-
tion of irritating cataplasms with the same function as cupping, by vomiting
provoked by means of emetics, and by purging with cathartics, all being aimed to
eliminate pathogenic substances out of the body.
Medieval pharmaceutical therapy has been occasionally researched (for By-
zantium, for example, Kritikos and Papadaki 1969; Stannard 1984; Scarborough
1984; Papathomopoulos 1990; Schmitz 1998, 205–17; Marganne 2006). The pre-
paration of remedies relied on a range of natural substances that varied through-
out the Middle Ages and the Mediterranean area. The early Western Middle Ages
had a less extended variety of available medicinal plants because of the nature of
its environment, not as rich in biodiversity as the Mediterranean world (Opsomer
1989; Stirling 1995–1998). Medieval physicians relied on a limited number of
native botanical species in a way that is reminiscent of the Hippocratic tradition.
Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages oriental spices and drugs were fairly well
known, the trade of which was probably never interrupted, however rarified it
might have been at some times. Indeed, the trade of eastern drugs that flourished
in the Roman Empire did not decrease during the medieval centuries, even
though it certainly fluctuated (Riddle 1965). Nevertheless, plantations of botanical
species native of a determined environment in the East that had been successfully
introduced in the Mediterranean world in Antiquity and cultivated up to the
sixth/seventh centuries such as the balsam tree—native from southern Arabia—

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did not survive the Arabic conquest. These plantations were no longer taken care
of and plants returned to a wild species. Balsam was no longer available as it was
in previous centuries and it became expensive. Instead, drug trade along the Silk
Road was never interrupted, although it may have moved from the maritime route
to the land one, with several variants in its itinerary (Touwaide and Appetiti
2013). The acquisition of silk worms in Byzantium in the sixth century is a proof of
the continuity of the Road. Later on, the Arabic empire cut the direct Sino-
Mediterranean road, without interrupting the traffic of basic products needed for
the production of medicine products along the Road however, since the Arabic
Empire almost connected the extremities of that-time world, from the frontier of
China to Andalusia (Scarborough 1984; Stannard 1984; Varella 1995; Touwaide
2002b; McCabe 2009). Not only did the Empire make a long-haul trade of drugs
from China to Andalusia possible, but also it fostered the introduction of non-
native plants in new environments. This happened in Andalusia as early as the
eighth century and also later in Sicily and, from there, on the mainland. As a
result, the range of substances for both therapeutic and alimentary purposes was
expanded. This transformation of the natural environment and of known vegeta-
ble species may contribute to explain the proliferation of treatises of medical
botany, regimen of health and works on dietetics—many of which in illustrated
manuscripts—that can be traced in the West from the twelfth/thirteenth centuries
onward. The introduction, acclimatization and, further on, cultivation of non-
native botanical species certainly increased the range of species used for alimen-
tary and therapeutic purposes. At the same time, it may have contributed to
generate a higher level of interest in natural products attested by such treatises as
the Circa instans (Circa instans 1939; also Ventura 2007), Macer Floridus (Macer
Floridus 1832; also Crossgrove 1994), the Tractatus de herbis (Tractatus de herbis
2009), the Liber de herbis et plantis by Manfredus de Monte Imperiali (contained
in manuscript Parisinus latinus 6823 and still unpublished) or the Liber de virtuti-
bus herbarum (Liber de virtutibus herbarum 2007).
Toxicology with its two sub-fields—venoms (injected intracutaneously by
snakes, scorpions and spiders) and poisons (of vegetable, mineral or animal
origin and absorbed per os, that is, in draughts)—was cultivated throughout the
Mediterranean space and the time span under consideration. Such specialized
interest may seem to be an adequate response to the natural environment of the
Eastern Mediterranean, unless it results from an excessive emphasis of ancient
physicians–provided it is not more apparent than real and is artificially created
by the hazards of preserved documentation. A more careful observation of texts
from Antiquity to the Renaissance reveals that preserved works on toxicology
constitute a very unitary body of information which served two main different
purposes. On the one hand, it provides relevant data for the treatment of actual

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cases of envenomation and accidental poisoning. On the other hand—and possi-

bly more importantly—the analysis of venom and poison as a general category of
substances was used as a heuristic instrument for the analysis, understanding,
and conceptualisation of the action exercised on the human body by substances
originally external to it. The development of such concept was fundamental if the
resulting notion could be transferred to therapeutic agents as it could lead to a
better comprehension of therapeutics and provide the basis for any theory on the
mode of action and ontological status of medicines. It is certainly significant that
this epistemological strategy was directly inherited from Antiquity and the re-
search of Diokles of Carystus (fourth/third centuries B.C.E.).
Whereas physicians may have excelled in some specific parts of the medic-
inal art and have written specialized medical treatises (for example, urology,
sphygmology or ophthalmology; for ophthalmology, for example, see Renehan
1984; Lascaratos 1999; Lascaratos and Marketos 1991; 1997; 1999; Savage-Smith
1989), it is not clear whether there were medical specialties, apart possibly for
gynecology-obstetrics. The medical encyclopedias of the early Byzantine physi-
cians included gynecology and obstetrics. Only later on came specialized treatises
like Metrodora’s (attested by only one manuscript), of which we still do not know
whether it is the work of a female author named Metrodora, a guide for their
future life as spouses donated by mothers to their daughters on the occasion of
their wedding, or a set of recommendations and prescriptions accumulated over
time in the milieu of midwives and possibly also physicians, that was further
reorganized and rearranged and subsequently transmitted as the work of a
specific author (Congourdeau 1993; Touwaide 2006c). The case of Trotula in the
West may not be substantially different (Trotula 2001).
Dietetics was the object of much attention for the maintenance of health, the
prevention of disease or the treatment of illness. Foodstuffs were inventoried and
described (with such information as their best quality [most often defined by its
geographical origin such as Damascus plums, for example], the season for the
harvest, the tests to detect alterations, sometimes the price, and the techniques
for long-term preparation), with their dietary properties, their possible collateral
effects and means to counter-balance them, and the ways to prepare them in
order to optimize their benefits. Manuals on this topic also included dietary
calendars that listed available and recommended foodstuffs all around the year,
by season and month.
The care for the physicality of patients went together with an equal attention
for the psychological component of human life in both health and disease. In
Byzantium and the Arabic World dreams were carefully taken into consideration
and books of interpretation provided keys for their understanding (for Byzantium,
Oberhelmann 2008, for instance). Although interpretation of dreams dates back

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to classical antiquity with the incubatory, therapeutic dreams in the sanctuaries

of Asklêpios and, later on, in the churches of the Saints Cosmas and Damianos, it
has to be stressed that dream interpretation books in Byzantium, which no longer
resulted from the incubatory practice but dealt with personal dreams of indivi-
duals analyzed by types, seem to have developed with the translation of such
Arabic manuals into Greek from the tenth century on (for such an example,
Mavroudi 2002). Whatever the case, the psychological component of the illness
process—including the support to be provided to incurable patients—was taken
care of by the personnel of Byzantine hospitals, who also provided the spiritual,
viz. religious, assistance to hospitalized patients.
The exercise of medicine was ruled by legal prescriptions, besides being
implicitly or explicitly governed by ethical code(s) (for Byzantium, for example,
Grumel 1949; more recently, Stathakopoulos 2013). The Hippocratic Oath is
attested by a significant number of manuscripts in the Greco-Byzantine world,
one of which arranged the layout of the text on the page in such a way to create a
cross. The administration of poison was formally prohibited, be it by the Hippo-
cratic Oath or local legislative systems. The separation of pharmacy from medi-
cine stricto sensu is generally considered to be an acquisition of the Arabic world.
Whatever the case, it was included in the Constitution of Melfi promulgated in 1231
by the emperor Frederick II and exposed physicians who entered in a society with
apothecaries to severe fines and punishment (Zecchino 2002). The cult to the
saints Cosmas and Damianos, which developed in the early centuries of Byzan-
tium, resurfaced in the late Western medieval world, but in a completely different
form. The anargyri—so-identified because they did not perceive any salary for
their medical interventions—became the patrons of the guild of apothecaries
(Julien et al. 1993).
Pharmaceutical technology underwent major transformations during the
Middle Ages, particularly in the Arabic World and, consequently, also in the West
(Goltz 1976). The development—or improvement—of distillation made it possible
to obtain refined alcohol, which, in turn, generated new products obtained by
maceration of medicinal plants in alcohol and distillation of the resulting liquid
probably not very different from modern essential oils from a therapeutic view-
point. Pharmaceutical literature was modified accordingly (Touwaide 2010a),
with a new development of the treatises listing medicines by types of pharmaceu-
tical forms in the way of Galen’s treatise De compositione medicamentorum per
genera (On the Composition of Medicines by Types). Interestingly, this new organi-
zation of pharmaceutical literature has been maintained until well into the
sixteenth century as the inventory of prescribed medicines in the Ricettario
fiorentino of 1498 and the analysis of available medicines on the pharmaceutical
market by Antonius Musa Brasavola (1500–1555) make clear.

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Drug containers also have been substantially modified in the Arabic world.
Their variety (in function of the products to be kept (leaves of plants, flowers, oils,
unguents or parts of animals) had been described in great detail by Dioscorides in
the preface of De materia medica (Dioscorides 1906–1914). Apart from boxwood
tubes for dry drugs, tin boxes for unguents and creams, or wooden boxes and
light fabrics for leaves and delicate plant parts, drug jars were ceramic recipients
whose porosity exposed liquid or semi—liquid drugs to a constant process of
oxidation. The Arabic World developed the technique of glazed ceramic. In such
recipients, the internal wall is impermeable, something that prevents the oxida-
tion process and contributes therefore to a better preservation of drugs. Further-
more, Arabic ceramists created a specific form for drug recipient, cylindric with a
light concavity at half height. Both the technique and the form were diffused from
the Eastern part of the Arabic empire to Andalusia, from where they further
expanded to Italy. There they particularly flourished in the late Middle Ages and
in the subsequent centuries with the drug containers identified by the name of
albarello. Finally, Arabic craftsmen also transformed the mortar, by reinforcing its
outer perimeter with flanges.
J Writing and Reading, Teaching and Studying

Transmission of knowledge, including results of clinical practice, was of para-
mount importance in medieval medicine (Wallis 1995 for the West, for instance).
Writing was not only about compiling all-encompassing encyclopedias (even
though it was the case with the late-antique Greek Oribasius, Aetius and Paul of
Egina, as well as with the many Arabic physician-thinkers), but also about
preserving, constantly improving and passing to the next generations the results
of the daily experience of disease and therapeutics (for the Byzantine world, for
example, see the works of Theophilos [Theophilus 1944; Ieraci Bio 1996], Paul of
Nicaea, Romanos [Romanus 1944], Iohannes Archiater [Iohannes Archiater
2000], Demetrios Pepagomenos [Demetrius Pepagomenus 2003], Iohannes Za-
charias Actuarius [Hohlweg 1984], or Nicolaus Myrepsus [Goltz 1976] for example,
not all of which are available in scholarly editions corresponding to contemporary
standards), above all in hospitals (for therapeutic formularies in Byzantium, for
instance, Kousis 1928; Jeanselme 1930; Bennett 2003; Horden 2013).
Knowledge preservation, besides being exposed to transmission errors pro-
voked by manual transmission, has been repeatedly transformed because of the
changes in its vehicle, be it its matter, its shape and its writing systems. The
matter of book passed from papyrus to parchment possibly as early as the fourth
century C.E. if not earlier, and to paper already in the tenth century in the Arabic

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world and from the late thirteenth century on in Byzantium and the West, first
with Arabic paper (of Oriental or Western, that is, Andalusian, origin) and then
with western paper, mainly produced in Italy and to a lesser extent also in South-
ern France. As for the shape of the book, the rotulus typical of papyrus became a
codex during the period from the third/fourth to the sixth century. Writing
systems also were modified in both the Greek and Latin speaking worlds, with the
passage from majuscule and the scriptio continua to the minuscule and word
spacing, in the ninth century in the Byzantine world and in the late eighth century
in the Carolingian world.
Many books containing major medical treatises—contrary to notebooks of
physicians—were illustrated. Whereas in the Byzantine world, preserved illu-
strated manuscripts are almost exclusively about materia medica, particularly
medicinal plants (Touwaide 2008b) with the exception of the corpus of surgeons
in the so-called Niketas codex (Bernabò, ed., 2010), in the Arabic and Latin worlds
illustrated medical manuscripts come from a broader range of medical disci-
plines, anatomy and physiology, gynecology and pregnancy, surgery and thera-
peutics (Médecine au temps des califes, 1996; Jones 1998, for example). There
seems to have been a more specific interest in medicinal plants and illustrated
herbals in the West from the thirteenth century onward (Collins 2000), attested by
large manuscripts, sometimes with plant representations on the full surface of the
folios and sometimes also with true botanical albums, that is, codices of pre-
viously illustrated texts containing only the illustrations of such texts, with
captions. In the case of the Tacuinum sanitatis, in which information was tabu-
lated and consequently reduced to single terms in the relevant cells of the tables,
the loss of information provoked by this mode of presentation and the transforma-
tion, on the occasion of translations from Arabic to Latin, from tables to an
unstructured text juxtaposing the discrete pieces of information that made up the
content of the cells in the tabulated form, was compensated by illustrations which
staged the materia medica and suggested in a visual language the properties of
the substances (or human activity) and any other relevant information previously
contained in texts on materia medica, but no more present in the tabular presen-
tation.
Most of the medical institutions that can be identified in the medieval world
had a library with more or less extended collections (e.g., Wilson 1975). From the
Vivarium of Cassiodorus to the many libraries of the Arabic world with specialized
scientific collections, and the hospitals that can be traced up to fourteenth-
century Byzantium, libraries played a fundamental role in the medieval medical
world, also because books were the support of learning. Many such libraries
suffered from political upheavals. The famous library of Alexandria dating back
to the foundation of the city and its Museum in the late third century B.C.E., has

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been supposed for a long time to have been burnt by the Arabs whereas it was
probably victim of the Roman troops in the first century B.C.E. (provided it was
not a deposit of books that burnt at that time). Most libraries in Constantinople
were ravaged by the Latin troops of the Fourth Crusade (1204–1261) and had their
books reappearing in other libraries after the reconstruction of the city. This was
also the case of medical books, which entered the collections of hospitals (Tou-
waide 2006b; on medicine during the Crusades, Mitchell 2004). Similarly, the
conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 went together with the destruction of
several collections and, possibly, the emigration of scientists and physicians
westward, that is, to Byzantium (Touwaide 2002a).
Books and texts were the support of teaching (Wilson 1975; 1983 for Byzan-
tium). The late antique Alexandrian commentaries on Hippocratic and Galenic
treatises, as well as their Western, possibly Ravennate, equivalents show how
their texts were used in teaching practice (Nutton 1984). The texts were fragmen-
ted in coherent topical units whose lexicon was duly explained and commented
on in order to lead in a second phase to a more synthetic perception of the content
(Dietz, ed., 1834; Pritchet, ed., 1982; Duffy, ed., 1983; Westerink, ed., 1985–1995;
Dickson 1998 for the Alexandrian commentaries, and Westerink, ed., 1981; Pal-
mieri 1981 for the Latin commentaries; for the tradition of such commentaries
within the Alexandrian school, for example, see Wolska-Conus 1992; 1994; 1996;
1998; 2000). The use of such texts in later periods or the production of similar
works suggest that this method was practiced throughout the Middle Ages. The
Arabic World did not proceed in a different way (Brockelmann 1898–1902; 1937;
1938; 1942; Sezgin 1970; Ullmann 1970) in the madrasat (schools) often adjacent
to Mosques and teaching all branches of knowledge from theology to sciences,
passing through law and literature, even though teaching may have been more
personalized. Students sometimes traveled long distances to become the pupils of
famous masters and learn the practice of medicine by assiduously frequenting
such masters with whom they read major works, discussed clinical cases, and
sometimes even shared their daily life (Leiser 1983).
Formal teaching took place in schools of different size and locations through
the centuries. In the early Byzantine World, Alexandria was the major place for
learning, above all sciences, but also philosophy, whereas Athens was more
specialized on philosophy. After the closing of Athens school by Justinian in 529,
Alexandria was the most important school in the Eastern Mediterranean World.
The Arabic conquest in the early seventh century led to the closing of the
Alexandrian school and the emigration of its teachers to Constantinople, where
Alexandrian professors had already started to move in the sixth century. In Italy,
the Byzantine Ravenna emulated the Alexandrian model for a certain time. In the
West, the early medieval centuries saw the development of local schools often

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attached to a monastery or a major church, unless they were later promoted by

the political authority and hosted at the court or in monasteries under the protec-
tion of the political authority. The rising of Baghdad as the major Arabic scientific
center has been the subject of different reconstructions with a transfer supposedly
from Alexandria and an itinerary allegedly passing through Harran. In effect, the
Syriacs, located between the Byzantine and the Arabic empires, played a key role
as intermediaries (Bhayro 2005; Serikoff 2013, for example). It is not sure that the
school of Gondishapur was a major intermediary in this transfer of knowledge,
contrary to traditional medical historiography (Schöfler 1979; 1982; Richter-Bern-
burg 2004a, to be contrasted with Nutton 1984). Cordova and Kairouan were the
seats of flourishing schools. The former was in contact with Constantinople and
the latter originally had in its walls Constantine identified as the African, who is
credited with the launching of the translation activity of Arabic medicine into
Latin in the West. Salerno, where Constantine moved, had regular exchanges with
Constantinople (including Greek texts further translated into Latin such as Neme-
sius, De natura hominis encapsulating Christian anthropology, which was Lati-
nized by Alfanus in the eleventh century). Further to Constantine’s activity at the
neighboring abbey of Monte Cassino and the renewal of medical literature it
contributed to provoke in the west, Salerno became a center that attracted
scholars from afar (Jacquart and Paravicini Bagliani 2008). It is by no means sure
it had a formal school contrary to the legend according to which such structured
institution was founded by a Christian, a Jew and an Arab. Teaching in the West
underwent a major transformation thanks to the creation of universities as educa-
tional organizations regulated by the civil authority (Rashdal 1895). Bologna,
usually considered as the first (1088), was shortly followed by Paris, Oxford and
many others including, in the field of medicine, Montpellier and Padua in the
thirteenth century (on universities and their activity see, for example, Siraisi 2001
for Italy). The university world created a different way to reproduce the textbooks
needed by students: the pecia, that is, the rental of master copies divided in
quires. In the Byzantine world, the most important medical school of the late
period (fourteenth and fifteenth century), the xenodocheion of the Kral, remained
a monastic institution, even though its teaching covered all domains of knowl-
edge in the way of Western universities. It was frequented by Western scientists
(such as Pietro d’Abano [Touwaide 2008d]) and, conversely, some of its teachers
spent some time in a Western university (Ioannes Argyropoulos in Padua, for
instance [Touwaide 1999]).
Books and texts were also read individually. Some physicians were avid
readers and book hunters as the case of Avicenna indicates. Most physicians
probably consulted the books of the libraries in the institutions where they
practiced medicine and annotated them in the margins, not only for their personal

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use, but also for their community to take advantage of their knowledge, experi-
ence, and observations, when they were not also copyists (Gamillscheg 1999).
Such interaction with the text (Mondrain 2003 for the late Byzantine Empire,
for instance) included the practice of editing reference works. This activity was
not limited to reproducing annotated texts and agglutinating or absorbing into
the body of the text possible corrections and marginal annotations in order to
generate a unitary, clean text, but also included actual scholarly editing stricto
sensu. In these cases, several manuscripts of the same work were sought and
collated, and a new text was produced (e.g., Touwaide 2006a). The search for
multiple manuscripts of a specific treatise may contribute to explain the existence
of multiple translations of the same work, each new being made when one or
more manuscripts considered better were found.
The process of agglutination of texts can probably be best seen in the case of
the so-called Articella, or Small Art of Medicine. This set of texts was possibly
created at Salerno or even at Monte Cassino in the late eleventh century. Origin-
ally, it contained the Liber Ysagogarum (that is, the Latin translation of the Arabic
version of Galen, Technê), the Latin version of the Hippocratic Aphorisms and the
Prognostics, and Theophilus, On Urine, together with Philaretus, On Pulse. Such
collection of material of different origins created a coherent set, however limited it
was: general principles of medicine (Aphorisms) and introduction to medicine
(Liber Ysagogarum), together with diagnosis (On Urine and On Pulse) and prog-
nosis (Prognostics). The original nucleus was further expanded, possibly as early
as the end of the twelfth century with Galen, De tegni (Art) and the Regimen in
Acute Diseases of Hippocrates in the Latin version of Gerardo da Cremona (d. 1187).
Whereas the world of classical antiquity was almost monolingual Greek or
Latin (although medical treatises of the early Roman empire relied at least in part
on the translation of Greek works), the medieval world was one of linguistic
multiplicity. Byzantium was neighbored by Armenian, Georgian, Syriac and
Coptic communities and, later on, also by Arabic, Slavic and Turkish ones. The
Arabo-Islamic Empire brought together mainly Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit
speaking populations (besides many other regional languages), and the West was
at least quadri-lingual, Latin, Greek and, later on, Arabic and Hebrew. Trans-
linguistic transmission of knowledge occupied an important place in medieval
medical activity (Touwaide 2010b). Some such programs are well known: the
assimilation of previous science (not only Greek, but also Persian and Sanskrit) by
the Arabic World, mediated through the Syriacs (above); the recuperation of
Greek science through its Arabic versions launched by Constantine the African
(above); the translation of Arabic written legacy (including science and medicine)
into Latin at Toledo by several scholars such as Gerardo da Cremona, and the
translation into Latin of Greek medical literature directly from the Greek—and no

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longer from its Arabic versions—by Burgundio of Pisa (ca. 1100–1193), Arnaldo da
Vilanova (ca. 1240–1311) in Montpellier (leading to what has been called the New
Galen), possibly also Pietro d’Abano (ca. 1250–1315 or 1316) in Padua, and Niccolò
da Reggio (ca. 1280–ca. 1350). Scientists procured Greek manuscripts—sometimes
directly from Constantinople as it seems to be the case with Albertus Magnus
(d. 1280) and Ioannikios—and sometimes by traveling themselves to Constantino-
ple—as did Burgundio and Pietro d’Abano. Less known in its process, but no less
important, is the translation of Greek and Salernitan medicine into Serbian
attested by the so-called Chilandar manuscript. Besides these major processes,
there were many others not necessarily going from Greek to Arabic and from
Arabic to Latin but the opposite way, and not necessarily from the capitals of the
empires to lesser centers, and by learned scholars, but the other way around and
by practitioners. twelfth-century Sicily and the South of continental Italy were
active centers where Arabic medical treatises were translated into Greek. The
best—but not necessarily most known—example is the so-called Efodia, that is,
the translation into Greek of the zâd al musafir wa qut al-hadir (Manual for the
Traveler and Provisions for the Sedentary) by Ibn al-Jazzar (Ibn Al-Jazzar 1998
[sixth book only of the Arabic text]). Translation was not made in a scholarly
milieu, but most probably by Arabic and Greek speaking practitioners who may
not have been bilingual, but worked in collaboration (although they also may
have used an international lingua franca made of loans from both languages).
This and other similar translations made their way up to Constantinople, thus
moving from the periphery to the center (Touwaide 2008c). Another relevant case
is the translation of medical treatises from Arabic into Greek possibly in Constan-
tinople and surely in the Byzantine Empire, attested as early as the late tenth
century and massively in late thirteenth and in the fourteenth century, not only in
medicine but also in such other scientific field as astronomy (Tihon 2000). If some
Byzantine scientists did travel in the territory of the former Arabic Empire, it is
most probably that there has been a massive emigration of Arabic scientists after
the capture of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols (Kousis 1939; more recently,
Touwaide 1997; 2002a and b; 2004a; followed by Mavroudi 2006). Possibly during
the same period, there were also translations from Greek into Latin in Constanti-
nople, perhaps as a result of the Fourth Crusade (1204–1261) (Touwaide 2006b).
Translations of Greek medical treatises into Arabic may have reached areas afar,
with Greek compound medicines being attested in China in the sixteenth century,
where they arrived through the Persians. Characteristically enough, the names of
medicines are the Greek ones transliterated into Arabic alphabet (and adapted to
Arabic phonetic) and these Arabic names have been preserved in the Chinese text
instead of being properly rendered by means of Chinese characters (Touwaide
and Appetiti 2013).

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As the Chinese example indicates, translation (whatever the source and the
target languages) met with the problem of the impossibility to render technical
terms of the source language into the target one. This process has been often
attributed to the fact that translators ignored the translation of these terms. In
reality, things may have been more complex: not only did such terms carry an
implicit meaning in their Greek form (such as the etymology of compound plant
names with similar components [e.g., chruso-]), but also their preservation in the
target language may have added a cachet of authenticity and a pedigree to the
translated text (Touwaide 2009b). Whatever the case, this practice created a
lingua franca that was neither of the source and target languages and that may
not have been understood any longer outside the context in which they were
created. Bilingual lexica and more ample dictionaries were necessary in order to
provide the meaning of such hybrids (Touwaide 2000). The most comprehensive
such dictionary was compiled toward the end of the thirteenth century in the West
by Simo Januaensis, who is considered to have concluded the translation period
in medieval medicine. It might be significant that at almost the same time Pietro
d’Abano compiled a synthesis of all interpretations of classical philosophy,
natural philosophy and medicine that made the substance of university teaching
and intellectual debates at the turn of the thirteenth to the fourteenth century,
trying to reconcile them as he made clear from the title of the work: Conciliator
differentiarum philosophorum [et] medicorum.
Translation activity during the Middle Ages was not limited to the major
classical languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew [on the latter, Lieber 1984;
García Ballester 1994, for example]), but was also made in the direction of the
developing vernaculars. As early as late antiquity, the Anglo-Saxon world, for
example, received from Byzantium medico-therapeutic texts that have been the
productive source of a long-lasting tradition (Talbot and Hammond 1965; Getz
1981; 1998; Hunt 1990; 1992; 1994; 1997; Rawcliffe 1995; for a specific individual,
Demaitre 1980). The rise of the vernacular combined with the politico-military
affirmation of nations/areas such as Italy (for a recent edition of an Italian
medical treatise, Prio 2011), France (Wickersheimer 1926; Jacquart 1979; 1981) or
Spain (McVaugh 1993).
K The End of the Middle Ages

Whereas Byzantium was increasingly pressured by the Ottoman troops and was
reduced to its capital, the territories once in the Arabo-Islamic empire were living
a political reorganization characterized by the gradual elimination of the Arabic
presence in Spain (the Reconquista), the rising of Mamluk Egypt and the creation

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of the Ottoman empire covering most of the Eastern Mediterranean area. Contrary
to a traditional historiography, the practice of science and medicine did not come
to a halt in the Arabic speaking world. During the same period, several indivi-
duals emerged in the West. They came from different backgrounds and made
differentiated contributions that represent well the multiplicity of aspects of
medicine during the late Middle ages, from Taddeo Alderotti (between 1206 and
1215–1295) at the university of Bologna to Jacopo Berengario da Carpi (1460–
1530), who explored human anatomy and is considered a precursor of Andreas
Vesalius. The practice of scholastic commentary on, and disputation about,
classical and founding texts of medicine, science and philosophy (Jacquart 1993),
also including their interpreters, went together with the development of a new
genre of medical literature, the consilia, which were long-distance consultations
and, indirectly also, devices for personal promotion and career advancement and,
to some lesser extent, teaching (Agrimi and Crisciani 1994). Among the indivi-
duals who left an imprint in the late medieval centuries in the West, one could
mention Mondino de Luzzi (ca. 1270–1316), an anatomist and surgeon who taught
in Bologna; Dino del Garbo (ca. 1280–1327), who studied with Taddeo Alderotti,
commented on Avicenna, and taught in several universities, including Bologna
and Padua; Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348), famous for his practice of anatomy;
Giacomo della Torre, best known as Jacopo da Forlì (ca. 1360–1414), another
professor who exercised in several universities in northern Italy, from Bologna to
Padua, and commented on a broad spectrum of medical works in use at that time;
and the Sienese Ugo Benzi (1376–1439), who was a brilliant teacher commenting
on the corpus of works used in universities, and a practitioner whose services
were much sought after.
In the meantime, the Byzantine Empire fell on May 29th, 1453. Many Byzan-
tines in exile contributed to the increase in the diffusion of Greek medicine in the
West that had already started before the Fall of Constantinople. The rediscovery of
the works of classical antiquity in their supposed purity (instead of their Byzantine
versions, their Arabic translations, and the Western epiphenomena they were
supposed to have generated) provoked a rejection of medieval medicine, consid-
ered to have altered the Greek legacy. A leading figure in the reintroduction and
revival of the medicine of classical antiquity was the Ferrarese physician Nicolao
Leoniceno (1428–1524) who recommended to abandon the medieval therapeutic
practice and to return to Dioscorides, to the first printed edition of whose Greek
text he collaborated with the Venetian printer and publisher Aldo Manuzio. In so
doing, Leoniceno rejected the experience painstakingly accumulated over the
centuries, generation after generation (Touwaide 2007c).
None of the late-medieval physicians or first-generation humanists—includ-
ing Leoniceno—concluded the medieval period, as the use of Avicenna’s Canon,

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for example, indicates, since it was taught until late in the sixteenth century in
Renaissance universities (Siraisi 1987). In such a renowned university as Montpel-
lier, its text was mandatory until 1542, when Bishop Guillaume Pellicier (ca.
1490–1568) did bring Greek texts from Venice where he had been Ambassador of
France to the Serenissima. Among such texts was Dioscoride’s, De materia medi-
ca, which he introduced in the teaching of remedial therapeutics (Touwaide
2007d). Interestingly enough, these years are also those of the foundation of the
botanic gardens of Pisa and Padua, and of the Belgian Andreas Vesalius (1514–
1564), whose anatomical explorations and their graphic rendering rematerialized
the human body putting an end to its immaterial approach inaugurated more
than ten centuries earlier by Christian anthropology. Through his De humani
corporis fabrica published in 1542, Vesalius might have contributed more than
any humanist to the end of medieval medicine. At least he generated a knowledge
that compensated for the lacunae of Christian anthropology developed more than
ten centuries earlier, and put in place epistemologic and heuristic techniques that
made it possible to rapidly make this anthropology obsolete.
In the Ottoman World, the Greek speaking populations perpetuated the
medieval, viz. Byzantine, tradition, which they wrote down in what is generally
known as the iatrosofia, that is, handwritten manuals of medicine often presented
by their title as containing the works of Hippocrates, Nemesius (or Meletius),
Dioscorides and Galen. This Post-Byzantine tradition survived the Fall of Con-
stantinople for centuries, until the Independence of Greece in the early nineteenth
century and even later.
L The Next Frontier

From the beginning of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the history of
medieval medicine is undergoing a deep modification. The rapid changes in
medical investigative techniques, specifically medical imaging and ancient DNA,
have made it possible to exponentially expand the range of evidence to be used to
reconstruct the history of medieval populations, provided reliable archeological
material is available, contamination can be avoided, and laboratory results can
be duplicated in one or more other units than that (or those) where results were
first obtained. As a consequence, there has been an increasing medicalization of
history—from the confirmation that historical plague epidemics were provoked by
Yersinia pestis for example (Schuenemann et al. 2013) to the reconstruction of
Richard III’s face, for instance, on the basis of his skull—and, conversely, a
displacement of the center of gravity of medical history, which is moving from the
humanities to laboratories (e.g., Gibbons 2013).

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Medical history in this new form may contribute to clarify historical events
and moments apparently unexplainable. On the basis of the identification of
malaria on skeletons in a fifth-century cemetery north of Rome, for example, it
has been suggested that the volte-face of Attila (d. 453) in 452 might have resulted
from his awareness of the presence of the disease in the area, which would have
weakened, if not decimated, his troops had he entered the region. Be that as it
may, there is, in a certain sense, a dispossession of medieval medical history and
medico-historical research from medieval scholars. The discipline is now a colla-
borative investigation, multi-disciplinary in nature, whose center of gravity is
now in archeological fields and laboratories (where the remains of the subjects of
medicine, that is, the humans, can be found and analyzed, respectively), rather
than only or mostly in libraries, archives and other documentary repositories. It is
indeed the scientific analysis of human remains that provides now the evidence
that becomes the primary source of the medico-historical investigation and helps
understand the written record of practice. This transformation is also modifying
the publication panorama and geography. Traditional historical monographs,
through still published and desirable, are not necessarily the main or the only
arena for cutting-edge research, which is now published in high-impact interna-
tional scientific journals, be they Science, Nature or the Proceedings of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences, for example.
Select Bibliography
Angeletti, Luciana Rita and Alain Touwaide, ed., Medicine in Byzantium (10th cent.–1453) (Rome
1999), 2 vols.
Angeletti, Luciana Rita and Alain Touwaide, ed., Arabic Medicine (Rome 1994–1995), 2 vols.
Conrad, Larry I., “The Arab-Islamic Medical Tradition,” The Western Medical Tradition 800 B.C. to
A.D. 1800, ed. Larry Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, et al. (Cambridge 1995), 93–138.
Conrad, Larry, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, et al., ed., The Western Medical Tradition 800 B.C. to
A.D. 1800 (Cambridge 1995).
Nutton, Vivian, “Medicine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” The Western Medical
Tradition 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800, ed. Larry Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, et al.
(Cambridge 1995), 71–87. [= Nutton 1995a]
Nutton,Vivian, “Medicine in Medieval Western Europe, 1000–1500,” The Western Medical Tradi-
tion 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800, ed. Larry Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, et al. (Cambridge
1995), 139–205. [= Nutton 1995b]
Glick, Thomas F., Steven J. Livesey and Wallis Faith, ed., Medieval Science, Technology, and
Medicine: An Encyclopedia (New York and London 2005).
Grmek, Mirko D. and Bernadino Fantini, ed., Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the
Middle Ages, trans. Antony Shugaar (Rome 1993; Cambridge, MA, and London 1998).
Grmek, Mirko D. and Bernadino Fantini, ed., Storia del pensiero medico occidentale, vol. I:
Antichità e medioevo (Rome 1993).

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Pormann, Peter E. and Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine (Edingburgh and
Washington, DC, 2007).
Prioreschi, Plinio, A History of Medicine, vol. 4: Byzantine and Islamic Medicine (Omaha, NE,
2001).
Siraisi, Nancy G., Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and
Practice (Chicago and London 1990).

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Scott Gwara
Medieval Manuscripts
A Manufacturing the Leaves of a Manuscript Book

Although texts have been incised on stone, clay, bone, metal, wood, wax, and
other media (Clemens and Graham 2007, 3), the earliest manuscripts surviving
from antiquity were mostly written on papyrus sheets, a reed-pulp substrate that,
when manufactured into rolls (scrolls), could be repeatedly unspooled (Lewis
1974). Pith fibers stripped from inside the papyrus reed were laid at right angles
and pressed to form a single sheet. Multiple sheets could be glued together to
create a roll, although papyrus was also used to manufacture codices (books with
leaves). Only the inside or “recto” of a roll was written on, the outside or “verso”
left blank. Popular for writings either memorized or to be memorized, the roll was
eclipsed by the codex among fourth-century Christians, for economy and conve-
nience (Roberts and Skeat 1983), but also arguably in reaction to the format of the
Torah and in appreciation of the Christian method of comparing Scriptural refer-
ences. While the roll was awkward for textual analysis, the codex enabled users to
compare multiple sources efficiently. The Christian monopoly on learning in the
Latin West meant that texts transmitted on papyrus rolls were ultimately copied
into codices. The roll format nevertheless survived in some medieval texts like
the Compendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi by Peter of Poitiers (ca. 1130–
ca. 1215), genealogical chronicles, prayer texts intended for memorization, and
documentary records (Frankpledge rolls, Pipe Rolls) (Clemens and Graham 2007,
250–58). Torah scrolls continued to be produced on leather throughout the period.
The basic unit of the medieval codex is the “bifolium,” a parchment sheet
folded in half. “Parchment” refers to animal hides soaked in lime, scraped, gently
stretched, scraped again, dried, scraped again, and cut into sheets for writing (de
Hamel 1992, 8–12; Quandt and Noel 2001, 14; Clemens and Graham 2007, 9–13).
The term “vellum” can be used interchangeably, although it designates calf-skin,
etymologically. Hides of sheep, goats, and calves were commonly used to make
parchment, each having slightly different appearances when processed, some-
times depending on the animal’s coloration. Imperfections in the hides caused by
injury, including insect bites, and flaying might lead to holes or slits in the
parchment (Clemens and Graham 2007, 11). Processing with a curved blade called
a lunellum (lunarium) could likewise damage membranes. Damaged sheets were
often stitched up but holes frequently survive in medieval manuscripts. Scribes
wrote around them.

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Whole animal skins were used for large choir books, the sheets of which
could exceed twelve square feet, but each processed skin could be halved over
and over to produce diminutive manuscripts. The thickness of parchment de-
pended largely on the extent of scraping during production. The thinnest “uterine
vellum,” allegedly from the hides of stillborn animals, arguably represents a
thinly scraped or split membrane (de Hamel 1992, 16). Since parchment was
considered durable, the production of diaphanous membrane in the early thir-
teenth century seems counterintuitive, but the material enabled entire bibles to
be written in a single lightweight volume. Even undesirable parchment frag-
ments, such as pieces trimmed off near the legs, tail, and neck, could be used to
make manuscripts (Clemens and Graham 2007, 12). The most durable writing
foundation ever devised, parchment spread to Europe with the diffusion of
Christianity because it could be made anywhere, while papyrus could only be
manufactured in Egypt.
Once prepared, parchment sheets were tacketed (laced together with a thin
parchment tab; Clemens and Graham 2007, 15) or folded into “quires” (“gather-
ings” of bifolia) that, for most of medieval Europe, consisted of eight sheets
(“quaternions”) or ten (“quinions”). Throughout medieval Europe the hair side of
a bifolium appeared on the outside of a quire. Because the “hair” and “flesh”
sides had different appearances—the hair side typically yellower—the common
practice of placing like against like created a uniform page opening. Flexible
configurations of smaller quires (e.g., trinions, deuterions) could complete vo-
lumes less wastefully. Single folia could be stitched or glued into books as well.
Larger quires of twelve to twenty leaves, or (exceptionally) twenty-four can be
found in small bibles and breviaries with tissue-thin vellum. Alternatively, the
large membranes may simply have been folded and cut (possibly after copying),
like modern printed books (de Hamel 1992, 19). A formula designating quires by
Roman numerals and folios by superscript Arabic numbers conveys the structure
of a medieval book. The hypothetical formula I12 + II10 + III2 means that the first
quire consists of twelve folios, the second of ten, and the third of two. Refine-
ments to this shorthand identify added, removed, or substituted folios.
Due to Moslem influence in the Mediterranean, paper first appeared in manu-
scripts from Mozarabic Spain around the middle of the twelfth century (de Hamel
1992, 16; Bloom 2001, 206–09). Its manufacture spread to Italy by the second half
of the twelfth century (Bloom 2001, 209–12), but paper for manuscript books
became popular in Mediterranean Europe only in the fourteenth century, when
the price, quality, familiarity, and commercial availability made it advantageous.
Paper was not widely employed in Germany until the fifteenth century, and
entirely imported into England until the very end of the fifteenth century. To make
thick, pliant medieval paper, macerated and retted (fermented) flex, hemp, or

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linen rags were literally beaten, separating the fibers into a slurry of pulp (Hunter
1967, 175–79; Clemens and Graham 2007, 7). A wire mesh papermold was dipped
into the pulp and lifted, depositing a layer of overlapping fibers onto the frame.
The mesh was formed of “chain-lines” running vertically on the frame which
anchored a weave of thinner “laid-lines” running horizontally. Because the pulp
was slightly more transparent along these lines, the paper retained this woven
pattern. Paper stocks can sometimes be localized and dated by water-marks, a
“trademark” image created by wire twisted onto the wire mesh (Briquet 1907).
After the water drained from the frame, the sheets were pressed (“couched”) and
dried. Low acidity made paper long-lasting, but its disadvantages included great-
er susceptibility to water, mold, and insect damage, and, though sized (coated to
hold ink), disintegration from corrosive inks. In the fifteenth century paper was
reserved for university texts, memoranda, ledgers, and notarial records (de Hamel
1992, 16), but by the end of the period one finds prayer books and liturgical
volumes made of paper, especially in Germany and the Netherlands. Many
classical texts and commentaries were copied on paper in fifteenth- and six-
teenth-century Italy, where commercial production had lasted longest. Consid-
ered inferior to vellum, paper was seldom used for illuminated books until the
second half of the fifteenth century, largely in Germany.
The quires were prepared for writing by ruling vertical and horizontal
bounding lines. Laying down a rule (ruler) on “prickings” (tiny holes) in the
margins enabled scribes to produce straight lines (Quandt and Noel 2001, 15; de
Hamel 1992, 20–21). Different instruments—a knife, awl, or spiked wheel—could
be used to make the pricks (de Hamel 1992, 23–25). Prickings were sometimes
intended to be planed off during binding. Either open sheets or folded quires
could be ruled. Up to the early twelfth century a hard metal stylus was
commonly used to incise lines on the parchment (“hard-point ruling”), leaving
furrows on one side of a sheet and ridges on the other (de Hamel 1992, 23;
Clemens and Graham 2007, 15–17). Over time these lines became less visible.
From the twelfth century a blunter lead or “plummet” stylus became widespread
(Clemens and Graham 2007, 16–17). This change meant that leaves were ruled
individually. Graphite was less common for ruling, but ink was frequently used
after 1400, often pink or violet in Books of Hours (also called Horae), for which
ruling became decorative. Paper manuscripts, too, were commonly ruled in ink.
A “rake” was frequently used to rule four- and five-line staves for music manu-
scripts (de Hamel 1992, 25). Modeled on Carolingian archetypes, many Italian
humanist manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were ruled using
a frame strung with cord or wire. Laid onto this frame, the parchment (almost
exclusively goat-skin) was rubbed to produce lines resembling those made by a
stylus (de Hamel 1992, 25).

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Ruling enabled scribes to copy uniform, legible pages. Bounding lines de-
fined the textblock on all sides, the height of the textblock typically equal to the
width of the page (de Hamel 1992, 21). Folios were ruled according to the texts
they were intended to receive, and some rulings were complicated. Ruled in three
columns, for example, glossed bibles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
usually had multiple vertical and horizontal bounding lines so that the text space
could be expanded, or used flexibly for colored initials (de Hamel 1984, 16). The
central column of a glossed bible contained the scriptural text, written on every
other line, while the Glossa Ordinaria filled the surrounding lines (Smith 2001,
45–47). Most medieval books, however, were ruled with one or two columns.
Bibles and breviaries conventionally had two columns, while Books of Hours and
missals had one. Four columns per page are found in ancient bibles like the
Codex Sinaiticus and in addenda to small bibles, such as the Interpretation of
Hebrew Names, and arguably influenced by the eight-column opening of a Torah
scroll. Unruled books were informal (de Hamel 1992, 20–21).
B Writing the Manuscript Book

Once the parchment was ruled, a text could be copied. Scribe, patron, and
tradition doubtless influenced the layout (mise-en-page) of most manuscripts,
which were carefully planned, especially in the early period when scribes also
contributed artwork (Alexander 1992, 4–34). With some exceptions from Renais-
sance Italy (Clemens and Graham 2007, 9), the pages were written before binding.
The procedure for copying is undocumented, and while a sequential copying of
leaves in an unbound gathering seems most plausible, one extant parchment
sheet has been copied before folding into a quire (de Hamel 1992, 25). Standard
ink recipes of lampblack (soot) mixed with gelatinous gum Arabic and water (de
Hamel 1992, 32; Clemens and Graham 2007, 19), or oak galls (a source of tannic
acid) boiled with iron sulfate (vitriol) made uncorrosive, dark, and normally
indelible inks (de Hamel 1992, 32; Quandt and Noel 2001, 16). Recipes could vary,
however. Vegetable and mineral pigments supplied multi-colored inks and
paints, especially red, the color for rubrication, and blue, a “contrasting” color
used in decoration and for initials large and small. Illustrations in manuscripts
show inkwells made from animal horns or pressed leather; fired clay pans (bowls)
held paints. Numerous inkpots at a writing desk would probably have contained
black, red, and blue ink.
Bird feathers (chiefly goose quills) were adapted as pens by trimming the
barbs and hardening the sodden tips in hot sand, after which the quills could be
shaved with a penknife (de Hamel 1992, 29). A number of skillful cuts and slits

Authenticated
would yield a pen that, through surface tension, dispersed ink evenly from the
barrel. The nib could be narrowed to produce the tiniest letters (de Hamel 1992,
27–29). Because the ink density changes as the supply runs out, the quill requires
attentive dipping, and the pot constant mixing, otherwise the letters will look
inconsistent. When the nib wore down, it had to be re-cut to the same dimensions.
Infrequently, one can detect when the quill was re-charged or the pen re-cut. Late
medieval illuminations of scribes sometimes show multiple pens, suggesting
either one quill per color or the readying of pens for efficiency. A reed could be
used to form large letters of substantial width, like those in a choir book.
Most illustrations of scribes show acts of composition rather than copying,
sometimes on scrolls and pugillares (tablets hollowed out and filled with dyed
beeswax; Büll 1977), or even in bound volumes. A few, however, suggest that
copying was done at a lectern (de Hamel 1992, 35). Bound or unbound exemplars
(exemplaria) were positioned on a sloping stand above a steeply-tilted writing-
desk. The copy-text might be held in the lap as well. The angle was ergonomic, for
the quill had to be held perpendicular to the writing plane for efficient function
(de Hamel 1992, 29). Adjustable weights tied to string held down the parchment
sheets on exemplar and copy-text, while gentle pressure from the penknife
prevented the support from flexing—and was handy for correction. The same
weight on the exemplar rested above the line being copied. The desk was outfitted
with holes for inkhorns and quills. It has been alleged that disbound manuscripts
were copied by quire to expedite their reproduction (Clemens and Graham 2007,
22), though considerable problems of layout could arise from this method (Gwara
1994). Continuous copying, on the other hand, would have to allow time for the
ink to dry twice for every bifolium, a significant inefficiency (Quandt and Noel
2001, 17). Yet images of scribes copying onto rolls of parchment overlaid by
weights suggest either that the ink dried quickly or was not susceptible to smear-
ing. Many individuals could contribute to a single manuscript, sometimes in
remarkably short stints. Idiosyncrasies in the handwriting reveal the various
contributions. The invention of the lens in the thirteenth century may have aided
miniaturization of manuscript books, in which some letters are barely a milli-
meter high. A portrait of illuminator Simon Bening (1483–1561) shows him hold-
ing “eyeglasses,” which are just as likely to be lenses for his miniature artwork
(de Hamel 1992, 63–4).
Manuscript layouts were planned by the copyist or a principal scribe, if the
copying was collaborative. Planning would not only include determining the size
of page, number of lines, or placement of glosses, but also plotting space for
illumination, decoration, and headings. Original compositions were doubtless
transferred to parchment after being composed on schedulae (strips of waste
parchment), pugillares, or paper. Copying from an exemplar seems different, and

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we cannot even be certain whether scribes were reading, let alone interpreting,
what they copied. In many cases scribes simply copied letters pari passu, while in
other cases they seem to have subvocalized the text, memorizing a few words.
Capturing phrases too long for easy recall can generate disordered or erroneous
words. Smudged or malformed letters might be misread and set down as non-
sense. While familiar alphabets presumably enhanced accuracy, some exemplars
could be ancient or foreign, have unfamiliar words (e.g., transliterated Greek), or
be written with eccentric ligatures (combined letters), and abbreviations, all of
which could engender errors.
Most texts from the Middle Ages were composed in Latin, an inflected
language with common word-endings, like -us, -ibus, -tur, and with frequent
terms like et (“and”), qui (“who, what”), quoniam (“since”), per (“through”), and
the like (Cappelli et al. 2011). The expense of parchment and the value of labor
gave rise to scores of abbreviations saving space and time. The commonest ones
included the “nasal suspension,” a single line above a vowel indicating an
omitted m or n. A small horizontal line above a p signaled “pr(a)e,” while an
angled stroke through the descender meant “pro,” and a straight line “per.” Holy
names (nomina sacra) like deus (“God”), iesus (“Jesus”), and cristus (“Christ”),
and common Christian vocabulary such as sanctus (“holy”), ecclesia (“church”),
and misericordia (“pity”) had recognizable contractions. Nonetheless, the variety
and extent of abbreviations from throughout Europe inevitably caused confusion,
as scribes wrestled with interpretability.
Susceptible to distraction, misunderstanding, lapses, and ineptitude, scribes
made mistakes when they copied. Texts changed through error or well-inten-
tioned editorializing often disseminated “shared errors” to apographs (subse-
quent copies), leaving “corrupt” manuscript traditions traceable to common
source-texts. In this context, “error” means any deviation from an authorial text.
Many “errors” are perfectly grammatical and therefore undetectable. For exam-
ple, the accidental omission of a prepositional phrase or an adjective may not
affect the sense. Because paleographers have identified the many ways in which
copyists can err, at least some shared errors can be exposed deductively.
“Manuscript culture” therefore differs from “print culture” because theoretically
unfixed texts could be “corrupt”—or alternatively “contaminated” though col-
lation with other witnesses—circulating with wrong but perfectly grammatical
readings. Modern editors can either reconstruct the hypothetical “authorial”
version of a text (the method called Lachmannian, from Karl Lachmann, 1793–
1851) by systematically correcting errors, or else they can represent a documen-
ted, if unauthorial, form of a text, with all its accumulated changes (the
approach called Bédieriste, from Joseph Bédier, 1864–1938). Classicists typically
seek authorial versions of texts, while medievalists emphasize textual commu-

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nities in which contaminated texts circulated (Stock 1983, 90). A “textual com-
munity” might be a monastery and its sister houses, all having the same
“corrupt” or “contaminated” text because they were all supplied with copies
from the same scriptorium. Because many vernacular texts have less status, they
are seldom deemed authorial witnesses unless composed by a major figure. In
many cases, each copy of a vernacular text is considered a separate authorial
“performance.” Though each perspective is distinctive, editors using either one
will generate stemmas (stemmata), branching models detailing notional inter-
relatedness (Huygens 2000).
Mistakes detected by scribes and other readers required correction, but ink
has to be scraped away with a pen-knife or stylus-end, fanned flattened for ruling
and erasing. Scraping commonly raised the nap on parchment, if it did not tear
through completely. For this reason, some errors were “expunged” (literally,
“pointed out”) by placing small dots below letters, words, or phrases to be
deleted. Omissions long and short were commonly added in margins, sometime
correlating with matching signes de renvoi. Manuscripts were frequently collated
(compared to other manuscripts,) and the variant readings that arise through
miscopying could be added in the margins. Professional workshops came to
employ proofreaders to correct errors, as universities regulated the accuracy of
textbooks, and especially bibles. In many texts, especially bibles, added text was
framed in red ink as a sign of accuracy.
Before about 1200 manuscript production usually took place in a monastery,
cathedral church, or royal chancery (Alexander 1992, 20). While traveling illumi-
nators have been documented for this period (Alexander 1992, 12), manuscripts
were produced “commercially” not in professional workshops but in abbeys,
which apparently sold manuscripts (Gwara and Porter 1997, 135). Female religious
also produced manuscripts indistinguishable from those made by men (Beach
2004). After about 1200 commercial manuscript workshops emerged in tandem
with universities, first in Paris and later in Bologna and Oxford. In the thirteenth
century these workshops chiefly produced scholars’ glossed bibles, as well as
small bibles demanded by students and friars alike. Illuminated examples could
be luxurious, but most simply have “historiated” or decorated initials. Workshops
produced other books, of course, and in fact the first extant Book of Hours was
produced in an Oxford workshop around 1250. Students competed with profes-
sional scribes in book production. In these same university centers a rental
system arose in which quires called peciae (“pieces”) were rented for a fixed term,
usually a week, and copied by students (Destrez 1935). Peciae enabled students to
finance manuscript production. Furthermore, evidence survives of a second-hand
market for books from the thirteenth century, and because parchment manu-
scripts were valuable, they were frequently pawned.

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From ca. 1200 onwards, one begins to find more and more scribes identified
in “scribal colophons,” brief statements appended to manuscripts which can
record names, dates, and places related to copying. The Benedictine monks of
Bouveret have compiled thousands of names from which it is possible to identify
scribal œuvres (Saint-Benoît de Port-Valais 1965–1982). Comprehensive studies
also exist for notable scribes. The project called “Dated and Datable Manuscripts”
(or “Manuscrits Datés”) has now published more than sixty volumes with plates
of dated manuscripts in European collections, from which it is possible to refine
the individual and generic conventions of medieval handwriting.
C Decorating the Manuscript Book

Patrons, scribes, stationers, and the availability of artists or materials could
influence the extent and quality of manuscript decoration. Book decoration
arguably arose in tandem with the parchment codex, possibly because papyrus
rolls would flake paint. Before about 1100 many scribes probably acted as illumi-
nators—pictores (“painters”) in Latin. Apprentices trained under a master (Alex-
ander 1992, 12). Not only were craftsmen both secular and monastic, but they
might also be foreign; especially after ca. 1200 mendicant friars engaged in book
production (Alexander 1992, 23 and 29–30). One finds, for example, Italian manu-
scripts with French decoration, or English ones with Italian decoration. While
some evidence implies a speculative book trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries (Alexander 1992, 20), most manuscripts were commissioned, whether
produced in a monastery or professional atelier. Yet manuscripts copied for
“personal” use can be identified, especially in the period after 1300.
Students, Italian humanists, clergy, and monastic inmates all produced
manuscripts for personal use. If not sent out for decoration, these humble produc-
tions commonly have the simplest embellishments, poor quality parchment (if
not paper), and blank spaces intended for decorative letters. By contrast, scribes
and “limners” (illuminators) were skilled professionals, especially after ca. 1300,
and surviving contracts, guild records, and payment ledgers betray regard for
their expertise. Large-scale commercial book production required a market. The
foundation of the University of Paris and its cosmopolitan prominence made it the
center of illumination in thirteenth-century Europe until competing enterprises in
Italy and England arose.
Multi-colored initials as well as panel art were painted directly onto the
parchment. Because initials were graded by size, color, and decoration, they were
used to structure texts by sentence or verse, chapter, section, book, and so on.
Decoration served as a means of locating passages, for each page opening would

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have a unique, memorable appearance. Manuscripts were normally “rubricated,”

as red ink was widely available. Decorative letters are specified by size: one-line,
two-line, etc. One-line initials can be colored, or highlighted by a red line (which
resembles a deletion) or by an ochre wash, among other treatments. Initials larger
than two or three lines are generally multicolored, sometimes just red and blue,
sometimes much more elaborate. Small and mid-size initials alternate in color,
usually red and blue, from the twelfth century onwards. In the period after about
1200, small “flourished” initials sprout a profusion of delicate penwork swags in
contrasting colors that extend into the margins. Many other kinds of decorated
initials have been labeled, including fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spanish
strapwork initials, white vine initials from Romanesque and Renaissance Italy,
so-called “frog spawn” initials filled with circled dots resembling amphibian
eggs, puzzle initials with interlocking multicolored components, and zoomorphic
initials made from imaginary beasts (van Moé 1949). In many Spanish choir books
of the sixteenth century one encounters dense “Moorish” filigree in blue and red.
Initials could be made of gold leaf, glued directly to the parchment or laid
over puddled gesso (Plaster of Paris), and typically situated on multi-colored
grounds (de Hamel 1992, 57). Alternatively, colored initials could be painted on
gold grounds. Gold had to be applied after copying but before painting, since the
leaf stuck to every surface, and vigorous burnishing (with an animal tooth)
damaged surrounding illumination (de Hamel 1992, 57). Even the smallest gold
highlights (e.g., a halo, ivy leaves, a coin) had to be finished first. Because silver
became brittle when beaten thin and tarnished quickly, it was seldom used for
manuscript illumination. After 1400 initials were often highlighted with liquid
gold ink concocted from powdered gold (“shell gold”). Highlights in white ink
conventionally appeared beforehand and remained universal. Smaller initials of
all kinds were apparently produced by journeymen who followed plummet or
dry-point guide letters placed in the margins (lettres d’attente). The scribes
themselves doubtless added initials in many instances. The chance survival of
rare manuscript pattern books documents the variety of decorative initials a
patron could stipulate and suggest increasing design uniformity (Alexander 1992,
92–94; de Hamel and Lovett 2010).
“Historiated” or “inhabited” initials were filled in with small pictures gener-
ally related to the text. For example, the sanctorale of a missal might feature
important saints. Especially in Italy and France, monumental choir books could
have correspondingly outsized historiated initials. Bibles often had extensive
programs of illumination, far more elaborate in the Old Testament than the New,
which featured an Evangelist for each of the Gospels and St. Paul for all the
Pauline Epistles. Historiated initials showing multiple scenes from a single bib-
lical episode are said to be “narrative” (Pächt 1962). Jonah swallowed by the fish

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in the upper compartment of an initial S and delivered to Nineveh in the lower

compartment conveys transpired action. Some individual tableaux were static
(e.g., portraiture), but many depicted action. Dry-point sketches have been identi-
fied next to many thirteenth-century illuminations and interpreted as master’s
models (Alexander 1992, 63–70). In some cases, brief summaries of a scene
specify what illustration should be provided, and where (Alexander 1992, 69–71).
Even within stipulated scenes (often dictated by workshop conventions), latitude
existed for creative interpretation. For example, images of Isaiah-sawn-asunder
in medieval bibles show him being transected horizontally across the midriff, or
vertically from head to groin, or groin to head. Idiosyncratic illustrations (often
deluxe commissions specified by a patron such as those in Romanesque Bibles
Moralisées; Lowden 2000), images for new compositions, and extensive “pro-
grams” (series) of illumination had to be designed (Alexander 1992, 53–54).
Occasional mistakes reveal misinterpretations of the text (Peterson 1994).
The margins of manuscripts were frequently decorated. Humorous marginal
drolleries and grotesques were especially common in the fourteenth century,
especially in Psalters and Books of Hours. They have been deemed mnemonic
devices (Carruthers 1990), subversive textual commentaries (Camille 1992), ap-
pealing distractions for the tedium of prayer, or entertainment for children who
learned Latin from Psalters. One also finds patron portraits, complicated foliate
swags, straight “bars” in gold and colors sprouting foliage at their termini, gold
panels filled with geometric designs, garlanded armorials, fantastical trompe-
l’oeil flowers and insects, and flying putti (cherubs). Especially in fifteenth-
century Books of Hours “rinceaux” borders contained brightly colored feathers,
ivy tendrils, and multicolored blossoms. Decorative borders may be dated by their
increasing design complexity (Scott 2002).
Until the Book of Hours gained prominence after about 1300, large-scale art
was rare in medieval manuscripts. In the early period before 1100 luxury bibles,
Gospels, Psalters, Pontificals (service books for bishops), and Sacramentaries
(mass books) often boasted full-page illuminations commensurate with a patron’s
status and wealth. The earliest large-scale panel illuminations depict Vergil’s
Aeneid (composed 29–19 B.C.E.), biblical scenes and other Christian imagery like
evangelist portraits (Weitzman 1959), and emperors and other dignitaries (largely
as the recipients and bestowers of manuscripts) (de Hamel 1986, 38–75). In the
Romanesque period one finds illustrated Apocalypse commentaries, enormous
bibles, bestiaries (depictions of animals, real or fantastic, and their symbology),
and Psalters with large-scale illumination. After the Romanesque period illumi-
nated manuscripts with full-page artwork became more common. Before about
1200 gold appeared mostly in luxury manuscripts, illumination typically being
painted.

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Yet outline drawing continued. The English especially experimented with line
drawing enhanced by colored wash, an Anglo-Saxon style practiced in the thir-
teenth century by the Englishman Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–1259) and which
remained popular for centuries. Related are the demi-grisaille (colored gray-tone)
drawings of Jean Pucelle (ca. 1300–1355) and Willem Vrelant (d. ca. 1482) and his
Flemish and Dutch coevals. Similarly tinted drawings can be found in Italian and
German manuscripts of the fifteenth century and later. Scientific manuscripts had
epexigetical drawings, often quite distorted by generations of transmission, and
even literary texts like romances and histories could boast elaborate pictorial
cycles. Illuminations in secular texts were comparatively rare and ultimately
reserved for aristocratic commissions.
After ca. 1200 illuminations could be handled by a team. For example,
abbreviations would indicate what colors should be used in various parts of an
image (Alexander 1992, 45–46), while borders and initials would be handled by
novices. Masters had identifiable styles and pictorial approaches, and work-
shops plausibly owned pattern books on which illuminations could be modeled
(de Hamel 1992, 51). Extant illuminations in some Books of Hours imply that
masters sometimes collaborated, or else the stationer handling the commission
would apportion the work between ateliers (de Hamel 1986, 178). Similarly,
many fifteenth-century Flemish and Dutch Books of Hours had illuminations
produced elsewhere and tipped in. Evidence exists of copies made by pricking
through transparent sheets laid over designs (called “pouncing”; Clemens and
Graham 2007, 30). These sheets would then be rubbed with chalk, revealing the
traceable outlines. In the age of print, some manuscript copyists replicated
popular etchings and woodcuts. Alternatively, printed woodcuts could be illu-
minated like manuscripts, or even cut out and pasted into manuscript books
(Bühler 1960).
From about 1300 to 1540 the Book of Hours was provided with standard
illumination programs, usually one full-page miniature for each of the eight hours
in the Hours of the Virgin, and one miniature each for the Gospel lessons, Hours
of the Holy Spirit, Hours of the Holy Cross, Penitential Psalms, and Office of the
Dead. Smaller miniatures accompanied prayers to the saints called Suffrages.
While the scenes themselves could vary greatly in subject matter, two sets of
illuminations were standard: an Infancy Cycle featuring the Virgin’s pregnancy
and events surrounding Christ’s Nativity and a Passion Cycle treating events
surrounding the Crucifixion. From ca. 1400 the renewal of affective piety called
the Devotio Moderna in the Netherlands made the Passion Cycle more popular in
the Low Countries, and when Flemish Horae were exported to England, they often
featured this program. Because medieval artists had no access to first-century
Middle Eastern costumes or architecture, manuscript illuminations often feature

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contemporary European clothing and interiors. Rare in manuscripts, life “portrai-

ture” was restricted to select commissions.
Beginning in the early Italian Renaissance book artists commonly painted
altar panels, and while highly regarded book artists (and scribes) sometimes
identified themselves before 1300, artistic and stylistic identities emerged in the
illuminated Book of Hours, for which hundreds of European artists can be
identified. Many of the best illuminators developed national, if not international,
reputations. Commissioned by wealthy clients or employed by kings and prelates,
these artists could influence regional tastes for decades. Such authority was
effected through stock patterns (arrangement of figures) as much as characteristic
styles (facial modeling, coloration) (de Hamel 1986, 179–85). Women also earned
reputations as illuminators (Hamburger 1997). As a standard commercial produc-
tion, Books of Hours were exported and sold both regionally and internationally.
For example, Horae produced in Flanders from about 1400 to 1450 were com-
monly exported to England, where the Flemish styles were imitated. Furthermore,
Books of Hours made in Paris, say, can have a “use” (local custom of prayer) for
quite distant communities (de Hamel 1986, 169).
Many manuscripts have been altered, some already in medieval times. Books
of Hours can be updated by the addition of novel Offices, prayers, and new forms
of private devotion. Personalizing them with the addition of family histories
(births, deaths, marriages, etc.), arms and armorials, and familiar prayers (some-
times in the vernacular) was common (Duffy 2006). Some manuscripts had pages
removed, deleted, or re-arranged. For example, under an edict of Henry VIII
(1491–1547), most Books of Hours in England had Suffrages to St. Thomas à
Becket (ca. 1118–1170), either mutilated or removed. “Canceled” leaves were
detached because of damage, egregious miscopying, or anticipated substitution.
Other manuscripts show the addition of glossing, illumination (either original
artwork such as frontispieces, or grangerized cuttings), penwork flourishing, and
utilitarian textual apparatuses (such as kalendars, indexes, abstracts, headings,
and content lists). Almost every manuscript reveals its use and history in annota-
tions like ownership inscriptions, pawn pledges, pen-trials (words written to test
a newly cut quill), maniculae (“little hands” pointing to important text), and
underlinings. Unfinished manuscripts survive, some of which were completed by
later scribes or artists. Most famously, the Limbourg brothers (fl. 1385–1416)
began illuminating the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry (1340–1416), but
the illumination program was supplemented by an anonymous artist, and later
completed by Jean Colombe (ca. 1430–ca. 1493; Classen 2012a). Printers often
marked manuscripts from which they set type, and many have been identified.
Especially in the later period, and in predominantly university contexts, related
texts were gathered into anthologies with coherent themes: crusading, pastoral

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care, Latin verse, monsters and mythological beings, romances and chansons de
geste, penitential manuals, mathematical compilations, legal tracts, bible com-
mentaries, medical recipes, etc.
D Binding the Manuscript Book

Once illuminated or decorated, the parchment folios were ready for binding.
Because the gatherings were easily disarranged, “quire signatures” indicated the
proper sequence by alphanumeric symbols. Signatures might simply be numer-
ical (generally Roman numerals) or also indicate quires, as ai-aviii, bi-bviii, ci-
cviii, and so on (for hypothetical quaternions, in this case) (Clemens and Graham
2007, 50). These symbols might be abstract, too, such as circles lengthening
vertically like chain links. Catchwords (some with elaborate decoration) on the
versos of the last leaves in a quire recorded the first word or words on the
following gathering, enabling the quire to be assembled in proper sequence,
assuming the internal bifolia were coherent. Many manuscripts went unbound,
circulating as booklets, or else the quires were stitched into parchment wallets. If
bound, the quires were laid on a frame, then pierced through the middle with a
strung needle, the thread subsequently wrapped around multiple leather thongs.
The ends of these thongs were drawn through channels in flat but relatively thick
oak or beech boards, then nailed or pegged (Pollard 1976). The boards were
covered in alum-tawed leather, or calfskin whose tooled panels were inset with
images. In most cases before ca. 1300 the boards just covered the textblock
without any overlap. Over the centuries, the covers began to overlap slightly. So-
called “girdle bindings” allowed individuals to suspend small manuscripts
(usually a bible, breviary, or prayer book) from a belt. “Chemise bindings”
comprised loose fabric wraps that protected the covers and could be used to prop
up a book. In the sixteenth century one finds silk brocade bindings, their fragility
often leading to replacement. Pink-dyed pigskin over oak boards was popular in
Germany from ca. 1350. Paper manuscripts were bound in the same way as
parchment, but because paper was softer than parchment, the gutters were often
reinforced with parchment tabs or slips (“sewing guards”). One often encounters
quires of Italian paper manuscripts with external and central parchment bifolia,
to improve the binding’s stability. Many medieval books were supplied with
straps, keeping the vellum leaves under slight pressure and preventing cockling
(puckering). Corner mounts and central bosses prevented bindings—especially
those on large, unwieldy choir books—from getting damaged. Brass pegs around
the edges lifted the manuscripts above the lectern shelf so that the pages could be
turned easily. Especially in Germany and the Low Countries manuscripts were

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sometimes supplied with cartouches glazed in transparent horn covering a title

block. Bejeweled “treasure bindings,” known from the fourth century, can be
found on Gospel books copied for Carolingian and Ottonian emperors and, in the
later period, on similar service books. Such bindings frequently incorporate older
decoration, including ivory tablets, metal-work, and precious stones. Complete
enameled bindings as well as enameled mounts survive from after ca. 1200.
Especially in the fifteenth century and later, bindings could incorporate book-
marks. Most often these resembled multi-colored threads attached inside the
spine, or even strips of parchment, but one type of bookmark used a rotating disc
with letters A to D that could be moved up or down along a cord. The letters
indicated the column where one stopped—the full opening of a two-column
manuscript has four columns, A, B, C, D—while the disc’s position on the cord
designated the line. Many kinds of manuscripts, but especially missals and choir
books, were tabbed for efficient reference, some with leather stubs, folded finger-
tabs, or so-called “Turk’s Head” or “turban” tabs (pippes) for easy reference
(Clemens and Graham 2007, 43). Many such books were tabulated by trimming
parchment cantles from the edges, like modern dictionaries.
Books could be stored flat in a cupboard, in book chests, or in book presses.
Book chests were common before about 1200, and because manuscripts were
stored fore-edge down, leather tabs were left on the top and bottom of the spine,
enabling users to pull out the manuscripts. On presses manuscripts were stored
standing up with the fore-edge facing out, so that visible titles, authors, or press-
marks had to be indicated on the fore-edge. Because medieval parchment manu-
scripts were valuable, libraries occasionally chained books to lecterns or desks.
Only a few chained libraries have survived intact, though many manuscript
bindings still preserve evidence of being chained (holes, rust, chain links).
Chained manuscripts to be shared by relatively poor but literate populations have
been documented.
E Dating and Localizing the Scripts of Medieval

Books
Manuscripts may be dated and localized directly through scribal colophons,
which can identify the scribes, where they copied a manuscript, and the date they
finished writing, or inferentially through inscriptions, kalendars, historical refer-
ences, and similar kinds of evidence. Books of Hours, for example, typically have
a “use,” which in France especially may indicate the area where the manuscript
was copied or to which it was destined. Since some kalendars providing dates for

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Easter were presumably generated in the year in which the manuscript was
copied, they can yield reliable dating criteria. Less exact is the convention of
copying “above top line.” After ca. 1240 French scribes consistently started copy-
ing texts below the top bounding line instead of above it (Ker 1960). In many
instances, too, the manuscript artwork can convey chronological and geographi-
cal information, because styles of illumination are well documented. This evi-
dence is better after 1200. Beforehand, the discipline of Paleography (the science
of ancient scripts) often supplies such evidence.
In general terms the study of scripts depends on alphabetic graphs, their
formality (connectedness of strokes, the number of “pen-lifts” used to form the
letters) and execution (elements like compression and angularity). Letters
(graphs) were not created the way we make ours today, either cursive or printed.
Our cursive “lower-case” letters have no more than two pen-lifts, while capitals
have no more than four, E being the exception. Medieval scribes generally used
many more strokes of the pen to form their letters. Lower-case a, e, and s, for
example, were shaped with at least three strokes. More pen-lifts entail greater
skill, time, and artistic accomplishment—calligraphic “formality,” in other words.
Among other things, the term “ductus” describes the formation of graphs from
individual pen-strokes.
Scripts were hierarchical, depending largely on the difficulty (effort and skill)
with which they were rendered. Paleographers distinguish between majuscule, a
script written between two imaginary bounding lines, and minuscule, scripts
written with ascenders and descenders on an imagined four-line staff. Majuscules
resemble capital letters, while minuscules look “lower-case.” Rarely used for
continuous texts in the medieval period, majuscules are found in the ancient and
late antique periods, and seldom in parchment codices. Alphabets called Rustic
(Canonical) Capital, Square (Lapidary) Capital, Uncial and Half-Uncial were two-
line scripts. “Monumental” in appearance, Rustic Capital and Square Capital were
intended for the most formal books like the Aeneid (composed 19–29 B.C.E.) and
seldom used for Christian texts, for which Uncial and Half-Uncial script were
employed. Before the early medieval period “continuous” text in these scripts
exhibits little or no word separation (hence called scriptura continua) because
they were either slowly subvocalized or spoken aloud, and in any case memor-
ized. Word-division came about in seventh-century Ireland and England in
response to the study of Latin as a foreign language (Saenger 1997). However,
majuscules were used widely for “display scripts,” which, like titling, introduce
new textual divisions.
From ca. 800–1200, varieties of Caroline (or Carolingian) Minuscule domi-
nated scriptoria in much of Europe, inclusive of proto-Caroline and proto-Gothic.
An experimental script promulgated from the royal Abbey of St. Martin’s at Tours,

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Caroline Minuscule enhanced legibility with an open, proportioned, and easily

written alphabet, at the same time that it displaced regional styles as a national
script. Before 900 many regional varieties were practiced, such as Luxeuil Minus-
cule in France and Visigothic Minuscule in Spain. Nearly all became obsolete,
though some, remaining isolated, were fossilized (e.g., Beneventan Minuscule,
which survived into the sixteenth century).
Because many alphabets express regional or national idiosyncrasies, a sys-
tem of generic classification has been proposed. Three types of minuscule script
have been postulated: Textualis, Cursiva, and Hybrida (Derolez 2006, 20). (These
Latin adjectives implicitly modify “littera gothica.”) The formation of a, f, and s
determine the category. Within these forms one can define three levels of execu-
tion between calligraphic scripts, which show formality in the separation of
individual strokes, and tachygraphic scripts (produced rapidly), with a great deal
of connectedness (not compression), since the pen was infrequently lifted in the
formation of letters. When “controlled,” tachygraphic scripts may look “formal.”
They differ from documentary (diplomatic) scripts, which are frequently tachy-
graphic but used for records. Paleographers distinguish three gradients between
calligraphic and tachygraphic script: formata, media (libraria), and currens (Dero-
lez 2006, 21). The degree of connectedness between strokes determines whether a
script is “shaped” (< Latin formata “formed”) or “fluid” (< currens “running”). A
script in between “formed” and “fluid” is called “middle.” European Gothic
scripts from the period from ca. 1250 to 1500 may thus be described by coordinate
terms: “Textualis formata” (“Textualis script with carefully shaped letters”),
“Hybrida media” (“Hybrid script with letters showing some careful shaping and
some connected strokes”), and so on. Some additional refinements have been
suggested to this scheme (Derolez 2006, 23–24). Regional or national character-
istics must also be accommodated. For example, variants in the Textualis Formata
scripts of northern Europe include Textualis Formata Quadrata or Textualis For-
mata Praescissa, and others, all of which depend on the treatment of serifs.
Descenders of the “quadrate” scripts terminate in diamond-shaped serifs, while
scriptura praescissa (meaning “cut off”) has no added terminations. Finally,
scripts in regions straddling distinctive styles (Austria/Italy, France/Spain, Ger-
many/the Netherlands) often show stylistic admixtures. Pan-European develop-
ments both in script (and decoration) usually occurred a generation or two later
in Germany. Similarly, countries outside mainstream Europe—Poland, Bohemia,
Ireland, or Scandinavian lands, for example—show delayed and curiously dis-
tinctive writing and decoration.
Other paleographical terms include “openness,” which describes legibility
and depends, first, on whether the bows of graphs like b, p, and o were either
rotund or ovoid (compressed). Second, thickness of the nib enabled scribes to

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write pen-strokes of variable width (“shading”), normally wide for vertical com-
ponents and thin for horizontal ones (sometimes called “hair-lines”). The ratio
and angularity led to significant lateral compression that, in the late Gothic period
(after 1400), make Textualis varieties challenging to interpret. Finally, the pen can
be held straight (or the parchment rotated) so that wide strokes are vertical rather
than angled. For the period in England before ca. 850, the difference between
Half-Uncial and Hybrid Minuscule scripts is merely the angle of the pen.
For the most part new scripts were either designed, like Caroline Minuscule,
or experimentally generated by the elevation of lower-grade varieties, mostly
cursive. Over time Caroline naturally evolved into late medieval Gothic scripts.
Yet other scripts were derived from it through deliberate experimentation, like the
variety of proto-Gothic script characterizing Romanesque glossed bibles and,
later, northern French Pocket Bibles (de Hamel 1984, 35–37). Most successful was
Humanistic Minuscule, a refined derivative of Caroline Minuscule which retained
its precursor’s openness and rotundity. The Italian Humanists Coluccio Salutati
(1331–1406), Niccolò de’ Niccoli (1364–1437), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459)
designed the script ca. 1400 (de Hamel 1986, 220), and it was widely disseminated
in Italy (and eventually to France) for copying classical texts. The tachygraphic
form of Humanistic Minuscule was called Italic. Interestingly, Italian manuscripts
in Humanistic Minuscule were typically decorated with “white-vine” initials, the
design of which derived from Italian Romanesque models (de Hamel 1986, 220).
Two kinds of punctuation were practiced in the Middle Ages, chiefly in aid of
oral recitation (Parkes 1993). These features could help navigate the sense by
indicating syntactic divisions, breath-pauses, or emphatic intonation. The older
punctuation per distinctiones emerged from post-ancient times when Latin was
beginning to be somewhat less familiar. Dots called punctus were placed next to
the final letter of a word that ended certain syntactic pauses: a punctus at the
baseline (subdistinctio) indicated a minor pause or sense-unit, but at mid-height
(media distinctio) a more significant break. A dot or punctus at the top of a final
letter (distinctio) marked the end of a sentence or period. This system corresponds
to the ancient and early medieval practice of dividing texts into cola (short
syntactic units), commata (longer syntactic units), and periodi (complete syntactic
units), terms which themselves give rise to our own English terms—and concepts
of—the colon, comma, and period. While punctuation per distinctiones developed
other symbols beyond the punctus, it did not last beyond ca. 1100. Instead,
positurae punctuation emerged as the dominant form to mark reading, public or
private. Originally a Carolingian development, a punctus, punctus elevatus, and
punctus versus sequentially performed the same function as the three distinctio
marks, while the punctus interrogativus indicated a question. Curiously, the
punctus versus was largely replaced with a punctus by ca. 1100. Cistercians

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predominantly and Carthusians sporadically employed the punctus flexus to

signal a medial pause. Marginal quotation marks resembling apostrophes survive
in some manuscripts, largely for Scriptural citations. Similarly, patristic autho-
rities are frequently cited in the margins of multi-volume glossed bibles, an
innovation attributed to Peter Lombard (ca. 1096–1164).
F Numbers and Types of Manuscripts

An estimated 500,000 pre-1600 manuscripts survive in collections worldwide,
almost all of which are later than ca. 1200. Survivals increase dramatically for
each century. The earliest manuscripts from Western Europe (before ca. 800),
including papyri fragments, total less than 3000. Approximately 1000 manu-
scripts survive from all of pre-Conquest England. Before ca. 1100, therefore, the
texts circulating in medieval Europe were rather limited. Because Benedictine
monasticism dominated Christian education, surviving texts from the period
before 1100 document monastic emphases. Liturgical manuscripts and service
books were always in demand, as wave after wave of reform, renewal, and
expansion impacted European monasteries and convents. Yet the late medieval
book-types we recognize as missals, lectionaries, breviaries, antiphonals, and
graduals did not have the same format as in the later Middle Ages. Books of Hours
did not exist. Psalters, however, remained common, since they were used in
services and for elementary Latin instruction. For the same reason, Latin gram-
mars by Donatus (fl. ca. 350) and Priscian (fl. ca. 500), Isidore’s (ca. 560–636)
encyclopedic Etymologiae, and Latin glossaries (dictionaries) were universal.
However, with the exception of so-called “Tours Bibles” and a handful of “pan-
dects,” complete bibles were exceptionally rare. For the early period Gospel books
were widespread and, as central texts in the mass, produced in deluxe versions.
Single-author compendia, chiefly “patristic” in the widest sense (mainly St. Au-
gustine [354–430], Jerome [ca. 347–420], Ambrose [ca. 330–397], Cyprian [d. 258]
and Gregory the Great [ca. 540–604]) circulated in this period, and compilations
of saints’ lives and homilies for pious reading were relatively abundant. Only the
oldest and wealthiest foundations encouraged the study of Classical or literary
texts, which often consisted of moral readings by Aesop (ca. 620–564 B.C.E.) or
Fabianus (fl. ca. 50) and classical or biblical epic (Vergil [70–19 B.C.E.], Sedulius
[fl. ca. 400–450], Iuvencus [fl. ca. 300–340], Arator [fl. ca. 500–550]). Greek was
almost entirely unknown in the Middle Ages, after ca. 800, and exceptionally rare
even beforehand. Only slightly more common were Roman authors, notably
Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), Ovid (43-ca.18 B.C.E.), Horace (65–8 B.C.E.), Livy (59–17
B.C.E.), Persius (34–62), and Martial (40-ca. 103). The tradition of intensive gloss-

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ing (annotation) emerged in Carolingian times, and commentaries were produced

both on major texts like the Psalms and on minor but inscrutable ones like De
nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii by Martianus Capella (fl. ca. 400–450). Texts by
native authors had minimal, if respectable, circulation, with exceptions like
Bede’s (ca. 672–735) exegetical writings.
Texts as well as book formats multiply after ca. 1200. The twelfth century
extends the monastic emphasis, with the production of glossed bibles in as many
as twenty volumes and “Atlantic bibles,” many more than 540 mm tall (21"). This
period saw the production of verse bible epitomes, none more popular than the
Aurora by Peter Riga (ca. 1140–1209), homiletic compilations, bible commentaries,
theological tomes, and scholastic reference works useful for university education,
above all Peter Lombard’s (ca. 1096–1164) Sententiae. Monastic texts were being
surpassed in numbers by university texts. Miniature (portable) books originated in
the thirteenth century, as the friars (Dominicans and Franciscans, chiefly) carried
them in preparation for preaching. Small bibles served the market for students,
too (Light 1994). At the same time a penchant grew for illuminated Psalters,
sometimes prefaced by luminous full-page illuminations—a luxury format con-
tinuously produced into the fourteenth century. At Bologna, known for its canon
and civil law curriculum, mammoth glossed Decretals of Gregory IX (ca. 1230) and
Justinian’s Digest (ca. 530–533) were copied for study (de Hamel 1986, 131–33).
By the end of this period French and English scribes were producing richly
illuminated Books of Hours. The genre spread to Italy at the end of the fourteenth
century. Formats varied. In addition to the “Hours of the Virgin,” “Hours of the
Holy Cross,” and “Hours of the Holy Spirit,” fifteenth-century Books of Hours
typically opened with a kalendar, for determining saints’ feast days, and incorpo-
rated four Gospel readings, a Litany of the Saints, the seven Penitential Psalms,
the Marian prayers “Obsecro te” and “O intemerata,” suffrages to the saints
(metrical prayers), and an Office of the Dead, with Psalms and readings from the
Book of Job to be recited for departed loved ones (Wieck 1997). Books of Hours
were used to teach children the alphabet, essential Latin prayers, the biography
of Christ, and the legends of major saints. Translated Books of Hours, called
Primers, are rare, except in the Netherlands, where multiple Dutch versions
circulated as part of the Affective Piety practiced there.
From the fourteenth century more utilitarian texts were being produced, as
educated students and laymen circulated their own works. By the beginning of
the fifteenth century the Italian Renaissance had blossomed, engendering manu-
scripts of classical texts in record numbers. Many of these, and corresponding
commentaries, were copied on paper. Others, however, were transcribed for
aristocratic libraries on creamy parchment, and magnificently illuminated. The
unmistakable appearance of Humanist manuscripts produced in this period con-

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trasts with the Italian Gothic scripts and decoration that were still largely em-
ployed for sacred works.
A few words on vernacular manuscripts may clarify their status and circula-
tion. Vernacular texts are exceptionally rare in the period before 1100. Old
English, the best documented early medieval vernacular, survives largely in a few
dozen manuscripts. Illuminations in many of these explain their survival. Gothic,
Old High German, Old Frisian, Old Spanish, Old Irish, Old Welsh, Old French (and
Norman French), Occitan (Provençal), and “Old Italian” survive less extensively.
European vernaculars are better attested after 1100, and with increasing fre-
quency through time. Poetry by Chaucer, Machaut, Dante, and Petrarch was
copied widely. Prose texts became even more common. The English tradition
serves as an object lesson. A large number of texts are unique: prayers, medical
recipes, riddles, charms, and so on. In fact, Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400), Hilton (ca.
1340–1396), Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1386), Lydgate (ca. 1370–ca.1451), Wyclif (ca.
1320–1384; Middle English bible), Prick of Conscience (composed ca. 1370), the
prose Brut chronicles and homilies (sermons), account for a substantial propor-
tion of manuscripts. Many such texts are translations from Latin sources. Few
ever circulated outside of an aristocratic, or at least literate, milieu. Generally
unadorned, almost never illuminated (or capably illuminated), vernacular manu-
scripts had significantly less status than Latin ones. Exceptions have to be made
for Italian poetry, since Petrarch (1304–1374) and Dante (ca. 1265–1321) were
esteemed, and for extravagant manuscripts created for elite patrons.
G Manuscripts in the Age of Print

Print technology emerged in the middle of the fifteenth century. As manuscript
workshops competed with printers, the price, quality, and rate of manuscript
production diminished (Bühler 1960). Printed books replicated manuscripts,
some being printed on parchment and illuminated by the same craftsmen who
decorated manuscripts (Chaytor 1945). Soon, however, woodblock illustrations
were themselves being painted like manuscripts. The manuscript trade collapsed
first in the provinces and then in the cities, so that by ca. 1550 manuscript
production became chiefly artisanal. In general, copying survived wherever in-
dividuals composed texts, duplicated printed books, or transliterated older manu-
scripts for study or publication. In Germany and the Low Countries, for example,
the Reformation produced an abundance of documents, treatises, anthologies,
and commonplace books of theological bias. The traditions of medieval manu-
script production continued in Iberia, as choir books too large to print economic-
ally were written and decorated by hand through the eighteenth century.

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The rise of print imperiled older manuscripts by accelerating their loss. Rela-
tively inexpensive, yet accurate and uniform printed volumes turned the medieval
book into an obsolete curiosity. Gold leaf was scavenged from illuminated manu-
scripts by pounding them over tubs of solvent. Parchment books were rendered
into glue, if not put to other uses, domestic and commercial. In fact, books were
recycled as binding waste—covers, flyleaves, and sewing guards—a medieval
practice as well. Before print technology, medieval manuscripts were recycled (or
discarded) because their texts were illegible or old-fashioned, their script obscure,
or the volumes too damaged to be serviceable. Most susceptible to loss were service
books, unadorned volumes (typically early), and ephemeral compilations. Though
relatively rare in western Europe after 1200 and uncommon beforehand, “palimp-
sests” were parchment books whose leaves were scrubbed, turned 90°, and re-used
for other texts. Palimpsests are far more common in Greek and eastern manu-
scripts. In the age of print, as in the Middle Ages, antiquarian rather than utilitarian
interests sometimes preserved ancient books from ruin. Some were deemed relics,
while others were simply valuable ancient property. The antiquarian book trade
emerged at this time from the large-scale plunder of medieval libraries.
Select Bibliography
Alexander, Jonathan J. G., Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven, CT, and

London 1992).
Bühler, Curt F., The Fifteenth-Century Book: The Scribes, the Printers, the Decorators (Philadel-
phia, PA, 1960).
Classen, Albrecht, “Rural Space in Late Medieval Books of Hours: Book Illustrations as a
Looking-Glass into Medieval Mentality and Mirrors of Ecocriticism,” Rural Space in the
Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: The Spatial Turn in Premodern Studies, ed. idem (Berlin
and Boston, MA, 2012), 529–59.
Clemens, Raymond and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, NY, 2007).
De Hamel, Christopher, Scribes and Illuminators (Toronto 1992).
De Hamel, Christopher, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (Boston, MA, 1986).
Derolez, Albert, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books from the Twelfth to the Early
Sixteenth Century, rpt. ed. (2003; Cambridge 2006).
Hunter, Dard, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, 2nd ed. (1943; New
York 1967).
Parkes, Malcolm B., Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West,
1st American ed. (Berkeley, CA, 1993).
Pollard, Graham, “Describing Medieval Bookbindings,” Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays
Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (Oxford 1976),

50–65.
Wieck, Roger S., Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York
1997).

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Kisha G. Tracy
Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting
A Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting in

Scholarship: Major Contributions and Trends
Scholarship on memory has explored the historical, philosophical, or theological
works that are concerned with explicating the medieval conception of memory.
The study of memory in the Middle Ages mostly begins with Frances Yates and
her Art of Memory, published in 1966. Before this work, there was little systematic
attention paid to the processes of memory in the medieval world. While Yates’s
work traces the art of memory from classical sources all the way to the seven-
teenth century, she spends a significant amount of time on the medieval treat-
ments of memory. This study, however, is restrictive. Mary Carruthers, who, in
1990, published what is still the definitive study of medieval memory, The Book of
Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, comments that Yates believed
that the goal of the art of memory was to repeat previously stored material, that it
was “static,” without movement, imprisoning, and, as a result, Yates did not
outline the basic pedagogy of memory in the Middle Ages (Carruthers 1990, 9).
Carruthers wrote her study because she found most scholars asserting there
was little interest in memory in the medieval period, despite the proven impor-
tance of orality in textual transmission, especially in the early Middle Ages. For
this reason, the study of orality—such as, for example, Brian Stock’s The Implica-
tions of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh
and Twelfth Centuries (1983)—is important to the study of memory. M. T. Clanchy,
in From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (1979), focuses on the shift
in both individual and societal attitudes with the evolution from memorization
and “orality” to writing. The first part of this study of literacy in England is a
discussion of the development of record-keeping and the development of trust in
written records and, conversely, the creation of the idea of “forgery.” The second
section focuses on the increasing “literate mentality” and the juxtaposition of this
growing literacy with still-functioning traditional “oral” techniques, particularly
the desire to “hear” documents as opposed to reading them silently. Clanchy
asserts that this change from “oral” to “written” had an equally profound effect
upon human memory and thought as the shift from script to print.
In The Book of Memory, Carruthers discusses two key questions: what mem-
ory is to the medieval thinker and why it is important. As Memoria is considered
one of the divisions of classical rhetoric and, for some writers, the noblest of the

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Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting 1021
divisions, for it was connected to prudence and the ability to make moral judg-
ments, it was fundamental to culture. Carruthers discusses how memory training
and mnemonics not only helped authors of all kinds compose but also helped
build character, citizenship, and piety—thus, it was an integral part of society. In
addition, memory also was the means through which a text became a part of the
culture and was transmitted in various ways. Mary Carruthers calls memory the
“matrix of all human temporal perception” and examines the traditions of tem-
poral issues involved in memory (Carruthers 1990, 193). She is specifically inter-
ested in how memory is connected to prudence, as mentioned above, and how
prudence is depicted as looking to the past, present, and future. Carruthers
successfully proves that memory should be perceived and studied as a cultural
“institution,” essential to medieval thought; she writes:
Memory is one of the five divisions of ancient and medieval rhetoric; it was regarded,
moreover, by more than one writer on the subject as the “noblest” of all these, the basis for
the rest. Memoria was also an integral part of the virtue of prudence, that which makes
moral judgment possible. Training the memory was much more than a matter of providing
oneself with the means to compose and converse intelligently when books were not readily
to hand, for it was in trained memory that one built character, judgment, citizenship, and
piety. Memoria also signifies the process by which a work of literature becomes institutiona-
lized—internalized within the language and pedagogy of a group (Carruthers 1990, 9).
Carruthers continued her study of memory eight years later in The Craft of Thought
(1998); in this study, she focuses on medieval monastic meditation, which she
defines as the craft of making thoughts about God through memory.
One more recent, useful study on memory is Janet Coleman’s Ancient and
Medieval Memories, published in 2005. Coleman traces the concept of memory
from Plato (ca. 428/27–348/47 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (ca. 384–322 B.C.E.) to John
Duns Scotus (ca. 1270–1308) and William of Ockham (ca. 1280–1349). She is mainly
concerned with identifying and defining theories of memory and how different
theological and philosophical thinkers wrote about memory. This work is valuable
for its almost encyclopedic accounts of the history of thought on memory.
A second trend in memory scholarship is more globally theoretical in nature.
Patrick Geary’s Phantoms of Remembrance (1994) and Jacque Le Goff’s History and
Memory (1996, originally published in French in 1977) are examples of this type of
study. In the former book, Geary is primarily interested in how recollection and
the past fit into social contexts (such as family memory, archival memory, royal
memory, etc.). Indeed, his major concern is “historical memory,” which he
defines as both the study of propaganda and the study of intellectual traditions
within which memory was understood and cultivated (what people thought about
memory and techniques of memory training). In particular, in Phantoms, he is
trying to see how people remember and the structures or means of storage in

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which the past is preserved or recalled. Geary identifies faults in past studies of
the processes of memory; to him, they are too concerned with the separation
between individual and collective memory, overstress the distinction between
oral and written remembering, and focus primarily on the formation of conscious
narrative memory rather than on the structures by which memories of all sorts are
transmitted and created.
Le Goff views Christianity as a religion of remembrance, evidenced by the
many assertions in the Bible to do something “in remembrance of God” or in the
concept of Purgatory in which the living could help the souls of the dead by
remembering and praying for them. Other scholars discuss related ideas. Nancy
Netzer and Virginia Reinburg’s Memory and the Middle Ages (ed., 1995) is a
collection of essays that are mostly concerned with visual representations—
artifacts, art, architecture, images, etc. Patricia DeLeeuw’s essay asserts that
there is a direct correlation between memory and the didactic purpose of saints’
lives:
The Christian story taught medieval people to find meaning and purpose for their lives by
looking back to events they recalled and forward to events they hoped for, or dreaded.
Christian belief and practice, in the stories of the saints as exemplars of the moral life, in
devotions and indulgences, and in the ritual of the mass, provided ways to remember and
learn from the past, and to provide for the future (DeLeeuw 1995, 33).
In another essay in the same volume, Virginia Reinburg asserts further that the
repetition of saints’ lives allows them to be present to the one remembering
(Reinburg 1995). Saints were intended to be remembered by an individual, the act
of recalling thus having some positive influence on the present.
There has also been a trend in literary criticism that seeks to understand the
role of memory in the production of literature as well as within the texts them-
selves. Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, for instance, discusses the Lancelot tradition;
she writes, “Forgetting and remembering seem inextricably tied to this new,
interlaced shape for romance … The narrative formulas function as aide-memoire,
a continual stream of small reminders that segment blocks of prose, recall and fix
in our minds the actions temporarily frozen or released into motion” (Bruckner
1995, 59–60). For her, memory is important in reading these texts because the
reader is asked to remember past stories in order to understand the present. In
other works, there are allegorical characters named Memory. Susan Hagen’s
Allegorical Remembrance (1990) is a study of The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man as
written by both Guillaume de Deguileville (ca. 1330’s) and John Lydgate (ca.
1426), in which such a character appears. Hagen concentrates on how Memory
works within the framework of the story and in the manuscript images that depict
her. These are only a couple of examples of text-specific literary studies focused

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on memory, and, indeed, literature is by far not the only discipline to find memory
useful as an analytical tool.
B Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting:

Definitions
Defining memory, a nebulous subject at best, is difficult. Memory and recollection
are complicated words that can refer to multiple concepts. As Paula Leverage
states at the beginning of her entry on “Memory” in the Handbook of Medieval
Studies (Leverage 2010, 1530), “Infused with a socio-cultural, literary and scienti-
fic history stretching from antiquity to the most recent work in cognitive neu-
roscience, the English word ‘memory’ is dense with meanings and associations.”
Several medieval scholars were interested in defining these terms, including such
notable figures as Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus in their commentaries
on Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia (ca. 350 B.C.E.). In general, the medie-
val understanding of memory is that it is both the physical location of images of
the past as well as the procedure of putting images in the mind to be remembered.
Alastair Minnis describes a relatively traditional medieval model, as far as any
model is traditional, constructed by the thirteenth-century scholar Bartholomaeus
Anglicus, or Bartholomew the Englishman, which identifies memory in relation to
other parts of the brain:
The brain … is divided into three small cells, the first being ymaginativa, where things which
the exterior senses perceive “are ordered and put together”; the middle chamber is called
logica, where the power of estimation is master; and the third and last is memorativa, the
power of remembrance, by which things which are apprehended and known by imagination
and reason are held and preserved in the treasury of memory (3.10). Underlying this account
is a psychological model which envisages objects perceived by the five exterior senses
meeting in the “common sense” (sensus communis), and the imagination, stimulated by
these sensations, forming the mental pictures (imagines or phantasmata) necessary for
thought. Images thus produced are handed over to the reason, which employs them in the
formation of ideas. These ideas, with or without their related images, are then handed over
to the memory for storage (Minnis 2005, 239–40).
The concept of memory as a storehouse of images is a common one, appearing in

works such as Augustine’s fourth-century Confessions (ca. 397), and is defined by
Carruthers as “a rich model of pre-modern mnemonic practice,” “the inventory of
all experiential knowledge” (Carruthers 1990, 34). She provides other synon-
ymous metaphors for the “storehouse,” such as “male” (or “travelling bag”) and
“arca” (or “chest,” “box”) (Carruthers 1990, 34).

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Recollection, on the other hand, is the process of bringing these images

stored in the memory to the forefront of the mind. Carruthers makes the distinc-
tion thus: “Memory can be considered in two ways, as the storage capability of
the brain, or as the recollective process. As the store of what is past, memory is
the nurse and engenderer of prudence and so a par thereof. As the process of
recollection, memory is a habit; recollection is a natural function which can be
strengthened through training and practice” (Carruthers 1990, 70). Acts of recol-
lection might include: recollecting past behavior and attitudes, especially, but not
confined to, those which were sinful or transgressive, particularly as within the
process of confession; recollecting the self, as in how one should act or think in
order to maintain, refine, or transform personal identity; and recollecting God,
that is with the intention of either restoring a relationship with the deity or
defining one’s faith. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo and Carol Stamatis Pendergast,
in their introduction to Memory and the Medieval Tomb, write, “Although memory
enhancement is most efficacious when close in time to the original event, ‘each
act of remembering creates new memories of old experiences.’ Cues provided in a
present context map related information from past and present to form wholly
new constructs …. The memorial process accesses and, inevitably, transforms the
past” (Valdez del Alamo and Stamatis Pendergast 2000, 5–6). As del Alamo and
Pendergast point out, memories themselves are sometimes reinvented in the
sense that the specific details of recollections are different from the reportedly
factual past, a psychological possibility acknowledged by medieval thinkers.
Carruthers too describes recollection as reconstructive act (Carruthers 1990, 25).
The absence of recollection, that is, forgetfulness, is also a key element to under-
standing memory, though it too, like its companions memory and recollection, is
not an easily defined concept. With respect to forgetfulness, Carruthers com-
ments:
The whole matter of memory error seems to be quite differently conceived by the ancients
from the one that fuels modern anxieties about “making mistakes.” For us, “making a
mistake” of memory is a failure in accuracy, a failure exactly or “objectively” to iterate the
original material. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, problems involving memory-phantasms
are described as heuristic (recollective) rather than as reproductive problems, and are due to
a failure to imprint the phantasm properly in the first instance, thus causing confusion and
recollective loss (Carruthers 1990, 61).
Carruthers examines how forgetfulness is important in understanding the process

of properly training the memory—for instance, in how priests needed to avoid
poorly-trained memories in order to recall sermons while preaching.
In order to explore the medieval understanding of memory, recollection, and
forgetting, the following sections will focus on its connections to predominant
philosophy and Christian thought of the time.

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C Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting and

Philosophy
There is a long-held tradition that memory is one of the functions of the soul and
is a common philosophical discussion during the Middle Ages. In his Etymolo-
giae, written ca. 630 and considered one of the main medieval sources on
classical thinking, Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) defines the term anima by
enumerating the many capacities of this multifaceted concept. Within this defini-
tion, he remarks, “dum (anima) recolit, memoria est” [when it (anima) reflects/
recalls, it is memory] (Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi 1962, XI.i.13). On face value,
this statement is perhaps simplistic, for, when an entity recalls something, it is
indeed engaging in an act of memory. However, several questions immediately
come to mind. What is the soul reflecting on? Why is memory included as one of
the functions of the soul? What comment does this make about the nature of the
soul? The answers to these questions lie in closer examination of both the rest of
Isidore’s entry on anima as well as the broader philosophical and literary tradition
connecting memory to the soul, including that found in Augustine’s Confessions
and Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (ca. 524).
In the line prior to the listing of anima’s various functions, Isidore remarks,
“Nam et memoria mens est, unde et inmemores amentes” [For also memory is the
mind, whence also forgetfulness is unmindfulness] (Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi
1962, XI.i.13). This line is actually repetitious, for previously the text reads:
Mens autem vocata, quod emineat in anima, velquod meminit. Vnde et inmemores amentes.
Quapropter non anima, sed quod excellit in anima mens vocatur, tamquam caput eius vel
oculus (Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi 1962, XI.i.12).
[The mind is called thus because it excels in the anima, or because it remembers. Whence
also forgetfulness is (called) unmindfulness. And, therefore, it is not anima, but what excels
in anima that is called the mind, just as (if the mind were) its head or eye.]
In these passages, not only is the act of memory equated with anima but the act of
forgetting is associated with the absence of the mind and, subsequently, the
absence of the soul. Indeed, in the list of anima’s various capacities, Isidore
comments that, when the soul “scit” [knows], it is called mens, reinforcing a
connection between the mind and the soul. He makes it obvious in his text that
the mind is both connected to anima and is even synonymous with it when anima
engages in certain activities, particularly that of recognizing itself or being aware
of its own existence. While Isidore does not offer any explicit comment on the
exact nature of what the soul remembers, he suggests that this recognition is
actually anima remembering itself or being conscious of its own history. Given the

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emphasis on memory in the short entry on the soul, there is a definite sense that,
without this capacity to remember, the soul would cease to operate fully and
would even cease to retain its essential identity. Isidore’s definition highlights a
perception of memory as an integral part of the processes of the soul.
The concept of memory as an element of the soul is not unique to the
Etymologiae. We also find it in Saint Augustine’s Confessions, one of the major
works influencing Isidore’s text. The significant aspect of Augustine’s text for
purposes of memory is how, in the exploration of his anima, he encounters that
part of the soul that encompasses memory while attempting to search for God
within himself. Saint Augustine (354–430) spends a portion of Book X discussing
memory, although, in essence, as scholars have noted, the entire text is con-
cerned with recollection. He is clear on the importance and magnitude of mem-
ory. In his quest to find and understand God, he makes some general statements
about the necessity of memory to his goal:
iam tu melior es, tibi dico, anima, quoniam tu vegetas molem corporis tui praebens ei vitam,
quod nullum corpus praestat corpori. deus autem tuus etiam tibi vitae vita est. Quid ergo
amo, cum deum amo? quis est ille super caput animae meae? per ipsam animam meam
ascendam ad illum. transibo vim meam, qua haereo corpori et vitaliter compagem eius
repleo … Transibo ergo et istam naturae meae, gradibus ascendens ad eum, qui fecit me, et
venio in campos et lata praetoria memoriae, ubi sunt thesauri innumerabilium imaginum de
cuiuscemodi rebus sensis invectarum. (Augustine 1912, X.VI–VIII)
[Now I say to you, soul, you are the better since you enliven the mass of your body, giving
life to it, which no body can give to a body. However, your God is the life of your life. What is
it, therefore, I love when I love God? Who is that one above my soul? Through that soul of
mine I will ascend to that one. I will surpass my power, by which I am attached to the body
and by which I fill up this framework with life … I will surpass, therefore, also that of my
nature, gradually ascending to Him, who made me, and I will come into the fields and broad
palaces of memory, where there are treasure-houses of innumerable likenesses of whatever
kind of things having been entered to the senses.]
The initial image in this passage is the characterization of the soul as that which
enlivens the body; the same image appears in Isidore’s list, for the soul is in fact
specifically called anima when it vivifies the body (Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi
1962, XI.i.13). Augustine then defines both the idea of his search for God and the
path his journey will take, particularly the need to explore the recesses of the
soul. It is his active discussion and interaction with the soul that Augustine feels
will lead him to a closer relationship with God. As Augustine continues his
discussion in this particular passage, he identifies memory as the space which
contains all the images, the mental impressions, of human experience, especially
those entering this space of memory through the senses, the building blocks
necessary to approach an understanding of God.

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Albertus Magnus (ca. 1206–80) (Albertus Magnus 1890) and his pupil, Tho-
mas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) (Aquinas 1949), continued the tradition of Isidore and
Augustine in recognizing the function of recollection within the soul in the Middle
Ages. Both philosophers wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s De memoria et remi-
niscentia, and, as a result of the text to which they are reacting, they are under-
standably preoccupied with discovering, or confirming, where memory is located.
Taking their cue from Aristotle, their conclusions place memory, in very physical
terms, directly within the soul. Rosemary Drage Hale notes, in “‘Taste and See, for
God is Sweet’: Sensory Perception and Memory in Medieval Christian Mystical
Experience,” “What made up the body for the medieval mystic—body parts and
five senses—can be viewed as ‘duplicated’ in an interior existence, that of the
soul. Metaphors for the body and sensory images are fused within the mystic’s
soul. The mouth, the tongue, the throat, limbs, womb, breast, hands, feet, eyes,
ears, hair—the perfected body of the soul—are all manifestly present in intimate
moments with the divine godhead” (Hale 1995, 3). Unlike Augustine, both Alber-
tus Magnus and Aquinas seem to link the storage of recollections to the senses
almost exclusively, whereas Augustine views some of the contents of the memory
as knowledge and not images. This assertion is not to say that Augustine does not
connect memory with the senses, as stated previously. As Gerard O’Daly, in
“Remembering and Forgetting in Augustine, Confessions X,” states:
Although the links between sense-perception, imagination, and memory are crucial to the
functioning of each of those activities, inasmuch as perception involves the serial formation
of mental images that are retained in the memory directly, as the perception takes place, and
imagination in either the reproductive recollection of retained images or their creative
manipulation, Augustine realizes that this model of memory-processes does not cover all
processes of remembering or recollecting (O’Daly 1993, 33).
Augustine does not regard the senses as the only route to memory storage.
In addition to explicating the relationship between anima and memoria,
Augustine defines memory as the center of personal identity and lauds it as the
path to understanding the part of God that an individual is capable of compre-
hending. Indeed, memory as Augustine describes it is the receptacle that houses
the personal soul’s past, retaining universal images of God as well as those that
are unique to the individual’s specific relationship to the divine. Augustine’s
comment on this subject is strongly worded:
Ecce quantum spatiatus sum in memoria mea quaerens te, domine, et non te inveni extra
eam, et non te inveni extra eam. neque enim aliquid de te invenio, quod non meminissem,
ex quo didici te. nam ex quo didici te, non sum oblitus tui. ubi enim inveni veritatem, ibi
inveni deum meum, ipsam veritatem, quam ex quo didici, non sum oblitus. itaque ex quo te
didici, manes in memoria mea, et illic te invenio, cum reminiscor tui et delector in te. hae sunt

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sanctae deliciae meae, quas donasti mihi misericoridia tua, respiciens paupertatem meam
(Augustine 1912, X.XXIV).
[Behold how great a space I am in my memory seeking you, Lord, and I did not find you
outside of it. For I find nothing at all of you, except what I have remembered, from when I
learned of you. For from when I learned of you, I have not forgotten you. For where I found
truth, there I found my God, truth itself, which from when I learned of you, I have not
forgotten. And thus from when I learned of you, you remain in my memory, and there I find
you, when I recall you and delight in you. These are my sacred delights, which you have
given to me in your mercy, respecting my poverty.]
Augustine finally supplies an answer to the question concerning “what” the soul
remembers. In his perception, memoria is responsible for retaining all aspects of
truth, equated in his mind with God, who is, for him, the personification of truth.
The straightforward “you remain in my memory, and there I find you,” exhibits
the power of memory as a function of anima and as the only area of the soul
through which the individual can access any real knowledge of the reality of God.
Augustine asserts that it is the history of the soul, espoused in the memory, which
allows the individual to comprehend his relationship with God. As Todd Breyfogle
comments, “As part of his ascent, Augustine tries to go beyond the power of
memory but recognizes that he cannot. One cannot strip memory away the way
one can in thought close off sense perception. Memory thus becomes … the field
in which we carry on our spiritual striving for God. We can go no further than
memory” (Breyfogle 1999, 142). The significant point here is that, once the
individual has learned of God, He does not leave the memory.
Augustine’s view of memory is personal; the entire Confessions is an exercise
in an understanding of the self, and his representation of memory is the same. His
memory is comprised of his unique experiences, the workings of his senses, and
what has been stored since he learned of God. In contrast, Boethius (ca. 480–524/
25), a near contemporary of Isidore and Augustine, in his Consolation of Philoso-
phy, infers a pre-existence of the soul, which extends memory beyond the con-
fines of an individual life and externalizes it. Like Augustine, Boethius is con-
cerned with the processes of recollection. At the beginning of the Consolation,
Boethius the narrator is in a state of deep depression and illness; his spiritual
guide Lady Philosophy diagnoses his sickness as a case of forgetfulness. He is
described as having forgotten who and what he is, and, as a result, he has also
forgotten the nature of divinity (Boethius 1990, Book I, Prose VI). Lady Philosophy
even comments that the essence of human nature, or at least that part which
raises humans above animals, is man’s ability to remember himself (Boethius
1990, Book II, Prose V). Boethius’s approach to memory takes a different turn
than Augustine’s when he writes in Book III, Meter XI:

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… haeret profecto semen introrsum ueri

quod excitatur uentilante doctrina
nam cur rogati sponte recta censetis
ni mersus alto uiueret fomes corde?
quodsi Platonis Musa personat uerum,
quod quisque discit immemor recordatur (Boethius 1990,Book III, Meter XI, 11–16).
[… the seed of truth lingers deep inside

and learning has been aroused with agitating,
for why unaided can you having been asked answer correctly
unless the tinder lives having been immersed deep in the heart?
And if the Muse of Plato resounds the truth,
what everyone learns unmindful he remembers.]
These lines, echoed again later in Book V, Meter III, recall Plato’s concept that we
learn everything before we are born and then remember it during our earthly
experience, which is found in many of his works, but especially his Meno. The
character of Boethius himself continues in Prose XII by agreeing with Plato, since
Lady Philosophy, his guide, has indeed recalled to him that which he had not
realized he had forgotten. He represents memory as being a part of, yet beyond,
the history of the individual soul.
This is not to say that Augustine completely confines his definition of memory
to one human experience; however, while Boethius represents a pre-existence of
the soul, Augustine emphasizes a desire to explore his own personal history.
Similar to Augustine, Boethius equates remembrance with recognizing or at-
tempting to discover the nature of God. There has been a long debate concerning
the influence of Augustine on Boethius. Many argue that Boethius owes a great
deal to his predecessor; others, like Thomas P. McTighe (1982), believe that
Boethius took nothing from Augustine. In Book IV, Meter I, after describing the
soul’s separation from the body, Boethius remarks:
huc te si reducem referat uia

quam nunc requiris immemor,
haec, dices, memini, patria est mihi,
hinc ortus, hic sistam gradum (Boethius 1990, Book IV, Meter I, 23–26).
[If there your path brings you back again

Which now you forgetful sought,
You will say, “I remember this, this is my country,
This is my origin, here I will stop my steps.”]
These lines refer to the soul’s return to God. Boethius’s description of this moment
as an act of remembering illustrates the key role played by memory in the work-
ings of the soul, especially with respect to the soul’s search for God.

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Trinities of the soul, with certain variations on what properties are included,
from other works clearly indicate that reference to the mind is a reference to
memory. There is a long tradition of including memory in a tripartite breakdown
of the soul. As Wolfgang Riehle, in The Middle English Mystics, writes:
In the [De Trinitate] Augustine also defines the created trinity of the soul with the terms
memoria, intelligentia and amor … And the English mystics see their justification for talking
of the soul as the image of God, in the fact that they look upon the soul as a created trinity
which has to be reformed. Both the author of the Cloud and Hilton render the Augustinian
ternary of the soul as ‘minde, reson, & wille’ or mynde … witte … wille’, whilst the Mirror of
Simple Souls prefers ‘memoire … vdirstondinge … wille’ (Riehle 1981, 143).
These descriptions emphasize the function of the soul to remember God. For
instance, in Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, a well-known mystical religious
treatise of the late fourteenth century written as an explication of contemplative
life for a woman who had taken her vows, one of the main properties of “mynde”
is not forgetting God:
The soule of a man is a liyf, made of thre myghtes—mynde, resoun, and wille—to the ymage
and the likenes of the blissid holi Trinité, hooli perfight and rightwise. In as myche as the
mynde was maad myghti and stidefaste bi the Fadir almyghti, for to holde Hym withoughte
forgetynge, distractynge, or lettynge of ony creature, and so it hath the likenes of the Fader
(Hilton 2000, 43.1150–54).
The key is that the “mynde” should remember God without “forgetynge.”
Together, these conceptions of the link between memory and the soul reveal
memory’s function in philosophical discussions. In particular, these thinkers,
especially Augustine, are concerned with the individual recalling the aspects of
God that can be found in the soul’s storehouse of memories. The establishment of
a relationship between the memory and the activities of anima leads to the
medieval Christian soul and memory’s place within the theoretical and day-to-
day practices of Christianity.
D Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting and

Christianity
Reading religious treatises and confession manuals reveals that recollection has a
major role in the theology and rites of medieval Christianity. In particular,
recollection is described by medieval religious works as a means by which an
individual recalls the sacrifice of Christ or the disadvantages of sin, namely the
pains of hell, and as a catalyst causing contrition.

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Two images, the Passion of Christ and the pains of Hell, are often represented
as being initiated by recollection. The first, the Passion of Christ, can create either
a sense of appreciation for Christ’s sacrifice or regret that, as flawed humans, we
do not deserve such a gift. An example of recalling the Passion can be found in
Book 1 of Hilton’s Scale of Perfection. There is an extended description of how
recollection of the Passion can elicit a meditation on Christ’s sacrifice for man-
kind’s salvation:
[T]hee thenketh as thu seighe in thi soule thi Lord Jhesu Crist in bodili liknesse as He was in
erthe, how He was taken of the Jewes and bounden as a theef, beten and dispisid, scourgid
and demed to the deeth; hou mekeli He baar the Cros upon his bak, and hou crueli He was
nailed therupon; also of the crowne of thornes upon His heed, and upon the scharp spere
that stonge Him to the herte. And thou in this goostli sight thou felist thyn herte stired into
so greet compassioun and pité of thi Lord Jhesu that thou mornest, and wepist, and criest
with alle thy myghtes of thi bodi and of thi soule, wondrynge the goodnesse and the love,
the pacience and the mekenesse of oure Lord Jhesu, that He wolde for so synful a caitif
[wretch] as thou art suffre so mykil peyne. And also over this thou felist so mykil goodnesse
and merci in oure Lord that thi herte riseth up into love and glaadnesse of Him with manye
swete teeris, havynge greet trust of forgyvenesse of thi synnes and of savacioun of thi soule
bi the vertu of this precious passioun. Thanne whanne the mynde of Cristis passioun or ony
poynt of His manhede is thus maad in thi herte bi siche goostli sight, with devout affeccioun
answerynge therto, wite thou wel thanne that it is not thyn owen werkynge, ne feynynge of
noo wikkid spirit, but bi grace of the Holi Goost, for it is an openynge of the goostli iye into
Cristis manhede (Hilton 2000, 35.904–20).
Hilton describes how having “mynde” [recollection] of the Passion can instigate a
sense of appreciation or compassion for its consequences, initiating a desire for
the forgiveness promised by Christ’s sacrifice. Frequently, this recollection is
caused by a visual image, such as the Cross. Mary Carruthers, in Craft of Thought,
notes:
Christians have always begun an act of meditation or worship with the sign of the Cross.
This was called, in an idiom current in the fourth century and later, “painting” the cross …
What is most of interest to me is that memory work, such as prayer and reading, customarily
began with a visual marker, the painted Cross … This visual rhetorical figure serves as
allegoria, an ornament that initiates meditative thinking (Carruthers 1998, 168).
The Scale of Perfection reiterates later, in Book 2, that an individual’s “synnes”

can only be forgiven through the act of confession. Thus, recalling the Passion
makes one responsive to the concept of penance and, therefore, ready to partici-
pate in the sacrament.
The second image, calling to mind the pains of hell, also can be a compulsion
to participate in confession. Through the fear of enduring such torments as a
result of his sins, a penitent turns to the confessional in order to save himself. In

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an anonymous, early-fifteenth-century sermon, the function of remembering the

pains of hell is directly defined as the impetus for engaging in confession:
For Ihesu Cristes loue, remembur invardly on þise peynes [of hell], and I trust to God þat þei
shall stere þe to a vomyte of all þi dronkenlew lyvyng. And ʒiff þou haue þis womyte of þe
sacrament of confession, Godes Sonne with-owten question dwelliþ þan with þe and shall in
thy dying resceyve þe to is blis (Middle English Sermons 1940, 241.15–20).
The description of confession as a “vomiting” of sins is not an unusual one—it can

for instance be found in the fourteenth-century Middle English Piers Plowman
(Toswell 1993)—and this sermon is clear that it is the recollection of the repulsive
aspects of hell, including the lack of food and water and wormy clothing, that
cause a penitent, in the hopes of avoiding them, to participate in the sacrament.
Recollection allows an individual, after confession, to “dwelliþ” with Christ and
achieve salvation.
Besides contemplation of the Passion and the fear of hell, another major
representation of memory is within depictions of contrition for past sins, which is
the first step in penance. Through recalling his sins, a penitent can feel guilt for
his transgressions. It is the shame produced by these memories that causes the
individual to be penitent. For example, in the Fasciculus Morum, a fourteenth-
century preacher’s handbook, the section on contrition states:
Si ergo hoc modo annos tuos recordatus fueris et facta tua, cito percipies quod tu ipse es
causa proprie miserie; quo facto statim ex hoc verecundaberis et tibi occurret peccati
detestacio; qua habita ad cordis contricionem levissime devenies, per quam graciam divi-
nam in omni parte extorques, que quidem gracia secundum Augustinum arra est celestis
glorie (Fasciculus Morum 1989, V.VII.51–56).
[If you, then, have remembered your years and your deeds in this fashion, you will soon
understand that you yourself are the cause of your wretchedness. When this happens, you
will at once feel shame and come to detest your sin. And with this you will easily come to
heartfelt contrition, through which you will wrench grace from God, which according to
Augustine is the pledge of heavenly glory.]
This passage specifically details how recollection of sins leads to contrition, as an

individual will become ashamed of his behavior once he recalls exactly what he
has done. Remembering the past allows the penitent to “detest (his) sin,” thereby
reaching the stage of contrition through recollection.
In a different concept of Christian memory, the late fourteenth- or early
fifteenth-century Myrour to Lewde Men and Wymmen is deeply concerned with the
idea of forgotten sins. The Myrour is a prose version of the Speculum Vitae, which
was composed in Northern England in the third quarter of the fourteenth century.
The Myrour was probably written in the last quarter of the fourteenth century or

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the first of the fifteenth century. It appears in fewer manuscripts that the Spec-
ulum, probably indicating a more restricted, educated audience (A Myrour to
Lewde Men and Wymmen, 1981). Forgetting is equated with blindness, indicating
that the penitent cannot see into his conscience in order to discover the sins that
he must confess:
Other sixe vices þere beþ þat letteþ amendement of lyf & bringeþ [it to] apeyrement, þat beþ
these: tarienge, rechelesnes, forʒetyng, slownes, laches and faylinge. (A Myrour to Lewde
Men and Wymmen 1981, 120.19–20)
Þe þridde is forʒetyng þat comeþ of rechelesnes. For whoso is recheles & noght besily
beþinkeþ him forʒetiþ lightly may synnes boþe grete & smale þat he haþ doo, of whiche he
moot schryue [confess] him ʒif he wole haue forʒeuenes of hem. And so rechelesnes and
forʒeting beþ to man ful gret periles, for þei makeþ him forʒete his synnes of whiche he
schulde schryue him and aske forʒeuenes in his lyf. For wiþoute askynge he may not haue
forʒeuenes; and hou schal he repente him and aske forʒeuenes of þat he haþ forʒete? And
þere is no man þat resoun haþ, ʒif he wole wel examyne his owne conscience, þat he [f.52v]
ne may eche day fynde inowh wherof to repente him & schryue him. But rechelesnes &
forʒetyng makiþ a synful man so blynde þat he may no þing see in his conscience, & þat is
ouergret perill (A Myrour to Lewde Men and Wymmen 1981, 120.34–42, 121.1–3).
The passage is clear in that sins must be “schryue,” yet, if they are forgotten, a
penitent cannot ask “forʒeuenes” for them because he cannot feel repentance for
sins he cannot remember. The Myrour calls this state an “ouergret perill,” empha-
sizing how serious of an issue it is. In a further example than those discussed, the
genre of quodlibets, popular in Paris and Oxford from around 1230 until the
1320’s, raises and answers abstract questions, among which confession and
penance are included; some of these questions are concerns of what to do when a
penitent has forgotten his sins (Biller 1998, 11–12).
A further example, the Liber Poenitentialis, written ca. 1215 by Robert of
Flamborough, states that a priest should end a session of confession with the
expectation that the penitent will confess at some future time any sins that he has
lost to forgetfulness:
Multa alia exciderunt tibi a memoria; multa sunt occulta tua; multae sunt omissiones tuae.
… Sed tu de omnibus petis veniam et paratus es confiteri et satisfacere si Deus reduxerit tibi
aliquid ad memoriam, quidquid illud fuerit? (Robert of Flamborough 1971, 199)
[Many things have passed from your memory; many are your hidden sins; many are your
omissions … But are you prepared to ask forgiveness for all your sins and to confess them
and to make satisfaction if God will return anything to your memory, whatever it might be?]
Robert acknowledges the problem of forgetting, and he instructs priests to address

this issue and caution penitents to confess sins as soon as they are remembered. It

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should be noted that, in this text, the figure who “reduxerit … ad memoriam”
forgotten sins is not the confessor, but God. The final step in the act of confession is
an admonition to the penitent to continue to try to recall sins that might be “hidden”
by forgetfulness, emphasizing that neglected sins remain a problem until they have
been narrated to the priest. There are texts that do not have the same issue with
forgetfulness. For instance, in Book 2 of the Scale of Perfection, Hilton states:
Yif thyne enemyes seyn to thee first thus, bi stirynges in thyn herte, that thou arte not
schryven aright, or there is sum olde synne hid in thin herte that thou knowest not, ne were
not schryven of, and therfore thou mostist turne hoom agen and leve thi desire, and goo first
and schryve thee betere: trowe not this seiynge, for it is fals, for thou arte schryven. Truste
sikirli that thou art in the weie, and thee nedeth no more ransakynge [examination] of
schrifte for that that is passid. Hold forthe thi wey and thenke on Jerusalem (Hilton 2000.
22.1236–41).
Here, it does not matter if sins have been forgotten as they are still considered to
be confessed. This conclusion, however, is uncommon.
The purpose of confession manuals and priests’ handbooks is not only to offer
warnings and to point out issues of which to be wary, but also to provide solutions
for these problems. In the case of forgetting sins, the most common remedy given
is the recommendation for frequent and timely confession. They counsel against
delaying confession for the very reason that sins might be lost in the memory if left
unconfessed too long. In Handlyng Synne, a penitential work written from the
beginning of the fourteenth century by Robert Mannyng of Brunne, a Gilbertine
monk from Sempringham, England, and partly adapted from the thirteenth-cen-
tury Manuel des pechiez, generally believed to be authored by William de Wading-
ton, we find a warning against waiting to confess as there is a danger that a
penitent might forget his sins if he does not confess them immediately:
(Ƿe secunde poynt of shryfte)

Ƿe secunde poynt ys, next þyr by,
Ƿat þou shalt shryue þe hastely.
For whan þou dost hyt yn longe respyte,
Hyt ys forʒete þat longe ys olyte [delay].
Seynt Bernard þarfore to swyche chyt [rebuke]
Ad seyt, “moche forʒyt þat longe abyt” (Robert Mannyng of Brunne 1983, 283).
The Myrour too expresses the same anxiety with sins being forgotten if not
confessed immediately:
The secounde condicioun is þat it scholde be hastifliche [hastily] for fyue skiles … Þe fifte
skile is drede of forʒetynge; for if a man longe tarieþ his schrifte & stynteþ not of mysdoynge,
his synnes moste nedes multeplye so moche þat he schal not holde hem in mynde but
forʒete hem or many of hem, so schal noght he conne clene schryue him of hem, & þat is a
greet perill (A Myrour to Lewde Men and Wymmen 1981, 124.19–40).

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If a penitent “longe tarieþ his schrifte” or does not “shryue hastely,” then he risks
being unable to “holde [his sins] in mynde.” As forgetfulness is described earlier
in the Myrour as a “perill,” the same word is used again here. The defense against
this danger is a timely, prompt confession.
The description of forgetfulness as a “perill” is akin to classifying it a sin, if
indirectly. Indeed, in other texts, it is portrayed explicitly as a transgression that
must itself be confessed. In general, when forgetfulness is mentioned in this
context, it is, frustratingly, not defined to any substantive extent, leaving a great
deal of room for interpretation. For instance, in Part 5, the section concerning
confession, of the Ancrene Wisse, a guide for anchoresses composed ca. 1225 to
1240, forgetfulness is included as one of the sins that penitents are encouraged to
atone for:
Tale is the fifte totagge—[hu ofte hit is i-don tellen al: “Sire, ich habbe this thus ofte i-don, i-
wonet for to speoke thus, hercni thullich speche, thenchen hwiche thochtes, foryeme thing
ant foryeoten, lachyen, eoten, drinken, lasse other mare thenne neode asketh.” “Ich habbe
i-beon thus ofte wrath seoththen ich wes i-schriven nest, ant for thulli
thing, ant thus longe hit leste, thus ofte i-seid les, thus ofte this ant this.” “Ich habbe i-
don this to thus feole, ant thus feole sithen” (Ancrene Wisse 2000, 5.237–43).
[Number [of occurrences] is the fifth circumstance—tell completely how often it is done: “Sir,
I have done this thus often, [I have been] wont to speak thus, to listen to such talk, to think
such kinds of thought, to neglect things and forget [them], laugh, eat, drink, less or more
than need requires.” “I have thus often been angry since I was last confessed, and for such
[and such a] thing, and thus long it lasted, thus often [I have] said a lie, thus often [I have
said] this and that.” “I have done this (i.e., such and such a thing) to thus many [people],
and thus many times.”]
In this example of a penitent expressing how often she has committed specific
sins, one of the transgressions listed is forgetfulness. Unfortunately, what is
forgotten is vaguely described as “things,” which does not provide much specifi-
city. The penitential manual Weye of Paradys, ca. 1400, is slightly more descrip-
tive as “forʒetyng of reson” is listed as a branch of the sins of gluttony (The Middle
English Weye of Paradys 1991, 150.5) and “forʒetyng of God” as a branch of lechery
(The Middle English Weye of Paradys 1991, 151.18). The Myrour too makes a similar
comment as the Weye of Paradys about the “forʒetnes of goode þat God haþ done
to vs and noght þankyng him þerfore,” but it classifies the “forgetfulness of God”
as a subcategory of pride, or superbia, although it still does not give much in the
way of a definition of this phrase beyond adding that it is the forgetfulness of the
“goode” that God does for each man, thereby preventing the individual from
showing Him gratitude (The Middle English Weye of Paradys 1991, 105.19–22). The
sin of “forgetting God” is also attributed to the sin of superbia in Aelred of
Rievaulx’s twelfth-century Speculum Caritatis (Aelred of Rievaulx 1971). Despite

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1036 Kisha G. Tracy
the lack of specificity, it is clear by the persistent inclusion of forgetfulness in

these contexts that certain types of forgetting are considered spiritually proble-
matic.
Forgetting, however, is not a simple concept that is always either positive or
negative. There is a type of positive forgetting, that of eliminating all worldly
distractions in the pursuit of understanding. The fourteenth-century The Cloud of
Unknowing, dedicated to expounding the act of contemplating God, asserts that
part of focusing the mind on God includes forgetting everything else in the world,
for everything that is not God that resides in the mind stands in the way of
complete meditation. It encourages:
And do that in thee is to forgete alle the creatures that ever God maad and the werkes of
hem, so that thi thought ne thi desire be not directe ne streche to any of hem, neither in
general ne in special. Bot lat hem be, and take no kepe to hem (The Cloud of Unknowing
1997, 276–79).
This sentiment is repeated later when the text explicates the virtues of the “cloud
of forgetting,” the desired separation between the individual and the rest of the
world. By placing all of creation out of the mind, it is possible to focus exclusively
on God. This aspect of the Cloud is echoed in the early fourteenth-century text, the
Privity of the Passion, which promotes a comparable form of constructive forget-
fulness:
I trowe þat a mane behoued to rayse vp all þe scharpenes of his mynde & opyne whyde the
Inere eghe of his soule In to be-holdynge of þis b[l]esside passione, and forgett & caste be-
hynd hyme for þe tyme all oþer Ocupacyouns & besynes […] (Yorkshire Writers 1999, 1:198).
The Privity and the Cloud promote an image of forgetting that enables a closer
connection to God by blocking out worldly concerns. The well-known English
mystic Julian of Norwich, in her Revelations of Love, written in the late fourteenth,
or possibly early fifteenth, century, also recognizes this type of positive forgetting,
that of eliminating all worldly distractions in the pursuit of understanding. She
writes, in her short text, that each person should regard God’s gifts as meant only
for him and should concentrate on a personal relationship, “forgettande, if he
might, alle creatures, and thinkande that God hase done for him alle that he hase
done” (Julian of Norwich 2006, 20.36–37). These texts emphasize that certain
types of forgetting are not just acceptable but also desired.
While being unable to remember is a significant issue, there are also pro-
blems with inappropriate memory—that is, wasting time and effort by dwelling on
memories that are not spiritually beneficial. These memories generally tend to be
related to earthly matters and have nothing to do with either God or salvation.
Stephen of Sawley, a monk at Fountains Abbey and later abbot of Sawley in the

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early thirteenth century, in his Speculum Novitii, a work written for the instruction
of Cistercian novices, lists types of recollections that are sinful and must, them-
selves, be confessed:
I think many idle thoughts and my mind wanders through such diverse places as castles,
schools, and gatherings; I dwell on them or take delight in them while I attend the Divine
Office or when I should listen to the psalms or to spiritual reading. At times things I have
heard or saw in the past have come into my mind, distracting it, intentionally or uninten-
tionally, from paying attention to the things of God … (You must tell what kind of thoughts,
to the extent you can remember; for instance:) I have thought long on building a church,
writing books, managing the house; or, on hunting, horse-racing, and other such things. At
times the image of the coupling of man and woman comes to my mind; at other times my
memory alone is occupied with such things … I confess my guilt before God: I promise
amendment [of life] and ask for pardon. This, then, is your mirror. To the extent you feel
yourself marred by these [faults], in that measure confess [your guilt] (Stephen of Sawley
1984, 85–88).
Stephen describes the recollection of mundane images such as secular locations

or non-religious entertainment as “distractions” for his mind that prevent him
from thinking of God. Megan Cassidy-Welch studied the role of memory in this
text and writes, “The first chapter of the Speculum Novitii provides cues for
confession. The novice’s thoughts of writing books and hunting together with the
remembrance of managing the house or recalling images of sexual relationships
are all integrated textually into a list of subjects deemed suitable for confession”
(Cassidy-Welch 2000, 15). Stephen asserts that these types of unproductive recol-
lection are “faults” to be confessed. Only recollection which leads the individual
closer to God, such as the contrite remembering of sins within confession with the
intention of being forgiven for them, is acceptable.
E Conclusion
Given the wide-ranging discussions on memory, recollection, and forgetting
throughout the Middle Ages, particularly within philosophical and theological
thought, as discussed above, it is clear that Mary Carruthers’s description of
memory as an “institution” (Carruthers 1990, 9) is accurate. It is a pervasive topic
across time and geographical space. Yet, even so, it is not a topic that is easily
defined, especially when it is examined with respect to varying aspects of culture.
It is, however, an essential concept in the search to understand the medieval
mind.

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1038 Kisha G. Tracy
Select Bibliography
Carruthers, Mary, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images:
400–1200 (Cambridge 1998).
Carruthers, Mary, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge 1990).
Clanchy, M. T., From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Oxford and Cambridge, MA,

1979).
Coleman, Janet, Ancient and Medieval Memories (Cambridge 2005).
Le Goff, Jacques, History and Memory, trans. Steven Randall and Elizabeth Claman (1992; New
York 1996).
Yates, Frances A., The Art of Memory (Chicago 1966).

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Jeroen Puttevils
Medieval merchants
Medieval merchants are not easy to position within the traditional medieval
tripartite scheme of those who worked the land, those who fought, and those who
prayed. However, traders had close relations with all three traditional orders: they
bought and sold harvests, they lent money to the nobility and sold them luxury
goods, and they supplied the church with similar luxuries to those that they sold
to the nobility while always keeping an eye on ecclesiastical laws and norms
regarding their activities. These were but a few of the relationships between
merchants and various other groups in medieval society. Historians have defi-
nitely not ignored medieval traders; a long, venerable tradition of research on
merchants and trade goes back at least to the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne
(1862–1935). The online International Medieval Bibliography (Brepols) indexes
(almost) all journals and book chapters, as well as a large percentage of all
monographs, dealing with medieval history. By examining the trends in this
bibliography, we can quantify, in a rudimentary fashion, the increasing impor-
tance of the study of merchants in recent years.
Fig. 1: Works on medieval merchants in International Medieval Bibliography

(Source: author’s analysis of IMB).
Interest in merchants has been growing since the beginning of the 1990s. The
drop in relevant publications after 2010 does not imply a serious drop in interest
but is due to the fact that many contributions that were published after 2010 have
not yet been catalogued. Merchants figure prominently in Smithian accounts of
the medieval economy since they created markets and fuelled urbanization
(Classen 2009, 9). Yet these scholarly studies also deal with a surprisingly wide

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1040 Jeroen Puttevils
variety of subjects, ranging from the linguistic skills of merchants to their political
power in cities, their relations with princes, their family lives, and, of course, their
economic activities. It would be overambitious and virtually impossible to sum-
marize the findings of this longstanding field of research that deals with a
thousand-year-long historical period. This article tries to introduce the reader to
what we currently know about merchants. Moreover, it overturns the view that
medieval merchants were harbingers of economic and financial modernity who
developed commercial techniques and institutions that we will still use today. In
scholarly studies of merchants the spectacular life stories of a few well-known
merchants, often coincidentally the same people who left substantial documenta-
tion about their activities behind, are always repeated; no one ever asks whether
these outstanding individuals were truly representative of traders as a group. At
the same time, this essay will explicitly describe some of the new insights and
methods recently developed by scholars in studying the history of trade and
merchants. For example, research in the last few decades has been profoundly
influenced by theories from New Institutional Economics and researchers have
tried to map the social and economic relationships of merchants with social
network analysis, a method invented by sociologists aimed at mapping human
relationships.
The term “merchant” is quite hard to define. Generally, merchants can be
described as people who buy and sell for profit and who live in medieval urban
centers; however, this generic statement conceals the wide range of functions that
merchants could play in medieval society. Usually, the mercantile population of
medieval society is separated into five idealized categories: 1. the local artisan
who sells his produce to the public; 2. the peddler who travels between town and
countryside; 3. the middleman who buys and sells at local and regional fairs;
4. the long-distance trader who sends his goods to foreign places by land or sea;
and 5. the merchant-banker who coordinated complex flows of goods and money
out of his counting office (Hunt and Murray 1999, 52). The scope and scale of these
trading operations were of course different, as was the required intelligence, the
amount of capital involved, and the risks they faced.
Was trade only a man’s pursuit? To a certain extent, yes. But there are
numerous examples of wives of international traders who managed the family
business (Hutton 2009). These wives were often actively involved in the busi-
ness when their husbands were out of town for business travel, as did the wife
of the Nuremberg merchant Hans Praun (1432–1492) in the 1470s; she kept his
books and executed transactions while he was away (Pohl 1968, 93). Francesco
di Marco Datini’s wife Margherita also kept her husband informed about news
from Prato while he was out of town (Datini 2012). In the city of Cologne,
women could even operate mercantile businesses by themselves (Howell 1986,

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Medieval merchants 1041
137–58). While the number of women involved in trade and its evolution over
time will probably continue to elude us, there are strong indications that some
property and marriage regimes guaranteed access to trade and property for
women, while others did not. Research on Genoese notarial records from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries has shown that women’s participation in the
city’s long-distance trade ventures was commonplace and that women formed
an important segment of the trade network. Genoese women invested in en-
terprises similar to investments of their male colleagues but they were involved
with smaller investments, on average. By the end of the thirteenth century,
female participation in commercial partnerships had declined due to the in-
creased specialization of trade and the growing importance of the commercial
elite; previously, the rewards and risks of Genoese merchants had been distrib-
uted more evenly (Van Doosselaere 2009, 82–85). At the same time that women
are pushed out of trade, there was a rise in the number of male-dominated craft
guilds (Howell 1986).
It is beyond the aims of this contribution and perhaps simply impossible,
given the lack of even basic statistical data, to list all of the commodities that were
traded by merchants in every location during the entire Middle Ages. In general,
any product that could be resold for a higher price could be traded, from entire
ships to tiny amounts of delicate spices. The most important goods in the Middle
Ages were precious metals, Italian and Flemish textiles, silks from the East, wool
from Spain and England, products from the Baltic and Russian forests such as
wood and furs, grain, fish, salt, and spices (such as the proverbial spice of the
Middle Ages, pepper) (Hunt and Murray 1999; Spufford 2002; McCormick 2007;
Freedman 2009).
A The Argumentum ex silentio: Merchants in the

Early Middle Ages
The period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the year 1000 C.E. is by far
the most difficult to reconstruct when one is writing the history of trade and
merchants. Because of the obvious lack of written sources, historians of this era
have to rely on snapshots, which has fuelled a heated debate about the nature and
scale of European trade prior to the tenth century. Historians are split on how to
interpret commerce in the Carolingian dynasty. The “maximalist” school, follow-
ing Alfons Dopsch (1868–1953), maintains that long-distance trade in the Mediter-
ranean was still thriving under Charlemagne and that Muslim gold provided the
means of exchange in Europe (Dopsch 1918–1920). Its adversary, the “minimalist”

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school, predominates today; it supports Henri Pirenne’s thesis, which argues that
the Arab conquest of large parts of the Mediterranean halted international com-
merce and forced Western Europe to withdraw into itself (Pirenne 1922; 1987;
McCormick 2007, 2). Although this school of thought does not accept Pirenne’s
belief that European trade declined because of the Arabic conquest, it does
concede that trade declined after that time. Historians of this period never know
whether the scraps of evidence they find represent the exception or the rule. The
trend of European trade is also heavily dependent on how one interprets the
volume and characteristics of late Roman trade. When Dopsch and Pirenne wrote
their accounts of early medieval trade, they did not have access to large-scale full-
text databases or the integration of archaeology and history that is now transform-
ing the field and producing new results and insights. Archaeological evidence
recovered in excavations has improved our understanding of commercial settle-
ments such as Haithabu, Birka, Dorestad, and Hamwic. Wine, weapons, pottery,
glassware, etc. circulated throughout the Carolingian empire, proving that com-
merce expanded around the Meuse Valley and the North Sea during the eighth
and ninth centuries (Verhulst 2002; McCormick 2007). Furthermore, the relative
silence on merchants in ninth-century sources made Pirenne jump to the conclu-
sion that there was a conspicuous absence of merchants in the ninth century.
Yet, this overlooks a potential disinterest in commerce and traders on behalf
of the authors who have produced the snapshots we use to make claims about the
early medieval period. When early medieval authors did write about merchants,
they did not uniformly condemn all mercantile activity. Bede (672/673–735), for
example, noted that the men whom Christ expelled from the Temple were not
simply negotiators, but unjust negotiators (Bede 1955, 2,1, CCL, 122.39–43; McCor-
mick 2007, 13). The question of whether commerce was compatible with virtue
was very much up for discussion: Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 225) and Ambrose (ca.
340–397) argued that commerce was the root of all evil, but the majority of early
Christian authors did not entirely condemn commerce. In distinguishing honest
from dishonest commerce, early medieval thinkers built further on the work of
classical writers such as Aristotle (384 B.C.E.–322 B.C.E.) and Cicero (106 B.C.E.–
43 B.C.E.). In the course of the ninth century, monks in various parts of Europe
specified which particular commercial practices were acceptable or not in their
jurisdictions and invoked the concept of the work invested by merchants to justify
(potential) trading profits. Slave trading and grain hoarding were labeled as
morally reprehensible (Lis and Soly 2012, 223–30).
Most authors believe that there was a certain degree of commercial decline
between the end of the Roman Empire and the eleventh century when Europe
experienced the so-called Commercial Revolution (see below). Because it is
evident that trade was still present in this early medieval society, scholars have

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looked for the genesis and origins of merchants. Some merchants can be traced
back to the great religious houses. These traders preferred to settle near monas-
teries or manors of lay rulers because of the security that they provided and the
agricultural surpluses that their lands produced. Dependent traders in service of a
monastery or a high ecclesiastical official sold the produce of the great estates
and brought home scarce commodities. They were able to obtain privileges and
toll exemptions in large areas, sometimes even entire kingdoms. Once they had
mastered an enterprise of this scale, it was not uncommon for them to go into
business for themselves. A well-known example of such a merchant is Ianuarius
who worked for the Italian manor of St. Giulia. The manor obtained an exemption
from tolls from Louis II (825–875) for Ianuarius in 861 (Wickham 2009, 300). Other
merchants operated independently, such as the debt-ridden Cosmas the Syrian
whom Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604) helped out in 594, or Eusebius the Syrian,
who bought the bishopric of Paris with his profits in 591 (Wickham 2009, 228).
Some merchants, including Syrians, Jews, Frisians, and Vikings, worked in
groups or networks. The often-quoted Syrian traders of the late sixth century, a
swarming group according to Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594) and Pirenne, have
recently been downplayed in importance (McCormick 2007, 125). Jewish traders
kept contacts with Muslim Spain and the East; there is evidence that Jewish
traders with contacts in modern-day Iraq were active at the St. Denis fairs in the
middle of the ninth century (McCormick 2007, 651). Subjugated by the Franks as
early as the early eighth century and converted to the Christian faith later in that
century, the Frisians were important traders out of Dorestad and visited Alsace,
London, York, St.-Denis, and Haithabu. They traded wine, arms, and silver and
were the first victims of Viking piracy (Lebecq 1983; 2011). Today, Vikings are
known for their role as conquerors and plunderers. Yet before, during, and after
their military expeditions, they also acted as merchants. In 834 they attacked
Dorestad, which they knew well because they were ship owners and merchants
(Wickham 2009, 398). Merchants were often also travelers, pilgrims, diplomats,
court officials, etc. (McCormick 2007).
Like the Vikings, (war)lords often shifted between the roles of raider, pirate
and merchant. This is evident in the case of Genoa, where the rural nobility took
up the sword against Muslim pirates who had previously plundered the nascent
town. Over time, these nobles who were able to combine military power with
business sense would develop into the great merchants of Genoa (Epstein 1996).
The Venetian lagoon, a remote outpost of the Byzantine empire, transformed from
a series of fishing villages surrounded by salt pans into one of the greatest
commercial centers of the Middle Ages (Lane 1973). Henri Pirenne traces the roots
of the medieval merchant class to the poor and dispossessed peasantry. In
support of this theory, he cites the example of the eleventh-century English

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merchant St. Godric of Finchale (ca. 1065–1170), who began as a beachcomber

collecting merchandise from shipwrecks; he next became a merchant, travelling
with his wares from England to Flanders, Scotland, and Denmark; eventually, he
turned his back on business to pursue a new life as a hermit (Durham 1918).
However, it was not only poor merchants who became traders but also the well-
to-do peasants who had enough capital to set up businesses, younger sons of
aristocratic families, etc. Hence, it is somewhat futile to look for the origins of the
prototype medieval merchant; traders came from all groups of society (Hunt and
Murray 1999, 27).
Becoming a merchant was one thing; finding clients was another. Where did
demand for marketable goods come from? This demand was generated by aristo-
crats in such wealthy places as Northern Franconia. In order to satisfy this
demand, merchants had to turn to northwestern Europe’s richer neighbors:
Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as
the Byzantine Empire. The elites paid for their luxuries by selling the agricultural
surplus of their lands, which were worked by peasants (Hunt and Murray
1999, 28; Epstein 2009, 77). Venues where royal households and grandees con-
verged, such as the Frankish and Carolingian assemblies, proved a boon for
traders; these assemblies were often not far from commercial centers (McCormick
2007, 664–68).
Far more is known about trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, thanks to the
discovery of a spectacular trove of Jewish manuscript fragments in the Geniza of
the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt, now kept in various libraries
around the world. This cache existed because these religious and secular texts
were written in the Hebrew alphabet, and since Jews considered Hebrew as a
sacred language, they had to preserve all documents even if they no longer served
any purpose (Hoffman and Cole 2011). The fragments of these religious texts,
correspondences and accounts provide unique insights into the economic and
social history of the years between 950 and 1250 (Goitein 1967–1993; Goldberg
2011; 2012). The merchants who show up in these documents—Maghribi or Geniza
merchants—have fuelled a heated debate on how medieval trade was organized.
In a series of articles and, later, a monograph, the economic historian Avner Greif
contrasts the Maghribi traders’ business methods with those of Genoese mer-
chants. Greif explains the rise of the West—by which he means Western Europe
including Italy—as the rise of market institutions which supported the growth of
long-distance trade. Institutions, according to Greif, are not only formal rules
embedded in laws and organizations such as courts which enforce these rules;
institutions also reflect the informal motives, beliefs and values.
Greif raises important questions: what makes agency possible in trade over
long distances at a slow speed of communication? How did merchants achieve

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security for their persons and goods in distant cities where they were aliens and
easy victims for capricious rulers? How did medieval trading communities
achieve stable self-government without one faction or another seizing power? To
answer these questions Greif relies heavily on game theory, a mathematical
technique to study choice-making behavior, as well as economic modeling. To
summarize his ideas briefly, there was a coalition of Jewish Maghribi traders that
only included merchants who had honest reputations. Their reputations and the
trust they inspired structured their commercial relationships; the Geniza traders
were reluctant to rely on the Islamic courts that surrounded them. Greif calls the
Maghribi collectivists; while working separately these traders did organize their
trade through a collective network. Genoese, and, more generally, Italian and
European merchants, on the other hand, were backed by states, often city-states,
that provided legal courts in which commercial disputes could be decided impar-
tially and which were able to protect their subjects abroad. Gradually, European
merchants became individualists as institutions developed that allowed everyone
to trade freely with each other, both inside and outside the network (Greif 1989;
2006). Virtually all aspects of Greif’s thesis have been criticized but his work has
certainly reinvigorated the study of medieval trade and merchants (Clark 2007;
Edwards and Ogilvie 2012; Greif 2012).
B The Commercial Revolution

Greif and other economic historians endorse what Roberto Lopez (1910–86) has
defined as the “Commercial Revolution,” the period between 950 and 1350 during
which Italy and, later, Europe developed new commercial and financial institu-
tions that became the foundations of modern capitalism (Lopez 1971). Lopez
describes the evolution of this revolution as follows: “when food surpluses
increased, it became possible to release more people for governmental, religious,
and cultural pursuits. Towns re-emerged from their protracted depression. Mer-
chants and craftsmen were able to do more than providing a fistful of luxuries for
the rich” (Lopez 1971, 56). As Georges Duby (1919–1996) put it, “I saw a swelling
tide of mobilized wealth, which seigneurial exactions channeled into the dwell-
ing-places of the rich, and that new wealth fostered a taste for luxury and
expenditure that laid the groundwork for the takeoff, for that crucial turning point
in the European economy that inaugurated the age of the businessman” (Duby
1994, 61). It is debatable whether this expansion was truly a revolution rather
than a slower, cumulative process caused by the increasing demand for luxury
goods in the “barbarian” kingdoms and by the increasing food surpluses that
could be sold for cash. Yet what is beyond academic dispute is that in this period,

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many techniques were developed to manage the opportunities and risks created
by the practice of trading goods over long distances. Risks in trade were multifold:
merchants could be cheated, goods could be lost in transport, currency rates
could fluctuate and eat away profits, political uncertainties could arise due to
wars and opportunistic rulers, there could be difficulties in obtaining precise
knowledge of consumer preferences in faraway lands …. Many of the solutions to
these problems invented by medieval merchants are still recognizable to us nowa-
days: the bill of exchange, partnerships, various types of loans, marine insurance,
multi-branch banks, and double-entry bookkeeping (de Roover 1956). Gradually,
Arabic numerals displaced Roman numerals were adopted to quantify transac-
tions (Crosby 1997).
All of these inventions are Italian and historians usually argue that these
techniques were superior to any developed in northwestern Europe. These techni-
ques slowly but surely spread among European traders. Even the small retailers
of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Prato, a small town close to Florence, could
sustain high levels of credit without large losses and kept track of their activities
with accounts structured according to the principles of double-entry bookkeeping
(Marshall 1999).
Yet the scholarly focus on the spread of Italian-style mercantile techniques
ignores the more indigenous and common ways of doing business. Every group of
merchants had its own preferences regarding commercial methods and did not
adopt all of the tools invented by the Commercial Revolution quickly or inten-
sively. For example, merchants of Genoa and Venice, who helped pioneer double-
entry accounting and sophisticated financial techniques, were very successful
even though they did not adopt the Tuscan form of compagnia (a partnership
lasting several years and including multiple ventures) organization but continued
to rely on single-venture partnerships (Hunt and Murray 1999, 57). Equally suc-
cessful were the German Hansa traders (Hanseatic League) who still travelled
with their merchandise, did not use bills of exchange, and worked within single-
venture partnerships (Selschop) and through commission trade (Sendeve). Buy-
ing and selling on behalf of others without a formal partnership and without
direct remuneration was a key feature of Hanseatic trade, which relied on the
principle of reciprocity, on family and friends (Ewert and Selzer 2001).
Historians have become increasingly interested in relations between mer-
chants. They argue that merchants relied on social networks of family members
and friends to operate in distant markets; family members and friends provided
agency services for others. All merchants used family members to do what to
execute transactions for them, but they did not exclusively use family members;
in trade, one always has to go beyond one’s own group in search of commodities
and capital. Besides using network as a metaphor, historians have recently

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adopted a sociological methodology called Social Network Analysis, in which the

networks between people are visualized using dots that indicate individuals and
lines that connect the dots that indicate the relationships between them. Using
registered business contracts, account books, and correspondence, they have
tried to quantify the intensity of the relationships between Venetian merchants in
Egypt, Genoese traders or merchants from the German Hansa (Burkhardt 2009;
Van Doosselaere 2009; Apellániz 2013). Social Network Analysis is useful for
exploring the existence of ties between traders, but it is much harder to explain
how such relationships were strategically initiated, maintained, or broken be-
cause of the fragmentary surviving documentation. Historians should also be
aware of the attitudes of merchants toward their own documents: although
Genoese merchants may have intensively relied on notaries to register certain
kinds of transactions, not all transactions were notarized. Perhaps notarizations
give insight into the exceptional, not the ordinary. However, these ordinary
transactions may have been even more important than exceptional ones.
C From Fairs to Cities of Commerce

Merchants from north and south met at fairs, occasionally held markets where
merchants were safe. The Lendit fairs, first held in Carolingian times, were orga-
nized twice a year by the royal abbey of Saint-Denis in a field just outside Paris.
Trade provided a regular income for the abbey, which in return gave the visiting
traders a safe place to trade (Epstein 2009, 81–82). By the eleventh century, the
counts of Champagne also realized the gains to be gotten out of fairs and
sponsored a series of fairs in the main towns of their realm: Troyes, Provins, Bar-
sur-Aube, and Lagny. Six annual fairs in various locations that were not very far
from each other provided merchants with a continuous market cycle and a fixed
schedule for their operations. The counts proved vital in the success story of the
Champagne fairs: fair lawswere instituted, commercial disputes were resolved
swiftly, and safety was ensured for merchants traveling to and from the fairs. As a
result, the fairs attracted Italian merchants as well as Flemish and Hansa traders,
and it thrived until the end of the thirteenth century. A political conflict and a less
benevolent ruler were responsible for the demise of the once-famous fairs. In 1284,
the French king Philip IV or Philip the Fair (1268–1314) became count of Cham-
pagne through marriage; as a result of political struggles between the county of
Flanders and the king, Flemish merchants were arrested at the fairs and their
goods confiscated. Security was no longer guaranteed and because Flemish tra-
ders were an important group in the market, the others stayed away too (Edwards
and Ogilvie 2012). In addition, political instability and wars haunted Europe at the

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end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries (Munro 2001).
Overland routes via France between Italy and northern Europe were no longer safe
and land transport costs rose, so that maritime transportation was cheaper,
relatively speaking. The Venetians and Genoese started sending their galleys
through Gibraltar to the North Sea and to ports such as London and Bruges. In the
fifteenth century, when land transportation costs declined again, fairs were again
an important venue for commercial exchange (S. R. Epstein 1994; 2001).
This shift from land to maritime transport seems to have coincided with the
process of commercial sedentarization, a transformation of traders from peddlers
and travelers into sedentary branch managers overseeing home offices. The Bel-
gian-American business historian Raymond De Roover (1904–1972) attributed this
change to superior Italian business organization that included new long-term
partnership agreements, new techniques of accounting and control, and new
instruments of exchange (de Roover 1942; 1948). This supposed transformation
into sedentary traders was anything but universal: merchants from the Hanseatic
League regularly travelled to Bruges and London, as well as within the Hanseatic
space of the Baltic. Moreover, it has been suggested that the new business techni-
ques were an Italian way of coping with the new political reality that emerged in
their homeland in the middle of the thirteenth century. Political turmoil resulting
from factional strife between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines forced Italian mer-
chants to stay within their hometowns in order to defend both their commercial
and political interests (Hunt and Murray 1999, 55–56). However, even Italian
merchants continued to be mobile: branch managers were transferred to other
locations and every merchant-apprentice took a tour of duty in a foreign city in
order to learn about trade and gain the necessary experience to either set up his
own firm or to become a manager of an established merchant house.
A growing concentration of commerce in cities on a permanent basis,
although trade has its seasonal ups and downs, is to be noticed from the four-
teenth century onward. The Flemish city of Bruges demonstrates how this process
took place (Murray 2006). In the thirteenth century, merchants from Italy met their
northern counterparts at the fairs of Champagne, but due to the decline of these
fairs, Italian traders travelled northward to the Flemish towns. Gradually, the city
of Bruges became the inevitable choice for a commercial venue because of its large
population of merchants (it is estimated that there were two thousand foreign
merchants in Bruges during the height of the trading season) and because of its
location in Flanders, one of the industrial heartlands of medieval Europe (Block-
mans 1993; Stabel 1997; Gelderblom 2013, 25). Among these traders were Han-
seats, Portuguese, Venetians, Genoese, Luccese, Florentines, Aragonese, Casti-
lians, Biscayans, Englishmen, Scots, French, and local merchants (Gelderblom
2004; Gelderblom and Grafe 2010; Gelderblom 2013). James Murray has identified

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the Italians and the Hanseats as the “network makers” of the Bruges market;
without their presence, there would not have been such a big market. The other
groups of traders were “network takers” because they relied on and supported the
commercial network (Murray 2000). Francesco Balducci Pegolotti (1310–1347), in
his fourteenth-century merchant manual Pratica della Mercatura, names Bruges
as the market par excellence, where merchants of different nationalities came
together to trade and arrange financial transactions (Pegolotti and Evans 1936,
236–37).
All of these different groups of traders brought goods to Bruges from different
places in Europe and sent the ones they bought in Bruges elsewhere. As foreign-
ers speaking strange languages, wearing unusual clothes, and having different
customs than the locals, they would have stood out among the inhabitants, many
of which were also immigrants. Yet traders were socially integrated into the
Flemish city to substantially different degrees. Members of the Florentine and
Genoese trading communities settled in Bruges, became Bruges citizens, engaged
in local public and private finance, married into the local elite etc.; they seem to
have been more socially integrated than the Venetians and the Hanseats (Stabel
2001). Venetians and Hanseats only very occasionally show up in the administra-
tion records of the Bruges courts of law, much less frequently than do Italians,
Spaniards, and citizens of other countries. The difference in the levels of integra-
tion of the various groups is explained by differences in their methods of trading
and transport. Venetian traders imported Asian spices, such as pepper, ginger,
cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and saffron; luxury textiles (silk, damask); jewelry;
precious stones; paper; glass; cotton; sugar; wine; and olive oil. In turn, they
brought to the East cargos consisting of English wool and tin; furs and amber
from the Hanseatic Baltic; luxury cloth from England and the Low Countries; and
other luxuries produced in the cities of the Low Countries. Venetians relied on
their galleys, the galea della Fiandra, for this trade with Flanders (Lane 1973;
Stöckly 1995; Judde de Larivière 2008). This galley system was a state-controlled
institution that reserved foreign trade for Venetian citizens and redistributed the
profits from that trade among them. The Venetians operated as a group under
control of a state-appointed captain of the fleet and Venetian consuls in Bruges;
working as a group allowed them to set prices. If a Venetian were to become a
citizen of Bruges, he would lose his Venetian citizenship, which would mean
losing access to the galley system and other lucrative group benefits. Thus
integration into Bruges was a very unattractive proposition to a Venetian. Con-
trary to the Venetian trade, Genoese trade was mostly a private, rather than a
state, affair. Genoese traders engaged in more intense relations with local rulers,
were more active in local real estate, and married Bruges girls; some of them even
settled permanently in Bruges.

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In other cities, the authorities chose to closely monitor foreign traders by

spatially segregating them from each other. German merchants visiting Venice
were required to reside in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (first constructed in 1228),
which is close to Venice’s main market, the Rialto. All their transactions were
inspected by government officials, to ensure that trade between Venice and the
East remained in Venetian hands (Romanelli 1999). The concept of the fondaco, a
building where foreigners were required to stay and do business, goes back to the
Muslim funduq, which was a complex that included a hostel, taverns, markets,
warehouses, and sites where goods could be taxed and regulated (Constable
2006). The Hanseats often created separate quarters for themselves within trading
cities such as the Kontore in Bergen and Novgorod, as well as the London
Steelyard. The Hanse merchants of Bruges tried to carve out their own space in
Damme, a port of Bruges, but met with the fierce disapproval of the countess of
Flanders, Margaret of Flanders (1145–1194) who did not want a foreign legal
independency in her subject town (Stein 1902).
Foreign merchants in Bruges and other cities often formed merchant guilds
or merchant nations. Local merchants also developed such organizations; they
were first to do so. Local merchant guilds were much more numerous than
foreign merchant guilds, since almost every city had its own merchant guild but
only a limited number of cities attracted groups of foreign traders (Ogilvie 2011).
The Benedictine Alpert of Metz (died in 1024) describes how merchants of Tiel
(in Holland) organized into such a guild in the 1020s and how the members of
this merchant guild engaged in ritual drinking on holidays to strengthen their
social bonds (Akkerman 1962). Local merchant guilds such as the Florentine
Arte di Calimala (merchants and finishers of foreign cloth), the Arte del Cambio
(bankers and money-changers), and the Arte della Lana (wool manufacturers
and merchants) wielded important political power (Goldthwaite 2009). In thir-
teenth-century Bruges, the city rulers, the aldermen, were always members of
the Hansa of London, an exclusive club or merchant guild that controlled the
vital trade between Bruges and England (Wyffels 1960; 1991). Hence, elite
political circles overlapped with elite commercial circles, and merchant guild
membership was a crucial advantage in politics. Merchant guilds had several
political, economic, social, and cultural functions. The Venetians were the first
to develop a formal nation in Bruges in the early fourteenth century: the count
of Flanders and the city of Bruges granted them fiscal and legal privileges, as
well as the right to organize (Stabel 2001). Members of the guild elected consuls,
who were tasked with communicating with the local authorities in order to
further group interests, intervening and mediating in disagreements between
members, and representing members in local courts. Membership fees and
donations financed the operations of the nation. Guilds allowed foreign mer-

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chants to stand strong against rulers who did not protect their interests suffi-
ciently or even harassed them. Merchants could collectively boycott cities and
rulers, forcing them to accept the nation’s demands. In one of the few xenopho-
bic attacks on foreign merchants in Bruges, a large number of Hanseatic
merchants were killed in Sluis, the port of Bruges, in 1436. The Hanseatic
League immediately proclaimed a boycott against Bruges until apologies were
made, damages paid, and new privileges were granted to secure the safety and
property rights of merchants (Dollinger 1970, 368). It was not only locals that
sometimes harmed merchants; rivalries between different commercial cities and
their merchants could evolve into outright violence. Tensions between different
Italian merchant guilds frequently turned into violence in twelfth-century Con-
stantinople, in Messina in 1129, in Acre in 1222–1224 and 1256–1257, and in Cairo
in the late 1280s, to name but a few examples. This repeated rioting has caused
Sheilagh Ogilvie to argue that the merchant guilds did not ensure their own
security by threatening to boycott opportunistic rulers; instead, they increased
their commercial insecurity by competing for privileges. Ogilvie claims, in
opposition to other economic historians, that merchant guilds were not efficient
institutions that promoted trade. Instead, they acted as monopolists, colluding
with local governments in exchange for various privileges, and excluded all
non-members from trading activities (Ogilvie 2011).
The nations did more than just regulate commercial and legal issues; they
also played a large role in the social, cultural and religious lives of foreign
merchants. The Venetians, for example, had their own altar in the Augustinian
monastery of Bruges that was devoted to their city’s patron, Saint Mark (died 68
C.E.). Foreign merchants were also visible in the city’s architecture: almost all
foreign merchant associations had their own nation houses in the commercial
center of the city, epitomized by the Bourse square (De Roover 1949). Over time,
these merchant nations sometimes developed into exclusive social clubs such as
the German Kaufleutestuben (Isenmann 1988, 301–04). The Hanseatic League was
by far the most famous organization of medieval merchants. The Hansa was a
commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market
towns; its goal was to protect Hansa merchants’ economic and diplomatic privi-
leges in cities and countries where they were active.
Several German cities, including Lübeck, Hamburg, and Cologne, had their
own local merchant guilds in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. German mer-
chants formed organizations in foreign towns, such as the guild in Novgorod in
the first half of the thirteenth century. By 1356, the previously informal coopera-
tion between more or less independent north German towns had obtained a more
formal character and representatives of the towns began to meet at so-called
Hanseatic Diets, assemblies of the member towns. Hanseatic merchants and their

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representatives obtained Kontors, or Hanseatic settlements, in North Sea and

Baltic port cities (Dollinger 1970). The study of the Hanseatic League and its
merchants has a venerable and long-standing pedigree, but the subject continues
to attract economic historians who are interested in how Hanseatic merchants
operated (Kiesow-Hammel and Puhle 2009).
Merchants were not the only ones who stood to gain from trade: their
presence also attracted subsidiary commercial personnel. Clerks and bookkeepers
offered their administrative services to merchants. Brokers matched buyers and
sellers who did not have the contacts to seal deals themselves. Hostellers (who
often also served as brokers or kept brokers in their service) provided room and
board to foreign traders. In Bruges, hostellers and innkeepers specialized in
providing services to merchants from specific regions. Money-changers not only
provided access to different currencies; they also kept money on behalf of their
clients and, over time, would gradually develop into bankers. Notaries, which
were well established in Italian cities early on, spread over Europe alongside
Italian merchants. Clerks of local governments too registered contracts which
could be used as evidence in case of a lawsuit (S. R. Epstein 1994; Reyerson 2002;
Murray 2006). All of these businesspeople knew that it was important for them to
have some knowledge of different languages. They learned languages by en
passant and from an ever-increasing number of foreign conversation manuals
and word lists. In addition, craftsmen found buyers for their products through
merchants. Yet access to long-distance trade must have been a mixed blessing:
producers faced foreign competition and trade could quickly be disrupted by wars
and political uncertainty (Munro 2003; 2005; Stabel 2004).
One particularly strong shock to trade was the Black Death, which hit Europe
in the late 1340s and remained endemic there for the rest of the Middle Ages. The
sudden spike in mortality that erased perhaps one-third of Europe’s population,
meant that a huge amount of wealth was transferred to those who survived the
Black Death. There were therefore large numbers of newly rich people craving
luxury goods. Merchants were hard-pressed to satisfy this demand at a time when
many of their trusted agents abroad in Europe and the Middle East had passed
away. The connotations of the word “risk” changed from positive to negative in
Venice and Genoa, reflecting the loss of confidence of the mercantile commu-
nities of these cities in trade. Merchant ships that once had names like Wealth,
Fortress, and Merriment now were named after saints; mariners and merchants no
longer assumed that success came from their own skills and courage but that it
primarily came from the grace and protection of God and his saintly assistants
(Kedar 1976). Yet the commercial system did not collapse. Merchants continued to
use the techniques and modes of operation they had developed during the
Commercial Revolution, and adapted them to the increased risks and opportu-

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nities of the late medieval crisis, a period haunted by the Three Horsemen of
plague, hunger, and war (Hunt and Murray 1999, 148–49).
D Medieval Attitudes Toward Trade and Traders

As has been stated earlier, after the year 1000, most ecclesiastical writers (our
sources for most of the extant texts dating from the early Middle Ages) did not
automatically condemn commerce. Running an honest business was possible
within a religious context, and those who did so even merited praise. Ecclesiastics
who came into contact with merchants in urban settings were especially posi-
tively disposed toward trade. Gilles li Muisis (ca. 1272–1352), the abbot of the
Benedictines in Tournai, emphasizes that commerce as an occupation is a bur-
densome line of work: the merchant is constantly on the road, always taking risks
and looking out for the latest news. Merchants bring people together and import
commodities from where they are abundant to where they are scarce. Traders, he
concludes, should be honored, not mistreated (Schilperoort 1933, 107–13). The
Franciscans developed the most pronounced view of professional merchants:
namely, that ethical merchants are able to produce useful riches and are not to be
confused with usurers (Todeschini 2004). The Franciscan Bernardino of Siena
(1380–1444) argues that a merchant requires a specific set of qualities: diligence,
efficiency, and responsibility. Merchants need to be energetic for their long
voyages and are always exposed to dangers (Lis and Soly 2012, 237). Beginning in
the late fourteenth century, humanists, especially Florentines, expressed an
equally favorable view of trade and traders, stressing the intrinsic value of
mercatura or commerce (Bec 1967). Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) wrote, “holiest
of all in our view is the mercatura, as mankind cannot live without exchange” (De
Rosa 1980, 38). It is not a coincidence that the man who said this was a Florentine,
given Florence’s economic and cultural dynamism. Poggio Bracciolini (1380–
1459), in his 1428 De avaritia, argues that profit is central to urban life and that
without profit there would be no mercy and charity. The rich should use their
wealth wisely and spend it for the benefit of the common weal (Bracciolini 1978,
260–61). Some merchants were rather open about their riches: in 1287, Benedetto
Zaccaria (ca. 1235–1307), a Genoese merchant, ship owner, and condottiere or
mercenary leader who befriended the Byzantine Emperor and supplied war fleets
to the kings of France and Castile, even dared to name the largest ship in his
merchant fleet Divizia or “Wealth” (Renouard 1949, 123–30).
Not only churchmen and humanists wrote about trade and traders; over time,
merchants themselves also started to write in order to justify their own activities
(Dahl 1998). Again, most of the extant evidence comes from Florentines such as

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Giovanni di Paolo Morelli (1371–1444) and Paolo da Certaldo (ca. 1320–1370), both
of whom stress the merits of hard work. One’s reputation and trustworthiness
should be kept in mind at all times. The goal of hard work is enrichment, but one
has to be prudent in how one earns and spends it. One has to take risks in order to
earn profits. Yet these risks clearly affected merchants such as Francesco di Marco
Datini (1335–1410) from Prato, close to Florence, who left one of the richest
medieval collections of account books and correspondence, or the fifteenth-
century Hanseatic trader Hildebrand Veckinchusen (ca. 1370–1426). Both lament
the fears and anxieties of business (Stieda 1921; Lesnikov 1973; Origo 1992; Seifert
2000; Nigro, ed., 2010; Lis and Soly 2012, 278–79). The Renaissance has also been
characterized as the period in which a merchant mentality of individualism and
economic rationalism in the pursuit of profit started to develop. According to
some historians, this merchant mentality translated into a so-called comptabilité
de l’au-delà or “accounting for the hereafter” (Chiffoleau 1980). Merchants were
allowed to pursue profits if they gave some of them to the Church. Francesco
Datini lived all his life in the merciless pursuit of profit. His friend, the pious
notary Lapo Mazzei (1350–1412), often warned him not to go too far. Yet Datini
observed all the conventions of Christian religious practice and in his testament
he bequeathed his entire fortune to the poor of his birth town, Prato (Origo 1992).
This generosity was often publicized through public works, architecture, and the
visual arts. By doing so, businessmen displayed their exquisite taste. Tommaso
Portinari (1424–1501), the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici bank and
financial advisor to the Duke of Burgundy, had large altarpieces made by the
Flemish painters Hans Memling (ca. 1430/1440–1494) and Hugo van der Goes (ca.
1430/1340–1482) that included depictions of himself and members of his family in
the religious scenes (De Roover 1966; Boone 1999; Wolfthal 2007).
Merchants’ wealth eventually brought them political power. With the growth
of trade, cities started to develop or redevelop. Inhabitants of the growing towns
sought to obtain urban freedom and rights. These demands sometimes lead to
clashes between merchants and local rulers. Merchants, while not always at the
forefront of the push for urban political independence, made sure their demands
were heard. They clearly had a lot to gain from increased security and transparent
tolls and duties, which were aims of early urban communities. Urban elites were
often a hybrid group consisting of local noblemen of various ranks, members of
the clergy, and nouveaux riches who had either currently or previously earned
their livelihood in trade or industry (Crouzet-Pavan 1997; Jones 1997; Dutour
2003; Buylaert 2010). In the cities of north and central Italy, country nobles and
businessmen converged socially and culturally: the nobles invested in non-agri-
cultural activities, while businessmen emulated the lifestyles of the traditional
elite (Goldthwaite 1993). It was often difficult to combine (semi-)noble status with

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economic activity. Filippo Strozzi (1426–1491) planned to build a gallery of shops

right across the entrance of his family palace, but the Florentine banker and
politician Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492) warned his colleague that such “utili-
ties” would tarnish Strozzi’s reputation (de Roover 1963; Martines 1963, 32; Gold-
thwaite 1987). In the Low Countries and in the county of Flanders in particular
(which was the mirror image of highly-urbanized Italy), the urban elite closed its
ranks in the thirteenth century. As in Italy, the Flemish urban elite adopted
aristocratic lifestyles, conspicuously displaying costly fabrics and knightly arms
and armor, building stone houses and towers, and buying lordly estates. In
medieval Venice, the commercial elite were the political rulers of this lagoon
metropolis. Venetian merchants governed the city to their own advantage, build-
ing public infrastructure such as the galley system, which they used for trade with
the East and northwestern Europe, and denying Venetian citizenship to foreign
merchants, consequently squeezing them out of Venice’s highly profitable long-
distance trade. Only in the sixteenth century would the Venetian elite turn its
back on active commerce (Lane 1973; Tucci 1973; Cecchini and Pezzolo 2012).
Merchants did not always try to enter the nobility, however: in the cities of the
German Hanse, businessmen lavishly displayed their wealth but they did not
attempt to become nobles because the nobility had little political power (Lis and
Soly 2012, 243–44). Rulers could privilege their own traders and exclude all others
from trade, often in return for financial services, as the rulers of Venice did;
alternately, they could open up trade to all merchants, regardless of their origins
and legal status, and hope to benefit from larger markets. Oscar Gelderblom
recently has argued that cities of commerce competed for long-distance mer-
chants, and that this competition pushed them to develop openness, infrastruc-
ture, and legal institutions according to best practice. He argues that this competi-
tion took place for the first time in the urbanized Low Countries, where there were
several competitors in the battle for commercial primacy (Gelderblom 2013).
Eventually, in the early modern period, all European cities would gradually
develop open-access commercial regimes, allowing all traders to trade in these
cities.
Select Bibliography
Dahl, Gunnar, Trade, Trust and Networks: Commercial Culture in Late Medieval Italy (Lund 1998).
Favier, Jean, De l’or et des épices: naissance de l’homme d’affaires au Moyen Âge (Paris 1987).
Hunt, Edwin S. and James M. Murray, A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200–1550
(Cambridge 1999).
Greif, Avner, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade
(Cambridge 2006).

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Lopez, Robert S., The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950–1350 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
1971).
Postan, Michael M. and J. M. Miller, ed., Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 3: Trade and

Industry in the Middle Ages (Cambridge 1988).

McCormick, Michael, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce,
A.D. 300–900 (Cambridge 2007).
Ogilvie, Sheilagh, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800 (Cambridge
2011).
Spufford, Peter, Power and Profit: Merchants in Medieval Europe (London 2002).

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Werner Heinz
History of Medieval Metrology
A Introduction
1. Today it is easy to think about different measurements of length, about uniform
standards when measuring, and so on. During the French Revolution the “meter”
became a completely new unit of length for measurements in a completely new
society: it was calculated as the ten-millionth part of the meridian between the
North Pole and the equator (Trapp 1992, 30). The meridian was measured with a
fathom called Toise de Pérou. This toise was divided into 864 lines, and its length
equalled 1949 mm (Brachner 1996, 41). After many calculations, the length of the
mètre vrai et définitif was defined by law to be 443.296 lines of the Toise de Pérou
(Trapp 1992, 31). This meter became a new standard by which to measure length
in 1799. Older standards with lengths close to one meter are, thus, incorrectly
called a “meter” (e.g., Wallenwein 1995, 69–78; Sperling 1999, 280–81; Kottmann
2011). The standards used for measurement before the invention of the meter are
called “pre-metric measures.”
As demands for accuracy increased, new definitions of the meter were
adopted in 1889, and the standard measure of a meter as a fraction of the
meridian was abandoned. From then on, length was measured by optical meth-
ods with a standard deviation of ±10-7 meter. From 1960 onward, the meter was
defined in terms of atomic wave length, and, in the year 1983, scientists calibrated
the meter’s length according to the distance that light travels in a very tiny length
of time (Lemmerich 1987, 87–89).
2. This search for exactitude begins in antiquity, and not with us. From the first
records detailing such investigations, lengths were calculated with accuracy not
only during antiquity, but also into medieval times. In Windisch (Switzerland)
Roman measures were excavated that could be traced back to the Roman foot =
pes Romanus and to a length we call the foot of Vindonissa (after Windisch) (Heinz
1991). Normally, the cubit comprises 24 fingers; the cubit₂₄ of the pes Romanus
equals 444.2 mm. But, one finds also a longer cubit of 28 fingers. This cubit₂₈ of
the foot of Vindonissa is 511.8 mm long. In Assisi (Italy), three standards exist,
some witnessed by inscriptions explaining what they were used to measure, items
like wood, silk and so on. One of these measures is exactly 512 mm. The difference
between it and the standard cubit of 511.8 mm is incredibly low, differing by only
two tenths of a millimeter or 0.04%. An inscription states that the Assisi stan-

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1058 Werner Heinz
dards go back to the year 1349. They are then at least 1200 years younger than the
Vindonissa measures. We will return to these measures again.
This high accuracy with which standards were passed down from ancient to
medieval times can be observed in many locations (Heinz 1999). It is reasonable
to say that one neighbor knew about the standards of the other—this would be an
inevitable result of trading—and that he transformed other standards of measure-
ment to fit his own uses. Descriptions of these processes are extremely rare.
However, there exists a witness to this process from Roman Imperial times. The
agrimensor (i.e., surveyor) Hyginus who lived in the second century C.E. reports
details about the Roman foot: It was a standard kept in the temple of the highest
goddess on top of the Capitol hill in Rome: the pes monetalis or pes Romanus in
the temple of Iuno Monetalis.
3. The standards in other countries and regions differed from those in Rome. We
learn from Hyginus that in one part of the Empire, there was a length called the
Ptolemaic foot: praeterea pes eorum, qui Ptolomeicus appellatur, habet monetalem
pedem et semunciam (Blume, Lachmann, and Rudorff, ed., 1848, 123). This length
was the Roman standard plus one-half ounce, to be defined later. Although this
newly-created foot was longer than the pes monetalis, it was regarded as a foot of
16 fingers (we write: foot₁₆). Each finger is a little longer than the digitus of the pes
monetalis. Hyginus continues with remarks about the pes Drusianus found in
Germania (today: Tongeren in Belgium): Item dicitur in Germania in Tungris pes
Drusianus, qui habet monetalem pedem et sescunciam (Blume, Lachmann, and
Rudorff, ed., 1848, 123). This length was the Roman foot plus sescuncia or 1/8th.
This word (from the Latin sesquiuncia) means 1½ ounces (Hultsch 1882, 88). The
elongation of 1½ ounces equals exactly two fingers. Thus, the pes Drusianus was
always referred to as a foot of 18 fingers (foot₁₈). We find examples of exactly these
lengths in later sections of this article.
4. The first question is the actual length of these three different standards. The
Roman foot (pes Romanus or pes monetalis) was identified by occasional inscrip-
tions and by the Imperial column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, described as
columna centenaria (i.e., a column of 100 feet) in an inscription. The length of this
column revealed the Roman foot to be exactly 296.2 mm (Heinz 2003, 68). Thus,
one may calculate from that fact the Ptolemaic foot as having a length of
308.5 mm and that of the pes Drusianus of 333.2 mm. Three of these feet add up to
999.6 mm. The difference between this and 1000 mm = 1 meter is only –0.04%.
Nevertheless, these facts do not establish the meter as an ancient standard. Other
measures of length existed as well: the Roman pes monetalis of 296.2 mm, and
both longer standards (e.g., pes Drusianus) and shorter measures (Heinz 1991).

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History of Medieval Metrology 1059
When Rolf Rottländer compiled and grouped his archeological data, he found
different classes of lengths which, by mathematical calculations, have to be
separated (Rottländer 1994a). Derived from real examples of measures, he recog-
nized (among others) the length of the Roman foot to be 296.2 mm, the Ptolemaic
foot to be 308.5 mm, and the pes Drusianus to be 333.2 mm (Rottländer 1991, 66).
Thus, the classification of actual measures derived from archaeological data
squares exactly with mathematical calculations made from ancient texts.
5. Since Rolf Rottländer included measures from ancient and medieval times, an
important question concerning the exactness of the tradition can be answered
easily: The very high accuracy of handing down the standards from one genera-
tion to the next is not only a phenomenon characteristic of antiquity, but also of
the Middle Ages (see below).
6. These different standards of measurement were mainly generated by mathema-

tical transformations. The two examples given above by Hyginus show two
different methods of adjusting standards to one’s own needs. There are more
ways discussed below (below, section C). However, by means of statistics, it can
be proven that it is extremely unlikely to “create” by chance a new standard
which equals an existing one.
Thus, not only were the ancient standards preserved despite their adaptation
in later times, but also the same fact applies to the bulk of medieval (Rottländer
1994b) and even later measures (Heinz 2000, 136–39). And one notes the high
precision—within a range of only ±0.2% (Rottländer 1996, 147)—with which
standards were handed over. Those measures which seem to be very close
together must be separated into different classes by means of the so called
“t–test” (Ihm 1978, 144–70). The knowledge from ancient times was, thus, not
forgotten in the medieval era.
B Ancient Sources
1. Standards of measurement in Middle Ages were based entirely on ancient
systems of measurements. Looking at only a few written sources from Roman and
early medieval times, we realize the continuity in the descriptions of measures
and in the idea of measuring itself.
Toward the end of the Roman Republic in the last decades of the first century
B.C.E., the Roman architect Vitruvius published his Ten Books About Architecture.
In book six we read: “Non minus etiam […] eum perfectum constituerunt, cubi-
tumque animadverterunt ex sex palmis constare digitisque XXIIII. […] E cubito

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enim cum dempti sunt palmi duo, relinquitur pes quattuor palmorum, palmus
autem habet quattuor digitos. Ita efficitur, ut habeat pes sedecim digitos et
totidem asses aeracius denarius” (Vitruvius 1976, 3, 1, 7–8). These sentences tell
us about the Greek influence on the Romans; to paraphrase: The number six was
considered to be perfect by the Greeks, and they realized that the cubit also had
six palms, or, if counting, 24 fingers. If one takes away two palms from the cubit,
one gets a foot of four palms, and a palm has four fingers. Thus, a foot has to have
16 fingers, and the copper denarius the same amount of asses.
More than one hundred years later the agrimensor Balbus provides similar
information: The smallest unit of measures is the finger; the ounce has a finger and
one third of a finger; and about the palm he says: “palmus habet digitos IIII, uncias
III”—‘one palm consists of four fingers or three ounces.’ He continues: “sextans,
que eadem dodrans appellatur, habet palmos III, uncias VIIII, digitos XII. pes
habet palmos IIII, uncias XII, digitos XVI” (Blume, Lachmann, and Rudorff, ed.,
1848, 94–95). This text clarifies the meaning of two different units: the first one,
usually called the dodrans, means three-fourths of a foot; it has three palms or nine
ounces or 12 fingers. The foot has four palms or 12 ounces or 16 fingers.
2. These passages provide much information about the ancient and medieval
system of measurements: The cubit with the length of 1½ foot; the foot with four
palms, and each palm with four fingers or, as shown, above, with three ounces.
This system was transferred right from antiquity into the Middle Ages, but with
two exemptions: The ounce is much more common than the finger, and the basic
length of the foot very often differs from the basic length of the cubit. The
Regensburg standards prove this to be so. The dodrans mentioned by Balbus was
well in use in Renaissance times.
The Romans measured larger distances with the stadium, being one eighth of
a mile (Pliny 1997, 2; 21; § 85), or with the mile of 5,000 feet, or, in late antiquity,
with the leuga with the length of 1½ miles, as Iordanes (1991, 36) states (see Heinz
2003, 69). Note that, in the early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville (2006, 15; 16; 2)
defines the mile and the leuga in the ancient Roman way (Hultsch 1882, 81,
note 2), whereas later on, the mile differs completely from its well-defined Roman
length.
3. These very few witnesses might give an idea of how the medieval system of
measures emerged from ancient standardization. In order to combine the mea-
surements described in ancient texts with the lengths we find in archaeological
relicts, we have to know how long the Roman pes monetalis was. Occasional
inscriptions (rather modern) and the columna centenaria of Marcus Aurelius in
Rome lead us to the best value of 296.2 mm, as shown above (Heinz 2003, 68).

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4. How was it possible that a specific standard was copied in other regions? Of
course, people could copy the measure generally. But this copied measure could
also be shortened. It might be useful for our understanding of ways to copy
standards exactly to use an analogy that refers to people gifted with an absolute
musical ear: According to the frequency of the tone, such people will be able to
cut a flute exactly in the length of one foot. This practice is known at least from
ancient China (Haustein 2001, 2), where the standard was preserved with the
Yellow Bell.
In this article, it will not be possible to examine squares or volumes, since
both of these calculate measurement of length in the second or third dimension.
Taking the length is just the beginning of measuring something (Rottländer
1994a, 23). This fact is important in order to minimize any mistakes which, in the
field, would be multiplied by themselves.
C Creating New Standards by Mathematical

Transformations
What methods gave rise to new lengths? To put it briefly, communication between
different partners revealed the necessity of creating new standards. Imagine a
salesman travelling by chance to the edge of the world. In his back-basket, he
carries a fathom of six feet equivalent to 96 fingers. His business partner, however,
does not accept this new measure entirely, for he lives in a region where the
decimal system is common (Ifrah 1991, 52–75). So, he agrees to use the fathom
length, but he will divide it into one hundred fingers (in this way, the so-called foot
of Gudea was created). Of course, this new finger is a little shorter. So, if a third
person recalls the original shape of a foot and calculates the foot of 16 of these
shorter fingers, the new foot will be a little shorter than the original one was.
There are many other ways in which mathematical transformations create
new standards (Rottländer 1994b). They tell us that, in fact, all ancient systems of
standards are coherent. Rottländer proved (1994a) that all ancient lengths can be
traced back to the so called Nippur cubit (the oldest measure of this class was
found in the temple of Nippur, Mesopotamia, and it dates back to the beginning
of the third milennium B.C.E). This basic unit has a length of 518.4 mm. Exactly
this length may be found in one of the standards dating from about 1450 in the
Vienna cathedral (Der Standard, March 25, 1997). As a last example, the pes
monetalis mentioned above has 16 fingers, each one of which is 18.51 mm long;
the Nippur cubit has 28 fingers of 18.51 mm–but the digitus is exactly the same in
both examples.

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In medieval contexts, we find all of these different units, along with many
others, including the ancient Egyptian cubit used in the time of the Suebian
emperor Frederick II († 1250). The Egyptian cubit depends on the Nippur cubit. As
discussed by Rolf Rottländer (1979, 31), we have a square, each side of which is
divided into five units of the Nippur cubit. The diagonal of this square is defined
by the square root of two. Thus, it is impossible to define the diagonal as an entire
number of Nippur cubits. Therefore the Egyptians calculated the diagonal with
seven units, each one a little longer than the Nippur cubit. In this way, the royal
Egyptian cubit gained a length of 523.6 mm. We will find traces of the Egyptian
system of measures, e.g., in Rothenburg o.d. Tauber.
D Setting up the Standards in the Middle Ages

1. Supposedly for the first time in history, the emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305)
tried to impose a unique system of measures, money, prices, etc. in his empire
(Haustein 2001, 75–78). He did not succeed: The Edict of Prices issued in 301 was
intended as a device to curb inflation. Instead, it led to the collapse of the
economy, and people turned back to direct exchange of goods (Scharf 2005). In
terms of metrology, it is important to realize that, in this document, the term pes
as a unit measurement of marble obviously does not refer to a cubic foot. For two
reasons, it must mean the square foot: First, the use of the cubic foot in Latin
sources is rare, and—much more importantly—marble would have been far too
cheap compared to other luxury goods if the pes actually meant a cubic foot
(Corcoran and DeLaine 1994, 272).
2. In the Carolingian era, the Emperor Charlemagne (d. 814) similarly tried to
control markets and prices. Different maximum prices were imposed on different
kinds of grain, as well as on bread. Even in times of economic difficulties, it was
forbidden to practice usury: Too high a margin (turpe lucrum) was rejected in
favor of a just price (iustum pretium). All people in the cities, in the monasteries,
and in the countryside were required to use the correct standards and weights
(Laudage et al. 2006, 190).
These data were published in the general admonition (admonitio generalis) in
789. Four years later, when changing the standard specifications of money by
exchanging the libra gold for the pondus silver (Witthöft 1986b, 215), these new
regulations were imposed everywhere. The standards of length were deposited in
the royal imperial palaces and the centers of the royal real estates, and every
count palatine was furnished with these standards, which were to be used when
paying taxes (Haustein 2001, 82).

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It is nearly impossible to say if Charlemagne succeeded with his attempts at

regularization. That he attempted at all, however, casts light on the fact that the
handling of standards was the business of the sovereign (see below), not of
different regional centers.
E The Mathematical Background when Making

Inquiries into Ancient Standards
1. Although very little research has been done on ancient and medieval measures
as described in literary texts, even less has been done on measures used in real
terms (I will call them “real measures”). The data for these “literary measures”
were usually gained by comparing the pre-metric feet to the royal French stan-
dard (the “Pied de Roi” with 324.8 mm; Rottländer 1994b, 29) or later to the meter.
These tables provide registers of utmost importance since they contain informa-
tion not to be obtained any other way: In Friedberg (Hessen), e.g., the length of
the foot is known as a length of 292.1 mm (reflecting the Roman Vindonissa-foot
mentioned above with a length of 292.5 mm; the difference is a very low –0.13%),
though the real measure is lost nowadays (Belz 1968, 23).
2. We have to watch carefully the quality of the information about these “literary
measures,” since these data usually cannot be verified independently. Thus, it
is better to treat “literary measures” as a class of their own. In this article, we
leave them aside in favor of the “real measures,” which can be assessed by way
of independent witnesses. In this class, other difficulties occur: The metric
values are rounded off (e.g., Rothenburg o.d.T.: Pfeiffer 1986, 620: 1 foot =
303 mm; Pfeiffer 1986, 135: the wrong value of 300 mm for the same foot) or the
data, if published at all, are incomplete (Pfeiffer 1986 mentions two measures in
Rothenburg; there are four of them right next to each other). Important places
with standards presented to the public, like Regensburg, the Freiburg i.Br.
cathedral with its many standards, or Michelstadt and Alsfeld in Hessen, and
Assisi (Umbria), with different late medieval standards are completely missing
from Pfeiffer’s book. Likewise, much data published on the internet are not
reliable. Most of these standards—actually in use as gauges—are not published
at all.
For these reasons, only approved data will be taken into consideration here.
In many places, I took the measures myself. In all cases, these data have to
undergo a special mathematical treatment, which will be introduced here.

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3. Taking measures always means creating a proportion: An existing dimension—

e.g., the length of a church or of a foot—has to be compared to standards familiar
to us (Lemmerich 1987, 1). Measuring a specific object several times will result in
very similar, but not identical outcomes. Taking the measures of two parallel
walls of a large building which are intended to be equal, one might find a
significant difference.
Mathematically, this means that we have to take measurements several times
in order to calculate the mean value. The next step is the calculation of the
standard deviation, which gives the range of the amplitude of plus and minus to
the mean value. Details will be given when discussing the Regensburg measures
below, where we find the mean value and the standard deviation like this: 313.66
± 0.24 mm. It is noteworthy that, within the range of ± 0.24 mm above and below
the mean value, all data have to be treated equally; there is no emphasis on the
mean value.
The standard deviation tells one about the absolute amount of scattering. In
order to compare several statistic units, we have to calculate the relative scattering
using the coefficient of variation (cv). The formula is: the coefficient of variation
(cv) equals the standard deviation (sd) divided by the mean value (mv) times one
hundred (cv = sd / mv * 100). The result is the relative scattering given in percents.
If ten percent is exceeded, we have a rather high scattering (Kellerer 1960, 67).
F A Prominent Example: Regensburg (Bavaria),

The Medieval Town Hall with Different Units of
Lengths
1. Short description of the measures, including the inscription. The favorite places
to present standard lengths to the public were either churches or town halls. As
they were gauges, they had to be available to the public and close to the markets.
In the city of Regensburg, all these important requirements were met: The market
east of the town hall was mentioned for the first time in the year 934, and the
measures of the city are supposed to go back to late medieval times.
The gauges are installed at eye-level at the left hand side of the representative
stairs of the town hall. Three measures in vertical position are identified by an
inscription: der stat schuch | der stat öln | u. der stat klafter; in fact the foot (schuch)
is in the middle, the cubit (öln) on the right hand side, and the fathom (klafter) on
the left. All measures are deflected at both ends, so that the actual length has to
be taken in between these two ends. There is no indication of any special use (i.e.,
for tissue, wood, etc.) for these measures.

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Fig. 1: The Regensburg standards; from the left: the fathom, the foot, and the cubit
(photo: author).

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1066 Werner Heinz
Fig. 2: Details of the Regensburg standards. A rare picture: the foot has the shape of a real foot
(photo: author).

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The fathom has a length of six feet. These feet are marked by notches, and each
foot is about 314 mm long. The bottom part is divided into 12 inches. The foot has
the shape of a real foot, which is very unusual. The ell has a groove in the middle;
the upper part is subdivided into two parts of around 202.5 mm, whereas the
bottom part is intentionally tripartite.
2. These three measures seem to have been ignored by most scholars. They are not
mentioned in Elisabeth Pfeiffer‘s book (1986) or in the paper by Harald Witthöft
(1986a). Stephan Albrecht (2004, 214–17) describes the town hall of Regensburg
without even one word about these standards. They are omitted by Eugen Trapp
(2008, 85) as well as by others. Only Hartmut Boockmann (1986, 139) provides a
picture and a short description, but he does not list the length of these standards.
Since there is no reliable data base, I took the measures myself on July 11, 2009.
So far, these lengths are unpublished sources of medieval material culture. The
results are as follows.
3. The foot, the fathom, and the cubit. The foot is the smallest unit. The maximum
length between the two ends was taken three times, obtaining measures of
314 mm; 313.5 mm; 313.5 mm. This provides the tangible distance of 313.66 ±
0.24 mm with the very small cv = 0.075%. Since it is not realistic to take a measure
of one hundredth part of a millimeter, the value has to be rounded up to
313.7 mm. This figure is very close to an ancient length which was in use on the
Greek island of Aigina (Hultsch 1882, 499–505; 534). The best value for this
ancient foot was calculated to be 314.2 mm (Rottländer 1991, 66). The difference Δ
between the Regensburg foot (schuch) and the foot of Aigina amounts to only
–0.17%. In terms of statistics, the Regensburg foot definitely belongs to the class
of the foot of Aigina.
Once more, we find proof that the ancient standards were handed down with
utmost accuracy (Heinz 1999), either without any change or with a clear mathe-
matical transformation (Rottländer 1994b), like the addition of two fingers and so
on. The old names, however, were lost.
The fathom (klafter) had to be the length of six feet, as indicated above.
The tangible distance between the ends was ascertained to be 1891 mm;
1890 mm; 1890 mm; so on the whole we get 1890.3 ±0.47 mm, cv = 0.02%.
Hence the Regensburg fathom counted six feet of Aigina, each one 315.05 mm
long. Compared to the best value of 314.2 mm, we get a difference of
+0.27%.
So we have two feet of the same class. They differ a little. But we can calculate
the mean value between the foot of the schuch and the one of the klafter as
follows:

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1 foot klafter 315.05 mm

1 foot schuch 313.66 mm
x̄ = 314.36 mm; Δ to 314.2 mm = +0.005%
The tradition of the ancient length is as accurate as one can imagine. Without a
doubt, we find the same length for the foot and the fathom.
The cubit is different. The measurements obtained were: 811 mm; 812 mm;
811 mm; 812 mm; this means 811.5 ±0.5 mm with the low cv = 0.06%. The
partition in the middle provides two lengths of about 405.75 mm. This is very
close to the cubit of 24 fingers from the so-called foot of Bologna (the Bologna
cubit: 406.35 mm; Δ = –0.15%). Two cubits₂₄ are identical with three feet₁₆. We
cannot say how this ell of Regensburg, with its unusual length, was generated.
The foot of Bologna is a recently discovered standard which was found in the
church of San Petronio in Bologna. When the astronomers Cassini set up the
meridian in this church in 1656, they used a measure which they themselves
described as 8/10 del piede scientifico francese. The meridian is exactly 250 feet
long, and we find the length of one of these feet imprinted on the wall. With very
high accuracy, we can then calculate this foot of Bologna to be 270.9 mm long
(Heinz 2000, 136–39). However, the fact that we find this foot here for the first time
does by no means indicate that this standard could not have been older than the
meridian. The bottom part of the Regensburg ell is divided into three parts, each
about 135 mm long. Two of these parts add up to one so-called foot of Bologna.
4. When did these measures emerge? This question is not an easy one to answer
because there are no inscriptions giving further details. The architecture of the town
hall goes back to medieval and to Renaissance times. The flight of steps next to the
standards was built around 1400/1410 (Albrecht 2004, 217). The entrance hall
around the steps with the measures at the left hand side of the door was restored in
1564. However, the relief above the entrance door, with its two protecting figures
(Schutz und Trutz) from about 1400/1410, was reused. Thus, it is probable that
other parts of this entrance hall were constructed in the fifteenth century.
A paleographical analysis of the inscription provides an answer. The letters
are in Gothic minuscule. They can well be compared to Gothic textura (Bischoff
2004, 175, Fig. 26; Schneider 2009, 53–56), but not to letters from the sixteenth
century (Bischoff 2004, 197). The early book printers used the textura type of
writing for the incunabula. Thus, it appears most likely that the Regensburg
measures were set up in the fifteenth century.
5. The Regensburg measures were obviously standards used for different pur-
poses. In contrast to other places (e.g., Assisi), there is no inscription for a

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differentiated use on the scales. Since both ends are deflected, it seems unlikely
that these measures were used for tissue. Small units, however, like the inch or
the half foot can be taken from these standards. They definitely served for many
needs in everyday life, rather than having a special application.
The lengths of the Regensburg standards continued to be used up to the
nineteenth century, when they appear in those tables which expressed the medie-
val measures in metric values (Trapp 1992, 226). In the tables, the Regensburg foot
like the schuch with 313.6 mm and the cubit with 810.0 mm as stated by Trapp are
said to be slightly shorter than my own measurements revealed.
G A Short Investigation into Further

Real Standards
We recall the definition of the pes monetalis and of the foreign feet given by
Hyginus (above: section A). We realized, above, that ancient units of length
emerged from each other. Likewise, just about all of the medieval standards I took
note of could be traced back to ancient measures. Today, this kind of metrological
work seems to be more or less unknown. Most of the single measures or even the
groups of measurements seem to be unpublished. For special information, I would
like to thank the municipal archives of Michelstadt, Riedlingen, and Wetzlar.
When dealing with figures and numbers in this paper, I would like to take the
continuity between ancient and medieval measures as a guide for presenting
other cities with public measures. Looking at medieval standards, we sometimes
even nowadays are able to grasp the economic and juridical power of the cities
involved, a power to some respect comparable to the municipal right of coinage.
In many places, the standards of length are combined with models of bricks
(e.g., Assisi) or bread and other goods from everyday life (e.g., Freiburg), or with
tiles (e.g., Weil der Stadt). It seems strange to regard these tiles just as models for
a future repair of the roof of the church (e.g., Weil der Stadt: Seeliger-Zeiss 1999,
26). Instead, they are metrological objects of another kind, and they were publicly
displayed as standards in commerce (e.g., Ochsenfurt: Wagner 1993, 112; 118,
Fig. 7–8).
1. The pes monetalis—the standard of the ancient city of Rome—was never forgot-
ten. We find it in Assisi (Italy, Umbria) among the different measures twice. In the
center of the city, next to the ancient temple of Minerva (today a church), rises the
tower of the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo. At eye level, there is one slab of
stone with four different tiles; an inscription on the slab from the year 1349 states

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that these measures were set up by local authorities. To the left of this slab, there
are three different standards, all of them iron measures fixed in the wall. From top
to bottom, numbers one to three, I will describe them:
Fig. 3: The standards in Assisi, Italy, on the outside of the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo
(photo: author).
Number 1 is one unit divided by two notches into three parts. The entire length
(carefully taken at least for four times) is 512 mm. With regard to ancient stan-
dards, this measure is very interesting since the cubit₂₈ of the Vindonissa foot
mentioned above (section A) has an ideal length of 511.8 mm. There is practically
no difference then from the standard in Roman times, witnessing a living con-
tinuity, since the chance to match an existing standard just by invention was
calculated to be smaller than hitting the jackpot.
Assisi number 2 is even more interesting. With a total length of about 391 mm
(to be exact: 390.75 ±0.43 mm; cv = 0.11%; n = 4), this measure is divided in the
middle by an X, and the left half again is divided into two equal parts. They carry
an inscription: PIEDE · D · LEGNO | E · FORMONI. So this was a measure for certain
kinds of wood and tiles. The length of 391 mm is close to an ancient unit of
20 fingers called pygon (Hultsch 1882, 36). In this case, it is the pygon of a measure

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called Late Byzantine foot (related to the pes Drusianus). The foot has an ideal
length of 312.4 mm; the pygon has a length of 390.5 mm, making it very close to
the Assisi standard 2.
Fig. 4: A small detail of the Assisi standards: The measure of wood “piede di legno”
(photo: author).
Assisi number 3 with 1040.5 mm is the longest. It is divided into six different
sections by way of five notches, three of them marked by an X as well. All of them
can be traced back to ancient standards. In the third section c, I found a length of
148.17 ±0.24 mm (cv = 0.16%; n = 3) that is very close to one half pes monetalis of
296.2 mm (Δ = +0.05%). Even more interesting are the last two sections: Part e
carries the inscription SETA. This part, used for measuring precious silk, has the
length of one half Byzantine foot, consisting precisely of 160.5 ±0.4 mm. Com-
pared to the ideal value of this foot (i.e., 320.6 mm), I observed a difference of
only +0.12%. The last section of this long measure is one foot long. It is reserved
for ordinary wool tissue: The inscription says LANA. The length of the foot is
296.6 ±0.47 mm which again is the pes monetalis +0.14%.
The standards of Assisi deserve a publication on their own which include all
the inscriptions, an evaluation of the measures of the tiles, etc. But the few facts

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mentioned above give an idea of the role of these standards in everyday life and
of their importance for the economy of this medieval city.
Assisi number 1 represents the cubit of the ancient Vindonissa foot. This foot
itself was found as a real measure in the small city of Eibelstadt (Bavaria, near
Würzburg). The church has stone carvings representing the length of 146.05 mm
(Wagner 1991, 88). This foot is about one-half of a Vindonissa foot (Δ = –0.14%),
which was actually one-fourth of the so-called “Würzburg cubit.” We get a hint
that this cubit consisted of two feet (two feet as a cubit is often found in medieval
times). Some inscriptions seem to date this measure to between 1480 and 1523.
A cubit as a double foot decorates the beautiful town hall of Augsburg
(Bavaria). The building is Baroque, and the presentation of the standards is
supposed to be as well. But we can assume that the lengths as such were already
in use during the Middle Ages. There are four standards. From top to bottom: One
half fathom for wood with 855.5 mm, which is two times the cubit₂₄ of another
Ptolemaic foot; one cubit for linen with 606 mm representing two Egyptian feet;
one cubit for fustian with 585.0 mm, which is exactly two Vindonissa feet; and,
finally, the Augsburg foot (called “Stadtwerkschuh”) with 296.2 mm, which is
exact the pes monetalis.
2. Among the foreign feet Hyginus (section A) mentioned was the Ptolemaic foot.
It was calculated to have the length of 308.5 mm. The cubit₂₈ of this foot₁₆ has a
length of 539.8 mm. Let us examine the city of Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden-
Württemberg). The western entrance hall of the main church (Freiburger Münster;
since 1827 Freiburg cathedral), crowned by a beautiful octagonal tower, is
equipped with a series of different measures. I do not know any other place where
there are so many of measures.
In a small booklet about the church, the metrological objects are mentioned.
The author states that the emphasis lies on the “just measure,” justice being the
second of the cardinal virtues (Lützeler 1955, 8–9). A guide-book gives much more
specific information, on the measures and the adjacent inscription. Yet details
about the lengths and so on are missing (Becker 1974, 7). Very recently, all the
different measures were published in a separate paper (Kalchthaler 2011).
Overall, this entrance hall contains about 16 metrological objects. The most
important ones will be treated here. Looking from the west toward the entrance,
we start at the left hand side with the northern pier. On the outside, there are
different measures for bread (Kalchthaler 2011, 39, Fig. 27; Kiesow 1995, Fig. 4, cf.
Fig. 5 and 6 for other Freiburg measures). The top line shows a circle that is not
really round, but which is, rather, the shape of a loaf of bread; it has the year 1320
engraved. Below and to the left is the shape of a big oval loaf of bread dated 1270,
and, right next to it, are the shapes of two much smaller bread loaves from 1317;

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when the circumstances were bad, the bread was smaller, but the price was the
same.
Turning to the inner side of this buttress, several measures may be seen.
First of all, there is a circle with the diameter of 387 mm (from my own data:
388 mm). In combination with a line of 194 mm (own data: 190.5 mm; it is
difficult to take this length), we can imagine a cylinder of nearly 23 liters for
measuring grain.
This inner wall has two measures of the same length: They are both 540 mm,
showing a high rate of accuracy. These standards have been called the Freiburg
cubit. Both of them are extremely close to the cubit₂₈ of the small Ptolemaic foot
(best value: 539.8 mm) described by Hyginus (section A). To underscore this fact:
The most important medieval measure of this important city reflects without
doubt and with great exactitude an ancient length.
Fig. 5: The Freiburg Cathedral with one of the measures: The Freiburg cubit (photo: author).
High above these measures, there is a metrological object of another kind: a tub
for charcoal. Its capacity is 182.26 liters. The inscription says that when this tub is
filled eight times in a heaping measure (“GEHUFOT”), one cart of charcoal will be
filled (Kalchthaler 2011, 40). This measure is dated 1295.

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Fig. 6: The Freiburg measure for charcoal from 1295 (photo: author).
On the southern side of this entrance wall, there are two rows of standard bricks and
tiles (details: Kalchthaler 2011, 40), in between is engraved a beautiful lily, maybe
in the form of a fleur-de-lis (Kühnel, ed., 1984, 35, Fig. 38). Above these tiles, there is
a long measure of 2276 mm, both ends of which are marked by a piece of iron. This
length also reflects an old Ptolemaic measure. Its purpose is unknown. It is
certainly not correct to call this length a fathom (Kalchthaler 2011, 40: “Klafter”)
since it contains about 7.5 feet, instead of six feet. Completing this list are three
other standards on the outside of this southern wall: One fathom of 1816.5 mm is
equal to six ancient Egyptian feet; one measure of 1594.5 mm (a fathom of six so-
called feet of Gudea), and a length of 914 mm (i.e., three feet of 304.6 mm; this foot
out of the Ptolemaic family of measures is still in use in England).
Back to the bricks and tiles: Next to them, there is an inscription in Gothic
minuscule in the wall, telling how the city markets (“ein jar merkt …”) have to be
set up over the year (Kalchthaler 2011, 41). It can be assumed that this inscription
was engraved fairly soon after King Wenzel issued a corresponding edict in the
year 1379.
Many of the Freiburg i. Br. specialties are not understood so far. But we can
claim one thing for sure: All these different items inform us about the economy of

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the city. Even the kind of bricks that was used to build houses was regulated. The
Freiburg ensemble, in fact, is the largest and most important one I know of in
medieval Europe.
3. The small Ptolemaic foot (Hyginus) is the standard for the Freiburg cubit, as
well as for the small city Weil der Stadt (Germany, Baden-Württemberg). When it
comes to measures, the Catholic church of St. Peter and St. Paul is the most
important building in this medieval town. The massive western tower was erected
about 1370/1380 (Hammer 2006, 4). On the south side of this tower, we find the
measures of two tiles engraved in the stone. An inscription in Gothic minuscule
runs around one of the tiles. The inscription says that a man called Benzlin of
Heimsheim (“benczlin · von · haimczhin”) laid the first stone, and his son the top
one (Seeliger-Zeiss 1999, 26). Looking at other inscriptions we learn that this man
died in 1388. The inscription must have been finished at that time. And the models
of the tiles must have originated at least a little earlier.
Fig. 7: The measure in Weil der Stadt is slightly damaged an the right hand side. The original
length, however, can still be obtained (photo: author).

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1076 Werner Heinz
The standard in question is fixed to the western wall of this tower. Since there is
no inscription it is not really datable. There are good reasons to assume that Weil
did have its own standard in the fourteenth century: The Hohenstaufen Emperor
Frederick II bestowed on Weil the rank of an imperial city with self-governance
subject only to the emperor (Seeliger-Zeiss 1999, XXV). A long series of further
inscriptions reveals that Weil was a rich and autonomous city. So maybe the
measure is contemporaneous with the tiles. Although there is a little damage at
one end of the measure I could verify a length of 615.9 ± 0.48 mm. This cubit also
constituted two feet. The calculated length of one foot is 307.9 mm, only 0.18%
smaller than the ideal value of the small Ptolemaic foot , which is 308.5 mm.
4. Returning one last time to Hyginus, we recall the pes Drusianus with a best
value of 333.2 mm. Jesi (Italy, Marche) is a medieval town like many others. The
old Palazzo della Signoria (the palace of the city’s government) houses three
measures dated by inscription to 1496. On the left, there are models of one stone
and one tile. On the right hand side, two measures are engraved in the slab: the
top one is 1335 mm long, the bottom one 1495 mm. The first one can be inter-
preted as a standard of four pedes Drusiani (Δ = +0.16%); the latter can (among
other possibilities) be read as five ancient Egyptian feet. The inscription names
Pope Alexander VI, who held office from 1492 to 1503. This monument belongs in
fact to the Italian Renaissance.
The town hall of Bad Langensalza (Germany, Thuringia) is a Baroque build-
ing. There I found a standard of 666 mm length, which is, with high accuracy, the
double foot of the pes Drusianus (Δ = –0.06%). Again, this proves how carefully
standards were handed down from generation to generation.
5. The genesis of the Egyptian cubit was explained above (section C). Once again,
a whole group of Egyptian standards were well-known in medieval Europe. The
town hall of Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Germany, Bavaria) has been mentioned.
The older Gothic part of this building goes back to the thirteenth century (Reitzen-
stein 1974, 831). Here we find four different standards next to a door. The shortest
one is a foot of 303 mm, by my own measurement. This standard exceeds the foot
belonging to the big Egyptian Royal cubit (best value: 302.2 mm) only very little
(Δ = +0.26%). Right next to it is the rod with 3936 mm (Pfeiffer 1986, 612). Since
this length has been identified as a rod of thirteen (!) feet (Pfeiffer 1986, 617), we
have a foot of about 302.8 mm which is even closer to the Egyptian standard. The
third measure is a cubit of double foot; I found it to have the length of 588.8 mm.
Thus one foot is 294.4 mm long, so it belongs to the Punic foot (in use in North
Africa): With a best value of 294.1 mm it is a class between the foot of Vindonissa
and the pes monetalis. We will return to the Punic foot in point 7 below. The fourth

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standard in Rothenburg is a fathom of 1807.8 mm (my own data). Taking six feet
as its length, we find the basic standard of 301.3 mm. With 301.2 mm, we hit the
foot of another class derived from the so called New cubit₂₈. The difference is only
0.03%.
Generally, the Rothenburg measures are an excellent example of the diversity
of medieval standards: The foot is not compatible with the cubit since both belong
to different classes of standards, a phenomenon found in many places.
The beautiful medieval town of Todi (Italy, Umbria) deserves a visit also
because of its standards. We find them at the Palazzo del Popolo, which dates
back to the early thirteenth century. The entrance door to the piano nobile is
flanked by five standards for bricks and tiles, and three lengths. The longest one
on the right hand side is 1816.3 mm long (from my own data, taken from the
original standard which a few years ago seems to have been replaced by a new
one). It is a fathom of six Egyptian feet of 302.7 mm (instead 302.2 mm; Δ =
+0.17%). Again, the other two standards belong to other classes. The longer one
of 1436.3 mm can be identified as five feet belonging to a class called Baumaß
(measure of construction; Rottländer 1994b, 29), with the mean value of 288.0 mm
(Δ = –0.26%). The third standard, decorated with the heraldic eagle of the city, is
533.2 mm long (this is the ancient cubit₃₀ of a foot from the Ptolemaic family).
Fig. 8: The standards in Todi (Italy) next to the door and to the window (photo: author).

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1078 Werner Heinz
The city hall of Michelstadt (Germany, Hessen),with its beautiful wooden frame-
work and its big arcades on the ground floor, dates to 1484. One of the pillars
carries a cubit with the inscription “ELLE.” In the archives of the city, there is no
information concerning the date when this cubit was installed. But together with
big scales on this open ground floor and a well in front of the town hall, we find
everything that is necessary for public commerce. In all likelihood, the entire
ensemble goes back to late medieval times. On one side, the cubit is flat, meaning
that it is probably a cubit for measuring tissue. The Michelstadt cubit is 600 mm
long (Heinz 1999). This means a cubit of two ancient Egyptian feet (best value:
299.2 mm; Δ = +0.267%). In the nearby city of Erbach, there is a younger cubit of
the same length.
Fig. 9: The measure in Michelstadt is not easy to find. It is open at the top
since it does not have the shape of a mouth (photo: author).

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The situation in Büdingen (Germany, Hessen) is very similar: There is the same
type of standard (one side open), with exactly the same length of 600 mm
reflecting an ancient Egyptian doubled foot (like Michelstadt), on the outside of
the town hall dated to 1458. This tradition appears to be older. In the time of the
Hohenstaufen emperors, the Count of Büdingen was also the ruler of the nearby
palatium Gelnhausen (Sante 1993, 66) where a standard of 555.3 mm length can
be found on the outer wall of the main church. This is the cubit₃₀ of the pes
monetalis. Thus, in these two places, we find exactly those standards that were in
use for the construction of the Apulian Castel del Monte built by Frederick II.
6. Another ancient standard was the Attic-olympic foot (the table: Rottländer
1991, 66, is in the meantime slightly enlarged), with a length of 311.0 mm. So the
cubit₃₀ is 583.2 mm long. This foot is very close to the standard of medieval
Florence: the braccio Fiorentino. It is 583.6 mm long (Zervas 1979, 8). In Florence,
I did not find a standard at the place described. There is one, however, in the
Palazzo del Comune in Pistoia. This DOPPIO BRACCIO | ANTICA MISURA TOSCA-
NA seems to be a fairly new copy done precisely. I found the length of the doppio
braccio to be 1167.17 mm. One cubit is 583.585 mm by 583.6 mm long (Heinz 1999,
487–89), identical to the data by Diane Finiello Zervas (1979, 8). The braccio
Fiorentino—the standard length in medieval Florence and Toscana—exceeds the
ancient cubit of the Attic-olympic foot by only 0.07%.
Nearly the same length was found in Lübeck (Germany, Schleswig-Holstein)
with 582.0 mm (Witthöft 1986a, 296) dated 1469. It is the same cubit of the Attic-
olympic foot (Δ -0.2%).
Somewhat curious is a foot presented in the entrance hall of St. Mary’s church
in Munich. Legend says that this is a footprint the devil left there when the
building was completed in 1488. This foot points directly to the main altar. The
length of the foot is 310 mm, which is 1 mm or 0.32% less than the mean value of
the Attic-olympic foot with 311.0 mm. It is, however, likely that this foot was not
intended to be a metrological object. Since ancient times footprints are found in
sanctuaries, as well as in secular contexts (e.g., in baths). Possibly in Munich the
principal notion of the footprint is one of “passage, especially over a threshold”
(Dunbabin 1990, 107).
7. The famous Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio (Italy, Umbria) was built from 1332 to
1349. The stairs leading to the piano nobile end in front of a door flanked by two
standards (others are missing today). The very large measure of 2936.0 mm
represents the ancient decempeda, which is a measure ten feet long. One foot is
thus 293.6 mm long, making it very close to the Punic foot (best value: 294.1 mm),
missing it by only 0.17%. The second preserved measure is 491.3 mm long,

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1080 Werner Heinz
representing the cubit₂₈ of a unit called New cubit₃₀ with 492.0 mm. The palace is
now a museum. Inside it, there are five models of bricks and tiles from the
fourteenth century.
Fig. 10: The preserved standards at Gubbio (Italy) at the Palazzo

dei Consoli built 1332–1349 (photo: author).
The parish church in the small city Ochsenfurt (Bavaria, near Würzburg) has two
standards next to the entrance which are intentionally equal. The length could be
calculated to be 588.2 mm (Wagner 1993, 110–11; 115), or exactly two times the
ancient Punic foot. Both measures can be dated to before 1500. There are other
metrological objects in Ochsenfurt: models of tiles, measures for grain and wine.
The small town of Frickenhausen is situated quite nearby, where a measure
can be found at the outside of the church (like the others). The length is reported

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to be 589 mm, or just a little bit larger than the double Punic foot (Δ = +0.14%).
An inscription on a nearby slab reads 1548. The measure may be as old as the
inscription, or perhaps even older.
Moving from Bavaria to Württemberg: The city hall in Riedlingen shows a
medieval standard with a length of 294.5 ±0.5 mm (cv = 0.17%). This data is
reliable, though it was not quite easy to obtain. This measure also resembles the
Punic foot very nearly (Δ = +0.14%). Ms. Hafner from the municipal archive was
kind enough to provide further information: Since the “four” is written as half an
“eight,” a medieval origin can be assumed. A picture taken prior to 1955 shows
three standards, but two of the measures are now lost.
Fig. 11: Only one measure survived in Riedlingen. Most probably it goes back to medieval times
(photo: author).
8. Another ancient standard is the above-mentioned “Baumaß” with a foot of

288.0 mm. The double foot adds up to the cubit in use in the city of Goslar
(Germany, Lower Saxony) where this standard was found to be at a length of
575 mm (only 1 mm or 0.17% missing). It dates around 1300 (Witthöft 1986a, 295).
The town hall of Marburg a. d. L. (Germany, Hessen) was built between 1512
and 1524/27 (Großmann 2010, 55). By chance I discovered a standard (obviously

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1082 Werner Heinz
completely unpublished) on the outside in November of 2013. The calculated

length between the ends is 576,75 mm (n = 4). Hence this cubit is the double foot
of the “Baumaß” with a difference of only 0.75 mm or 0.13%. Possibly the
measure is older than the town hall; however, I cannot prove it.
Fig. 12: The Marburg cubit containing two feet of the “Baumass” (photo: author).
Finally in Wetzlar (Germany, Hessen) a cubit of exactly 576 mm, said to be a

model, is presented to the public at the town hall. The Wetzlar cubit has two feet,
and one foot has a length of 288 mm (Schoenwerk 1975, 133). According to these
data, the Wetzlar cubit seems to be reproduced (actually it is a “literary mea-
sure”).

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9. To complete this overview, I would like to summarize further medieval stan-
dards found in town halls. All of these measures may be traced back to ancient
units (as seen above).
– The measure of Brunswick (Germany, Lower Saxony) goes back to the four-
teenth or fifteenth century. The cubit was about 570 mm long (my own data;
Ziegler 1997, 26: about 571 mm).
– The Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo in Perugia (Italy, Umbria) has three
standards. One is incomplete. The two standards which can be measured are
lengths of two feet (own data: 627.7 mm equal to two feet of Aigina as
described above) and three feet (969 mm). All of these measures probably go
back to medieval times.
– The town hall of Wasserburg am Inn (Germany, Bavaria) was built at the end
of the fifteenth century. We find there a well-preserved standard of about
833.3 mm.
– In Alsfeld (Germany, Hessen), the town hall is very similar to the one in Mi-
chelstadt (above point 5), featuring arcades on the ground floor. Having been
built in 1536, the Alsfeld town hall contains a measure of 601 mm length with
one flat side. This standard might have been used for tissue, too (Heinz 1999).
– The town hall in Birkenau (Germany, Hessen) dates to 1552, a little bit young-
er than the one in Alsfeld (Hessen). We find a standard of 655.4 mm, and a
pillory is located not far away.
– There is a standard in the Loggia dei Mercanti in Ascoli Piceno (Italy, Marche)
called BRAZOLARO with 636.7 mm. We find another standard in Alzey (Ger-
many, between Worms and Bingen) at the town hall (built 1586) with a length
of 660.8 mm. But both of them are definitely post-medieval.
10. Similar observations pertain to standards found on some churches.

– The entrance hall of the main church in Bad Saulgau (Germany, Württem-
berg) was renewed in 1420. There is a measure with a length of 635.4 mm.
– The Bamberg cathedral (Germany, Bavaria) has a door dedicated to St. Mary,
featuring both a foot and a cubit standard, both possibly dating to the thir-
teenth century. We could expect to find a foot of 267 mm and a cubit of 668 mm
(Witthöft 1986a, 297) there. Both measures actually would have to be taken
using two small lion heads as end-points. The published length of the cubit is
correct. I identified this length on April 7, 2013. However, the length of the foot
cannot be measured because the right small lion head’s final point is missing.
– In Alsfeld, there is a standard at the town hall (see above) and another on the
outside of the church, measuring 548.5 mm (Heinz 1999, 479–80, with a
drawing).

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1084 Werner Heinz
11. Major cities such as Münster (Germany, Westphalia) or Heilbronn (Germany,

Württemberg) have not yet been mentioned. The reason is simple: The actual
measures there were destroyed in WWII. The copies we find today are not really
trustworthy. We do have some information about the standards, but this in terms
of literary measures (Spiegler 1971, 23–24). The inscription in Heilbronn given in
rhyme is intriguing: HAILPRONNISCH MESSRVT SCHV VND ZOLL HIE AVCH DER
WIL DIE ELEN HOLL. In other words, we are told that in this place we find the
measures valid in Heilbronn: the rod, the foot, and the ounce, as well as the cubit.
The inscription in Rimini, Palazzo dell’Arengo telling the names of the differ-
ent bricks and the different lengths (like Piede Comune and so on) is dated 1544,
i.e., in the late Italian Renaissance. The length of the Piede Comune cannot be
measured exactly: two of the original ten parts of the piede are broken. But the
inscription certifies the existence of the piede.
12. Most of the data given above is the result of my own investigations. We have to
realize that real measures are the lost foundlings of research. Harald Witthöft
(1986a) collected data from museums for all kinds of measures and lengths.
However, the standards for public use in markets and so on were regularly placed
on the outside. These are the most important evidence about the economic
situation and the juridical power of a city.
It was not possible for me to cover all countries. Undoubtedly, the data base
could be enlarged considerably by investigating other countries. I cannot address
the situation in Spain for lack of knowledge, while the situation in England seems
to be much more promising (Connor 1987).
In France, however, there is hardly anything left of medieval measures in
public places, since most of them were destroyed during the French Revolution.
So far, I have seen only two places with standards. One is the parish church in
Saverne (Dép. Bas-Rhin, Region Alsace). Next to the main entrance I found two
measures of 480 mm and 1350 mm. An inscription, “dis ist di holtz dan,” which
means that this is the measure for wood, refers to both of them. The letters are
comparable to the Regensburg inscription (see above section F). So the Saverne
standards supposedly were set up in the fifteenth century.
The Gothic church Saint-Georges in Haguenau (Dép. Bas-Rhin, Region Al-
sace) has eight standards on one pier at its southern side, all of them very close
together. Supposedly, they go back to medieval times, but there is no inscription
to confirm this assumption. The last standard represents two different lengths.
From west to east, I measured the following distances: 714 mm; 1053 mm;
1092,5 mm; 843,5 mm; 1265 mm; 2033 mm; 537,5 mm; finally 348 mm respec-
tively 474 mm. All the standards in Haguenau and Saverne go back to ancient
classes of standards.

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Fig. 13: This pier of the church Saint-Georges in Haguenau (France) has eight different medieval
measures. Four of them are visible on this photo (photo: author).

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1086 Werner Heinz
H Scales and Weights, Dry Measures and Buckets

1. The following sections will briefly summarize other types of measure. Most of
the basic data are already published. Scales were very important to calculate the
tithe: Farmers entered the arcades of the town halls like in Alsfeld with their
wagons, and the authorities took the weight of the grain and deducted one tenth
as tithe right away. Most famous proves to be the Nuremberg relief from 1497
showing the inspector of weights at work (now: Nuremberg, National Germanic
Museum; Steingräber 1966; Kühnel, ed., 1984, 32, Fig. 29). Big public weighing-
houses as an architectural type of its own were especially common in the Nether-
lands from the late sixteenth century on (Kiem 2009).
The history of scales was always important for scientific reasons (e.g., Hae-
berle 1967) and for different religions: We find images of Osiris, as well as of
St. Michael, weighing the souls (very famous: St. Michael in Beaune; Droste 2001,
256).
2. Scales usually are combined with weights of very different kinds. They were
common in the ancient Orient, as well as in Greco-Roman times (Hultsch 1989;
Mutz 1983), and, of course, in the Middle Ages. Excellent examples of heavy
gauges are exhibited in the Lübeck town hall (Boockmann 1986, 139, Fig. 218).
Bread was measured by size rather than by weight, which recalls the loaves
engraved on one pier of the Freiburg i.Br. cathedral and the different sizes of
bread established within only a few years (above section G 2). The model of a loaf
of bread on the south side of St. Catherine’s church in Oppenheim (Germany,
between Mainz and Worms) is significant, but has hardly ever been mentioned in
research. It shows a loaf of bread, inscribed with a date of 1317. Popular opinion
says that this was a loaf of bread which, after many bad years, could be bought
for four farthings. This model, however, cannot be regarded as standard: We find
it about three meters above ground level.
3. There are two kinds of measures for capacity: dry measure and liquid measure.
We have seen before that both types were well known from very ancient times
onwards (Oxé 1942). I want to point out a very few important examples because
there are already many publications on and references to measuring vessels
(Witthöft 1986a; Kühnel, ed., 1984, 34, Fig. 34–35).
A dry measure for grain in Bonn (Rheinisches Landesmuseum) deserves
attention above all: It is a round bronze vessel, about 25 cm high, with an
inscription on the outside telling that this vessel was produced in order to have a
just measure: VME · EYN · REICHTE · BESHEIDIEIT … The vessel itself is called
SVMERI which means “Simmer,” “Sömmer,” “Sümmer” referring to the vessel

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itself and the unit of measurement. The capacity was 26.5 liter. The inscription
and heraldic signs of the city of Boppard, where it originated, suggest that this
vessel might have been a gauge (Nikitsch 1997).
In Roman times, a mensa ponderaria (e.g., in Pompeii: Coarelli, ed, 1979,
129–130) was cut in a slab of stone. In a similar way, these dry measures were
made in medieval times. I have seen an example even in France in the small
village of Crémieu (about 32 km east of Lyon). Wagner describes a set of dry
measures for different types of grain in Ochsenfurt (near Würzburg), dated 1564
by inscription (Wagner 1993, 103–104; 113).
Fig. 14: Krk, Frankopan Castle (east coast of the Aegean Sea), dry measure for grain
(photo: Albrecht Classen).
In Ochsenfurt, another gauge (including the documents of the gauger) can be

seen: It is a bucket for measuring wine, with a capacity of 75.09 liter. The
inscribed date is 1458. A gauge for wine could also be much smaller: The vessel
for the holy water in the church of Eller (Moselle) was originally a gauge for wine
with a capacity of 2.22 liter (Witthöft 1986a, 298) in the high Middle Ages.

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1088 Werner Heinz
I Using the Standards and Holy Lengths

1. Many attempts have been made to calculate the length of the measure used for
the construction of ancient or medieval buildings, and sometimes the result is
convincing. Our first example is the Baroque royal Catholic church in Dresden.
The length is 52.36 m (Ullmann ca. 1989, 10), exactly the length of one hundred
cubits₂₈ of the Royal Egyptian cubit (Δ = 0%).
The bronze door formerly part of the ancient Curia of the Forum Romanum in
Rome was moved to the church San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. I measured the
two sides of this door at 4435 mm, or the length of ten cubits₂₄ of the Roman pes
monetalis with very high accuracy (Δ = –0.16%).
The cathedral Saint-Julien in Le Mans (France, Dép. Sarthe) was built in
Romanic times. In the thirteenth century, the desire for representation led to the
building of a new quire. But, first of all, the French king Philipp-Auguste, who
had meanwhile reconquered Normandy and Anjou, had to give his permission.
The quire was built, and at this moment the span of the pillars was enlarged from
10.06 m to 10.72 m (Schäfke 1979, 190). The reason is very simple: 10720 mm are
exactly 33 pied de Roi (Δ = +0.015%). With the participation of the French king,
the Royal French cubit—the pied de Roi (Rottländer 1994b, 29: 324.8 mm)—was
used. The number 33 has, of course, an important symbolic meaning: It tells
about the years Christ lived on earth (see also the 33 cantos in each one of Dante’s
three parts of his Divina Commedia (ca. 1308–1321).
In Florence, the situation is easier. For the construction of the cupola of the
cathedral, the proposed model from 1367 shows a height of 144 bracci Fiorentini
(see above) and a diameter of 72 bracci (Naredi-Rainer 1989, 193). Brunelleschi
was bound to this existing model and to its measures, as his plans for the cupola
were chosen in 1420 (Fanelli and Fanelli 2004, 19).
2. Very different from these examples are the so called Holy lengths. They play an
extraordinary role in connection with the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. People
came to the holy city,buying strips of leather or linen measuring the length of the
sepulchre of Christ (Jacoby 1929, 189–91), amulets for personal protection, and so
forth. The sepulchre was imitated in Europe throughout the Middle Ages (Kroesen
2000; Morris 2005); see, for example, Northampton (Morris 2005, 230), Cambridge
(Untermann 1989, 71), Brindisi (Finocchi and Corbella 1978, 383), or the very
important site of Paderborn, from which a person had even been sent to Jerusalem
to take exact measures as a model for their own church (Niggemeyer and Nübold
2002, 12; 17).
In the cloister of the Benedictine monastery of Bebenhausen (Germany, near
Tübingen), two lines engraved in the northern wall represent the lengths of the

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tombs of Mary and of Christ, which inscriptions state. The entire work was
executed in 1492. The only publication of the inscriptions I know of (Köhler 1995,
330) is partly wrong. The correct texts, as well as more facts about the historical
background, will be published in the journal Mediaevistik (Heinz forthcoming).
I measured the length of the tomb of Mary as 1729 mm, and the one of Christ
as 2008.3 mm. Without doubt the first line has the length of a fathom. The
calculation is as follows:
1729 mm / 6 = 288.17 mm.
This is exactly the standard called Baumaß with a best value of 288.0 mm
(Δ = 0.06%). This exactness tells us that this line was not drawn just by chance.
This fact is true of the other line representing the tomb of Christ. Nearly all
witnesses of the Jerusalem tomb state a length of seven feet. One of the early texts,
written by Adamnanus around 670, describes the visit of Arculfus as follows:
“cuius longitudinem Arculfus in septem pedum mensura propria mensus est
manu” (Adamnanus 1898, 229), which means that Arculfus took the length of
seven feet with his own hand. Still in 1599 Petrus Bungus tells us: “septem habens
pedes longitudinis” (Bungus 1983, 297; for full reference, see Heinz 2014); so
Bungus clarifies that the tomb of Christ is seven feet long. For this line the
calculation is like this:
2008.3 mm / 7 = 286.9 mm.
We recognize the same length called Baumaß (Δ = –0.38%; this is not too
high, since this line is part of architecture rather than being used as a standard).
Using this standard the length of the line representing the tomb of Christ is very
similar to the original length in Jerusalem which is said to be 202 cm (Vincent and
Abel 1914, 108, Fig. 59). One glimpse at the Holy Sepulchre shows that the
sarcophagi might exceed the Jerusalem length. The tomb in St. Mary’s church in
Reutlingen (Germany, Württemberg) has a table (without a figure of Christ) which
is 2335 mm long (my own data). This length equals nearly exactly seven pedes
Drusiani (above section A; Δ = +0.11%). This beautiful tomb (Knorre 2003, 16),
only one or two decades younger than the one with the Bebenhausen lines, is not
the only one with a table-length of seven units.
Presumably these Holy lengths have never been taken into consideration
within the context of medieval metrology.
J The Economic and Social Background

Medieval standards gained their importance in the economic and social context of
the cities or, to be more exact, at the time when the cities emerged. Different kinds
of standards were developed, of course; we saw measures for bread, salt, char-

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1090 Werner Heinz
coal, and other goods. In Basileia, special measures were known for oil, grease,
and honey (Haustein 2001, 94). The council of a city was in charge of just and
correct measures, and the members of the council controlled the standards and
the public scales (Planitz 1965, 319, with documents from the thirteenth century).
Particularly those cities with self-governance under the emperor enjoyed royal
privileges like holding markets, as can be observed with regard to the Freiburg
inscription (above section G 2). All kinds of measures and standards were part of
the knowledge of the city governments, but not necessarily known to ordinary
people.
This fact underscores another very important point. Freiburg is only one of
many cities where churches, and especially their entrance halls, fulfilled secular
functions (Witthöft 1986b, 218). In fact, the Church, as the biggest owner of feudal
property, had to ensure that a good administration and organization of the
economic conditions was in place (Haustein 2001, 96). Town halls and churches
presented the devices for just standards, and hence for justice. All kinds of
military equipment and their development did not influence the use and the
characteristic features of standards in medieval times, although this situation
changed considerably in the Renaissance.
Scholars doing research on measures and weights have always found an
utmost accurate tradition of standards over centuries and even millennia (Wit-
thöft 1986b, 223), as our examples above have proved. Rolf Rottländer, for
instance, points out the pes monetalis, later identified as the “Augsburg foot,”
“foot of Ulm,” and so forth, always with the same length. This standard was
carefully handed down over time whereas the original name was forgotten (Rott-
länder 1994a, 18).
Many different standards emerged, and people tried hard to clarify the situa-
tion. Between 1533 and 1550 Georg Agricola wrote thirteen books on measures and
weights trying to restore the ancient order (Witthöft 1999, 134–37). In 1627
Johannes Kepler presented his famous kettle for the calibration of measures,
volumes, and weights to the city of Ulm (Haeberle 1967, 109–11 with a good
picture). A copy is preserved in the museum of Weil der Stadt (mentioned above),
where Kepler was born in 1571. In 1765, King George III of England issued a decree
concerning the standardization of the measures in all the counties of his king-
dom: one foot has twelve ounces, one cubit has two feet, one rod has 16 feet, and
so on (Lemmerich 1987, 2–5). Very similar was a decree for the Prussian states in
1816 based on pre-metric standards. In most European regions, metric standards
were not valid until about 1870 (Trapp 1992, 32–34).
From the nineteenth century on, two major efforts were noticeable. First of
all, it became necessary to create extremely exact copies of the new metric
standards for all countries involved. Secondly, books were published with calcu-

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lations converting the lengths of pre-metric standards into metric units (e.g.,
Köser 1871). The result was a good knowledge of “literary measures.” Eventually
the pre-metric real standards got lost or were taken away deliberately. Some of
these places where this happened (like Gubbio) are mentioned above.
Thus, the discussion of the old real standards was no longer of interest.
Metrological research created some funny theories about the ancient standards,
e.g., about the pes Drusianus (see above section A 3): “This ‘Drusian’ foot of about
33 cm may have been based on two fists with outstretched thumbs in contact”
(Roche 1998, 24). Usually, however, metrological research deals with weights
(Centre National 1981; Garnier 1989) and numismatics (Pritsak 1998) as part of
economic history (Witthöft: all articles and more).
The story of instruction on measures as part of applied mathematics in
ancient Greece involves philosophy, but not real standards (Lelgemann 2010, 26–
82). Metrology also plays a role in medieval philosophical and theological discus-
sion, as well as in poetry (Zimmermann, ed., 1983–1984; Paravicini Bagliani, ed.,
2011) and literature (just one example: Cristiani 2011). But those topics are far
away from the ancient standards of length.
The pre-metric lengths were mostly forgotten or treated by amateurs. Every
engineer learns: “If you repeat a measurement in exactly the same way a million
times, you will get a million different answers” (Potter 2000, 11). We do have to
take the measurement of the same wall and especially the same standard different
times, and we do have to verify all kinds of metrological research at the starting-
point: the pre-metric standards themselves. And that is the premise of this article.
Select Bibliography
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Metrologiae Historicae V. 7. Internationaler Kongreß des Internationalen Komitees für
Historische Metrologie (CIMH), 25.–27. September 1997 in Siegen, ed. Harald Witthöft
(St. Katharinen 1999), 475–90.
Heinz, Werner, “Der Vindonissa-Fuss: Zu den römischen Fußmaßen des Vindonissa-Museums,”
Gesellschaft Pro Vindonissa: Jahresbericht (1991): 65–79.
Hultsch, Friedrich, Griechische und römische Metrologie, 2nd ed. (1862; Berlin 1882).
Kalchthaler, Peter, “Sester, Elle, Weck und Zuber: Normmaße und Marktinschriften am Freiburger
Münster,” Das Freiburger Münster, ed. Freiburger Münsterbauverein (Regensburg 2011),
39–41.
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gen und arithmetische Werte (St. Katharinen 1986).
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von Salamis,” Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts, Hauptblatt 61

(1991): 63–68.

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Rottländer, Rolf C. A., “Entstehung und Entwicklung von Maßeinheiten,” Die Sache mit Hand und

Fuß: 8000 Jahre Messen und Wiegen, ed. Karl W. Beinhauer (Mannheim 1994), 8–24.
[= Rottländer 1994a]
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den Mittelalter bis zum Ende des Alten Reiches,” Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte
und Kunst 45 (1993): 103–22.
Witthöft, Harald, “Das Erfassen der gegenständlichen Überlieferung zur historischen Metrologie
im Gebiet des Deutschen Reiches bis 1871/72: Ein Forschungsvorhaben, gefördert durch die
Stiftung Volkswagenwerk 1980–1985,” Die historische Metrologie in den Wissenschaften:
Philosophie – Architektur- und Baugeschichte – Geschichte der Mathematik und der Natur-
wissenschaften – Geschichte des Münz- und Gewichtswesens. Mit einem Anhang zur Sach-
überlieferung an Maßen und Gewichten in Archiven und Museen der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland, ed. idem (St. Katharinen 1986), 285–337. [= Witthöft 1986a]
Zervas, Diane Finiello, “The Florentine Braccio di Panna,” Architectura 9 (1979): 6–10.

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Richard Landes
Millenarianism/Millennialism, Eschatology,
Apocalypticism, Utopianism
A Definitions
The complex of beliefs that historians variously refer to as millenarianism,
millennialism, chiliasm, hold that this broken, fallen, imperfect, even evil-
ridden, world will be transformed into a perfect world of justice, peace, abun-
dance, and mutual love. The name comes from the most popular Christian form
of this belief: at a future time (initially at the end of six thousand years of earthly
history), there would be a thousand-year (millennial) “reign of the saints”
(tausendjähriges Reich), when the “good” would enjoy this messianic era on
earth, and the evil (along with Satan) would be bound in the pit. In the Christian
scenario, at the end of that thousand years, Satan and his minions would be
unleashed, leading to a final conflict that would culminate in the eschatological
Last Judgment, in which the earth would be no more, and the saved would go to
heaven and the evil to hell. It helps to distinguish between these two cosmic
transformations at each end of this thousand-year period. Hence, millennialism
remains within the time-space continuum of history (the saeculum) and is there-
fore necessarily political; eschatology, on the other hand marks the end of the
physical universe, with the entirely spiritual rewards of redemption, and has
many a-political forms.
Among the answers to theodicy (why does a good God allow evil to flourish?),
millennialism and eschatology are one of the most compelling and popular. They
explain God’s tolerance for evil in this current world as a test, and anticipate an
apocalyptic resolution that will publicly reward those who do good and suffer
now, and punish those who do evil and prosper now. For religious authorities,
this complex of end time events provides an endless font of motivation for “being
good” in this world, even if doing so makes you a “loser.” For the losers, it’s an
endless font of fantasy about a spectacular moment of retribution.
The only problem with this elegant solution to theodicy is that, at least until
now, God and his agents have failed to deliver on the promises of a final reckon-
ing. In this lies the great strength and weakness of end-time speculation: the less
urgent the sense of judgment, the less intense the commitment, and, vice-versa.
Moments of urgency, when critical numbers believe that the Judgment is immi-
nent, can become immensely powerful public moments where whole populations
behave in highly unusual ways.

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1094 Richard Landes
Millennial and eschatological beliefs alternate between quiescent and vola-

tile depending on contemporaries’ convictions about the proximity of this future
dramatic transformation. Apocalyptic believers hold that the Day is coming very
soon, if not now. They tend toward dramatic, even extreme actions that fluctuate
wildly between self-abnegation and megalomania, abstinence and indulgence,
pacifism and violence. Norman Cohn (1970 [1959]), defined millennialism as
including this apocalyptic sense of imminence, in part because such beliefs only
become visible historically when activated by apocalyptic expectation, but as the
sabbatical millennium (below) shows, there can be non-apocalyptic millennial-
ism.
Convinced that the powers of evil rule the world—corruption, oppression,
cruelty, dominion—and that this evil will be destroyed and replaced by a truly just
world, often conceived in radically egalitarian terms (“world turned upside
down,” Hill 1984), millennial movements have a long pedigree as violently
subversive, or, as Norman Cohn called them, “revolutionaries” and “mystical
anarchists” (Cohn 1970; Mendel 2000 [1987]).
When believers accept that the Day is far off, on the other hand, they tend to
passively accept current conditions of suffering on the understanding that, that
Day come, they will be justified and rewarded while the evil who now dominate
this world will get their just punishment—pie in the sky by and by. (When Marx
[18181–1883] referred to religion as the “opiate of the masses,” he referred to this
passive belief, while he espoused a “scientific” apocalypticism that promised an
egalitarian millennium.) Emphasis on eschatological scenarios, a post-millennial
final and non-earthly resolution to the problem of injustice, tends to reinforce the
passivity of believers, since such scenarios demand major divine intervention,
thus ruling out active participation in the transformation/perfection of this world
(Landes 2011, chpt.1).
All apocalyptic beliefs (until today) have proven wrong, and thus, excep-
tionally, the study of millennialism or eschatology in action (i.e., apocalyptic
movements) is the study of mistaken beliefs and how believers deal with
disappointment (O’Leary 1994). This unusual element (most religious beliefs
cannot be empirically proven wrong) has made apocalypticism one of the
more problematic subjects of historical research. Not only are apocalyptic
movements brief (the briefer, the more intense), but, in order to deal with the
inevitable disconfirming evidence (cognitive dissonance), they go through rapid
changes (Festinger 1956; Carroll 1979; O’Leary 2000). In most cases the disso-
nance of apocalyptic believers, faced with clear disproof of their outrageous
expectations to which they have dedicated every fiber of their being and their
community, generates extensive improvisation, a kind of apocalyptic “jazz.”
Movements, trying to maintain (even increase) the dynamics of the apocalyptic

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Millenarianism/Millennialism, Eschatology, Apocalypticism, Utopianism 1095
time that is rapidly fading, adapt and adopt beliefs often diametrically opposed
to the original ones: from pacifist-egalitarian to violent-totalitarian (Münster
Anabaptists, Taiping), from violence to pacifism (Quakers, Bahai), from egali-
tarianism to hierarchy (Maccabees-Hasmoneans, Marxism-Communism), etc.
(Landes 2011).
Moreover, religious movements set in motion by apocalyptic time tend to
mutate upon re-entry into normal time, from new religious movement/sect to
church (Swatos 1981; Lewis 2008. Since almost all of the documentation is written
from this post-apocalyptic period (ex post defectu, from after the disappointment/
failure), the later faithful often eliminate from the record the (mistaken) beliefs of
the founders, replacing them with less disprovable (but also less gratifying)
claims (“the kingdom of heaven is within”). Similarly, hostile outsiders tend to
depict apocalyptic preachers as either knaves or fools, with little appreciation of
either their passion or their appeal. As a result, one of the most fertile and
influential complexes of belief in human history gets overlooked by historians,
both the positivists “trying to get the story straight,” and the post-modernists
“trying to get the story crooked.” To understand apocalyptic millennialism, one
has to get the crooked story straight (Landes 2011, chpt. 3).
All monotheistic religions have major components of millennial-eschatologi-
cal thought, as well as a linear concept of time to match those expectations. As a
result all monotheistic religions have elaborate chronologies, and repeated in-
stances of apocalyptic outbreaks when a critical mass believed they were witnes-
sing and participating in final Days. Indeed, many “new religious movements”
that arise from monotheistic beliefs (including Christianity and Islam) first “take
off” in apocalyptic time.
The more common notions of time tend to be cyclical, and where it measures
large segments of linear time, it subordinates that to larger cycles, a belief in some
form or other that appears the world over. These “great cycles” or “great years”
variously defined generally take (some combination of) two forms—the circular
and the linear. In circular cosmogonies, the most widespread variant, creation
goes through cycles from origins to annihilation (a non-redemptive eschaton),
and then to a new beginning and repeating indefinitely. These cycles tend to be
extremely long, measured in chronological units ranging from the Roman and
Greek “great year” (365 years) to the Babylonian sar (3600 years each) to Hindu
kalpas (8.64 billion years each). From such mega-cycles, people looked upon the
yearly cycle as a microcosm, and celebrated the completion and new beginning of
a cycle as a “myth of eternal return” (Eliade 1965). Greek philosophical thought
leaned heavily toward cyclical cosmologies in which everything repeated, or even
replicated exactly, the details of the previous cycle ad infinitum as in Stoic
ekpyrosis (Campion 1994; Kragh 2010).

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1096 Richard Landes
In both linear and cyclical cases, the future “end of the world” had more than
conceptual significance depending on where they placed the present in the larger
process. The most prominent approach viewed the cycle as one of monotonic
declension from a golden age to the current (worst) age. Often these schemes
placed the present time toward the middle of the final age. Hindu scriptures
(e.g., Surya Siddhanta) start the last and most debased cycle, the kaliyuga in 3102
B.C.E., placing the present the early millennia of that yuga, and the cataclysmic
“end” some 420 millennia away. Greek and Roman ideas of these cycles appear in
most philosophical schools (Pythagorean, Platonic, Stoic), although the asso-
ciated cycles are measured in chronological units taken from Babylonian astro-
nomical calculations, but significantly reduced. Drawn from the second century
B.C.E. Babylonian astronomer Berossos’s 12,960,000 year cycle, Cicero (106–43
B.C.E.), dated the magnus et verus annus to 12,954 years. The final conflagration
in these scenarios often appears as both a destructive and a purging flame that
wipes out impurities and reunites creation with eternity.
A sufficiently long period between cycles, such as the Vedic, may discourage
any kind of apocalyptic thinking, a fortiori, millennial. But within a seemingly
cyclical vision of time, chronology can emerge, and both apocalyptic and even
millennial themes can result, such as in Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Taoist and Bud-
dhist prophetic texts that have strong millennial traditions (Gnuse 2011; Naquin
1976; Ownby 1999). In other cases, as with many tribal cultures, millennial beliefs
can develop in response to events, rather than chronological calculations, e.g.,
conquest by imperial conquerors (first example of this may be Judaism; Hanson
1979).
Whatever its presence in other cultures, there is no doubt that eschatological
and millennial beliefs are fundamental to monotheism and millennialism a
common feature. Most significantly, while secular thought in the West prides
itself on shedding the superstitions of religion, secular forms of millennialism
(often called “utopianism”) have developed, some with even greater vigor and
impact on society and polity than their predecessors (Manuel and Manuel 1979).
After all, if there is no God to bring it about, the creation of the millennium falls
entirely on the shoulders of the “faithful”: Communism (Riegel 2005), Nazism
(Redles 2006), even democratic revolutions (Landes 2011, chpts. 9–12). More
broadly speaking, however, both millennialism and redemptive eschatology (in
which believers are rewarded and unbelievers punished) tend to flourish in
cultures with a linear sense of time.

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B Terminology
The following vocabulary facilitates discussion and analysis of millennialism and
its cognate beliefs.
Millennialism: (mille anni = a thousand years) belief that at some point in the
future this material world will be transformed into a just and peaceful one,
heaven on earth, the perfection of the world.
– Demotic millennialism: egalitarian, without hierarchy, “no king but God,”

bottom-up, holy anarchy (Jewish Zealots/Essenes, Anabaptists, anarchist
communism); apocalyptic enemy: evil empire.
– Imperial millennialism: hierarchical, peace and order imposed from above
through conquest, “one God, one ruler”: Constantinian Christianity (see
below), Jihad and Muslim imperial dynasties (Yücesoy 2009); apocalyptic
enemy: chaos and anarchy.
– Restorative: model taken from a past “Golden Age,” Eden restored: Xhosa
Cattle-Slaying (Landes 2011, chpt. 4), Ghost Dance, Salafism.
– Progressive: perfect world to come new, based on the cumulative development
of mankind, never before seen: communism, democracies, technology-based
utopias (Noble 1999), Woodstock Nation (Mendel 2000; P. Berman 1996).
– Messianic: led by a dynamic, charismatic (often mystical) figure who has
salvific powers and attains a near- or deified status in the minds of his or her
followers (Idel 2000). Messianic movements tend toward hierarchical struc-
tures no matter how egalitarian the ethos: e.g., Jonestown (Chidester 2004),
and in the cognitive dissonance of failure can develop strong anti-nomian
dimensions: Shabbatianism (Scholem 1976); Ranters (Hill 1984).
– Pre- and Post-Millennialism: variants of modern Christian millennialism. In
the pre-millennial scenarios, Jesus comes before establishing the millennium,
which tends to encourage passivity. In post-millennial scenarios, Jesus comes
after believers establish the millennium, therefore encouraging a more acti-
vist approach (Searle and Newport 2012).
No matter how diametrically opposed, these variants often mix, either at the same
time (egalitarianism for the in-group, subjection for the out-group), or in often
rapid sequence (from radical egalitarianism to theocracy/totalitarianism, from
acephalous to messianic leadership, from asceticism to libidinal excess).
Eschatology: (eschaton = the end), belief in a final cosmic resolution to human

history, the end of the world. Religious forms tend to emphasize God’s justice

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1098 Richard Landes
(Last Judgment), while more secular forms anticipate the annihilation of all life
(including spiritual).
– Moral eschatology: one is saved by one’s behavior, especially toward one’s

fellow humans. Natural affinity with demotic millennialism.
– Creedal eschatology: one is saved by one’s denominational beliefs that claim
to have a monopoly on salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). Elective affinity
for imperial millennialism and coercive conversion.
– Annihilationist eschatology: all life is extinguished, no distinction between
good and bad, nothing to be done (ELE―extinction level event, comet,
nuclear war).
– Avertive eschatology: Warnings of impending disaster meant to spur efforts to
avert the catastrophe (global warming, see Wojcik 2011).
Because eschatological beliefs demand the most fantastic events for fulfillment,
they tend not to survive in apocalyptic mode very long (days to months), whereas
millennial beliefs that inaugurate reformist/perfectionists projects can last longer
(months to decades).
Apocalypticism: (apocalypis = revelation [about end time events]), a belief that

the great revelation/resolution of theodicy is about to happen, now or immi-
nently, and apocalyptic belief varies both according to the intensity of the
imminence, and the various scenarios on how this cosmic transition will
occur. Apocalyptic transitions can either lead to the millennium or the escha-
ton.
– Passive: God or the forces of the cosmos (e.g., comets) accomplish most if not
all the necessary actions, humans should repent in hopes of being saved.
Only religious forms of millennialism can be passive: “Repent for the King-
dom of Heaven/Last Judgment is at hand.”
– Active: Humans act (in conjunction with God) to bring about the needed
transformations. All secular forms of millennialism are active. Some secular
active cataclysmic movements are “avertive,” mobilizing believers to avoid a
catastrophe (Y2K, Anthropogenic Global Warming).
– Cataclysmic: in order to pass into the “new world” vast destruction must
occur to pave the way, in millennial variants only a small remnant survives to
enjoy the new era. Active: Destroying the world to save it―Aum Shin Rikyo
(Lifton 2000); Passive: Tribulation. Most eschatologies are cosmically cata-
clysmic: end of the world. Cataclysmic apocalyptic has an elective affinity for
paranoid, Manichean, genocidal thinking: forces of evil (Antichrist, Dajjal)

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are ubiquitous and nearly omnipotent; they must be utterly exterminated in

order for good to prevail (Landes and Katz, ed., 2011).
– Transformative: the transition occurs through a voluntary transformation of
people’s hearts in which they renounce evil ways. Most millennialism begins
with important transformative currents: perfection of the world. Natural affi-
nity for positive-sum interactions, embrace of “Other” (Isaiah 2, Micah 4).
Modern versions involve technology as a redemptive force (Noble 1999).
All apocalyptic thought contends with the paradox that the more imminent (and
hence rapidly disprovable) the promises, the more intense both the movement
and its disappointment. Thus apocalyptic time varies from intense (imminent) to
more drawn out expectations (decades away, but within the lifetime of the
believer). Any belief in a coming apocalyptic transformation after the death of the
believers is not “apocalyptic” by this definition. Thus, the death of the final
disciples of a messianic pretender produces a crisis among the now orphaned
next generation (e.g., John, 21:23–24).
Apocalyptic Moments occur when a public sphere—of a city, a region, even a
country—is taken over by people who act out their belief that the final moment is
at hand. Such moments can have powerful effects on monotheistic faithful who
believe that God is about to judge the quick and the dead, as in this example from
sixth century Constantinople, described by the Byzantine historian Agathias
(530–582/94):
At the time, however, there was no one who was not greatly shocked and afraid. Litanies
and hymns of supplication were everywhere to be heard, with everyone joining in. And
things that are always promised in words, but never carried out in deeds, were at that time
readily performed. Suddenly all were honest in their business dealings, so that even public
officials, putting aside their greed, dealt with law-suits according to the law, and other power-
ful men contented themselves with doing good and abstaining from shameful acts.
Some, changing their life-style completely, espoused a monastic and mountain way of life,
renouncing money and honors and all the other things most pleasing to men. Many gifts where
brought to the churches, and by night the most powerful citizens frequented the streets and
cared for those wretched and pitiful people who lay crippled on the ground, providing all that
they needed in food and clothing. But all this was limited to that fixed space of time in which
the terror was endemic [i.e., the apocalyptic moment]. As soon as there was some respite and
relief from danger, most people reverted to their normal ways (Magdalino 1993, 6).
Apocalyptic time has its own peculiar dynamics. Among them, one finds regular
if not unbreakable patterns:
– One person’s messiah is another’s Antichrist, making the apocalyptic “other”

the “enemy to be exterminated.”

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1100 Richard Landes
– All apocalyptic movements are wrong, no prophet predicting either the millen-
nium or the Eschaton has been right (till now).
– Wrong does not mean inconsequential, millennial movements, no matter how
“wrong” about what they anticipate, can nonetheless have enormous conse-
quences.
– Wrong does mean all consequences are unintended: The actual results of
apocalyptic movements, some of them powerful and enduring, are all unin-
tentional. However great its achievements, no millennial movement ever
accomplishes what it intended: a perfect world.
Apocalyptic millennialism, that is millennial hopes activated by a sense of their

imminent fulfillment, constitutes one of the most powerful belief sets in human
history. The two most influential forms of these multiple variants are active
cataclysmic apocalyptic aiming at a hierarchical millennium, on the one hand, and
active transformational aiming at a demotic one. In the former, true believers
consider themselves the (divinely) appointed agents of cosmic destruction in-
tended to clear the way for an imposed perfection―Jihad, Abbasids, Crusades,
Thomas Müntzer, Taiping, Communism, Nazism. In the latter case, true believers
attempt to transform the world peacefully into an egalitarian society―Isaiah
2:1–4; Sermon on the Mount, Montanism; Peace of God; Joachim of Fiore,
Anabaptists, Quakers, Hippies (Mendel 2000).
Ultimately the historical course and significance of a millennial movement rides

on how much it uses violence to respond to the cognitive dissonance of prophecy
failed in order to sustain its momentum and achieve its goals. In other words, the
key issue is not so much the beliefs, but the character of the believers. In many
cases at least for a moment, violence is necessary, and a peaceful outcome
depends on whether, once the sword raised, believers can set violence aside and
accept imperfection (e.g., contrast between French Revolution to Terror to Napo-
leon, on the one hand, vs. American Revolution, via the Federalist Papers to
constitutional democracy on the other).
C Case Studies
All the varieties of this complex of beliefs have multiple variants and take widely
different social forms, even though they share a number of key elements includ-
ing the intensity of the conviction and of the disappointment. To familiarize
researchers with the range of these variants, I list below various relatively well-
known movements (whether or not they are currently viewed as millennial) and

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characterize them according to their dynamic types, with particular focus on the
Christian Middle Ages. NB: in any specific apocalyptic movement, the nature of
the endgame is secondary to the sense of urgent imminence that brings the
believers together. Thus, while the believers may all share the sense of immi-
nence, they may have different expectations about the apocalyptic scenario, and
may differ even more widely on the meta-apocalyptic goal: what kind of millen-
nium, what kind of eschaton?
I Moses Movement-Israelite Nation
From the standpoint of the above terminology, the biblical story of the Exodus and
entrance into the Promised Land narrates a divinely appointed millennial experi-
ment: God tries, through his agent Moses, to create a nation of free peasants
following an egalitarian (isonomic) law code. The Mosaic legislation, and especially
Deuteronomy, in this sense, constitutes the earliest recorded egalitarian constitu-
tion (J. Berman 2008. The “apocalyptic” (transitional) scenario that leads to this
utopia involved the freeing of slaves from the yoke of the most advanced “civiliza-
tion” of the time (Egypt), and bringing them to a “Promised Land” (Canaan).
Initially, the transitional scenario had passive humans acted upon by a strong-
handed God who would take them straight to the promised land. But, so the ex post
defectu biblical narrative tells us, the people proved a weak vessel for God’s
expectations, and after two major disappointments―the worship of the Molten Calf
(Exodus 32) and the report of the Spies (Numbers 13)―God readjusted his plans and
created a more active apocalyptic community through forty years of “training” in
the desert. The passage chronicling God’s cognitive dissonance and His recalcula-
tion of the redemptive process (Numbers, 14:21–25) is exceptional in world litera-
ture, especially in monotheistic traditions where God is assumed omniscient.
The forty years of preparation lead to an active cataclysmic transition via the
genocidal wars of conquest (Joshua). The result, however, unlike most cases of
ruthless wars of conquest, was the establishment of a demotic polity in which
charismatic Judges, acting as courts of appeal, led a federation of self-regulating
tribes. The tribes are literate, aniconic, have an egalitarian law code in civil and
criminal matters, are led by charismatic judges (including a woman), and con-
sider the worker of the land as paradigmatic free citizen. An anti-monarchical
ideology prevails: No king but God (Judges, 8: 23; I Samuel 8: 11).
Later, under the blows of empire, Judaism developed many of the most
popular demotic millennial scenarios, most prominently, the transformational
world peace of Isaiah and Micah: “they [the warriors] will beat their swords into
plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” Constant frustration with the non-

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1102 Richard Landes
arrival of the messianic era in which “all sit under their fig and vine with none to
harass them,” and continued external imperial rule, produced increasingly cata-
clysmic scenarios on the one hand, and elaborate Davidic messianism of the other
(Russell 1964; Hanson 1979; Collins 1999; VanderKam 1999).
Most Jewish apocalyptic thought is this-worldly (Scholem 1971): millennial,
not eschatological, and that millennialism, despite its Davidic royal tropes, is
much more demotic (“No King but God”) than imperial (no example of Jewish
sources for “one God, one Ruler”). This demotic Jewish millennialism has inspired
a wide range of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic behavior:
– active cataclysmic episodes, guerilla insurgencies among both Jews (Macca-

bees, Zealots, Bar Kohba), Christians (Dolcinites, Hussites, Müntzerites), and
Jihadis (Cook, 2005).
– passive cataclysmic: Essenes, Qumran, retreat to monastic (strictly egalitar-
ian) life awaiting the Endtimes (Baumgarten 1997);
– active transformational: early Christian missionary (Gager 1975);
– passive (slow) transformational: (Avot 2:21); mysticism (Mach 1999).
II Christianity: From the Early Jesus Movement to Imperial

Millennialism
The early Jesus movement starts in apocalyptic time. Both John the Baptist and
Jesus call out: “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Mt 3:2; 4:17). It
combined a divinely carried out catastrophe (“Little Apocalypse,” Mk 13: Mt 24;
Lk 21) and transformative moral eschatology (Sermon on the Mount), with strong
demotic millennial elements (Gager 1975). Papias’s (ca. 100) attribution to Jesus
of the passage from Jewish Pseudepigrapha (2 Baruch 29:5) about the supernatur-
al, carnal millennium of the messianic feast suggests that Jesus’ preaching, like
all other Jewish teaching before him, involved both revolt against empire and the
delights of the millennium (Ehrman 1999; Horsley 1999). Those, like Eusebius
(260–340), who wanted to exclude the Book of Revelation, with its carnal millen-
nialism, from the canon, preferred a Jesus of pure spirituality. That theological
move has had a continuing impact of subsequent historians who share the
apologetic program of both clearing Jesus of millennial carnality (Hill 2001), and
apocalyptic error―“the seemingly humiliating discovery that Jesus was, in effect,
a false prophet” (Allison 1999, 269).
The first inescapable disappointment for the followers of Jesus (Crucifixion),
with its failure to end Roman rule (a millennial sine qua non; Luke 24:21), led to a
two-stage salvific plan in which an active transformational stage (Christians bring

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Gospel to the nations) would end in a divinely-wrought cataclysmic messianic

scenario in which Jesus would return (Parousia) and destroy the forces of evil
(Revelation 19) and inaugurate the millennium (Revelation 20–22) for the saved
(saints, marytrs and company).
Within the framework of this persistent and punctuated disappointment,
Christians developed a “normal time”/between-times institution, the Church, to
which the agonizingly delayed hopes of the faithful shifted. The Church, the
community of true believers became a salvific vehicle carrying the faithful toward
the Parousia. Over the centuries, this salvific institution became increasingly
hierarchical (clergy-laity split, monarchical episcopacy), and claimed a creedal
monopoly on salvation: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
The Church’s theologians grew correspondingly hostile to any demotic mil-
lennial teachings in Christianity (a “Judaizing heresy”), and insisted on an in-
creasingly other-worldly (i.e., passive cataclysmic) eschatology in which the Final
Events occurred in a purely spiritual, i.e., non-material, setting (Mendel 2000,
Tabor 2011). This shift was reflected in the deep hostility, already visible in the
second century in response to the Montanists, to a main source of inspiration for
these apocalyptic beliefs in the New Testament, the book of Revelation (Tabbernee
2007). In the East, where imperial millennialism dominated (Alexander 1985),
Revelation disappeared from most Greek NTs and from the official lectionaries of
the Greek Church (Metzger 1997). By the third century, these anti-millennial,
hierarchizing trends gave birth to the “monarchical episcopacy” which forma-
lized hierarchical organization (and corresponding belief) within the Church.
Ironically, the most voluble opponent of demotic millennialism, Eusebius, coined
the imperial millennial formula to describe Constantine (272–337): “One God, one
Emperor” (Peterson 1935 Drake 1976). For more than one contemporary (including
probably the emperor himself), the messianic emperor Constantine, ruled over
the salvific Christian Roman Empire (Bardill 2012).
With the failure of the imperial millennial project, especially visible in the
Western empire in the early fifth century (Sack of Rome, 410), Augustine (354–
430) developed with a systematic rejection of every kind of millennialism (includ-
ing Roman imperial). In the West where Revelation was firmly ensconced in the
Latin canon, Augustine attempted to ban any effort to interpret the text as a
symbolic description of current events: e.g., Gog and Magog were not the Goths
and the Visigoths (De civitate dei, 20.11; Fredriksen 1982, 68). At the same time, he
accomplished an exegetical pirouette in which, rather than looking forward to an
earthly millennium of peace and justice, believers should understand that the
millennium, invisible to the eyes of fallen man, had already begun with the
Resurrection and the formation of the Church (Markus 1989). The opacity of both
the human soul and human society, corpora permixta, meant that no carnal

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1104 Richard Landes
millennium could ever occur, that the actual millennium was only visible to the
spiritual eye, and that the Parousia would only come at the end of the saeculum.
Hence the faithful should be looking forward not to a perfect world, but the End
of the world and the Last Judgment. Augustine’s domination of subsequent
theology, especially in these matters, meant that for more than six centuries until
the eleventh century, “a profound millennialist silence” fell upon our surviving
texts (Lerner 1999, 329).
III Islam, From Last Judgment to Millennial Imperialism
Muhammad began his prophetic career announcing the imminent Judgment Day
(apocalyptic eschatological). His initial preaching (Suras 90–114) formulates a
passive cataclysmic scenario in which God would resurrect the Dead, Yawm al-
Qiyāmah, and judge all mankind, Yawm ad-Din (Arjomand 2002; Waldman 2005).
With the (inevitable but unimaginable) delay of that judgment and the shift to
Medina, Muhammad and his followers became increasingly active, replacing
Allah’s delay in punishing with their own infliction of punishment on unbelievers
(Landes 2011, chpt. 14).
The shift to creedal eschatology occurs simultaneously: from believers (maa-
munim) who await and believe in God’s coming punishments, to submitters [to
Allah] (muslimim) who fight a Jihad to punish those who do not submit, the
mockers and unbelievers (Donner 2010). The astonishing success of Jihad, both
during the prophet’s later career (return to Mecca) and among his successors
(west to Spain and east to India in a century) gave birth to a global millennial
dream in which those lands submitted to Muslim Sharia (Dar al Islam/land of
submission, or peace) would continue to expand, while those still resisting (Dar
al Harb/land of the sword, or war) would eventually disappear (Karsh 2006).
No matter how wildly successful early Muslim warriors might have been,
however, they could not meet these global millennial ambitions. Inevitably,
hierarchy and abuse of power stepped in, and over the centuries, a secondary
imperial millennialism set in with messianic claims underlining the takeover of
various imperial dynasties, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Savafid, Mughal (Cook
2002; Yücesoy 2009; Moin 2012). These empires, then, constitute the unantici-
pated consequences of failed millennial ambitions, and their dissolution/defeat,
even long after the initial millennial period has faded (e.g., Ottoman Caliphate)
inevitably had apocalyptic implications.

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IV Christian Sabbatical Millennialism and Apocalyptic

Chronologies
The scenario of the Parousia (Appearance/Return of Christ in power and glory)

has guaranteed a permanent condition of cognitive dissonance to Christians
who inhabit this “middle age” between the first and second (still unaccom-
plished), a period whose (continuously expanding) length was well beyond the
apocalyptic horizon of all the early generations and even well beyond those of
the early centuries (Landes 1988, 45–46). A reasonable working hypothesis
considers the possibility that every generation of Christians experienced collec-
tive waves of apocalyptic hope and despair, that every generation knew commu-
nities that “jumped the apocalyptic gun” as it were, as described in Paul’s
earliest letters (Thessalonians I and II) or in Hippolytus’s Commentary on Daniel
(IV, 18–19). In response to this repeated hope and despair, Christian exegetes
and chronographers elaborated an anti-apocalyptic millennial scenario. In this
teaching, the millennium would not come until the year 6000, since a thousand
years are a day in the sight of the Lord (Ps. 90, II Peter 3:8), and God toiled to
make the world for six days, then mankind will suffer for six millennia, at which
point, Christ will return in power and glory, and bring on the sabbatical
millennium.
Putting eschatological expectations in the framework of millennia, created a
large buffer between the present and the End, a teaching that responsible clerics,
concerned about the excesses of the faithful in apocalyptic time could use to
counter apocalyptic prophets like the Montanists (Tabbernee 2007). Thus, around
200 C.E., with even bishops jumping the apocalyptic gun, Hippolytus of Rome
(170–235) dated his present to 5700 AM (Annus Mundi), and urged his readers to
wait 300 years till the millennium.
The formula was well suited to transfer from generation to generation, gain-
ing credibility every time premature apocalyptic enthusiasm failed. The problem
came at the approach of the year 6000 (500 C.E.). Not only did sabbatical
millennialism have the stamp of approval of church traditions but the very
teaching that had served prudent ecclesiastics, became a powerful weapon in the
apocalyptic prophet’s rhetorical armory (Landes 1988; O’Leary 1994). Some long-
range thinkers, anticipating the problem, tried to “correct” the calculations of AM
I. The most important chronographical suggestion, first proposed by Eusebius in
300 C.E./5800 A.M. I), rejuvenated the world by three more centuries, postponing
the millennium to 801 CE. While Eastern chronographers ignored it, Latin eccle-
siastical historians and chronographers adopted the new system in the early 60th
century A.M. I (fifth century C.E.), with strong urging from Jerome (347–420) and
Augustine. Thus, when the year 6000 A.M. I came (500 C.E.), a contemporary like

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1106 Richard Landes
Cassiodorus (484–585) dated it 5699 A.M. II, without a mention of the apocalyptic
beliefs the date may (or may not) have inspired in contemporaries.
A similar phenomenon occurred at the approach of the year 6000 A.M. II
(801 C.E.). In the early 60th century (eigth C.E.), Bede dismissed A.M. II, and
proposed dating either A.D., or A.M. III (Incarnation in 3952). Both English and
Carolingian authorities, lay and clerical, picked up A.D., which rapidly became
the major chronology for historians, annalists, computists, and even chancel-
leries. Thus, when 6000 came again, and Charlemagne (769–814) was crowned
on the first day of that millennial year, none of the chroniclers who recounted this
momentous event, even mentioned the coincidence.
V Apocalyptic Expectations and Millennial Movements

at the Millennium
The preference for A.D. as an alternative system over A.M. III may have come from
the need to have the apocalyptic date in the not too distant future: thus, in the
eighth and ninth centuries, A.D. 1000 for the Parousia seemed more realistic than
A.D. 2048. A.D. 1000 constitutes the first openly preached apocalyptic date that
was not “disappeared” before its advent, and as one might expect from the earlier
efforts to suppress such an advent, a wide range of apocalyptic manifestations
marked its advent and passage (Frassetto, ed., 2002; Landes et al., ed., 2003).
Indeed, according to Rodulfus Glaber (985–1047), with its passage, many contem-
poraries re-dated the hopes and fears (tam spem quam formodolositatem) to
1033―the millennium of the Passion (Quinque libri historiarum, IV.1).
At the approach of 1000, another calculation for the apocalyptic moment
rose to prominence: the coincidence of the calendric date of the (original) Passion
(a movable feast) and the Annunciation (Friday March 25), also the day human-
kind was created. This coincidence occurs generally around three times a cen-
tury, but only took on apocalyptic significance in the latter centuries of the first
Christian millennium (Van Meter 1996). At the approach of the year 1000 it
occurred in 970, 981, and 992 (Landes 2000b). After the millennium, it occurred
in 1065 (also the end of the Easter Annus Magnus of 532 years, hence the exact
replica of the first Annunciation) and 1076. In 1065 it provoked a massive
apocalyptic pilgrimage to Jerusalem led by the Gunther, Bishop of Bamberg
(Joranson 1924). And 1076 was the year in which the papal-imperial rivalry first
heard accusations of anti-Christ. In 1155, Louis VII, King of France (1120–1180)
attempted to institute a “pax” for his entire kingdom. Along with others, these
calculations seem to have taken up the apocalyptic cause in the absence of the
now-defunct sabbatical millennium.

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The Peace of God (990s–1030s) consisted of a wave of extremely popular

ecclesiastical assemblies that summoned the whole people―including the aris-
tocracy and commoners. Assembled through the unprecedentedly liberal use of
relics brought from different places, these assemblies gathered large “civilian”
crowds―men, women, children, commoners, powerful, lay, monks, clergy. There
the organizers extracted oaths from the assembled warriors that protected the
unarmed religious and commoners (inermes) from the arbitrary violence of the
weapons bearers (Head and Landes, ed., 1992).
In the terminology laid out here, this movement arises at a time when a
wide range of apocalyptic expectations (eschatological and millennial) grew
more intense at the approach of the millennium of the Incarnation and the
Passion (1000, 1033). Signs and catastrophes (Halley’s comet, earthquakes,
episodes of ergot poisoning) brought on apocalyptic moments in which large
collective penitential assemblies gathered to beg God’s mercy. These large
gatherings in response to imminent eschatological expectations—Final Judg-
ment now!—swelled in size, generating even vaster, regional assemblies where
all the most important personalities of the region and their milites gathered
together with commoners. Drawing large crowds with relics, the miracles
showed God’s approval of the proceedings of the assemblies. Accordingly, its
two “peak” periods clustered in the decade approaching the two millennial
dates of 1000 and 1033 (Duby 1968). At its second peak (in 1033), these
assemblies attempted to inaugurate an “absolute peace” including the end of
feuds (Van Meter 1996, Landes 2013). In the minds of at least some of the
participants in this quixotic two score-long movement, these assemblies marked
a covenant with God and inaugurated an era of messianic peace (Landes 1994;
Landes 2013).
The “Truce” of God, first detectable in the late 1020s and becoming more
prominent after 1033, shifted the focus from space to time, sacralizing the last
days of the week (Thursday evening to Monday morning), Lent and Easter, as
days where no warfare should take place, and protecting certain populations (the
unarmed, pilgrims, peasants at their plow). The Truce became increasingly popu-
lar with those calling peace assemblies in the aftermath of 1033, including a major
initiative under the aegis of Odilo of Cluny (962–1049) in 1041–1042 (Cowdrey,
1970). In addition, in the aftermath of 1033, we find more practical formulations,
including the formation of “peace leagues” in which even commoners joined to
punish oath breakers, most notably in Bourges under the initiative of the Arch-
bishop Aimon in 1038. In this case the Eudo, Count of Déols smashed the Peace
League. The idea did not, however, fade. In 1056 in Narbonne, a peace assembly
declared that no Christian should shed the blood of a fellow Christian, a radical
formulation with little chance of succeeding.

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1108 Richard Landes
The subsequent history of the Pax Dei can best be understand in terms of a
cognitive dissonance that sought in some way to at once cope with the disap-
pointment and find alternative (and often more practical) ways to implement
the messianic program. The combination of drives toward purity and the enthu-
siastic crowds of layfolk who supported such developments, dates back to the
Peace movement earlier in the century (Moore 1980; Remensnyder 1992; Van
Meter, 2003). More recently, some historians have linked the reform, which
some, both back then and now, consider more a revolution or heresy than a
reform (Moore 1977; H. Berman 1985) to apocalyptic theology (McGinn 1999
Whalen 2009). Retrospectively, the great church historians of the twelfth cen-
tury repeatedly interpret the Church and its reform in an eschatological frame-
work in which the purified Church plays a central role (Morrison 1992). Subse-
quent clashes, especially during the reign of Frederick II (1194–1250) took on
particularly sharp apocalyptic turns, both millennial and eschatological (Wha-
len 2009).
The holy war of the end of the eleventh century (known ex post defectu as the
“First” “Crusade”), has long been linked to the Peace, but only recently to
apocalyptic expectations. The violence that had (only partially) been repressed by
the “Peace” (e.g., the impossible restraints on killing Christians at Narbonne) and
the open hostility it had mobilized against aristocratic violence (e.g., the Bourges
Peace League of 1038 viewed peace-breakers as Canaanites and themselves as the
Children of Israel), now directed legitimate aristocratic violence outside the
society and sacralized as “God’s will.” This remarkable and radical move un-
leashed waves of enthusiastic violence that not only swept Europe (the slaughter
of Jewish communities) but engulfed the Holy Land (Erdmann 1977; Rubenstein
2011). Moreover, and unexpectedly, the Pope’s call to take the Holy Land, directed
at the milites, also aroused a widespread enthusiasm among commoners (Peo-
ple’s Crusade), in which one can detect, some two generations later, the same
sense of standing at the center of God’s covenant with his people first described
by Glaber for 1033: gesta Dei per populum Dei. Subsequent crusades consistently
had apocalyptic dimensions.
VI Philo-Judaic/Anti-Semitic Apocalyptic Cycle
Apocalyptic expectations had a paradoxical impact on relations between Chris-

tians and Jews. By the end of the tenth century, the apocalyptic scenario was
fairly well set on this score: some of the Jews would convert and the rest would
join the Antichrist, himself a Jewish messianic pretender who would fight the
returning Christ at Armageddon (Libellus de Antichristi; Gow 1995). This, of

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course, made the elimination of the Jews, either through conversion or extermina-
tion, an urgent agendum of apocalyptic time.
Historically speaking, Christian-Jewish relations in apocalyptic time have
followed a two-stroke pattern. In the early stages of enthusiasm, when Christians
believe that Christ is about to return, filled with confidence and excitement, they
try and convert the Jews by embracing them, by reaching out in the most generous
and affectionate ways. But with the rebuff of the Jews (almost as predictable as
the failure of the Messiah to appear), the feelings turned bitter. In the painful
cognitive dissonance of apocalyptic disappointment, at least some of the Chris-
tians, once so generous, turn on the Jews and blame the failure of Christ to return
on their refusal to convert.
This apocalyptic scapegoating, especially if it occurred while still in apoca-
lyptic time, could lead to the most ferocious, even genocidal assaults of the Jews.
Any Jew who did not convert became, for the apocalyptic Christian, one of Antic-
hrist’s minions and had to be destroyed. As with the apocalyptic “First” (really
Last) Crusade, Jews are given the choice between conversion (saved Christians) or
death (the forces of the Antichrist destroyed). Most of the worst anti-Semitic
episodes in Christian history arise in the later stages of an apocalyptic movement,
preceded by both a generous offer and bitter disappointment. Martin Luther’s
(1483–1546) career illustrates the pattern well: having discovered “true” Chris-
tianity at the end of time, he (thought he) understood why the Jews had rejected
the Church, and reached out to them with the true message. When rejected, he
became one of the most ferocious purveyors of hatred toward the Jews in Christian
history (Oberman 1984).
There is, however, an upside to this apocalyptic process as well. When
Christians and Jews draw together in religiosity, when Christians grow Philo-
Judaic, they find demotic values most congenial—equality, dignity of everyone,
empathy for the “other,” kingship of heaven, positive-sum relations. In these
(even temporary) periods of convivencia (living well together; see the contribution
on this topic to the present Handbook by Mark Abate), the mutual respect and
cooperation that results do much to change the larger society. In the eleventh
century, in the period before the Crusade (1096), both Jews and Christian com-
moners lived in cities where both populations acquired the freedom of self-rule, a
symbiosis which may have contributed to the communes (Graboïs 1983). In the
ultimate positive-sum/negative-sum dilemma, those who bless the Jews (i.e.,
enter into positive-sum relations with them), are blessed (Western democracies,
especially USA). Those who chase the Jews away (and thereby cement authoritar-
ian and theocratic regimes), suffer, no matter how much wealth they have at their
disposal (Spain in the 16th century, Arabs in the second half of the 20th century).
The philo-Judaic strain of Western Christian millennialism (Lerner 2000), may

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1110 Richard Landes
have contributed significantly to the rise of the democratic West (Landes 2011,
chpts. 8–9).
VII Millennial Movements after the Millennium
Most of the explicitly recorded medieval millennial movements occurred after the
passage of the year 1000. Western theologians began to break the “millennial
silence” in the latter half of the twelfth century, when a new round of imperial
millennialism inspired by the Tiburtine Sybil gained widespread currency in
political circles, and the popularity of the prophetic writings of Hildegard of
Bingen (1098–1179) and Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202; Lerner 1999). The formal
appearance of millennialism in these (and other) theological writings, inspired a
wider range of popular apocalyptic millennial movements (Cohn 1970; Reeves
1969; Whalen 2009).
The role of written millennialism in encouraging popular millennialism,
already negatively visible in the silences surrounding the advent of the two years
6000, is particularly notable in the impact of Joachite writings on the thirteenth
century. In the final decades of the twelfth century, the Calabrian abbot, Joachim
of Fiore developed an elaborate historical scheme based not on the sevens of the
sabbatical millennium, but the threes of the trinity. He placed himself (as do most
“salvific historians”) at the turning point between the age (status) of the Son/flesh
(the current Church), and the new age, about to dawn, of the Holy Spirit/fire. In
this last age, which would dawn after the defeat of Antichrist, spiritual men
would live in complete freedom and mutual love, and of messianic peace. This
age of earthly perfection, in which the differences between Jews and Christians
would disappear, represented the first formal depiction of an optimistic earthly
expectation of redemption since the fifth century.
The early interpretations of the advent of this new age were purely transfor-
mative (the Holy Spirit descending upon chosen people and infusing them with
spirit), almost imperceptibly apocalyptic, but distinctly demotic (freedom, end of
hierarchy, holy anarchy). Thus despite the controversy that Joachim elicited with
his embrace of the book of Revelation as a guide to history and the future, his
millennialism made it past the censors, even finding papal support. Had Augus-
tine been present at these papal discussions, he would have been distressed at
the inability of ecclesiastics to “stop up the mouths” of the millennialists and
warned that the coming century would pay the price of their folly. And indeed it
did; one might even call the thirteenth century, the “Joachite century.”
The first major movements to draw inspiration from Joachite salvation history
were the two mutations in monastic history, the preaching orders of Dominicans

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and Franciscans. They were widely seen both within the orders and without as the
new “spiritual men” whose advent Joachim had predicted. Over time, the radical
millennial movement split off from the institutional one (Spiritual vs. Conventual
Franciscans), and both popular movements and sophisticated exegetical treatises
came to identify the Church (including the Conventual Franciscans) as agents of
Antichrist (Burr 2001). The thorough mixing of millennial prophecy and contem-
porary historical interpretation led to opposing strains that saw either a coming
“angelic” pope or a coming messianic emperor as the millennial savior. At the
same time, at the turn of the fourteenth century, a violent demotic millennial
movement under the leadership of Fra Dolcino (ca. 1250–1307) broke out (in part
in response to the burning of their previous leader, Gerardo Segarelli in 1300).
Based in the Alps, his disciples waged war on the clergy and the rich. In the same
way the peace of God had become a holy war in the course of a century, so the
transformative millennialism of Joachim had become active cataclysmic within a
hundred years of his death.
Subsequent Christian “medieval” history is so thick with millennial themes
and movements that it is hard to enumerate them all. Exegetes and theologians
like Peter Olivi (1248–1298), Ubertino da Casale (1259–1329) and John of Rupes-
cissa (d. 1366) elaborated millennial themes, while radical groups like the Be-
guins and the Beguines incorporated them into their spirituality. Prophecies
related to events in the East (Prester John, Mongols, Cedars of Lebanon) repeat-
edly inspired both individuals and groups to believe they had entered apocalyptic
time and in some cases to launch millennial movements. Apocalyptic millennial
themes appear repeatedly in the “reforming” literature including the Lollards, the
Hussites, and the early Protestant sects like the Anabaptists and the followers of
Thomas Müntzer (Potestà 1999), as well as many if not most “peasant” revolts like
the Jacquerie and English Peasant Revolt (Mollat and Wolff 1973). Even the
Western scientific tradition has a millennial genealogy that dates back to the
Middle Ages (Noble 1999), with particular significance to the work of Roger Bacon
(1214–1294; Abate 2000; Matus 2012) and Arnold of Villanova (1235–1313; Back-
man 1995).
Select Bibliography
Campion, Nicholas, The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism and History in the Western Tradi-
tion (London 1994).
Cohn, Norman, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical
Anarchists of the Middle Ages, rev. and exp. ed. (1957; New York 1990).
Collins, John J. and Bernard McGinn, ed., Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (New York 1999), 3 vols.

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1112 Richard Landes
Cook, David, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (New York 2002).

Emmerson, Richard K. and Bernard McGinn, ed., The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY,
and London 1992).
Gow, Andrew, The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age 1200–1600 (Leiden 1995).
Landes, Richard, Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (New York 2011).
Landes, Richard, Andrew Gow and David Van Meter, ed., The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious
Expectation and Social Change 950–1050 (New York 2003).
Manuel, Frank and Fritzie Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, MA, 1979).
O’Leary, Stephen, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York 1994).
Wessinger, Catherine, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism (Oxford 2011).
Whalen, Brett Edward, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, MA, 2009).
Yücesoy, H., Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in
the Early 9th Century (Columbia, SC, 2009).

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Ralf Lützelschwab
Western Monasticism
A Introduction
For Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian monk and one of the most influential figures
of the first half of the twelfth century, monastic life symbolized not only the
“stomach” of the Church (venter Ecclesiae) but also its basic structure (sustamen-
tum): “For it is from the stomach that nourishment is distributed to the entire
body. Similarly, the role of the monks consists in providing spiritual lymph to the
people in charge as well as the subordinates” (Bernard of Clairvaux 1964, 74).
Much earlier, Evagrius Ponticus, a fourth-century desert father, had already
articulated the same ideas, describing the monk’s role with an aphorism: “A
monk is one who is separated from all, but united to all” (Casiday 2006, 198).
Monastic spirituality has not changed a great deal since then. The abbot of the
Belgian monastery of Scourmont, Dom Anselme le Bail, could still develop similar
thoughts in the first half of the twentieth century: “The Christian life is a social life
where each member, each constituent part, should work toward achieving the
perfection of the whole body, of the whole Church, without which one cannot not
attain one’s own individual perfection” (Dufrasne 2010, 152).
The vita religiosa which comprises a voluntary commitment to vows (consilia
evangelica) and juridical regulations is by definition a vita regularis, a life under a
rule. As a spiritual and juridical phenomenon, the vita regularis is divided into
four types: 1. vita monastica; 2. vita canonica; 3. military orders; 4. mendicant
orders. Monastic communities provide a material and spiritual structure neces-
sary for every individual striving for eternity whereas orders (ordo/ordines) are
institutions transcending the confines of particular dioceses by their universality
being therefore as universal as the Church itself (Landau 2003). Ordo is a juridical
term describing a monastic reality that came into being from the twelfth century
onwards. It is not to be used for the early period of monasticism.
The most noble task of monasticism has always consisted of the search for
God. Western monasticism was not the product of a well-formed plan and did not
come into being via conciliar decisions. During its existence from the third
century onwards, monasticism has found lots of different ways of realizing this
ideal of combining religious needs with normative instructions and everyday
monastic reality (Lawrence 2000; Brooke 2003). The innovative potential has
always resided in the balance of (interiorized) faith and the pragmatic organisa-
tion of life, in which legislative norms and texts are of the utmost importance.

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1114 Ralf Lützelschwab
Medieval monasticism found a plethora of names for them: regulae, consuetu-

dines, statuta, instituta, decreta, constitutiones and far more. All these names can
be subsumed into three main types of legislative texts: rules (regulae), custom-
aries (consuetudines) and statutes (statuta) (Melville 2005).
Western monasticism quickly became a success story. It relied not only on the
principle of guidance through a qualified head, the abbot, and the obedience
shown to this head, but also on poverty and chastity. Within this framework, there
was a scope for an astonishing variety, as the great canonist Henry of Segusio (ca.
1200–1271) noted in his Summa Aurea, “there are many different monasteries
which all have different regulations” (diversa sunt monasteria, et diversas habent
institutiones) (Henrici de Segusio Cardinalis Ostiensis summa aurea 1574, 1144).
Different ways can lead to God: this is especially true for monasticism.
B The Origins
I The Desert: Egypt
Western monasticism has its roots in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine. In places
far away from big cities and commercial hubs, solitaries and little groups tried
and tested new lifestyles: the desert was an experimental laboratory in which lots
of different ways of life could coexist. Two different types of monasticism devel-
oped, with Egypt at their center: 1. eremitic life—people living alone (the greek
word eremós means “desert”); 2. cenobitic life—people living together (from the
greek koinós biós which means common life). In sharp contrast to the later
western model, desert spirituality consisted in what was caught, not in what was
taught. One of the most precious sources giving insight into this very early stage
of monasticism is the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers” (Apophthegmata Patrum),
short narratives and examples describing the advantages and disadvantages,
benefits and dangers of desert life (Harmless 2004). Warnings of spiritual preten-
sion, “If you see a monk levitate, catch him by the foot and throw him to the
ground, for it does him no good” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers 1984, 107), are
found alongside invaluable advice, “If we stretch the brethren beyond measure
they will soon break. Sometimes it is necessary to come down to meet their needs”
(The Sayings of the Desert Fathers 1984, 13). This last example goes back to
Anthony the Great (ca. 251–356), also called “father of the monks,” one of the
most experienced and influential desert fathers who not only fought the whole of
his life against temptations and diabolic phantasm but also defended a responsi-
ble handling of one’s own needs and corporal weaknesses. He would certainly
have disapproved of the way of life chosen by certain Syriac fathers. Some of them

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Western Monasticism 1115
lived in trees for long periods, some on columns for years. The latter are called
stylites—with Simeon Stylites (389–459) as the most famous example (Brown
1971). Simeon lived on his column for nearly forty years. This kind of exaggerated
ascetism, however, was reserved for only a minority of monks.
II The Forest: Europe
How did Egyptian deserts, Syriac columns, and European forests come together?
(Dunn 2000) John Cassian (ca. 360–ca. 435), knowing the situation in Palestine
and Egypt very well, was responsible for the transmission and implementation of
the Egyptian experience into Europe. After moving from Egypt to Marseille he
adapted oriental ideas to the material, cultural and climatic situation in Europe
via his influential Rule (Institutiones) and his “Lives of the Desert Fathers” (Vitae
Patrum). He laid the foundation stone of a structure which developed and ex-
panded rapidly. One of the most interesting and culturally progressive projects
was a monastic foundation established by Cassiodorus (ca. 485–ca. 580), son of a
Roman senator, on his family’s estates in South Italy. As he could not create a
school of theology in Rome due to a lack of institutional support, he founded a
monastery in Calabria instead. Vivarium—its name refers to the fish ponds nearby
—rapidly became the religious and cultural center of the South of Italy. Central to
the monastic existence at Vivarium was the library where numerous texts of
antiquity were copied and therefore transmitted to posterity. In his Institutiones
Cassiodorus refers to the overall importance of study—copying texts was consid-
ered not only manual labour but also divine service (opus divinum) (Cassiodor
2003, 266–74). Cassiodorus’s project did not survive his death, but the texts did—
most of them probably ended up in the papal library in the Lateran basilica.
C Saint Benedict and his Rule

I The Beginnings
Essential for the further development of western monasticism was the Rule of
Saint Benedict (Regula Benedicti) whose content is usually summarized in the
words (albeit not found in this combination within the rule) “Ora et labora”—pray
and work. Relying heavily on a previous rule called the “Rule of the Master”
(Regula Magistri) (Jaspert 1975), Benedict wrote his instructions at a time of
political instability and unrest. His intention was to found a dominici scola
servicii, a community longing for learning to know and serve Christ. For the

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individual monk this meant a lifelong process of transformation. Regulations

were made to support this transformation process through practical arrangements
for the organization of community life. Benedict—the only substantial informa-
tion we have about his life goes back to the second book of Gregory’s the Great’s
“Dialogues” (Dialogi)—wrote in order to secure a vita communis, a common life for
individuals united by one and the same goal: finding God. Uniformity (uniformi-
tas) is one of the key features that defines this common life, in clothing, in eating
and in the acceptance of rules and statutes.
A monastery was therefore considered an island of tranquillity and order in a
world full of conflict and chaos. The cloister was “the other,” defining itself by
what it was not: it was conceived as counterpoint to the secular world, a place in
which nothing should be preferred to God’s love (nihil amori Christi praeponere).
The material sign of this “otherness” consisted in the enclosure, separating the
cloister symbolically and physically from the world (RB 66,7). The cloister of the
Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn (southern Germany, founded in 1147) is a
good example for the idea of a hortus conclusus, an “enclosed garden,” sur-
rounded by the church and different administrative buildings. Very often parts of
the cloister area were used to cultivate medicinal herbs (see Fig. 1).
It was within the enclosure that the salvation of every individual could be
realized. Fundamental to the life of every monk entering a monastery were the so-
called essential vows (vota substantialia). In the case of the Regula Benedicti, they
were formed by three elements: 1. stabilitas loci—the promise to remain in the
same monastery for the rest of one’s life; 2. oboedientia—strict obedience under
the abbot; 3. conversatio morum—the intention to adapt one’s behaviour to the
charism of the cloister, including poverty and chastity. The structure and rhythm
of the day were of the utmost importance. Benedict gave the example to be
followed by dividing the day into three main elements: 1. labor manuum—manual
labour; 2. opus divinum—divine service and the liturgy of the hours; 3. lectio
divina—the study of sacred/liturgical/hagiographical texts. These elements coex-
isted in a fine harmony balancing labour and tension with periods of recreation
and relaxation. Jean Leclercq rightly characterized the lectio divina as mixture of
reading, meditation, and memorization, this last being “what inscribes the sacred
text in the body and the soul” (Leclercq 1982, 90; Robertson 2011). Lectio divina
not only involved understanding the meaning of a text: it was considered a
dialogue between God and the reader/listener. The extreme harshness of Egyp-
tian regulations was not imitated: monks in a Benedictine monastery were able to
sleep about 7–8 hours, work for 4–5 hours, pray for 4 hours and consecrate
themselves to study and lecture for 4 hours. Even if this is only an approximative
scheme, it shows nevertheless the fine balance inherent in Benedict’s monastic
timetable. In the early Middle Ages, children formed an integral part of monastic

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Fig. 1: The cloister of the St. Martin’s Cathedral, Utrecht, The Netherlands
(Photo: Albrecht Classen).
communities: whereas the pueri oblati were given to the monastery at a very
young age―John Boswell characterized this oblation as humane form of aban-
donment (Boswell 1984, 17)―others profited from the education received in
monastic schools. In contrast to the latter, pueri oblati were expected to remain
within the monastery (Boswell 1988; De Jong 1996). A year of novitiate initiated
a lifelong process of conversion: this preparation culminated in perpetual vows
(RB 58, 17) (Constable 1987; Moos 2007).
Every monastery following the Rule of Saint Benedict enjoyed a high degree
of autonomy: it was subject only to the Rule and (in very specific―and urgent
―cases) to the local bishop. This kind of freedom guaranteed not only survival
but also the integrity of tradition and discipline. It was the abbot who guaranteed
the autonomy and the well-being of the monastery—particularly concerning
questions of inward discipline like the administration of temporal goods and
elections. He represented Christ within the monastery’s walls, possessing nearly
absolute power. One key qualification for the exercise of his powers was discretio,
which means the ability to measure and judge situations taking into considera-
tion variations in individuals, time and space. The monastery’s well-being was

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rooted in this gift of discernment, called the “mother of virtues” (mater virtutum)
by Benedict (RB 64,19). The abbot was constantly reminded that it was better for
him to serve than to rule (prodesse magis quam praeesse, RB 64,8). Petrus
Damiani (d. 1072), one of the main representatives of the eleventh-century Bene-
dictine Reform movement, characterized the regula as a “great and spacious
mansion in which provision is made for the strong and the weak, men and boys,
people of every conceivable description” (Petrus Damiani 1993, 27). And indeed,
the great advantage of this rule consists in its astonishing flexibility.
II Further Development
It should be understood, however, that the success of the Regula Benedicti was not
immediate, and was due to a number of very influential supporters. After Bene-
dict’s death his rule was confined to only a handful of monasteries, all located
south of Rome, centered on Montecassino. At that time, most monasteries followed
so-called “mixed rules” in which elements of several rules were combined to create
regulations tailored to specific situations. One of the best examples—Adalbert de
Vogüé calls it “le chef-d’oeuvre”—is the anonymous Regula Tarnantensis, written
in the third quarter of the sixth century for an unknown monastery in Gaul (Vogüé
2005, 202). The time from 300–700 C.E. can be considered an experimental phase
in the history of western monasticism with lots of different projects and rules. From
that entire period, thirty sets of rules have come down to us. Their main purpose,
however, was not a kind of demarcation from other monastic communities but the
wish to secure a proper tradition. The monasteries founded by Columbanus
illustrate this fact. At the end of the sixth century, missionary work on the
continent began, undertaken by monks who left their native Ireland in order to
follow the precept of homelessness. Pilgrimage for Christ (Peregrinatio propter
Christum) was their device (Ebrard 1971). New monasteries came into being in
regions that had previously only superficially been touched by Christianity.
Columbanus founded two monasteries of the utmost importance: Luxeuil in 590
and later on Bobbio in Northern Italy where he died in 612 (Stancliffe 2006, Richter
2008). These monasteries―Luxeuil quickly became one of the most important
houses in Gaul―followed a rule called the “Rule of St. Columban,” an outstanding
example of a “mixed rule” (Lapidge, ed., 1997). Another important Irishman on the
continent was Gallus (d. 650), the first to establish a place that subsequently
became the abbey of Saint Gall, later on famous for its immense library (http://
www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/csg/Shelfmark/20/0).
The influence of Gregory the Great in the process of propagating the Regula
Benedicti was considerable but, in reality, it was the imperial court of Charles

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the Great and his successors which created from Benedict’s rule—one monastic
rule among many—the mandatory rule for all monasteries within the Empire.
For Charles the Great and his counsellors, monasticism signified not rejection of
the world but integration and active commitment within it. The eremos, the
desert, was transformed into a flourishing garden. Royal monasteries (“Kö-
nigsklöster”) became important pillars of the Empire’s expansive politics headed
by abbots experienced in administration. In the Eastern parts of the realm, this
also meant a central engagement in mission. North of the Alps, the Regula
Benedicti was considered the “Roman Rule,” a label which conferred a high
degree of importance and reputation. Responsible for this success was the head
of the imperial commission, Benedict of Aniane (ca. 750–821), later called the
“second Benedict” (Semmler 1983). Through his writings and political engage-
ment, Benedict played an influential role in imperial synods around 800. He
was not naïve, however: he recognized that not all monasteries across the
Empire could be treated the same. Therefore he allowed Saint Benedict’s rule to
be joined by so-called “customaries” (consuetudines) designed for the situation
of individual monasteries. Within a short time, monasteries had become reposi-
tories of the Empire’s unity.
III The ordo canonicus
Imperial synods not only imposed the exhaustive implementation of the Regula
Benedicti but also maintained a clear distinction between monastic and canonical
orders. This was a reaction to a progressive clericalization of monasticism which
since its beginning had shown a pronounced reserve vis-à-vis the integration of
priests into its ranks—a reserve motivated by ascetic ideals, not by anti-clerical
resentment. An ambivalence around the admission of priests into monasteries
and the appointment of resident monks to the priesthood is already articulated in
the Regula Benedicti. In this case, the ambivalence is due to the fear that the new
clerical status could entail arrogance—superbia has always been considered one
of the most prominent mortal sins. In the eyes of Benedict, priests were not
necessary for a well-ordered house. But the expressed wish of ordained men to
live according to canons (canonice vivere) had to be answered. The solution to the
emergence of “clerical monasteries” (Klerikerklöster) in which all—or almost all—
members were ordained consisted in the clear separation between a “monastic”
and a “canonical” way of life. The ordo canonicus was born. Chrodegang, bishop
of Metz (d. 766), was the first to write a rule for the clerics of his diocese, but it was
at the imperial synod of Aachen in 816 that the separation between the monastic
life and canonical life was definitely formulated. The biggest difference between

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the two ordines consisted in poverty: whereas monks had to be personally poor,
canons were allowed to have personal possessions.
This changed with the reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries—a period decisive for the development of canonical orders (Andenna 2004).
By the middle of the twelfth century there were already over 150 canons’ houses
in the Holy Roman Empire. Regular Canons now followed the so-called “Rule of
Saint Augustine,” written around 400: that is why they are called “regular,” i.e.,
“guided by a rule.” The rule’s character was very monastic indeed: canons lived
not only a common life, but a life in poverty. However, there were two differences
separating them from Benedictines or other “orders” which also developed at this
period: first, they were ruled by a provost rather than an abbot; second, there was
no enclosure. Canons proclaimed the Word of God via preaching and pastoral
care. The most prominent of all regular canons were the Premonstratensians
(Crusius and Flachenecker, ed., 2003), founded by the highly charismatic Norbert
of Xanten (1080/85–1134) at Prémontré and officially approved in 1126. With one
of its main bases in the imperial city of Magdeburg, Premonstratensians assumed
important functions in the colonization of the areas East of the River Elbe (Bond
1993).
IV Imperial Monasteries
The bigger monasteries—Fulda in 781 is one of the most impressive examples with
364 monks (Raaijmakers 2012)—became quasi self-sufficient: from being mainly
places of worship, they came to resemble villages with a well-ordered array of
workshops, gardens and other places of work (Zimmermann 1972). A very im-
pressive visualization of such a large building complex is the mid-ninth-century
plan of the monastery of St Gall in Switzerland showing some 40 structures which
due to copious inscriptions and annotations can all be identified (Jacobsen 1992;
Constable 2009). Space is organized by function: we find not only places for work,
for worship, for silence, but also for the poor, the sick, the novices and the guests.
These big monasteries were not able to evade the influence of the Frankish rulers
who assigned them new responsibilities. The imperial monasteries not only func-
tioned as schools providing basic knowledge for the sons of the surrounding
higher and lesser nobility, but also as centers for missionaries going Eastwards.

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D Reform(s): Cluny
The strong relationship between the Carolingian dynasty and monasticism was
risky insofar as a breakdown of the dynasty severely affected the future of monasti-
cism. The destruction of Montecassino by the Saracens in 883/884 stands symboli-
cally for the potential doom that could befall this kind of monastic organisation.
It was obvious that Benedictine monasticism had to be reformed (Engen
1986). The biggest and most influential reform movement started in Burgundy
where a monastery was founded at the beginning of the tenth century which later
came to be known as the “light of the world”: Cluny.
But Cluny was not the only center of reform: Brogne (Northern France), Gorze
(near Metz), St. Benigne in Dijon, Westminster or Einsiedeln (Switzerland) also
contributed to a return to traditional monastic values. This could not have been
realized without the combined forces of monastic communities, local bishops and
nobles collaborating for a common good. When Cluny was founded by Duke
William of Aquitaine in 910, he ensured the unrestricted freedom of “his” monks
by giving up his proprietary rights over the monastery. This was not enough: the
titles were transferred to the pope. Cluny had obtained the privilege of exemption
from local diocesan or noble control, being subjected to the pope alone. Remark-
able longevity also contributed to this success story. For 210 years, only five great
abbots (from Odo in 927 to Peter the Venerable in 1122) kept watch over the destiny
of Cluny.
Cluny became the center of a monastic congregation which dominated Wes-
tern monasticism for at least two hundred years (Rosenwein 1989; Wollasch 1996;
Constable 2010; Iogna-Prat 2004). The head of this congregation was always the
abbot of Cluny. For the first time in monastic history, a real “order” with a general
abbot, subordinate abbeys and legally binding customs came into being. Cluny
stood for the religious establishment flourishing in a time when the papacy was
trying to implement a general ecclesiastical reform movement. Cluny was at the
very center of this reform.
Cluniac life was characterized by the importance given to liturgy: it was the
liturgy that commanded the Cluniac monk’s existence. This lead to spectacular
forms of canonical hours and splendid masses celebrated in an appropriate
setting. The new church built between 1089 and 1095, known as Cluny III, was by
far the biggest church in Christendom: the monastic claim to power realized in
breathtaking architecture. At the same time, this undue emphasis on one monas-
tic element resulted in the loss of the equilibrium between manual labour, lectio
divina and divine service—something which was heavily criticised and finally led
to a “reform of the reform” in the twelfth century, headed by the newly-founded
Cistercian order.

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E The Return of Eremitism

This triumph of cenobitic monasticism was accompanied by a new blossoming of
eremitism, but, in contrast to the desert fathers, it was evident to the eremites of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries that a life in solitude was only possible if a
solid basis had been established: this basis was the cenobitic life. For the high
middle ages it is true: no eremite thrived without a cenobitic background. This
system came into being in two new foundations in central Italy: Fonte Avellana
and Camaldoli offered a kind of structured form of the eremitic life, one in which
the monks lived in cells under the direction of an abbot or prior. At a time when
real martyrdom was no longer possible, eremitic life represented the new kind of
martyrdom (McCready 2011).
The most prominent eremitic order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in
the valleys of the Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble in 1084: the Carthusians
(Bligny 1984; Ravier 1995). Although conceived as strict eremitic order—even
today the Carthusians are considered to be the strictest order in Christendom—
Bruno nevertheless added a few elements rooted in cenobiticism, for example,
communal meals on Sundays and feast days only. Masses were also celebrated
together—but compared to the 700 conventual masses celebrated every year at
Cluny, the 155 masses at the Grande Chartreuse seemed quite meagre. Community
life was therefore reduced to an absolute minimum. The cell constituted the
monk’s place of life and retreat. Protected by the intimacy of his own cell, the
Carthusian could dedicate his existence to divine reading and meditation (Hogg
1989; Mursell 1988).
The absence of a rule underlines this ambivalence toward a life in commu-
nity. It was only under the fifth prior of the Grande Chartreuse, Guigo I (d. 1136),
that the first customs were written down (Hogg 1989). Longing for a truly con-
templative life, every Carthusian prized solitude and strict isolation. Silence was
absolute and seen as prerequisite for prayer, lecture and meditation. This led to a
very elaborate sign language to preserve the monastery’s peace (Vanderputten,
ed., 2011). The prestige of the order has always been very high. Created for the
“happy few,” it was nevertheless considered essential for the spiritual well-being
of the whole Church.
F Cistercians
Something new happened with the arrival of the Cistercian order (Eberl 2002;
Burton and Kerr 2011), soon regarded as a “symbol of the innovative” (Melville
2002, 36). After the confirmation of its foundational document, the Carta caritatis,

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by Pope Calixtus II in 1119, every monastery in the order remained independent, but
was subject to a well-defined twofold supervision guaranteed by a strong relation-
ship to the “mother-house,” i.e., the founding monastery of Cîteaux, and by the
annual gathering of all the abbots for the general chapter which usually took place
in Cîteaux (Cygler 2002). The Carta caritatis was rightly called a “blueprint for a new
type of community or federation of houses” (Sykes 2011, 2), guaranteeing unity
(unitas) and uniformity (uniformitas) within the order (Waddell, ed., 1999).
When Robert, abbot of the Benedictine house of Molesmes, left his monastery
with a handful of monks in 1098, his new foundation in Cîteaux was very soon at
the brink of extinction. It did not attract a sufficiently high number of aspirants. It
was Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), the “difficult saint” (McGuire 1991; Dinzelba-
cher 1998), who joined the order in 1112, together with some thirty relatives and
friends, that secured its survival (Vacandard 1910; Bredero 1996; McGuire, ed.,
2011). His relentless work on behalf of the order brought him into contact with all
the major rulers of Europe. His influence on curial and French politics was
considerable, his position vis-à-vis the aesthetic excesses of the Cluniacs merci-
less (Rudolph 1990). At the end of his life Bernard described his position in cruel
words: “I am the chimaera of my century” (Ego enim Chimaera mei saeculi)
(Bernard of Clairvaux 1977, 147). From 1112 to 1115 the four primary abbeys of La
Ferté, Pontigny, Clairvaux and Morimond were founded—centers for a breath-
taking expansion of the order not only in France but across the whole of Europe.
Cistercians were especially important in the monastic settlement of Britain. After
the first Cistercian foundation at Waverley in 1128, monasteries like Rievaulx
(1132) or Fountains (1133) followed in quick succession. In 1153, there were more
than 300 Cistercian abbeys in Europe; by 1253, there were 647 abbeys belonging
to the order (Winkler 1980). The dormitory of the Cistercian abbey of Eberbach
(founded in 1136), 74 m long and 14 m wide, comprises more than 1000 m2. Up to
150 monks could sleep in this room which by a staircase is connected to the
transept of the abbey church (see Fig. 2).
Bernard of Clairvaux was not alone in promoting the Cistercian influence
on Christian theology; the writings of Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1167), Isaak of Stella
(d. 1178) and Guerric d’Igny (d. 1157) led to them, along with Bernard, becoming
known as the “four evangelists of Cîteaux.” Miracle stories flourished within the
Order. The best example is Conrad of Eberbach’s Exordium magnum, compiled
from the 1180s to about 1215—stories showing the transforming presence of God in
human affairs, especially the affairs of the order of Cîteaux (Conrad of Eberbach
2012). Also the impact by Cistercian bishops and cardinals on ecclesiastical affairs
was considerable. In the time span from 1098–1227 no less than 19 cardinals and
151 bishops and archbishops came from within the Order (Lipkin 1980; Lützel-
schwab 2010).

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Fig. 2: The dormitory of the Cistercian abbey of Eberbach (founded in 1136)

The basic elements of Cistercian legislation were filiation—the dependency of

new foundations from their mother house—, general chapters and visitation. The
order abhorred the multitude of useless statutes and avoided their accumulation
by a simple means: to adopt new statutes it was obligatory for them to be read and
accepted during three consecutive general chapters. A characteristic feature of
Cistercian monasticism was the location of its monasteries. As laid down in the
statutes of 1134, the monks were not allowed to build monasteries within city
walls, but only in places far away from men (in locis a conversatione hominum
remotis). This meant that in the majority of cases land had to be cultivated in
order to accommodate monastic settlements. Very soon Cistercians cultivated
large areas clearing forests and reclaiming land and marshes. Their exploitation
lay on the shoulders of a special group of monks, the converses (conversi). The
converses’ main task was manual labour. Compared to their “brothers,” the so
called choir-monks, dwelling in the same monastery, they did not have exactly
the same rights but were regarded somehow inferior (Waddell, ed., 2000). The
fundamental motif of Mary and Martha—Mary representing prayer, reflection and
meditation, Martha standing for manual labour—triumphed within the Cistercian

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precincts. The Cistercian economic system was responsible for the material well-
being of lots of monasteries (Bouchard 1991; Rösener 2011; France 2012). And
without the Cistercians’ cultivation-work the German Eastward expansion would
have developed significantly more slowly. The Cistercian abbey of Eberbach’s
dormitory for the lay brothers, 85 m long, was built in the beginning of the 13th
century. Its sheer size is surprising and highlights the importance of the abbey’s
lay manpower. Up to 200 conversi could sleep in this vaulted room (see Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: The dormitory of the Cistercian abbey of Eberbach for the lay brothers
G Orders of Knights
One groundbreaking novelty was the emergence of the order of the Knights Tem-
plar (officially approved around 1129) whose way of life seemed highly innovative
—and not only to contemporaries (Demurger 2005). Backed by a rule written by
Bernard of Clairvaux (De laude novae militiae), they embodied a strong connection
between the monastic and military ways of life, initially protecting pilgrims to and
in the Holy Land. This led at the same time to a new valuation of lay forms of life.

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Not everybody cherished the type of self-sanctification cultivated by the Templars:

the Cistercian Isaak of Stella even accused the “new monster” (monstrum novum) in
very harsh words, explaining and deploring that “unbelievers are forced to believe
with the aid of lances and bludgeons. Those who do not bear the name of Christ are
plundered without restraint and murdered on the basis of religion” (Isaak von
Stella 2012, 768). Even after the loss of the Holy Land, the Templars retained or even
expanded their influence on political affairs in the West. In France, they were
responsible for the safe-keeping of the kingdom’s treasury. King Philip IV. of
France (1268–1314) who did not want to be confronted by a “state within the state”
put an end to these aspirations: in October 1314 all Templars within the kingdom
were arrested, the order subsequently forbidden, its possessions and wealth (if not
reclaimed for the royal treasury) transferred to the Templars’ great rivals, the
Hospitallers or Knights of Saint John. This order, which was founded in 1113
(Nicholson 2001; Riley-Smith 2012), initially took care of pilgrims in Jerusalem,
even providing substantial health care, but quickly assumed more or less the same
responsibilities as the Templars and the third knights’ order, the Teutonic Knights
(founded in 1198/99): the care and defence of the Holy Land. Hospitallers included
professed knights bound to the order by perpetual vows and secular knights only
temporarily engaged in the order’s affairs. Therefore, a tripartite structure consist-
ing of military brothers, brother infirmarians and brother chaplains ensured the
Hospitallers’ effectiveness. All military orders constituted private armies, built a
huge number of castles and therefore controlled large parts of the Holy Land
(Bériou and Josserand, ed., 2009). After the loss of their strongholds in the East, the
Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights also succeeded in creating new operational
bases in the West—the Hospitallers settled in Rhodes, and later in Malta, whereas
the Teutonic Knights moved as far as Prussia and Livonia, engaging in the belliger-
ent Christianization of Europe’s still pagan Eastern part (modern day Poland and
the Baltic states) (Christiansen 1997; Boockmann 2012). The coexistence of clerical
and secular elements within all military orders testifies to the laity’s reticence to
accept a strict separation between a clerical or monastic caste and a laity with no
right of active participation in religious affairs. This becomes even more apparent
with the next type of monastic orders.
H The Mendicant Orders

From the beginning of monasticism, the ideal of withdrawal from the world has
revealed highly problematic. Monasteries may have been considered—idealiter at
least—islands or havens guaranteeing protection from the outward world, but in
reality it has always been necessary for orders and individuals to find a balance

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between life within the cloister and (spiritual) engagement outside (Vanderputten
2012).
In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the old “order” par excellence, the
Ordo Sancti Benedicti with its reformed branches like the Cistercians did not
correspond any more to religious sensitivities. Even the eremitical orders could
not and did not want to step in to fill the spiritual gap. Vallumbrosans and
Carthusians might have been praised for their rigidity, living up to their own
standards—but their lifestyle was exclusive, not made to be imitated by the
numerous individuals in the cities and universities who desired to embark on a
monastic life. From the twelfth century onwards, the vita religiosa therefore
underwent considerable changes. New religious sensitivities necessitated new
modes of living. Influenced by the Cistercian model, other orders appeared—
orders transpersonally ruled and considered subjects of law, clearly distinguished
from other orders. Besides rules and customs (consuetudines), statutes now be-
came increasingly important. Being very flexible, they represented the particular
law (ius particulare) of each order or congregation (Cygler 2012).
The mendicant orders—under this notion are subsumed four “big” (Francis-
cans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinian Friars) and some “smaller” orders
(Friars of the Sack, Pied Friars etc.) (Andrews 2006)—have some features in
common: they do not follow the precept of stabilitas loci any more. Monks can
easily be transferred from one convent to another. These orders consider them-
selves poor—therefore they highly cherish the concept of mendacity (even if
mendacity as a real means to generate income plays an insignificant role) (Prudlo,
ed., 2011; Bériou, ed., 2009). At least in the beginning poverty not only meant
poverty of the individual monk (known from the “old” orders of Benedictine
background) but also poverty of the whole convent. At the convent’s top stood no
abbot, but a prior—mendicant abbots did not exist. All mendicant orders defined
themselves as “propagators” of the Gospel. In order to fulfil this task brethren had
to leave the closure consciously. Spreading the gospel in public, especially in
urban contexts, required new competencies with preaching at its core. In order to
achieve this goal, mendicants developed a highly complex education system and
consciously searched contact with universities (Sullivan 2012). But despite these
common features every order succeeded in developing its own character and
charism (Grundmann 1977; Andenna et al., ed., 2005).
I Dominicans
Born in 1170 in Spain, Dominic of Guzman was destined for a clerical career
(Vicaire 1982; Tugwell 1995–2003). After entering the cathedral chapter of Osma

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in 1196 as Augustinian canon he accompanied his bishop Diego on two diplo-

matic missions encountering the dramatic religious situation in the South of
France where the heresy of Catharism triumphed openly over catholic hierarchy.
The papal legates—mainly Cistercians—destined to appease the situation and to
reconquer the area for Catholicism had revealed highly inefficient. Dominic was
the person to transform failure into success, inefficiency into efficiency. Unprece-
dented situations necessitated new approaches. Dominic knew exactly what to
do: he hit heretics with their own weapons. Therefore he showed not only
modesty and humility leading a “real apostolic life” (vita vere apostolica), but also
developed new missionary methods acting by word and deed (verbo et exemplo),
especially by preaching, and new forms of pastoral care. In 1215 the bishop of
Toulouse allowed the foundation of a new order: the “Fratres Predicatores” were
born, the Preaching Brothers, who later on would be called “Dominicans” in
remembrance of their founder (Hinnebusch 1973). From the very beginning two
elements were of the utmost importance: poverty and study. Dominic was con-
vinced that heresy could only be defeated by well-trained monks being capable of
preaching. When at the end of 1215 Dominic looked for papal approval he
encountered resistance. Pope and prelates who assisted the Fourth Lateran Coun-
cil in Rome had already categorically forbidden the foundation of new orders with
new rules (Maccarrone 1995). Dominic followed papal advice and opted for an
“old” rule: he chose the one going back to the Church Father Augustine, a good
choice indeed, because the rule was suitably vague. By this procedure papal
approval became obsolete. Toulouse quickly lost its position as center of the
order—Bologna and Paris took its role.
By this conscious transfer to the intellectual “hot-spots” of Europe, Domini-
cans showed their interest in education and study attracting lots of new members
with university background (Mulchahey 1998; Elm 1999). In order to fulfil its
preaching mission on an international scale, the order created a highly elaborate
educational system relying on particular schools (studia particularia) in the con-
vents, provincial schools in every province (studia provincialia) and finally gen-
eral schools (studia generalia) where only the brightest studentes were admitted.
S. Jacques in Paris was by far the most famous and influential of these studia
generalia. In 1220, during the first general chapter, the central constitutions of the
order (complementing the rule of St. Augustine) were issued and provinces in-
stalled (Galbraith 1925).
The provincial structure with a provincial prior put between the local prior
and the master general revealed highly efficient. Dominic himself stepped back
behind his creation and when he died in 1221 the order faced no difficulties
handling the transition. With astonishing velocity more than 250 convents could
be founded. In 1337 the order comprised ca. 12000 brethren and was held in high

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esteem by the papacy. Until 1320 ca. 450 Dominicans were able to climb the
highest positions within the ecclesiastical hierarchy acting as bishops and cardi-
nals (Lützelschwab 2010). Even two popes came from within the order (Innocent
V. (1276), Benedict XI (1303–04)). The reputation of the Order in later times
suffered due to its implication in the inquisition. Indeed, when Pope Gregory IX.
(1227–1241) instituted a papal inquisition in order to fight heresy in an appropriate
and efficient way, the order bore the main work (Praedicatores Inquisitores 2004).
The general masters of the order, however, never considered the inquisitorial task
as essential for its charisma. What was essential, however, was the promotion of
studies within the order. To that end every prior had broad dispensation powers.
Studying brethren could be dispensated from attending mass our Hours and
allowed to work even during the night. What was also new was the clear distinc-
tion between laws established by men in order to regulate monastic life and the
responsibility of every single brother to follow (or in specific cases to break) these
regulations. For Dominicans, rule and constitutions were only binding “under
punishment” (sub poena), not “under guilt” (sub culpa). This also contributed to a
higher degree of flexibility—regulated life was subordinate to the main tasks. The
Dominican Order endowed Europe’s intellectual world with figures of enormous
influence (Käppeli 1970–1975). By his writings, especially his Summa theologica,
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was to dominate theological training for centuries
(Torrell 2005). Thousands of sermons (still conserved albeit far from being totally
explored) bear witness to the Dominicans’ preaching abilities (Muessig, ed., 1998;
Kienzle, ed., 2000, 363–447). For example, Jacopo da Varazze’s four sermon
collections comprising 723 sermons are scattered among more than 1100 manu-
scripts produced in the whole of Europe (Bertini Guidetti 1998). Within a few
years, the order had developed from a federation of like minded canons into “a
large, dynamic and highly complex international religious corporation of a novel
type” (Vargas 2011, 63).
II Franciscans
Not as intellectualized as their Dominican counterparts, Franciscans nevertheless

saw the great advantages solid education could entail (Senocak 2012). This had
not been predictable and did certainly not correspond to the ideas which the
Order’s founder, Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), developed when he began his
highly personalized “franciscan adventure” (Vauchez 2012). From the very begin-
ning his intention was to create a community of “brothers minor” (fratres minores)
consisting of like-minded lay people, not of educated clerics (Moorman 1968;
Lehmann 1997). The name became programme: Francis and his first companions

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chose a life of voluntary poverty—a decision which put them on the side of the
most deprived parts of medieval society. Francis, son of a wealthy merchant from
Assisi in Umbria, broke completely with his former life and left his family in a
highly symbolical act: on Assisi’s central place he put off his worldly clothes
throwing them at the feet of his father. Separation could not have been expressed
more dramatically. It has to be underlined, however, that poverty for Francis was
not an end in itself but an instrument for acquiring evangelical perfection
(Mt. 19,21: If thou wilst be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast). The Franciscan
cardinal Bertrand de la Tour (1265–1333), relying on Gregory the Great, put it in
these words: It is less hard to renounce all you have than to renounce the desire
of having (Minus enim est ait Gregorius abnegare quod habes, sed valde magnum
est abnegare quod es) (Nold 2012, 193).
Francis, nowhere near as educated and sophisticated as Dominic, but in
contrast to him the person on which the whole Order totally depended, did not
foresee the problems he caused. He wanted his companions to move through the
countryside drawing the population to a more evangelical life by word and deed.
The problem was that at this time other groups like the Waldensians or the
Cathars did the same thing—groups which were considered heretic or at least on
the brink of excommunication. It is due to the foresight of Pope Innocent III
(1160–1216) that the tiny group of people around Francis did not end up as heretic.
Papal patronage was responsible for the Franciscan success story in statu nascen-
di. As early as in 1209 the pope had orally confirmed the Franciscan way of living.
And his support persisted with regard to the restrictions put on new monastic
foundations after the IV Lateran Council. In contrast to the Dominicans who were
compelled to adopt an already existing rule, Franciscans were allowed to con-
tinue their proper form of life.
Two rules were the result of long lasting reflections by Francis and his
companions. The first one, called “Regula non bullata” (1221) because not offi-
cially sealed by the papacy, reveals a strong influence of the order’s founder.
When the so-called “Regula bullata” (1223) was adopted two years later, things
had changed considerably: Francis was ill and had already withdrawn from the
order’s government and therefore the papacy could argue its whole influence on
the rule. The order received a legal structure, expanded and adjusted from time to
time by new constitutions. At the order top of the stood the general minister,
subordinated were the provincial ministers and the guardians (not abbots) of
every single house. Francis who had died in 1226 in the smell of sanctity and who
should be canonized only two years later had seen the danger stemming from
frequent curial interferences. Dissatisfaction soon arose because of two crucial
points: 1. the position of the order on poverty, 2. the increasing clericalization of
the order (Landini 1968). Poverty was highly contested: while it had always been

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clear that every single brother had to be poor, this evidence lacked with regard to
the convent resp. the order as institution.
It was Peter John Olivi (1247–1296) who articulated this dissatisfaction intel-
lectually by sketching a theory of the “usus pauper,” the “poor use” (which
basically meant the ascetic use) of material goods (Burr 2003). The papacy under-
standably feared the radical potential in these ideas and invented a legal con-
struct in order to keep up appearances. The papacy declared itself in possession
of all convents conceding only their usufruct to the respective communities. This
triumph of legalistic sagacity did not convince all brethren. In the fourteenth
century the debate on it was reopened and finally lead to the order’s division into
two branches. Whereas the Conventuals followed the papal line, the Observants
followed Francis’ initial idea of total poverty. Immediately after Francis’ death the
order became submerged with clerics. This inevitably led to severe tensions—with
the clerical element finally prevailing over the lay element—and it fostered the
creation of an educational system within the order (Roest 2000).
Without this development the strong presence of Franciscans within univer-
sities—especially Paris and Oxford—would have been unconceivable, that is, as
inconceivable as the inclusion of Franciscans into the Church hierarchy (Thom-
son 1975). Names like Bonaventura (1221–1274) or Roger Bacon (1214–1292/94)
bear witness of the intellectual charisma of lots of franciscan masters (Fleming
1977). Franciscan preachers like Antonius of Padua (1195–1231) or Berthold von
Regensburg (1210–1272) dominated the scene (Johnson 2012). Numerically at
least, the Franciscan Order has always been the strongest of all mendicant orders:
exact numbers are difficult to evaluate, but at the end of the Middle Ages, around
1500, the Holy Roman Empire alone disposed of 359 convents (196 conventual
against 163 observant convents) (Jürgensmeier and Schwerdtfeger, ed., 2006–
2007).
III Carmelites and Austin Friars
The Carmelites—originally hermits dwelling in the valleys of Mount Carmel in the

Holy Land—received their rule from Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem, between 1206
and 1214 (Smet 1975; Alban, ed., 2008). Forced by the instable political situation
with constant Saracen (Arab) raids, Carmelites began to migrate westwards,
establishing themselves in Europe, especially in Sicily, Southern France and
England (Copsey 2004). They were not affected by the decisions of the IV Lateran
Council in 1215 which forbade the creation of new religious orders. Carmelites
gradually accepted a mendicant lifestyle which enabled them to live and prosper
within the cities of the West—a life style which would have been considered

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highly inappropriate in their eremitical beginnings (Clark 1985). Well integrated

in the cities, the Carmelites did not entirely turn their back to former eremitic
ideals (Boyce 2008). Being involved in a ministry of preaching and teaching they
felt to be distinctive—a distinctiveness rooted in the individual way of prayer, in
their strong Marian spirituality, but especially in their foundational myth. Choos-
ing (or better: “inventing”) the Old-Testament prophet Elias as founder of the
order, Carmelites became by far the oldest order in Christendom (Jotischky 2002).
Like other mendicant orders, Carmelites paved their way into the big universities,
especially Paris, where brethren like John Baconthorpe (ca. 1290–1348) or Guy
Terreni (d. 1342) exerced a certain influence on theologian studies (Brown 2012).
Unlike the other mendicant orders, the Augustinian Friars (also known as
Hermits of Saint Augustine or Austin Friars) have no coherent foundational myth.
When in 1256 Pope Alexander IV. (1254–1261) decreed the definite unification of
several eremitic communities based in Tuscany, he gave a legal coherence to a
new mendicant Order that—at least initially—lacked every coherence (Pini 2012).
The only unifying bond was the Rule of S. Augustine (Zumkeller 1986). Like the
Carmelites, the Augustinian Friars spread rapidly across Europe (Roth 1966),
developed a very influential school of theological thought rooted in Augustinian
ideals with Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus, 1243/47–1316) as its main represen-
tative (Zumkeller 1964; Sisson 2008), and had to fight against a breakdown of
monastic observance during the Late Middle Ages. From the beginning of the
sixteenth century, the Austin Friars won a certain notoriety as “Order of Martin
Luther.”
It should have become clear, that in the Late Middle Ages, Dominicans and
Franciscans largely dominated the mendicant scene. As a consequence, the
smaller mendicant orders like the Friars of the Sack died a slow death. And
Carmelites and Augustinian Friars could only survive by accepting severe limits
on their operations. What happened was “a kind of corporate fratricide” (Vargas
2011, 69) reducing the enormous variety of mendicant life designs. The mendicant
niche was successfully cleansed.
Mendicant predominance within the cities remained not uncontested. Secular
clergy defeated what was conceived as competition on the spiritual market
(Geltner 2012) and approved the exclusion of mendicant chairs for theology at the
University of Paris. The result was a long-lasting quarrel, the so-called “mendi-
cant controversy” (Bettelordensstreit) of the thirteenth century, in which both
sides fought without restraint using defamatory propaganda (Yates 2008).
Men and women attracted by the monastic way of life had three options: as
men they could join the “first order,” whereas women constituted the “second
order.” The third order was reserved for lay persons—male and female—who
remained in the world but tried to lead a life inspired by monastic ideals.

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I The Role of Women in Western Monasticism

The spiritual needs of men and women do not differ. Therefore from the very
beginning of monasticism we find women attracted by various forms of monastic
life (Melville and Müller, ed., 2011). Female communities initially lived near
existing male monasteries depending completely on the respective abbot. The
variety of forms that the female vita religiosa could take necessitated regulations
from the Church. The oldest extant rule for nuns was written by Caesarius of Arles
(ca. 470–542) for his sister Caesaria (d. 524). In his “Rule of Virgins” (Regula
virginum) the abbess not only embodies the rule’s spirit but is responsible for the
preservation of strict enclosure without exceptions—a characteristic feature of
most women’s monasteries and convents up to the late Middle Ages (Hochstetler
1987; Vogüé 1989; Klingshirn 1990). Whether—in the early Middle Ages at least—
female forms of religious life may have influenced men’s communities is still
open to debate (Diem 2011). Women had the choice between two basic concepts:
if they opted for existence as canoness, they led a common life (vita communis),
followed a structured daily routine with Hours, Divine Office, common meals and
a common dormitory, but—and this is the main difference between canonesses
and nuns—they were not bound by eternal vows. They could leave the monastery,
an option quite important for women from the aristocracy who eventually had to
be married for the sake of family interests. Unfortunately, it is not always obvious
which type of rule a particular religious house followed—and terminology does
not always help. In most cases all women were simply called sanctimoniales
(servants of the saint), not differentiating between nonna/monacha (nun) or
canonissa (canoness).
From Carolingian times onwards we find huge and very wealthy abbeys with
some influential abbesses acting—at least in the Empire—as Princesses (Reichs-
fürstinnen). They followed a rule called Institutio Sanctimonialium conceived in
816/819 for all women who did not opt for S. Benedict’s Rule. These abbeys clearly
functioned as pension institutions for noble women. But besides very rich and
important houses like Quedlinburg and Gandersheim, where especially in the
tenth century the memory of the Ottonian dynasty was cultivated, the majority of
female convents in the following centuries faced not only economic instability but
also spiritual uncertainty because their male counterparts were quite reluctant to
assume the burden of spiritual care (Johnson 1991; Venarde 1997). It was not only
Benedictines and Cistercians who hesitated to incorporate female monasteries
(Thompson 1978; Felten 2000); mendicants too were reluctant (Degler-Spengler
1985). This comes as no surprise because their raison d’être necessitated a high
degree of flexibility. This flexibility could not be guaranteed with female convents
depending on the spiritual and sacramental care provided by male religious (Smet

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2004). Some women, however, had the energy and obstinacy to overcome male
objections. Clare of Assisi (1193–1253) is by far the most famous example (Alberzo-
ni 2004). In contrast to their male counterparts, the Poor Clares (as the female
branch of the Franciscans was soon called) observed (or rather, were forced to
observe) a strict enclosure which proved propitious to contemplation but which
prevented them from direct acts of charity and from spreading the Gospel. The
golden age of female monasticism, however, came with the late Middle Ages,
when mysticism was particularly cherished within the convent’s walls—sensual
experiences that paved the way for the knowledge of God culminating in a mystic
union (unio mystica). It began with Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) and was
carried forward by women like Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1207–1282) and
Mechthild von Hackeborn (1241–1299) (Bürkle 1999). This female longing for the
heavenly bridegroom (occasionally with sexual overtones) did not only take place
in the solitude of the cloister, but also within other institutional structures.
Female piety did find other ways of expression: by far the most famous
example is the Beguines who led a semi-monastic life without vows, consecrating
themselves to prayer and good works (Wehrli-Johns 1998; Simons 2001). Beguines
were not nuns but lay women living in a community called a beguinage. This new
form of life which from the twelfth century onwards developed independently of
already existing orders especially in Northern Germany and the Low Countries
was always on the brink of condemnation and suppression. The reason is simple:
the Church hierarchy found it difficult to wield effective control over these
women. The late Middle Ages also saw the appearance of some very influential
women—influential even on an international scale. Whereas Catherine of Siena,
the twenty-fourth child of a simple dyer, used all her renown as Dominican
tertiary to influence curial politics (Ferzoco et al., ed., 2012; Hamburger and
Signori, ed., 2013), Birgitta (1303–1373), a member of Sweden’s high nobility, in
1346 not only founded her own order—the still existing Brigittines―but also
exerted considerable influence on papal decisions (Santa Brigida profeta dei
tempi nuovi 1993; Jönsson 1997) and with her “Revelations” (Revelationes) left
behind one of the main religious literary texts of the fourteenth century (Obrist
1984).
Finally, one extreme form of enclosure has to be mentioned: anchoritism
(Hughes-Edwards 2012; Warren 1985). Separation from the outer world was
achieved by walling in women (very few male anchorites are known) in little cells
adjacent to parish churches. Seclusion however was not absolute: some forms of
interaction with the community outside the anchorite’s cell were still possible and
expected.

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J The Late Middle Ages: Monasticism in Crisis?

Compared to the relative homogeneity of the mendicant orders, medieval Bene-
dictine monasticism kept its complex spiritual, organizational and regional he-
terogeneity. Until the end of the Middle Ages, there was still no “Benedictine
Order”—a situation lasting up to the year 1893 when the “Confederation of
Benedictine congregations” (or easier: the Order of Saint Benedict, Ordo Sancti
Benedicti (O.S.B.)) came into being. At the same time the honorary office of
“general-abbot” residing in Rome was introduced. In the late Middle Ages, how-
ever, every Benedictine monastery kept its independence with no adherence to
superior institutional structures. In lots of late medieval Benedictine monasteries,
it is true, memories of many precepts of the Regula seemed to have completely
faded (albeit anti-monastic polemics speaking of a complete decline are false)
(Clark 2009). When Benedict stated in chapter 39 of his rule: “Above all things,
however, over-indulgence must be avoided and a monk must never be overtaken
by indigestion; for there is nothing so opposed to the Christian character as over-
indulgence” (RB, ca. 39, l. 7–8), this precept was all too often not observed. Just
one example: the figures contained in the account rolls of Westminster Abbey
speak for themselves—expenses for the abbot’s table became exorbitant (Harvey
1993). A late medieval monk could lead—and in fact did lead—a very comfortable
life which was far from the rigour of early monasticism. Reform became inevitable
and was on the agenda of the popes from 1334 onwards. The Cistercian Pope
Benedict XII (1334–1342) was responsible for wide-ranging reforms affecting
nearly every monastic order (Schimmelpfennig 1976; Ballweg 2001). Only Domin-
icans and Carthusians were able to avoid papal interference. The latter were
especially proud of their fidelity to ancient monastic rigour—something which in
the seventeenth century was condensed into the phrase, “Cartusia nunquam
reformata quia nunquam deformata” (The Carthusian order was never reformed
because it had never been deformed) (Leoncini 1988). Monastic reform was also a
point of concern at the Council of Constance (1415–1417) (Mertens 1989). In the
fifteenth century it was above all the oldest of all “orders,” the Benedictines,
which initiated a monastic renewal (Hermand 2012). Starting from two monas-
teries—Melk and Bursfelde—strict discipline was reinstated, education, even
scientific work, again found its place in the curriculum (Freckmann 2006). Re-
forms affected not only the way of life, but also spirituality. Especially in Burs-
felde a new type of spirituality was introduced, the devotio moderna (Engen 2008;
2009). This “new devotion” was a mystical movement claiming a personal rela-
tionship for every believer with God. Personal dialogue with God was of the
utmost importance. At its peak, the “congregation of Bursfelde” comprised more
than 180 monasteries (Heutger 1975, Ziegler 2000–2001). This was the last influ-

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ential effervescence of traditional monasticism before institutional monastic

structures collapsed under the attack of the Protestant Reformation of 1517.
Select Bibliography
Brooke, Christopher, The Age of the Cloister: The Story of Monastic Life in the Middle Ages
(Mahwah, NJ, 2003).
Burton, Janet and Julie Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge and Rochester, NY,
2011).
Clark, James G., The Benedictines in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge 2011).
Grundmann, Herbert, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter: Untersuchungen über die geschicht-
lichen Zusammenhänge zwischen der Ketzerei, den Bettelorden und der religiösen Frauen-
bewegung im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert und über die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der
deutschen Mystik, 4th ed. (1935; Darmstadt 1977).
Jotischky, Andrew, The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and their Pasts in the Middle Ages
(Oxford 2002).
Lawrence, C. H., Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Live in Western Europe in the Middle

Ages (New York and London 2000).

Leclercq, Jean, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New
York 1982).
Melville, Gert, Die Welt der mittelalterlichen Klöster: Geschichte und Lebensformen (Munich
2012).

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Philipp Robinson Rössner
Money, Banking, Economy
A Money: Definitions, Concepts, Social Constructs

I Money and the Middle Ages
Money and banking are important social and economic institutions that facilitate
economic transactions and exchange. Frequently, this involves the concept and
syntax of a market and the notion that goods are exchanged and prices formed
according to the (modern) notions of supply and demand. Some people offer
goods; others demand them, and their ‘price,’ usually expressed in a specific
currency, indicates where individual bargaining processes meet, or (in the lan-
guage of economics) demand and supply curves intersect. These economic sche-
dules include deliberations about individual preferences (demand, consumption)
and cost schedules (supply; production). Alternative forms of allocation and
exchange of goods and services, i.e., reciprocity (gift exchange) and redistribution
(feudal or manorial economy; villainage system) were also important; but there is
still much debate as to what extent “free” bargaining processes and price forma-
tion using markets according to our modern notion were significant at all in the
“working mechanism” of the medieval economy and society (Boldizzoni 2011).
Money, banking, and economic life are functionally linked. Money is the gener-
ally accepted means of exchange in modern societies. It denotes value and serves
the purpose of storing wealth over time. Banks are, in the modern view, essential
clearing institutions that transform individuals’ savings and deposits into liquid
funds that can be used for consumption and investment. They usually pay their
customers interest in exchange for their financial services and in order to com-
pensate the owner of the money for the opportunity costs (that is, lost opportu-
nities to make a profit) that he or she incurs by leaving his or her money in the
bank. Banks also fulfill an important function of extending money’s outreach.
They do so by enlarging the overall monetary stock (mainly by providing or
generating credit); monetary stock is usually defined as the amount of money in
circulation and its velocity of circulation (that is, the number of times each
monetary unit—at that time usually a coin—changes hands during a given period,
usually a year). Money’s velocity could be increased by the level of credit gener-
ated by banks or individuals in inter-personal loans.
In the Middle Ages money, banks and banking existed—as practices, institu-
tions, as well as networks of individual actors—but were quite different from what

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1138 Philipp Robinson Rössner
they are today. Banks did exist; but they were used mainly for providing capital in
long-distance commerce, amongst a fairly limited range of actors, mainly mer-
chants and their networks. They were also important for the transfer of larger
sums across wider distances. This frequently involved the exchange of two
different currencies, for which refined techniques, such as the bill of exchange,
were invented (sometime in the twelfth century during the “commercial revolu-
tion”). They mark the early precursors of “modern” banking processes and
“modern” financial market practices and institutions. Bills were also invented to
facilitate cashless transfers of money amongst different actors over time (includ-
ing an element of credit) and space (larger distances). Banks were an urban
phenomenon and not usually used in the creation of productive capital in indus-
try and manufacturing, or in the rural environment. During the European Middle
Ages, money appeared exclusively in the shape of coins (which in this essay will
also be called “hard cash”); in China, paper currency was also known. There is
some debate amongst scholars as to what extent certain types of credit, such as
the bill of exchange, were used during the Middle Ages and how they could be
used to enlarge money supply (see below). Credit was always functionally tied to
the supply of money in circulation. As no credit instruments existed that were
fully tradable and fungible (that is, completely depersonalized and always con-
vertible into ready cash, in the same way as the later bill of exchange or our
modern bank draft/check are), credit increased money’s velocity—but not really
the amount of it that was in circulation. The economy may have been more
productive and efficient if there had been a well-designed banking system, with
sophisticated financial instruments and techniques of credit that increased the
number of times a pound was made to “go round.” But as there were no indepen-
dent, modern central banks, the actual process of “creating”—i.e., minting of
money—or the supply of coins was a prerogative of rulers, princes and kings.
Rulers, more often than not, exploited their prerogative to mint money, very often
to the detriment of the common folk. This situation created socio-economic
imbalances and social conflict. Money, therefore, was not exclusively an econom-
ic thing (it never has been and never will be), but also a political, social, cultural,
and even religious beast, as, for instance, Luther’s teachings on indulgences in
1517 would demonstrate (Rössner 2012a, ch. II).
It is quite arbitrary to choose the medieval period as the framework for a
discussion of money. In the history of money, there was no such thing as the
“Middle Ages.” The physical qualities of money, as well as its social, cultural, and
economic purposes, functions, and configurations, had not changed significantly
since coins were invented some time during the seventh century B.C.E. Further-
more, money’s basic shape and functions would not change significantly, until
very late: The most fundamental change in the monetary paradigm did not occur

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Money, Banking, Economy 1139
until after the abolition of metallistic systems of money in the modern age (mostly
after ca. 1900 C.E.). In a metallistic system—the common monetary standard
between about 700 B.C.E. and 1900 C.E.—the purchasing power of the instru-
ments of exchange, which are usually coins, was derived from (or based on) the
intrinsic value of the instruments themselves. In Germany, this monetary theory
or concept called “metallism” was not abolished finally until 1948; however, in
the century or so before that date, the monetary stock was increasingly based on
non-metallistic instruments, either base-metal coins (copper, nickel) or comple-
tely coinless means of transaction such as bank notes or savings deposits. So as a
periodization schedule or reference point of analysis, the “Middle Ages” has no
(real) bearing in Europe’s monetary and financial record.
II Money: An Interactive Thing
The monetary reform of Charlemagne in 794 established a monetary system based

on the denarius or penny (d) and the Libra-Solidus-system (Pounds-Shilling) as a
means of accounting or “ghost money” (Verhulst 2002). That means, the penny
remained, for a long time, the only actual type of coin that was minted; but the
shilling (12 denarii/pennies) and pound (20 shillings or 240 denarii/pennies) were
known and used as virtual concepts of accounting. The idea that a coin’s purchas-
ing power was based on the amount and weight (fineness) of the precious metal
that it contained, however, had been around since antiquity and was used in most
parts of Europe until the twentieth century, though there was considerable
geographical and chronological variation. Historians are notoriously famous for
identifying periods or particular dates, events and points in time when “change”
was supposed to have occurred. But change as a concept or organizational
metaphor in history is a highly controversial issue. As has been seen above, the
first decisive historical change in monetary systems was the change from a
commodity standard to a fiduciary system during the later nineteenth century. At
this time, most European states and governments gradually abolished the metal-
list standard and turned to a fiduciary system of money. But small change coins
such as pennies, denarii, mites, farthings, and kreuzers already included fiduciary
elements long before because—contrary to a commonly accepted monetary theo-
ry—they contained much less precious metal than their face value would indicate.
And here money becomes interesting as a political, social, and even cultural
beast, alongside its character as an economic tool (see below).
It is important to bear in mind that above all money is about human interaction.
It is a connecting agent, bringing together people across wide distances of space,
time and class. Such connections do not have to be symmetrical (that is, the two or

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more parties who partake in the exchange do not have to be equal). In fact, more
often than not, these connections reflected asymmetries within social relations,
revealing basic fault lines that run through society at large. Whilst there was
nothing peculiarly “ancient,” “medieval” or “early modern” about money in Eur-
ope any time prior to the 1900s, the story of money therefore provides a good
overview of some of the more fundamental social, economic, and cultural dy-
namics in European society throughout the Middle Ages. The role of money as a
means of communication and connectivity will be discussed in four sections:
(B) money and its practical use in medieval Europe; (C) the economics and politics
of minting; (D) banking and entrepreneurship as a social activity and a strategy
designed to cope with monetary scarcity; (E) money and culture. A final section
concludes.
B Coin Usage and the Use of Money

in the Middle Ages
I What is Money?
Money serves several economic purposes: it is a means of exchange, a means of

expressing value, and a means of storing value over time (saving; with the caveat
that savings may be eaten up by inflation). In addition, it is a means of political,
economic, and cultural communication. A coin with the image of a ruler commu-
nicates both a political and a cultural message, even if the image is only the
ruler’s portrait. Frequently, people attributed special powers to money. They may
associate it with magic, mishaps, or evil spells, as well as, more positively, to
proliferation and fecundity (Rössner 2012a, chpt. I). During the Middle Ages, coins
represented the bulk of the monetary stock, if we consider that only very limited
possibilities existed of extending the monetary supply using bank money (e.g.,
short-term credit on current accounts). Coins were usually made of a precious
metal mixed with a base metal (Spufford 1988; Grierson 1951; 1975). Base metal
had to be added for two reasons. First, it was physically impossible for medieval
metallurgists to produce pure silver or gold coins. Second, the varying ratio of
precious to base metal within a particular coin determined that coin’s purchasing
power in the market. Silver and gold were marketable commodities in their own
rights. They were coveted not only by the governing authorities and states, which
in terms of configurations and shape differed considerably from modern states
that issued the money and the financial markets that traded in coins and precious
metal, but also by silversmiths and goldsmiths. The physical composition of coins

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Fig. 1: Good Money! Saxon silver florin (‘Thaler’), ca. 1525/1526. (@ Deutsche Bundesbank).
Front: Elector Johann (John) of Saxony carrying a short sword; back: his brother, Duke Georg
(George) of Saxony.
had to be frequently adjusted, as silver supply and silver prices were volatile.
Very intricate and at times complex techniques of metallurgy and minting were
needed to fine-tune monetary policy according to the needs of society and the
economy, as well as the constellations on the metal markets.
In the Middle Ages coins were minted using quite primitive techniques.
Old and foreign coins, raw gold and silver, bullion (ingots), jewelry, and
ornaments were melted down in order to make coins. The metal was first
formed into bars, and then transformed into sausage-like pieces that were cut
into thin, round slices. These slices were then imprinted on the back and front
with images using a hammer and die. The process was entirely unmechanized
(Sargent and Velde 2003). Striking coins and running a mint required hiring
people who would perform hard physical labor, as well as prodigious amounts
of fixed and working capital for factory buildings, smelting ovens, etc. Mint
masters also had to have an intimate knowledge of the financial markets, and
they had to have the financial means to run a royal or princely mint. Accord-
ingly, they were recruited from a small group of successful international
merchants and financiers.
In the early and high Middle Ages, low-value coins, usually pennies, were
imprinted only on one side, because they were too thin and too small to bear an
imprint on both sides. In the German lands, these coins went by the name of
Hohlpfennige (literally, “hollow pennies”) or Bracteates. Depending upon the
fineness of the metal and the weight and shape of the coins, much more informa-
tion could be “stored” in the material, especially when coins became larger.
Muslim denarii or Dirhams in the eighth and ninth centuries are said to have
sometimes contained more than 200 hundred letters or characters. Obviously,
larger and full-bodied high-value coins sometimes conveyed significant amounts
of verbal and numerical information.

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Fig. 2: Evil Money! Austrian Penny, ca. 1459 (@ Deutsche Bundesbank).
II Concepts of Money and the Composition of the Monetary

Stock in the Middle Ages
It is obviously impossible to determine the amount of money in circulation, or the

relationship between coins (cash) and cashless means of payment (credit, but
some scholars maintain that credit affected the velocity of money, not its overall
amount) in the overall monetary stock at any given point in time and in any
particular society during the Middle Ages. However, it is clear that coins repre-
sented the major part, up to 100 per cent, of the total money supply. Cashless
payments, such as the bill of exchange or credit transactions (see below) were
unimportant in the early Middle Ages but became increasingly important only
amongst a very limited range of wealthy merchants toward the later Middle Ages.
Thus even in the later Middle Ages, the monetary stock was primarily made up of
gold, silver, copper, and alloyed coins. These metals were also used to make
jewelry, silverware, and other luxury goods and for saving.
During the early Middle Ages, the only coin that existed was the above-
mentioned penny or denarius (d) (henceforth just: “penny”). After the monetary
reform of Charlemagne 794, there were twelve pennies in a shilling and 240 pen-
nies in a pound. Neither the pound nor the shilling, however, actually existed
physically; they were not coins, merely a standard or money of account: a means
contemporaries used to reckon with (“ghost money”). The Middle Ages thus had a
nearly modern concept of “virtual money.”
In medieval times, in urban commercial environments, there were at least three
different concepts of money (Lane and Mueller 1985, vol. I, chpt. 1). One concept
was moneta effetiva, the coins used in transactions. These coins could come from

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many different geographical regions and eras (Rössner 2012a, chpt. III and IV).
Another concept was moneta numeraria, or the specification of a certain currency
for a certain transaction. The third and most general concept was the monete di
conto or money of account: that is, the general accounting system or conventions to
which a “nation,” or country, or community subscribed and on the basis of which
contracts were sealed, property rights secured, and claims on economic resources
framed. The common money of account was usually the Libra-Solidus system, in
which 20 solidi were pegged to the pound (later on in the Germanic lands we find
other moneys-of-account, such as the Rhenish Florin which exchanged at 21 groats
and, accordingly (1 groat = 12 pennies) 252 pennies. The groat was similar in value
to the shilling; it corresponded to the florin or gulden in the German lands toward
the end of the Middle Ages, where initially 20, then, toward the later fifteenth
century, 21 groats were counted on the florin or gold gulden.
As mentioned above, the money of account was not actual coinage. More
often than not, it remained a virtual construct; for a long time the penny or
denarius was the only coin that was minted. It was not until the “commercial
revolution,” beginning in the later twelfth century, that larger coins representing
multiples of the denarius were minted, and thus the higher steps in the sequence
of the money of account were “filled” with actual coins. These went by the name
of groat (German Groschen or the French gros tournois) or shilling (Latin solidus,
abbreviated in the sources as s. or sol.). In France, the first gros tournois, worth
12 deniers and containing 4.22 grams of silver each, were produced beginning in
1266. In England, groats were minted beginning in 1279. In the German and
Central European lands, Meißner Groschen (groats from Meissen in Saxony),
along with Prague groats, became proverbial in the high Middle Ages after rich
silver deposits were discovered in the region around the central European Ore
Mountains (Erzgebirge in German) in Saxony and Bohemia (Spufford 1988,
chpt. 5; Schwinkowski 1918; Castelin 1973). In 1252, gold coins in the value of one
pound or Libra (worth 20 solidi or shillings) had begun to be minted in Florence
and Genoa. They contained 3.53 grams (Genovino) and 3.54 grams (Fiorentino) of
gold respectively and were named florin after the place they had been invented
(Florence). The Venetian Ducat, containing 3.545 grams of gold, broadly corre-
sponded to the standard and monetary segment represented by the florin or
gulden; it remained in existence as a “European” currency standard by denomi-
nation until 2001 (Stahl 2012).
The purchasing power of a penny (d) could be quite high. In the seventh or
eighth century, a penny could buy as much as one sheep. But even in the later
period, pennies had high purchasing power, especially during times of deflation
and economic depression when prices were low and unemployment high. Around
1350, the daily wage of a laborer in England could be as low as two pennies per

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day (Sargent and Velde 2003, 48, table 4.1). Around 1500 in southern Germany,
maidservants earned as little as five florins or 1,260 d per annum at the nominal
exchange rate of 252 d to the florin (and 12 d to the shilling or groat, with the florin
worth 21 groats after the 1490s, when the ratio was increased from 20 to 21 groats
to the florin). Assuming a working year of 260 days, this is just under five d per
day. In addition, workers usually received additional non-monetary compensa-
tion such as housing, clothing, and food allowances. This illustrates a slightly
different position and role money had in society then compared to nowadays.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the shape, size, and form of the penny and its
fractions (such as the heller, the German half-penny, and the mite or farthing, the
English quarter-penny) varied from region to region and era to era. Around 1500,
in the Holy Roman Empire, there were about 500 open mints and only a slightly
lesser number of political authorities or “states” that had the right to mint coins.
Coins frequently fulfilled the function of legal tender even outside the area in
which they were minted. This meant that at any given time, an individual might
be in possession of coins from different regions and eras, and in different denomi-
nations. There might easily be several hundred coin types in circulation at one
time. As coins usually travelled wide distances and frequently crossed political
borders, the composition of the monetary stock was varied and inhomogeneous.
Coins were usually valued by weight, not tale (or nominal value), meaning that
people checked a coin’s purchasing power marked by its silver or gold content
(weight) before accepting it in a transaction. They thus usually refrained from
accepting a fixed ratio (say, always 21 groats to the florin) bona fide (which would
have meant circulation by tale). This purchasing power was derived from the
amount of silver or gold the coins contained (Sargent and Velde 2003). Thus if
people found, say a particular sort of groats to be underweight, i.e., deviating
from the nominal or “lawful” standard in terms of the particular coin’s specifi-
cally stated silver content, they would usually charge more, i.e., ask for 21 or
22 groats for the florin (when the “official” ratio or money of account stood at
20 groats per florin as was the case in late fifteenth century Saxony) (Rössner
2012a). This was a means of safeguarding against depreciation of assets; however,
it did create some social and economic problems here and there (see subsequent
sections). Toward the end of the Middle Ages in the German lands, “native” coins
(that is, those minted by the local political authorities) comprised at most around
20 to 30 percent of the total coin stock in circulation, according to the evidence
provided by coin hoards (Rössner 2012a). That means that people encountered
and used foreign coins very often. Moreover, old coins coexisted alongside new
coins. In the Middle Ages, rulers frequently “recalled” coins by ordering that all
existing money be brought into the princely mint, so that the metal could be
melted down and reminted. The new coins usually contained less precious metal

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than did their predecessors. The old coins were no longer recognized as legal
tender. This was a standard technique in the set of options available for the
politics of minting (see section C below). For a long time, this was a common
means of raising revenue that did not require the consent of the estates or
magnates of the realm (parliament).
III Monetization
In the Middle Ages, the per capita amount of money (that is, the total value of the
monetary stock, divided by the number of people in the population) in circulation
was small, at least when compared with the per capita amount of money in
modern Western societies. As in agrarian societies of any age, per capita income
was low; consequently, the degree of monetization was also low. The permeation
of market-based exchange was not as marked in the Middle Ages as it was during
the early modern or modern period. Moreover, people used money differently in
the Middle Ages than they do today, depending on their incomes, the social
classes to which they belonged, and the times and places in which they lived. In
rural environments, monetary transactions usually clustered around harvest
time, when dues and levies had to be paid to the feudal lord (see Rössner 2012a,
chpt. II, for a survey). Peasant farmers did not require large amounts of cash
throughout the year, but this does not mean that they did not use money at all:
many of the transactions in rural environments instead involved the use of virtual
or “book money.” People calculated debts and obligations without necessarily
writing anything down. Sometimes manors kept written records of outstanding
balances (Schofield 2006; 2012). Monetization—in other words, the share of
transactions that are handled via the market and which involve the use of money
—may have been higher in towns and cities than it was in the countryside, but
peasants were not disinclined to use money. Many scholars have “über-cultura-
lized” pre-modern (agrarian) society by characterizing transactions that did not
obviously involve money as either barter or something that followed mechanisms
and considerations different from modern market-based societies (Howell 2010).
This often misses the point in medieval economic exchange, much of which was
in fact market-based and monetary, employing a very clear and robust concept of
money, even though comparatively little money was physically available. Money
remains, after all, a virtual social construct; it does not always have to be there
physically. It cannot be traced archaeologically or in purely material terms
exclusively, i.e., via coin hoards and numismatic evidence (although numis-
matics does give us valuable insights into the social and economic history of
money). What we need therefore, when looking at money in history is corrobora-

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tive written evidence documenting and explaining transactions (bills, receipts,

manorial records, account books etc.) that tell us both what people did with
money and what money did to them.
C Making Money: The Economics and Politics

of Minting in the Middle Ages
I The “Scourge of Debasement”
One phenomenon that haunted medieval Europe down to the nineteenth century
was coin debasement or currency depreciation (Cipolla 1963; Sargent and Velde
2003). “Coin debasement” refers to the process by which coins lose their intrinsic
value when the money authority makes the decision to mint them using a smaller
precious-to-base-metal ratio. Whilst rates of debasement varied over time, the
problem never disappeared fully. Only the Netherlands and England were com-
paratively financially stable after 1500 (in England’s case, after the Great Debase-
ment of 1542–1553). It is certainly not entirely coincidental (but robust studies on
this aspect are still missing) that these two nations were the richest and most
developed countries in the world at that time. England experienced its first
industrialization and economic modernization after 1800. Industrialization has a
long pre-history dating back to the Middle Ages, and monetary stability may have
been a decisive factor in driving that industrialization.
Coin debasement was sometimes acute, as it was in early-fourteenth-century
France. At other times, debasement was either less marked (i.e., coins were
recalled less often), or the long-term rate of depreciation was lower (i.e., coins
were not debased so much each time they were reminted). Revaluations (that is,
increases in the intrinsic value of silver and gold coins) were very infrequent, and
they usually represented only a temporary halt to a steady downward trend (see
Sargent and Velde 2003). Debasement was first and foremost a political phenom-
enon—usually, it was motivated by a ruler in need of money. But it was also
connected with economics, social issues, internationalization, and an increase in
global trade. Coin debasement is one of the fundamental conundrums of medie-
val monetary and social history; a convincing model of interpretation does not yet
exist (for a critique of the acclaimed Sargent and Velde 2003, see Volckart 2008 or
Munro 2012).

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II The Economics of Debasement
Governments or rulers could in theory have used gold and silver reserves (where
available) to mint a fixed number of coins that would then be put into circulation,
thereby limiting the supply of money available to the public. This method, if it
had been used, would have been similar to that used by modern central banks,
which limit the amount of money in circulation. Such limits ensure the achieve-
ment of basic economic, social, and fiscal policy goals. In particular, they ensure
price stability (inflation control) and influence business cycles. They may do the
latter by employing a policy of “tight money” in order to prevent the business
cycle from overheating, or they may print “cheap” money, extending monetary
and credit supply within the economy thus lowering interest rates as a quick fix
for a recession.
In the Middle Ages, the situation was fundamentally different. For this
reason, we should not uncritically apply modern models to the medieval economy
(as many studies have done, such as Sargent and Velde 2003). In the Middle Ages,
the most common way of putting money into circulation was through “free
minting.” In a free minting system (or “open mints”), anyone can bring as much
silver as he wants to the mint at any time and receive coins in return at a
prescribed rate that was called “mint equivalent.” Usually, the princely or royal
mint was leased out to a private entrepreneur, the mint master, who operated the
mint as a profit-making business. The costs of minting (brassage) and the cut
taken by the local lord (seigniorage) were deducted from the coins’ intrinsic value.
Consequently, the value of the silver or gold in coins was always less than the
coins’ nominal value or purchasing power, especially after debasement. Coined
silver and gold thus enjoyed a premium over un-coined, and thus un-standar-
dized, silver or gold bars, ingots or plate.
In twelfth- and thirteenth-century Venice, silver coins could be worth up to
20 per cent less than “raw” or uncoined silver ingots and silver plate (Stahl 2012).
The public could ascertain a coin’s material value or purchasing power more
easily than they could ascertain the value of raw silver or gold in the shape of
bullion, ingots, or bars, as the latter required considerable knowledge of metal-
lurgy and chemistry. Coins therefore bore a “liquidity premium” that made
transactions cheaper and more efficient, because they reduced transaction costs,
at least in theory. Reality was more complex (see below, present section and
Rössner 2012a, chpt. IV and Rössner 2012b for a fuller elaboration). A number of
social and economic problems were caused by the propensity of medieval and
early modern governments and mint masters to raise revenue (often to finance
wars) by excessively reducing the precious metal content of their coins (see
below).

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III The Politics of Debasement
A well-managed, stable monetary supply and system of circulation helps to

support general social and economic stability; many rulers were aware of this
even in the Middle Ages, although this economic stability goal often conflicted
with fiscal pressures sketched in the previous section (Rössner 2012a, chpt. III).
By managing the monetary supply less well (e. g., lowering the intrinsic value of
money beyond that which is warranted by price fluctuations on the silver or gold
market), a government or ruler could secure a windfall profit from minting. In
order to do this, the ruler would set a fixed price at which the mint would buy
precious metal (silver and gold), whilst hiding from the public exactly how much
silver (gold coins were not usually used for the purpose of debasement as a means
of raising fiscal revenue) the new coins contained. Depending upon the mint price
(i.e., the number of new coins minted from a fixed quantity of raw silver or a
certain number of old coins), and depending upon how much silver or old coins
were brought to the mint, the ruler could make a significant seigniorage (mint
profit). The success of the debasement would depend upon how quickly the
public detected the deceit—any coin debasement was a sort of deceit, after all—
and, accordingly, how long they accepted the new coins as a valid means of
exchange. As mentioned above, determining the exact fine silver or gold content
of a coin required expert knowledge in basic chemistry and metallurgy, as well as
specialized equipment (Sargent and Velde 2003, chpt. 4).
The precious metal content of a coin could be determined by experts assaying
the coin: that is, by comparing its shape and color to the shape and color of
needles made of silver of varying degrees of fineness (carats). Many of the
methods of assaying coins available to the general public were quite primitive.
Accordingly, only experts could determine the true purchasing power of debased
coins; most people would have to accept newly minted coins at their face value
until there was enough evidence to suggest that they were worth less. In France,
more than 120 currency debasements took place between 1225 and 1490, or
slightly more than one debasement every other year.
The largest rates of debasement occurred during the 1340s, 1350s, and early
1420s; in these decades, circulating silver coins lost up to 50 per cent of their
silver content within one or a few years (Rolnick, Velde, and Weber 1996; Spufford
1988, chpts. 13; 15). These debasements took place during a phase of incessant
warfare with England and were fiscally motivated: the king needed cash. During
the fourteenth century, the French Crown suffered from a progressive decline of
regular state or royal income from feudal rents and other payments and taxes,
such as the taille, gabelle, and tolls, as well as irregular principal taxes such as
the grandes tailles or the aides. In a time of general fiscal crisis (Sussman 1993),

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an increase in seigniorage or royal profit from minting was often seen as the most
viable means of increasing royal income.
A characteristic pattern emerged in which the public were lured to the mint
by grotesquely increased mint prices (in other words, the mint offered a signifi-
cantly larger number of new coins in exchange for silver, old coins, or any other
type of bullion). Initially, these inflated exchange rates would induce people to
dis-hoard their treasure and bring as much money and bullion to the mint as they
could afford. Minting activity would reach frenzied heights for a brief time before
quickly returning to its usual levels, once the public realized that they had been
deceived, and that the new coins contained less precious metal than did the old
ones. “With the exception of the mint price, none of the characteristics of the
coins were disclosed” (Sussman 1993, 50). The French Dauphin and his mint
masters colluded with merchants, who brought prodigious quantities of old coins
to the mint and received even larger quantities of debased coins in return, which
they then quickly dispersed amongst a public who were in no position to deter-
mine the coins’ intrinsic value. The public would eventually find out and their
expectations would change accordingly, but it might take months, if not years, for
this to happen.
In the medieval economy, many prices and wages were fixed and could only
be changed through tedious renegotiations. Consequently, those who received
fixed incomes (such as rent, interest payments, or credit installments, all of which
were usually paid in terms of a predetermined type of coin or currency) found it
quite difficult to renegotiate existing contracts. These people were at a disadvan-
tage because prices for consumables and other goods could rise out of proportion
to the amount that the coins were debased. As prices rose, causing the relative
value of silver to decline, and as a mint’s monetary manipulations became widely
known, people had less and less incentive to bring bullion to the mint. Mean-
while, the nobility, who received fixed incomes, as well as the laboring classes,
whose wages were rigidly set, found ways to renegotiate existing contracts. At
that point, the cycle of coin devaluation came to a halt (Sussman 1993).
In order to restore trust in, and the stability of, the economic system, the
existing currency had to be revalued and an “old” or pre-debasement standard
had to be restored. Such monetary reforms or revaluations occurred in France in
1330, 1343, 1360, and 1436 (Spufford 1988, 297, graph). In medieval France, as in
many other parts of Europe, governments and mint masters deliberately exploited
the information asymmetry that existed between the ignorant public and the
knowledgeable mint masters and princely and royal officials.

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IV The Social Costs and Consequences of Debasement
Monetary manipulations such as coin debasements, however, were not always or

exclusively motivated by purely fiscal reasons. There were times and places when
periods of acute coin debasement coincided with acute ebbs in the level of
economic activity. During these times, prices were also low and the whole
economy was stuck in a deflationary cycle. Royal merchant Jacques Coeur, who
had whole galleon loads of goods that remained unsold in the Italian sea cities in
the 1440s and 1450s, bore (and commented upon) the brunt of this kind of
commercial depression (Mollat 1988). The debasements of the 1420s and of 1440–
1460 were particularly marked in the Hanseatic-Baltic area, Bohemia, the German
Empire, Flanders, France, and, to a lesser extent, in the Italian cities, Spain
(Aragon), and England. These debasements coincided with monetary scarcity. At
those times, bullion stocks in Europe were low. This suggests some sort of
correlation between general economic fluctuations and money supply (Spufford
1988, 296–300). At such times of crisis, the same amount of silver could buy more
goods, as the purchasing power of coins was determined by the amount of silver
they contained.
During such times, monetary authorities were forced to devalue their curren-
cies for at least two reasons: first, existing coins could become overvalued, i.e.,
contain more purchasing power than they should, because of an increase in the
price of silver. Secondly, economic deflation may both be caused by, as well as
reflect, an absence of money. Coin shortage was in any case an evidence of
economic crisis. When economic activity contracted, people had less money in
their pockets to spend on goods and investments. At those times, governments
and mint masters became especially inclined to debase coins, especially small
change coins, as will become apparent from the discussion in the following
paragraph (cf., for example, the debased Austrian penny from the 1450s popularly
called Schinderling: literally, “oppressors’ penny”; see Fig. 2).
Minting a high-value coin was almost as expensive as minting a low-value
one: regardless of the type of coin, the labor and capital costs (tools, buildings,
smelting expenses) were the same. Accordingly, it was proportionally cheaper to
mint high-value coins than low-value ones. In fact, during the Middle Ages and
early modern period, it sometimes cost more to mint small change coins than they
were worth. The costs of minting small change pennies and hellers, etc. had to be
cross-subsidized: that is, the costs had to be recouped with the profits from
minting larger coins such as shillings, batzen, groats, or ducats, florins, and
thalers. It was quite naturally tempting to finance the minting of small coins by
simply debasing those coins to the point at which the mint master could make a
profit on them. Or else, rulers would completely refrain from issuing small change

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coins at all, for exactly these reasons which was a problem on many occasions in
the monetary history of medieval and early modern Europe. This meant that either
way the European small change coins contained proportionally less silver than
did medium-sized coins (groats, kreuzer, shillings) or large, full-bodied coins
(florin, gulden, ducat). In fact small change coins frequently embodied a more
modern understanding or theory of money—with this striking divergence between
intrinsic value and purchasing power; but this was neither intended nor approved
of by the general public.
As seen above, persistent coin debasement worked only as long as the public
remained unaware of the changes in the monetary standard. Whenever people
started questioning the nominal purchasing power of a coin—for instance, the
standard ratio of twelve pennies to the groat, which was a very common exchange
rate in the late Middle Ages—they would begin to negotiate new coin exchange
rates. They would try to renegotiate existing contracts whenever they found that
too many “bad” or “evil” (i.e., underweight: see Fig. 2) small change coins were in
circulation. Very often, especially in feudal societies, people fixed new exchange
rates for coins that were below the legal exchange or rather “target exchange”
rates for coins. Whenever feudal dues or levies were supposed to be paid with
“good money” (high-value, full-bodied coins such as gulden, florins, or thalers)
but the payment was made in small-change, debased coins such as pennies, the
feudal lord would often ask for more small coins than had been previously
negotiated. To give one example: in areas in Southern Germany in the 1470s, the
florin or silver gulden was officially worth 24 white pennies or albi, but existing
contracts and rent payments were frequently re-negotiated at rates of up to 27
white pennies or albi to the florin, whenever the actual coins handed over
diverged from the “old” or “official” or “good” standard of the albus groat at 24
to the gulden.
Surviving written documents from the period, such as peasant complaints,
usually refer to the fact that frequently there were too many different small-
change coins around with too many provenances, minted under too many autho-
rities and from too many time periods. The various types of coins had very
different amounts of purchasing power, so that accepting a certain coin at face
value might lead to a financial loss. This situation led to conflicts and complaints,
especially in rural areas, and was one of the fundamental reasons for popular
unrest (Rössner 2012a, chpts. III and IV). The overabundance of different kinds of
coins remained a problem from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries because
the Holy Roman Empire remained politically and institutionally fragmented and
therefore each principality continued to mint its own coins until 1871 (Sprenger
2002). There were some attempts to centralize the empire during the first half of
the sixteenth century, but these efforts came to naught, at least in terms of

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monetary and economic policy (Rössner 2012a, 2014). The German lands therefore
represent a good lesson about competition and institutional arbitrage, which are
often referred to as beneficial for social and economic performance (e.g., Jones
2003; Landes 1998); there are as many arguments against the benefit of institu-
tional fragmentation as there are in favor of it (Rössner 2014).
The history of money teaches us that we should not regard competition as
something that is generally helpful or beneficial to society. Wherever there was
too much competition (i.e., for silver as a resource or between independent mints
and monetary authorities), the public suffered. Ultimately, territorial and political
fragmentation led to a downward spiral in the monetary standard. Monetary
competition harmed the economic development of Germany during the medieval
and early modern periods. England and the Netherlands, nations that were more
politically and economically integrated and whose currencies remained more or
less stable over the long run, had a much more favorable pattern of social and
economic development (Rössner 2014).
Coin debasement or devaluation (or its opposite, revaluation) influenced
societal stability, social relations, economic interactions, and general social and
economic welfare. If there was anything resembling medieval economic policy
(in the sense of “government strategies intended to influence the individuals’
economic behavior”), it was effected by means of the minting of coins. Over
time, there was a more-or-less continual loss in the intrinsic value of most
European petty currencies. Between ca. 1400 and 1900, the south-central Ger-
man penny lost more than 90 per cent of its silver content and therefore of its
intrinsic value. Similar rates were documented for Flanders, Castile, and Austria,
as well as many other currencies in Central Europe (Sargent and Velde 2003;
Spufford 1998).
The price of silver as a commodity did not decrease proportional to the
debasement of silver coins, so this phenomenon is not necessarily due to chan-
ging market conditions. There are seven principal reasons why currency debase-
ment may occur: 1) an increase in demand for money (which may be due to such
factors as an increase in population and/or economic activity); 2) an increase in
government spending; 3) a disequilibrium in the balance of payments; 4) a
mismanagement of princely or free/open mints; 5) a loss of coins and coin
substance due to normal wear and tear; 6) fluctuations in the exchange rate; 7)
profit motivations by certain social groups who had connections with the mints
(Cipolla 1963). Each period of currency debasement therefore requires a careful
and unbiased examination. Catch-all explanations and general models (as in
Sargent and Velde 2003) are unlikely to be accurate. But it seems clear that one of
the paramount reasons for the instability that was more or less inherent in the
monetary system of medieval Europe was the unique character of silver as both

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an economic and a social resource, coveted by princes and feudal noblemen as

well as silversmiths and goldsmiths and wealthy people who could afford objects
made of silver and gold. Money therefore had a dual identity: on the one hand, it
was a marketable and very scarce commodity; on the other hand, it was a
numeraire (a general-purpose means of payment and way of expressing value).
This double nature of silver was a main source of many monetary disequilibria
and socioeconomic imbalances.
D Credit, Banking and the Rise of Capital:

Monetary Economics, Socially Framed
I Credit as a Strategy of Coping with Monetary Scarcity?
Monetary shortage can for the period be defined as a shortage of hard cash. One
strategy for coping with a monetary shortage obviously was to increase the
amount of credit available to consumers and producers. As an economic phenom-
enon, credit (which could take the form of consumer credit, micro-credit, loans,
or bills of exchange) was increasingly common in the high Middle Ages, espe-
cially in the wake of the so-called “commercial revolution” of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries (Lopez 1976). Developed some time before 1200 C.E. in Italy,
the bill of exchange—one of the flagship inventions of the “commercial revolu-
tion”—was a transaction that involved the exchange of two different currencies. It
provided a means of transferring liquid funds between two people in two different
places. It also served as an important source of (commercial) credit. Credit is a
fundamental social and economic concept, and it has been around at least as long
as money has. Some anthropologists and cultural historians maintain that credit
predated money, and that the latter was invented as a way to deal with the former
(Graeber 2011). The answer to the question of whether credit predated cash or
vice-versa, depends upon the definitions of “money” and “credit” that one uses.
It also necessarily involves some philosophical and metaphysical speculation,
especially when scholars explore the connections between money, magic and the
subconscious (Braun 2012). Such speculations are difficult to verify and thus have
little place in empirical historical studies. Some scholars have even doubted that
enough hard cash was around in the Middle Ages to settle transactions (see
above). Practically speaking, the medieval economy was based on credit.
With the quickening in economic life that occurred after ca. 1200, credit
became even more significant than it had been before. Pawnbrokers offered credit
in exchange for valuable goods pledged as collateral (mostly for consumptive

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purposes or micro-credit) but there were also more sophisticated forms of credit
available, such as giro (bank transfers) and deposit banking; bills of exchange;
and the purchase and sale of annuities and similar interest-bearing types of credit
paper that were traded on the financial market and used as a standard means of
state finance (most recently Stasavage 2011). In the Hanseatic towns during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, interest on annuities could rise up to ten per
cent per annum, sometimes more. Such a high interest rate was possible because
annuities were outside the jurisdiction of the Usury Laws (banning the taking of
interest, at that time in the excess of five per cent; originally the Usury Laws had
said that no interest was to be charged on loans at all) as well as the prevailing
frame to economic behavior set by Scholastic economics, i.e., the “theory” of
economic behavior and practice that was embedded within and derived from
Scholastic theology (Baum 1985, 33). At that time all comments and treatises on
economic matters usually originated from the hands of Churchmen, so all aca-
demic “economists” of the age were theologians (and vice versa!). Individual
investors bought municipal annuities to provide themselves with pensions in old
age; annuities would also be used to generate liquid capital for investment, house
purchases, or consumptive reasons, or for financing larger business ventures and
partnerships. The Hanseatic annuity market was particularly buoyant in the
1460s and 1470s, although the same period was characterized by a marked down-
turn in economic activity in other areas of Europe (Baum 1985). The area around
London was one of the most heavily commercialized economic regions in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; it boasted one of the highest ratios of non-
agrarian producers to total producers in Northern Europe. Here credit bloomed—
across all spectrums of society.
Farming operations and other forms of economic activity were highly specia-
lized. Credit networks were dense and comprised a broad spectrum of society,
from large merchants all the way down to peasant farmers and craftsmen. The
average amount of money borrowed and lent could be quite low in some places
and at some times, which indicates how far credit had spread into the consump-
tive landscape (McIntosh 1988). But the situation was similar in many other
regions at the time, especially in and around larger commercial cities such as
Bruges, Antwerp, Cologne, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. Contrary to a view enter-
tained by some earlier scholars, the Middle Ages were not economically static,
nor was financial capitalism unknown. Quite to the contrary! Many key innova-
tions that would come to dominate state financial and general financial market
operations during the early modern period were introduced in the post-1200
period in medieval Italy. These innovations then travelled to Germany, Flanders,
England and Scandinavia. The aforementioned bill of exchange is a good exam-
ple of such an innovation (Denzel 2011, introduction).

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Sending large amounts of cash over large distances could be dangerous, so

cashless credit was an important innovation. Consequently, the bill of exchange
eventually contained elements of credit. For example, a time dimension was
added to the transaction, as the process of making a cashless transfer over large
distances took considerable time. Discounting—purchasing a bill of exchange
prior to its maturity at a reduced (discounted) rate—was, along with bill broking,
one of the cornerstones of this financial market technique. People circumnavi-
gated the Church’s omnipresent usury laws with the cooperation of the Church
itself: Italian merchant-bankers used bills of exchange to handle remittances of
papal dues (servitia). Initially, bills of exchange were used by a small number of
people who were usually personally acquainted with each other. However, during
the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, cashless payments in the form
of the bill of exchange and its predecessors (such as the instrumentum ex causa
cambii) were increasingly widely used by Upper Italian merchants across south-
ern, central, and northern Europe. As cashless payments became more institutio-
nalized, they also became more depersonalized, generating new financial market
techniques and innovative institutions.
In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the first stock exchanges
were founded in Bruges (1309), Antwerp (1460; a building specifically designed
for stock trading was built in 1531), London, and, later on, Amsterdam; the last
specialized in trading bills of exchange (Braudel 2002, vol. 3). In the wake of the
commercial revolution, there were other financial innovations that were directed
at lowering transaction costs, including marine insurance and double-entry book
keeping (invented sometime before 1300) (Yamey 1964; 1991). In addition, com-
merce became increasingly professionalized: clerks and merchants were trained
in special grammar schools, as well as in-house / on-the-job trainee programs in
knowledge management, financial accounting, languages, calculus, etc. pro-
vided by the individual merchants and firms themselves. In the fifteenth century,
there was a deep and well-developed marine insurance market in Italy and North-
ern Europe, with rates ranging from three to seven per cent, depending upon the
type of voyage, the commodity, and the time and season of travel (Spufford 2002).
In Florence around 1300, there were more than 80 banks that offered standard
products and services such as giro (transfer of funds between two accounts within
the same bank) and basic forms of deposit banking that included elements of
lending at interest. Oral and written instructions to make payment, also known as
draft—analogous to the modern cheque (from the Arabic sakk for “legal instru-
ment; draft”)—were common, as was the overdraft facility, invented in the bus-
tling Italian commercial cities of the Middle Ages (Spufford 2002).
Many of the “modern” tools and institutions were already available in
twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italy. However, as with money and coins (see

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above), there were no fundamentally important real innovations in the financial

sector between the thirteenth century (“commercial revolution”) and the nine-
teenth century, when new inventions, such as the telegraph, sped up information
transfer. In other words, the financial world of the Middle Ages was very similar
to the financial world of the early modern and early industrial periods, and the
end of the period (around 1500 or 1550) was not particularly important as a
watershed or caesura in the financial history of Europe.
II The Social Life of Banking, Entrepreneurship and Credit
There is another dimension to medieval banking and credit that deserves men-
tioning within the overall context of the social embeddedness of medieval econo-
my and entrepreneurship. In the Middle Ages, there were no supervising autho-
rities and no credit-rating agencies that could verify a person’s creditworthiness
(literally, his “credibility,” German Treu und Glauben, “honesty and integrity”).
Therefore, economic transactions were based on and facilitated by “weak” and
“strong” social ties, i.e., ties of friendship (weaker), family, kith and kin (stronger,
as these involved a blood relationship). Such social ties were characteristic of
most forms and types of business enterprise in the Middle Ages. Medieval busi-
ness and finance in fact evolved around them. In the later fourteenth century,
Italian merchants had taken the lead in founding large enterprises, firm partner-
ships, and corporations. In the early Middle Ages, partnerships handled com-
merce and long-distance trade. In the simplest type of partnership firm, a seden-
tary merchant and a travelling agent shared the investment and profits of an
enterprise (commenda). Later on, partnerships and firms could include many
partners, much more invested capital (corpo), a range of business transactions
(trade, banking, finance), and enterprises that might take place in distant lands
or journeys that might cover large distances.
Capital funds of the larger firms of the age frequently reached several
hundreds of thousands of florins. Such firms included the thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century Italian firms of Bardi, Perruzzi, and Datini and the fifteenth-
and sixteenth-century Augsburg Fugger firm; the latter was a family-run busi-
ness with only a few carefully selected shareholders who did not belong to the
inner Fugger family circle. By the mid-fourteenth century, a business model
had emerged in Florence, characteristic of the giant firms and partnerships
such as the Bardi, Perruzzi, and Medici. In this model, one senior or control-
ling partner was at the head of the firm; the firm had several partners and an
even larger staff of agents and clerks. Such firms had the following character-
istics: 1) they were legally distinct, i.e., separate partnerships; 2) separate

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accounts were kept; 3) the financial portfolios of customers and/or the firm
were diversified; 4) they were structured as holdings; 5) there were centralized
decision-making processes: orders and instructions were regularly sent via
letter to partners or agents located abroad; 6) double-entry book keeping was
used; and 7) current accounts with each partner were essential (Padgett and
Maclean 2006, 1476). In these ways, medieval firms remotely resembled mod-
ern large firms or holdings such as those owned by billionaire entrepreneurs
such as Gates or Soros or large multinational holding companies such as the
Royal Bank of Scotland.
Early on, medieval family businesses or firm partnerships were associated
with one or a few particular voyages or narrowly specified transactions; after
that—when the ship returned and the commodities had been sold on the market—
the partnership was formally dissolved, accounts were closed, and profits or loss
were accounted for. The same people might subsequently re-enter into a formal
business relationship, but if they did so, they would have to form a new firm or
company. This practice continued well into the later Middle Ages. The Grosse
Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft, one of the larger Upper German holding com-
panies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (flourished between 1386 and
1525), which conducted its business around the Lake Constance area, was re-
formed every six years, on average. Shares in the company were transferable and
could be sold on the financial market.
As with any other economic activity, banking, saving, and investment were—
and still are—culturally framed and socially embedded (Granovetter 1985). They
can only be interpreted and fully understood within a larger cultural and social
context in which social issues, social networks, kinship ties, gender, religion,
institutions (both economic and non-economic), tradition, and belief are crucial.
Today, the workings of the free market where actors are “atomistic” in a sense
that their decisions about consumption, investment and the range of trading
partners are somewhat de-contextualized from the social and cultural delibera-
tions (of kith, kin, allegiance etc.), as sketched above, are assumed to govern
economic behavior and interpersonal economic exchange. But no economic
system works independent of culture. A look at the giant medieval “super-
companies” such as Bardi, Peruzzi, or the Fugger firm will drive home this point.
These companies were essentially run as family businesses with one senior
member of the family acting as “head” or chairman and younger sons, nephews,
and cousins acting as junior partners, apprentices, and agents in the several
dependencies of the firm (Häberlein 2012; Isenmann 2014).
Social ties and culture played an important role in shaping the company’s
business policies and entrepreneurial strategies. When the Fugger merchants of
sixteenth-century Germany began to re-allocate some of the enormous commer-

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cial profits that they had accumulated during the fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries (Häberlein 2012) from trade into agriculture (Mandrou 1997), buying up
large landed estates in the south German lands, they did so for a complex set of
reasons. They wished to join the ranks of the landed nobility and thereby increase
their social prestige. They also wanted the kind of safe investments that agricul-
ture seemed to provide, given that prices for grain and other foodstuffs were
continually rising during the “price revolution” (1470–1620). The Fuggers’ deci-
sions might seem as if they were based solely on economic or market rationality,
but in fact they were also intended to increase the social standing of the family
from petty bourgeois to landed aristocracy.
Social factors also influenced the fourteenth-century Upper Italian bankers of
Siena and Florence as well bankers from such less well-known places as Ivrea in
North Italy (Alfani and Gourdon 2012). Even the Datini, Medici, and other families
that formed the first modern “super-companies” in the wake of the commercial
revolution (Hunt 2002) utilized informal social relationships, including those with
personal acquaintances, marriage witnesses, family members, and so on. It was
common for the large Upper German trading companies, such as the Augsburg
Welser, Höchstetter, or Fugger, to employ younger nephews, sons, and cousins as
agents (called factors) in foreign dependencies (called factories). These junior
employees worked for a few years and were often repeatedly relocated. Some of
them eventually rose within the ranks to become full junior or senior partners of
the firm.
Both “strong ties” (formed through marriage or kinship) and “weak ties”
(those with godparents, marriage witnesses, neighbors, friends, and clients)
provided a sort of safety net: family and acquaintances would presumably be less
inclined to default on contracts and obligations than would a complete stranger.
These social ties were critical in a world in which courts of law and government
institutions did not regulate commercial contracts (Häberlein 2012; Greif 2006). In
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Germany, one’s Treu und Glauben could ensure
success in business.
Those seemingly non-economic ties provided the transparency that would in
later centuries be assured by formal institutions such as law courts, Law Mer-
chant—the “unwritten law” or code of conduct amongst merchants—monitoring
and credit rating agencies, and so on. Social institutions, social networks, and
informal sanctions enforced contracts, safeguarded property rights, and rectified
information asymmetries. There were also more formalized open-access institu-
tions such as law courts (which also existed, of course). Both private order
exclusive institutions and legal formal enforcement (or public) institutions had
regulatory roles governing commercial exchange, albeit the former were often
more important (Greif 2006; Goldberg 2012). More often than not merchants

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would favor non-formalized (or “private order”) enforcement mechanisms over

formal institutions such as courts of law, which were thought to be efficient
enough (or more efficient than official means) to do the trick. In this way
sociology, culture, and economics intermingled. It is not always easy to assess the
business strategies of medieval entrepreneurs.
It would certainly be wrong to apply modern benchmarks or Schumpeterian
typologies of entrepreneurial behavior to medieval and early modern entrepre-
neurship (Safley 2009). Businesses were successful, regardless of the fact that
commercial institutions were undeveloped from a “modern” (or, more accurately,
modern Western) point of view and despite the fact that the state was not
particularly strong (Greif 2006). Medieval states and governments were to a
significant extent based on principles of self-government. In the absence of a
more formalized framework of laws, edicts, and sanctions, non-kin-based cor-
porations (such as craft guilds) often formed spontaneously and rewarded coop-
eration. Medieval business seems to have been well adjusted to a socio-political
framework in which authority and governance were geographically fragmented
(Germany and Italy were especially fragmented political entities, the former
comprised of more than 500 more-or-less independent political units) and power
was shared between various social and political groups (estates of parliament,
corporations, city states, etc.).
Whilst corporations in the post-1300 commercial and financial world of upper
Italy and, later, on the Atlantic seaboard, seem to resemble modern financial
institutions and to engage in capitalistic forms of behavior and decision-making
processes, these corporations were in fact influenced by cultural and social, and
not merely economic and financial, factors.
E Markets, Morals, Manners and Discourses on

Just Economics: The Question of Embeddedness
I Interest and Just Prices: The Usury Debates
The same principle of “embeddedness”: of economics within wider contexts of

society and culture, comes across clearly in the contemporary debates and
discourses on economics. The usury debates and the discourse on “just” prices,
wages, and entrepreneur profits changed considerably over the course of the
Middle Ages. In the fifth and sixth century, there was a general ban on usury: that
is, on the lending of money at interest. However, theological discourse and
scholastic economics had, by the later Middle Ages, become more flexible, and

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the usury laws adjusted eventually, allowing an interest rate of five or six per cent
per annum on a certain range of credit and loan transactions (most recently Geisst
2013). This evolution was not straightforward, however. In the thirteenth century,
usury laws had been tightened once again, and the practice of taking interest was
considered to be a sin against fellow Christians and the community of God.
However, the Church itself, and particularly the Papal Court, circumvented the
usury laws especially by using financial products such as bills of exchange
(discussed above) for remits of large sums, taxes, and dues (servitia and tithes). In
the High and Later Middle Ages, the taking of interest was legalized in certain
cases: late or deferred payment (poena detentia); damnum emergens, or compen-
sation paid to a lender who lost his/her money in a business venture; or lucrum
cessans, which was compensation paid to a lender who had, by lending money,
forfeited other chances of investment that might have given a higher rate of
return. Scholastic legal scholars wrote an endless number of tracts using a
theological framework informed by Aristotelian and Platonic ideas combined
with biblical words. These tracts reflect the ever-changing and quite dynamic
relationship between religious discourse and private entrepreneurship. The
boundaries of biblical legality were adjusted to changes in the material and
economic environment (North 2005).
This malleability should caution us against making the assumption that
religion always hinders economic expansion and growth. People found ways
around Scripture by either re-interpreting biblical texts in their own favor, or else
by finding alternative business strategies that conformed to the strictures pre-
scribed by the Old and New Testaments. The history of the bill of exchange and
the rise of the European system of cashless payments are a prime example,
reflecting the relationships between faith, culture and economics (and the adjust-
ments that were made in interpreting scripture according to changed economic
requirements. Scholastic authors were famed for “bending the rules” and “Soph-
istry,” as Martin Luther never ceased to mention). These discourses were framed
within the Christian soteriological framework and social and economic doctrines
derived from theology.
The Bible dictated the rules of human interaction in many spheres, includ-
ing the economic sphere (market, prices, wages, interest). Thus a distinct set of
economic axioms—what we might even call an economic theory (Roover 1955)—
had evolved by the late Middle Ages, under the aegis of Scholastic theory.
Scholasticism was shaped by economic forces, just as the reverse was also true
(Langholm 1992). Scholastic economics was concerned with distributional jus-
tice, mean and moderation of conflicting or opposed interests, and the indivi-
dual’s position in the world of the Creator. It did not, however, assume that
economic equality was necessary or a good thing per se. Quite to the contrary,

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feudal society was marked by an extreme degree of inequality between social

classes, and Scholasticism approved of feudalism (at least Scholastic authors
never argued against it). Scholastic economics merely held that incomes and
financial opportunities should be distributed proportionally to every one’s rank
and position within contemporary society. The scholastic theorists entertained a
general notion of “balance,” equilibrium, moderation, mean, and limit (Wood
2002). It was necessary to give charity to the poor because there was a func-
tional relationship between rich (dives) and poor (pauper) within a larger model
of salvation (where charity was a commandment and good deeds, including the
gift of alms, were rewarded by God’s grace). Poverty was accepted as something
that was eternal and part of God’s plan. Certainly it was not thought to be
socially problematic as such. But from the fourteenth century onwards, how-
ever, poverty was increasingly seen as problematic; especially begging. Atti-
tudes toward beggars hardened; rather than being an intrinsic piece of a godly
schedule of salvation (by the charity commandment: you must give to the poor),
beggars were now increasingly conceived as a (financial) burden to society. As a
consequence of the “commercial revolution” (Lopez 1976), the marketplace had
begun to affect society and its discourses about economic exchange (Wood
2002).
II Factoring the Market into the Game: Renaissance Economics

and the Question of a Money Economy
Scholastic economics did not only address usury; it also conceived of the market
as an agent clearing demand and supply and framing interpersonal exchange.
Some medieval scholars’ viewpoints were quite “modern,” insofar as they con-
ceived of the economy as a sort of mechanism. Scholastic economic theory thus
had a rudimentary resemblance to modern economic theory and model-building
(Roover 1955; Sedlacek 2011). Scholars such as San Bernadino di Siena (1380–
1444) developed a very clear and highly abstract model of basic economic princi-
ples, such as how value should be determined. Siena made the point that value
could be derived from a) the utility of something (virtuositas), b) its scarcity
(raritas), and c) the amount of pleasure it provided (complacibilitas). This idea
contained an inherent understanding of the relationships between supply and
demand, as well as the notion of a market price, which in modern economic
theory is defined as the intersection of imaginary supply and demand curves.
There is no radical difference between Bernardino di Siena’s concept of a market
and the simple models of market behavior that are found in twenty-first-century
undergraduate textbooks on micro- and macroeconomics.

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The Scholastics of the mid-sixteenth century and of the widely acclaimed

School of Salamanca developed more refined models of how a “just price” could
be determined; these models resemble modern models for price formation in
competitive markets. The theologians from Salamanca also had a clear under-
standing of the quantity theory of money, the creed of modern monetarism. The
quantity theory of money assumes a positive correlation between money supply
and price level, and thus between money supply and economic activity (Roover
1955; Boldizzoni 2008, chpts. 1 and 2). As a policy it could be found as late as
post-1979 Britain and Thatcher’s credo that control over the money supply was
the most appropriate and efficient way of government to interact with and steer
the economy. However, (largely) unlike the modern social sciences (and much of
modern policy) scholastic social science and economics were embedded within a
larger moral context of individual salvation and divine favor derived from and
based on the Christian faith. Modern economics and social science ask, “What
principles govern the way that markets work?” They are largely decontextualized
and disembedded, i.e., time-space indifferent. On the other hand, medieval
economics asked, “How should markets work?” Scholastic economics was not in
any way less refined than contemporary economics; it was simply different (only
it did not yet contain mathematical models and equations as modern economics
frequently does).
Money is often related to the concept of a market economy. Historians,
anthropologists and economists have long debated the extent to which markets
were significant in pre-industrial Europe or, more generally, in peasant societies
worldwide, in any era. What we may call the chronological approach to the
problem of markets asks, “When did markets became an important or decisive
clearing agent for supply and demand?” But this would imply a timeline, or the
idea that markets “evolved.” Underlying the effort to determine when markets
became important in European society is a teleological assumption that history
necessarily moves on from non-capitalistic or paternalistic economic systems
such as feudalism into capitalistic or market-based systems over time. The cross-
sectional approach would be framed by the question, “To what extent were
markets important at a given time in history within the given society?” This
approach frequently leads historians to deny that the market was a general
allocative principle within medieval European society, and to suggest that only a
very limited range of transactions and economic activities was exposed to the
logic of market exchange. This is obviously not entirely true. In many ways, the
economy in the year 1200 was characterized by (“free”) markets, as we know them
today, even though some segments of medieval production, consumption, and
investment were more governed by regulation and redistribution in the Middle
Ages than they are today. But the market was there; and always had been. Older

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structuralist models on the other hand have proposed that monetary relationships
were a general principle of the medieval agrarian economy (Abel 1978; 1980).
These models implied that medieval economy, finance, and trade conformed
to a modern morphology and syntax, usually neoclassical price theory, which is
used in micro- and macroeconomics. Some have suggested that there was a
“modern” market economy even in Roman times that worked according to the
principles and mechanisms of neoclassical economics (Temin 2012); many classi-
cal scholars disagree, however (e.g., Reden 2010). Such a view would certainly be
extreme. Another recent approach to studying medieval economics, which we
may call a “poststructuralist” approach, has generally questioned the existence of
market economies in medieval Europe, arguing instead that all transactions were
socially embedded and mostly governed by feudalism, a system of redistributive
relationship in which most labor services and goods were exchanged outside the
market (e.g., Kula 1976; Boldizzoni 2011). This would be the other extreme.
However, as interdisciplinary studies in archaeology, anthropology, and
economics have recently shown, the concept of a market economy is older than
was previously thought. Although many scholars believe the roots of modern
capitalism to be in medieval Europe, market economies were also found in non-
European societies that had no contact with Europe whatsoever, such as those of
pre-Columbian America (Feinman and Garraty 2010). Markets and market ex-
change do not seem to be innate aspects of human behavior, but they do seem to
have developed independently in many parts of the world. And they are much
older than often thought. This does not mean that social and cultural aspects
were not important; in fact it would be quite meaningless to view markets and
market-based exchange as exclusively economic factors. Again, this has never
been the case, and it never will be. Economic activity, entrepreneurship, business,
market exchange, etc. are today in many ways quite as socially and culturally
embedded as they were centuries and millennia ago.
The Middle Ages therefore were as affected by money, markets, and market
prices as were most later periods. In many ways, monetization in the time of the
Roman Empire (before 410 C.E.) may have been higher than in much of Western
Europe between ca. 400–1200. In addition, in many ways, markets and money in
Europe around 1700 or 1800 were more akin to markets and money in 1200 than
they were to markets and monetary exchange within the industrialized world after
1850. We find references to market exchange using money in the earliest known
religious writings, including the Old Testament and the Gilgamesh epos (Sedlacek
2011). The only thing that has changed over time most likely is the range of
commodities for which impersonal means of exchange (such as coins, coin
substitutes such as bills of exchange, or bank notes) have been permitted. It
would also be wrong to assume that there was an unbroken, linear development

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in this, or the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This clearly shows in Martin
Luther’s Reformation of 1517 toward the close of the Middle Ages. Indulgences
were a critical issue in the Reformation and in Martin Luther’s teachings. Prior to
1500, vouchers that were supposed to reduce the holder’s time in purgatory were
widely bought and sold. Protestants argued that the practice of reducing time
spent in purgatory by spending money on indulgences was perverse and directly
opposed to the idea that God would grant His grace to those who were deserving
(e.g., Rössner 2012a, chpt. II). The Protestant Reformation removed faith as a
commodity from the market, so to speak; at the same time, a whole range of other
commodities that had previously not been marketable became subject to the
principles of market-based monetary exchange in the centuries after 1500 C.E.
(Gregory 2012). So what usually changes over time is the range of things that are
considered “marketable”; but by no means do we find linear or teleological
patterns in this.
F Conclusion
The preceding discussion has made it clear that there is no particularly “medie-
val” story of money and markets. Money and markets were not distinctly or
radically different in the Middle Ages (600–1500 C.E.) than they were in other
eras prior to the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, most scholars
agree that, in the wake of the “commercial revolution” of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, money, banking, and monetary relationships became sig-
nificantly more important in European society than they had been before. At this
time, trade and commerce, population, and urbanization all simultaneously
increased. During the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, many of the key financial
inventions such as the company or partnership firm, giro, deposit banking, bills
of exchange, and marine insurance, were developed, mostly in Italy. Larger coin
types such as the shilling, groat and florin were “invented” as the demand for
money rose. This process of development was halted temporarily by the Black
Death (1348–1352), which spread across Europe and killed up to 33 per cent of the
population, although there was considerable regional variation in the death rate.
This widespread population decrease meant that the remaining laborers could
demand higher wages, which in turn increased the standard of living of urban
workers and the working poor between 1350 and 1470 (North and Thomas 1973).
The loss in population and concomitant rise in real wages during the fourteenth
century led to what is known as the “medieval integration crisis,” in which
certain sectors of the economy, particularly the larger merchants, experienced a
loss in profits.

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Most of the basic financial innovations of the twelfth and thirteenth century
remained the cornerstones of the monetary and financial world up until the end
of the nineteenth century. Money’s basic conceptual framework (the denarius or
penny as the basic small-value coin; the Libra-Solidus system of accounting) had
been formed much earlier. The use and purpose of coined money did not change
significantly between the first documented instance of coins (ca. 700 B.C.E.) and
the time when the metallistic standard was abolished in favor of a fiduciary
standard gradually after 1900. In a fiduciary standard, all means of circulation
(coins, bank notes, bills, credit cards, and so on) circulated at a face value, i.e., an
exchange value that was significantly greater than their material or intrinsic
value. On today’s metal exchange, a British one-pound sterling coin costs less
than 10 pence to produce. But it circulates at a face value of 100 pence! The
modern monetary model is a radically different from the medieval and early
modern model because the worth of coins is no longer based on their precious
metal content. But during the period usually denoted as the Middle Ages there
was not much change in the general understanding of money, only in some
aspects of its configuration.
In many medieval contexts, markets and money fulfilled important functions.
The degree of monetization and the importance of money in economic transac-
tions increased with the increase in population and, particularly, with the in-
crease in urban population. Money and economic transactions were culturally
framed and socially embedded. We assume, probably incorrectly, that the mod-
ern world is different than the medieval one, that it is dominated by depersona-
lized markets and economic rationality and therefore works independently of
wider contexts of society, culture, and religion. A study of money is one way to
examine the social, economic, and cultural relations during the Middle Ages.
Select Bibliography
Boldizzoni, Francesco, Means and Ends: The Idea of Capital in the West, 1500–1970 (London
2008).
Cipolla, Carlo M., “Currency Depreciation in Medieval Europe,” The Economic History Review,
New Series 15.3 (1963): 413–22.
Granovetter, Mark, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,”
American Journal of Sociology XCI (1985): 481–510.
Howell, Martha C., Commerce before Capitalism in Europe 1300–1600 (Cambridge 2010).
Hunt, Edwin S., The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence
(Cambridge 2002).
Langholm, Odd Inge, Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and
Usury According to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200–1350 (Leiden et al. 1992).

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Rössner, Philipp Robinson, Deflation—Devaluation—Rebellion: Geld im Zeitalter der Reformation

(Stuttgart 2012). [= Rössner 2012a]
Sargent, Thomas J. and François R. Velde, The Big Problem of Small Change (Princeton, NJ,
2003).
Spufford, Peter, Power and Profit: Merchants in Medieval Europe (London 2002).
Spufford, Peter, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge and London 1988).

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Mary Kate Hurley
Monsters
Monsters do a great deal of cultural work, but they do not do it nicely. (Mittman 2012, 1)
A Introduction
Monsters constitute one of the most flexible and wide-ranging categories of
analysis for medieval authors. To a certain extent, they perform the same func-
tions in the Middle Ages that they do in any period: they are “disturbing hybrids
whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any sys-
tematic structuration” (J. J. Cohen 1996, 6). By their fantastic and sometimes

grotesque difference from humans, monsters serve as a boundary to what can and
cannot be considered human and demonstrate the rules and practices that create
humanity. At the same time, monsters bring attention to the often sordid truths
about themselves that humans wish to forget, especially the presence of differ-
ence within or between communities and the threat that such differences pose to
unitary ideas of culture (Friedman 2000; J. J. Cohen 1996; Mittman 2012). Their

outwardly horrifying appearance illustrates the consequences of behaving differ-

ently. Their habitations at the far reaches of the world, shrouded in shadow and
mystery, imply the exile such difference imposes.
The last thirty years of scholarship have seen a kind of renaissance of the
medieval monster. As a result, resources are readily available to illustrate the
theological and scholastic underpinnings of monstrosity in the period (Friedman
1981; J. J. Cohen 1999; Steel 2012). The approaches such works take are as various

and multiform as the creatures they address. A number of scholars situates the
monsters of the period within theological or philosophical understandings of
difference, often focusing on the negotiation of the Self and the Other that such
texts participate in (Campbell 1991; Classen 1993; Williams 1996). Art historical
studies of monsters engage with the intersection of artistic representation and
monstrous creation with philosophical arguments, treating diverse representa-
tions of monsters from maps to psalter marginalia (Friedman 2000; Mittman
2006). Literary historians look to the ways monsters construct narrative in works
ranging from devotional saints’ lives to stories of travel, and cultural critics lay
bare the importance of monsters to the fundamental questions of what makes
human communities possible (J. J. Cohen 1996; Orchard 2003; Bildhauer and

Mills, ed. 2003; Cohen 2006; Steel 2011). Drawing on a subsection of this work,

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1168 Mary Kate Hurley
this essay will address three major medieval texts that pertain to the idea of the
monster in medieval culture. Through these readings, it will offer insight into
some of the conceptual stakes of monstrosity in the medieval period—in particu-
lar, the theological and the ontological methods by which human communities
are formed—and the critical work that frames modern reception of these texts.
This essay will introduce the novice to the most important functions of
medieval monsters, rather than give a comprehensive overview of the subject. Its
treatment of the matter will proceed in three unequal parts. First, it will examine
two representative medieval scholarly treatments of monstrosity, Saint Augustine
of Hippo’s fifth-century City of God and Isidore of Seville’s seventh-century
Etymologies. Augustine’s City of God was central to the religious discourse of the
Middle Ages, and addresses the implications of the perceived existence of mon-
sters in both the biblical past and the far reaches of the Eastern world. Isidore of
Seville adds what in another era might be considered a “scientific perspective” to
the Augustinian theological view, addressing the possible real-world foundations
for stories of monsters in mythology. Lastly, the essay will shift to a literary
perspective and consider how monsters are represented in the Anglo-Saxon epic
Beowulf. That portion of the discussion will examine how Grendel—the monster
that the eponymous hero first fights on his arrival in Denmark—functions within
typical literary and religious conceits of the Anglo-Saxon period. These three
examples, partial though they might be, highlight the major tenets of the broader
extant scholarship concerning medieval monsters and will provide a starting
point for students looking to explore the role that monsters play in the period.
B Saint Augustine’s City of God and Its Monsters

In his magisterial fifth-century City of God, Saint Augustine sketches the history of
the world in Christian terms, inflecting the biblical past and his historical present
with the overtones of salvation history. Within these considerations, he gives
ample space to the understanding of monsters in creation. His explication of these
creatures is based, in some part, on the medieval inheritance of Pliny’s Natural
History—hence some scholars term these creatures “the Plinian Races” (Friedman
2000, 5). Exercising his customary approach to non-Christian knowledge, Augus-
tine appropriates such knowledge as a means to a Christian end. He argues that
monsters are meant to demonstrate not only the will of God but God’s power to
carry it out. As is habitually cited in critical studies of monsters in the Middle
Ages, he traces the root of the word “monster” to monstrare, because monsters
“show something by a sign” (Augustine 1972, 57). Monsters could warn about or
demonstrate God’s power over all bodies, human and inhuman alike. That power

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Monsters 1169
over bodies authorized Christian belief in bodily resurrection through a kind of

syllogism—if God can create monstrous bodies, then he can also reanimate the
dead bodies of Christians. Moreover, Augustine writes that “just as it was possible
for God to make such natural kinds as He wished, so it is possible for him to
change those natural kinds into whatever he wishes” (Augustine 1972, 57). The
status of monstrous bodies as signs, then, is central to their function theologi-
cally. As Lisa Verner argues, “[w]hatever a monster may in fact be, its function for
Saint Augustine is quite clear: it demonstrates the beauty of the superabundance
of God’s creation. Beyond this, he seems to imply, one need not inquire” (Verner
2005, 2). Monsters are “integral elements of providential history which reveal
God’s greatness and expose human ignorance” (Classen 2012, 17–18). Yet for all of
the monster’s potential as mere demonstration, its peculiar interest to Augustine
is instructive as to the possibilities monstrous inquiry poses for minds medieval
and modern alike.
Augustine’s understanding of monsters typically stems from a focus on their
importance within salvation history rather than any particular interest in their
material existence. As a result, his account of monstrous being is quite allegorical
(Williams 1996). He argues that, for humans, “these marvels, these monstra,
ostenta, portenta, prodigia, should demonstrate, show, portend, predict that God
will do what he has declared he will do with the bodies of men, and that no
difficulty will detain him, no law of nature circumscribe him” (Augustine 1972,
57–59). In this foray into monstrous ontology, Augustine understands monsters
as signs of God’s power that suggest no inherent being. Rather, they demonstrate
God’s ability to shape earthly matter at both the outset of Creation and in the end
times. Such an understanding is characteristic of how monsters were widely
understood in the period: the existence of bodies that seem “contrary to nature”
merely reinforce the power that God has over earthly things (Friedman 2000, 109;
J. J. Cohen 1996). As a “sign of God’s power over nature and his use of it for

didactic ends” (Friedman 2000, 109), then, monsters serve as an impulse to the
contemplation of the divine.
Augustine’s interpretation of the monstrous races as divine sign—a way in
which nature figures, prefigures, and refigures God’s power over matter—fits into
his larger schematic for understanding the world in the City of God. Augustine’s
categorical divide between the “city of men,” founded by biblical personage Cain
after murdering his brother Abel, and the “City of God,” a spiritual rather than
physical designation, provided the raw material from which medieval writers
would create monstrous lineages that stemmed from antediluvian origins (Fried-
man 2000). Augustine outlines the opposition between his earthly city (founded
by Cain) and the heavenly city (belonging to Abel, who founded no city on
earth):

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Now the earthly city will not be everlasting, for when it is condemned to final punishment, it
will no longer be a city. It has its good here on earth and rejoices to partake of it with the sort
of joy that can be derived from things of this sort. And since this good is not of the sort to
cause no difficulties for those who love it, the earthly city is generally divided against itself.
There are litigations; there are wars and battles; there is pursuit of victories that either cut
lives short or at any rate are short-lived. For whatever part of it has risen up in war against
the other part, it seeks to be victorious over other nations though it is itself the slave of vices;
and if, when it is victorious, it becomes exceedingly proud and haughty, its victory also cuts
lives short. (Augustine 1966, 423–25)
The city of men, according to Augustine, exists in “slavery” to vice. This bondage
leads to the endless suffering of men while on earth: by mislocating its heritage
and final salvation, their “city” cannot really escape its founding in fratricide.
Medieval authors and artists—including, as we will see, the Beowulf-poet—often
took this inheritance of violence and death one step further than Augustine
himself did by making the relationship between Cain and monsters explicit. As
John Block Friedman points out, “[i]n a number of illustrations for The City of God
we see Cain building this ‘city of men’ while the monstrous races are depicted in
the background” (Friedman 2000, 31). This problematic relationship between the
city of men and the monstrous races becomes further complicated by later
medieval authors who associate monstrous beings and giants with either Noah’s
cursed son Ham or the “sons of God” who impregnated the daughters of men
(Friedman 2000, 59–107).
The existence of these creatures in biblical exegesis raises a fundamental
question regarding the monstrous races: whether they “were, in fact, human”
(Friedman 2000, 91). Augustine’s answer to this question is somewhat vexed. In
Book XVI of the City of God, Augustine seems to have a particularly empathetic
reading of monsters, granting them the possibility of humanity, or at least a
relationship to it. As Karl Steel points out, in a question as difficult to answer as
that of whether or not monsters existed, “Augustine proposes incredulity as a
proper response” (Steel 2012, 266). Augustine’s measured approach is character-
istic of his theological framework:
Another moot question is whether we are to believe that certain monstrous races of men
described in pagan history were descended from the sons of Noah, or rather from that one
man from whom they themselves sprang. […] What am I to say of the Cynocephali, whose
dogs’ heads and actual barking are evidence that they are rather beasts than men? To be
sure, we do not have to believe in all the types of men that are reported to exist. Yet whoever
is born anywhere as a human being, that is, as a rational mortal creature, however strange
he may appear to our senses in bodily form or color or motion or utterance, or in any faculty,
part or quality of his nature whatsoever, let no true believer have any doubt that such an
individual is descended from the one man who was first created. Yet there is a clear

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Monsters 1171
distinction between what has by nature persisted in the majority, and what is marvelous by
its very rarity. (Augustine 1965, 41–45)
As Friedman notes, Augustine “does not commit himself to the humanity of the
races quite so fully as later writers give him credit for doing” (Friedman 2000, 92),
but his various thoughts on the subject create a fertile ground for later authors
who ponder the matter (Steel 2012).
In the midst of this discussion, Augustine lists a variety of creatures, some of
which are still familiar to us from modern versions of Greek and other mytholo-
gies: the Cyclops, Antipodes, Hermaphrodites, Pigmies, Sciopods, Blemmyes,
Cynocephali, and others. The point of Augustine’s account of these creatures is to
determine the fundamental difference between these creatures and men by exam-
ining the difficulty they present for human interpretation: if they are born from
humans, then they must be humans themselves. Yet, as Karl Steel notes, Augus-
tine is finally uncertain of what claim to fact he can really make in regards to
these races, admitting that “[e]ither the written accounts of certain races are
completely unfounded or, if such races do exist, they are not human; or if they are
human, they are descended from Adam” (Augustine 1966, 49). Augustine “reiter-
ates his heuristic for distinguishing between humans and non-humans, namely,
that anyone born from a human is a rational mortal, regardless of unusual shape,
color, movement, sound […]” but Steel notes that “[a]n unspoken but necessary
correlative to this statement is that some creatures, human in shape, in fact may
not be descended from Adam” (Steel 2012, 266). This assertion points, as Steel
suggests, to the fundamental uncertainty of monsters (and of creatures in gener-
al): the sign is not always perfectly legible, as Augustine’s ambivalent response to
the reality of monsters intimates, and their uncertainty makes the definition of
both humans and monsters less certain. Augustine’s understanding of these
Plinian races, then, is one way in which we can reconstruct what Bettina Bild-
hauer and Robert Mills have termed the “culturally and symbolically useful”
range of uses for monsters in the Middle Ages (Bildhauer and Mills, ed., 2003, 2).
Monsters were not simply entertainment or mystery, although they could cer-
tainly perform both of these functions. Rather, their ontological status posed a
serious issue with which Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages struggled.
The existence of monstrous races in the Old Testament, like giants, also
called the natural world and the Hebrew Bible’s account of it into question. In
examining the stories of men found in the Old Testament, Augustine notes that
certain skeptics “might dispute with us the many centuries that, as we read in our
authorities, the man of that age lived, and might argue that this is incredible. In
the same way some people refuse to believe that men’s bodies were of much
larger size then than they are now” (Augustine 1966, 457). Augustine, however,

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counters such claims with the fact that the gigantic size and exceptionally long
lives of men in former ages is hardly the sole province of the Bible. He even offers
a putatively first-hand account of his encounter with fossil evidence, so to speak,
of such men’s existence:
On the shore of Utica I myself, not alone but with several others, saw a human molar so
enormous that, if it were divided up into pieces to the dimensions of our teeth, it would, so it
seemed to us, have made a hundred of them. But that molar, I should suppose, belonged to
some giant. For not only were bodies in general much larger then than our own, but the
giants towered far above rest, even as in subsequent times, including our own, there have
almost always been bodies which, though few in number, far surpassed the size of others.
(Augustine 1966, 459)
Augustine’s description of this monstrous tooth suggests that giants are observa-
ble in his present day through the traces they left in and on the earth. Moreover,
his consideration of the tooth points to the ways in which temporal difference can
make understanding theological points difficult or impossible. In Augustine’s
view, his contemporaries misunderstand biblical references to ancient humans
because they have no scale for comparison between their own measure of time
and the time before the flood.
This temporal difference is related to the status giants had in medieval
cultures as a point of origin and a marker of difference (J. J. Cohen 1999). As Jeffrey

Jerome Cohen has observed, giants are often said to inhabit lands that are
susceptible to or desired for conquest (J. J. Cohen 1999). Moreover, “representing

an anterior culture as monstrous justifies its displacement or extermination by

rendering the act heroic” (J. J. Cohen 1996, 7–8). The depiction of such anterior

cultures as giants legitimizes the violence involved in displacing them by suggest-

ing their status as relics of a time that has passed and emphasizing their mon-
strosity and lack of humanity. In large part, medieval authors based their use of
giants on examples from classical and biblical sources. Thus, in a foundational
myth of Britain—one that narrates the conquest of the island by Britain’s Trojan
founder, Brutus, in the aftermath of the Trojan War—Geoffrey of Monmouth
“imagined that similar giants [to biblical examples] must once have menaced the
island, and so Brutus eradicates an enemy very like the biblical Nephilim extermi-
nated under the command of Joshua” (J. J. Cohen 1999, 32). This story of giants

occurs at the outset of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain:
At this time the island of Britain was called Albion. It was uninhabited except for a few
giants. It was, however, most attractive, because of the delightful situation of its various
regions, its forests and the great number of its rivers, which teemed with fish; and it filled
Brutus and his comrades with a great desire to live there. When they had explored the
different districts, they drove the giants whom they had discovered into the caves in the
mountains. (Geoffrey of Monmouth 1979, 72)

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Monsters 1173
We see here all of the main attributes of a narrative in which anterior cultures are
positioned as giants, including their status as “part of [a] fantastic overabun-
dance” of a “secular promised island” (J. J. Cohen 1999, 33). Britain is “uninhab-

ited except for a few giants” that Brutus and his men easily drive into the margins
of the island in order to take up residency in the “delightful situation of its various
regions.” Later, when Brutus and his men are “celebrating a day dedicated to the
gods in the port where he had landed,” they find themselves attacked by these
repulsed outsiders. The new inhabitants of the island “gathered together from
round and about and overcame the giants and slew them all,” except Gogmagog,
who they kept for entertainment and, eventually, death (Geoffrey of Monmouth
1979, 72). The giants are removed from the island so that the new inhabitants can
rightfully inherit the land, mimicking the biblical colonization of Canaan (J. J. Co-
hen 1999, 33–37).

Returning to Augustine on the beach at Utica, then, we can begin to see the
implications of approaching these creatures theologically. These are men who
once existed in the same places that men exist in Augustine’s time, and his
comparison of their molars with the molars of contemporary men suggests simi-
larity, if literally sizeable difference. In theological terms, such creatures become
more than simply signs. They become the anterior culture that Augustine’s
contemporaries have replaced.
C Isidore of Seville, the Etymologies

Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies is an encyclopedic philosophical work of the
seventh century that had nearly as profound an impact on medieval culture as the
City of God. The work attempts to systematically define everything that exists in
the world—including, of course, monsters—under the “organizing principle [that]
words themselves [reflect] the divine organization of the Creator” (Verner 2005,
28). Examining De Portentis, or Portents, Isidore avers that “Varro defines por-
tents as beings that seem to have been born contrary to nature—but they are not
contrary to nature, because they are created by divine will, since the nature of
everything is the will of the creator […] A portent is therefore not created contrary
to nature but contrary to what is known in nature” (Isidore of Seville 2010,
243). This definition lays out the quandary that such creatures pose to an encyclo-
pedic Christian account of the world. In Isidore’s understanding, to exist contrary
to nature is to exist contrary to the divine will.
Isidore’s interpretation here largely follows on Augustine’s account: both
thinkers engage with questions of divine will and nature and each refer to Varro’s
insights on the subject. Isidore’s argument, however, takes a slightly different

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standpoint on monstrous ontology. Augustine’s logic situates the so-called mon-

strous races vis-à-vis the construction of Christian history. Monsters must be
related to Adam if they are men and therefore must possess souls. In contrast,
Isidore bypasses the literal existence of such creatures in order to focus on their
relationship to the created status of nature itself: if monsters or portents exist,
then they must be natural—and therefore they must exist because of God. This is
the logical inference of his assumption that “the nature of everything is the will of
the creator” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 243): God’s will can be read in nature.
Isidore divides monstrous creatures into several sub-sets of meaning, includ-
ing: portents, “derived from ‘foreshadowing’ (portendere), that is, from ‘showing
beforehand’ (praeostedere)”; signs, which “seem to show (ostendere) a future
event”; prodigies, which “are so called, because they ‘speak hereafter’ (porro
dicere); omens, which “derive their name from admonition (monitus), because in
giving a sign they indicate (demonstrare) something, or else because they in-
stantly show (monstrare) what may appear” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 244). It is this
final definition, he avers, that “is its proper meaning, although it has frequently
been corrupted by the improper use of writers” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 244).
Interestingly, a later work of Isidore, the Differentiae, “notes [the] points of
difference” between monsters and portents in a slightly more precise fashion.
According to Asa Mittman and Susan Kim, who quote the work: “a portent is that
which is displayed out of different forms, a monster, that which is born outside of
nature, either exceedingly large or exceedingly small” (Mittman and Kim 2013,
76). Isidore’s articulation of this point is somewhat complex: the variant mean-
ings of monsters and portents in the Etymologies and the Differentiae do not cover
the problem of their ontological status, nor do they explain the functions that
such creatures serve. However, as Verner points out, “just because Isidore does
not interpret every monster does not mean that the reader should not do so
himself” (Verner 2005, 31). We can therefore deduce that whatever their ontologi-
cal status, monsters serve as an important theological point of reference, indicat-
ing the importance of Augustine’s thought to Isidore’s own.
As with Augustine, Isidore is quite interested in the types of monsters that exist
in places far from his native land. In Isidore’s case, he lists these monsters
extensively, categorizing them based on their origins and how humans understand
them. He lists dwarves, pigmies, cynodonts, Blemmyes, panotii, and other crea-
tures in a manner reminiscent of Augustine. Moreover, he makes reference to the
monstrous faces of nations in the far East: some with no noses, having completely flat faces
and a shapeless countenance, some with a lower lip so protruding that when they are
sleeping it protects the whole face from the heat of the sun; some with mouths grown shut,
taking in nourishment only through a small opening by means of hollow straws. (Isidore of
Seville 2010, 245)

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As Isidore illustrates here, “the most useful model for a taxonomy of the
monster is the human body” (Williams 1996, 108). Book Eleven of the Etymolo-
gies, we must remember, treats both men and monsters within its organization,
and so monstrous bodily difference draws attention to the constitution of the
human body—meant to be “an original and continuing symbol of order itself,”
according to Williams (1996, 108)—by the possibility of its dissolution and
disorganization.
Moreover, this passage demonstrates a general schematic that Friedman
identifies as a fundamental tenet of the way medieval cultures used monsters to
establish their worldviews. Friedman argues that monsters usually stemmed from
categories of cultural difference he describes as “indicators of foreignness” that
were “highly charged with emotional significance” (Friedman 2000, 26). These
differences rarely consisted of fantastic attributes. Rather, he argues that “[e]very-
day cultural differences in such things as diet, speech, clothes, weapons, cus-
toms, and social organizations were what truly set alien peoples apart from their
observers in the classical world, and the power of these cultural traits to mark a
race as monstrous persisted into the Middle Ages and beyond” (Friedman 2000,
26). In Isidore’s list, bodily difference indeed characterized many monsters: they
have “no noses,” “completely flat faces,” a “shapeless countenance,” “a lower lip
[that protrudes],” etc. However, we can also see a simple cultural difference: the
use of straws to take nourishment, a difference of diet and customs regarding
food that Isidore uses to draw attention to a natural distinction of facial physiog-
nomy that he deems to be monstrous.
Isidore also uses monsters to explain natural phenomena not adequately
understood in other ways. His consideration of this aspect of monstrous ontology
ties his meditations on the topic to a view of the world associated less with
theology and more with what he terms “natural science.” For example, he writes
that the ancient Hydra, usually believed to be a multi-headed serpent, was in fact
“a place that gushed out water, devastating a nearby city; if one opening in it
were closed, many more would burst out” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 246). He goes
on to apply the same logic to the Chimaera, which he describes “as a tri-form
beast: the face of a lion, the rear of a dragon, and a she-goat in the middle”
(Isidore of Seville 2010, 246). By drawing on the Physiologus bestiary (Verner
2005), he details that “certain natural scientists” writing in that book’s tradition
“say that the Chimaera is not an animal but a mountain in Cilicia that nourishes
lions and she-goats in some places, emits fire in some places, and is full of
serpents in some places” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 246). This naturalistic approach
is further used to explain the Centaurs, a familiar figure from mythology. Isidore
notes that “some say that [the Centaurs] were horsemen of Thessaly, but because,
as they rushed into battle, the horses and men seemed to have one body, they

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maintained the fiction of the centaurs” (Isidore of Seville 2010, 246). Isidore’s
thinking here is characteristic of the multivalent ontological status of monsters
within medieval thought. As Lisa Verner suggests, “[t]ruth in the case of fictional
monsters is metaphorical and literary, but nonetheless important and real, as one
might expect in a treatise on the meanings behind words” (Verner 2005, 34).
Monsters are simultaneously an imaginative construction—Isidore seems to
clearly believe that the Hydra, Chimaera, and Centaur are not real creatures—and
a real, if somewhat more mundane, force with mythological and interpretative
value. Monsters, that is, are real in so far as they influence culture: they “do not
exist but are concocted to interpret the causes of things” (Isidore of Seville 2010,
245) whether those causes are natural, cultural, or theological.
Taken together, Isidore’s and Augustine’s inclusion of monsters in their
cosmologies illustrates many of the reasons why monsters held the interest of
medieval thinkers: they allow for a very specific theological thought experiment
(J. J. Cohen 1996; Steel 2012). Their conclusion was that the limits of God’s power

cannot be limited to a human understanding of normalcy; rather, that power is as

infinite as the variety of forms that the creatures in question take. Importantly,
however, the rhetorical use of monsters as nearly inconceivable expressions of
God’s power implicitly reinforced the specific cultural norms of the societies that
considered them to be monstrous. By their difference, as Cohen so cogently
observes, the monsters outlined by Augustine and Isidore demarcate the accepta-
ble behavior of the people who observe them, right down to the theological
interpretations that govern all understanding of such difference.
D The Monsters and the Critics of Beowulf

The theological arguments of Augustine and Isidore outline the ontological stakes
of the existence of monsters within the framework of a Christian worldview.
Turning now to the literary realm, we can begin to tease out the implications of
such theological theorization of the monstrous in broader cultural terms. I will
focus my discussion on the Old English poem Beowulf and the role that the
monster Grendel and his kind play in its narratives.
Since J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture on the “Monsters and the Critics” has

become the single most influential essay on the Old English poem Beowulf, it is
perhaps unsurprising that the role monsters play in the poem has been quite
deeply interrogated by modern critics. Importantly, Tolkien’s essay was a re-
sponse to various scholars who had mined the poem for its historical import and
information, but had in the process neglected its status as a piece of poetry. In
particular, Tolkien argued against the influential assessment of Anglo-Saxonist

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W. P. Ker, who maintained that the dignity of Beowulf itself was deeply undercut

by its monsters. Ker asserted that the poem had a “radical defect” that put
monsters front and center in the first narrative “English” poem. He assessed that
defect as a “disproportion that puts the irrelevances [of heroic narrative and
battles with monsters] in the center and the serious things [like historical allu-
sions] on the outer edges” (Ker 1904, 253). Ker ultimately judges Beowulf to be an
“unmistakably heroic and weighty” poem, but one that is weighty in spite of its
monsters, not because of them (Ker, 1904, 253). Tolkien, by contrast, stakes his
argument on the precisely opposite premise, that “the monsters are not an
inexplicable blunder of taste; they are essential, fundamentally allied to the
underlying ideas of the poem which give it its lofty tone and seriousness” (Tolkien
1958, 19). For Tolkien, the monsters make the art of the poem possible. Nearly
seventy-five years of criticism take him more or less at his word.
The basic structure of Beowulf can be understood as three related segments in
a larger narrative about an epic hero. Each of these segments focuses on a specific
encounter between the eponymous hero and a monster. A brief summary of the
text will help situate the discussion of it that follows. At the outset of the poem,
King Hrothgar of the Danes builds a great hall called Heorot that is attacked by a
man-eating monster known as Grendel soon after its completion. Grendel ter-
rorizes Heorot for twelve years before a hero from another land—Beowulf of the
Geats—hears of Hrothgar’s plight and resolves to travel to Denmark to assist him.
Upon arrival, Beowulf defeats Grendel in unarmed combat, ripping the creature’s
arm from its socket but allowing the monster to escape Heorot and die. The
celebration following Beowulf’s victory is, however, cut short by another killing:
the attacker in this case is revealed as Grendel’s mother, seeking revenge for her
murdered child. Beowulf pursues the female monster to her underwater abode,
where he narrowly escapes defeat through his almost providential finding of a
magical sword that can kill the creature.
The third monstrous encounter appears when the poem skips fifty years,
shifting its focus to events during Beowulf’s reign as King of the Geats following
his lord Hygelac’s death. A thief steals a cup from a dragon’s hoard and the
dragon responds with rage, burning the countryside in a reign of terror. Beowulf
fights the dragon in order to preserve his people, but is killed in the process. The
poem ends with a meditation on the fate of the Geats after the death of their lord,
focusing on what will befall them: conquest and death.
Grendel and his mother are both understood, in the poem and its scholarly
criticism, to be monsters that are both physically and ontologically close to
humans. In creating this understanding of Grendel and his mother, the text relies
on many of the ideas about monsters observed in the writings of Augustine and
Isidore. More specifically, Grendel and his mother are explicitly referred to as kin

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of Cain—part of the monstrous lineage that Augustine argues results from the
murder of Abel:
Grendel was the name of this grim demon
haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
in misery among the banished monsters,
Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed
and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
Cain got no good from committing that murder
because the Almighty made him anathema,
and out of the curse of his exile there sprang
ogres and elves and evil phantoms
and the giants too who strove with God
time and again until He gave them their reward. (Heaney 2001, 8)
In these lines, the poem posits an entire lineage of evil by drawing on the biblical
traditions that would trace the monstrous races to a mark of Cain—a mark that
made Cain himself, and his offspring, wandering monsters (Friedman 2000,
94–95). As Friedman points out, the role that the Grendelkin play in Beowulf is not
limited to a veneer of biblical authenticity overlaid on a more local tradition: “[the
Grendelkin] are by no means merely local water trolls whose depredations at the
court of Hrothgar come from hunger or evil temper and who have been given an
aura of antiquity and universality by their association with Cain” (Friedman
2000, 105–06). Rather, as the genealogy above suggests, the relationship to the
first humans is clearly meant to resonate with the poem’s audience. It “ensures
their membership in Adam’s family, though distantly, and means that they
belong to the same species as their victims” (Friedman 2000, 106). Grendel and
his mother exist in a troubled but nearly familial relationship to the humans upon
whom they prey: they come from what modern humans might understand as the
same species, made terrible by the curse of God and the eternal exile imposed
thereby (Osborn 1978).
The monstrosity of Grendel is firmly linked to his lineage, but also to his
actions: he becomes the force that destroys Hrothgar’s creation. In her study of
Representations of the Natural World in Old English Literature, Jennifer Neville
argues that Hrothgar’s building of the hall at Heorot is meant to parallel the
creation of the world by God: “the positive, constructive act involves the estab-
lishment of an enclosure within which light, order, value, and safety prevail, and
without which darkness, chaos, and danger rage” (Neville 1999, 57). Neville’s
argument that Heorot stands in for an idea of creation resonates with the role that
the outsider (mearcstapa), Grendel plays with regard to it: he attacks the hall from
the outside, bringing disorder to an ordered world with his rage. This rage is

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Monsters 1179
juxtaposed with a song sung by a scop within the hall that details the creation of
the world by God—a creation that, notably, does not include the Grendelkin. This
juxtaposition—narratively and ideologically—suggests the polarity of dark and
light, good and evil that so often exists in monstrous narratives: “opposing forces
define the constructions designed to withstand them” (Neville 1999, 57).
As previously mentioned, the definition of acceptable structures—social and
otherwise—by what stands outside is something of a commonplace in studies of
medieval monstrosity. Friedman’s five categories—“everyday cultural differences
in such things as diet, speech, clothes, weapons, customs, and social organiza-
tion” (Friedman 2000, 26) are also in operation in this example. For Grendel, a
thorough analysis reveals the primacy of weapons, diet, customs and social
organization in identifying him as a monster. First and foremost, Grendel is
related to other monsters—the “ogres and elves and evil phantoms / and the
giants too who strove with God” (Heaney 2001, 8)—who are themselves descen-
dants of Cain. Moreover, Grendel and his mother exist outside of society as the
poem imagines it—his relationship to Cain is an alternative social organization
that rivals Hrothgar’s hall, and is indicated by the poem’s label for the creatures
as exiles. Grendel also consumes human flesh and drinks human blood in his
attacks on the Danes. In destroying these humans, he does not use a sword or
armor—a difference in choice of weapon that marks him as uncivilized.
Grendel’s monstrous genealogy, as Andy Orchard argues, is very deeply
rooted in Anglo-Saxon understandings of biblical history and the descendants of
Cain. He notes that Bede “introduces the notion that the exiled Cain could find no
rest,” a central image of exile and lack of community that characterizes the
progenitor of monsters (Orchard 2003, 61). Moreover, Orchard argues that Cain’s
participation in Abel’s murder could be understood as a “defiling of the earth with
blood” that caused “the roots of spreading malignancy” (Orchard 2003, 65).
Orchard documents that Old English versions of the myth even refer to the earth
“who opened her mouth and received” the blood of Abel, encouraging a link
between the taboo of drinking blood and the problematic relation of Cain and
monsters. Cain kills his brother, wanders the earth, and even participates metony-
mically in the consumption of human flesh (Orchard 2003).
When examined in this light, Grendel’s experience resonates strongly with
Cain’s status as exile: Grendel is described repeatedly as an exile, a mearcstapa
who exists outside of, but in close proximity to, human abodes. Grendel appears
in the poem as “a monstrous exile, a man-shaped creature exciting a degree of
pity (wonsaeli wer), whose dwelling place is described by a bewildering number
of terms (mearc, moras, fen, fæsten, and fifelcynnes eard) which have as their
common feature their remoteness from human habitation” (Orchard 2003, 59).
The multiplicity of such terms leads Orchard to suggest that that the poem

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describes “a certain restlessness implied by the number of abodes mentioned, as

by the detail that he dwelt in one ‘for a time’ (hwile)” (Orchard 2003, 59). More-
over, the places where Grendel is said to dwell are all outside of the hall and the
human community that is established there. What is so remarkable about Grendel
is that he violates the conditions of human life and community so pervasively.
Not only does he dwell in multiple, disparate places that are unattached to any
singular hall, but he also attacks the physical centerpiece of Anglo-Saxon society,
breaking down the community that makes the Danes’ lives possible (Neville 1999;
Orchard 2003).
Grendel also engages in one of the most basic taboos of most human socie-
ties: he eats human flesh. As Orchard attests, this dietary preference separates
humans and the Kin of Cain irrevocably. The poem describes Grendel:
He saw many men in the mansion, sleeping,

a ranked company of kinsmen and warriors
quartered together. And his glee was demonic,
picturing the mayhem: before morning
he would rip life from limb and devour them,
feed on their flesh; but his fate that night
was due to change, his days of ravening
had come to an end.
Mighty and canny,
Hygelac’s kinsman was keenly watching
for the first move the monster would make.
Nor did the creature keep him waiting,
but struck suddenly and started in;
he grabbed and mauled a man on his bench,
bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood
and gorged on him in lumps, leaving the body
utterly lifeless, eaten up
hand and foot. (Heaney 2001, 49–51)
Grendel “maul[s]” a man on the bench, but does not stop there. He gorges himself
on the Danes biting “bone-lappings” and “bolt[ing] down blood.” Heaney’s
translation in this section mimics the alliteration of the original poem, which
relates the material in a kind of perverse fascination, lingering over the literally
bloody subject. In feasting in this fashion, Grendel demonstrates not only his
power but his difference—in parallel, as Orchard suggests, with the death of Abel
at the hands of his brother (Orchard 2003, 65).
The poet also draws attention to the ways in which Grendel’s existence
troubles the ontological status of humans. As Karl Steel points out, “[s]ubjugation
resolves the various, shifting boundaries between humans and non-humans into
a single line separating humans from all other living things. Among these acts of

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Monsters 1181
boundary-making subjugation are not only eating, taming, and killing, but also
the power to categorize” (Steel 2008, 7–8). The necessity of reifying the difference
between human and animal—a difference Steel argues must be endlessly re-
enacted to maintain its power (Steel 2008; Steel 2011)—makes eating a fraught
activity, and makes the actions of Grendel all the more ontologically interesting.
By eating Danes and betraying no compunctions about their fitness for consump-
tion, Grendel undermines a fundamental facet of human existence. Grendel
makes humans into food, and in doing so indicates a way in which the category of
“human” is unstable—it depends on other relationships to be maintained. Such
an action threatens the foundation of human identity as superior to animals (Steel
2008; Steel 2011). To maintain ontological order, Grendel must be understood as
monstrous.
In addition to these very clear demarcations of difference, Grendel also
partakes of a less intuitive difference that marks him as a monster. Grendel’s
method of attacking and killing Danes does not require any kind of weaponry. As
both Karl Steel and John Block Friedman point out, one of the major signifiers of
the distance between monsters and humans is their method of fighting and the
tools they utilize to do so (Friedman 2000; Steel 2011). In analyzing the monsters
who frequently feature in high medieval traditions, Friedman observes that these
creatures often carry clubs: “The ubiquitous club, a weapon made from a branch
wrenched from a tree and so made without forethought or art, reveals yet another
prejudice of the medieval world concerning alien peoples. Men who carry clubs
are ignorant of chivalric weapons and the military customs of civilized Wester-
ners” (Friedman 2000, 32–33). Monsters, that is, are often clearly marked by the
kinds of weapons they do not have.
Grendel offers an intriguing case of this particular demarcation of the mon-
ster. While he does not carry a club, the poem clearly demonstrates that during
his attacks that he does not, in fact, carry any weapon at all. Upon meeting
Hrothgar for the very first time, Beowulf notes that he has “heard moreover that
the monster scorns / in his reckless way to use weapons” (Heaney 2001, 31). As it
turns out, no weapon at all can harm Grendel, so Beowulf’s choice to avoid using
weapons is a fortuitous one:
there was something they could not have known at the time,
that no blade on earth, no blacksmith’s art
could ever damage their demon opponent.
He had conjured the harm from the cutting edge
of every weapon. (Heaney 2001, 53–55)
Grendel not only does not use weapons, but also makes weapons utterly useless.
His refusal of weaponry is also its negation: Grendel deprives humans of one way

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in which they consolidate identity. If no blade can harm Grendel, then no blade in
human hands raised against him can mean anything. A fundamental feature of
heroic society is lost: the ability to fight as a warrior.
We see in Grendel a variety of tropes of the Middle Ages that have to do with
monstrosity. His status as the Kin of Cain forms one end of this monstrous
continuum—on the other are the multiple ways in which his ontological status
deviates from social norms that constitute the heroic world of Beowulf. Grendel
therefore illustrates the intersections of theological thought with more worldly
matters. As Kin of Cain, the Grendelkin as a whole are different, exiled, abhorred
by God. However, in Grendel’s specificity—his refusal of and imperviousness to
weapons, his behavioral patterns of both eating human flesh and drinking human
blood, and his lack of a stable abode that would allow for something more
recognizable to humans as “culture”—Grendel also participates in the cultural
construction of norm and deviation. He serves as a kind of warning of the exile
inevitably imposed by difference.
E Conclusion
In examining texts from varying backgrounds, this essay has cataloged some of
the multiple functions of monsters in the Middle Ages and the critical approaches
that illuminate the uses to which medieval writers put such creatures. Centrally, it
has sought to demonstrate that the attempts to understand monsters in the period
and beyond it are as diverse as the creatures they treat. Whether the perspective is
theological, naturalistic, philosophical, or literary, monsters force medieval
authors—and the modern scholars who study them—to think across boundaries
of discipline, time, and historical difference. No singular approach to monsters
can encompass the diversity of threats they pose for human culture. The only
certainty, as Cohen so cogently writes, is that they exist—“for if they did not, how
could we?” (J. J. Cohen 1996, 20).

Select Bibliography
Bildhauer, Bettina and Robert Mills, ed., The Monstrous Middle Ages (Toronto 2003).
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages (Minneapolis, MN, 1999).
[= J. J. Cohen 1999]

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed., Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis, MN, 1996).
[= J. J. Cohen, ed., 1996]

Friedman, John Block, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, MA, and
Syracuse, NY, 1981).

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Mittman, Asa Simon with Peter J. Dendle, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and
the Monstrous (Farnham et al. 2012).
Mittman, Asa Simon and Susan Kim, “Monsters and the Exotic in Early Medieval Literature,”
Literature Compass 6.2 (2009): 332–48.
Steel, Karl, How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Columbus, OH,
2011).

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Karl Kügle
Conceptualizing and Experiencing Music
in the Middle Ages (ca. 500–1500)
A Introduction
The concept of music as commonly understood today did not exist in the Middle
Ages. The online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (last accessed on April
14, 2014) defines “music” as “(t)he art or science of combining vocal or instru-
mental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, expressive
content, etc.” Accordingly, people nowadays tend to see music as an independent
art form composed of “tönend bewegte Formen” (“forms moving in sound”), to
use the famous wording developed by the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick in the
1850s (Hanslick 1854). People in the twenty-first-century also tend to conceive of
music primarily as a fixed object (although this is by no means the case, for music
in fact is primarily an action and/or an experience!). Third, music in the popular
imagination is typically assumed to be created and then encoded in writing by a
composer, thereafter physically embodied in a (printed) score, and subsequently
(re-)produced as sound by means of voices and/or instruments, or—in disembo-
died form—through technological means (recordings). Although in actual prac-
tice most music produced today, including all popular and applied music genres,
makes only limited use of notation—and the same was true for much nineteenth-
and twentieth-century music outside the restricted precinct of Western art (“clas-
sical”) music—the paradigmatic association of “music” with “writing” remains
extremely powerful.
Even more powerful is an engrained pattern of thought that posits the use of
instruments as the default setting, or even a requirement, when conjuring up
“music” in our imaginations—indeed, one might say that average modern audi-
ences tend to experience purely vocal music as sonically impoverished, and
therefore to find it boring and somehow lacking in aesthetic appeal. Instrumental
genres (orchestral symphony, chamber music) continue to occupy the apex of our
aesthetic hierarchy, certainly in the “classical” realm, and hardly any musical
genre can count on widespread success today if instruments are not somehow
part of the sonic environment. Furthermore, words (“poetry” and “literature”)
and music (“composition”), not to mention movement (as in a gesture, a dance,
or a procession), are seen as distinct from music; to us, they are separate and
autonomous media of artistic expression that can be combined for mutual bene-
fit, for example in opera, song, film, or video, but need not. Each of them can exist

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Conceptualizing and Experiencing Music in the Middle Ages (ca. 500–1500) 1185
perfectly well on its own. Finally, unlike the situation that prevailed until a few
generations ago when sounding music only existed through the material presence
of human beings who physically produced it, musical events today are almost
universally mediated technologically, most often in the form of recordings, lead-
ing to an almost entirely disembodied experience of music-making, and acous-
matic musical listening which instead of a shared physical activity becomes a
kind of sonic wall paper that is experienced passively.
All this would have seemed not merely astonishing and quite possibly
bizarre, but indeed thoroughly misguided from an aesthetic point of view to a
person living between 500 and 1500; not to say dangerous, even perverse in a
moral sense—at least that is what we can tell from those voices (usually male
clerics) that have come down to us, both in the form of their written opinions and
teachings, and in the form of the notations from which we can—albeit with
considerable restrictions—reconstruct the sounds of the Middle Ages. Music (or
the medieval equivalent of what we would recognize as such) would first and
foremost have been intimately linked with the human body; it was a thoroughly
somatic activity (Holsinger 2001). As the medieval terminology suggests which
uses cantus or carmen and dictamen virtually interchangeably to denote musico-
poetic activities or artifacts, the strict division between text and melody that we
are familiar with today did not apply in medieval aesthetics; the two (not to
mention any forms of movement such as gesturing that might have accompanied
such activities), aided and abetted by the art of rhetoric, melded into a single
activity, just as what we would call a “text” was primarily seen and experienced
as a visual trace or a set of directions to (re-)produce “speech” and/or “song”
(Zumthor 1987; Ziolkowski 2007).
Even as late a witness as Eustache Deschamps (1345–1404), commonly
understood as a key authority cementing the autonomization of text (poetry) from
music (song), in fact operated within an epistemological paradigm where the
sounds of words (“musique naturelle”) and the sounds of song set to such words
(“musique artificielle”) are conceptualized as differing aggregate stages of a
single phenomenon, “musique” or “musica,” as Deschamps’s terminology pa-
tently demonstrates (Jeserich 2013). Similarly, to construe music as an object, and
accordingly to put the musical score at the aesthetic center, probably would also
have seemed rather eccentric to a medieval person. This in no way contradicts the
enormous cultural prestige enjoyed by writing and by books—both were highly
sophisticated technologies that provided for the existence of storehouses of
knowledge and luxury items at once, accessible only to the thin layer of the
educated and well-to-do in the Middle Ages.
The synaesthetic phenomenon of seeing-hearing (for lack of a better word),
strange as it seems to us, can perhaps be rendered more plausible in light of the

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1186 Karl Kügle
recently recovered medieval views of matter as an active force, rather than as a

dead object (Bynum 2011); a medieval viewer of a text and/or of a notation would
presumably have readily, indeed automatically, associated this sight with actual
sounds (of speech or of singing) and expected both to have worked on his or her
body and soul, whereas we see both text and images primarily as visual carriers
of semantic information. Such a stance would have been facilitated by the
ubiquity of rhetoric as a key cultural practice throughout the Middle Ages (Car-
ruthers 2010) as well as contemporaneous optical theory (Akbari 2004, 21–44)
and, by extension, the medieval theory of listening.
Moreover, music notation would only have been used (and needed) in highly
specific situations, not as a default; words often suffice to jolt the musical memory
as long as the relevant music is previously known to the reader—just like the
words of, say, the Beatles’ “Yesterday” alone will be enough to evoke the sounds
of that song to many who have heard and enjoyed it before.
The importance of memory to medieval culture has recently been stressed by
cultural historians and musicologists alike (Carruthers 2008; Busse Berger 2005).
And like the other activities we nowadays subsume under the “arts,” music, too,
was deeply and functionally embedded in social ritual; it was either a part of
science (musica) or a skill (cantus, sonus), but not an art in the modern sense.
For that concept, just like that of “music,” had yet to be invented in centuries to
come.
Despite these profound differences in the epistemology of sound and sound
events, it is possible to sort through the medieval categorizations of things related
to music (as we understand the term) if we let medieval people be our guides. It
will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the thinking of the European
Middle Ages that the relevant categories are arranged in a distinct hierarchy, and
that the boundary between what we can perceive with our senses (a vital char-
acteristic of our notion of “music”) and matters of spiritual transcendence is
porous indeed: An ethics of listening, and an ethics of music-making, therefore is
a matter of course for medieval people. I shall begin by discussing some basic
medieval assumptions about musica—assumptions which evolved out of the
philosophy of late antiquity, mediated through the writings and the persistent
reception of Augustine, Boethius, and Isidore of Seville throughout the medieval
period and, indeed, well into early modern times. This will lead us to the training
of singers within the Church, and of other musicians outside. In a third step, I
shall sketch out some significant shifts in musical and notational practices that
occurred during the approximately one thousand years that we now call the
Middle Ages. Finally, I discuss key genres and repertoires, both vocal and instru-
mental, as they have come down to us in the form of notations (manuscripts) and
other sources (texts and images).

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B All-Encompassing “Harmony”:
The Concept of musica
Let us assume for a moment that we could go back to some point in time between
500 and 1500 C.E., and encounter one of the people to whom we owe the
materials preserved in the manuscripts in which musical notation, or comments
and descriptions of making or listening to music are preserved—in other words,
traces of medieval “musicking,” to use a convenient neologism coined by musi-
cologist Christopher Small, albeit in a contemporary context (Small 1998). Being
able to read and write, our imaginary interlocutor would be a highly-trained
specialist, and most likely a cleric (at this point we should again remind our-
selves that we know very little, and certainly much less by comparison, about
musical practices outside the Church, as the written record is almost invariably
biased toward the needs and practices of ecclesiastics in the broadest sense). He
or she would probably be engaged in a rigorous daily musical practice, i.e., the
singing of the so-called Office (or canonical) Hours, in addition to performing
and singing at many other occasions within and at the periphery of the liturgy,
most notably the Mass but also para-liturgical devotions, not to forget practical
activities that we would label “work.” Such a person would have been trained
since childhood in the singing of chant and, by extension, in at least a modicum
of what we now call call music theory; they would have learned and internalized
the medieval pitch system, but also how to make the most of the practical tools
used to teach, memorize, and perform melodies, most notably the so-called
Guidonian hand and the monochord. They may well be a cantor or a cantrix or
their deputee (succentor), i.e., the official responsible for the timely and correct
singing of the liturgy, and as such would serve in one of the highest-ranking and
most important functions of their community, typically a monastery or the
chapter of an endowed collegiate church or a cathedral.
If we asked this person the question “what is music?” we would most
assuredly not get an answer that matches our (or the OED’s) definition of music.
Our informant would probably also give us different answers depending on how
we translated the modern word “music.” Obviously, one would in the first
instance be inclined to ask about “musica,” the Latin word that so prominently
corresponds to our modern vernaculars’ “music” and from which it is derived.
But the Latin musica and its (late-medieval) vernacular cognates such as
musique (Old French), musica (Italian), musyke (Middle English) and muzike
(Middle Dutch) would have denoted first and foremost a branch of the quadri-
vium, i.e., the “science” part of the seven artes liberales. As such, musica aimed
at understanding and articulating the harmony of the cosmos that underlies God’s

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1188 Karl Kügle
creation. Probably the most famous definition of musica with which most medie-
val people would have been familiar (and certainly all those who received a
clerical education in a cathedral or a monastic school, or its equivalent) derives
from Boethius (ca. 480–ca. 525), who divided musica into musica mundana,
musica humana and musica instrumentalis (De institutione musica, bk. 1, ch. 2).
Musica mundana is the “harmony of the world” which humans can experience in
a limited way and indirectly only, for example by marveling at the ordering and
proportions of the celestial bodies that can be observed in the night sky. A second
subcategory of musica is musica humana, the order of and within our bodies and
souls (Boethius sees the two as a unit). Like musica mundana, we constantly
experience this musica humana indirectly, in the form of various bodily and
psychological states, but it is not a sonic phenomenon. Boethius’s third category
is musica instrumentalis—not, as one might at first think, instrumental music, but
the laws of consonance and dissonance (which, following Boethius, are made
experiential through the division of strings—hence the importance of the mono-
chord). So musica instrumentalis—the third and hierarchically lowest subdivision
—in fact deals with the ordering of physical sounds that we can perceive with our
senses, i.e., the building-blocks of all that we would call music.
Actual music—such as a performance—is made up of the raw materials
Boethius describes, but Boethius displays hardly any interest in such details
which for him are ephemera except as a physical instantiation of the eternal laws
of mathematics (numbers and their proportions to each other) and the resulting
cosmic, ethical, and physical (i.e., sounding) laws of harmony. We therefore
could classify what Boethius teaches us in modern terms as a mixture of acous-
tics, music theory, music psychology, medicine and music therapy, music philo-
sophy, and theology. This conceptual assemblage has a marginal place at best in
the average modern person’s understanding of “music” and also in the disciplin-
ary structure of modern universities. To the medieval person, on the other hand, it
would have been an absolutely central concept underlying any cosmic or human
activity, including the making of music in the modern sense (what we would call
composition and performance) and the effects of music on our bodies and souls
(what we would call music aesthetics and music psychology, or simply pleasure
and displeasure, and what we experience every time we listen or hear). The place
of musica in the medieval epistemology, accordingly, is among the quadrivial
sister disciplines of arithmetics, geometry, and astronomy; all four are in turn
linked to each other by their emphasis on numbers. This is the lofty realm of the
musicus, a world to be clearly distinguished from that of the practical musician
(De institutione musica, bk. 1, ch. 33).
If anything we would call “music” is encompassed within musica instrumen-
talis, that is, within the realm of audible sounds, further differentiations would

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have been familiar to our imaginary medieval friends. For example (and this is
not hard to understand once we have absorbed Boethius), they would have
perceived an enormous difference between organized, “rational” sounds, and
irrational or disorganized sounds. Only rational sounds can be part of musica
(instrumentalis), and their rational quality implies by definition that they can be
described and defined through the Pythagorean system (and hence through
numbers, which makes it easy to link musica with the movement of the stars, and
with counting and measuring). The Pythagorean system, explained at great
length by Boethius (and a staple of almost all medieval music treatises), trans-
lates relationships between pitches into relationships between whole numbers,
i.e., proportions; for example, a proportion of 3:2 corresponds to what we call a
perfect fifth. The irregular sounds of nature such as the waves of the ocean or
the rustling of leaves, often described as a kind of “music” and experienced as
beautiful by modern listeners, therefore are by definition not musica, for they
are irrational. Another important distinction within musica instrumentalis even
less familiar to us was drawn between the sounds of living things and inanimate
matter. As Isidore of Seville (ca. 559–636) explains, the utterances of living
things are called vox (“voice”). The sounds of inanimate objects, on the other
hand, and that included random noises, but also musical instruments, is of a
different category called sonus or sonitus (“sound”; see, e.g., Isidore, Etymolo-
giae, bk. 3 ch. 20). This terminology survives in modern French and Italian,
where “to play” an instrument is “sonner” or “suonare,” and also in musical
terminology, where a “sonata” implicitly denotes an instrumental piece. If we
superimpose the distinction between vox (animate) and sonus (inanimate) on
the categories of rational (musica) and irrational sound introduced earlier, four
categories emerge: irrational and inanimate (random sounds of nature or of
man-made objects), irrational and animate (sounds of animals, but also disor-
dered sounds produced by humans such as coughing), rational and inanimate
(music performed or “sounded” by humans on natural or man-made objects,
including musical instruments) and rational and animate (rationally organized
sounds produced by the human body). The latter denotes specifically the human
voice, i.e., rational speech and rationally organized singing. This explains the
fundamental indivisibility of “text” and “music” in medieval aesthetics (the two
are located not in an opposition but within a continuum). As mentioned before,
these categories also imply a value judgment, and it is easy to see why rational
and animate sounds are the most highly prized: they are closest to the nature of
the divine which is embodied in the human capacity to reason (ratio), and
ennobled by the life force or soul (anima) that the Creator gave to humankind.
Moreover, song-speech is the only kind of sounds that can carry meaning
through their association with language (the notion familiar to modern listeners

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1190 Karl Kügle
that instrumental music, too, can carry meaning would have been incomprehen-
sible to medieval listeners and is, indeed, historically contingent on much later
conventions associating certain instruments or instrumental gestures with a
semantic dimension; after all, information transmitted through signals such as
trumpet calls or alarm bells for us, too, acquires meaning only through the
language they replace).
Fig. 1: An example of a “Concert of Angels” from St. Martin’s Church (Dome Catheedral), Cloister,
Utrecht. Photo @ Albrecht Classen. This iconographical topos is frequently misunderstood as
direct evidence for ways of performing medieval music when in fact the main thrust lies in
evoking in the viewer the link between the harmony of the cosmos (musica mundana), the body
(musica humana) and rationally organized sounds that human bodies actually can perceive
(musica instrumentalis). In this case, a visual representation of singing, as evidenced by the
gaping mouths of the three angels at the top, and the sounds of an instrument (below) are used
to make this exemplification. While such images may at times also provide useful information for
the reconstruction of medieval instruments or performing practices, considerable caution—as
with all medieval visualizations—is advised against interpreting the evidence literally unless
there is strong corroborating evidence to do so.
Thus, vocal music is the area to look at among musical genres if we want to get to
know the sounds that to medieval culture were of the highest aesthetic and ethical

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value, being as close as possible to the divine, and into which medieval culture
invested the greatest amount of cultural capital set aside for musica instrumentalis.
This automatically directs us to the music of the liturgy (plainchant) in the first
instance, which re-envoices the Word of God as transmitted to us in Holy Scripture
every time it is celebrated. In the second instance, we must turn to song and
poetry, which for much of the Middle Ages (if they were written down at all) were
of a para-liturgical nature (and where in the corpus of “secular” poetry and music
produced in the later Middle Ages theological principles are often present sub-
liminally). Performing (declaming and/or singing), memorizing, making, and
collecting texts and music therefore was not just primarily an act of social bond-
ing, identity formation, or entertainment (although it undoubtedly fulfilled those
functions, too); quite the contrary, it was in the first instance a deeply moral and
pious exercise which had to be curated and received with the greatest sense of
ethical responsibility, and therefore supervised with corresponding rigor by the
ecclesiastical authorities.
C Singing the Liturgy, Writing Sounds:

Neumatic Notation
If the Egyptian anchorites were the first systematically to use the singing of
psalms for meditative practice and St. Augustine (354–430) the first to write
extensively about the importance of psalmody in the liturgy, the Rule of Saint
Benedict enshrined psalmody and, along with it, singing in the daily devotional
practice of the clergy. Enunciating the texts of the liturgy (including but not
limited to the psalms) in various vocal styles and registers ranging from heigh-
tened speech to complex melismatic patterns in fact can be traced to Hellenistic
models that had been disseminated throughout the territories of the former Ro-
man Empire and beyond. The geographic distances combined with the political
upheavals of the almost five hundred years from the adoption of Christendom as
the state religion by Constantine to the re-constitution of the (West) Roman
Empire under Frankish rulers around 800, however, led to great divergences
among local Christian liturgies. This development (and in particular the diver-
gence between the rites of Rome and those of Frankish centers) was noted with
great concern in Carolingian times. Reform of the liturgy and of liturgical singing
consequently became a central project of the “Carolingian Renaissance.” Through
merging contemporaneous Roman models as practiced in the time of Charle-
magne with Frankish customs, a new type of liturgical singing was created—the
origins of what is now known as plainchant or “Gregorian” chant (Page 2010).

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1192 Karl Kügle
Preserving this reformed Carolingian practice without further involuntary

changes was perceived as being of the utmost importance.
As a result, new mnemotechnic devices were developed specifically for
retaining and controlling the correct transmission of the myriad melodies, possi-
bly taking advantage of the accent marks used by Greek (Byzantine) scholars
(Atkinson 1995). These new signs were given the name “neumes” (the word is
derived from the Greek word pneûma [πνεῦμα] = breath, immediately revealing its
intimate link with the body, and with singing as well as speaking; in Latin usage
it denoted “gesture” or “movement of the hand,” and when transferred to musical
practice could also mean “musical element” or “melodic gesture,” i.e., a short
melisma). Simultaneously with this Carolingian correctio the first wave of medie-
val theoretical manuals came into being; they were typically of a practical nature,
designed to help teach novices the correct ways of singing and to inculcate the
newly formulated system of ordering musical space, in the process also re-encod-
ing the ancient lore of musica. The Carolingian treatises introduced, among other
things, the ancestors of our modern seven letter names for the musical pitches (a
through g), offered a classification of scale types into eight modes (the forebears
of modern tonalities), and provided instructions accompanied by examples of
how to perform chant (of which the neumes only notated the melodic contour) in
polyphony (organum). They are shaped by and designed for the exigencies of
monastic communities, and are therefore centered on the singing of the liturgy.
Although the first organs—wondrous machines more than musical instruments
the way we understand them today—were introduced into church spaces at about
the same time, the intellectual concepts of music theory and the practices of
teaching music were entirely constructed around the human voice and the need
to discipline it through correct intonation and memorization of the numerous
chants that had to be performed throughout the liturgical year. The neumes as
first developed in (post-)Carolingian northwestern Europe encoded merely the
general relationships between single and/or small groups of pitches, indicating
no more than relative direction (rising or falling from one pitch to the next). They
therefore did not measure the precise distance between pitches within the musical
space as defined by the tonal system, nor is there any but the most rudimentary
information on rhythm.
Driven by the prosody of the liturgical texts, neumes even in their present-
day form as used in the reconstructed plainchant notation introduced during the
nineteenth century and officially sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church do
not give any precise rhythmic indications. Hence, only the contours of a melody
could be (and probably were deemed necessary to be) written down at first; the
Carolingian system, as it emerges in the earliest surviving sources around 900,
therefore fundamentally relied on the intensive use of human memory through

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previously acquired knowledge of the melodies. Given the complexity of the

liturgical chants and the immense scope of the repertoire that had to be
retained, such “adiastematic” (= staveless) neumes apparently provided only
inadequate support, at least for some, in the longer term. Visual enhancement
was introduced in the early eleventh century, for example through the exact
heightening of neumes by Aquitanian scribes (Grier 2013) and, decisively,
through the addition of clefs and stave lines in Italy (Guido of Arezzo, Prologus
in Antiphonarium). At first one, then three, eventually four lines measured the
exact size of the intervals indicated by the neumes, giving origin to the staff
lines and cleffing still used in modern notation. Such “diastematic” neumes still
do not give more than rudimentary rhythmic indications, but the pitch content
of diastematically notated melodies can be grasped with relative ease, facilitat-
ing memorization and making reference to authoritative copies kept by the
cantor or cantrix possible. Even today, they allow us to read chant melodies
with precision from the moment of their introduction onward. As other notations
measuring rhythm were developed from the thirteenth century onward, chant
books kept being notated in neumatic notation.
A range of neumatic styles (notational dialects) evolved early on around
Carolingian centers, reaching a high level of sophistication in the earliest surviv-
ing sources already (Treitler 1992). They have been grouped by scholars into
families along paleographical and geographical lines. Many of these local styles
persisted well into the late Middle Ages; innovations in chant notation generally
were slow and if implemented moved through highly specific networks along
corporate or institutional filiations (e.g., within monastic reform movements such
as the Dominicans) rather than by geographical proximity. They therefore did not
necessarily percolate to physically adjacent institutions if these espoused differ-
ent institutional lineages.
The most significant evolutionary change in terms of future developments is
the emergence of so-called square notation (nota quadrata) in northern France,
Normandy and England from the eleventh century onward. Perfected in Paris and
the Ile-de-France in the thirteenth century, this very clearly legible neumatic
notation was favored by the new mendicant orders who were keen to ensure
uniformity of chant practices throughout their houses regardless of geographical
distance and local traditions. The new square notation rapidly supplanted older
forms of chant notation in western and southern Europe, Britain and Scandinavia
during the later Middle Ages. Meanwhile, in the Rhineland, central, and eastern
Europe, late medieval chant manuscripts tend to use so-called “Gothic” or Hufna-
gel neumes which emerged at about the same time as square notation but are
derived from the older notational styles of eastern and southern Germany, Swit-
zerland, Austria, and Poland.

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1194 Karl Kügle
The medieval tone system as it had taken shape around 1300 and as it was
described in almost identical form already in Guido’s Micrologus (ca. 1025) was
made up of twenty degrees or claves (Γ A B C D E F G a b c d e f g aa bb cc dd ee)
arranged consecutively in ascending order. It includes two types of intervals of
different size that occur between individual degrees: whole tones (9:8) and semi-
tones. The semitone, according to Pythagoras, can take two different forms, a
diatonic (256:243) and a chromatic one (2187:2048); either sounds sharper to the
ear than modern equal-tempered semitones. While whole tones are the default
setting between individual steps, a semitone invariably occurs between E/e and
F/f. A semitone can also be placed between a/aa and b/bb, or—depending on the
scale type (“mode”)—between b/bb and c/cc. The articulation of the degrees b and
bb therefore is not fixed; the exact position of the pitch shifts in relationship to
a/aa and c/cc. To clarify this built-in ambiguity, hexachords were superimposed
on the gamut. Derived from a hymn in praise of St. John the Baptist perhaps
composed specifically as a mnemonic tool for the purpose, the six syllables ut, re,
mi, fa, sol and la were arranged in a fixed order (whole tone—whole tone—
semitone—whole tone—whole tone). When combined with the gamut at pitches C/
c (“natural”), Γ/G/g (“hard”), and F/f (“soft” hexachords) they form an interlock-
ing system of seven hexachords that precisely maps the occurrence of a semitone
at the combination of the syllables mi-fa onto the twenty claves from
Γ to ee. This invention (“solmization”), like the stave lines, was first described by
Guido of Arezzo in the early eleventh century (Epistola ad Michahelem); the system
is confirmed in the writings of Johannes (Cotto or Affligemensis) in his De musica
cum tonario (ca. 1100). In conjunction with the gamut, it formed the backbone of
music education, and consequently, of the conceptualization of musical space, for
centuries to come. We still use a slightly modified system today, and in the
Romance languages the solmization syllables are used instead of the letter names
to indicate pitches (e.g., la = pitch a). Yet another ingenuous teaching tool
attributed to Guido (although it probably evolved organically out of older prac-
tices of cheironomy) and first discussed by the aforementioned Johannes (Cotto or
Affligemensis) maps the medieval tone system onto a series of positions on the
hand marked by the knuckles of the five fingers, the so-called Guidonian hand.
This allowed singers and singing teachers to experience a melody through physi-
cal gestures, too, thereby supporting memorization (Berger 2002).
Concerning the teaching of musical skills outside ecclesiastic settings, very
little information is available. It may be reasonable to presume that any systema-
tic education in music theory would have been dependent on the teachings
described above to a significant extent. Unwritten musical or music-related
practices, both of (folk or epic) singing and of performing on instruments, as well
as any gesturing and dancing associated with them, would have been taught

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entirely by imitating and memorizing (rote learning). It is possible, indeed likely

that these practices may have stepped well outside the boundaries set by the
highly specific teachings applied to novices that needed to learn to sing chant.
The frequently disapproving commentaries made by ecclesiastic authorities on
the musicking that took place outside the sacred precincts, removed from the
control of the Church, suggest a highly complex soundscape that is now largely
lost to us.
The practice of performing chant polyphonically (organum) is discussed
intermittently throughout the Middle Ages, starting with the late and post-Caro-
lingian writing such as Musica enchiriadis (ca. 900). Such techniques of perform-
ing chant were reserved for feast days within the liturgical calendar, highlighting
their special importance, but were not normally written down; the treatises
typically confine themselves to explaining the principles, and at times giving
examples of how a melody should or could be performed in this particularly
festive and elaborate way. Details were ostensibly worked out in rehearsal and
then extemporized on the spot as a practice, much in the way musicians today
might improvise a second or third voice to a well-known tune in a suitable style;
for us, too, there would not be much point in or need for taking the trouble
required to notate such extemporizations although one can imagine that a primer
might be useful, especially for teaching purposes. As a result, only very occasion-
ally, particularly elaborate or noteworthy exempla were put down in writing;
significant corpora include the two-part organa of Winchester cathedral, retained
as early as the first half of the eleventh century in the so-called Winchester Troper
(Rankin 2007), or the group of manuscript sources transmitting organa from
twelfth-century Aquitania (Fuller 1969 and 1979). Related practices of varying
style and complexity are documented throughout the later Middle Ages, for
example in Italy (“cantus planus binatim”) and in England (“faburden”), and we
may assume that they were pervasive, and were in existence well before the
earliest written references.
D Writing Time: Mensural Notation

In late twelfth and early thirteenth-century Paris, the confluence of ecclesiastic
institutions including the newly founded university together with the patronage
exerted by powerful churchmen and aristocrats within the confines of the city
engendered an unusually fertile intellectual climate that also saw the develop-
ment of new techniques of notation capable of encoding rhythm. This was
accomplished at first by clever manipulation of neumes comprising small groups
of individual pitches (so-called “modal notation”); beginning around the middle

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1196 Karl Kügle
of the thirteenth century, the respective note shapes themselves were graphically
altered, engendering a new set of notational symbols that visually encoded both
rhythm and pitch in their specific figurae or shapes (“Franconian notation,” ca.
1280). If only two standard note values were being distinguished in the modal
notation of the “Notre Dame School,” a long (“longa”) and a short one (“brevis”),
the possibility to subdivide the brevis (or breve) into smaller units (“semibreves”)
was codified in Franconian notation, and avidly practiced and explored in the so-
called “ars antiqua” style of the later thirteenth and early fourteenth century. In
fact, the amount of possible subdivisions of the breve and their justification
became the subject of considerable debate around and shortly after 1300, extend-
ing from Paris and northern France (Petrus de Cruce, fl. 1290–1300) to Italy
(Marchettus of Padua, fl. 1305–1320) and northwestern Europe (Robertus de
Handlo in England, fl. around 1325). By the second decade of the fourteenth
century, Parisian circles around Johannes de Muris (fl. 1310–1340) and Philippe
de Vitry (1291–1361) introduced a fourth note value, the minim (“minima”), under-
stood as a subdivision of the semibreve, alongside the option of subdividing note
values not just in three, but also in two equal parts (so-called “French” or “ars
nova” notation), while Italian notators in the wake of Marchettus developed a
system based on a set of varying but intrinsically fixed subdivisions of the breve
into as much as twelve semibreves (so-called “Italian” or “Trecento” notation). In
England, further local variants were in use throughout the fourteenth century
(“English” notation). By the late fourteenth century, the French system (“ars nova
notation”) was making ever greater inroads throughout Europe, gradually repla-
cing or merging with local variants of notating musica mensurabilis. Around 1400,
notational styles introducing a flurry of further subdivisions on a level below the
minim (for example “semiminims”) temporarily flourished (“ars subtilior”) along-
side simpler “ars nova” styles. The notational system used for mensurally notated
polyphony stabilized around 1425–1430, largely abandoning the rhythmic com-
plexities of the “ars subtilior” style in favor of a new focus on contrapuntal
artistry. Around the same time, the visual appearance of notation shifted from
black to void note-heads as the scribal default setting. The notational system of
the mid-fifteenth century remained essentially unchanged until the end of the
sixteenth century.
The complexities of the mensural system of the late fourteenth and early
fifteenth century probably made it inaccessible to anyone but an insider group of
highly specialized singer-composers, giving rise to simplified or hybrid (“prag-
matic”) notation styles from ca. 1400 onward that combine elements drawn from
mensural notation with elements drawn from notating chant. These are often
found in association with sources linked to urban (lay) reform movements such as
the devotio moderna in the Low Countries and northern Germany. Such groups

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cherished music as a social or devotional practice but explicitly distanced them-

selves from the conspicuously sophisticated and resource-intensive cultural prac-
tices associated with elite establishments which they often explicitly rejected on
social and religious grounds.
Another notational system used in northwestern Europe during the early
fifteenth century is the so-called “stroke notation,” in fact a simplified version of
“standard” mensural notation (De Loos 2010). These phenomena show that the
innovations thought up in clerical and university milieus in thirteenth-century
Paris and designed to measure and order, i.e., to compose, (musical) time had
trickled down to wider groups of the population by the late fourteenth and early
fifteenth centuries at the latest, making “mensural” music a staple of music life
not just among clerical elites and at the courts of the aristocracy, but also among
townsfolk in general, and among less well-to-do ecclesiastical and lay commu-
nities in particular.
Specific notations for instruments (“tablatures”) adapted from the systems
developed for chant and mensurally conceived polyphony begin to appear in the
fourteenth century and reached wider dissemination by the fifteenth century. An
isolated early witness of keyboard tablature hails from fourteenth-century Eng-
land (the so-called “Robertsbridge” fragment, British Library Add. 28550). In the
fifteenth century, a number of sources from the German-speaking area have come
down us to us, including large-scale collections (“Buxheim Organ Book,” Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. ms. 3725). In Italy, a monumental and sophisti-
cated source now kept at Faenza (Memelsdorff 2013) transmits diminutions of
vocal models notated in a style quite different from that found in the English and
German sources. Like so often, these isolated surviving sources seem to represent
the tip of an iceberg – in this case of highly ornate instrumental performance
practices grounded in vocally conceived polyphonic pieces and plainchant melo-
dies. Such practices in all likelihood were a pervasive but largely unrecorded
phenomenon of the soundscape of late-medieval Europe.
E Music for Voices

What kind of music was notated with these various systems? The bulk of the
music written down and copied in the Middle Ages was plainchant, i.e., the
monophonically notated melodies associated with performing the liturgy of the
Roman Catholic Church. Next to that, we find a variety of monophonically notated
genres designed to embellish and elaborate the liturgy: tropes (textual or melodic
additions to pre-existing chants), sequences (newly composed texts and melodies
of considerable length used in the Mass) and hymns (strophic compositions

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1198 Karl Kügle
associated with the Office). A veritable explosion of creativity can be noted in this
domain from late Carolingian times through the high Middle Ages (ca. 850–1150),
although it should not be overlooked that the production or adaptation of new
sequences and hymns, including new texts for pre-existing melodies and new
musical settings of pre-existing texts, continued throughout the later Middle Ages
(ca. 1150–1500), as did the production of new Offices. We owe the first names of
poet-composers to this first great wave of monophonic composition, such as
Tuotilo (ca. 900) at St. Gall, or Adémar of Chabannes (ca. 989–1034) at Limoges
who also was a scribe and notator; his are the first musical autographs to survive
(e.g., Paris, BnF, lat. 909; Grier 2006). A century and a half later the musico-poetic
oeuvre of Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) stands out. In the decades around
1200, Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1160/70–ca. 1236) in Paris generated texts for a
number of musical settings, both monophonic and polyphonic (whether he
created any of their melodies remains unclear), and as late as the fifteenth
century, singer-composers such as Guillaume Du Fay (1397–1474) still occasion-
ally wrote new chants (Haggh 1988). Generally speaking, it is safe to say that the
liturgical and para-liturgical Latin-texted repertoire forms the backbone and the
bulk of the written record of music produced in, and surviving from, the Middle
Ages. Its quantity is vast compared to the repertoires discussed in the following
paragraphs, and its thematic range extends from the elaboration of the liturgy via
its exegesis through poetry and song to pointed criticism of the times in the later
Middle Ages.
It is impossible to disentangle the cult of the Holy Virgin from the emer-
gence of written vernaculars in the later Middle Ages which also enabled the
formation and subsequent collecting of a distinct aristocratic and sometimes
civic, “secular” corpus of song and poetry cast in those vernaculars. Most often
describing or addressing an unreachable or idealized female who shares many
attributes with the Virgin (fin’amors), the topics of such songs also extend to
pastoral (erotic) themes or conviviality (drinking songs), nor do they shirk the
occasional political commentary. The cultural practice of trobar (literally “find-
ing”), or its equivalent in the other vernaculars, i.e., the artful forging of new
texts and/or melodies according to the rules of musica, was a practice of nobles
in the first instance. Their ranks included such high-placed individuals as
Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071–1126), grandfather of the famous Eleanor
of Aquitaine, Queen of France and later England (1122/24–1204), Thibaut IV,
Count of Champagne and Brie and later King of Navarre (1201–1253), or Henry VI
of Hohenstaufen (1165–1197), Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 till his death. But
the culture of late-medieval song also had room for talented individuals of
lesser, even non-noble birth, such as Conon de Béthune (ca. 1160–1219 or 1220),
the son of a seigneur of Béthune in Artois who belonged to the lower ranks of the

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nobility, or Bernart de Ventadorn (ca. 1130–1140 to ca. 1190–1200), a commoner

who served at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. It also flourished among the
uppermost strata of civic society in the prosperous cities of the later Middle Ages
such as Arras, Paris, or Bruges; Adam de la Halle (born 1245–1250, died in the
1280s or early 1300s), a native of Arras active in Paris and later at the Angevin
court in Naples, and his partner in several jeux-partis, Jehan Bretel (ca. 1210–
1272), are cases in point.
The practice of trobar goes back at least to the mid-twelfth century, to judge
by isolated references to dateable events, and arguably beyond (Haines 2010), but
the large repertoire manuscripts that transmit the bulk of the surviving corpus
were produced (or have survived) from the thirteenth century onward only. The
topics treated range from the sublimely spiritual over texts in praise of a lady
(some of them generic, others connected with historically identifiable individuals)
to political commentary (quite often related to the Crusades) and also include
erotic subject matter as well as sometimes biting forms of self-irony. The Cantigas
de Santa Maria for example, collected in several manuscripts produced in the
orbit of Alfonso X of Castile around 1280, assemble an extensive repertoire of
vernacular song dedicated to the Virgin. At about the same time (ca. 1260–1340),
repertoire manuscripts of “classic” trobador and trouvère songs and texts cast in
the southern French langue d’oc (Occitan/Provençal) and northern French langue
d’oil (= Old French) as well as the Germanic vernaculars (“Minnesang”) were
assembled, typically in retrospective collections that might be looking back a
century in time or more (see the contribution to this Handbook by A. Classen on
“Love, Sex, and Marriage”). For the Occitan/Provençal repertory, the principal
sources known today originated in Languedoc (Paris, BnF fr. 22543) and Lombar-
dy (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana S.P.4), but the transmission and copying of
Occitan song also extended to northern France, Spain (Catalonia), and other parts
of Italy. In the case of the trouvère (langue d’oil) repertoire, the manuscript
transmission is centered on northern France (Picardy and Artois; for example, the
“Chansonnier du Roi” BnF fr. 844), while the German Minnesang melodies
survive in relatively late sources starting with the “Jenaer Liederhandschrift”
(Jena, Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, El. f. 101; Central Germany,
ca. 1330) and continuing into the fifteenth century (e.g., Vienna, Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek 2856, “Mondsee-Wiener Liederhandschrift”) in manuscripts
provenant from the Rhineland, southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Monophonically notated collections continued to be copied through the end of
the Middle Ages; examples include the so-called “Gruuthuse manuscript” preser-
ving a lively repertoire of songs and poetry in Middle Dutch from Bruges, ca. 1400
(The Hague, Royal Library, 79 K 10), or the “Bayeux manuscript” of French
monophonic songs collected ca. 1500 (Paris, BnF fr. 9346).

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1200 Karl Kügle
Parisian sources of the mid-thirteenth century such as the famous codex “F”
(Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, plut. 29,1; Haggh and Huglo 2004)
offer the first evidence of transferring the new technology of mensurally notating
polyphony from the realm of the liturgy to song. This transfer predictably first
took place in the clerical and university milieu, giving rise, on one hand, to
polyphonic settings of an older Latin-texted type of song, the conductus (with
possible links to Aquitania), and, on the other hand, the motet, one of the most
long-lived and complex genres of the western music tradition. This repertoire is
transmitted anonymously, a characteristic that distinguishes the genres tied to
the clerical milieu or the liturgy (conductus, organum, motet) from the trobador/
trouvère/Minnesänger tradition, where names and even “biographies” (vidas) are
readily provided, although by modern scholarly standards it is difficult indeed to
tease out fact from fiction in these narratives. The precise identities of the persons
behind two much-quoted names famously associated with the so-called “Notre-
Dame polyphony” of late twelfth and early thirteenth century Paris—the older
Leoninus “optimus organista” and the somewhat younger Perotinus “optimus
discantor”—remain shady, too; the two names have come down to us through a
single source only (the so-called Anonymous IV) dated around 1300. In the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth century, it remains notoriously difficult to link
names such as Petrus de Cruce (Pierre de la Croix, fl. around 1290–1300) or
Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) with specific pieces.
The thirteenth-century motet quickly jumped the linguistic divide, combining
rhythmicized snippets of chant (in Latin) with either spiritual and admonitory
(Latin) or amorous, sometimes outright racy upper-voice texts in the vernacular
(Old French), and piling at least two, but often as many as three or even four texts
on top of one another. If the genesis of the new mensurally notated repertoire
seems at first to have been centered on Paris and northern France, the musical
technologies associated with it quickly spread to the rest of Europe, giving rise
initially to significant transfers of Notre-Dame style settings across Europe (for
example to Scotland or Castile) and soon to the creation of new repertoires and
styles of mensural polyphony derived from French models but in a distinctive
regional style. This was particularly the case in England (Latin-texted motets,
again transmitted mostly anonymously) and Italy (above all vernacular-texted
song, including copious ascriptions) in the course of the fourteenth century. In
northern France, courtly song was transformed between the late thirteenth to the
late fourteenth century from a monophonically notated into a polyphonic genre;
if polyphonic elaborations survive in limited quantity in the works of Adam de la
Halle (ca. 1270–1280), they dominate the musical oeuvre of poet-musician Guil-
laume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377) and are cultivated extensively during the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth century alongside the motet throughout northwes-

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tern Europe. The same goes for the Italian peninsula, where an autochthonous
tradition of polyphonic song (so-called “Trecento” polyphony) evolved in north-
ern Italy (Padua, Verona) and Tuscany (Florence) but toward the end of the
fourteenth century merged with the pronounced taste for French-texted and
French-styled chansons cultivated first at certain courts with political ties to
France, notably Milan, and later sweeping the peninsula at large. Large retro-
spective de-luxe sources such as the famous “Squarcialupi codex” (Florence,
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Mediceo Palatino 87, copied in Florence for
an unknown patron in the early fifteenth century) not only deliver a large, quasi-
encyclopedic, and ascribed repertoire (in the case of Squarcialupi even including
miniatures of each poet-musician with identifiable characteristics that stand up to
archival scrutiny) but also attest to a distinct awareness of the different styles co-
existing on the peninsula at the time – in the case of Squarcialupi by deliberately
focusing exclusively on Italian and specifically Tuscan musicians, with all that
entailed for local (Tuscan) identity formation, elsewhere by collecting music in
French, or in both, styles. Some of the most famous names in late-medieval music
history such as Francesco Landini (ca. 1325–1397) or, in the north, Guillaume de
Machaut (ca. 1300–1377) have come down to us specifically through the channel
of these very late “troubadour-style” manuscripts, whereas sources of polyphony
of a more utilitarian nature compiled throughout Europe in the years around and
after 1400 tend to be much more parsimonious with such ascriptive detail until
well into the fifteenth century, following earlier practice.
The fourteenth century also witnessed the emergence of polyphonic settings
of the Mass Ordinary, a noteworthy development because in previous centuries
compositional activity for the liturgy had been strictly centered on the Mass
Proper and the Office. The reasons for this shift must probably be sought in the
rise of lay piety and the consequent increase in secular patrons that characterized
the fourteenth and the fifteenth century. At first, only isolated sections of the
Ordinary were elaborated in mensural polyphony, in particular the Gloria and the
Credo, as visible in codices Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare 115 (Kügle 1997) and Apt,
Cathédrale Sainte-Anne, Bibliothèque du chapitre 16bis (Tomasello 1983). An
isolated full set survives by Machaut. By the early fifteenth century, copyists—and
probably performers, too—began to create sets of settings they found pleasing
together, such as Gloria-Credo pairs or (less frequently) the opening Mass “cycle”
of manuscript Bologna, Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica Q15,
which unites five Ordinary movements by several composers into a pasticcio
Mass, as recent research has shown (Bent 2008). An anonymous composition of
English origin, the so-called “Caput Mass” (named after a chant melisma on the
word “caput” from which it draws its musical and symbolic structure; Robertson
2006), by the 1440s paradigmatically introduced the use of a pre-existing melody

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1202 Karl Kügle
(“cantus firmus”), a technique borrowed from the motet that could serve as a
unifying device linking the five Ordinary movements into an ordered whole. This
would have been the case at least for singers and other connoisseurs, for the five
polyphonic settings would not have been heard sequentially as they are in
modern performances. Rather, they were integrated into the full course of the
Mass liturgy and therefore interspersed with the various (monophonically or
polyphonically executed) plainchants appropriate for a given celebration. Nor is
the borrowed melody necessarily set in a way as to be readily audible. The new
technique swept the courts of Europe, giving rise to a rich harvest of cantus
firmus-based Mass settings by singer-composers such as Guillaume Du Fay
(1397–1474), Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497), Jacob Obrecht (1457/58–1505), and
Josquin Desprez (ca. 1450–1521), to name but the most famous representatives.
Singers of mensural polyphony at the time typically were trained in the
cathedral and collegiate churches of northern France and the (southern) Low
Countries, and recruited by the princes of the world and the Church to be whisked
away to courtly and ecclesiastic centers in Italy, France, Iberia, Germany, and
Austria. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Brabançon singer, composer and
theorist Johannes Tinctoris (ca. 1430/35–1511, active at the court of Naples), in his
Terminorum musicae diffinitorium (compiled before 1475, printed version Treviso
1495), classified the Mass as the most demanding of genres of mensurally com-
posed polyphony (“cantus magnus”) whereas motet (“cantus mediocris”) and
song (“cantus parvus”) were seen as less challenging owing to their smaller scope
(Kirkman 2001). However, the two latter genres continued to thrive alongside the
Mass, leading to prototypical styles such as the extravagantly complex “ars
subtilior” of the period around 1400–1420, or the restrained beauty of the so-
called “Burgundian” chanson of the early fifteenth century.
F Music for Instruments

The medieval epistemology of music, rooted in Boethius and other early Chris-
tian writers, accounts for the aesthetic bias against instruments and the players
of instruments, especially the so-called minstrels, jongleurs (joglars), or Spiel-
leute who were by definition not members of the clergy or noble-born. However,
minstrels could be organized in guilds in late-medieval towns, thereby acquiring
at times considerable civic standing, and—certainly by the later Middle Ages—
they had their own infrastructure, in particular their annual meetings during
Lent called puy. While often highly prized, such performers were not necessarily
privy to the formal training in musica laid out above and, by extension, to the
technology of notating music mensurally, which was confined to members of

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the clergy by virtue of the lengthy training it required. Nevertheless, as pointed

out above, by the later Middle Ages at least the basics of that clerical knowledge
concerning mensural notation—just like alphabetic literacy—had entered the
stockpile of common knowledge, especially among urban populations.
Even so, we know comparatively very little of instrumental music in the
Middle Ages; and what we do know, is often filtered through the eyes and ears
of clerics, if it is not part and parcel of visual or textual narratives or of archival
documents (for example, payments for services rendered). Such iconographical,
narrative, and archival sources allow us to gain at least an indirect glimpse of
the musical world of the Middle Ages outside the Church. We know, for exam-
ple, that during the later Middle Ages nobles and townsfolk alike prized skilled
players, and that the German-speaking lands in particular produced highly
sought-after instrumentalists (Polk 1992). By the fifteenth century, we also find
the first substantial witnesses that notate instrumental music practices, at first
in Italy (Faenza, Biblioteca comunale 117) and later in southern Germany and
Austria (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. 3725 = “Buxheimer Orgel-
buch”), as mentioned earlier. Around 1300, the French writer Johannes de
Grocheio—probably a cleric associated with the university - gives us a tantaliz-
ing glimpse of the musica civilis (the music consumed and deemed suitable by
him for lay people) in Paris, including some sentences (but no more!) about
instrumental music (Page 1993). In sum, sophisticated music-making on instru-
ments was no doubt an integral part of courtly and civic life, and also found its
way into monastic and clerical spaces despite its morally somewhat question-
able qualities, but most of its sounds are lost to us. All the notated instrumental
music that we have from the Middle Ages remains dependent on models derived
from vocal music, be it chant, monophonic song, or the new mensural poly-
phony of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The next logical step—composing
notated parts for instruments in combination with voices, or composing music
specifically for instruments, occurred only around 1600 and hence falls beyond
the scope of this essay.
Select Bibliography
Bent, Margaret, Bologna Q15: The Making and Remaking of a Musical Manuscript (Lucca 2008).
Busse Berger, Anna Maria, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley, CA, 2005).
Fuller, Sarah, “The Myth of ‘Saint Martial’ Polyphony: A Study of the Sources,” Musica Disciplina
33 (1979): 5–26.
Grier, James, The Musical World of a Medieval Monk: Adémar de Chabannes in Eleventh-Century
Aquitaine (Cambridge 2006).

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1204 Karl Kügle
Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com (includes The New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie, second edition, London 2001; articles partially updated; [last
accessed Feb. 28, 2015).
Holsinger, Bruce W., Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer
(Stanford, CA, 2001).
Kügle, Karl, The Manuscript Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare 115: Studies in the Transmission and
Composition of Ars Nova Polyphony (Ottawa 1997).
Memelsdorff, Pedro, The Codex Faenza 117: Instrumental Polyphony in Late Medieval Italy (Lucca
2013).
Page, Christopher, The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, CT,
2010).
Polk, Keith, German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge 1992).
Robertson, Anne Walters, “The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput
Masses and Motets,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 59 (2006): 537–630.
Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum, http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/start.html [last accessed
on February 9, 2015].
Treitler, Leo, “The ‘Unwritten’ and ‘Written Transmission’ of Medieval Chant and the Start-Up of
Musical Notation,” Journal of Musicology 10 (1992): 131–91.
The Winchester Troper, facs. ed. and intro. Susan Rankin (London 2007).

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Moritz Wedell
Numbers
Translated by Erik Born
A Introduction
Abstraction, mathematical rationality, and scientific progress are commonly the
main criteria for modern scholarship’s interest in numbers. Against this back-
ground, the task of historicizing research is to bring the emergence of scientific
thought in line with a more encompassing history of numerical knowledge. If the
history of numbers is reduced to that of mathematical rationality, it ignores a
large part of the tradition. Reducing the history of numbers to that of their
religious usage, on the other hand, is just as blind. Mathematical rationality and
religious symbolism are only two aspects of the medieval use of numbers that
emerge from their complex history, and they are only dominant in particular
contexts.
My overview a history of numerical knowledge from the perspective of forms
of use that were developed for dealing with numbers. Even though this article
will refer to many particular and diverse contexts of counting, measuring, calcu-
lating, and theorizing, it cannot discuss all the fields that were relevant to the
history of numerical knowledge comprehensively. In particular, this article will
focus on the history of numerical knowledge in the Christian west. I proceed
from the most widespread practices, and then, step-by-step, sketch out the
special developments that characterized the medieval history of numerical
knowledge. I begin with the act of counting and the notation of numbers (B);
move from the role of numerals in medieval writing practices (C) to the practices
of measuring (D) and calculating (E.; and close with comments on medieval
theory building (F), on speculative interpretations of numbers (G), and with a
short conclusion (H).
In doing so, the article focuses on the phenomenality of number—i.e., num-
ber as a spoken counting word (B); as a graphic figure carved in wood or written
on parchment (B); as a formal pattern that organizes books and memory (C); as a
verbal expression for the documentation of quantities (D); as a manual or symbolic
instrument of calculation (E); as a formally structured multitude determined by
arithmetic properties (F), which as symbolic carriers organize interpretation pro-
cesses as well as the production of texts and works of art (G). Thus, the approach
allows for an exploration of how these varying phenomena of number incorporate

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1206 Moritz Wedell
different kinds of semantic saturation that derive from the various fields of its use.
As a result, this focus also contributes to dissolving traditional disciplinary gaps,
especially the opposition between the history of science, which traditionally deals
with the history of numerical knowledge, and historical branches of the huma-
nities, which handle semantic and narrative phenomena.
Methodologically, it is essential to note that these diverse forms of expressing
and notating numbers existed side-by-side in the Middle Ages. Such distribution
and variation can be explained according to criteria of function and mediality,
according to geographic divisions, and according to practitioners’ educational
and social milieus. From a comprehensive point of view, however, numbers in the
Middle Ages tended primarily to serve the purposes of counting or indicating the
results of counting (B). In particular, they served as signs for documenting
numerical values in the form of number symbols. Other levels of meaning could
also be ascribed to numbers, including the production of hierarchies (examples in
C III–IV) and the creation of analogies with biblical numbers or cosmic propor-
tions (G II). Numbers were used verbally and thus could be described from the
perspective of grammar (F VI); and at the same time, they merged into the
innumerable units of medieval measurement (D II 1). From this more comprehen-
sive vantage point, mathematics represents a smaller portion of the use of
numbers. For this reason, the history of numerals, number words, and number
symbols, also has to be considered apart from that of calculation. Although
numerals were used in a variety of contexts for purposes of notation, they were
themselves instruments of calculation in only one main context, namely, the
adaptation of the Indian method of reckoning from the Arabic sphere and its
development within the scholarly and commercial framework of the western
Middle Ages (E V–VI). Otherwise, numerals served as notation for numbers, while
calculation was carried out with auxiliary devices, such as the abacus (E II, III),
the technique of finger counting (E III) or various types of tables (C V).
The Latin and vernacular number words were the most widespread means of
handling numbers in the Middle Ages (B I). On the side of notation, the tally stick
was the universal medium for the use of numbers (B II). From the perspective of
media history, tallies stand at the cusp of literacy and are used across spaces and
milieus. In the written tradition, Roman numerals are the oldest way of writing
numbers and remained dominant until the sixteenth century (B III). Alongside
this numeral system, many other groups or systems of signs appeared for specific
applications (B IV). At first, the Hindu-Arabic numerals also had the status of
such a specialized system, with their impact becoming clear only in the later
Middle Ages. The history of their reception is not linear, and they reached wide
acceptance only after many fits and starts (B V). Another prominent subset of
numerical signs involves the numbers used in the technique of finger counting, a

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Numbers 1207
practice with a special status in computation on account of its unique mediality

(E.III).
B Counting with Words and Notating Numbers as

Symbols
In the semi-oral culture of the Middle Ages, the ubiquitous medium for using
numbers was language (B I), and in the domain of notation, across various
milieus, it was the tally stick (B II). Both media were determined by the conditions
of face-to-face communication. To some extent, language and tally sticks could
also provide for the spatial and temporal storage of numbers. Depending on the
milieu, they were influenced by knowledge of the tradition of literacy. Certain
types of tally sticks almost had the status of official written documents. Never-
theless, they differ from types of notation for numeral systems that were decidedly
written (B III V).
While Roman numerals were the most widespread numeral system (B III),
Hindu-Arabic numerals were connected with the most long term innovation,
gradually spreading over a large area and taking effect discontinuously through a
historical combination of social, educational, economic, and scientific factors
(B V). Alongside these systems for notating numbers, the largest part of those that
existed for special uses never took hold and fell out of use (B IV).
The history of the notation of numbers is closely connected to a series of
further developments: the appearance of procedures for organizing texts and the
manuscript page (C II); the development of bookkeeping especially in connection
with making commodities measurable and adjusting writing for both practice to
administrative needs (C III); the tabular arrangement of relations among numbers
in calculation tables and for the representation of knowledge in number theory
(C IV–V; F); and lastly, developments in speculative arithmetic (G I).
I Number Words
The acts of naming quantities and of counting verbally were the most basic ways
of using and understanding numbers in the Middle Ages. This is not as trivial as it
may appear at first glance. On the one hand, number words served to name
quantities. On the other hand, as a series, they formed the sequence of cardinal
numbers (one, two, three). These, in turn, corresponded to a series of further types
of numerals: ordinal numbers (first, second, third), which express sequence order,

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1208 Moritz Wedell
or rank; distributive numbers (two-by-two, three-by-three, four-by-four; two at a

time, three at a time, four at a time), which organize the size of groups; iterative
numbers (twice, three times, four times), which indicate repetition; multipliers
(double, triple, quadruple), which indicate multiples of something; collective
numbers (a dozen), which are units for particular quantities; fractions (a half, a
third, a fourth); and natural language quantifiers (much, little). In the medieval
Latin discourse, all of these numerals are incorporated into the typology of the
species numerorum (F.VI).
While the inventory of medieval number words is well documented in dic-
tionaries of medieval languages, there are still no comprehensive studies of their
grammatical qualities, and scholarship remains largely limited to grammatical
reference works (for a contemporary approach based on modern languages see
Wiese 2003). As a result, historical studies lack important insights about the
medieval understanding of numbers and of groups of things, particularly in the
vernaculars.
Grammatically, the words for numbers in medieval languages were incoher-
ent, even more so than in modern languages. Today, we usually classify medieval
number words, like modern ones, as adjectives. However, in many cases, these
words function grammatically as substantives, adverbs, and indefinite pronouns.
These classifications are contested even within individual languages, as the
typological studies of Indo-Germanic by Greenberg (1978) and Gvozdanovic
(1999) have shown (on the origin of Indo-Germanic counting words see Nehring
1929). In the case of the premodern German language, arguments about these
diverse classifications are based partly on the etymology of number words
(Schmid 1987), and partly on the differences among regional numeric systems
that the numerals corresponded to (Schuppener 1996; 2002).
The grammatical function of number words was the main contributing
factor in the assimilation of their formal properties (Wiese 1996). Historically,
their use in recurring syntactic contexts led to the assimilation of what were
originally heterogeneous expressions. This process applies not only to the
formal but also the conceptual properties of number words. It is particularly
conducive to the formation of recursive procedures that govern the production
of compound number words (e.g., thir-teen, four-teen, fif-teen, twenty-one,
twenty-two, etc.). Menninger (1969, 71–86) presents empirical examples of such
procedures. Wiese (1997) develops a theoretical model for generating number
words (succinctly, Wiese 2001; Wedell 2011, 59–62 on Middle High German).
Although the number words form a category on their own and apart from this
trend of homogenization, the medieval counting words do at the same time
belong in the heterogeneous field of names for units of measurement, which is
discussed in section D II 1.

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Finally, it is striking that the medieval counterparts of the modern words for
counting in Germanic and Romance languages, also refer semantically not only to
quantification, but also to acts of ranking, of distribution, etc. While there is a
certain variety among these languages, the semantic scope of words (ae. tael, it.
conto, germ. zal, etc.) and affixes largely corresponds to the functions of the
various types of number words (for a case study on Middle High German zal/zeln,
see Wedell 2011).
II Material Counting Notations (Tally Sticks)
The elementary form of notation for counting is accumulating notches on a tally

stick. Interestingly, this form of notation is almost a material realization of what
is arguably the ontological core of counting—an iterative linguistic gesture of
saying “this.” As Leibniz (1646–1716) put it in his Confessio philosophi, cum
numeramus […] dicimus hoc (numerare enim est repetitum hoc): “when we count,
that is, when we say this (for to count is to repeat this)” (Leibniz 2005, 102).
Etymologically, the expressions for counting in both Romance and Germanic
languages can be traced back to the notches on tally sticks (cf. Bugge 1870, 423,
434–35; Rosenhagen 1920; Brøndal 1948, 164–65). The semantic range of words
for counting in the Middle Ages (tell, count, zählen, compter, B.I) may have
developed from this practice, given the horizons of a (semi)oral culture (Wedell
2004; 2011).
The advantages of using tally sticks are obvious: they can be easily trans-
ported and they last longer than paper; they can be used simply for recording
amounts, or for documenting sums of money or amounts of particular wares; and
literacy is not necessarily a prerequisite for their use. In the simplest case, tally
sticks were used privately as counting sticks. In trade, they often served as
documents of credits and debts. To guarantee the validity of the documentation,
they were frequently broken right across the notches, and each of the partners in
the contract received one half of the stick. When the debt was being settled up,
both of these halves had to fit together, as a means of monitoring the process. No
other contemporary technique of documentation guaranteed such a high degree
of protection against forgery as did tally sticks. The medieval English financial
administration used official tally sticks that could be given out as receipts for
taxes that had been paid.
Research on the medieval use of tally sticks is difficult because the logic of
these objects dictates that they were destroyed after use. Given what objects have
been preserved, however, we can proceed from the premise that they were used as
the basic medium for handling numbers a million times over (Clanchy 2013, 126).

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One of the largest collections of tally sticks that have survived is in the University
Museum in Bergen, Norway. It is a collection of objects that come from the move-
ments of traders at the Hanseatic port of Bryggen (Bergen). Significant objects in
this collection have been researched, classified, and contextualized by Axel
Grandell (for an extensive overview including other material from all of Europe,
see Grandell 1982; for studies of specific objects, Grandell 1984; 1985; 1986; 1988;
for a formal typology of the Bergen tallies, Wedell 2011, 206–12). Roman Kovalev
connected these findings to birch-bark inscriptions and tally sticks from the
Russian Baltic Sea area—another large collection is preserved in the State History
Museum in Novgorod, Russia. As a result, he was able to draw new conclusions
about the economic practices of the Hanseatic region, especially about the devel-
opment of a credit economy (2000; 2002; 2003a; 2003b; 2003c; 2009; a formal and
functional typology of the Novgorod tallies is given in Kovalev 2007).
A third large inventory of objects is the English financial administration’s
tally sticks, today preserved in several institutions: Public Record Office, Bank of
England, British Museum, Greater London. These tally sticks, which combine a
very elaborate code of notches with inscriptions made in ink, were described by
Sir Hilary Jenkinson (1911; 1913; on their position in economic history, see Baxter
1994). Support for an interpretation of the use of this sign system to make tally
sticks function as receipts for taxes, can be found in Ricardus of Ely’s (also known
as Ricardus Thesaurarius, Richard FitzNigel, or Richard FitzNeal; ca. 1130–1198)
contemporary Dialogus de scaccario (I, V). Information about the ceremony in
which the notching was made, was collected by Jones (2008; 2009), and contex-
tualized and historically reconstructed by Kypta (Kypta 2014). Here, official tally
sticks should be differentiated from tally sticks that were exhibited privately, the
latter being based on the official pieces in their forms but freer and more situa-
tion-dependent in their details (Jenkinson 1924).
Research has developed in a new direction in light of the paradigm of orality
and literacy, with tally sticks frequently being interpreted as part of the history
of writing. Crucial for any interpretation of the tradition is the transition from
sequential counting to more complex forms of signs that are closer to writing in a
strict sense. As a result of this new direction in research, several scholars have
revisited the archaeological records (Vernus-Mouton 1991; Kuchenbuch 1999;
2002; Kovalev 2000; 2002a; 2002b; 2003a; 2003b; 2003c; 2007; 2009; Wedell 2011,
183–304). This approach applies to the material tradition and especially to pictor-
ial material, on the basis of which we can reconstruct the use of tally sticks
(Kuchenbuch 2002; Kovalev 2002b; 2003b; Wedell 2011, 259–67). An inquiry by
the Annales School assembled further material, though it only partly stretched
back to the Middle Ages (Berthet 1949; Febvre 1951; cf. Hémardinquer 1963; 1972).
A few older monographs that were hardly developed further but remain in no way

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obsolete, were dedicated to the economic and legal history of tally sticks (Kosta-
necki 1900; Reichel 1748; Fuchs 1668).
III Roman Numerals
In premodern manuscript culture, Roman numerals were the dominant numeral

system. The history of their origins, and that of their development and use in the
Middle Ages, has not yet been fully explained (on their origins, see Smith 1925,
vol. II, 54–64; Ullmann 1932, 189–92; and especially, Keyser 1988). What we know
about Roman numerals has also not yet been systematically reviewed. Cappelli
provides an overview of medieval modes of writing (1990, 413–21). Lemay (1988)
describes two unique medieval Spanish developments, which he finds primarily
in the context of astronomy and astrology: first, the elimination of the principle of
subtraction (‘4’ as ‘IV’) in favor of sequential numbering (‘4’ as ‘IIII’); second, the
replacement of individual signs by letters (‘q’ as in ‘quator’ for ‘IV’, etc.). Occa-
sionally, Roman numerals were represented in a decimal positional notation
system, e.g., “1250” as “I.II.L” (King 2001, 284) or by adding additional signs
(Lemay 1988, 471–72). Paucton gathers together the Roman numerals that were
based on special metrological characters (Paucton 1780, 95–100; 400–09; but
only partly reaching back to the Middle Ages). Murray discusses reasons for the
persistence of the conventional mode of writing, as Roman numerals retained
their uncontested position of dominance up to the fifteenth century (Murray 1978,
162–87; on the competition between Roman numerals and the Hindu-Arabic way
of writing numbers, cf. Lemay 1988, 472–74).
IV Notations with Particular Functions
There were several kinds of proto-written notations that indicated quantity when
taking measurements. What was being labeled were packaging units and infor-
mation about weight, lengths, labels on clocks and calendars (an overview in
King 2001, 321–54), as well as the territorial markings of Roman land-surveyors,
known as “agrimensores” (Lejay 1898). Alongside this use of proto-written signs
on objects, medieval manuscript culture, especially after the twelfth century,
developed sets of signs that appear similar in terms of their forms but never-
theless performed different conceptual and practical functions.
In monasteries and cathedral schools, signs were created for organizing and
indexing manuscripts, for labeling scientific instruments, and sometimes for
personal purposes, as in Robert Grosseteste’s (ca. 1175–1253) reading notations

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(Hunt 1953). A large portion of these signs consisted of reading aids, particularly
for the task of information retrieval. Most of them were developed in the Cistercian
milieu and spread from there across various regions (Rouse 1976). In this respect,
the Cistercian monastic ciphers published by King (2001) are particularly note-
worthy. This mode of writing requires exactly the same space for each cipher, so
that it was particularly well suited for drawing up registers and for use on
scientific instruments (C II).
Alongside this unique mode of writing, alphanumeric notations were also in
use, such as the one from the Venerable Bede (657–735), placed at the beginning
of his book on calculating time, De temporum ratione (esp. chpt. I.1), together with
finger numbers (E III). The medieval tradition of alphanumeric nota ion (C I) goes
back to the Gothic numerals used in Bishop Wulfila’s (ca. 311–383 C.E.) surround-
ings and even further to ancient Greek forms of notation (Menninger 1969, 259–
74). Our sources for this way of writing, beyond grammatical treatises (e.g.,
Priscian De figuris numerorum; see also C I), can be found in encyclopedic and
astronomical literature, as well as in alphabet collections (Leclerq 1903; King
2001, 291–94). Burnett reviews alphanumeric notations in twelfth-century Italy
(Burnett 2000); Bischoff mentions numerous uses of numerals in place of letters
in his collection of non-diplomatic cryptographs (Bischoff 1954).
V Hindu-Arabic Numerals
At first, Hindu-Arabic numerals were only one special way of writing numbers
among many, confined to a very focused field of scholarly applications. They can
be traced back to the fifth-century mode of writing Indian numerals, insofar as
they are based on an inventory of nine numerals that are written down in a
decimal positional notation system. Their form changed greatly due to the hetero-
geneous transmission of Arabic texts (Lemay 1982, 384–87; King 2001, 311).
Crucial for their history in Europe was their adaptation and reworking by Muḥam-
mad ibn Mūsā al-Ḫwārizmī (ca. 780–ca. 850). They first appeared in the encyclo-
pedic literature of the tenth century (B V 1). In this period of adaptation, Hindu-
Arabic numerals obtained the shape from which modern western numeral forms
descend. Ultimately, the transmission of Hindu-Arabic numerals, which led to
their eventually dominant position in Europe, did not proceed in a linear fashion
but through a complex and discontinuous process (B V 1–3).
For a concise overview on their introduction in Europe see King (2001, 307–
17; esp. 311 on the problematic term “Hindu-Arabic”). A comprehensive overview
of their history can be found in Smith and Karpinski (1911; richly illustrated),
which Lemay updates with clarifications about the history of Ghubar numerals

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and the role of Hindu-Arabic numerals in the fourteenth century (Lemay 1982,
382–98). The history of Hindu-Arabic numerals is concisely reviewed by Tropfke
(1980, 61–70 with bibliography) and presented for specific authors by Cajori for
the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period (Cajori 1928, 100–99). Over-
views of the complete spectrum of written medieval numerals and their history
can be found in Friedlein (1869, 13–78), and Smith (1925, vol. 2, 54–88). Hill (1915)
collected about 1000 different sets of Arabic numerals used in the west, mainly
from manuscripts of the British Museum. Ifrah (1994) assembles a broad range of
illustrations but lacks historical contextualization (n.b., the translations into
other European languages are sometimes drastically shortened). From the per-
spective of cultural history, Menninger discusses the migration and spread of
Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe (Menninger 1969, 400–45).
1 Ghubar Numerals
The earliest evidence of the European reception of Indian numerals in their

western-arabic form can be found in the transmission of Isidore of Seville’s (or
Isidorus Hispalensis, ca. 560–636) Etymologies (Etymologiarum sive originum libri
xx). In two tenth-century manuscripts, they are notated as a sequence from 1–9 as
a supplement to the names of Roman numerals (III.3; Smith and Karpinski 1911,
138; copy in van der Waerden and Folkerts 1976, 54–55). These Indian numerals
were also called Ghubar numerals, a name that refers to the dust board (gubar)
with which arithmetic calculations were carried out following al-Ḫwārizmī (ca.
780–ca. 850) (on the name gubar, see Folkerts 2001; on the technique, see
Berggren 1986, 31–35). In their European adaptation, Ghubar numerals were used
to mark the value of calculating stones used with the Gerbertian abacus (E IV), a
device that is documented across Europe from the tenth through the twelfth
centuries (for pictorial material and their place in history, see Folkerts 1996;
2001). This step in their reception was accompanied by a change in their form—
namely, rotating the numerals, from which the modern way of writing them is
derived (Beaujouan 1948; Folkerts 2001; Lemay 1977). The connection between
the abacus and Hindu-Arabic numerals probably goes back to Gerbert of Aur-
illac’s (ca. 945–1003) Regulae de numerorum abaci rationibus (E IV).

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2 Numerals in Algorithm Treatises
A second context for the reception of Arabic numerals was the translation of
Arabic texts into Latin starting in the twelfth century in Toledo, the main center of
intellectual exchange with the Arabic cultural sphere at the time (on the general
setting of adaptation and exchange see in this volume the contribution of Mark. T.
Abate “Convivencia,” section G). Al-Ḫwārizmī’s (ca. 780–ca. 850) fundamental
work Dixit Algorismi was a part of this process (edition, translation, and commen-
tary of the Latin adaptation of the lost Arabic original in Folkerts, ed., 1997). These
translations were the first to import Hindu-Arabic numerals into Europe for
performing calculations with a positional notational system—initially, only with a
dust board (Berggren 1986, 31–35). In their earliest form, these numerals are
sometimes referred to as “Toledan” numerals. The corresponding treatises, how-
ever, did not contribute to a larger spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals (manuscript
catalogue and illustrations in Burnett 2002a; 2005b), which only first came about
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with Alexander of Villedieu’s (also
Alexander de Villa Dei; d. ca. 1250) Carmen de algorismo and Johannes de
Sacrobosco’s (first half of the thirteenth c.) Algorismus vulgaris. Both of these
texts, along with Boethius’s (Anincius Manlius Severinus Boethius, ca. 480–525
C.E.) De arithmetica, were among the most widely circulated texts in the Middle
Ages (Folkerts, ed., 1997, 10–12), and they contributed to establishing the Indian
method of calculation as a part of the university curriculum (E V).
3 Numerals in Commercial Arithmetics
A third context for the reception of Hindu-Arabic numerals can be found in

Leonardo Pisano’s (also known as Leonardo of Pisa, or Fibonacci; ca. 1170–after
1240) Liber Abaci: the first part of the treatise teaches the contemporary status of
number theory and of calculating with Hindu-Arabic numerals; but the second
part provides examples that are directed at the needs of trading. This latter was
probably the reason that Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci was the first to make this new
technique of calculating spread intensively in a lay milieu (E VI). But there was
also a large formal heterogeneity: the British Museum’s manuscript holdings
alone document over 1000 different sets of numerals for European Hind-Arabic
numerals (Hill 1915). This heterogeneity is probably the main reason for autho-
rities’ skepticism about Indian figures (King 2001, 313–16; Lüneburg 2008, 106–
09). (Hughes [1996] also discusses religious reservations about what was prob-
ably the most important Arabic work on algebra, Omar Khayyam’s [1048–ca. 1131]
al-Jabr w’al Muqābalah [Khayyam 1931], which was not even translated into

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Latin.) Only with the spread of printed arithmetic books in the fifteenth century
does a certain, though still regional, coherence came about for ways of writing the
Hindu-Arabic numerals (Cajori 1928, 125–99), which only became dominant over
the course of the sixteenth century. In 1514, Jacob Köbel (1462–1533) was still
teaching calculating on lines (auf den linien, i.e., on the abacus) in his arithmetic
book Ain New geordnet Rechen biechlin, because he considered the Hindu-Arabic
numerals to be too difficult for the common laity to learn (fol. A 4b).
C Writing Numbers on the Manuscript Page

At first, the use of numbers in writing was not formally homogeneous. There has
only been limited research on the relationship between numbers and letters (C I),
and on the particular functions of the graphic presence of numerals. These
phenomena are closely related to the contexts of using numbers in memory
practices (C II); in bookkeeping and in scientific texts (C III–V); as well as in
teaching (C VI); and numbers must be understood within these contexts. These
uses of numbers also encounter the problem of notation, which arises when
creating abstractions in measuring (D), calculating (E) and using diagrammatic
representations (F VII).
I Number Symbols and Letters
In Martianus Capella’s Marriage of Philology and Mercurcy (fl. 410–429 C.E.), the
figure of philologia appears with the aim of reconciling the art of letters and that
of numbers, while also offering a procedure for converting numbers and letters
into each other (II,101–09). As in this literary representation, the way of writing
numerals was actually not only a subject of mathematical treatises but also of
grammar, insofar as the task of this subject was to show and explain litterae
(Stockhammer 2012, with illustrations). For example, in his short treatise De
figuris numerorum, Priscianus Caesariensis (fl. around 500 C.E.) discusses the
figurae numerorum (Priscianus Caesariensis, ed. Herz, 406–07; Priscianus Caesar-
iensis, ed. Passalaqua, 4–6) in terms of their visual shape, and also outlines a
derivation for numerals. In doing so, he refers the Roman alphanumeric character
set further to the acrophonic Attic system, also known as “Herodianic signs” after
Herodianus, the second-century Byzantine grammarian who first described them.
These signs took their form from the initial letter of each numeral adjective.
Different from the decimal system of Hindu-Arabic numerals, but similar to the
Roman numeral system they support a grouping by fives (Cajori 1928, 22; Mennin-

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ger 1969, 268–70). Isidore of Sevilla (also Isidorus Hispalensis; ca. 560/70–636
C.E.) also discusses the way of writing the figurae numerorum in the Etmyologies
(Etymologiarum sive orginum libri xx, Liii) within the framework of grammar and
here in the context of describing litterae. In doing so, he distinguishes between
the Greek alphanumeric character set and the Latin character set, to which he in
turn ascribes heterogeneous origins. Isidore’s interest is not only in litterae, but in
notae in a more general sense: under notae, he understands not only numerals,
but also diacritic marks and military signals. Rabanus Maurus (ca. 776–856)
discusses the figurae numerorum again in an independent treatise, De inventione
linguarum (coll. 1579–80), namely, in the context of different alphabets. He
orients himself to the Greek alphanumeric system, but expands the series of
numbers to include additional signs. Lastly, Virgilius Maro Grammaticus (fl. mid
seventh c.) (Grammatica, ca. XII, line 36–42) presents a playful variant on the
Roman numerals. In all of these treatises, dating from the first millennium,
Hindu-Arabic numerals are only a marginal issue. We find the earliest evidence
for Hindu-Arabic numerals only in one appendix to the corresponding excerpt
from Isidore in two tenth-century Spanish manuscripts (B V 1).
Roman numerals were usually not set off from the continuous text in which
they were embedded, or if so, only minimally (Swetz 2002, 402–03, with illustra-
tions). By contrast, Hindu-Arabic numerals used in algorithms were frequently
written in small boxes resting horizontally on the line (Burnett 2010, with illustra-
tions). There is some evidence of this for Roman numerals as well, when they
were discussed in arithmetic treatises with reference to their qualities (Müller
2012a; 2012b; both with illustrations). Though more comprehensive research is
still lacking, these studies indicate that the figurae numerorum did not necessarily
take on a particular significance in the organization of the page. However, they
did become visually significant when they were explicitly displayed as symbols
referring to formal operations (see also C III).
II Retrieval Schemes: From Mental Technique to Page Layout
In the intellectual culture of the monasteries and cathedral schools, the use of
numbers became central to the organization of manuscripts. With the develop-
ment of new reading practices, new techniques of information retrieval were
elaborated. As soon as monastic ruminatio, the continuous reading and re-read-
ing of texts, no longer stood in the foreground, and non-linear reading practices
became common, different procedures were developed to make texts accessible,
including numbering, indexing, and hierarchical organization. Bookmaking in-
creasingly involved the division of codices into books, chapters, and paragraphs.

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Numbered tables of contents and alphabetically or thematically organized indices

were added, which could lead readers to the page or section where they would
find specific information. Such practices developed, above all, in the Cistercian
milieu (Hunt 1953; Lehmann 1936; Rouse 1976; Rouse and Rouse 1983; 1990;
Parkes 1992; King 2001). Over the course of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries,
these procedures were transferred to administrative practices (Brown et al., ed.,
2013; Seidel 2008; the papers collected in Fried, ed., 1997, discuss also earlier
trends).
One particularly important numerical instrument for indexing is the “Euse-
bian apparatus.” Many manuscripts of the New Testament are prefixed by what
are commonly known as “canon tables.” These indicated which narratives were
contained in multiple gospels and where they could be found. In addition, all the
sections within each gospel were numbered consecutively. Despite a certain
variance from manuscript to manuscript, there were roughly 355 sections in
Matthew, 241 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and 232 in John. Using tables, the Eusebian
apparatus displayed the passages that were recounted in all four gospels, fol-
lowed by those that appeared in three gospels, etc. While the sections of the
gospels were first numbered by Ammonius of Alexandria (fl. third c. C.E.), the
numeration of these “Ammonian Sections” was then merged into synoptic tables
by Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260/65–339/40 C.E.) (principally Nordenfalk 1938;
concise introduction in Parker 2008, 315f.). Furthermore, the Eusebian canons
have been also been studied for their rich pictorial decoration, usually from the
perspective of art history and with reference to individual manuscripts (e.g.,
Klemm 1972; Mütherich 1987; Nordenfalk 1982; Wright 1979).
Only in 1560 was the first Bible with consistent numbers for books, chapters,
and verses printed in Geneva (Geneva Bible 1560). Before then, there was a long
history of reworking, improving, and standardizing the Bible’s organizational
scheme, including the Eusebian apparatus and the chapter divisions of Stephen
Langton (ca. 1150–1228), a process that primarily served to allow the (already
memorized) texts of the Christian scriptures and of the Church Fathers to be
recalled from memory. Although chapter numbers were inserted routinely since
the beginning of the thirteenth century, the numbers of verses generally do not
appear before the mid-sixteenth century (Carruthers 2008, 126). Carruthers argues
that, in lieu of written segmentation, mental techniques prevailed. Locating a
specific biblical verse was possible through the application of mnemotechnical
schemes, which were based on the classical tradition of locational memory but
developed further to sustain information retrieval. For example, Hugh of St.
Victor (or Hugo de St. Victor; ca. 1096–1141) describes a kind of numerical grid
that could be laid over any text that had been memorized (Hugh de St. Victor
1943, 489). This practice was extraordinarily widespread, either being combined

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with other established schemes of organization, such as the alphabet or solmiza-

tion (i.e., the series of names for the tone syllables in music), or used as an
alternative to them. These organizational schemes were eventually established to
such an extent that they were transferred from biblical texts to other genres. What
was initially a mnemotechnical scheme of organization eventually became pro-
ductive, as a rhetorical scheme, and subsequently, a visual scheme through the
use of headings, rubrication, etc. (Carruthers 2008, 99–152).
III The Number in the Sentence
When it came to medieval texts that summed up property, determined debts,

recorded dues, or carried out payments, numbers still did not have a fixed place
in the graphic space of the manuscript page. Frequently, these texts were ordered
so that numerical figures were written out in words, and numerical statements
were written out in full sentences. These texts had to answer not only the question
of how to conceive of goods as countable objects, but also how to notate these
quantities according to their administrative significance. The fundamental het-
erogeneity of writing traditions and of the traditions of determining quantities
subjected intellectual schemes and the development of writing practices to a
longer process of adjustment.
There are three key aspects of this process of intellectual adjustment to the
problem of conceiving of goods as countable and measurable objects: detaching
one’s perception of things from the practical context of everyday routines; system-
atically isolating the qualities of objects deemed to be important for administra-
tion; and developing written forms for documenting these isolated qualities. This
process can be read off of manuscripts in detail. The main practice, extending
across centuries from the earliest ninth-century documents, consisted of drawing
distinctions between things, measures, and numbers. It prepared the way for
early modern and modern bookkeeping, and its significance for the history of
measuring cannot be overestimated (see D).
Significantly, the criteria that were important for medieval administration can
differ markedly from modern ideas. In addition to alphabetic criteria of organiza-
tion, further criteria were based on the species of the objects being measured, the
region in which they were found, and their economic or religious significance (see
D I 2). Initially, there were not any conventions governing the range of criteria
applicable to medieval administration practices (Kuchenbuch 2012a; Hermand
et al., ed., 2012). In addition, arithmetic correctness frequently played a subordi-
nate role in the courtly practice of calculation (Seggern and Fouquet, ed., 2000),
and in what is known as “counted piety,” a tradition of counting different acts of

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piety (e.g., prayers, bodily exercises, donations) and converting them into one
another. This practice had strong administrative traits (Angenend et al. 1995).
Occasionally, numerical analogies to biblical figures or astronomical information
determined which numerical values were indicated in detail (see F). Similarly, for
the writing of chronicles, the “informative value” of numbers (valoire informatif)
played a particular role alongside biblical and cosmic models of numbers. In
contrast to a modern concept of quantification, more overarching estimates were
used rhetorically as vivid images (Flori 1993). Likewise, processes of calculation
in mathematical literature were not formalized in symbols for a long time, but
rather remained stated in complete sentences (see E IV–V).
Measured according to modern standards, some of these practices can seem
irrational, and consequently, scholarship occasionally attributes a perceived lack
of arithmetic rationality to the alleged backwardness and incompetence of medie-
val practitioners. This impression should not be generalized. The availability of
mathematical knowledge was admittedly different according to regional condi-
tions and those of milieu. However, we can still proceed from the assumption that
the chosen ordering patterns also followed from a situated rationality that was
consciously placed against, or over, arithmetic rationality. An archaeological
analysis of the history of number has the task of first reconstructing the specific
rationalities that were connected to practices in terms of objects, actions, situa-
tions, and communication.
IV Lists and Tables
Only over the course of the Late Middle Ages did quantification gain such a strong
conceptual significance that the representation of numerical figures generally
began to stick out from the flow of the text. In administrative sources, the practice
of writing out inventories in complete sentences was increasingly replaced by
more analytical ways of writing in which three main categories were written down
separately: the object (the specific commodity; or the “measurand”); the number
(the indication of amount or magnitude; or the “numerical quantity value”); and
the measure (the name of the corresponding “unit of measurement”). The starting
point for this process was indicating a measurement as an expression of an object
that was given as a multiplicity. That is, number had the status of an accidental
property of objects in early documents. As part of the analytical differentiation of
documentation, numbers were increasingly used to indicate the quantity of units
of measurement with which the amount of an object was determined. In other
words, number became an accidental property of units of measurement. In this
sense, the quantity that was incorporated into the object (the “integrated num-

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ber”) was excorporated from the indication of amount, and it became an indepen-
dent instrument of expressing a quantity (see D II 1–2).
Separating objects, numbers, and measurements contributed to the develop-
ment of tabular forms of representation in documentation. In principle, these
representations took the form of lists (Koch 1990; 1997). Within the entries in
lists, then, local writing practices gradually adjusted to more complex adminis-
trative procedures, and an analytical understanding of objects, numbers, and
measurements became apparent (on merchants’ books, Arlinghaus 2000; 2002;
on feudal bookkeeping, Kuchenbuch 1993; 1994; 1999; 2012a; Bertrand 2012).
The asynchrony of this development is evident in the English Royal Court’s
settlement of taxes, the Pipe Rolls, which have been preserved since 1129. From
the start, the information in these sources was noted in numerals, ordered
graphically, and it was consistently correct in terms of arithmetic. Due to
unknown reasons, however, only the earlier Pipe Rolls organized information in
tables, while the later ones gradually dissolved it in the flow of the text (Kypta
2014, 51–83).
Analytical ways of writing came to play a role in historiography as well. The
prehistory of historical tables stretches back to bishops’ lists (Caspar 1975) and
synoptic representations of historiographical lines in Eusebius of Caesarea’s (ca.
260/65–339/40 C.E.) chronicle, transmitted in Latin through Jerome’s (or Euse-
bius Sophronius Hieronymus, ca. 347–420 C.E.) Hieronymi Chronicon (a graphic
adaptation from 699 can be found in Herkommer 1987, 148). Since then, the
combination of Christian and pagan history, not only conceptually but also
graphically, influenced the representational problems of universal chronicles
(Zimmermann 1977; Collioth-Thélène 2003). In the late Middle Ages and the early
modern period, this tradition of tabular arrays was made productive in a changed
medial context, to order, interpret, and transmit history (Brendecke 2001; 2003;
2004; Steiner 2008).
Beyond all these fields, an analytical tabular way of writing was applied in
astronomical literature, especially in descriptions of the movements of heavenly
bodies, but also in multiplication tables (C V). Of particular significance among
the countless tabular columns of figures found in astronomical literature are
those that lie in the overlapping field of historiography and astronomy, namely,
the tables on determining the date of Easter, known as Paschal Tables (E I).

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V Tables and Diagrams
The epistemic potential of tables goes beyond organizing inventories in the form
of lists (Hilgers and Khaled 2004). Numbers in tables were not only used in
connection with other kinds of entries, such as properties, historical events, or
astronomical movements. They also organized the relationship of numbers to
other numbers. In doing so, the connection of lines with columns, which usually
remains latent in administrative and historiographical records, was made produc-
tive.
Two main traditions came together in the medieval number table. On the one
hand, many tables of mathematical calculations were present in sources on
astronomy and calendar reckoning (E I), serving as calculation aids. Usually, in
the Western tradition, these tables were not put together comprehensively as was
the case in the Arabic sphere (see King 1974), being dependent on particular
applications. Thus, multiplication tables for only the numbers 7, 19, 28, and 59 are
regularly given in astronomical literature, because these multipliers supported
the majority of calculations. One example of such a set of multiplication tables
can be found in Codex Oxford St. John’s College MS 17 (f. 34v–35r with tables for
4, 5, 7, 11, 19, 29, 30, and 59; digital edition: Wallis 2007). An important strand of
this tradition of practical calculation aids can be found in Victorius of Aquitaine’s
(fl. fifth c.) Calculus (Victorius 1871). This treatise was incorporated into abacus
literature, where it was commented on by Abbo of Fleury (ca. 945–1004; Peden
2003), and in turn, was integrated into computational literature (Wallis 2007,
comments on f. 34v–35r).
The other more prominent tradition of number tables was derived from
ancient diagrammatics, which entered into specific artes literature and medieval
encyclopedicism. In this tradition, diverse connections among knowledge were
visualized, ordered, explained, proved, and transmitted in a recurrent but also
increasingly expanding inventory of images and forms (seminally, Murdoch 1984;
Obrist 2004). Medieval number theory became part of this tradition, and wa
(see F) intensively reworked in the form of diagrams, especially in the twelfth
century. This integration of number theory applies especially to Boethius’s (Anin-
cius Manlius Severinus Boethius, ca. 480–524) writings on arithmetic (De arithme-
tica) (Müller 2012a; 2012b), but also to diagrams of his music theory (De institu-
tione musica) (Mellon 2011, 169–252). While diagrams of Boethius’s arithmetic
initially varied greatly, they were increasingly systematized, being adapted to the
operative potential of tables and overlaid with multiplication tables (Hilgers and
Khaled 2004; Müller 2012b; Koch 1997). As a result, some of these diagrams
functioned both as instruments of calculation and as a means of representing the
determination of the relation among numbers.

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The technique of operationalizing the graphic arrangement of numbers on a

surface, was also used in a monastic game based on calculation and arithmetic
knowledge called “rithmomachy” or “Zahlenkampfspiel” (also numerorum con-
flictus or rithmomachia) (Hilgers and Khaled 2004; on the sources, Folkerts 1992b;
exhaustively, Borst 1986; Moyer 2001). The game was played on a checkered
surface similar to a chessboard. The movements of the game were based on the
qualities of numbers that were taught in Boethian arithmetic (modern instructions
for playing the game in Illmer et al. 1987).
The operational use of diagrammatic surfaces was also a formal precondition
for the construction of astronomical instruments. Müller (2008, 266–70) sketches
the connection between diagrams and astrolabes in the Middle Ages (the working
principles of the astrolabe are explained in King 2001, 359–63). The technique of
displaying arithmetic proportions in geometric terms, which the astrolabe de-
ployed, can also be found in later instruments developed to simplify the process
of field measurement (e.g., the “Quadratum geometricum”). The same technique
also applied to calculation instruments such as the “sector” that Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642) presented under the name of a “geometric and military compass”
(compasso geometrico et militare) (Galileo 1606). This instrument allowed calcula-
tions that otherwise would demand elaborate mathematical skills to be performed
mechanically. Hence, Galileo praised the diagrammatic representation of num-
bers as the “Royal Road” (Via veramente Regia) to geometry and arithmetic.
Multiplication tables from late antiquity and the Middle Ages can thus also be
seen as the beginning of a history of avoiding calculation (Galileo 1606, A i discreti
lettori; explanations and illustrations in Korey 2007, 17–19, 28–31).
VI Didactics of Writing Shapes
Modern editions of medieval sources usually reproduce medieval number nota-

tions in modern symbols and in a modern typeset, often even including modern
operators like “+,” “-,” “x,” “:,” or “=”. This is highly problematic for all kinds of
mathematical literature as well as for administrative sources, because the graphic
aspect of writing also played an epistemological role throughout the Middle Ages.
For example, the possibility of reading off orders of magnitude from the positional
length of notations made it easier to approximate numerical values. Furthermore,
the results of calculations—or even of the processes of writing from which they
result—were frequently provided in sketches. These, in turn, could be interpreted
iconically, and partly ‘sketched out’ in further images. It is necessary to take this
practice into consideration to understand the names that were given to proce-
dures of calculation, e.g., in late Italian manuscripts—castellucio (in the form of a

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“little castle”), “per campana” (a bell), “gelosia” (a grid), and “galea” or “battello”
(a galley) (Swetz 2002, 404–09). Thus, the graphical presence of calculations was
used as both a didactic and a mnemonic aid. This twofold function of written
numbers’ visual shape also applies to didactic diagrams used in number theory
(see F IV).
Figures of visualization were also used on the level of rhetorical imagery. In
order to make arithmetic clear and vibrant, authors of medieval abacus treatises
often took mathematical terminology literally and constructed wordplays around
it. For example, the Pythagorean Table (mensa pythagorica) was visualized in
terms of different kinds of food, and divisions leaving remainders in terms of the
crumbs left on a table after a meal has been consumed. Evans (1975) observed this
use of visualization, describing the transmission of mathematical knowledge from
the perspective of applied vocabulary and its “literary” quality.
D Measuring
Next to counting and naming quantities (B I), measurement was the most com-
mon form of using numbers in the Middle Ages, and the most important for
everyday situations. The field of medieval metrology is too vast and too diverse to
describe here completely (an excellent short introduction to its history and
methodological problems is Zupko 1989; a comprehensive report on the state of
research is Wedell 2010). In the following, after some general remarks on the
problem of measuring in the Middle Ages (D.I), I will outline the role that number
played in medieval measurement. Here, the alterity of the medieval understand-
ing of measurement becomes especially apparent. As a result, the following will
provide preliminary orientation to the medieval practice of measuring as well as
to research problems. We can approach the subjects of number and of measure-
ment from three main perspectives: the relation between numbers and measured
objects (D II); and that between numbers and measurement procedures and
norms (D III); but we also need to address the problematic relation between
medieval and modern norms of measurement (D IV).

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I General introduction
While the act of counting allows discrete objects to be quantified, the act of
measuring refers to the quantification of things that are not in and of themselves
divided—in particular, to lengths, volumes, and weights. Additionally, the act of
measuring can refer to things that are not in and of themselves divided into a
practical scale, such as bulk materials (grain, honey, and salt, etc.) that today are
usually measured in terms of weight. In other words, the task of measurement
includes the conceptual transformation of things and materials into quantifiable
objects. This process is responsible for many of the irritating features of medieval
sources on measurement.
In the modern world, the act of measuring in everyday situations is setup in
such a way that it can usually be reduced to the act of counting. The metrical
system is supposed to guarantee the stability and ubiquity of units of measure-
ment, and their corporeal realization in everyday life, science, and engineering
(Helmholtz 1887; VIM 2008). Modern metrology is based on the axiom that a
single system of measurement should be able to account for as many kinds of
quantities as possible. Correspondingly, norms are formulated abstractly, related
to each other formally, and can be applied almost ubiquitously. In medieval
culture, on the other hand, norms and practices of measuring were not the same
across different regions. In more centralized administrations (e.g., England and
France), there were some attempts to establish unified norms; in less centralized
administrations (e.g., Italy and the German-speaking sphere), attempts were only
made on a communal or regional level in centers of trade. These norms would
bring local units in line with those in use across regions so that they could be
converted, thereby contributing to peace within a city and its surrounding
regions. For these purposes, physical standard measures were displayed in public
spaces, such as in front of churches and town halls. Furthermore, metrological
norms were increasingly subject to legal ordinances. The success of these at-
tempts, which depended on many different factors, varied. Often, there were not
enough standard measures to make them available everywhere, and juridical
monitoring of the misuse of measurements developed only gradually over the
course of the Middle Ages. In addition, official attempts to control measurement
and stabilize norms competed with the interests of feudal lords who sought to
increase norms to their favor in the collection of dues. Lastly, administrations
occasionally made exceptions to legal rules for particular trading interests or
aristocratic groups.
The plurality of units of measurement in the Middle Ages was due not only to
the disparity of norms at different places, but also to the medieval understanding
of the concept of measurement, which gave rise to an immense variety of units. In

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the Middle Ages, measurements were concrete, comparative, and relative. To

describe the quantities that were relevant for the medieval practice of trading in
modern terms, we would only need terms for counts, weight, and lengths,
together with the derivative quantities of area and capacity. However, medieval
sources provide evidence of a much wider spectrum of units of measurement that
cannot easily be converted into one another. Characteristically, their use in any
given situation was related to particular goods, e.g., there were independent
measurements for different kinds of grains, fish, bread, wood, etc. The wide
spectrum of units was the result of creating counting words and terms for
measurement for particular kinds of quantities. In this sense, we can also speak
of medieval measurement units as “incorporated numbers”—each particular unit
incorporated information about both a good and an amount.
Timekeeping, the monetary system, and the field of numismatics each had its
own history and its own conventions of measurement (see Ken Mondschein and
Denis Casey’s contribution to this volume on time and timekeeping, as well as E I
below; Rory Naysmith’s contribution on numismatics; and Philipp Robinson
Rössner’s contribution on banking, money, and the economy).
II Numbers and Measured Objects
In modern terms (VIM 2008), measurement involves a number (in technical terms,
the “numerical quantity value”) that is assigned to a thing or substance to be
measured (the “measurand”) through a “unit of measurement.” This unit corre-
sponds to the kind of quantity being measured. Modern systems of measurement
aim to account for as many different kinds of measurements as possible within
one kind of quantity. Although this effort to standardize the relation between
numbers and things may seem self-evident, it does not apply to medieval prac-
tices of measurement.
To understand medieval concepts of measuring, we have to analyze the
relation between numbers and things on several different levels, especially those
of language, writing, and practice. Each of these levels shows a specific mode of
integrating numbers and goods, according to the respective traditions of naming,
writing, and carrying out practical procedures. Each of these traditions has its
own internal rationality. This is the reason for the plurality of medieval measuring
units and the instability of the application of medieval measuring norms. As a
result, the main problems for research on metrology arise from the historical
modalities of integrating numbers and things, and the multifaceted processes of
de-integrating them. (Here, I use “things” in a more general sense to indicate
material substances that are not necessarily discrete objects.)

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1 The Linguistic Integration of Numbers and Things (in Names for Units)
On the level of language, the integration of numbers and things was based on
concepts of measurement, which were usually not abstracted from the objects
being measured. This concrete, object-oriented approach to measurement is
reflected in the names of units, which were always only applicable to particular
classes of objects (cf. Menninger 1969, 117–20; for German terms Schuppener
2002; 2007; for the explanations of each of these units in reference works, see
Zupko’s respective dictionaries for Italy (1981), France (1978), and for the German
and Scandinavian area also Witthöft 1979).
The tight integration of numbers and things in one term for measurement is
especially evident in what are known as “units of quantity.” These are expres-
sions like binne, stick, gwyde, ream, quire, bale, score, hundred, etc., in which
manageable amounts of particular objects are summarized as units that can then
be counted. These units correspond to the following quantities: 1 binne is 33 skins;
1 stick 25 eels, and 10 sticks is 1 gwyde, i.e., 250 eels; 1 ream consists of 20 quires of
24 or 25 sheets each, equal in turn to 1/10 bale. A score is 20 of any item, though
with regional exceptions—e.g., a score is 21 lambs, 21 chalders of coal, but 20 to
22 bushels of lime (all examples taken from Zupko 1968). In medieval England, as
in other countries, the quantity of a hundred could regionally be assigned to
quantities other than 100, e.g., 106 lambs and sheep, 120 (a “long-hundred”) for
canvas, eggs, faggots, herrings, linen cloth, nails, oars, pins, reeds, spars, stock-
fish, stones, and tile; 124 for cod, ling, haberdine, and saltfish, 160 “hardfish,”
and 224 for onions and garlic (Zupko 1968, 80–83).
This way of integrating a number and the objects being counted into one
specific unit of quantity illustrates the emergence of the wide variety of units of
measurement in the Middle Ages. This process of integration applies likewise to
other types of measurands that are not countable piece by piece, but are ex-
pressed in many various units of length, area, or capacity—in late medieval
England alone, there were hundreds of major units and around 25,000 local
variations (Zupko 1989, 582). Only a small portion of these units of measurement
has been described properly in scholarship. Due to the spatial and temporal
limitations of these norms and their validity, reference works with as much
specific information as possible should be consulted (D IV). Although concepts of
measurement based on the integration of numbers and things were used in
continental Europe until the introduction of the metric system in the late nine-
teenth century (Witthöft 1979; Zupko 1985), general reference works on “old
measures and weights” that do not make any reference to specific places, times,
and areas of application will probably be misleading for the evaluation of parti-
cular sources.

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The fact that heterogeneous sequences of counting words were used for
different types of things was also noted and reflected on in late antiquity and the
Middle Ages. Within the framework of grammatical and encyclopedic collections,
as well as in propaedeutic sections of computistic works, this phenomenon was
raised to the level of theoretical reflection, treated under the label of “species of
numbers,” or species numerorum (F VI).
2 The Written Integration of Numbers and Things (in Traditions of Writing)
Even in the Early Middle Ages, there was a strong development in the written
documentation of possessions, income, and expenses in the feudal system (Ku-
chenbuch 1993; 1994; 2012a; 2012c). The oldest sources here are surveys, dating
from the ninth century, that asked for information about the status of things and
customs, making the practice of conducting surveys essentially oriented to a
then-present need. For this reason, in the early Middle Ages and partly still later
on, the surveys sometimes made distinctions in the realm of what was deemed to
be necessary, but no further differentiation beyond what was deemed to be
sufficient (sufficiens) (Kuchenbuch 1993, 194f.; 2012a, 249; 257; 270). If the count-
ing words, which indicate the amount of things or goods, are not yet expressed in
the form of Roman Numerals, this may be based on the fact that the number
symbols were associated with the sphere of scholarly communication and there-
fore considered alien to the verbal expressions in the local dialect (Kuchenbuch
2012a, 243–44, illustration 242). In other inventories of possessions, the objects
that are listed were displayed in order of significance. Kuchenbuch (1993) ana-
lyzes paradigmatic examples of inventories of churches, dating from the ninth
and tenth centuries. These documents list, for example, first, liturgic crosses, then
communion cups; plates for the hosts; the lectionary; bells; and finally liturgical
garments; all of these items are in turn displayed according to their material value
(e.g., gold, pewter, bronze, iron, etc.). Only this scheme also applied to other
inventories (first buildings, then men, livestock, tools, including different kinds
of emblements, etc.). Correspondingly, in these documents, the formulation in
summa does not introduce a sum in an arithmetic sense. Rather, it introduces a
summary of the most important things mentioned above. Thus, the practice of
surveying was object-oriented to a great extent, and, for that reason, could forego
abstraction. At the same time, it was oriented toward a strictly hierarchical under-
standing of relations among things. This may have linked the inventories to
analytic concepts and writing techniques established in the trivial arts (Kuchen-
buch 1993; 1994 with reference to the conceptual framework of Fried, ed., 1997).
Thus, the linguistic integration of numbers and things (D II 1) is mirrored in

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written language, and this process goes along with a transformation of verbal
expressions through specific, locally established writing practices that in turn
derive from the realm of literate eduction.
Over the course of time, the protocols for these surveys, which were initially
stated in complete sentences, were gradually replaced by analytic ways of writ-
ing; the questionnaires on which the surveys were based came to be ordered more
systematically; and the things that were to be measured, the units of measure,
and the numerical figures were all listed separately in a new tabular way of
writing. The impetuses for these developments were changing economic circum-
stances and increasing requirements of administrative efficiency. In the agrarian
sphere, these analytical forms of documentation first developed gradually and
locally (Kuchenbuch 1993; 1994; 1912a; C III–V). Hence, the process of de-inte-
grating numbers and things through analytical writing was discontinuous de-
pending on the region, on local writing traditions, and on the concrete metrologi-
cal practice to which the documents referred. In the late Middle Ages, and
especially in the early modern period, (printed) arithmetic books were primarily
responsible for this process, although in rural regions the process was not
completed until long into the modern era.
One exception here was the English tax administration, which used an
analytic means of representation from at least the first third of the twelfth century,
when our sources start. The administration was specialized in order to process
sums of money in a complex centralized administration (Kypta, 2014). Its analytic
means of representation separated numbers and things (here, the currency) in
writing and listed them in tabular orders. By contrast, the receipts issued by the
administration were notched into tally sticks, thereby making them suitable for
the semi-oral situation of those who were collecting the taxes.
Modern editions of medieval sources frequently transfer integrated forms of
representation for the results of measurement into a modern analytic way of
writing, including number symbols and contemporary operators. It is important
to keep in mind that this can obscure the specificity of the sources in terms of their
individual epistemic profile and their position in the history of writing.
3 The Practical Integration of Numbers and Things (in Routines of Measurement)
Today, in the practice of measuring, we expect that the measurement of the same
thing (i.e., the measurand) with the same unit of measurement will lead to an
identical result, which can then be expressed through the combination of a
number (i.e., the numerical quantity value) and the name of the unit. Measure-
ment thus provides a stable relation between a certain amount or magnitude of

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something and the number through which its quantity is expressed. In medieval
sources, on the other hand, we are confronted with not only an immense plurality
of measurement units, but also the fact that the relation between numbers and
objects for the application of one and the same unit of measurement was not
necessarily stable.
This instability of the application of units and norms is the third perspective
from which the integration of numbers and the goods being measured can be
described. The integration of numbers and things followed not only the traditions
of naming measures and techniques of writing, but also that of manual routines:
How much one, two, or five bushels of grain are, depends on how a “bushel” was
construed and how it was applied in the act of measuring.
This becomes apparent in the case of measuring out bulk material. The same
amount of bulk material can correspond to the unit of measurement in one situa-
tion, but be more or less than it in another. For example, a bushel of grain can be
measured out “striked” or “heaped” (“topped-up,” “semi-topped-up,” “brimming
over,” etc.), “pressed down” or “unpressed” (Kula 1986, 128–29). The quantity can
vary even for a bushel that has been “striked:” depending on the height from which
the grain is poured into the bushel, the filling thickness can be higher or lower, so
that, as a result, the striked bushel contains more grain on one occasion, and less
on another. In this sense, the relation between an amount and the act of counting
its magnitude is fluid, and it essentially depends on how the measuring instrument
is used (these processes are described in detail in Kula 1986, 43–70).
How much one, two, or five bushels are thus varied not only from place to
place but also, in some instances, from one act of measuring to another. What we
would today call (instrumental) measurement uncertainty was not necessarily
seen as a deficiency in the Middle Ages, but rather as something neutral. Adjust-
ing procedures of measurement to particular situations, which also affected the
norm represented by the unit, was subject to traditions (of measurement, of
trade), ordinances (by lords or cities), and negotiations that accompanied each
act. Variance in the practice of measurement mediated between norms on the one
hand and concrete situations of their application on the other. The questions of
which unit should be applied; which norm it should represent; and how it should
be realized technically, often depended on that of who was more powerful in a
concrete situation. For this reason, complaints are often transmitted in medieval
sources. Correspondingly, there have also been attempts to control the relation of
numbers and goods in the practice of measurement on different levels: by stan-
dardizing measuring instruments; by modifying technical equipment in a way
that would make their use more standardized; by regulating the use of the objects
being measured; and by making criminal threats for misusing measuring instru-
ments.

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Zupko has programmatically shown the problem of the plurality and varia-
tion of measurement units and norms in the Middle Ages (for England 1973/74; in
general 1989). Kula’s standard study of the history of measuring (1986) works out
the varying applications of units of measurement and norms of measurement in
great detail. Although his findings refer to Early Modern sources (Poland and
France) and do not exactly match medieval conditions, Kula’s study sharpens the
focus on medieval practices in a heuristic perspective. Coquery, Menant, and
Weber (ed., 2006) suggest the concept of a medieval practical rationality, which
can be applied to the problem of measurement, and which must be principally
divorced from modern mathematical rationality.
III Numbers and Measurement Control
Historically, the long and discontinuous process of de-integrating numbers and

things played out through conceptual differentiation (D II 1); through analytical
ways of writing (D II 2); and through controls on the practice of measuring
(D II 3). On the whole, this process aims at stabilizing the relation between
performing a (manual) procedure and assigning a value for a numerical quantity
in the act of taking a measurement. Attempts to control measures can be de-
scribed from two main perspectives, which I will call “iconic” and “arithmetic.”
They play a decisive role in stabilizing all measurements and anticipate the
modern de-integration, or individuation, of numbers, units, and the measurands.
1 Determining Norms of Measurement Iconically
An iconic determination of a norm is given in the reproduction of a measure in a

1:1 relation. It is the most elementary form of measurement, as one can imagine
for the case of deriving a cubit of some particular material from a standard cubit.
It aims at a precise reproduction of a standard measure. Historically, copying a
measurement in a 1:1 relation played the most important role in gauging. For the
practical use of measurements, it was necessary to make measuring instruments
available for a particular commodity. These instruments reproduced the current
local norm. For this purpose, the unit underlying each measurement had to be
materially provided, sanctioned as a norm of measurement by the authorities,
and prepared for the practical reproduction of the unit of measurement. These
instruments are called “standard measures” or “etalons.”
In gauging a measuring instrument, the correct scale of the measuring instru-
ment was checked and confirmed by authorities. Gauging in medieval practice

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involved aligning the instrument of measurement to be gauged with a standard

measure. The process could be accomplished unmediated, as in the case of a
measure of length (e.g., a cubit), or mediated, as in the case of a measure of capacity
(e.g., a bushel), when the same amount of material has to fit into both measurement
instruments (the etalon and the one for use). Not much is known about the concrete
processes of gauging in the Middle Ages (but see Folkerts 1974; 2008; Meskens et al.
1999; Ziegler 1985). The material transmission of medieval gauges and material
standard measures is, as a whole, thin, but see Darrou for the French sphere
(Darrou 2005), Witthöft for the German-speaking sphere (Witthöft 1986), and for
special balances for weighing (uncoined) silver in the Baltic area Steuer (1997).
How much exactly 1 of a unit was remains uncertain not only with measures
of capacity for bulk material. For bulk material, as well as for measurements of
lengths and surface, the problem arises that measurement instruments, in daily
practice, were usually copies of copies of standard measures. In the process of
copying, errors came about, intentionally or unintentionally, so that the fluidity
of an amount that stood for a unit was accompanied by uncertainty about the
application of these measurement instruments. Lastly, there were also regional
differences in standardizing norms. Attempts at arithmetic stabilization reacted to
this problem (D III 2).
2 Determining Norms of Measurement Arithmetically
Although medieval systems of norms for measurements are not coherently orga-
nized according to the decimal system, the multiple units of measurement are at
least partly regulated by arithmetical relations. These relations were historically
significant for enabling trade across regions by bringing different local norms into
harmony with each other. This was especially the case for the units of weight and
the value of gold and silver. The Middle Ages inherited a system of units and
norms of measurement from antiquity. This was regulated anew in the Carolin-
gian era (Grierson 1965). In this system, twelve pennies (denarius) were grouped
into a shilling (solidus), while twenty shilling were equivalent to one pound (libra).
Though there was dramatic variance in terms of coinage, this system was ac-
cepted throughout Europe and provided one precondition for the interregional
exchange of goods (fundamentally, Witthöft 1984; concisely, Portet 1991; cf. the
article on numismatics by Rory Naismith in this Handbook).
Medieval sources on trading also determine numerical relations for several
kinds of trading goods. Even if local norms of a certain unit were not identical to
other local norms, there where attempts to make them convertible according to a
pattern of proportionalites, which was also subject to an important rule of

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calculation, the regula de tri (rule of three) in late medieval textbooks on commer-
cial arithmetic (E.VI): X bushels in place A correspond to Y bushels in place B. The
trend of establishing fixed proportions between different local units, primarily in
the late Middle Ages, can be accounted for especially well in sources from the
Hanseatic region and those on valuable goods such as salt. Proceeding from these
findings, Witthöft has developed the outline of a comprehensive “historical
metrology,” in itself coherent and stable over time, in numerous publications
(primarily Witthöft 1979; 1998). The historical concept, which according to Wit-
thöft guarantees the arithmetic stability of the relationship of numbers and
measures, is expressed in the term aequalitas (Witthöft 2006). Explicitly, the term
does not mean the identity of units and the norms through which they were
determined, but rather the ability to convert multiple norms among one another.
Sources from the Early Modern period up to the end of the nineteenth century
strongly support Witthöft’s model (see, e.g., Nelkenbrecher’s metrological man-
ual Taschenbuch eines Banquiers und Kauffmanns; in 20 editions from 1762–
1890). Still, it is uncertain whether his thesis can be transferred to the Middle Ages
in general (compare the case studies in Hocquet 1992).
IV Converting Medieval Norms into Modern Units
Scholarship has not been able to give a satisfying answer to the problem that
coherent and stable norms of measurement in premodern Europe are only given
on a very small scale. One pressing desideratum remains the creation of chrono-
topographical atlases with maps of measurements that would document the local
units in use, the particular norms, and, where known, the practices of measure-
ment. Only such an instrument would allow for an evaluation of the history of
measurement as a whole, and in particular of the role of local and imperial
traditions in the constitution of units and the norms they represent. Given the
current state of research, it is difficult to gather dependable data and to convert
premodern units of measurement into modern ones (Zupko 1989).
A dependable and concise conversion, in the strict sense, is only possible on
two conditions: there must be material evidence of a standard measure; and
corresponding sources must guarantee the spatial and temporal range of this
specific norm for a unit. Anything else is at best a rough guess. Still, small-scale
generalizations can be made for particular conditions. The best case scenario is
when well-preserved material objects still exist that can be archaeologically
located in space and time; when the size of this object has been documented in
historical sources; and when the territorial and chronological range of the corre-
sponding norm of measurement is known. If the conversion ratio between the

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norms of measurement for two places is guaranteed by sources, one norm can be
derived from the other. Lastly, in reconstructing norms of measurement for the
later premodern period, local conversion tables, which were created during the
introduction of the metrical system in the nineteenth century to make switching to
the modern system of measurement possible, play an important role. Nevertheless,
it is difficult to determine the historical scope of these tables, and whether they
applied only to the period in which they were created or whether the same norms
were used in previous periods. In any case, we have to keep in mind situational
conditions for applying norms of measurement (D II 3), as well as the specific
conditions of writing down numbers (B). Some scholars focus particularly on
physical standard measures and less on written sources and practical traditions,
connecting especially antiquity with the Middle Ages. They have observed a strik-
ing continuity of precise measurement norms, sometimes over millennia and
continents. In the case of specific length standards they hold that these units were
passed on with a precision close or equal to modern digital technology (see Heinz’s
contribution “History of Medieval Metrology” in this volume.) On the potentials
and limitations of this school of thought, cf. the debate between Rottländer and
Witthöft in Ahrens and Rottländer, ed., 1995, 24–35, and Guerreau 2000).
There are several dependable aids for determining the relationships between
medieval indications of measure and modern metric units in various countries:
England (Zupko 1968; 1977; 1985); France (Zupko 1978); Italy (Zupko 1981); and
the German-speaking regions (Witthöft 1979). General information on individual
units of measurement, their origins, and their subunits can be found in Zupko
(1989), Witthöft (2001), and Ebel (2001), as well as in the pertinent articles of the
Dictionary of the Middle Ages (ed. Strayer) and the Reallexikon der germanischen
Altertumskunde.
E Calculating
The medieval history of calculating came about in late antiquity and in the early
Middle Ages in connection with three main areas: concrete challenges in trading;
mathematical problems in field measuring; and the task of determining the date of
Easter. In trading, it was a practical matter of creating modalities of exchanging
goods and fine-tuning metrological systems (D III and IV). In surveying land, on
the other hand, it was more a matter of negotiating the Roman tradition of
agrimensores as handed down in the Corpus agrimsensorum (Lachmann, ed.,
1848–1852; Hultsch, ed., 1864–1866; and Bubnow, ed., 1969; for a review of the
history of research, especially the role of Cantor 1876, cf. Folkerts 1992a). This
corpus was less relevant in light of its practical application than in light of its role

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in quadrivial geometry (Folkerts 1987; Folkerts 1992a). With respect to these first
two areas, trading and surveying, a new type of source appeared in the Carolin-
gian period—the collection of mathematical problems. These sources present not
only a discussion of economic problems (Folkerts 1971; Van Egmond 1996), but
also mathematical questions for entertainment, as in the Propositiones ad acuen-
dos iuvenes attributed to Alcuin (ca. 735–804) (Folkerts 1993). Only later, from the
tenth century on, does a large and increasing number of treatises document the
development of mathematical thought and technique. Although these treatises
eventually connected the theoretical knowledge of numbers in the quadrivium
with knowledge of calculation, the history of calculation was initially only con-
nected to the history of writing numbers indirectly. Written numbers first became
the medium for calculation in what is commonly called the Indian method of
calculation. The efficiency of this method spurred on the further development of
mathematical procedures, and also led to more elaborate ways of writing—parti-
cularly, formalized ways of writing calculations through numeric signs and opera-
tors in the late Middle Ages. The third area, determining the date of Easter, is
bound up with an independent tradition of manuscripts, dating back to the third-
century C.E., that integrated mathematical and other spheres of knowledge.
Above all, the medieval history of calculating is one of heterogeneous prac-
tices, including counting, calculating with an abacus, with one’s fingers, with
Hindu-Arabic numerals, and with geometric calculating instruments. These prac-
tices initially spread only over a small scale, and only came to be considered in
retrospect as a coherent history of innovation. The modern cultural historical
view, insofar as it is blinded by the historical power of Leonardo of Pisa’s (or
Fibonacci ca. 1170–after 1240) Liber Abaci, suffers from a limited horizon that
does not do justice to the mathematical heterogeneity of the Middle Ages.
I Calender Reckoning (computatio)
Determining the date of Easter carried a religious urgency from the beginning. The
date was linked, in keeping with biblical passages (Mt 26,2.17–19; Lk 22.1,11,13,15;
Mk 14,1.12.14.16), to the Judaic feast of Passover, which fell on the day of the first
full moon in the spring. On the other hand, however, in order to determine the date
independently of the Judaic lunar calendar, the first Nicean Council (325) declared
that the Christian feast of Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday after the feast of
Passover, and after the start of spring in the Julian solar calendar. Those who did
not wish to wait for the appearance of this astronomical constellation from year to
year had to find ways of determining the date. Although there were some refer-
ences to one model of determining the lunar and solar cycles that had been

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developed in Alexandria, the contemporary center of intellectual activity, various

competing models, known as Paschal tables, were also in use at the same time over
the course of centuries. The earliest of these Paschal Tables based on the astro-
nomical cycles (ca. 285 C.E.) come from Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260/65–339/40
C.E.). But the earliest ones that became generally recognized come from Dionysius
Exiguus (ca. 470–ca. 540 C.E.), who was able to determine a cycle of 95 years, and
from the Venerable Bede (657–735), who extended these calculations to 532 years.
Another important figure was Gerlandus (fl. in the eleventh c.; see his Computus,
lib. I, cap. 1, in the new critical edition [2013] for the socalled Tabula Gerlandi). The
method of calculation presented in Bede’s De temporum ratione dominated the rich
computistic literature of the Middle Ages, which absorbed the various mathemati-
cal methods that were in use. However, the relation of computistic literature to the
quadrivium and to practical mathematics was subject to constant changes and
always had to be re-determined, depending on the concrete intellectual and
institutional context. Furthermore, calculating the date of Easter came to be
connected with astronomical and medical treatises, and even with those on pro-
sody and poetic meter. The cult aspect of determining the date of Easter is
particularly apparent in a poem in the computistical section of Herrad of Lands-
berg’s (also known as Herrad of Hohenburg; ca. 1130–1195) Hortus deliciarum
(316v–321v), which formulates the whole performance of the calculation in verses
(an interpretation is given in Joyner 2012, esp. 111–13; compare, however, compu-
tistical poems with other functions, e.g., in the Codex Oxford, St. Johns College
MS17, 14r–v, commented in Wallis [2007]; on the genre in general Bischoff 1967).
While this poem enabled the calculation to be memorized, it primarily indicates
that carrying out the calculation was considered to be a religious exercise.
A brief and pointed introduction to medieval calendrical calculations can be
found in Contreni (2002); more comprehensive is the introduction to texts by Bede
in Wallis (ed., 2004). While Jones (1943, 1–122) develops the question of determin-
ing the date of Easter from the angle of mathematical calendrical calculations,
Borst (1990) develops it from the angle of cultural history. An excellent introduc-
tion to the topic is the commented online edition of the substantial Codex Oxford,
St. Johns College MS17 (Wallis 2007). King’s monumental study (2 vols. 2004–
2005) describes contemporary Islamic astronomy, which also aimed at synchro-
nizing human time and astronomical time under different religious demands.
II Traditional Calculations with an Abacus
Calculating on the abacus was the most widespread procedure for reckoning in
the Middle Ages, and the one with the richest tradition. As an instrument of

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calculation, the abacus corresponded to the Greek alphanumeric system and to

Roman numerals. In antiquity, the practice of calculating spread across the whole
Mediterranean region and further from there (for a detailed introduction Hultsch
1896 and Nagl 1918 are still valuable). Early medieval records are sparse, but we
can assume that the abacus was continuously available up to the High Middle
Ages (Bubnow 1914; Burnett and Ryan 1998). Indeed, it was the most important
aid for carrying out calculations in the Middle Ages (Bergmann 1985, 176–85). The
transmission of texts essentially begins in the tenth century (E IV) and that of
objects in the twelfth century (Barnard 1916; Menninger 1969, 319–27; Pullan
1969; recently Schärlig 2003; 2006).
In the early Middle Ages, the abacus, as a surface for calculating, usually
consisted of verticular columns; in the late Middle Ages, it consisted of horizontal
lines that reproduced the positions of the corresponding numeric system. Along-
side the customary decimal system (base 10), the hexagesimal system (base 60)
appeared, especially in astronomical contexts. For calculations in monetary
currencies, there were also columns or lines for fractions. Visually, numbers were
broken up into their decimal place value (e.g., 1s, 10s, 100s, etc.), and pebbles
(calculi) were laid on the corresponding amount in the columns or on the lines.
Addition resulted from adding the amount of calculi in the appropriate columns
or lines. If the amount of pebbles in one column/line exceeded the place value,
then all the pebbles were removed from that column/line and one pebble was put
in the column/line for the next higher value to represent the amount carried over
(purgare rationem). Substraction was carried out by removing a pebble from the
appropriate column or line; multiplication by continued addition (Friedlein 1865,
254–61). Division was only possible in a roundabout way (Friedlein 1865, 261–69)
following the rules of the divisio ferrea (“iron division”) or the divisio aurea
(“golden division”). A concise introduction to calculation procedures for multi-
plication is given by Mahoney (1989, 220–21) and for division by Menninger (1969,
327–31).
Beyond its study in monastic and scholarly settings, the abacus’s functional
principle was first named explicitly, as an established procedure, in the twelfth
century with Richard of Ely’s (ca. 1130–1198) Dialogus de scaccario, a dialogue on
the English treasury (Poole 1911, 43–57; McCleery 1957; Kypta 2014). Detailed
instructions, accompanied with illustrations, for calculating on the abacus are
first available only in the context of commercial arithmetic in the arithmetic books
of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. These records begin with the
Arithmetica by Jehan Adam of 1475 (Thorndike 1929) and increase greatly starting
in the sixteenth centry (E VI).

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III Finger Counting: Computus digitalis
In addition to calculating with an abacus, one could also calculate with one’s
fingers—a technique known as “finger counting” (computus digitalis). This proce-
dure made it possible to display all the numbers from 1 to 9999 manually, and it also
allowed manual calculations. The computus digitalis was so widespread as to seem
self-evident to many authors in antiquity and late antiquity in the entire Mediterra-
nean region (Menninger 1969, 208–12; Lemoine 1932; Marrou 1958, 98–103; 1965,
238–40; 561f.). In the framework of everyday (oral) communication, the technique
constituted an alternative to Greek and Roman number notation (Williams and
Williams 1995). Quintilian (ca. 35–ca. 100 C.E.) recorded the technique in his
Education of the Orator (Institutionis Oratoriae libri duodecim) (1970, I.10.1, 10,35).
In the Middle Ages, finger counting became less common. It was passed
down primarily in the Latin written culture of monasteries. The technique was
designated as computus, loquela digitorum, flexus digitorum, calculus articularis,
loquela per digitos, indigatio et manualis loquela, gestus computationis or compu-
tatio romana. Ever since the Venerable Bede (657–735) placed the technique of
finger counting in front of his book on calculating time, De temporum ratione
(ca. I,1), it had a religious valence, specifically in the cult use of the technique for
exegesis and calendrical literature. Apart from theological literature, the records
are sparse but continuous up to the Early Modern period (on the transmission of
the short writing De computo vel loquela digitorum, see Sittl 1890, 254–55, for the
edited text see 256–61; cf. Menninger 1969, 201–08; 212–19). Leonardo of Pisa (ca.
1170–after 1240) also presents finger counting in his Liber Abaci as a mnemonic
for the processes of calculating with the new Hindu-Arabic numerals (vol. 1, 5). In
the fifteenth century, Luca Pacioli (1445–1517) describes the procedure in his
Summa de Arithmetica (Pacioli 1494, 36–37), a procedure that was then printed in
Johannes Aventinus’s (1477–1537) edition of Bede (1532). Lastly, in the eighteenth
century, the romana computatio were further publicized in Jacob Leupold’s
(1674–1727) Theatrum Arithmetico-Geometricum (1727), here under the updated
title Dactylonomia or Finger-Rechen-Schrift and already with the intention of
preserving the technique for posterity.
The prejudice that it is not possible to perform calculations with the computus
digitalis has been disproven by Wallis (Wallis, ed., 2004, 254–63). Saidan (1978,
349–50) explains the differences between the Arabic and Latin practices of
computus digitalis, particularly, the inclusion of fractions and calculating with a
hexagesimal base, proceeding from a poem by Ali ibn al-Maghribis (1213–1286).
Additionally, Van Brummelen (1998, 47) mentions treatises by Abu’l Wafa’ (940–
998) and al-Karaji (953–1029). In the Arab-speaking sphere, calculating with the
fingers is replaced first by calculating with Arabic numerals. In 1932, Lemoine

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gave a summary, also describing a further technique of finger calculation that

operated on the basis of the joints of fingers. The importance of finger calculation
in competition with the written numerals in the West is discussed in Williams and
Williams. Pictorial material in late antiquity and the Middle Ages is gathered
together in Rieche (1986), Alföldi-Rosenbaum (1971) and Minaud (2006). On the
theological use of the technique, the work of Antonio Quacquarelli, a scholar of
patristics, is crucial (Quacquarelli 1953; 1970; 1973; 1982; 1991). The question of
whether the technique was actually used for calculating the date of Easter
remains open, though it is often doubted. A current research report on the
computus digitalis can be found in Wedell (2012a).
IV The Gerbertian Abacus
A second special technique for calculation was what is commonly known as the
Gerbertian Abacus (also: monastery abacus), a columnar abacus whose usage
required calculating stones furnished with 9 symbols (characteres) that indicated
the values of the calculating stones (apices) (Friedlein 1865). In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, there is documentation of the use of Ghubar numerals for these
symbols or characteres (Folkerts 2001). Whether the practice can be traced back
to Gerbert of Aurillac (also known as Pope Sylvester II, ca. 945–1003) is debated.
Arguments made on the basis of Gerbert’s biography and his place in the history
of knowledge (Lindgren 1976) were contested in light of treatise literature and its
conditions of reception (Bergmann 1985). Recently, however, Folkerts has once
again made Gerbert’s use of Ghubar numerals seem probable through the analysis
of the interdependence of visual representation in illustrations of abacuses (1996;
2001). However, the decisive accomplishment of the Gerbertian Abacus is not
dependent on the type of numerals it uses. Alphanumerical signs fulfill the needs
just as well (Bergmann 1985, 176–98). Labeling calculi with numerical values
makes it possible to simplify and abbreviate multiplication and division logisti-
cally, even with the inclusion of fractions.
Gerbert’s (treatise Regulae de numerorum abaci rationibus (ca. 980), trans-
mitted in two redactions, was commented on early on (Heriger of Lobbes’s
[d. 1007] Commentarii in Gerberti regulas de numerorum abaci rationibus; Abbo of
Fleury’s [ca. 945–1004] Excerpta ex Abbonis scolastici Floriacensis in calculum
Victorii commentarii). Among the redactions were Heriger of Lobbes’s, Regulae de
numerorum abaci rationibus, Laurentius of Amalfi’s († 1049) De divisione (cf.
Newton 1965) und Hermannus Contractus’s (also known as Hermann of Reich-
enau, Hermannus Augiensis, or the Cripple; 1013–1954) Regulae, qualiter multi-
plicationes fiant in abbaco as well as Adelard of Bath’s (ca. 1080–after 1150)

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Regule Abaci, in addition to Pandulf of Capua’s De calculatione (second half of the

eleventh c., illustrated), Gerlandus’s (in earlier research also Garlandus with the
byname Compotista) (eleventh c.) De Abaco, Turchillus’s Reguncule super abacum
(before 1115), and an anonymous abacus treatise (Narducci, ed., 1882; for an
introduction to both, Gerbert’s treatise and Heriger’s reworking of it, see Narducci
1882; cf. the overview in Portet 2006, 57f.). From the perspective of reception
history, Herigers’s reworking is more important than Gerbert’s treatise itself,
because it presented the rules more coherently and more correctly. Scholars have
paid particular attention to the treatises by Berlinus (early eleventh c.) and the
abacus treatise in Pseudo-Boethius, Geometria II (second half of the elventh c.),
because they explicitly mention the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals (B V 1). One
single oversized folio in Echternach provides a record of the Gerbertian abacus’s
use in pedagogy (Burnett 2002b).
For studies of the intellectual history of the tenth century, it is crucial that we
do not assign calculating with an abacus primarily to arithmetic, but rather to
geometry. The technique was entwined with problems of land surveying in the
field of the quadrivium, although it responded to different interests from the
perspective of the genealogy of knowledge. The integration of an abacus treatise
in Pseudo-Boethius’s Geometria II clearly references this connection (Folkerts
1970). Bergmann (1985, 177–79) points out further pieces of evidence, dating back
to the sixth century, that are nevertheless partly based on a debatable equation of
the dustboard, counting board, and the abacus (Burnett and Ryan 1998, 5). In the
eleventh- and twelfth-century reception, scholars increasingly referred the ab-
stract issues of calculating with abacuses to quadrivial arithmetic and dialectics
(Evans 1977a; 1977b). The treatises further undercore the role of visuality and
imagination in learning to calculate with an abacus, which was included among
forms of learning in the cathedral schools (Evans 1975; see C II).
Terminologically, it is important to point out the diverse uses of the word
“abacus” (Burnett and Ryan 1998, 5; Menninger 1969, 346–49). First, in antiquity,
though also in the Arabic and European Midle Ages, it stands for the “dust board”
on which geometrical figures could be drawn (Bergmann 1985, 177–78). In the
Arabic tradition, Hindu-Arabic numerals were named after the dust board (Ghu-
bar-numerals) and refer to it as a writing surface for performing the Indian
method of calculations (Berggren 1986, 31–35). In Gerbert’s reception of the
numerals, the dust board was replaced by the counting board, on whose columns
calculating stones with Ghubar numerals were used in turn. Ever since the Late
Middle Ages, “abacus” has denoted a “counting board,” “counting table,” or
“counting cloth” equipped with horizontal lines and used with simple calculating
stones. Bergmann (1985) has criticized the idea that all the innovations of the
tenth century are concentrated in the Gerbertian abacus. Alternatively, he sug-

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gests a typology of four different forms and functions of abacuses from the tenth
and beginning of the eleventh century, which Portet assigns to the appropriate
types in his overview of sources (Portet 2006, 57–58). The abacus treatises of the
tenth to twelfth centuries have not been completely researched and edited. A
broad, illustrated, modern translation that expands on Friedlein’s explanations
(1864; 1865) is attached to Beatrice Backhouche and Jean Cassinet’s Bernelin
edition (1999). A new edition of Gerlandus’s treatise De Abaco with manuscript
transcriptions was published as an appendix to Alfred Lohr’s critical edition of
Gerlandus’s Computus (2013).
V Latin Algorismus Literature
A further development was triggered by the intensive translation of Arabic texts

in the Latin world. Among the texts that were translated, above all in Toledo, were
the writings of Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḫwārizmī (ca. 780–ca. 850) (overview in
Folkerts, ed., 1997, 13–18; in general, on Arabic mathematics, Berggren 1986;
Rebstock 1992; on the reception of Arabic mathematics in the West, in a con-
densed version, Saidan 1978, 3–5; on the general setting of adaptation and
exchange see in this volume the contribution of Mark. T. Abate “Convivencia,”
section G). Al-Ḫwārizmī’s book on arithmetic, the Arabic version of which is lost,
was particularly significant (Al-Ḫwārizmī, editions of the Latin translation with
commentary and a modern translation in Al-Ḫwārizmī 1992 and in Folkerts, ed.,
1997). The book gives an indication of the contemporary spectrum of the Indian
method of calculation: adding, subtracting, halving, doubling, multiplying, di-
viding—all with both whole numbers and with fractions. In the Arabic scientific
discourse, the Indian method of calculation replaced calculating with one’s
fingers (Saidan 1978, 353; E III). Furthermore, the incipit of the Latin version Dixit
Algorizmi (twelfth c.) was adopted in the generic term for Latin treatises, the
“algorithm.”
From the perspective of reception history, however, other treatises that drew
on al-Ḫwārizmīs’s Dixit Algorizmi were more significant than his treatise itself: the
Liber Ysagogarum Alchorismi, the Liber Alchorismi and the Liber pulveris (all from
the twelfth c.; on these texts, Allard 1991; editions in Allard 1992; short character-
ization along with the subsequent treatise literature in Folkerts, ed., 1997, 8–12).
In the De elementis arithmetice artis, Jordanus de Nemore (also Jordanus Nemor-
arius; first half of the thirteenth c.) took the schema of Euclidean elements as the
basis for the systematic development of his material. In the thirteenth century,
hundreds of manuscripts were copied from two works, namely, Alexander of
Villedieu’s (also Alexander de Villa Dei, d. ca. 1250) Carmen de algorismo, a

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versified arithmetic treatise, and Johannes de Sacrobosco’s (first half of the

thirteenth c.) Algorismus vulgaris. Both texts succintly represent the rules and
steps of calculation, but remain restricted to calculating with whole numbers and
do not give any examples. They played an important role in the inclusion of the
Indian method of calculation into the exchange of knowledge at universities. The
Latinization and de-contextualization of knowledge also played a role in this
process, supporting the Christian appropriation of knowledge. Ocreatus’s treatise
Helceph Sarracenicum (twelfth or early thirteenth c.) shows a certain skepticism
about the Indian method of calculation, though it was not disseminated very
widely. In this treatise, the Indian reckoning was represented in excerpts, cover-
ing the decimal system, multiplication and division, and the representation of
remainders; but the author foregoes a representation of Hindu-Arabic numerals
and adheres to the terminology of the Western mathematical tradition (Folkerts,
ed., 1997, 9). The most important arithmetic treatise by an Arabic author, Omar
Khayyam’s (1048–ca. 1131) al-Jabr w’al Muqabalah was not translated into Latin,
probably for religious reasons (Hughes 1996, 198–203). That did not change the
growing demand for new and efficient calculation techniques, above all, on
account of the increasingly complex requirements of astronomy (Van Brummelen
1998, 46–47).
Charles Burnett’s collected volume (ed., 1987) brought to light the intellectual
and social milieu of mathematical translators, and their position in society and in
the history of knowledge, starting with Adelard of Bath’s (ca. 1080–after 1150)
mathematical writings and providing further detailed studies (Burnett 1996; and
more comprehensively 2009; see also concisely Berggren 2002). Evans (1977b)
investigates the relationship between abacus treatises and algorithm treatises
with respect to their inclusion in the quadrivium. The step from calculating with a
dust board to calculating with ink and paper was still happening in the Arabic
sphere at the end of the tenth century. However, the history of the dust board as a
calculation instrument has not yet been reviewed systematically. Its use (descrip-
tion in Berggren 1986, 31–35) was still a precondition in the thirteenth century for
Kushyar ibn Labban (971–1025; in his Principles of Hindu Reckoning, end of the
tenth c.) in the field of arithmetic and for Nasir al-Din al Tusi in the field of
astronomy (Van Brummelen 1998, 46). By contrast, al-Uqlidisi (fl. mid tenth c.)
first discussed the traditional Indian method of calculation in Books 1–3 of his
arithmetic al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al Hindi (ca. 975), and then explicitly contrasted it
with the new technique in the fourth book. In al-Uqlidisi’s argument, this contrast
also served to differentiate between arithmetic and astronomy (cf. the commen-
tary on the edition in Saidan 1978, 353). In spite of the comparatively large
distribution of algorithm treatises, the knowledge of algorithm treatises in the
West remained limited to the milieus of cathedral schools and less educated laity.

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VI Practical/Commercial Arithmetic
The Indian method of calculation was first comprehensively popularized in the

wake of Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci; ca. 1170–after 1240). His most important
arithmetical work, the Liber Abaci, was initially only a summary of the known
Indian method of calculation, and, in this respect, his work linked up with the
scholarly scientific discourse (on calculational procedures, see Burnett 2005a).
Leonardo’s references to Abu Kamil (ca. 850–ca. 930) are clear (Allard 2001),
though apart from that, his sources have not all been identified (see Rashed 1994,
Folkerts 2005 and summarizing Sezgin 2006). From the perspective of reception
history, Leonardo’s innovation consists in that he referred the theoretical knowl-
edge (ca. 1–7) in the second part of his book (ca. 8–15) to the practical economic
problems of everyday life. The impact of the Liber Abaci outshined his other
mathematical works, Liber quadratorum and De Practica Geometrie.
The dominance of trade in Northern Italian cities in the thirteenth to fifteenth
centuries made it necessary to perform calculations quickly and certainly. The
precondition for the circulation of the Indian method of calculation was a lay
economic-intellectual milieu that was able to transfer the method intellectually
and pragmatically. First, it was simply a matter of making Latin texts under-
standable and translating them into the vernacular; then, it was more about
adapting texts to local situations, as well as to the further development and
optimization of techniques. An essential driving force in this development may
have been social greed (Murray 1978, 141–210). On the whole, we can imagine the
translation of Indian texts as an experimental process in which scholarly knowl-
edge was reworked, step-by-step, into practical know how, as Paul Benoît has
argued for late medieval Italian and French cities (Benoît 1982; 1989). For every-
day practices, this entailed the further development of educational institutions,
counting schools, botteghe d’abacco, and correspondingly, the new profession of
maestri d’abacco.
In the context of this translation project, new genres came about. Next to the
algorithm treatises (besides the Latin Carmen de algorismo of Alexander of Ville-
dieu and Johannes Sacrobosco’s Algorismus vulgaris, both copied frequently in
the thirteenth century, above all the anonymous Crafte of Nombrynge, ca. 1300),
the practiche della mercatura (Swetz 2002) appeared, a group of texts, usually in
the vernacular, with concrete instructions for calculating that were compiled for
self-study, the classroom, or as reference works. Among the most prominent of
these texts were Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s Pratica della Mercatura (ca. 1340)
and Luca Pacioli’s Summa de Arithmetica (1494). (A catalogue of the Italian
tradition up to 1600 was published by Van Egmond in 1980; a list of edited texts,
along with comparative references to the French tradition can be found in Portet

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2006, 60–63). Although the practiche della mercatura generally outlined recurring
constellations of problems (Van Egmond 1996), their content was significant for
an enormous part of the tradition, which has been ordered typologically and
described in its historical variation only to a small extent. Furthermore, the
potential of these texts for the histories of measuring, calculating, and everyday
life is far from being exhausted. This goes for the genre of European arithmetic
books in which the Italian tradition of practiche della mercatura was incorporated
as well.
Mathematical knowledge was prepared and transmitted in the vernacular for
the laity, above all in the context of opening up the educational system in the age
of the early printing press. Arithmetic books, focused on practical use, were
created for use in arithmetic schools, and consequently they repeatedly taught
the traditional means of calculating with an abacus. However, the practice that
this brought about was professionalized and taught for use-dependent situations.
Only since the sixteenth century has the method of calculating with Hindu-Arabic
numerals been taught in arithmetic books over a wide area. Early printed arith-
metic books include Ulrich Wagner’s Das Bamberger Rechenbuch (1483), Jo-
hannes Widmann’s Behende vnd hubsche Rechenung auff allen Kauffmanschafft
(1489), Adam Ries’s Rechenung auff der linihen (1522), Robert Recorde’s The
ground of artes teaching the worke and practise of arithmetike (1542); Jean Tran-
chant’s L’Aritmétique de Ian Trenchant […] (1558), Antoine Cathalan’s L’arithme-
tique et maniere d’apprendre […] 1566, and J. Awdeley’s An introduction of Algor-
isme: to learn to reckon wyth the Pen or wyth the Counters (1574) (more are
mentioned in the overview in Swetz 1987, 305–08; Gärtner 2000, 583–90; and
Portet 2006, 54–55; short analyses can be found in Gärtner 2000, 189–258). The
status of the professional arithmetician, who was dependent on the economic
viability of teaching mathematics, brought about a new competitive elite of
mathematicians (Schneider 1993) whose achievements in commercial mathe-
matics flowed back into academic mathematics (Hadden 1994).
F Number Theory
Medieval number theory can be traced back to the transmission of Nicomachus
(fl. ca. 100 C.E.) and Boethius (ca. 480–524 C.E.) in antiquity and late antiquity
(F I). It was subsequently influenced by, and reacted to, the development of
learned mathematics (E II–IV). It encompassed reflections on the ontology of
numbers (F II) and on definitions of numbers (F III). The most important fields of
number theory were the schema of dividing numbers according to their formal
qualities (divisio numerorum), which were a basis for quadrivial arithmetic (F IV);

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and the integration of number theory into music theory. The relation between
number theory and the practice of calculation, on the one hand, and that between
musica and cantus, on the other, was particularly liable to change and constantly
had to be redetermined (F V). Finally, we can include treatises on the species
numerorum in the field of number theory, even if these teachings come from the
field of grammar and hence belong to the trivial instead of the quadrivial arts
(F VI; cf. B I; D II 1).
I Heritage from Antiquity
Arithmetic, as a theory of numbers, formed the systematic center of the quad-

rivium. It derived from Nicomachus’s (also Nikomachos of Gerasa; fl. ca. 100 C.E.)
Introductio arithmetica, which was based on Pythagorean arithmetic (Thiel and
Kranz 2004). In antiquity, number theory was subdivided into logisticae (practical
calculation), arithmetica (number theory) and arithmologia (the projection of
number theory on the cosmic order; see G I). Crucial for medieval number theory
was Boethius’s (ca. 480–524) De institutione arithmetica (beginning of the sixth
c.), a condensed translation of Nicomachus’s arithmetic that belonged to the most
widespread treatises of the Middle Ages. A concise overview on medieval com-
mentaries on Boethius’s De institutione arithmetica is given in Masi (1983, 49–57).
Number theory can be clearly differentiated from practical arithmetic, since,
from the perspective of the genealogy of knowledge, practical arithmetic did not
belong to the quadrivium and was viewed more as a complementary skill for the
study of geometry and astronomy. However, practical arithmetic was often re-
lated to the subjects of the quadrivium in the discourse of the cathedral schools,
and it was interpreted from within this context. One indication of this viewpoint is
Jordanus de Nemore’s (or Jordanus Nemorarius first half of the thirteenth c.) De
elementis arithmetice artis, which reworks arithmetical number theory according
to the model of Euclid’s (fl. around 300 B.C.E.) Elements, the foundational writing
on geometry (for a rich reconstruction of Jordanus’s intellectual context, cf.
Høyrup 1988).
Evans (1975; 1977a; 1977b) and Burnett (esp. 1996) have reviewed the histor-
ical dynamic of these connections between practical arithmetic and the theory of
number. The fluidity with which practical arithmetic was incorporated into the
pedagogical canon in late antiquity and the Middle Ages corresponds to the
constant reconfiguration of the disciplines. Encyclopedic forms of knowledge in
the artes exhibit a great variance here. Englisch (1994) presents a systematic
comparison of these epistemic movements in the cases of Macrobius (ca. 385/
390–after 430.), Martianus Capella (fl. 410–429 C.E.), Cassiodorus (ca. 485–ca.

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580 C.E.), Isidore of Seville (also Isidorus Hispalensis; ca. 560/570–636 C.E.) and
the Venerable Bede (657–735). For the transformation of the quadrivium in the
twelfth century, see Beaujouan (1982).
II The Ontology of Number
The medieval ontology of number is frequently reduced to the Christian appro-

priation of Pythagorean number theory (G.I). This tradition tended to use a
dichotomous model in which numbers were construed as ideas, on the one hand,
and as given corporeal multiplicities, on the other. The ontology of number was
discussed from many perspectives. Here I would like to mention Augustinian
speculation, which was indebted to a Platonic model and described in De musica
(389) and the reception of Aristotelian number theory, which was transmitted to
the Middle Ages, on the one hand, through the anonymous Categoriae decem
(arguably from the fourth c.) and, on the other, through Boethius’s (ca. 480–525)
De trinitate.
1 Augustine on the Ontology of Number
In the general frame of Neoplatonic thought, Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

developed a model for types of numbers (genera numerorum) in his analysis of
listening to music (De musica, Book VI), a model in which the ontology of a
number was further subdivided into ontologically different levels. In Augustine’s
ascending hierachy, which was later adopted as a model by Bonaventure (1221–
1274) in De itinerarium mentis in deum (II,10), these levels mediated between
numbers given by corporeal things and those given by God; the individual genera
numerorum were thought to correspond to each other in the act of human percep-
tion (cf. Hentschel 2002). With respect to a given multiplicity, such as a hymn’s
rhythm (numerus), which was incorporated into number, Augustine drew a dis-
tinction between the corporeal numbers (1.) and those that are given in the soul
(2.–5). Although there is a certain variation between the names that Augustine
gives to these categories in a summary (VI.16) and in the development of the
argument throughout the treatise, the levels can be summarized as follows.
1. In a sound, there are numeri corporales, alternatively called numeri sonantes,
or “corporeal”/“sounding” numbers that exist in themselves, independently
of any faculty of the soul, and that the listener hears (qui auditur, II.2);
2. In sense perception, there are numeri occursores or “reacting numbers.” As a
sensus numerum (number sense), this genus numeri is already present in the

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listener’s sense perception (qui est in sensu audientis, II.3) and it makes
perception possible;
3. In a recital, the numeri progressores or “forthcoming numbers” are created.
This genus numerorum is located in the performance, i.e., the activity of the
performer (quod est in ipso usu et operatione pronuntiantis, III, 4);
4. In the memory, there are numeri recordabiles or “memorial numbers.” These
numbers (qui sunt in memoria, III, 4) allow the numbers that were perceived
sensually to be recognized or recalled;
5. In the soul, there are numeri judicandi (also judiciales) or “judging/judicial
numbers.” This genus numerorum (quod es in ipso naturali iudicio sentiendi;
IV, 5) grounds the soul’s natural capacity to make judgments about whether
numbers (or rhythms, in this case) have been executed rightly or wrongly
according to their pleasingness.
6. Lastly, in the soul, there is a second species of numeri judicandi (or judiciales),
numbers that are not adopted in the soul from the body, but rather those that
the soul receives from God and that imprint the body (quos non a corpore
accipit anima, sed acceptos a summo Deo ipsa potius imprimit corpori, IV,7).
They make it possible to render a rational judgment about the aesthetic
judgment.
2 Aristotelian Number Theory
Alongside the Neoplatonic metaphysics of number, there was an Aristotelian

tradition of understanding number that was related to the act of counting. This
tradition had already been discussed before the reception of Aristotle (384–322
B.C.E.) in the thirteenth century. What was up for debate was the number theory
from Aristotle’s Physics: Quoniam autem numerus est dupliciter (et namque quod
numeratur et numerabile numerum dicimus, et quo numeramus (Physics 4.11.219
b 5–8). For Aristotle, there was a categorical difference between the numbers
being counted (quod numeratur) and we count with numbers (quo numeramus).
In the early Middle Ages, this distinction was known, on the one hand,
through the Categoriae decem (arguably fourth c.) attributed to Augustine (354–
430 C.E.) and on the other, through Boethius’s (ca. 480–525 C.E.) De trinitate.
The Categoriae decem provide a somewhat weaker paraphrase of Aristotle (384–
322 B.C.E.), claiming that numbers should be differentiated from the things that
are being counted (Anonymi paraphrasis themistiana [Pseudo-Augustini, Categor-
iae decem] 1961, 82), a definition adopted by Alcuin (ca. 735–804), John Scotus
(ca. 815–877) and some anonymous creators of glosses. By contrast, in his
treatise De trinitate Boethius represented the stronger position that the things

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being counted are also numbers: “There are as a fact two kinds of number.
There is the number with which we count and the number inherent in the things
counted” (Numerus enim duplex est, unus quidem quo numerus, aliter vero qui in
rebus numerabilibus constat, Boethius 1973, 3.13–14). In the background, for
Boethius, was the theoretical problem that the persons of the trinity are at once
three and one. Thus, for Boethius, it was a matter of finding a conception of
counting that did not presuppose a multiplicity of things. Through the wide
circulation of Boethius’s De Trinitate, this definition became widespread in the
early Middle Ages (especially through members of the School of Chartres like
Gilbert of Poitiers [ca. 1075–1154] in his Expositio in Boethii libros De trinitate, 59,
and Clarembald of Arras [fl. in the 1150s] in his Tractatus super librum Boetii De
trinitate, 1965, 134–37; cf. further the overview on commenteries and adapta-
tions in Masi [1983, 49–57]).
Robert Kilwardby (ca. 1215–1279) broke up this dualistic conception in his
commentary on the Aristotelian Categories through a further differentiation, as
Andrews (1990) shows on the basis of largely unedited commentary literature.
While Boethius recognized the “things being counted” as numbers, Kilwardby
saw the need for an additional differentiation within the category of the “numbers
used for counting.” Because the numerus quo numeramus belongs to the category
of quantity, it was necessary to distinguish the numbers used for counting in the
soul (qui est in anima) from the numbers used for counting that provided the
measure of the thing being counted (mensurans res numeratas). Going even
further, John Pagus (first half of the thirteenth c.) in his commentary of the
Categoriae presented a distinction that encompassed three categories of numbers:
numerus numeratus: et talis numerus dicitur res numeratae, quae substantiae sunt
(“the number numbered: and these numbers are called numbered things, which
are substances”); numerus numerans: et hoc est ipsa anima, et sic adhuc substantia
(“the numbering number: and this is the soul itself [of the one who counts] and
therefore in this respect substance”); and numerus quo numeramus: et iste nihil
aliud est quam nutus corporeus transiens supra res numeratas, et sic quantitas est
(“the number by which we number: and this is nothing other than the corporeal
gesture of pointing [or, inclining, nodding, looking] that is carried out on the
numbered things, and therefore it is a quantity”).
What is striking here is the emphatic corporeality of counting, of the operatio
numerantis, as a nutus corporeus, an interative gesture of pointing. Number was
understood as a repetitive act, and not as a numerical sequence of counting
words, consequently being defined as pure quantification and not as ordination
(Andrews 1990; Meier-Öser 2004). It is worth noting that this theoretical model—
as Leibniz would later formulate comparably, “when we count, that is, when we
say this (for to count is to repeat this)” (cum numeramus […] dicimus hoc [numerare

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enim est repetitum hoc], Confessio philosophy 1672/73, 102—has a counterpart in

the elementary notation of numbers on tally sticks (B.II).
III Definitions of Number
There was no unified definition of number in the tradition of the quadrivium.

Particular definitions were formulated primarily in the introductions of individual
treatises on arithmetic and music.
However, these converged in the concept of number as a multitude that is
made up of units (to ek monadon synkeinomenon), a definition that can be traced
back to the Elements (VII, 2) of Euclid (fl. around 300 B.C.E.). Early on, this
definition was adopted by Cassiodorus (ca. 485–ca. 580) in the Institutiones
divinarum et saecularium litterarum: numerus autem est ex monadibus multitudo
composita (II,4,2). Similarly, Jordanus de Nemore (also Jordanus Nemorarius)
(first half of the thirteenth c.) also defined number as a collective quantity of
discrete units (Numerus est quantitas discretorum collectiva) in the context of
arithmetic (Arithmetica decem libris demonstrata, fol. a 2r.). Later on, this defini-
tion of number as a multitude of units was still used by Francesco Feliciano
(1470–1542): Il numero secondo ciascuno Filosofante e vna multitudine de vnita
composta (Libro di arithmetica et geometria speculativa et practicale, fol. A 2r).
Hieronymus de Moravia (d. after 1271) and Pietro Borghi (fifteenth c.) defined the
numbers as a collection or combination of units in their treatises on music
(Tractatus de musica, I,36) and arithmetic (La nobel opera de arithmetica, fol. 1v.).
For Pietro Borghi, number was a unitatum collectio, vel … multitudo ex unitatibus
aggregata or una congregazion de piu unita.
In contrast to this emphasis on multiplicity, a second strand of traditional
definitions of number emphasized the role of “the one” as the starting point for
“the multiple.” Hence, in Isidore’s (560/70–636) Liber numerorum (II,2): numerus
est congregatio unitatum, uel ab uno progrediens multitudo. In De institutione
arithmetica (I,2), Boethius emphasized the return of the one that leads to the
multiple (in numero quo numeramus repetitio unitatum facit pluritatem). Similarly,
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) stated that number is measured through unity
(numerus est multitudo mensurata per unum) in connection with the question of
God’s unity (Summa theologiae, I, 11, 2 res). Aquinas’s conception of numbers is
also present in Jacobus Leodiensis’s fourteenth-century Speculum musicae: Est …
unitas numeri pars simplex quae aliquotiens repetita ipsum totum reddit et mensur-
at numerum (95).
Further definitions were given to the terms incorporated into music theory
(for the corresponding source texts, see F V).

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IV Properties of number (divisio numerorum)
The formal typology of numbers, the divisio numerorum, was based on the
arithmetical properties of numbers (on the ancient pre-history of the typology, see
Thiel and Kranz 2004; on the Middle Ages, see the introduction in Ambrosetti
2008, 12–14). Numbers are not only even or odd; the even numbers can be divided
further into even-even numbers, even-odd numbers, and odd even numbers, etc.
A number is even-even if its parts, and all the parts of their parts, are also even
numbers, and if the process of division terminates in the number 1 (e.g., 64 can be
divided into 2 × 32, 32 into 2 × 6, 16 into 2 × 8, 8 into 2 × 4, 4 into 2 × 2, 1 into 2 × 1.) A
number is perfect, if it can be represented as the sum of its parts (e.g., 6 = 1 + 2 + 3;
28 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 7 + 14); overperfect, if the sum of the parts is greater than the
number itself (e.g., 12 < 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6); deficient, if the sum of its parts is smaller
than the number itself (e.g., 10 > 1 + 2 + 5).
The criteria for dividing numbers is stable, and can be traced back to Nicoma-
chus (fl. ca. 100 C.E.) and partly even to Euclid (fl. around 300 B.C.E.). However,
there are still different patterns for the description of the division of numbers in the
Midde Ages. Boethius (ca. 480–524) developed these divisions in great detail (De
arithmetica, I–II). Cassiodorus (ca. 485–ca. 580) brought these divisions together
schematically in the Institutiones divinarum et secularium litterarum (II,IV,3–6):
I. 1. numeri in paribus (even numbers): subdivided into
a) pariter par (even times even),
b) pariter impar (even times odd),
c) impariter par (odd times even)
vs. 2. numeri imparibus (odd numbers): subdivided into

a) primum et simplicem (prime and simple),
b) secundum et compositum (secondary and composite),
c) tertium mediocrem (intermediate); the last ones divided into
α) quodammodo primus et incompositus, (prime and not composite) or

modo secundus et compositus (secondary and composite). (cf. Boethius
1966, I,3; I,8; I,13).
II. 1. par (even)

vs. 2. impar (odd), and viz. subdivided into
a) superfluus (overperfect),
b) indigens (deficient),
c) perfectus (perfect). (cf. Boethius 1966, I,19).

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III. The numbers were further subdivided according to the way of looking at
them: observation
1. secundum se (considered in itself),
2. ad aliquid (considered in relation to another), and viz.
a) alii sunt aequales (some are equal). Among the aequales gehören are multi-
plices (multiples), superparticulares (superparticulars), superpartientes (su-
perpartients), multiplices superpartientes.
b) alii inequales (some are unequal), among these are
α) alii sunt maiores (some are greater),

β) alii sunt minores (some are less). Among the inequales are submulti-
plices (submultiples), subsuperparticulares (subsuperparticulars), subsu-
perpartientes (subsuperpartients), submultiples superparticulares (sub-
multiple superparticulars), supmultiplices superpartientes (supmultiplice
superpartients). (cf. Boethius 1966, I,20–22).
IV. The division according to their qualities:
1. discreti (discrete) vs.

2. continentes (continous); these are divided into
a) lineales (linear),
b) superficiosi (plane)
c) solidi (solid).
V Music Theory
The properties of numbers organized in the divisio numerorum can also be

described as proportions, or harmonies. Understood as intervals, they constituted
the main link to Pythagorean music theory, which was transmitted to the Eur-
opean Middle Ages through Augustine (354–430; De musica), Boethius (480–525;
De institutione arithmetica, De institutione musica), Cassiodorus (ca. 485–ca. 580;
Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum) and Isidore of Seville (also
Isidorus Hispalensis; ca. 560/70–636; Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx; Bern-
hard 1990).
Music theory built on the description of proportions as an explanation for
harmony and dissonance. For this reason, arithmetic was also incorporated into
medieval treatises on music theory, and musica was correspondingly defined as a

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numerus sonorus or as a scientia de numero relato ad sonos (Hentschel 2000, 144–

46; generally, Hammerstein 2007). The relationship between music theory and
arithmetic in Boethius and the connection between both disciplines in the quad-
rivium in the Neoplatonic tradition has been reviewed comprehensively in Heil-
mann (2007). The intertangling of arithmetic and musica in the wake of Boethius is
apparent in many treatises, including Jacob of Liège’s Speculum Musicae (also
Jacques de Liège or Jacobus Leodiensis; ca. 1260–after 1330); Johannes de Muris’s
(1290s–after 1345) Libellus Cantus Mensurabilis (mid-fourteenth c.); Guilelmus
Monachus’s De Preceptis Artis Musicae Libellus (late fifteenth c.); Johannes Tinctor-
is’s (1435–1511) Proportionale Musicae (1472/72); Franchinus Gaffurius’s (1451–
1522) Practica Musica (1496), Prosdocimus de Beldamandis’s (d. 1428) Brevis Sum-
mula Proportionum (1409) (cf. Masi 1983, 23–24), who also discusses the transfer of
the principle of proportionality to rhythm (Masi 1983, 25–30, an issue further
explored by Traub 1997, Lütteken 2001, and Curran 2013; Augustine discusses the
aesthetic perception of rhythm in Book VI of his treatise De musica, see F II 1).
There was a tension between musica, understood as a speculative science,
and cantus, the practical execution of music, which, as part of the Judeo-Christian
tradition of liturgical song, aimed at creating affect (Hentschel 2000; Fuhrmann
2004). While the two traditions were genetically independent, they nevertheless
did not run alongside each other without influencing each other. Although
harmonies reflected speculatively are, by definition, not audible to the human
ear, liturgical song contradicted the harmonic rules of musica insofar as it was
bound up with affect. This created a problem of legitimation for liturgical song,
which has only been addressed in recent research.
The contradiction between Pythagorean number theory and the affective
aspect of liturgical song was already discussed in the Sixth Book of Augustine’s
treatise De musica. As a solution to the problem, Augustine sketched out an
ascending model of types of numbers in which the perception of audible patterns
of numbers (rhythms) can be grasped analytically. In Augustine’s model, the
corporeal numbers (numeri corporales) are transmitted across the reacting num-
bers (numeri progressores), the advancing numbers (numeri occursores) and the
memorial numbers (numeri recordabiles) with the judging or judicial numbers
(numeri judicandi or judiciales) (see F II; Brennan 1988). Boethius’s speculative
music theory was also opened toward a theoretical reflection on cantus. This is
evident in the manuscript tradition, where the strict arithmetic outline of musica
is reworked through the addition of diagrams, glosses, and commentaries in order
to make it also relevant for the teaching of performing music (Mellon 2011).
However, there was never a canonical resolution of this conflict between spec-
ulative musica, ordered according to number, and affective liturgical song (can-
tus). We can only reconstruct solutions for particular situations in the interaction

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of different types of sources such as theoretical treatises, pictorial sources, didac-

tic outlines, modalities of writing, and compositional models of thought (Wald
2012).
Furthermore, music theory was not limited to the reception of Boethian
number theory and its implications (on its context, see Zaminer, ed., 1984;
Zaminer, ed., 1985; Ertelt and Zaminer, ed., 2000; Deusen 1995; ed., 2011). Music
theory as advanced science (Goddu 1994; 1998; Panti 1992) was also the field to
create advanced models for describing proportions and qualities of sound, as well
as theoretical models of perception. These culminated in Nicole Oresme’s (ca.
1320/25–1382) writings on music as a universal structural model for the descrip-
tion of the physical world (Taschow 1999). In their theoretical modeling of sound
and its effects, Oresme’s writings anticipated many modern physical and psycho-
acoustic concepts (Taschow 2003; 2012).
VI Types of Numbers (species numerorum)
In a further conceptual approach, a differentiation was made among types of

numbers, the so-called species numerorum, which were worked out in Rabanus
Maurus’s (ca. 776–856) treatise De compvto, III (ca. 820). The species numerorum
indicate numbers not only in the category of quantity, but also according to ranks
and several grammatical functions. Indeed they were first systematically pre-
sented in Priscian’s (fl. around 500 C.E.) grammatical work on numbers (Priscian
Liber de figuris numerorum) and thus were, in the system of the artes, considered
a part of the trivium (cf. C I). Proceeding from the cardinal numbers, Rabanus first
distinguished between seven species numerorum:
1) numeri cardinales (unus, duo, tres, quattuor […] with reference to abstract
numbers: one, two, three …);
2) numeri ordinales (primus, secundus, tertius, quartus […] with reference to
ranks: first, second, third …);
3) numeri adverbialis (semel, bis, ter, quater […] as adverbs: once, twice, three
times …);
4) numeri dispertiui (singuli, bini, terni, quaterni […] as distributive numbers:
every one, every two, every three …);
5) numeri ponderales (simplum, duplum, triplum, quadruplum […] as multipliers:
double, triple …);
6) numeri denuntiatiui (solum, alter vel alius: the one, the other [of two]);
7) numeri multiplicatiui (simplex, duplex, triplex, quadruplex as well as the
adverbial forms simpliciter, dupliciter, tripliciter et reliquia; as multipliers:
one-fold, two-fold, three-fold …).

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Rabanus then expanded this list to 14 derivative types (aliae species deriuatiuor-
um numerorum) (Rabanus Maurus 1979, 208, note to section 3, line 17–42). In
doing so, he drew on Priscian, who himself partly adapted Marcus Terentius
Varro’s (116–127 B.C.E.) explanations of weights of currency (De lingua latina,
V., ca. 169–74, on the multiples of the As); but also that of the Venerable Bede
(657–735), which showed how to proportion a whole into twelve parts through
the numeri unciarum (De temporum ratione, ca. 4 on De ratione unciarum).
1) singularis, dualis, ternarius, quaternarius […]: indicating multitudes (with

reference to one, with reference to two, with reference to three …)
2) assis, dussis vel dipondius, tresis, quadrasis […]: indicating multitudes of
units of weights of currency (one as, two asses, three asses …)
3) deunx, dextans, dodrans, bessis, septunx […]: indicating multitudes of frac-
tions of twelve, particularly of the pound (ounces), which was relevant as the
weight of gold (counting twelfth: deunx: a twelfth [or one ounce], dextans: ten
twelfths [or 10 ounces], dodrans nine twelfths [but also three quarters or 9
ounces]; bessis: eight twelfths [or eight ounces], septunx: seven twelfths [or
seven ounces])
4) anniculus uel annuus, biennis, triennis, quadriennis […]: indicating multitudes
of years in terms of age (one year old, two years old, three years old, four
years old)
5) bimus, trimus, quadrimus […]: indicating multitudes of years in terms of ages
or time periods (biennial/two-year, triennial/three-year; quadrennial/four-
year…)
6) bipes, tripes, quadrupes, decempes […]: indicating numbers of feet, also in the
context of measurements (bipedal/two-footed/two feet long, tripedal/three-
footed/three feet long, quadripedal/four-footed/four feet long…)
7) biceps, triceps, quadriceps, centiceps […]: indicating numbers of strands of
muscle fibers (two strands, three strands, four strands)
8) bifariam, trifariam, quadrifariam […]: indicating multitudes of parts (in two
parts, in three parts, in four parts)
9) biduum, quadriuum […]: indicating multitudes of time periods in terms of
days (two-day, four-day…)
10) bicorpor, tricorpor […]: indicating multitudes of bodies (in two bodies, in
three bodies)
11) bipatens, tripatens […]: indicating multitudes of open directions (open in two
directions, open in three directions…)
12) bilinguis, trilinguis […]: indicating multitudes of mastered or represented lan-
guages (bilingual, trilingual)

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13) biuium, triuium […]: indicating multitudes of ways that meet at a crossroads

(two-way crossroads, three-way crossroads)
14) bifidus, trifidus, quadrifidus […]: indicating multitudes of divisions (two-part,
three-part, four-part)
The historical context of the species numerorum in the treatises of Bede and
Rabanus was education in calendrical calculations. Students had to understand
verbal descriptions of operations of calculation, since calculations were were
always written down in complete sentences in sources transmitting the computus,
generally not being formalized in symbols (Wallis 2007). However, the species
numerorum had encyclopedic tendencies in Priscian and Rabanus. This differen-
tation, in its strong emphasis on things’ mode of existence as a multiplicity, as a
rank, or as a sequence, relativizes the modern primacy of the cardinal number.
Here the theoretical description of Latin numbers also converges with the concept
of number in the vernacular languages (B.I; D.II.1).
G Giving Meaning to Numbers

In all areas of the tradition of using numbers, we also have to account for the fact
that numerical figures were interpreted with direct reference to numerical figures
in the Bible and in connection with the divine (see the essays in Koetsier and
Bergmans, ed., 2005. To establish analogies with biblical figures, procedures
were first developed for determining the meaning of numerical figures. In this
intellectual process, exegesis had recourse to Pythagorean number theory (F I).
These procedures being established, the meanings assigned to individual num-
bers and numeric proportions gradually stabilized. Ultimately, they became so
well established that they could be transferred to other fields, as is shown in the
use of “symbolic” or “allegorical” numbers in bookkeeping, medicine, astrono-
my, the history of piety, pictures and architecture, etc. However, we cannot
proceed from the premise that numerical figures were fundamentally and primar-
ily intended to be numerical symbols—not even in the fields of art, architecture,
and literature.
I Speculative Arithmetic
In the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic context, numbers were understood as an

immediate expression of the divine order of being. This understanding of number,
in the mathematical triad logisticae—arithmetica—arithmologia, fell to the field of

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arithmology, while logistics represented the field of practical calculation and

arithmetic the field of number theory. Furthermore, due to the Platonic teaching
that numbers have the status of ideas (Martin 1956, 17–29), this epistemological
role of numbers was also emphasized throughout the Middle Ages. At the same
time, the Christian appropriation of Pythagorean number theory also linked up
with the Judeo-Hebraic tradition of interpreting the Pentateuch (Guillaumin 2005,
XX–XXIV).
The fulcrum and source of legitimization for the Christian appropriation of
Pythagoreanism was one of Solomon’s dictums in the Book of Wisdom: omina
mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti (“but thou hast ordered all things in
measure and number and weight,” 11,20). In patristics, this dictum provided
legitimation for investigating the mathematical order of the cosmos as a whole
without faulting curiositas (Petri 1983–1984; cf., for the Early Modern period,
Knobloch/Folkerts/Reich 2001). The idea behind this approach, as formulated in
Boethius’s (ca. 480–524) De institutione arithmetica (I,2), is that a number is “the
principal exemplar in the mind of the creator” (principale in animo conditoris
exemplar). The formulation is similar in different contexts, such as Clarembald of
Arras’s (fl. in the 1150s) Tractatus super librum Boetii De Trinitate (1965, 4, 25),
Alain de Lille’s (also Alanus ab Insulis; 1128–1203) Sermo de trinitate (255–56) and
Walter Odington’s (early fourteenth c.) Summa de speculatione musicae (1.6).
Epistemologically, this formulation was seminally interpreted by Bonaventure
(1221–1274) in the Itinerarium mentis in deum: “ ‘number is the principal exemplar
in the mind of the Creator,’ and in things, the principal vestige leading to
Wisdom” (numerus est praecipuum in animo Conditoris exemplar et in rebus
praecipuum vestigium ducens in Sapientiam; 2.10).
Given this metaphysical coding of numbers, the exploration of their proper-
ties in Boethian number theory (De institutione arithmetica, De trinitate) became a
speculative science with a long commentary tradition, in particular in Thierry of
Chartres’s (ca. 1085–ca. 1150) surroundings (Häring 1971, Jeauneau 1973). As a
result, speculative arithmetic was closely connceted with numerology (see G II).
II Numerology
Solomon’s dictum (Wisdom 11,20) also supported and legitimated the Church
Fathers’s view that numerical figures in the Christian scriptures corresponded to
symbolic meanings (Petri 1983–1984; Meyer and Suntrup 1987). The decisive
procedures in the Christian interpretration of the world included referring the
arithmetic properties of number to the numerical figures in the Bible, and explain-
ing them from the perspective of biblical meanings. As an exegetic practice, these

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procedures are already evident in Philo of Alexandria (ca. 15/10 B.C.E.–ca. 40 C.E.)
whose pertinent work, Peri arithmōn (De numeris), is lost, though elements of
this exegetic number teaching can be found in De mundi opificio, Legis allegoriae
and the Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesim; see Staehle 1931; Moehring 1995).
This practice was then adapted for Christian exegesis through Origen (ca. 184–ca.
254 C.E.) (Meyer 1975).
The medieval significance of number symbolism is grounded in Augustine’s
programmatic teachings on the interpretation of numbers (Hopper 2000). While
numbers were understood, in philosophy, as res, i.e., the “things” in creation that
have definable structural and ontological qualities, they were defined, in exeg-
esis, as a sub-group of the signa translata, or “metaphorical signs” (Hellgardt
1973, 175–78). For Augustine (354–430) the quadrivial arithmetic, just like knowl-
edge of natural history, was a precondition for the understanding of the locutio
figurata in the Bible: “An unfamiliarity with numbers makes unintelligible many
things that are said figuratively and mystically in scripture” (Numerorum etiam
imperitia multa facit non intellegi translate ac mystice posita in scripturis. De
doctrina christiana, 2.25.62).
1 Procedures of Numerological Interpretation
The strong connection between the knowledge of numbers and that of things was
a precondition for the most frequently used method of interpretation—namely,
the analogy between a number and various ways of dividing the thing being
counted (secundum officium sollemne, secundum paritatem oder secundum multi-
tudinem partium). Other methods included the interpretation of numbers as sums
and products (secundum partes / compositionem / multiplicationem) and the
affinities among numbers that resulted from this (secundum affinitatem [composi-
tionis]). Furthermore, based on Boethius’s arithmetical divisiones (F IV) even and
odd numbers, as well as divisible and indivisible numbers, were viewed as
bearers of meaning (secundum qualitatem compositionis / appellationem). The
position of a number in a numerical series could also be the starting point for an
interpretation (secundum ordinem / positionem / ordinem positionis / numeri
computationem / modum porrectionis), as could the sum of the divisors (secundum
partitionem), a recurring proportion (secundum proportionem) or the triangular
number for a given number (secundum aggregationem). Numbers could also be
interpreted according to the geometrical figure that they represented (secundum
formam dispositionis) (cf. C VI; F IV) and according to the ciphers or finger signs
through which they were illustrated (a figuris, secundum signa) (cf. E III; Meyer
1975, Meyer and Suntrup 1987, XV).

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In theory, high mathematical claims were formulated for the interpretation of

numbers; in practice, interpretation according to the composition of addends and
factors was the most common, accounting for over 90% of usage (Meyer and
Suntrup 1987, XVII). Although these philosophical and exegetical views of num-
bers should be distinguished from each other systematically in research, both
categories of numbers rivaled each other and mixed in the process of exegesis
(Meyer 1975, 42–46).
2 Sources for Medieval Numerology
Biblical interpretations of numbers were first brought together systematically as a

catalogue in Isidore of Seville’s (also Isidorus Hispalensis; ca. 560/70–636) Liber
numerorum, after which the task of determining the meanings of biblical figures
remained a fixed part of encyclopedic literature up to the Baroque period (cf.
Petrus Bungus’s Compendium Numerorum mysteria (1599), which was published
and expanded on many times; and the section on numbers in Hieronymus
Lauretus’s (also known as Jerónimo Lloret) Silva Allegoriarum (1681).
In the twelfth c., the interpretation of arithmetic number theory was pushed
forward, above all in the Cistercian context. Odon of Morimond (1116–1161)
commented extensively on the first three numbers in his Analetica numerorum,
and this commentary was continued for further numbers in the treatises De
sacramentis numerorum by William of Auberive (also Guillaume d’Auberive;
twelfth c.) (3 to 12) and Geoffrey of Auxerre (twelfth c.; 13 to 20), as well as De
quatuor modis quibus significationes numerorum aperiuntur by Thibaut of Langres
(twelfth c.). On this group of authors, see Deleflie (1978); Garnier (1979); Leclercq
(1948); Gastaldelli (1975); and above all, Lange (1979).
For medieval Latin literature, Meyer (1975) presents the range of biblical
intepretations systematically. Meyer and Suntrup (1987) provide a comprehensive
lexicon of medieval meanings of numbers.
III Numbers in Architecture, the Visual Arts, and Literature
Research on the role of numbers in architecture, the visual arts, and literature is
vast and difficult to grasp systematically. Basically, all of the aspects of the use of
numbers outlined here also apply to the use of numbers in literature and the
visual arts. Nevertheless, attempts to derive complex structures of meaning for
buildings, images, or texts from given or ascertained relations among numbers
should be enjoyed with caution.

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In essence, we cannot exclude the possibility that presenting something as

having three parts, particularly in religious usage, could generally increase its
dignity simply on account of the dominant reference of threeness to the trinity,
and so forth. Since exegesis itself avoided more complex numerological construc-
tions (see G II 1), there has to be further supporting evidence for any thesis that
claims to find meaning in more complex proportions within texts, images, or
buildings. This evidence could come in the form of explicit claims in the text; in
the application of unambiguous iconographic traditions in the artwork itself; or in
statements made by the creator or contemporary reception (programmatically,
see Ernst 2012 on the case of literature). In any case, a numerological interpreta-
tion cannot be solely legitimized by the mere fact that a building, image or text
can be divided numerically (fundamentally, Guerreau 2000; 2012; Hellgardt
1973). Even the assumption that musical structures imitated the cosmic order is
debated in medieval music theory (Wald 2012), as it can be shown that the
apparent geometry of churches might not be related to cosmic order (Guerreau
2012). On the other hand, it is true that we have to account for the fact that
symbolic arithmetic was also used in secular literary genres, as e.g., in the case of
Dhuoda’s Liber manualis (fl. 824–843) (Brunner 2012).
Ultimately, our judgments should be based on concrete objects in specific
contexts. Collected volumes that aim to meet the appropriate frame of interpreta-
tions case-by-case include Contreni and Casciani (ed., 2002); Koetsier and Berg-
mans (ed., 2005); Les Nombres (1992–1993); Measurement (2011); Wedell (2012);
Zimmermann (1983–1984).
H Conclusion
This survey of numerical knowledge in the Middle Ages has attempted to under-
stand number not from the vantage point of the mathematical avant-garde, but
instead from the most common and unspectacular forms of use. Taking spoken
numerals and the elementary notational practice of carving notches into wooden
tally sticks as a starting point for this survey significantly broadens our under-
standing of what a history of numbers is about.
Even extraordinarily learned authors like Rabanus Maurus (ca. 776–856)
referred the elaborate mathematical practice of calendrical computation back to
the verbally pronounced number and its grammatical shape: it is the cardinal
number from which all other concepts, forms, qualities descend: (Plures quidem
species numerus habet, sed tamen onmes ab una origine nascuntur, De compvto,
III, 3–4). The example of Rabanus’s De compvto illustrates how mathematical
sophistication remained always interwoven with practical concepts: the counting

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voice; numbers displayed with fingers and hands; manual techniques for writing
out numerals as words, for moving pebbles on an abacus, and for writing and
operating the traditional (Roman) or the newly fashioned (Hindu-Arabic) figurae
with ink on paper. These practical aspects of numbers are also evident in any
book on commercial arithmetic from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, e.g.,
Johannes Widmann’s Hvbsche and behende Rechenung auff allen Kauff-
mannschaft (1489). The alterity of medieval numerical knowledge is not given in a
fundamental simplicity—as it may seem from a teleological modern perspective—
but as a fundamental distinction in terms of material, practical, social, and
communicative complexity.
Moving beyond the stubborn image of premodern numerical knowledge that
involved straightforward shifts from mysticism to ratio, from symbol to science,
from a primitive to an elaborate mathematical culture, a more holistic approach
will help to carve out the concrete intellectual work that was actually carried out
on the market, in seigneurial scriptoria, in monasteries, and in calculation
schools. In light of the multifaceted presence of numbers in terms of materiality
and techniques, we have to revise the belief that the creators of texts, artworks or
calculation techniques were limited to “symbolic” or “rational” concepts of
number. Rather, the sources (works of art, literary and scientific texts, as well as
the broad field of didactic, economic, medical, theological, and juridical treatises,
journals, or records, etc.) mirror the complexity of using numbers. A history of
numerical knowledge, in contrast to that of mathematic thought, includes the
phenomenology of counting, of visualizing hierarchies, of customizing goods, of
exchanging values, and of giving meaning, i.e., the use and phenomenal given-
ness of numbers in a specific situation.
It is striking that the medieval counterparts of the modern words for “count-
ing” and “number,” such as tael, compter, zeln etc., comprise a spectrum of
meanings that correspondingly range from counting to recounting, from quantity
to narrative account, including all kinds of variants of making sequences, enu-
meration, estimation, reckoning, and calculation, as well as expressing judgments
and assigning quality and rank. This semantic evidence draws our attention to the
significance of the communicative and performative acts that are involved in the
application of numerical knowledge.
Ultimately, the role of number in the ecology of practical and intellectual
processes cannot be described appropriately in terms of abstraction, mathemati-
cal rationality, and scientific progress, but rather in terms of materiality, perfor-
mance, and communication. While the importance of quantification and calcula-
tion increased significantly throughout the period and led to the fascinating
diversity of mathematical models and procedures, numbers remained ontologi-
cally bound up with the ungraspable divine and with a sphere of music that no

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human ear would ever be able to enjoy. Without any opposition, counting was
intimately related to the assignment of rank—quantitative, qualitative, and social.
After all, applying numbers in the first place meant determining what was
countable, i.e., answering the question: What counts?
Select Bibliography
Ahrens, Dieter and Rolf A. C. Rottländer, ed., Ordo et Mensura III: 3. Internationaler Interdiszipli-

närer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (Trier 1993).

Contreni, John J. and Santa Casciani, ed., Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle
Ages (Florence 2002).
King, David A., The Ciphers of the Monks: A Forgotton Number Notation of the Middle Ages
(Stuttgart 2001).
Kypta, Ulla, Die Autonomie der Routine: Wie im 12. Jahrhundert das englische Schatzamt entstand
(Göttingen 2014).
Menninger, Karl, Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers, trans. Paul
Broneer (Göttingen 1958; Cambridge, MA, and London 1969).
Meyer, Heinz and Rudolf Suntrup, Lexikon der mittelalterlichen Zahlenbedeutungen (Munich
1987).
Murray, Alexander, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1978).
Portet, Pierre, “Les techniques du calcul élémentaire dans l’Occident médiévale: un choix de
lectures,” Écrire, compter, mesurer: Vers une histoire des rationalités pratiques, ed.
Natacha Coquery, Francois Menant and Florence Weber (Paris 2006), 51–66.
Wedell, Moritz, ed., Was zählt: Ordnungsangebote, Gebrauchsformen und Erfahrungsmodalitä-
ten des numerus im Mittelalter (Cologne et al. 2012).
Wedell, Moritz, Zählen: Semantische und praxeologische Studien zum numerischen Wissen im
Mittelalter (Göttingen 2011).
Zupko, Ronald Edward, “Weights and Measures, Western European,” Dictionary of the Middle
Ages, ed. J. R. Strayer (New York, NY, 1989), vol. 12, 582–96.


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Rory Naismith
Numismatics
A The End of the Roman Empire and the Early

Middle Ages (ca. 500–900)
Coined metallic money was virtually universal in medieval Europe, taken as a
whole. Even if there was immense variation in the scale and form of medieval
coinage, and extensive areas and times in which coin was not made or used at all,
it provides a source of crucial importance to the historian. Aspects of political,
artistic, cultural and social history can all be informed by numismatic evidence,
and it has obvious significance for consideration of economic life.
The later Roman Empire was heir to centuries of familiarity with coins, which
had first spread out from the Eastern Mediterranean in the seventh and sixth
centuries B.C. (Grierson 1975). By about 400 C.E., the empire possessed a complex
monetary system closely integrated into its fiscal and administrative machinery.
Base-metal issues were by far the most numerous and familiar in day-to-day
circulation. In many parts of the empire, monetization of society on the basis of
these low-value coins must have been very considerable. Silver was coined to a
significant degree to help cover state expenditures such as payments to the
military, but of greatest interest to the state were gold solidi and their fractions.
These high-value coins were made in tightly controlled fashion, sometimes with
only one mint (which travelled with the emperor) supplying the whole empire.
They were the preferred medium for payment of taxes and other official dues, but
plentiful enough to be used widely for private purposes (Banaji 2007, 39–88).
For these reasons gold was the only element of the late Roman coinage to be
maintained on any level in the early medieval West (Hendy 1988; Naismith 2014
a). Post-Roman governments had a vested interest in preserving the part of the
currency which had been most essential to the payment of soldiers and officials,
and the income of the state. In contrast, the silver and base-metal issues of the
empire withered away in the fifth and sixth centuries. There is no question that, in
monetary and more general material terms, early medieval Europe was a poorer
and less complex society than its Roman precursor (Ward-Perkins 2005; Wickham
2005). It should be stressed that this was not the case in the Eastern part of the
empire, which preserved and adapted the more complex late Roman monetary
system across the early Middle Ages (Morrisson 2002; Hendy 1985; Grierson 1999).
The Byzantine Empire’s neighbors to the East—the Sassanians and subsequently
the Islamic caliphate—also inherited dynamic late antique monetary traditions,

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1262 Rory Naismith
and possessed a range of gold, silver and copper-alloy denominations issued in

impressive bulk.
In the post-Roman kingdoms of Western Europe, initial gold issues tended to
copy those of past or present emperors, to the exclusion of direct reference to their
actual place or authority of origin. Scattered exceptions and references in docu-
ments—such as the coins of the Burgundians (which include royal monograms) or
a set of the same people’s sixth-century laws which name solidi of specific kings
and mints—reveal a fast-changing monetary landscape; one in which kings were
taking responsibility for the currency and new mints were being set up answering
to the local needs of customers rather than the fiscal demands of the state (Hendy
1988). Vandal Africa and Ostrogothic Italy remained closest to late Roman mod-
els, down to the production of extensive copper-alloy coinages and (in Italy)
maintenance of established minting administration. The Merovingian kingdoms
in Gaul, however, can be seen to have moved definitively away from the centra-
lized model of late Roman currency when their gold coins began (ca. 575) to name
the place and maker (moneyer) as a matter of course. Up to 800 mint-places and
2,000 moneyers are named on gold coins of the subsequent century, constituting
a major (if challenging) source for topography and onomastics (Felder 1978;
2003). As in the fifth and earlier sixth centuries, it remained the norm to avoid
direct reference to the king or any other political authority: only about 17 places
are known to have produced any coins in the name of a Merovingian king, and
Marseille was the only one to do so regularly (Grierson and Blackburn 1986,
128–31; Prou 1892). On the other hand, the likelihood is that the numerous
Merovingian mints include a large number of estates or aristocratic residences
where wealthy landowners had the rent or tax from their land turned into coin
(Stahl 1982; Strothmann 2008).
Contemporary kingdoms in Spain and England were akin to Gaul in having
only gold currency during much of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries. In the
Visigothic realm there was also an initial phase of imitative pseudo-imperial
coinage spanning the fifth and sixth centuries; as in Gaul this came to an end in
the 570s. The new coinage which followed, however, was quite different (Miles
1952; Pliego Vázquez 2009). There was strict unity in design and royal recogni-
tion, and the number of mints stayed comparatively small. It remains debatable
whether Visigothic tremisses were used in the same way as their Merovingian
counterparts, and there may have been a more persistent link between coinage
and taxation (Retamero 2011; Martín Viso 2011; García Moreno 1982). The first
Anglo-Saxon coinages in England were essentially outgrowths from the Merovin-
gian monetary system (Sutherland 1948). They were of very similar form, weight
and fineness, and circulated in England alongside a large quantity of Frankish
currency. Indeed, the first Anglo-Saxon coins grew out of increasing familiarity

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with Merovingian models, and local minting began in conjunction with conver-
sion to Christianity and adoption of other associated cultural trappings from
continental Europe. However, in design the first English gold pieces (often known
as scillingas or thrymsas) looked more to Roman than Merovingian models, and
cannot have formed part of any economy in which Roman-style taxation pre-
vailed: their use was presumably concentrated in other areas such as high-level
trade, gift-giving and payment of fines or tributes (Gannon 2003; Sutherland
1948; Williams 2006).
The seventh century saw a common trend across Western Europe toward the
debasement of gold coin. By about the 670s, most territories from Italy to England
were dominated by tremisses containing only a small minority of gold by weight.
In the Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms—which were closely related
monetarily—this process eventually resulted (ca. 675) in the adoption of a new
coinage of pure silver (Metcalf 1993–1934; Grierson and Blackburn 1986, 138–54;
164–89; Lafaurie 1963 and 1969). The new coins were known as denarii in Latin,
and are usually (albeit possibly anachronistically) called sceattas in the context
of Anglo-Saxon England and Frisia (Hines 2010; Naismith forthcoming). Silver
issues retained the same basic model as the gold: they were of similar weight and
size, and shared a reluctance to name kings or other rulers (in England any
inscription at all is unusual). In England and Frisia especially the switch to silver
coinage in the late seventh and early eighth centuries inaugurated a surge in the
quantity of coin in circulation. Finds suggest that the period ca. 680–740 may
have seen the richest circulation of coin between the end of Roman rule and the
late twelfth century (Blackburn 2003; Naismith 2013a). Up to a third of all English
finds came from the Low Countries, and there were smaller but still significant
quantities of Frankish and Danish coins in England as well (Metcalf and Op den
Velde 2010). The coinage of this period thus reflects especially well the full
development of the North Sea economy in the Merovingian period (Lebecq 1983).
A series of changes affected the coinage of England and the Frankish king-
doms in the middle of the eighth century, as a result of which the classic form of
the medieval penny or denier appeared, and royal involvement with minting and
circulation became noticeably more explicit and direct. The process apparently
began in Northumbria, under King Eadberht (737–758); related reforms followed
over the next two decades in East Anglia, Francia, Kent and Mercia (Naismith
2012a). Pippin III (751–768) was the first to institute the broader, thinner form of
silver coin, and his model was soon taken up in Southern England. These two
regions remained closely associated throughout the early Middle Ages, though
the beginning at this time of relatively effective policies for excluding foreign coin
from circulation within both kingdoms obscures the true extent of monetary
interaction.

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The Carolingian coinage provides a powerful material manifestation of con-

temporary royal ideology. Rulers emphasized in their legal pronouncements that
adulteration of the coinage was a direct challenge to the authority of the king
(Garipzanov 2008); they also placed a high premium on unity and standardiza-
tion. Charlemagne (768–814) in the early 790s ordered an empire-wide recoinage
which introduced a new weight standard keyed into general reform of weights
and measures (Coupland 2005). His son Louis the Pious (814–840) carried the
principle furthest with his Christiana religio coinage of ca. 822–840 which effaced
even separate mint-names on coins issued at dozens of places from Dorestad to
Barcelona (Coupland 1990). Under these rulers minting even expanded, tenta-
tively, into fresh territory such as Germany beyond the Rhine. A major departure
from the Merovingian coinage was the abandonment of moneyers’ names on
coins: responsibility for oversight of production under the Carolingians and after
was instead vested in the counts (Lafaurie 1980). England retained a strong
emphasis on the role of the moneyers, and they—in close association with the
king—occupied a position at the heart of the English minting system throughout
the Middle Ages, and were named on each individual coin down to the late
thirteenth century. The kingdoms of Southern England in the late eighth and
ninth centuries were served by a small but prolific selection of mint-towns on or
near the coast where these moneyers were based (Naismith 2012b, 128–55).
Despite its important role in establishing a new form of royal involvement with
minting in the middle of the eighth century, Northumbria thereafter stood apart
from developments in Southern England. It never adopted the broad, thin format
of penny introduced by Pippin III (ca. 714–768): coins of small, thick module
remained the norm down to the end of the kingdom in about 867. These coins
(widely known, again anachronistically, as stycas) became particularly debased
around the 830s, such that Northumbria may be said to have developed the first
new base-metal coinage of Western Europe in the Middle Ages (Metcalf, ed., 1987;
Pirie 1996; 2006). Although probably born in the context of political disorder, the
stycas may have been much more versatile as a currency than the higher-value
pennies of the South and Carolingian empire.
The eighth and ninth centuries therefore represented a turning point in the
form and organisation of Western European coinage, setting a pattern of royal
silver pennies or deniers that would last for centuries. Of course, it would be
wrong to assume that the prevalence of the broad silver penny was secure in the
middle of the eighth century: recent research, for example, has shown that small,
thick silver coins similar to those of Northumbria continued to be made and used
in Denmark until around 800 C.E. (Feveile 2012). There were, in addition, much
larger and more articulated monetary systems to be found in the Byzantine and
Muslim spheres of influence in the Mediterranean, with outposts in Italy and

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Spain respectively. When gold coins re-emerged on a very limited scale in eighth-
and ninth-century Western Europe, they were therefore modelled on a mix of
Roman, Byzantine and Muslim traditions (Blackburn 2007; Grierson 1951). These
coins are relatively prominent in surviving texts because they were concentrated
in high-value and prestigious transactions between members of the elite, which
tend to feature more frequently in surviving documents. Yet the cultural, econom-
ic and political influence of the Carolingian Empire led to the adoption of
Frankish-style silver denarii in Northern Spain and Italy as far south as Rome and
Benevento during the late eighth and ninth centuries. In England, Viking takeover
of the North brought an end to the distinct tradition of Northumbrian stycas. A
currency founded on broadly similar silver pennies which, by 900 C.E., extended
from Southern Italy to the Tyne was hence one of the key developments of the
Carolingian era.
B “Feudal” and Royal Coinages, New Silver and

the Rise of the Denier (ca. 900–1250)
If, by the early part of the tenth century, there was comparative unity in the basic
form of the monetary economy across Western Europe (based on the silver penny/
denarius/denier), there was increasing divergence in the relationship between the
coinage and political authority. England, unusually, saw an expansion and
intensification of royal control over the currency—first through imposition of the
West Saxon/Mercian model of coinage after successful campaigns of conquest in
the late ninth and early tenth centuries, and subsequently through a major
consolidating reform under King Edgar (959–975) (Blunt, Stewart, and Lyon 1989;
Stewart 1988; Naismith 2014 b). By the end of the tenth century, between forty and
seventy mint-towns at any one time issued identical coin-types and undertook
nationally co-ordinated recoinages every few years (Dolley and Metcalf 1961;
Stewart 1990; Keynes and Naismith 2012; Sawyer 2013). England’s Norman con-
querors inherited this system in 1066, and maintained it until the middle of the
twelfth century; thereafter, the focus shifted to more irregular recoinages concen-
trated in a small number of industrial-scale mints (Allen 2012; Stewartby 2010;
Mayhew 1992). At all times (with the brief exception of the civil war under King
Stephen (1136–1154) (Blackburn 1994)), royal control was complete, and was
exercised through the moneyers based in each mint-town. This last feature sets
English development apart from that of most of continental Europe in the same
period (Dumas 1991). The delegation of authority over minting to counts and other
magnates in the Carolingian Empire laid the foundations for what has long been

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known as the “feudal” coinage of the tenth century and later in France (e.g., Poey
d’Avant 1858–1862; Legros 1984). Already in the late ninth century, individual
potentates declined to recognize new kings or, in some cases, any form of royal
authority at all on their coinages (Dumas 1973; Lafaurie 1970). In the tenth century
some began to issue deniers in their own name, either alone or in conjunction
with the king; others used the name of a dead king, or (at Auxerre) omitted the
name of any ruler altogether (Dumas 1971, 169–71). This practice of minting
“immobilized” issues could be carried to extremes: some Swiss mints were still
striking coins in the name of Louis the Pious in the fourteenth century. The
coinage of the later Carolingian and first Capetian kings contracted significantly,
being produced at only a few mints mostly in and close to the Île de France.
Conversely, some of the “feudal” issues were produced on a considerable scale
and had a major impact: those of Troyes, for example, were closely bound up with
the importance of the Champagne fairs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
and so enjoyed prominence far and wide. Gradual re-expansion of royal power in
the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries was reflected by the increasing scale of
the associated coinages of Paris and (after it was inherited by the kings of France)
Tours, at the expense of “feudal” issues (Lafaurie 1951; Duplessy 1988; Bompaire
and Dumas 2000). In 1226 Louis VIII (1223–1226) decreed that henceforth only
royal coinage was universally acceptable across the kingdom, while “feudal”
coinage was restricted to its territory of issue (though this was not effectively
enforced for some time) (Spufford 1988, chpt. 8; Cook 2006).
Germany was similar to France in the comparative weakness of the royal grip
over minting. The origin of this likewise went back to Carolingian practices, and
was cemented by a tendency for kings to promote the establishment of new mints
by granting rights over them to local secular or ecclesiastical magnates (typically
in conjunction with a market and toll) (Kaiser 1976; Kluge 1991). As a result,
“feudalization” of the coinage in what is now Germany was built into minting
from the very start: most of the hundreds of mints set up in this way were new
creations of the tenth, eleventh or twelfth century, extending the effective bounds
of the monetized economy hundreds of miles East of the Rhine. Recognition of the
king or emperor was highly sporadic, especially after the mid-eleventh century,
and could be further restricted by disputes such as the Investiture Controversy
(Kamp 1981; 2006). A distinctive feature of coinage in parts of Central and Eastern
Germany from the mid-twelfth century onwards was the production of what are
now known as bracteates: extremely broad, thin coins struck only on one side
(Spufford 1988, chpt. 4; Svensson 2013). These fragile objects gave great scope for
artistic elaboration, and are among the masterpieces of Romanesque art. Italy was
divided politically and culturally at this time, and its fragmentation is reflected in
a deeply complex numismatic history (Travaini 2011). In general, the number of

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places issuing coins remained small until the later twelfth century and was based
on centres such as Lucca, Milan, Naples, Pavia, Rome, and Venice which had a
long history of minting. Kings and emperors in the ninth, tenth and eleventh
centuries still played a major role in the supervision of these coinages, and the
popes issued silver denarii at Rome from the 770s until the 980s (Grierson and
Blackburn 1986, 249–66). Expansion of the northern Italian coinages in the later
tenth century meant the end of Rome’s small local coinage, although as a rule
new mints were rare. In the second half of the twelfth century and after, however,
greater availability of bullion along with urban and commercial growth meant
that the number of places producing coin began to grow significantly. Southern
Italy was especially complex, as successive Lombard and Norman principalities
issued many different coinages already in the tenth and eleventh centuries
(Grierson and Travaini 1998). The kingdom of Sicily inherited a rich blend of
Norman, Byzantine and Muslim traditions, which comes across very clearly in its
coinage.
The central Middle Ages were characterized by two significant waves of
expansion in minting and monetization felt in Italy and more widely, both of
which were fuelled by wider economic developments and by the discovery of
major reserves of silver. In the mid-tenth century, new mines in the Harz moun-
tains (northern Germany) made available huge quantities of silver, which drove
the swift spread of minting in Ottonian and Salian Germany, and caused surges in
production in England (Roseneck, ed., 2001; Segers-Glocke and Witthöft, ed.,
2000; Naismith 2013b). Export of silver by peaceful and violent means also led to
the inception of substantial native coinages around this time in Bohemia, Poland,
and Scandinavia. The Harz mines remained a major source of silver until the mid-
eleventh century: the aftermath of their decline was marked by debasement in the
quality of coin and/or reduction in output in many parts of Western Europe
(Phillips, Freeman and Woodhead 2011). However, a series of new silver mines
came online in the mid- and late twelfth century, the most important being those
at Friesach in Carinthia/Austria and Freiberg in Saxony/Germany; these pro-
pelled a second and, in quantitative terms, much larger burst of activity which
helped consolidate the effects of the first. A relatively standardized form of silver
penny/denier, founded on similar systems of account, was one of the features
which helped unite disparate parts of Christian Europe at this time (Bartlett 1993,
280–91). There were major economic consequences to this second wave of
bullion, feeding into the commercial revolution of the late twelfth and thirteenth
centuries (Lopez 1971; Britnell and Campbell, ed., 1995; Bolton 2012). In numis-
matic terms, the result was that some territories saw higher production than ever
before, such as England, whose reliable and plentiful currency became estab-
lished as a standard across Europe. In Italy and parts of France, on the other

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hand, the new silver was more widely dispersed and resulted in the opening of
new mints (Spufford 1988, chpt. 5 and 8).
With few exceptions coinage in Western Europe between the tenth and
thirteenth centuries therefore meant silver coinage in the form of pennies (de-
niers, denari, Denaren): the currency was not only monometallic, but also to a
significant degree monodenominational. Halfpennies (obols) were made on some
scale in certain areas, but smaller units of currency were not yet coined. High-
value gold coins were also largely unknown, at least as native products: some
Byzantine and Muslim gold entered circulation, but the only area where native
gold coins were made on any scale was Spain. There, contact between Christian
kingdoms—which inherited a silver-based currency of Carolingian inspiration,
albeit with limited coin-production until the eleventh century—and gold-using
Muslim territories had been prolonged (Crusafont i Sabater, Balaguer, and Grier-
son 2013). Reconquest of Muslim lands in the eleventh century presented both the
demand and the resources for a local gold coinage.
C Gold, Silver and “Black Money” (ca. 1250–1450)

By the middle of the thirteenth century the underlying framework of the medieval
coinage was well established. England still possessed a high-quality silver coin-
age, closely controlled by the crown. The French monarchy had made consider-
able progress toward a similar goal, despite the continued existence of “feudal”
coinages. Similar “national” coinages had by this time also become well estab-
lished in Scandinavia, Spain and central Europe as well, under the authority of
local rulers. Germany and Italy were still marked by the existence of profuse local
coinages, among which there was a clear economic hierarchy. Within Germany
Cologne and the other major Rhine mints played a leading role, while in Italy,
Florence, Venice, Sicily and at various times other territories enjoyed local (and
even international) prominence.
The immense complexity of later medieval coinage—which by this time is
often illuminated by mint accounts and other local documents—cannot be ex-
plored here in any detail (Grierson 1991; Naismith 2010; Spufford 1988; 1986). Yet
there were several salient developments that illustrate the general trends of the
period and had an impact across much of Europe (Watson 1967). Perhaps the
most important of these was the resumption of large-scale gold coinage. Quanti-
ties of this metal had begun to enter Western Europe on a larger scale during the
twelfth century. Ultimately this gold stemmed from the mines of West Africa, and
reached the Mediterranean via Muslim territories. Significant outputs of gold
coins, modelled on Muslim pieces, had already begun to be made in the Christian

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Spanish kingdoms, and in 1231 Frederick II (1194–1250) had coins made in Sicily
which mirrored the weight and fineness of Muslim double dinars. By the middle
of the thirteenth century the volume of gold circulating in Italy was sufficient for
local gold coinages to begin in earnest, without any direct link to Muslim
currency. 1252 saw the first appearance of both Florence’s florin and Genoa’s
genovino, and was followed in subsequent decades by other major coinages such
as the ducat of Venice (1284) (Spufford 2006; Ives and Grierson 1954). Attempts at
gold coinage were made further north in France and England, but although
foreign gold was extensively available, local issues in Northern Europe did not
take off until the fourteenth century. Silver remained generally plentiful through-
out this time, and large-scale availability of both metals led to a complex bime-
tallic money market. Changes in the value of gold relative to silver could trigger
drains of either metal in or out of a territory, and merchants paid close attention
to the rates and values being offered for various gold and silver pieces across
Europe (Spufford 1988, chpt. 7 and 12; Bolton 2012, chpt. 8–9).
At the lower end of the currency in later medieval Europe, debasement of the
old, ultimately Carolingian deniers meant that they frequently ended up contain-
ing only a token amount of silver. They were effectively base-metal. Often known
as “black money,” these coins were of relatively low value, and so despite their
poor appearance and low standards of production, they fulfilled an important
purpose in society (Spufford 1988, chpt. 13–14). One resident of Paris in the early
fifteenth century made it clear that monnaie noire was usual for the most lowly
expenses, such as reckoning the price of a loaf of bread, or giving alms to the poor
(Shirley, trans., 1968). Yet there was also demand for a coin of higher value,
beginning already in the time before gold had become plentiful. Hence Venice
introduced a larger, purer silver coin, the grosso (worth 26 denarii), in connection
with preparations for the Fourth Crusade at the beginning of the thirteenth
century. Similar coinages were introduced across Italy and the rest of Europe
thereafter (Watson 1967).
Although silver retained a prominent, often fundamental, role in European
coinage, parts of later medieval Europe hence developed a more complex cur-
rency, with gold for high-value transactions, “black money” for low-value pay-
ments and better quality silver (sometimes known as “white” money, of half
silver) for those in between. Credit and bills of exchange supplemented the
monetary economy, though the relationship between credit and the money sup-
ply remains debatable: supply of credit may have kept pace with the availability
of hard cash, rather than expanding to fill the gap it left at times of scarcity
(Bolton 2013, chpt. 9 and 2011; Nightingale 2004 and forthcoming; Mueller 1984;
Spooner 1972). Fluctuations in the quality and valuation of coinages in different
kingdoms helped create a money market, as speculators sought to derive advan-

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1270 Rory Naismith
tage from the differences between various currencies (Munro 1992; Appuhn 2002).
As with the relationship between gold and silver, there were times and places
where the quality of the silver coinage was manipulated by rulers for profit
(Munro 2012a; 2012b). Successive French kings, for example, raised huge funds
during the Hundred Years’ War by debasing the supposedly reliable silver coin-
age, much to the chagrin of their subjects; at other times rulers arbitrarily restored
“strong” money, with just as severe effects on society (Sussman 1993). In 1420, for
example, restoration of good coinage in France was accompanied by an unfavor-
able revaluation of the old issues relative to the new: the intention of this was to
encourage reminting and favor landowners receiving fixed rates in the new coin,
but the effect was to increase rents so sharply that the poor of Paris rioted and
eventually abandoned the city (Shirley, trans., 1968).
D Coinage and Power

When the Roman populace chose to reject the authority of the heretical Byzantine
emperor Philippicus (711–713), the way they did so, according to the Liber pontifi-
calis, was to reject his likeness from their churches and his name from their
prayers, and also to refuse to use his name in their charters or on their solidi
(Garipzanov 2008, 1). Coinage, in other words, was one of the most important and
fundamental signifiers of authority in medieval Europe; one which had much
wider dissemination than any other medium. The importance of audiences was
generally rated more by quality than quantity, and so much of the subtlety of
coin-design (as of charter formulation, ritual display and artistic patronage) was
directed at a relatively small secular and ecclesiastical elite.
For many users and issuers, the key visual criterion was in fact consistency:
coins were expected to look broadly as they had always done, or else risk being
rejected. First attempts at minting hence commonly took the form of imitation of
successful neighboring coinages, in an attempt to benefit from their familiarity
and acceptability; a trend seen everywhere from Viking territories in the ninth
and tenth centuries which imitated Frankish and Anglo-Saxon coinage, to mints
in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Netherlands which took inspiration from
English or French issues, and others across Europe at the same time which looked
to the gold issues of Florence and Venice as models for their own gold pieces
(Spufford 2006; Day 2004). There are also numerous examples among established
issuers of remarkable stability in the appearance of coinage despite major social,
economic and political changes: Venice, England, the Byzantine Empire and
other polities all preserved the same essential design for certain coin-issues over
centuries, because these coinages were a major asset whose standing might be

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affected by drastic changes in design. Other, more surprising instances of this

tendency toward conservatism can occasionally be found. Gold coinage in the
eighth and ninth centuries was rare, but unusually international in its circulation.
Arabic, Byzantine and Italian gold pieces all circulated north of the Alps, and
influenced local expectations of what acceptable gold coins should look like. As a
result, moneyers in England faithfully copied the design of an Arabic gold dinar
when they made a batch of gold coins, possibly intended for donation to the
pope, during the reign of King Offa (757–796), whose name was inserted (upside
down) into the Arabic legend (Naismith 2012b, 112–17; Blackburn 2007, 57–73).
Because of this close connection between coinage and authority, the norm
was for at least one face of the coin to be dedicated to the name, title and (often)
representation of the local ruler. The precedent for this was already long estab-
lished by Greek and Roman coinage, and Roman imperial coinage in particular
exercised a powerful influence over its medieval successor: most designs of
Western European coins between the fifth and seventh centuries were directly or
indirectly inspired by Roman models, sometimes down to the name of the emper-
or. Kings in Visigothic Spain and Lombard Italy were the first to have their own
names placed on coins as a matter of course in the late sixth and late seventh
centuries respectively (Pliego Vázquez 2009; Grierson and Blackburn 1986,
chpt. 5). Yet the association of gold coinage with the emperors was strong enough
that kings in Italy, Francia and England rarely had their name or representation
placed on coins prior to the early of mid-eighth century (Naismith 2012a). There-
after, recognition of the ruling authority forms a continuous and prominent
feature of European coinage—either through inscription, representation, heraldry
or some combination of all three.
Coinage always had a flip side, and there was enormous variation in what
was placed on coins besides the name and title of the ruler (see e.g., Grierson
1975; 1991). By far the most ubiquitous element of coin-design in medieval Europe
was the cross: a basic and universally-recognized Christian symbol. Very com-
monly it is found at the beginning of legends, where—as in contemporary charters
and inscriptions—it served as a religious invocation for what followed. Crosses of
various (sometimes highly elaborate) forms could also serve as the centrepiece of
both the obverse and the reverse. Other religious iconography provided a large
proportion of the designs placed on coins during the medieval period. Saints of
all types were popular, beginning in the early Middle Ages but reached their most
diverse and elaborate forms in the twelfth century and after. Thus at various times
the coins of Rome featured St. Peter, those of Milan St. Ambrose, those of Mainz,
St. John and those of England the Archangel Michael (Moneta 2010). More allusive
references to Christian belief can also be found. The earliest Anglo-Saxon silver
coins (known as sceattas) current ca. 675–750 normally carry no inscription at all,

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1272 Rory Naismith
but do provide a rich and diverse range of imagery, including animals, human
figures, floral motifs and geometric patterns. Interpretation of these is often
problematic, but it is likely that many of the images are sophisticated allusions to
biblical passages (Gannon 2003).
E Coinage in Society
The production and form of coinage were closely tied to its intended use, and it is
through consideration of the role coinage played in society that it becomes a
genuine tool of economic history. This works on a number of levels. It is possible,
on the one hand, to look to the forces behind production of coinage. Coin-issues
varied dramatically in scale and complexity. A “mint” could represent nothing
more than a single craftsman setting up a temporary operation, responsible for
only a few hundred coins. Others could be industrial-scale establishments lasting
for centuries, with highly developed infrastructures and close physical and in-
stitutional ties to central authority. Diagnosing the nature of a given mint-place
requires delicate assessment of surviving coins, written documentation and other
background information (La Guardia, ed., 2001). It may generally be said that the
establishment of medieval mint-places was dictated by the twin forces of power
and economy (Spufford and Mayhew, ed., 1988). The most successful mints
tended to be those which answered to both. London, for example, played a
leading role thanks to the city’s commercial prominence, as well as the patronage
and presence of royal government. Conversely, to use another English example, a
range of tenth- and eleventh-century mints in the Southwest were set up on royal
estates, and are believed to have answered very directly to the king’s need for
monetary resources (Stafford 1978). Yet the contribution these made to the coin-
age as a whole was minute; the real powerhouses of production were the leading
commercial centres of the South and East coasts—above all London, Lincoln,
York, and Winchester (Naismith 2013a). Royal patronage in itself did not therefore
guarantee success. Availability of bullion could also intervene, and a mint located
at the Hungarian mines of Kutná Hora enjoyed a frenetic period of activity during
the fourteenth century; similarly, the coins of Saxony became particularly plenti-
ful during the richest phase of the local silver mines’ activity in the tenth and
eleventh centuries. The emphasis on precious metal coinage during the Middle
Ages meant that there was a long-standing connection between minting and
mining, and other large-scale movements of bullion (e.g., Kaplanis 2003). Cycles
of availability played out over generations, beginning with a dearth of gold in the
mid-seventh century, then of silver in the mid-eighth, mid-ninth and tenth cen-
turies (Watson 1967). Bullion famine in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth

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centuries had an especially damaging effect (Bolton 2012, chpt. 8–9). But because
of the scarcity of surviving coins and of clear references to the forces behind these
cycles, it is difficult to determine what factors might lie behind specific cases:
possibilities include mining activity and trends in thesaurization (cf. Sussman
1998; Munro 2012a; 2012b). The 20½ carat fineness of Byzantine, Muslim and
other gold coins in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for example, was not the
result of difficulty in obtaining enough gold for higher purity: it was the natural
quality of the West African gold which was becoming widely available at that time
(Spufford 1988, 109–263).
Relative judgments of medieval mints require close engagement with the
surviving coins and any relevant documentation on output. In the best-case
scenario, extensive mint accounts from the later Middle Ages state how many
coins were made each year (or even each month, week or day) (Stahl 2000; Allen
2012). Yet more often than not, the coins themselves are the only guide to how
active a mint might have been. Comparison of surviving specimens of a particular
type can show how many stamps (dies) they represent, which figure in turn can
yield estimates of how many dies were originally used in manufacture (Sawyer
2013, 115–25). Tentative though such calculations must be, they provide valuable
evidence for the volume of the medieval coinage, and a forceful reminder of the
large scale on which it could be made—and lost, given the tiny sample which is
available for study. English accounts show that London in the period 1351–1353 (a
peak time of recoinage) could produce about £80,000 worth of silver coins per
annum—probably translating into 20,000,000 coins or more (since the total value
by this time included halfpennies and farthings) (Allen 2012, 404–24). Earlier,
during the first six or so years of the reign of King Cnut (1016–1035), London
(together with its suburb of Southwark) supported up to eighty moneyers, who
may have worked their way through more than 1000 reverse dies (Naismith
2013b). At both these times London must have been among the most prolific mints
of Northern Europe: its dramatic expansion between the tenth and fourteenth
centuries is above all a reflection of the general growth in the monetary economy.
One trend visible at London and elsewhere across Europe from the late twelfth
century onwards was toward centralization of minting where possible. The result
was the appearance of factory-scale minting centres, staffed by permanent and
highly-skilled staff: minor and provincial mints were phased out in favor of them,
where local political conditions permitted (Spufford and Mayhew, ed., 1988).
The impetus behind this movement stemmed partly from common develop-
ments in government and administration, but also from the growing scale of the
monetary economy across Europe. This was apparent at all levels: from the
quickening movement of gold and large quantities of silver (as well as, of course,
movement of the commodities with which they were associated) on an interna-

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1274 Rory Naismith
tional level, to the more frequent chink of coin in purses and palms throughout
Western European society. The period of the “commercial revolution” from the
late twelfth century until approximately the time of the Black Death (ca. 1347–ca.
1351) witnessed swift and impressive growth in the use of coin, such that it
genuinely did become—for the first time since antiquity—a ubiquitous feature of
daily life for most segments of society. Rents, taxes and other payments came to
be reckoned (and paid) in cash as standard. Estimates of the volume of coin in
circulation grow from 3–8 pennies per capita in England in the period before
1180, to 20, 50 and even 100 pennies per capita in the thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries (Mayhew 1995). In many respects, the thirteenth century
must be seen as the key watershed in medieval monetary history. Its steep rise in
monetization has been linked in general terms to population growth, which
accelerated at approximately the same time, on the understanding that more
people meant more demand and complexity in the supply of food and other
commodities—hence a society in which cash became increasingly attractive, as
relations beyond one’s immediate community became unavoidable. Supply of
coined money became such an important feature of society that sudden changes
could have serious effects: food prices climbed during the monetarily unstable
early fourteenth century, for example, at least in part because of difficulties with
the coinage (Spufford 1988, chpt. 11–13; Mayhew 1995; Bolton 2012; Wood 2004;
Le Goff 2012).
It is worth beginning with the maximal period of medieval monetary develop-
ment before moving on to the more challenging later fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, or back into the preceding period. There can be no question that use of
coinage, and the economy more widely, was markedly smaller and less sophisti-
cated in the early Middle Ages. But this is not to say that coined currency was
economically marginal, or consistent in its form, function and quantity over the
centuries between the end of the Roman empire and the “commercial revolution.”
Probably the most limited period of coin-use was that immediately following the
end of the Roman empire. As noted above, in Western Europe outside Italy, gold
was effectively the only coinage which continued to be made. Its survival says
much about persistence of administrative structures and certain high-value ex-
change functions, but it is impossible to reconcile this situation with any sub-
stantial persistence of monetization. Yet even this relatively restricted coinage
became more versatile over time. By the later sixth century, for example, gold
solidi were very much outnumbered by fractional gold coins—above all the
tremissis (1/3 of a solidus). The popularity of the tremissis, at a time when the
solidus remained firmly established as the normal unit of account, reflects a
concession to the smallest convenient gold unit possible within the prevailing
system. Over time, in the Merovingian kingdom especially, the gold tremissis

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regained some of the breadth of use which characterized late Roman gold coin.
Payment to the king for tax purposes had declined considerably by the time of
these coins’ greatest popularity in the period after ca. 575. This function had
probably carried the production of gold through the difficult fifth and earlier sixth
centuries, but by the later sixth century gold coins were being used for high-value
and bulk commerce, payment of fines, savings and even some payment of rent by
free and unfree tenants—as well as for gift-giving and other socially-driven
purposes by the elite (Naismith 2014c; Kloss 1929). It was this gold coinage which
evolved into the silver penny of the late seventh and eighth centuries. Specimens
of the latter coinage are known in such huge numbers and from so many locations
in Eastern England and the Low Countries that it is difficult to imagine it as the
preserve of merchants and the elite. Finds from a range of archaeologically-
excavated settlements contribute to the conclusion that the coins were exten-
sively used at even the lower levels of society. Unquestionably the level of
monetization at this time was much higher than in the late sixth or earlier seventh
centuries, and possibly higher than at any other point before the later twelfth
century (Metcalf forthcoming). Yet the vibrancy of the silver coinage did not last:
there was a sharp contraction in the middle of the eighth century. Resultant
irregularity in the quality and quantity of coin was probably one factor which led
to the kings of the day assuming a much firmer role in minting (Naismith 2012a).
Recovery in the ninth and tenth centuries tended to be sporadic and regional,
though became more constant in the later tenth and eleventh centuries (Murray
1978).
Use of coin in the era of the Merovingian and Carolingian silver denier has, in
the past, often been seen as limited, like that of its gold predecessor, because of
historically pessimistic readings of the contemporary economy. Consequently,
discussions of the role played by coins tended to argue for very limited circula-
tion, and any exchanges of tremisses or deniers which did occur were more likely
to be connected to gift-giving and fines rather than commerce (Grierson 1959;
Hodges 1989; cf. Mauss 2002). Recent re-evaluations have taken account of new
finds as well as more positive views of the broader economic context (e.g.,
Devroey 2006; Toubert 2004; Coupland 2010 and forthcoming; Naismith 2012b,
252–92). While there remains no doubt that the scale of monetization was pitiful
by modern—or even later medieval—standards, it is instructive to focus on the
range of activities for which coin could be used: these were extensive, both
functionally and socially. Anecdotal evidence for peasants buying and selling
with coin becomes widespread, as does evidence that a significant minority of
rent from the lands of Saint-Germain-des-Près near Paris was being taken in silver
early in the ninth century (Devroey 2006, 231–39, 398–401). Deniers also featured
prominently among alms and other gifts, but often in such a way that they were

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1276 Rory Naismith
expected to be used for buying and selling subsequently: different types of use,
that is to say, were closely bound together. In general, it is likely that coins were
issued first and foremost for more “neutral” forms of payment such as buying and
selling, or official dues like rent or tax (Sahlins 1976, 185–204): a point which
applies throughout the Middle Ages (and more generally), but which is of special
relevance when the monetized element of the economy was relatively small. Most
day-to-day necessities in the largely rural society of early medieval Europe could
be met by other forms of exchange within the immediate community of kin and
acquaintances; coins, on the other hand, were suited to transactions in which
trust was not so firm between the parties involved, or where (perhaps) a certain
statement about neutrality and finality in the exchange had to be stressed. In
other words, a large portion of the populace would need coins sometimes to pay
rent or make exceptional purchases, but those who needed them often were
surely much fewer: among the latter were traders, travellers and dwellers in larger
cities (Naismith 2014c).
In the period following the Black Death and other difficulties in the early
fourteenth century, there were further challenges to the monetary economy.
Indeed, the state of the money economy can be argued to have been one of the
primary variables affecting the later medieval economy (Bolton 2012). One of the
main ills relating to the money supply which Western Europe had to deal with at
this time was bullion famine in silver (see above). This bit hardest from the later
fourteenth century. Continuing availability of gold and possibly the development
of credit kept the overall value of money in circulation high, but silver coin
became very scarce—to the extent that, in England (which had no “black money”
to fill the gap left by good silver coin), 80 per cent of the value of the currency
consisted of gold by the 1420s. The impact of this silver famine was severe and
deflationary, serving to curb the inflationary effects of the Black Death (Mate
1978; Nightingale 2010). Fiscal policy at this time could contribute to debasement
as desperate governments sought to exploit the coinage for profit, as happened
for instance in France and Castile. Contemporaries recognized that sharp debase-
ment could benefit the ruling authority in the short term, but hurt others in the
medium and long run—including, most notably, landowners who depended on
fixed rents. For this reason, writers such as Nicholas Oresme (ca. 1320/1325–1382)
in his famous De moneta railed against debasement: they challenged the ruler’s
prerogative to implement it and examined its consequences very critically (John-
son, ed., 1956; Mäkeler 2003; Wood, ed., 2002, 96–109). Yet the weaker and
poorer members of society, who relied on wages or had to raise rents to pay
landowners, would suffer from either debasement or a restoration of strong
currency. Gold coinage was (except possibly at harvest time) beyond the effective
reach of most coin-users, for whom silver was the norm. Good silver (half-pure or

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better depending on time or place) was used for higher-value transactions; low-
value fractions or “black money” was most versatile, but because it was about as
expensive to produce as any other coin, minting authorities rarely issued low-
value denominations in great quantity. This was a cause of frequent complaint in
cities across late medieval Europe (Spufford 1988, 382–86). Merchants, aristocrats
and others who operated at the opposite level of the monetary economy faced
difficulties of their own in making transactions, but their means of circumventing
these problems were more numerous and sophisticated.
F Money without Coin

It is easy to slip into the assumption that money in the Middle Ages meant coin. In
an abstract sense this was usually so, and coins or purses containing coins
performed general service as metaphors for wealth, as in Chaucer’s well-known
“Complaint to his Purse” (ca. 1390) and also in much earlier ecclesiastical artwork
(Newhauser 2003). But money signified (and still signifies) a more general system
of widely-accepted values, of which coins were only one physical manifestation.
Indeed, there was a strong sense in the Middle Ages, voiced early on by Isidore of
Seville (ca. 560–636) and John Cassian (ca. 360–435) (cf. Brown 2012), that coins
could not be a fiduciary currency: each had to contain at least a token quantity of
precious metal. Medieval coinage was therefore always a commodity, bound —
even if often tenuously—to its notional precious metal value. Yet it was a very
special commodity, created with the express purpose of holding and transferring
abstract worth (Godelier 1999, 161–67; Parry and Bloch, ed., 1989).
The close link between coin and precious metal meant that there was always
some crossover with gold and silver in uncoined form. It is no coincidence that
units of value and weight (e.g., the pound) were related, for instance, or that gold
and silver objects were, when mentioned in documents, generally rated by weight
or value: awareness that they represented stores of wealth seems to have been the
norm, even in the Church (Mayr-Harting 1999, 36–38; 51). Some transfer between
plate and coin was always going on, even in the late Roman period (Hunter and
Painter, ed., 2013), and changes in the value of coin relative to bullion sometimes
created an incentive to store up or melt down supplies of precious metal plate.
Desperation was also a powerful factor. Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594) records a
sixth-century Frankish bishop who melted down a gold chalice into coins when
forced to pay a ransom (Historiae vii.24, Krusch and Levison, ed., 1951, 344). Five-
hundred years later, William the Conqueror (1028–1087) demanded 700 silver
marks to restore favor to the abbey of Ely. At least some of this sum was raised by
melting down church treasures, since when the resultant coins proved deficient

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in weight, the king demanded a further payment of 300 marks—which was got by
breaking up whatever remained of gold or silver in the church (Liber Eliensis ii.111,
ed. Blake 1962, 193–95).
For large payments of a prestigious nature, such as purchases of land, it was
commonplace not even to melt down gold or silver objects at all: medieval
charters, chronicles and other texts are replete with handovers of gold and silver
objects, often reckoned by weight and value in the same terms as contemporary
coins (Naismith 2013c). Transactions of this nature continued among the elite
throughout the Middle Ages. In some societies, bullion transactions were all that
was available. Scandinavia in the Viking Age, which had never known a monetary
system based on native coins, developed a “bullion economy” in which precious
metal circulated freely on the basis of weight and fineness alone. Coins were
present, but not treated as anything other than round and conveniently regular
pieces of silver: they could be cut up and melted down to form ingots or other
objects. This system was founded on a great glut of silver which entered the
region from the Muslim world (via Russia) in the ninth and tenth centuries (Skre,
ed., 2008; Wiechmann 1996). After supplies from this direction dried up around
970, Germany and England became the principal sources of silver in Scandinavia,
and before long Viking rulers had begun to establish their own coinages modelled
on what they saw elsewhere in Northern Europe: the bullion economy eventually
declined in favor of these new, Western European-style coinages (Skaare 1976).
However, silver ingots did not disappear from European monetary transactions
entirely, and were revived on a considerable scale in the later twelfth century.
Prompted by the increasing availability of silver and the existence of numerous
different and incompatible local currencies, silver ingots came to serve as con-
venient means of storing or transporting large quantities of good-quality metal,
which could be melted down in all or in part whenever needed. This was, for
example, how Wolfger of Erla, bishop of Passau (1191–1204) and patriarch of
Aquileia (1204–1218), took a supply of cash on a journey to Rome; unusually
detailed accounts show how pieces of these ingots were cut off and minted in
successive cities to pay expenses (Zingerle, ed., 1877; Boshof and Knapp, ed.,
1994). Ingots like these could be stamped, sometimes with coin dies, as a mark of
quality, and conformed to various recognized standards in order to function as
stable units of exchange and value in themselves. Some of the standards they
followed were Asian in origin, and were known as far east as the frontier of China
(Spufford 2008). Eventually, in the fourteenth century, new and plentiful gold
coinages gradually replaced ingots as the preferred compact form for large
quantities of wealth.
Exchanges did not of course need to be carried out with precious metal
(coined or otherwise) at all. As noted above, for most of the population—which is

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to say peasants living in rural communities—day-to-day needs could largely be

met locally, on the basis of autarky, trust, favor and deferred payment (often in
kind); a pattern which persisted until very recent times in many parts of Europe.
Landowners and other members of the elite, when buying or selling land and
other prestigious commodities, often dealt in animals, agricultural products and
other commodities as well as (or instead of) coin. Areas such as Northern Spain in
the tenth century, where coin was especially scarce, saw a high proportion of
recorded transactions carried out in this way (Davies 2010). The rise of cash rents
from tenants has been followed across medieval Europe, accelerating during the
“commercial revolution” of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It should be
noted that this did not always proceed in direct proportion to increases in
monetization. Parts of rural Tuscany in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
for example, actually witnessed a resurgence of payments in kind, which has
been interpreted as a result of landlords trying to gain resources for sale at market
and restrict tenants’ ability to do so (Kotelnikova 1982). Coin-use, in other words,
always went on alongside transactions of other forms, and was bound to social as
well as economic developments.
The other principal form of “money” to circulate in later medieval Europe was
credit in the form of bills of exchange: documents in which one merchant ordered
his banker to pay another. Letters like this removed the need to carry large
quantities of cash between the major cities and fairs of Europe. They arguably
also served to stretch the money supply, though the extent to which instruments
of credit were produced independently of the money supply remains questionable
(Munro 1973; Nightingale 1990 and 2004; Bolton 2012, chpt. 8–9; Briggs 2009).
These depended on and were closely connected to the development of banking
operations. As a result, bills of exchange appeared first in the leading commercial
centres of Italy around 1200, but had spread to embrace most of the major cities of
Western Europe by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Eventually they could
be used even at relatively low levels of society within such cities. Yet outside this
area development of credit was patchy.
Select Bibliography
Allen, Martin R., Mints and Money in Medieval England (Cambridge 2012).
Bolton, Jim, Money in the Medieval English Economy 973–1489 (Manchester 2012).
Bompaire, Marc and Françoise Dumas, Numismatique mediévale: monnaies et documents
d’origine française (Turnhout 2000).
Engel, Arthur and Raymond Serrure, Traité de numismatique du Moyen Âge (Paris 1891–1905),
3 vols.

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Grierson, Philip, The Coins of Medieval Europe (London 1991).

Grierson, Philip and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins
in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, vol. 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries)
(Cambridge 1986).
Kluge, Bernd, Numismatik des Mittelalters: Handbuch und Thesaurus Nummorum Medii Aevi
(Vienna 2007).
Le Goff, Jacques, Money and the Middle Ages: An Essay in Historical Anthropology, trans. Jean
Birrell (2010; Cambridge 2012).
Spufford, Peter, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge and London 1988).

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Sarah M. Anderson
Old Age
Introduction: The Topic of Old Age

The functions of old age in all sorts of medieval texts, from philosophic through
poetic, constitute a complex phenomenon, and, while following medieval treat-
ments of this stage of life, we see revealed some of the greatest problems
common to all humans in whatever period—the problems of temporality, of how
time’s passage changes the human mind and body and spirit, of mortality.
Summarizing some of the prevailing paradigms of old age in the medieval West,
exploring others in more detail, this article both suggests how persistent are
medieval ideas about old age and also maps the cultural patterns that make up
the concept of old age in the Middle Ages. As praxis and example, readings of
influential medieval texts are included here, and some considered at length,
although the reader is referred to more detailed surveys (see, e.g., Classen 2007a,
15–34 et passim, for a pan-medieval consideration of aged literary characters).
Examples selected here to discuss in some detail include Beowulf, the Roman de
la rose, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and some of the works of Geoffrey
Chaucer. The justly famous speech of Jaques and its wider setting in William
Shakespeare’s As You Like It furnish telling examples of the afterlife of earlier
conceptions and representations of old age. Though Protean (Coffman 1934, 249)
and always available to metamorphosis by way of the invention of writers and
artists and thinkers, old age, as depicted in the Middle Ages, is still very much
with us in one form or another.
Old age is no longer quite the brand-new subject for scholars of the Middle
Ages that it had been before the turn of the twenty-first century. The recent,
growing interest in the category and constitution of the aged in the medieval West
has been inaugurated by several factors. But from the broadest point of view, age
studies have resulted from the expanding interest in the nature of the human
subject. This expansion has resulted in abundant scholarly projects that concern
medieval texts, including the examination of medieval texts in terms of their
“new” readers—lay readers with their own social, political, and material interests;
the investigation of the history of affect, even within “extinct” cultures like that of
the medieval West; the figure of the medieval woman not only as a character
within a text, but as the text’s reader; and the study of the social scripts by way of
which gender and race are dramatized in medieval travel narratives, to cite some
key examples of this development.

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Old age in the Middle Ages cannot be considered outside these expanding
intellectual projects. And, to turn to one of the most productive intellectual
approaches offered by post-modern theory, old age can certainly be queered, for
toward the process of aging and the fact of the aged individual, we are—and seem
largely to have always been—ambivalent, especially because old age is produced
as much by way of social performance and aesthetic representation as it is a result
of the actual facts about aging in the Middle Ages. Broadly, old age has been
understood as a state uneasily positioned upon a calculus of gains and losses for
the human subject and for the larger body social.
Aging is both completely expected, if—to allude to that old joke—one lives
long enough, as well as being a fearsome and final position in the arc of human
life. Foreseeable, but not eagerly awaited, the phase of old age is altogether
normal for the human animal and, perversely, contra-normative, for it takes away
from the human subject bodily and mental characteristics that constitute identity
in its positive and valued senses for human beings. So, the representation of this
phase of life in literature, art, and philosophy draws old age as a state in which
categorical distinctions of immense weight, distinctions like that of gender or
those separating the natural from the artificial, are blurred and troubled. Philoso-
phical, artistic, and literary discussions of old age deal with the same anxiety: the
knowledge that the aging mortal comes so close to the troubled borderland
between life and death that even that key difference is seen as bridged or
breached by the elderly, who drift away from the roles of active human life and
into the stasis that precedes our final motionlessness. Yet the old have a terrible
potency: the old man or old woman is more than just a risible or pathetic figure
who enters, stage left, in the greater human drama, but rather an entity whose
ordinary human traits are obfuscated, confused, and confusing and perhaps
replaced by so queering an ambivalence as to oppose the normative or, from
another well-represented theoretical angle, to become the monstrous.
Other factors have influenced why age studies concerning every historical
period are getting more attention in Western scholarship. The aging of popula-
tions has altered the West during the modern and post-modern periods, and old
age is thus a frequent topic for policy-makers in, for instance, North America,
Europe, and Japan. As social historians continue to predict, this shift of popula-
tion toward the older end of the age spectrum, while current workers age and the
birth-rate in the West remains low, will certainly raise many new social issues
requiring national and broader responses. Scholars of old age in the Middle Ages
have made the connection of an historical topic to contemporary policy explicit.
For example, in the introduction to a monumental collection of essays, Old Age in
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected
Topic, Albrecht Classen astutely points out the importance of old age policy in our

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times as productive of the study of old age in respect to any era of human history,
including the medieval (Classen, ed., 2007, 57 and 63).
A The Meaning of “Old” in the Middle Ages

The revulsion, fear, and aversion felt toward the aging human body is registered
throughout medieval literature, and the rehearsal of excerpts from literary
sources has been one way that synthetic treatments of “old age” have tried to fill
the aporia of demographics for earlier periods. Indeed, the modern scholarly
paternity of age study perhaps begins with the grand synthesis of the prolific
historian Georges Minois, who, in one stupendously imagined project, sets out to
examine how humans have aged from 2450 B.C.E. through the sixteenth century
C.E. (Minois 1989). Minois discovers in this huge swathe of human history no
golden age for those of old age in any period.
In the absence of demographic data about old age in the societies and time
periods he surveys, Minois relies upon literary texts which, he opines, give one a
partial vision of reality. He does not theorize his claim, but it seems based upon the
principle of analogy: if characters of a certain type have a literary life, then they
must have had some real existence, too. Later in this discussion that assumption of
Minois will be challenged. In his chapter on the aged in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, Minois rehearses the perverse fact that the bubonic plague (the worst of
it coursing through the West from, roughly, 1348–1450) killed more young people
than old ones. In one of the most fascinating and best known chronicles of the
plague of 1348 in Florence, Cronaca fiorentina di Marchionne di Coppo Stefani (=
the Florentine Chronicle of Marchionne di Coppo Stefani), Baldassarre Bonaiuti
declares that the plague’s devastations caused many customs to change, including
what fruits could be imported—fruit with a pit having been deemed unhealthy—
and how men dined. It is in this context of disruption of custom and the natural
order of aging and death that Bonaiuti’s remarks are best understood, for statistical
studies of this phenomenon are not yet complete (here, Minois uses what he calls a
“pre-statistical approach” [Minois 1989, 212 et passim]).
Minois’s statements about Florence’s social chaos following the plague of
1348 eventuate in his argument that Geoffrey Chaucer uses “many old men” in the
Canterbury Tales (for all quotations from the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, including
but not limited to the Canterbury Tales, see Chaucer 1987), particularly emphasiz-
ing the comedy plotted around the old husband who has acquired a young wife
(Minois 1989, 227). Minois cites Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s
Prologue as examples of this sort of comedy (cf. Sandige 2007). But Chaucer’s
comedy, in either one of these two instances, has a much deeper lineage than

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Minois suggests, with Chaucer vigorously employing tropes representing the

diminished sexual function of the senex (Latin, for “old man”), the misogyny of the
young and lascivious woman, and the hilarious human comedy of sexual congress
gone wrong, as it ever does in a May-December liaison. The grand synthesis of
Minois’s brave survey rounds the corners off of age studies, using literary texts as
evidence of an historian’s need for social reality, but falling between two posts in
so doing. The robust interdisciplinarity of age studies, as it has developed in the
last two decades, is a needed rejoinder to the grand synthesis of former studies.
And, for better or worse, a comparison of contemporary studies of old age with
earlier critical works shows that we now read differently and that we use texts
differently as evidence, whether studying old age or other topics.
Despite its growing scholarly visibility and the vigorous application of several
methodologies to it, strikingly fundamental questions about old age remain
unanswered. How old was “old” in the Middle Ages, and what sorts of persons
reached old age? Though statistics on longevity were not collected in the Middle
Ages, examination of any social group yields some individuals of either sex who
lived into the sixties and beyond. Studies point to a correlation between those
who were royal or rich and those who have lived longer, though all bets are off in
the case of a plague or other disaster. One finds evidence that well-known figures
lived long lives even in post-modern terms: Augustine of Hippo’s life spanned
some seventy-six years (354–430 C.E.), Charlemagne probably topped sixty-five
(ca. 742–814 C.E.), and Pope Gregory VII [formerly, Ildebrando de Soana] may
have reached some seventy years (ca. 1020–1085 C.E.). Similarly, for those medie-
val women who were important enough to have had records of birth and death
dates noted, one finds that the ladies, provided that they survived their child-
bearing years or escaped them by being cloistered, live to ripeness: Queen
Eleanor of Aquitane may have been eighty-two when she died (ca. 1122–1204),
and Hildegard of Bingen lived into her early eighties (1098–1179). Aside from
ecclesiastics and royals, we know something of the longevity of famous people,
whose lives were thought worth recording, in the medieval period: Dante Aligh-
ieri nearly made it to sixty (1265–1321), as did Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400),
while Giovanni Boccaccio survived just beyond that mark (1313–1375), and Dona-
tello to eighty years of age (ca. 1385–1466).
Both this list of the famous dead and Minois’s survey of old age demonstrate
that there is a dearth of direct observation on old age in medieval society. What
we do have is a sample of medieval “celebrities” and royals. Generally, upper-
class individuals constitute the only group about which we can derive sufficient
information of the statistical sort regarding longevity in the Middle Ages. Using
what data is available, some rough calculations have been made of average life
expectancies for individuals within the two groups mentioned. Thus, for the

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members of the Carolingian royal family (this group is comprised of thirty-eight

males of the royal family, all born between Charlemagne in 742 and Louis the
Child in 893), the average life expectancy was 33.5 years, and, if the calculations
are corrected for six deaths in infancy, life expectancy rises to 39.6 years. Of
interest, too, is that these royal males died from natural causes, rather than by
death in battle or through court intrigue. For the females of the Carolingian line,
of whom there are only three examples, average life expectancy was 34 years
(Dutton 1990, 81–84; 91–94). These figures suggest that neither Carolingian king
nor queen would have lived into the period of life denominated senectus by
medieval thinkers who wrote about the topic of the human life cycle.
A more difficult question, then, arises concerning old age in the Middle Ages:
when is one considered old (Covey 1992; Roebuck 1979)? By way of the simplest
division of human life into stages, based on ordinary experience and observation,
the life of a man is usually split into three phases: puer (Latin, for “boy” or
“child”), iuvenis (Latin, for “youth”), and senex (Latin, for “old man”). The
chronicles and histories rarely have occasion to include a man who has lived
beyond the stage of iuvenis. This evidence argues, then, that, though the senex
might well be instantiated and encountered plentifully in literary and philosophi-
cal writings, he is a much rarer figure in the actual social life and history of the
Middle Ages. The aged ruler of medieval history, who may be found in the records
of the Middle Age, is a figure whose construction demonstrates how deeply
influential are the rhetorical and cultural conceptions of old age on all representa-
tions of the aged, whether these figures occur in historical accounts or in fictional
ones. Art trumps life, or almost does so, and it is the synergy between lived,
experienced senescence and those imagined, poetic shapes given the senex that
eventuate in the composition of old age for the Middle Ages.
Thus, of Charlemagne, a ruler who did reach old age, it is noted in historical
sources that the king’s duties in older years turned from wars of conquest to
diplomacy and law-making—royal activities, but somewhat more sedentary ones.
Both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious pursue the strategy of letting their sons,
acting as surrogates for the aging rulers, make war on behalf of the kingdom
(Dutton 1990, 86–87). Such a change in the duties of the elderly king’s rule
reflects the weakness of the central power and the desire of the weakening ruler
to play to his remaining strengths.
Let us also compare the portrait of an historical Charlemagne to the fictional
portrayal of the rule of an elderly king, as explored in the Old English poem
Beowulf, found in a single surviving manuscript written in England around 1000
(for a dual-language version of the anonymous poem Beowulf, see Beowulf 2002,
and for the best fully-annotated edition of the Old English text, see Beowulf 2008).
First, one learns in this poem of a Danish realm in jeopardy, ruled by the elderly

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King Hrothgar. Hrothgar is a king who cannot protect the kingdom’s meadhall,
named Heorot—a symbol of rule, a venue for its rituals, and a place of safety.
Second, one reads the subtly rendered performance of Beowulf, no longer the
young champion winning fame in Denmark, but now the king of the Geats.
Beowulf, the poem declares, has held his kingdom “fiftig wintra,” “for fifty years”
(Beowulf 2002, line 2209a). Following that declaration of a rule so extraordinarily
long that it marks something eye-poppingly exceptional, especially compared
with the contemporary historical record for the period during the poem’s probable
inscription into its only known manuscript, we find that Beowulf’s kingdom is
threatened by the fire-breathing forays of an old dragon (“eald ūhtsceaða,” “the
old night-harrower” [Beowulf 2002, line 2271a]), a dragon which has, for some
three hundred years (“þrēohund wintra” [Beowulf 2002, line 2278b]), guarded a
horde of treasure from a now-extinct culture even older than the kingdom of the
Geats and perhaps older than the dragon. Old age, and older ages, are powerful,
perhaps crucial, themes in Beowulf, not just in the examples mentioned above,
but insinuating themselves throughout the poem’s 3,182 lines (for a discussion of
words for “old” throughout the Old English lexicon, see further Amos 1990).
When contrasting old age as discovered in historical texts with it as represented
in fictional texts, the complexities of old age in the Middle Age are thrown into
high relief: in a fascinating construction, real-life familiarity with life expectancy,
historical accounts of those who lived in the Middle Ages, and literary texts all
work together to modify and transform the idea of old age, ramifying this plastic
concept through each of many separate depictions of it.
B Medieval Medicine and Old Age

Such questions as how old age was experienced and delimited in the Middle Ages
depend on how the body is represented and felt, both in terms of an awareness of
biological aging and of how the state of old age is referred to in, for example, art
and literature. In the Middle Ages as today, the body, medicalized and gendered,
is the place where and through which aging is mediated. Aging, however, is not a
stage of the body’s life like infancy or puberty is, the onset of which is connected
to certain physiological changes. Old age both now and then is linked with one’s
performance of social roles—with, for instance, the ability of a person to work, to
create and bear children, and to fulfill similarly critical social functions. Were
there, then, special roles that an aging individual was expected to assume? Had
one honor and dignity in old age? What forms of social support could the elderly
depend upon, either within the family or outside it by way of cognate measures
like religious communities, hospitals, and almshouses?

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Few prescriptive works concerning geriatric care exist before the fifteenth
century in the West, although descriptive works about this stage of life, in which
old age plays a part in the symbolic order and is thus intertwined with theological
doctrine or natural philosophy are found (for a survey, see Demaitre 1990). For
instance, as pursued by students in the faculty of arts at the universities of Paris
and of Oxford from 1240–1310, the study of aging was shaped by ideas acquired
from philosophical texts. By the 1240s, the ban on teaching Aristotle’s natural
philosophy had been disregarded at Paris, and some of Aristotle’s libri naturales
were being taught by Roger Bacon at Oxford then, though it is not certain which
texts these were in particular. Aristotle’s De anima was certainly included in the
revised course of study because it was thought to examine life at its rational level.
Similarly, medicine was considered a part of the curriculum in this period
because it bore upon the living body. By way of introduction in the university
curriculum, questions about the aging man, both philosophic and literal, also
began to be formed among the educated classes. The stimulus for teaching texts
like those of Aristotle in these two great universities was principally the result of
another kind of expansion: the recent translations and expositions of Aristotle by
way of Latin versions saved by Arabic philosophers and physicians and then
transmitted to the West. Such was the case of De anima, translated in 1150 by
James of Venice by way of Avicenna’s digest of Aristotle (Lewry 1990, 22–26).
Several approaches to medieval medical care of the aged may be discerned.
One diagnostic corpus is found in the works of, or attributed to, the Greek
physician and writer on medical method and ethics Hippocrates (ca. 450–380
B.C.E.) and in those of the physician and philosopher Galen of Pergamum (129–
200/216 C.E.), who, among other things, improved and implemented Hippocra-
tes’s theory of the body’s four humors. A second corpus of medicine in the
medieval West arrives by way of Arabic writers of the tenth and eleventh centu-
ries, most famously, Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina, who is known in the West by
the Latinized form of his name, Avicenna (ca. 980–1037). The Avicenna Latinus, a
part of Avicenna’s works translated into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries in Toledo and Burgos (Spain), constituted a controversial contribution
to medieval scholastic philosophy as well, especially in respect to Avicenna’s
distinction between “existence” and “essence.” Through this Latin translation of
some of his corpus, Avicenna’s theories of knowledge, metaphysics, and psychol-
ogy influenced significant thinkers in the West like William of Auvergne (1180/
90–1249), Albert the Great (1193/1206–1280), and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).
Also translated into Latin from Arabic was Avicenna’s medical treatise in five
books, al-Qānūn fī al-Tibb (the short-title, Qanun, by which the work is sometimes
cited, comes from the same Greek root for “canon” as does the English word, but
without passing through Latin). This encyclopedic work by Avicenna was the sine

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qua non of Galenic method in medieval medical schools like Padua, remaining a
standard medical text into the early modern period.
The third tradition of medicine was Western, resulting from medical ap-
proaches taught in monastic or cathedral schools, in which first Greek and later
Arabic, medical traditions were studied. From this milieu come guides to good
health which concern all phases of the human life cycle. The most famous
example of such a guides is the Regimen of Health, as it is titled in English,
authored by one of the foremost figures of medieval Judaism, familiar by way of
his Latinized name, Moses Maimonides (known in Hebrew as Rambam, an acro-
nym of his Hebrew name, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon; in Arabic, Abū ʿImran Mūsā
ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh; 1135–1204). Although an adherent of Hippocrates,
Maimonides’s medical texts, all of which were written in Arabic, can be appre-
ciated only within the framework of Galen’s approach to human physiology (Bar-
Sela et al. 1964, 6).
Was old age viewed as a disease to be ministered to during the Middle Ages?
How were the changes to the aging body regarded? Here, it should be under-
scored that some conditions of aging, even if recognized as other-than-normal,
may not have been considered treatable in the Middle Ages, except palliatively in
the family dwelling or its social cognates, any more than some conditions would
be today. For example, Maimonides’s Regimen of Health covers real treatments for
ailments like hemorrhoids and asthma, discusses sexual hygiene, and reviews
antidotes for poison. But included in the Regimen too are commentaries on the
Aphorismi (from the Greek plural, into Latin, and then English, “statements,”
“aphorisms”) attributed to Hippocrates. In one of these (Aphorismi 3.31) is in-
cluded a list of geriatric pathologies:
… dyspnea, catarrhs accompanied with coughs, dysuria, pains of the joints, nephritis,
vertigo, apoplexy, cachexia, pruritus of the whole body, insomnia, defluxions of the bowels,
of the eyes, and of the nose, dimness of sight, cataract, and dullness of hearing (Hippocrates
1964, 302).
The expected changes to the elderly body and nature, denominated accidentia
senectutis (Latin, for “the accidents / events of aging”), come to include in later lists
such indications of age as balding, insomnia, anger, and restlessness. A summary
of these alterations to the person may be found in De retardatione accidentium
senectutis, a medical treatise written in the early decades of the thirteenth century
and, until the last decades of the twentieth, misattributed to Roger Bacon (see
Williams 1997, 365–67). For such changes, there are remedies a-plenty, as there
continue to be today—but we would also agree with the medieval physician that
these are symptoms rather than an underlying disease or condition of body and
spirit.

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Medieval medical definitions of old age vary, with some writers placing its
onset at thirty-five years of age and others at seventy, the span of life allotted to
man in the Bible, Psalms 89:10 (in the Douay-Rheims 1899 English translation of
the Latin Vulgate: “The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years”),
or at seventy-five. Based on the scheme derived or attributed to Hippocrates,
Galen’s influential humoral scheme, i.e., four humors, of life’s four-fold divi-
sions, by way of which he attempts to explain all the processes of life as an
interaction among the qualities warm, cold, dry, and moist, states that old age
commences around sixty years of age. Galen declares that old age is a progres-
sive condition of wasting, and in order to exemplify how aging is related to the
humoral concept of life as continuous combustion, Galen uses the metaphor of a
wick burning in an oil-filled lamp. A corollary of this way of thinking is that life
cannot be extended by medical means beyond the measure of the “oil” in one’s
“lamp.” Early modern commentaries on Avicenna demurred, suggesting that
aging was a condition like desiccation that could be extended by way of diet and
other remedies (Demaitre 1990, 8–10). But the therapeutic keystone for any
possible treatment of age or of its “accidents” is related to Galen’s concept of
“neutral causes,” factors neither natural nor contra-natural to ourselves, but
necessary for healthy lives. These six neutral causes are: air, food and drink,
excretions (including not only waste products, but also sexual emissions), sleep,
exercise, and emotions. Besides treating an age-related problem by adjusting
these neutral causes, medicines that were meant restore the balance of the
humors could be prescribed—and these medicines consist of substances thought
to warm, to moisten, and to purge, for instance (Demaitre 1990, 13–22; Burns
1976).
The elderly in the Middle Ages were thought to be deserving of special
treatment in hospitals or almshouses under certain cultural conditions. For
instance, Christian religious regulation also commands special treatment for
elderly men and women in orders. Older members of the Benedictine Order, for
example, are set aside as a special group (along with children, who would not at
the present day be dependents of a Benedictine House) as naturally deserving of
compassion, and they are appropriately accorded dispensations regarding when
and what they may eat in the Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 37:
Although human nature itself is drawn to special kindness

towards these times of life,
that is towards the old and children,
still the authority of the Rule should also provide for them.
Let their weakness be always taken into account,

and let them by no means be held to the rigor of the Rule

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with regard to food.

On the contrary,
let a kind consideration be shown to them,
and let them eat before the regular hours.
(from St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries. [= Regula Benedicti; St. Benedict of Nursia, written
ca. 530 at Monte Cassino] Benedict 2001, chpt. 37)
Although the so-called Rule of Saint Augustine [= Regula Sancti Augustini, a

compilation made from a number of documents authored by Augustine of Hippo
and by other monks following Augustine], which of course precedes that of
St. Benedict, does temper fasting and abstinence in proportion to the strength of
the individual, the Rule of Saint Augustine does not set aside by naming them the
life-periods of the aged (or of infants) receiving these dispensations. However, the
Rule of Saint Benedict does specify these periods by name: “ … in his ætatibus,
senum videlicet et infantum … .” The senex sapiens who, according to the Rule
written by Saint Benedict, had to possess the virtue of discrimination required of
the duty of gatekeeper of the monastery illustrates the wisdom that may accom-
pany age. Yet, for all the possible wisdom of his aged state, the gatekeeper was
not able to move easily: age gave him something, and it took something away.
The medieval calculus of what old age gives a person and what it takes from
him is asymmetrical with respect to gender. If the pre-menopausal woman in the
Middle Ages has social value in part because of her reproductive capacities, then
we can set against that valuation of a woman’s biological state, how steeply her
currency drops when aging brings menopause. Thus, in a pedagogical manual
wrongly attributed to Albert the Great (i.e., Albertus Magnus), entitled On the
Secrets of Women (= De secretis mulierum; Lemay, trans., 1992), the monastic
audience is instructed about sexual practice and thus taught about the old
woman as a kind of biohazard, for the terrifying post-menopausal woman, whose
aging self has been made lethal by the retention of menstrual blood that she can
no longer excrete, is invested with a gaze that could kill children in their cradles,
declares this text. The attribution of this treatise to Albert—Dominican friar,
Roman Catholic bishop, a sainted doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, and
called “magnus” by his contemporary Roger Bacon—is a crucial argument for the
authority and veracity of the science claimed by On the Secrets of Women. The
historical Albert the Great, who studied the works of Aristotle at Padua, was
known for his scientific genius, called “vir in omni scientia adeo divinus” by his
contemporary Ulrich Engelbert (De summo bono, trans. III, iv). And he did indeed
write treatises on both old age and senectitude (Albert the Great 1890). This
treatise by the pseudo-Albert, then, is not only a potent example of the misogyny
that could be constructed from, inter alia, the Aristotlean sources on which On the

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Secrets of Women relies for gynecological knowledge, but also suggests that
medieval notions about the ugly old woman focus the toxic gaze with which
medieval women are imagined. Such examples of the ambivalence toward aging
in the medieval period, and of the uneven treatment of aging women versus aging
men, are only too easy to discover.
Old age as a problem and as a subject has not left us. It is a compelling and
full topic that encourages many different intellectual approaches and forms of
analysis. How did we in the West come to think about and represent old age as we
do? Let us begin with that issue, and trace one of the most important trajectories
by way of which old age in the Middle Ages, and in our historical period too,
received its inherited literary figures, forms of representation, and conventions of
description.
C An Inheritance from Antiquity

The medieval comprehension of the category of old age is largely a legacy from
classical, especially Latin, thought and literature. We know, of course, that many
aspects of the Middle Ages in the West are translated, “carried forward,” from
classical sources (for medieval literature, see the magisterial treatment by Ernst
Robert Curtius [Curtius 2013]). Though the classical legacy concerning old age has
left the fullest traces and clearest imprint upon medieval texts, that legacy was
also adapted and reformulated in the Middle Ages, not only to fit classical ideas
into the poetic capacity of medieval genres, but also because the classics were
inherited piecemeal in collections that might summarize, epitomize, or otherwise
select from Greek and Latin texts, and from texts that may well themselves be
fragmentary, literally. Intellectual and historical context and connections may
have been lost partly or entirely as these texts, so often tantalizingly incomplete,
were passed forward. There are, in addition, influences from non-Latin cultures
and thought upon the perceptions of old age in the Middle Ages, but the textual
legacy of antiquity has left the fullest traces and the clearest imprint upon old age
in the Middle Ages.
In respect to the literary characterization of the old man, George R. Coffman
(Coffman 1934, esp. 249–58) demonstrates how this arc of inheritance from Latin
to Western medieval literature works using a verse epistle composed by Horace
(Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65–68 B.C.E.). Entitled Epistola ad Pisones (composed
ca. 20 B.C.E.), this poem takes the form of a conversational, unsystematic and
occasionally dense ramble, apparently addressed to the father of the Piso family
and two of his sons, about poetic, and especially dramatic, composition. The
Epistola largely elaborates Aristotle’s discussion of decorum in literary genre (see

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Aristotle’s Rhetoric, 3 passim for “decorum”), an idea which Horace extends to

how a writer achieves unity within his work, meaning by “unity” a consistency in
every respect of character, diction, and action. Though the title is probably post-
Horatian, this verse epistle is commonly referred to as the Ars poetica, and, like
Cicero’s works on rhetoric, Horace’s Ars poetica spawned a continuous tradition
of commentary from late antiquity through the Middle Ages and became a crucial
textbook of schooling in the Middle Ages, influencing poets like Jean de Meun
and Geoffrey Chaucer. Within the Ars poetica, Horace argues that there are
differences among the several stages of human life, advising the Pisos that the
playwright must take the character’s age, with its particular associated nature,
into account when writing his dramatic role. The old man, writes Horace lacks
bodily energy, but makes up for his dilatoriness by way of other sorts of action
than the physical: he is quarrelsome, enviously castigates the vigor of youth,
regrets a golden age now long past, and generally spews forth miserliness and
greed (see lines 169–74). Horace’s senex is a thoroughly unpleasant character.
As Horace’s Ars poetica takes decorum in drama as its subject, his clever and
observant verse characterization of the old man by Horace is unsurprisingly
indebted to some of the stock characters employed in earlier Roman drama,
particularly as found in comedies like those of Plautus and Terence, which
typically make use of the ridiculous inaptitude of the senex amans (Latin, for
“aging lover”), a player who is all repulsive desire and no action. In addition, the
farcical unrealism that characterizes the fabula Atellana, a comic form of drama
played in the first century B.C.E., regularly included the role of the Pappas, the
easily tricked “old father” who lacks all foresight and rational command.
Horace’s senex, thus, points at and uses the collective cultural knowledge of
well-known types from drama in order to build his compressed but probing
representation of the old man. These types of oldsters, both repellent and
pathetic, are creatures of irritating lack and are signs of the fearful and total
diminishment of aging. They have remained well-represented types in the West
and certainly star in the Middle Ages, from Chaucer’s character named “Januar-
ie,” the gulled senex amans of The Merchant’s Tale, through Shakespeare’s old
King Lear, rampaging and irrational through his eponymous play (written ca.
1604–1606), a man who is old, but certainly not wise and a characterization
indebted to the senex of antiquity, among other things.
The Horatian figure of the senex is next found in the early Middle Ages, some
six hundred years after the date of Horace’s stanza. Though lacking its immediate
textual context and probably its broader cultural context—an element in the
transmission from antiquity of this Horatian stanza which may imply that the
verse about the senex was carried forward by way of a collection of extracts or
similar anthology—Horace’s depiction of the old man’s disabilities is used in the

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Latin elegies attributed now to the obscure figure known as Maximianus (fl. sixth
century C.E.; see Coffman 1934, 250).
Little is known of Maximianus except what he reveals or invents of an
autobiography in his six elegies. He claims friendship with Boethius (full name,
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius; 475/7–525 [?] C.E.) mentioning by name the
author of, among other now less well-known works, the prosimetrum De con-
solatione Philosophiae [= The Consolation of Philosophy], an arresting and vastly
influential philosophical work composed ca. 524, apparently while Boethius was
been imprisoned by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric (r. 475–526), who would
cause Boethius to be executed as a traitor on trumped-up charges. Along with
Aristotle and Augustine, Boethius is the one of the greatest influences on the
philosophy that developed from the Latin tradition in the Middle Ages. At Elegy
III, line 47, Maximianus denominates Boethius “magnarum scrutator maxime
rerum,” that is, “the greatest of investigators of the greatest matters” (Maximia-
nus 1900, 40). It has been argued, though, by an editor of the elegies, that the
third elegy is “intended to ridicule Boethius,” parodying the Consolation (Max-
imianus 1900, 14), so it is not clear that one should take this praise at face value.
Though it is without question that Boethius composes the greater work in terms
of influence, originality, and beauty, Maximianus and Boethius do have at
least an intellectual friendship, for they share a concern with the topics of
mutability and mortality as these were passed forward from antiquity, to which
the state of old age is indissolubly linked. What each does with that classical
legacy differs.
Maximianus writes out of an understanding of the classical tradition of the
senex amans, but invents a more expansive persona than was needed for the
scope of that character type in Roman drama. The Elegies emphasize the imagined
private performance of (failed) lovemaking, rather than the staged ritual of
drama. They are all about what the old man can no longer do in the boudoir—and
why, and that is where growing old comes in as causal. In his first elegy in the
sequence of six, Maximianus constructs the body as a prison-house from which
one is not freed except through death, describes the senex, first diminished and
wasted in the grasp of the living death of old age, and finally reduced to a human
entity incapable of love, and thus of satisfaction in the deep ways in which
lovemaking is mutually satisfying.
The fifth elegy is a wonderful whine, and a highly erotic one, devoted to
describing the impotence of the senex and making clear the details of his sexual
ineffectuality, including a memorable invocation by his mistress to the flaccid
member of her would-be lover. The sixth and final elegy, only twelve lines long,
recounts in moving brevity the impoverished horror of old age, its inaction and
ruin, in ways that recollect Horace’s representation (Maximianus 1900, 52).

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These six elegies present the reader with a number of interpretative problems.
The first of these is understanding what the mode (or modes) of the Elegies might
be. Is Elegy III parodic, and might its object have been Boethius’s Consolation? Is the
mistress in Elegy V a figure drawn with a spiteful and misogynistic pen, a witness to
the antifeminist literature that imagined the wild and insatiable sexual appetite of
women (in which horrible fantasies of sexual excess there seems to be a frisson of
pleasure for men)? Or is the construction of the male speaker the elegies’ focus—an
amplification of that familiar senex amans, played for all he is worth against a
longstanding tradition? Is this sequence of six elegies, chockfull as each one is with
the imitation of and borrowing from other Latin authors at the smallest level of the
phrase and line, more a poetic game for a suave audience or a witty homage
constructed by scholars stuffed full of classical learning than it is a serious philo-
sophic meditation like that of Boethius? Were the Elegies composed by or for a
scholarly community? Is it the work of rambunctious young scholars? With the
likely impossibility of “solving” the problem of who the historical Maximianus
might have been or whether that is a pseudonym, how should one read the
intellectual play with the role of the speaker within the elegies and of the poet
outside them?
One certitude is how the senex in the elegies has been developed: the break-
down of the aging human body described by Maximianus operates within a
rhetorical commonplace first found in late antiquity in which the “body” of the
world is understood by analogy with the human body. Both bodies, thus, age, and
the aging body of the world shows its approach to death by way of “symptoms.”
For example, it was argued that the lack of charity in the world was a symptom
that the world was in its sixth and final age, cooling like the aged human body
would according to medieval science, for Jesus had foretold that “the charity of
many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12), which prophecy seemed to have come
true. In addition to its use in rhetoric, senectus mundi (Latin, for “the old age of
the world”) may be found in many types of texts—literary, moral, apologetic, and
scientific—where it functions as a crucial principle. Pushing that idea as far as it
will go, James M. Dean has claimed senectus mundi as the “organizing principle”
for foundational medieval authors like Jean de Meun, Dante, William Langland,
John Gower, and Geoffrey Chaucer (Dean 1997, 10), who are able too by way of
this idea, and also under cover of it, to criticize contemporary society.
This idea of the senectus mundi, the “old age of the world,” is oftentimes
resolved when the speaker in the text in which it is used sublimates the desires
that are produced by his failing body. But Maximianus’s elegies have no such
consolatory endpoint. Rather, infirmity and impotence overwhelm both the
individual body and the social body. Reconciliation with the fact of nature that
death is inevitable may be suggested, but, though such an attitude may result

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in one ending one’s life with dignity, that gesture remains the only satisfaction
offered by Maximianus, and it is quite a narrow one. What lasts, according to
the final line of the final elegy, is the artist’s role and product, rather than the
artist.
The genesis of the idea that the age of the world, like the life of a man, can be
divided into periods is an ancient theme in literature, and these periods were
derived from observation or from numerological theories (see further the article
on “Numbers” in this Handbook by Moritz Wedell). The obvious division of hu-
man life is into youth and age, corresponding to day and night, or to summer and
winter. Aesop, Empedocles (490–430 B.C.E.), and Seneca favored a three-fold
division of life, and Hesiod and Pythagoras a four-fold one. Solon determined that
there were ten stages of life. But the commonest periodization of human life in
antiquity was seven stages (see further, “Numbers”). Parallel to the cycles of
human life were schemes that divided the history of the world into periods.
Hesiod’s five ages of the world were linked to metals and their properties, and
Daniel’s analysis of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue made of four
metals signifies a succession of four ages or kingdoms of the world that rest of
Jewish traditions of the ages of the world (Daniel 2:26–47).
These parallel schemes of human and world cycle are united, though it is
unclear by whom. Examples from antiquity of the interpenetration of these
schemes include Cicero’s picture of the Roman Republic as a baby, who grows up,
and then matures to adulthood (De re publica II.3), and Virgil describes the
saturna regna (Latin, for “reign of Saturn,” a theory of the stages of time that is
derived from Greek religions) in his fourth Eclogue by way of the stages of boy,
adolescent, and adult. Livy’s history of the foundation of the Roman empire
describes its periods using the same words that would refer to the stages of
human life (Ab urbe condita, Praefatio, par. 3 ff.). Lucretius concludes the second
book of De rerum natura with a peroration describing the symptoms of the bodily
illness of the world in terms of nature, farming, and husbandry (II, lines 1150–75).
He ends by observing that the man planting vines: “nec tenet omnia paulatim
tabescere et ire / ad capulum spatio aetatis defessa vetusto” (“he does not grasp
that all things by degrees are wasting away and going to the tomb, worn out by
the age-old passage of life”) (II, lines 1174–75).
For the Christian medieval tradition, the crucial thinker is, of course, Augus-
tine of Hippo (354–430), path-breaking philosopher and theologian, author of
one of the most astounding works of self-discovery ever written, the so-called
Confessions, composed about 397, of which the eleventh book is devoted to the
problem of time—discussing, for instance, what it is, how it is experienced, and
what is meant by God’s eternality. In part, his discussion of time includes how
man experiences the problems of past, present, and future as man himself lives

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through these stages. Augustine uses the trope of the ages of man and of the
world on many other occasions. An influential example for the Middle Ages is his
treatise De Genesi contra Manichaeos [= About (the Book of) Genesis against the
Manicheans], a commentary on Scripture written very early after Augustine con-
verted to Christianity, perhaps 388–390. It is meant as a counter-assault upon the
Manicheans’ literal and anthropomorphic interpretations of the creation narrative
in Genesis. Considered within the canon of Augustine’s works, it is connected to
the chapter on time in the Confessions, for books 11–13 are a commentary on
Genesis 1, as well as De Genesi ad litteram [= On the literal meaning of (the Book of)
Genesis], a wide-ranging and open-ended work written between 401–415 that
argues for the consistency of Scripture with science.
In the twenty-third chapter of his De Genesi contra Manichaeos, Augustine
juxtaposes three metaphors for the ages of man and the world, drawing them
from classical non-Christian as well as biblical sources: the ages of man, of the
days of creation according to Genesis, and of the historical periods from Adam
through Jesus. The concatenation results in the “septem dies, et septem aetates
mundi”—“the seven days, and the seven ages of the world.” For example, then,
the first age, when men began to enjoy the light, may be compared both to the
first day of creation when God declared, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), and to
the infancy of the world. The fifth age ends, and the sixth begins, with the coming
of Jesus as the messiah, claims Augustine. This fifth age of the Jewish nation
Augustine denominates as “senectus veteris hominis”—the “senescence of the
old man”—which “old man” will be put away for the “homo novus,” the “new
man,” who has put away the things of the flesh. The seventh day and seventh age
of man will be the second coming of Jesus. The fusion of metaphors is ingenious
and intricate, and the age of the earth’s senectus as an end-point like that of man
is reformed by way of Augustine’s innovation. Further, in the conclusion to his De
civitate Dei [= Concerning the City of God], written ca. 413–427, Augustine takes up
the fusion of metaphors once more, comparing the ages of man, the ages of the
world, and the days of the week.
Wherever found in Augustine’s work, these fused metaphors are purveyed to
innumerable readers and writers in the Middle Ages by Isidore of Seville (560–
636), whose Etymologiae [= Etymologies] was a summa of all that was known and
by Bede (672–735) whose Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum [= The Ecclesias-
tical History of the English People] is the best known work in the twenty-first
century out of some two-dozen extraordinary volumes on the reckoning of time,
history, hagiography, geography, and Scriptural commentary. Both of these two
men quote Augustine’s fused metaphors of the ages of man, history, and the
world or use them in their own works. The connection of the sixth age of the world
to the senectus of human life gave impetus to the image of the senectus mundi, the

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essential pessimism of which was re-read through Christian doctrine regarding

the incarnation and second coming of Jesus.
The senectus mundi also informs several historiographical tropes. Important
among them for medieval texts is the decline of the state or of the state’s ruler
using this trope of senescence, with the state or ruler being analyzed and repre-
sented as if an aging human. As Paul Edward Dutton shows, plentiful uses of this
trope may be found, inter alia, in the correspondence between Alcuin and Charle-
magne in the late eighth century (Dutton 1990). Carolingian sources also link old
age with bodily infirmity, as exemplified by the Latin phrase debilitata senectus,
“crippled old age.” Yet, in the case of Alcuin’s correspondence, such protestations
of age and illness may also constitute a very practical excuse for avoiding the
duties thrust on him by the king, rather than suggesting a high-minded conversa-
tion between sacred and secular rulers about our mortality (Dutton 1990, 77). The
trope of the decline of a ruler or a reign also plays an important part in ninth-
century historiography by Carolingian historians, certainly the more so as Charle-
magne himself ages, and the trope arises in commentary whenever the country is
ruled by an aging king, and is in disorder (Dutton 1990, 81). The connection
between the rhetorical styling of a state or its ruler as aging, and thus as increas-
ing inept and infirm, is a crucial association to make for understanding political
and historical writings of the Middle Ages. Modern historians, too, use the
senectus mundi as an ordering principle when writing analysis and, as Ernst
R. Curtius remarks throughout his seminal study, often without knowing that
they are participating in this medieval trope.
The lament about the illnesses, both somatic and social, caused by aging
appears once more some six hundred years after Maximianus during that period
of revitalization in the twelfth century in the West known as a renaissance in its
own right. The continually re-fashioned character of old age is now embedded
within the Christian tradition of contemptus mundi (Latin, for “contempt for the
world”), rather than in the epicureanism associated with the Odes of Horace (see,
e.g., Horace’s famous formulation, “carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero”
[= “seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next”] in his Odes I.xi), with
Roman stoicism, or in the late Antique figure of senectus mundi. An exemplary
expansion of Horace’s representation of old age may be sought in a treatise by
Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216), De contemptu mundi; sive, de miseria humanae
conditionis [= On contempt for the world; with, on the misery of the human
condition]. Born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (Englished as Lothar of Segni) of a
significant and noble Italian family, Pope Innocent III understood the papacy as
having both powerful spiritual and secular roles and, as is well known, Pope
Innocent III at once re-asserted papal rights in Rome, was directly interested in
the complicated German succession following the death of Henry VI in 1197 (see

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his famous decree “Venerabilem,” 1202), called the Fourth Crusade in 1198, began
the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, convened the Fourth Lateran Coun-
cil in 1215, and annulled England’s Magna Carta, a declaration with which the
English barons did not agree. In addition, he wrote two works which survive in
hundreds of manuscript copies: De miseria while still Cardinal, and De contemptu
mundi during a period of voluntary retirement when Pope Celestine III, hostile to
Lothar because of a family quarrel, was pope (1191–1198).
The bodily devolution of old age is developed in the sort of compelling detail
as Maximianus’s Elegies, but at greater length, varied, and repeated. The use of
Horace by Pope Innocent III is clear indeed, from the titles for Book I, chapters ten
and eleven of the treatise, taken from Horace’s opening line “De incommodis
senectutis” and found more deeply in the regular accentual rhythm of the passage,
also used in Horace’s Ars poetica, and, at the level of word and phrase, in the
“immediate imitation or adaptation of Horace” (Coffman 1934, 255). Though it is
not clear how Pope Innocent III learned his Horace—whether through excerpts
from rhetorical manuals or florilegia or from a copy of the Ars poetica—it is by way
of Pope Innocent III’s treatise that the idea of contemptus mundi is transmitted to
England and France.
In the Elegies of Maximianus and De contemptu mundi of Innocent III are the
physical and mental traits of old age found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s translation of the
French poem Roman de la rose, known by the Middle English title Romaunt of the
Rose. Chaucer’s “Elde” (Middle English, “elderly,” “old age”) has shrunken with
age, feeble, faded to a waxy white in face and hair (lines 349–56), and when, in
contemporary John Gower’s Confessio amantis, Venus shows the poet his own face
in a mirror, Gower makes out his dim eyes, “unglade” expression, withered cheeks,
and hoary head. In Gower’s grim witticism, “al my face / With Elde I myhte se
deface” (Gower 1900–1901, Book 8, lines 2827–28). The character traits of old age
show that Middle English authors were descendants of the Classical line about old
age: “Elde” in the anonymous Parlement of the Thre Ages is envious and angry, and
the narrator in The Castle of Perseverance castigates the greediness of the old man,
and in William Langland’s Piers Plowman, the character Will, already rejected by
his wife because he is impotent, is reduced to a terrified and trapped old man,
watching the approach of Death (Langland 1988, B, Passus XX, lines 185–202). No
one “wolde bicomen old” declares Chaucer’s Romaunt of the Rose (line 4965), but
the aged character in play, poem, and lyric in fourteenth-century becomes so in
ways that, despite the enlargement and invention of the medieval writers of this
fertile period, show the old man and the old woman as members of an Antique line.
Another complex tradition of old age, and one which relies on many compli-
cated strands of inheritance, is found in the tradition of the ages of man, of which
old age is the big number.

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Old Age 1299
D Old Age by the Numbers

Long before the medieval period, the ages of man had been analyzed as consisting
of not only seven parts, but also of three, four, five, six, and twelve parts, of which
the Classical scheme of four, derived from Pythagorean numerology, and the
divisions of three and of six, derived from the Christian Trinity and the Christian
Bible, dominated. Not only does the number of stages of human life differ in these
diverse schemata, but also so do the content and the capacities accorded to each
phase of life, regardless of how many years it contains. And along with the implied
states of senile dementia, helplessness, and nearly inhuman ugliness bestowed on
some models of seniority, there are conceptions of “old age” that add desirable
human qualities in this period of life, rather than developing only the imponder-
able and woeful calculus of subtractions that Jaques declares (regarding the
Shakespearean character Jaques, see further, below).
The significance of “seven” or of sevenfold groups of people, objects, and
activities, of which, as we shall see, Jaques’s speech is an example, is widely
distributed globally, both pre- and post-dating written traditions in which such an
idea could have been transmitted within a culture or region. Jaques’s scheme,
which imagines human life as divided into seven ever-diminishing phases, is one
of two uses of “seven” in influential models that divide human life into calculated
stages. In the other, and much older, use of “sevens” to describe the human life
cycle, critical changes mark each group of seven years, of the ten each human is
accorded, a fact of life recorded too in the “fourscore years and ten” of Psalm
89:10. In each one of these ten stages, nature acts decisively to causes key
changes within the individual or in respect to his larger social duties.
The “sevens” of human age has had a long life. The earliest surviving
evidence of this idea that a man’s life consists of seven phases of ten years each is
an elegy on the ten ages of man attributed to Solon (ca. 638–558 B.C.E.) (for the
text of this elegy, see West, ed., Delectus ex Iambis et Elegis Graecis [1980], Solon
27). Detailing the first four phases of life, Solon describes the physical maturation
of the human body from birth through its twenty-eighth year. In the fifth hepdo-
mad, he writes that man’s duty is to the social responsibilities of marriage and
procreation. Because it was thought to mature at a different rate than the body,
the mind comes into its own in man’s sixth age, from thirty-five years of age
through forty-two. The seventh and eighth periods of life see the ripening of
rhetoric, language, and speech within man. Even in the penultimate period of life,
from fifty-six years old through sixty-three, Solon opines that a man can still do a
great deal, even if there is a weakening in his capacities for thought and speech.
About extreme old age, that tenth and final period of man’s life, Solon does write
rather gloomily that: “And if anyone comes to complete the tenth [age] in full

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measure, / He will not meet the fate of death unseasonably” (West, ed., 1980,
Solon 27).
As a witness to the tradition of the hebdomadal analysis of the human life-
cycle, Solon’s elegy has garnered an appreciative audience, who see in its reason-
able and vigorous program for nine of man’s ten ages, a robust Attic reaction to
more pessimistic assessments of human life, such as those wishes for death by the
age of sixty attributed to Solon’s contemporary, the elegist Mimnermus, as are
recounted in a life of Solon by Diogenes Laertius. Diogenes Laertius (fl. ca. third
century C.E.) wrote a biography in Greek of the Greek philosophers, known in
English as Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. The first extant version of
this work is a Latin translation of the Greek, printed at Rome in 1472, but thought
to have circulated widely before that imprint in manuscript copies. Solon’s life
may be found in the second chapter of Book One, often referred to as the book of
“the Seven Sages” even though the numbers don’t quite add up. The idea of there
having been seven wise Greek men is found in, e.g., the earlier life of Solon by
Plutarch (45–120 C.E.), though Plutarch states in his biography of Solon that only
Thales was a philosopher who carried his thinking beyond the realm of practical
statesmanship.
This important use of groups of seven to analyze the ages of man has a known
basis for intellectual development in Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean number
theory, in which the role of significant numbers—like the tetrad, the hepdomad,
and the decad—is to symbolize and describe the qualities of the natural world and
everything it contains. A revival of Pythagorean beliefs, referred to as Neo-
Pythagoreanism, took place in the first century B.C.E., further underscoring and
developing aspects of number theory like the ages of man. Neo-Pythagoreanism
included the apotheosis of Pythagoras as against all of the known early Greek
philosophers, one of several expansions of the reputation of Pythagoras that also
added credibility to ideas imputed to him.
In point of fact, little can be verified independently of the life of Pythagoras of
Samos (ca. 570–ca. 495 B.C.E.), revered as the first known “pure” mathematician
in later traditions of intellectual history including our own. Pythagoras became
associated with mathematical and scientific knowledge, including the epon-
ymous theorem describing, in terms of Euclidean geometry, the relations among
the three sides of a right triangle (also termed “the law of three squares,” this
relationship may have been known in practical terms by, e.g., the Babylonians,
but to Pythagoras is credited its first proof, as well as its relationship to a larger
mathematical framework by biographers of Pythagoras like Vitruvius, Diogenes
Laertius, Proclus, and Plutarch).
Of equal renown and importance were the ethical practices later compiled
under the term “Pythagoreanism.” All of the actual works of Pythagoras on any

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subject—if he wrote anything down at all—have been lost, either by having been
deliberately destroyed or because these writings were the common intellectual
property of his disciples, known as mathematikoi. But scores of texts from which
Plato (427–347 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), for instance, were thought
to have derived many important philosophical ideas were nevertheless ascribed
to Pythagoras. By the times of Plato and of Aristotle, Pythagoras already had
grown into a massive figure in the intellectual legendary history of the West.
Nevertheless, Plato refers to him only once (e.g., in Republic 600a) as the founder
of a way of life, and Aristotle never mentions Pythagoras as an historical figure at
all. Indeed, with critical circumspection, Aristotle writes of the “so-called Pytha-
goreans.” When Pythagoras is mentioned by name in Aristotle’s corpus of works,
such references are judged to have been interpolated later and may be attributed
to the status of “Pythagoras” as a revered auctor, whether the facts related to him
are historically verifiable or not.
In the Pythagorean system of beliefs, numbers were full of extra-mathemati-
cal meaning. For instance, the soul itself was imagined as a “self-moving”
number that experienced a form of continuing metempsychosis or reincarnation
until it had achieved purification, a claim that incidentally led to the vegetarian-
ism of devotees of Pythagoreanism, who could not in conscience halt a soul on its
itinerary toward perfection by eating its bodily form. Whatever the chain of
custody of the ideas attributed to Pythagoras, it is chiefly on account of two
propositions that Pythagoras was well-known in the Middle Ages: first, for his
thinking on the fate of the soul after death—his hypothesis about the soul as a
mathematical structure that could ascend to perfection by way of its intrinsic
motility; and, second, for his reputation as a worker of wonders. This medieval
characterization of Pythagoras as a sort of super-human figure, as close to
mathematician as to magus, was driven by astonishing anecdotes about him that
were inserted into, e.g., the Aristotelean corpus. Remarkable as examples of
fabulation, these supplements to what would otherwise have been a slender
biography of the Ionian thinker, attribute to Pythagoras, for example, a golden
thigh, the ability to commune with a river as if speaking with a fellow creature,
and the power of being in two places at the same time. As importantly, these
attributions are part of a persistent nebula of qualities and ideas associated with
Pythagoras and carrying all of the weight of intellectual truth. One of these ideas
is about human aging.
A distinguishing aspect of Pythagorean speculation on aging may be found
in the tetrad, a super-mathematical idea which links the progress of a human
life through time to the course of a calendar year through the four seasons. The
forging of that connection is a critical element in schemes of “old age” in the
Middle Ages, for it couples in a symbolic relationship changes in a human

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being’s roles and abilities with the order of seasonal change in nature. Diodorus
Siculus, the first-century B.C.E. compiler of a universal history, attributes to the
Pythagoreans the division of man’s life into a tetrad—four ages—in parallel with
the four seasons of the year, an attribution repeated and amplified by the
biographer Diogenes Laertius. And, yes: in this correlation, winter is paired with
old age, as seems almost “natural” to us at this point in time. We change,
argues this model, just as do the seasons in the world of nature, of which we are
a part.
Arguably the richest example of the Pythagorean principle of the transforma-
tive properties of age is found in the somewhat obdurate fifteenth and final book
of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. There, Ovid imagines King Numa, the successor to
Romulus, being told the story of Pythagoras’s settlement or school of philoso-
phers in Croton (now Crotone, Italy) and, in addition, to have told to him a
lecture, purported to be “words such as those” which would have been spoken by
Pythagoras (Book XV, lines 75ff.). Within the nested ventriloquism of these
speeches, Ovid explores again and for a final time in his epic, as he had done in
the first book of the Metamorphoses, the principle of change as fundamental to
the universe, using Pythagoras as the figure scripted to speak and represent this
philosophical point of view. As has often been remarked about this fantasy of a
lecture by Pythagoras, Ovid proves himself to be more poet than philosopher in
the Metamorphoses. Making that poetical power clear, Ovid adds a final ponder-
able about change by way of the Epilogue to the Metamorphoses (Book XV, lines
871–79): there, Ovid declares that his poem will survive the law of nature’s
mutability intact. The Metamorphoses will be indestructible, claims Ovid, perhaps
recurring in a deeply ironic mode to the problem that even our inscriptions, our
writings, are rubbed out though time or perhaps suggesting that his poem will
become an entity like the Pythagorean soul, moving toward perfection, rather
than being devoured by rapacious time: “… nec edax abolere vetustas” (“… nor by
the gnawing tooth of time,” Book XV, line 872). For us embodied humans, whose
footsteps slow while poetic feet continue their pace, the prognosis is for stages of
change through time, rather than a place beyond that dial.
Broadly then, all paradigms for dividing human age into distinct, equal
periods—whether of four, five, six, seven, or ten units of years—originate and are
rationalized by way of number speculation such as that exemplified by Pythagor-
eanism, a theory which comprehends the world by way of numbers as signifiers
of values that include order and beauty. In this case, the intellectual inheritance
of Pythagoreanism became part of the medieval analysis of human life-stages by
the numbers. It is those elements of the Pythagorean philosophy of numbers that
were absorbed by Neoplatonic thought and thus into Christian philosophical and
numerological schemes.

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Just as the four ages of man were linked to the four seasons of the calendar
year, creating a homology that pleased and informed by way of its proposed
natural harmony, so too did the correlation of the seven ages of man with one of
the seven planets then known, suggesting an order and, in an astrological
context, a rationale for the changes in aging men and women. The seven heavenly
bodies governed attitudes, temperament, and physical characteristics of each
individual, and to each of these celestial spheres was assigned, for example, a
specific part of the human body, each moral quality, every major class of disease,
and the particular vocation over which the planet ruled. Human development,
from the growth of the embryo in the womb, was understood to be controlled by
the planet under whose influence one’s life fell.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, principally in Italy and Spain,
great numbers of works containing this kind of scientific knowledge were trans-
lated from Greek and Arabic into Latin. The earliest surviving account in which
the seven ages of man are correlated with the seven planets is found in Ptolemy’s
Tetrabiblos, and this Ptolemaic system was combined with medical diagnosis and
treatment of disorder and disease. Though the Greek original of Tetrabiblos has
been lost, but the work was translated from Arabic into Latin by Plato of Tiburti-
nus, fl. twelfth century, as Quadripartitum; see Books III and IV, passim.
An example of this correlation of the seven ages of man with the seven
planets was written by the celebrated Pietro d’Abano (Englished, Peter of Abano),
ca. 1250–1316, who more broadly tried to harmonize the medical and philosophi-
cal treatises of Averroës and Avicenna with the “problemata literature” of Greek
natural philosophy (Tsoucalas et al. 2011; Thorndike 1944). Noted for his Expositio
Problematum, a work completed in 1310 that commented upon the great and
complex treatises known as Problemata Aristotelis, Peter was a star of the uni-
versity at Padua whose opinion on many medical matters held sway until the
sixteenth century—but he was also committed to astrological determinism, from
the influence of heavenly bodies on the minutest of human activities through the
stars’ control of even Galen’s lauded principles of the four humors. So deep was
Peter’s belief in astrological control over every aspect of human life as against
that of human free will or of divine providence that he was summoned by the
Inquisition twice, apparently dying in prison before his second trial could begin.
In Particulata 14 of the Expositio, Peter takes up the question of age’s relation to
influences on the body like hot and cold at great length, discussing the problem
that while Aristotle thought that the inhabitants of hot climates lived longer,
Avicenna was convinced that such conditions made one old at thirty. Peter’s
Conciliator differentiarum quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur (Venice
1565) contains an examination of the human life-span, in which he explores the
differences between terms like “length” and “shortness” in medicine and philoso-

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phy. (Peter’s work is largely known from reference to it in the profuse commen-
taries on the Corpus Aristotelicum written during the Renaissance and also
because of a treatise by Peter entitled Heptameron, which is quoted as an author-
ity on the magical elements in, e.g., Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim’s
work on ritual magic, Henrici Cornelii Agrippae liber qvartvs De occvlta philoso-
phia, seu de cerimonijs magicis [Marburg?] 1565).
The connections between the stages of one’s life and each stage’s ruling
planet, so deeply imbricated in Peter’s subtle studies, reach beyond the learned
schools of Paris and Padua, though. Though Frenchman Jean Froissart (ca. 1333–
1410) is perhaps more widely known nowadays for his Chroniques (= Chronicles),
covering the period from about 1326–1400, a searing account of the so-called
Hundred Years’ War between England and France and a probing witness to book
production, art history, literature, and language in this period, he also wrote
clever and deeply erotic courtly poems. Of these, “Le Joli Buisson de Jeunesse”
(= “The Sweet Bush of Youth”) explores the effects of each celestial body that
governs each stage of life, as Peter of Abano had believed was the case, imagined
in this poem as seven branches. Without surprise, we note that Venus rules the
ten years from fourteen to twenty-four, but that by fifty-eight, humans were under
Saturn’s hegemony until their deaths. Too old for the pleasurable arts of love-
making at twenty-five, one still might live on past fifty-eight, however enfeebled.
With the topic of Venusian arts having been introduced, what of the older woman
and the representation of old age in the Middle Ages?
E The Old Woman

A good deal of this discussion of old age, while it has been styled grammatically
to apply to humans universally, in fact is derived from representations and
accounts of old men. Here, we turn to the topic of the old woman in the Middle
Ages and her special problems, particularly as they differ from the “human” and
reveal something of the distinctness of woman from man in the Middle Ages.
Whatever the many differences depicted in the varied speculations about the
“ages of man” through the two thousand years in which they are the traceable,
these treatments are all anchored to man’s troubled ties to time. Because of its
link to time, old age can be comprehended as a chilling memento mori. This
construction of old age as a set of change so thorough-going that it is a death-in-
life is illustrated quite literally by the Venetian artist known as Giorgine. Born
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, ca. 1477/78–1510, what little is known of
Giorgino’s life is drawn from Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori
da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (= Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters,

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Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, by Giorgio Vasari, printed in
1550 and enlarged in 1568). Giorgino’s portrait entitled La Vecchia (= The Old
Woman; ca. 1508; oil on canvas, 68 x 59 cm, Accademia, Venice) writes our
troubled end-times as aging bodies by way of the scroll held in the right hand of
this worn, dull-eyed woman, with fallen and mouth gaping in an unnerving
grimace: “Col tempo” (Italian, “With time”), the caption on the scroll warns the
viewer, and this rich phrase carries within it the senses of “with passing time,”
“as time goes on,” and “as things turn out,” among others.
The subject of Giorgino’s picture—an old woman—introduces the problem of
how old age is gendered, and of how gender produces variations in the ways in
which the process of human aging is described and perceived (cf. Campbell, ed.,
2006, 1–4). The sidelong gaze with which this old woman regards the onlooker
presents us with the powerful ways in which images of aging reflect the social
realities of aging, or what we imagine them to be at any rate—for this old woman
looks exactly as we might expect her to look in the historical period of the late
Middle Ages, showing us as much about the persistence of the stereotype of the
“old woman” as it does about anything else, including the possibility that this oil
pictures what it says it does. La Vecchia’s gaze, realizing, as it does, a kind of
realism, also plays an important role in embedding within a culture its strategies
for fashioning a subjectivity of old age and for representing the cultural anxieties
about old age in women. Finally, La Vecchia is the granddaughter in a long line of
crones, and her picture introduces them to us. The rich and varied tradition to
which Giorgino’s portrait of age belongs is that of the vetula (here, “old woman”;
derived from Latin [adj.], “elderly,” “aging,” from vetus [n.], “old,” ultimately
derived from Proto-Indo-European *wetos-, “year”).
The vetula, as is suggested by my reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
below, is an outstanding phenomenon in medieval art and letters, one that arcs
across many of the most important genres of the Middle Ages, inseminating, with
her perverse potency, an enormous diversity of works. From sermons and trea-
tises sourced from the anti-feminist bookshelf, the crone is more productive than
her biology might indicate, inspiring an immensely popular tale attributed fal-
sely, but interestingly to Ovid, entitled De vetula, but also known—of course—as
De mutatione vitae, a tale of a trick in which the old woman is found just where
the young swain does not want her: in bed next to him. Surfacing in the mid-
thirteenth century as a part of an encyclopedic poem composed in Latin by a
Frenchman, this Pseudo-Ovidian work was also copied in England and in Italy.
By the middle of the fourteenth century, another Frenchman, Jean Lefèvre,
rewrote the poem in French verse and expanded the section concerning the old
woman as a mediatrix between the young lovers (Mieszkowski 2007, 300; Ro-
bathan, ed., 1968). The vetula is found as the miserable and dismaying option a

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love-struck lad must kiss and hug for a year’s time if he wishes the same pleasures
from a beautiful young lady in Boccaccio’s Filocolo (ca. 1336–1338). The old
woman once again appears as a procurer in Boccaccio’s poem, aiding an eager
bride who finds herself married to a young man without interest in the female
gender in his Decameron (ca. 1348–1353).
An example of the crone with a particularly deep afterlife is found in the
character “La Vieille” (= “the old lady”), a figure who enters literature in the West
in the later part of the influential thirteenth-century Le Roman de la rose, an Old
French poem begun by Guillaume de Lorris, ca. 1230 and completed by Jean de
Meun, ca. 1270–1280, though “completed” hardly does justice to the massive
swelling contributed to Guillaume’s 4,058 lines by Jean’s 17,724 line conclusion
(the unsurpassed critical edition of the Roman in its original Old French is Lorris
and Meun 1914–1924; an excellent Modern English translation with notes, based
on the 1914–1924 edition, is Lorris and Meun 1995). The popularity and probable
influence of this poem may be inferred from the 320 manuscripts or manuscripts
fragments in which the French poem has been copied, many of which manu-
scripts are sumptuously illustrated with elaborate programs of decoration from
the poem (Huot 1993; path-breaking general studies of the Roman include Minnis
2001; Brownlee and Huot, ed., 1992; Hult 1986).
An anonymous Middle English translation of the Old French Roman exists in
three fragments, and Geoffrey Chaucer translates a part of the French poem into
English as well, as Eustache Deschamps, who had a cultural stake in seeing
“grand translateur, noble Geffrey Chaucier” as a transmitter of French works to
English audiences, is pleased to tell us in his ballad addressed to Chaucer
(1385 ?). The influence of the Roman de la rose on Chaucer’s poetic projects may
be seen outside his direct translation of the work, too: Chaucer’s dream poems
and love visions—The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and, especially,
The Parliament of Foules—owe much to the Roman de la rose. Chaucer’s poetic
labors in the garden as a trope are enriched by way of the full symbolic settings
Chaucer discovered in the Roman de la rose: from Januarie’s garden, in the
Merchant’s Tale, lines 2029–41, to the locus amoenus where Aurelius courts
Dorigen in the Franklin’s Tale, through the antithesis of such lovely gardens in
Chauntecleer’s drab farmyard of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
Jean de Meun’s overgrown coda to Le Roman de la rose draws its version of
the vetula from a well-established medieval cultural library of misogyny and, for
our tastes, a horrifyingly well-represented anti-feminist tradition scorned by
Geoffrey Chaucer, as voiced by, e.g., the voluble Wife of Bath in her prologue and
tale, found in the so-called “marriage group” of the Canterbury Tales (as noted by
Helen Cooper, 1983, 125, the “marriage group” was not written by Chaucer as a
“group”], and by Christine de Pizan in L’Epistre au Dieu D’Amours (= The God of

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Old Age 1307
Love’s Letter, written 1399), Christine’s first critical reaction to the Roman de la
rose. Further epistolary reactions by Christine to the Roman are collected as Les
epistres sur le Rommant de la rose (=Letters about the Roman of the rose) (for the
first epistle and the epistle collection, see Christine de Pizan 1997, 15–29 and
41–45).The claims made in the Roman de la rose are jaw-dropping, both now and
then, for in this poem, it is men who have ownership of the “hammers” and
“plows,” so to speak, while women, as this symbolic logic continues, are the
“anvils” and the “fallow fields.” Indeed, the medieval debate about how to read
the Roman de la rose is so substantial a topic as to have sponsored its own
subject-heading – the Querelle de la rose (= the debate about “the rose”): the
positions sketched out about how to comprehend this intricate Roman, in respect
to its representation of the Church, women, and art, to name a few topics, form a
full literature of its own (on the Querelle, see McWebb, ed. and trans., 2007; Huot
1993; Badel 1980; Hicks, ed. and trans., 1977). As contemporary readers might
read it, we see that the old woman, represented by phallocentric culture of the
Roman de la rose, is empty of sexual attractiveness and procreative utility, is an
embodied vacuity, a nullity in the poem’s sexual economy. So when La Vieille
voices her desire for erotic sport, the reaction of the poem’s pedagogical voice is
disgust and revulsion at the dry labor of attempting to till the hardpan of an old
woman’s body. But the old woman here is much more than physically abhorrent:
she is also dangerous and maybe even wicked, a tricky bodily bog of contaminat-
ing corruption and moral ruin (Mieszkowski 2007; Pratt 2007; Matthews 1974;
Beltrán 1972; Fleming 1969; Morawski 1917).
Against such a dismaying review of one of the offspring of the vetula in the
Middle Ages, it is bracing to find that the study of old age in the medieval period
has re-drawn the crone’s family tree. In older commentaries on the “old woman”
type, La Vieille has been too loosely affiliated with another bawd who has her
own deep literary history: Dipsas, found in Ovid’s Amores Book I, viii (Ovid 1988).
Ovid’s Dipsas, whom the speaker of the poem believes “flits about at night” in
plumage, “knows the way of magic,” understands herbs, poisons, and the power
of the spinning wheel (here, a reference to the Latin Parcae, who, like the Greek
equivalents, were the female representations of destiny: spinning, measuring,
and cutting the fortune of each man), and she can call forth the dead from the
earth that she herself opens by way of incantations. While La Vieille or her sisters
may have been hired by a man to inveigle a desirable young woman into having
sex, the thirsty Dipsas is a great deal more than a procuress. As her name
announces, Dipsas is a drinker who is never satisfied, an embodiment of appetite,
of unsatisfied thirst, and one who teaches women how to delude, seduce, and
fleece men by way of semblances of love and desire. But she is in collusion with
darker powers too, the grand dame to the so-called witches, executed beginning

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in the fourteenth century and into the Early Modern period, when the “witch
finder general,” Matthew Hopkins, put to death several hundred accused witches
during the early part of the English Civil War (1640–1660). Throughout the long
history of the witch hunts in what we now call Europe, it is estimated that some
60,000 people were executed, though less reliable sources suggest that the
number was ten times that. By and large, the executed witches were old women,
heirs to the Dipsas tradition begun in Ovid’s self-conscious and ironizing Amores
(see Mieszkowski 2007, esp. 302–03 and n17, for this important correction of La
Vieille’s genealogy).
It is not without interest that the Latin noun dipsas, “viper,” comes from the
name given a fabled asp whose bite causes intense thirst, as recorded by Pliny the
Elder in his natural history (in circulation by 79 C.E.) and others. Through this
etymological history, dipsas comes by its association with thirst and thirstiness, a
history carried by the character named “Dipsas,” too. The notion of dipsas the
snake is borrowed into Latin accounts from a Greek tale in which Zeus rewards an
informant who tells him that it has been Prometheus who stole fire from him by
bestowing on the informant an antidote for old age. Zeus sends a donkey off with
this remedy for old age on its back. But after something of a trek, the thirsty
donkey behaves like a jackass at a spring of water guarded by a snake, exchan-
ging the antidote with the snake for a drink of water. The donkey slakes his thirst,
and the snake sheds its skin. This tale is known from a fragment by the Greek
dramatist Sophocles and by other poets whose works are now lost, and it is
repeated by the third-century writer [Claudius] Aelian in his work on natural
history, De natura animalium, Book 6, section 51, which, though Aelian was a
Roman, was written by him in Greek. It was later translated into Latin by the Swiss
scientist and expert on Renaissance natural history Conrad Gessner (1516–1565).
When one follows the genealogy of Dipsas then, one ends by contemplating a
literal and figurative snake-skin, by way of which the reader confronts crucial
questions about old age in the Middle Ages, questions passed down to the period
in a kind of translatio from Greek and Roman sources: is the stage of “old age”
primarily located in bodily form? Can age’s transformative effects on the body be
symbolized by a snake shedding its skin? Is there a remedy for old age? Is old age
then, by way of the history of one of its famous brood, the character Dipsas, as
dynamic a state as that skin-shedding snake suggests? In what ways can the
condition called old age be changed?

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F Changing Bodies: Ovid and Old Age

But age, allas, that al wole envenyme,
Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith.
Lat go. Farewel! The devel go therwith!
[But age—alas—that will poison us all, has bereft me of my beauty and my vigor. Let it go.
Farewell! The devil go with it!]
From Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, lines 474–76
The Wife of Bath’s irritated, pained, and fearful outburst about the changes to her
body as she ages force us to regard her—once again!—and to develop the connec-
tions between the theme of aging body in the Middle Ages and the precedents of
medieval theories of aging. The Wife imagines herself as ugly and as unsexed, as
changed unsettlingly, into someone or something else. The locus classicus for the
problem of transformation in the Middle Ages may be sought in that poet of
change, Ovid, whose best known work the Metamorphoses, both epic and ency-
clopedic, falls just behind Scripture in terms of its pre-eminence as an “authority”
(= Latin, auctoritas) in the Middle Ages in the West. In Ovid’s startling Latin poem,
whose fifteen books were probably composed between 2–8 C.E., aging is usually
described as a physiological process, and one that affects the bodies of men and
women alike, dissolving even that biological binary in its exploration of change.
It has been argued that aging is not, strictly speaking, a “metamorphosis”
(Nikolopoulos 2003, 48). Yet, aging is a process that affects the shape of the body,
and bodies transformed are Ovid’s great subject in his Metamorphoses, as the poet
declares in the famous conundrum offered by the opening lines of his epic:
“Changes of shape, new forms, are the theme which my / spirit impels me / now
to recite.” Aging in the Metamorphoses is, as we will discover it continues to be in
medieval literature, a problem of the mysterious human form and a problem of
the formal, for age stands as the sign for the change that is metaphor, functioning
in varied and often surprising ways in the discourses of art, literature, political
and philosophical thought—that is, in the poesis of representation.
With a terrible specificity, Ovid deploys the bodily changes that result from
aging in description after the description throughout the Metamorphoses: here are
the emblems that “beautee” and “pith” have deserted us in the trembling limbs,
wrinkled skin, white hair, and sloped spine of Ovidian characters. In the tale of
Baucis and Philemon (Book VIII, lines 611–724), for instance, the humble, impo-
verished old couple, quickly sketched with recourse to bodily stereotypes of
aging, offer hospitality to two guests, unaware that it is two gods, Jupiter and his
son Mercury, whom they entertain. A theme of this episode is surely that of piety
(it is paired with the tale of Erysichthon, in which impiety receives its awful

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punishment), but it is Ovid’s addition of homely detail about the physical effects
of age on the elderly couple that is both charming and wickedly funny. For
instance, when the two peasants begin to suspect that they are serving gods as
the mixing-bowl of wine never needs to be re-filled, Baucis and Philemon try to
catch and kill the one goose that guards their minute farm, hoping to provide a
proper repast for Jupiter and Mercury. But the goose is fleeter than the two elderly
crofters. When the fluttering bird seeks refuge with the gods, the two reveal
themselves, granting the old couple’s shared wish that neither one should have to
see the grave of the other. Thus, by way of deific transformation, their hut
becomes a temple, and Baucis and Philemon, rather than dying, remain the
sanctuary’s arboreal guardians. Here, as in the tale of Medea’s love for Jason, in
which Jason’s father, Aeson, is described as a tired old man (Book VII, lines 158–
62), old age is very close to death, and thus the signs of corporal aging inspire
varied reactions—the tenderness of Baucis and Philemon toward each other, as
well as the curses of the Wife of Bath of the envenoming old age that will change,
and then kill her. Like the Wife of Bath, one can rail at age, observe its difficult
comedy, object and try to correct it. But, perhaps because that final stage of
human life following old age—life’s cessation—is irresistible, it is against the
aging of our bodies that we make a last complaint.
These Ovidian experiments with old age portray physical appearance, on the
one hand, as a wardrobe full of props: the make-up of wrinkles and white hair
that can be rubbed away, leaving one’s skin smooth and youthful once again. As
Ovid observes that snakes can slough off their skins (e.g., Metamorphoses, Book
VII, line 237 or Book IX, line 266) in the natural process of rejuvenation, so does
he suggest, with ironical disjunction, that humans cannot do so at all as they age:
for us humans, age is more than a catalogue of physical signs after all. And old
age is one of the trappings that can be assumed by divinity, as if it were a
costume: both gods and goddesses disguise themselves as old women in order to
advise humans. The narrator of the Metamorphoses, who takes on the personae of
characters like Orpheus, Daedalus, and even Medea within these tales, assumes
the appearance of an elderly man in an act of poetic transformation.
Like the surgical knife, the supernatural rejuvenation as occurs in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses is double-edged: it may achieve the desired result (e.g., as with
Aeson, father of Jason) or end up a disaster (e.g., the example of Pelias). In Book
VII of the Metamorphoses, where these good and the horrible examples both
occur, Medea has to perform a very elaborate and lengthy ritual—including the
sacrifice of a black-fleeced ram, the brewing of a boiling, bubbling, frothing elixir,
and the gathering of magically charged objects from the natural world (like the
guts of a werewolf and the liver of a long-lived stag)—to effect change in the aging
body. She then slits Aeson’s throat, allows the blood to drain from him, and re-

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fills his circulatory system with the above-mentioned potion. Sure enough
(Book VII, lines 287 ff.), “when Aeson had fully absorbed this / either by mouth or
by way of the wound, his hair and his beard / lost all of their whiteness and
quickly returned to a lustrous black. / His leanness, pallor and withered features
had all disappeared; / those wrinkled and creased old cheeks filled out with their
firm new flesh / his limbs grew supple and strong. / In utter amazement and
wonder, Aeson remembered himself in his young days forty years earlier.”
Ovid’s Metamorphoses was read and known from one end of the Middle
Ages in the West to the other—for Ovid was also accounted an authority in
moral philosophy and in natural science, besides being a most important
resource for students of classical mythology, a very productive source for
characters and plots in medieval vernacular works. Ovid is also the unchal-
lenged expert on love and sex. Finally, because Ovid’s perspective on Virgil and
on the Rome of the Emperor Augustus is already a retrospective report, Ovid
becomes the model for all future efforts to recapture and reinvent the central
authority and image of Rome (by the way, Rome herself will be represented in
the Middle Ages as an elderly woman in distress). Old age never leaves man
indifferent, and that is certainly true in the Metamorphoses, even though reac-
tions to getting older in this poem vary from pity mixed with tenderness, to
sincere attention, to irritation, and even to rough laughter. Ovid, so interested in
the problem of change in this poem, imagines growing old both as a real change
and as a temporary change.
A vivid interest in change—real, magical, divine, internal—is offered by the
anonymous Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which will
glimpse the careful delineation of distinctions in what might be otherwise re-
garded as synonyms for “old age.”
G Old Age in Action: Sir Gawain and

the Green Knight
Simone de Beauvoir begins her tonic treatment of old age by relating a tale of
Siddhārtha Gautama, the man who will become the Buddha. Driving in the
countryside around his father’s palace, the first sight that Prince Siddhārtha sees
is “a tottering, wrinkled, toothless, white-hair man, bowed, mumbling and trem-
bling as he propped himself along [the way] on his stick.” The prince, astonished
by this awful spectacle, exclaims, “What is the use of pleasures and delights,
since I myself am the future dwelling-place of old age” (Beauvoir 1972, 7). As
pedagogy, this anecdote from Siddhārtha’s biography exemplifies the crucial

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qualities of pity, empathy, and action that one human should have for another,
which Beauvoir wants to galvanize in her readers. As politics, Beauvoir uses this
scene to expose and to change our reflexive reactions to all aspects of mankind
that distress us: we evade them. And especially, she continues, we evade old age;
indeed, old age is a forbidden subject: “Society looks upon old age as a kind of
shameful secret that it is unseemly to mention. … And that indeed is the very
reason why I am writing this book. I mean to break the conspiracy of silence”
(Beauvoir 1972, 7–8).
Part of the truth that Beauvoir speaks about the unseemly subject of old age
is by way of the collection and analyses she offers of historical and literary texts,
a precedent begun in her introduction. Within her chapter “Old Age in Historical
Societies (Beauvoir 1972, 99–242), Beauvoir reviews mythological, legal, and
literary texts from the “Dark Ages” through the Renaissance, and her reach and
terse commentary can be bracing. Of the old woman in medieval literature,
Beauvoir writes, “The misogyny of the middle ages [sic] is expressed in all the old
woman characters to be met with in their literature—the literature of the fabliaux,
particularly in La Male Femme qui conchia la prude femme and the Old Woman
[i.e., La Vielle] in the Roman de la Rose” (Beauvoir 1972, 153).
It is to be regretted that Beauvoir could not have reviewed the topic “loathly
lady” in medieval English romances, especially after the political and analytical
openness offered us by way of the critical work of feminism and gender studies.
The crone in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for example, is quite a different old
woman than she once was. Scholarly interests in the “loathly lady” have broa-
dened and deepened. For several decade the subject of folklore research (Brown
1971; Dalton 1971), the “loathly lady” has more recently been examined for insight
into the effects of female longevity (Feinstein 2011), as a prophetess (Malay 2010),
in popular literature (Carter 2007), in respect to the English laws of primogeniture
(Forste-Grupp 2002), for reading of woman’s self-identity (Caldwell 2007), for her
powers and effects in medieval literature concerning sex and marriage (McTag-
gart 2012; Shuffleton 2012: Donnelly 1997; Kelly 1973; Harwood 1972). And, as
much as the “loathly lady” has become the patron of more specialized studies of
medieval literature, this character-type has also been viewed as typical of some of
the interpretative clinches in reading medieval literature. The connection of the
“loathly lady,” whose very loathliness comes from a point of view of the female
body that associates age with ugly, amounts to a paradigm for the study of old
age in the medieval period. Thus, Classen includes, in his authoritative survey of
old age in the Middle Ages, a reading of the “loathly lady” in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight (Classen, ed., 2007, 25–29).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (henceforth, SGGK), an anonymous late
fourteenth-century alliterative verse romance, is one of the most poetically ele-

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gant and eminently teachable poems from the Middle Ages (for editions of the
Middle English text of SGGK and Modern English translations of it, see: Boroff and
Howes, ed., 2010; Andrew and Waldron, ed., 2007; Burrow, ed., 1972; Gollancz,
ed., 1940; Tolkien, Gordon, and Davis, ed., 1967). In this poem of one hundred
and one stanzas, extant in a single manuscript copy, Arthur’s nephew Gawain
assays the truth of the familiar romance virtues of chivalry and courtesy as the
key chivalric test in this poem. Like nearly all of the well-known protagonists in
medieval romances who are members of the court of Arthur, Gawain has a back-
story or curriculum vitae, and his narrative history begins very early: what
survives of early Celtic material suggests that, well before the blossoming of
romance that follows the verse-romances of Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1160–1191),
Gawain was “well-established in in oral narrative as the nephew, companion, and
defender of the great king [Arthur]” (Hahn 2000, 218).
Gawain’s appeal stretched far beyond the British Isles and must have done so
quite early, even before the great Latin source of Arthuriana found in Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (= The History of the Kings of Britain), ca.
1135. Dramatic evidence of Gawain’s reach is found in an ecclesiastical setting in
northern Italy. Gawain is certainly the knight captioned “Galvagnus” in a depic-
tion the abduction of Queen Guinevere, found on the archivolt above the façade
of the northern side doorway, the Porta della Pescheria, at the Cathedral of
Modena, Italy. Other than Gawain, the sculpture shows Arthur of Britain and his
knights Yder, Gauvarien, Burmald, and Kay attempting to rescue Guinevere, who
is held captive by Mardoc in a tower. Roger Sherman Loomis had argued that the
sculpture be dated before 1109 (Loomis 1938). Further investigation, though,
suggests that the sculpture dates to ca. 1120–1130 (Lejeune and Stiennon 1963). A
crucial point made by Loomis still stands, however: that the sculpted scene
including Arthur’s nephew Gawain predates Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia
regum Britanniae [= History of the Kings of Britain], thus suggesting the circulation
of tales of Gawain by way of an ongoing vernacular oral tradition before Geof-
frey’s Latin compendium (Fox-Friedman 2009).
Of all the knights of Arthur, who ride up and down through the medieval
English romances of Gawain (most of which are read only by specialists), Gawain
is the one exceptional performer of the precepts that endorse the rightness of
things as they are. The social slot Gawain occupies amongst Arthur’s men as the
king’s nephew is one that he shares with his brothers Mordred and Agravain, but
Gawain is the good exemplar of the “law of the Father,” the “son” who, despite
his own considerable powers, acts as an agent of Arthur, rather than a challenger
of him. Gawain is the commendable “young man” (Hahn 2000, 223), and this
quality of Gawain is certainly part of what is being probed in SGGK, especially
when the poem is read as a text of age studies.

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The dangers for Gawain are much different in SGGK than those presented by
his customary adventures. SGGK places Gawain in the space of the domestic, a
realm of intimacy and discourse, rather than facing off against the odd and alien,
as does Gawain in the dozen and more medieval romances that feature this knight
as the protagonist of other sorts of adventures: for instance, as the civilizer of a
weird “carl” and his wild companions (Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, ca.
1400) or as the challenger of a Turk (The Turke and Sir Gawain, ca. 1500). After the
famous framing stanzas of SGGK, we are cozily placed at Camelot at Christmas,
where the revels are the merriest, the knights’ jousts “ful jolilé” (line 42, all
quotations from SGGK are taken from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 2010), the
ladies the “louelokkest” (line 52) that ever had been, the king “the hy est mon of
wylle” (line 57). This scene of romance superlatives declares its singularity against
the continuing historical narrative, which the first two stanzas of SGGK lay out by
way of the trope of translatio imperii. We learn immediately that temporality—its
measurement and division and assessment—is a thematic problem in SGGK.
A closely related problem of temporality is the Gawain-poet’s introduction
and development of the theme of the “ages of man” (Burrow 1986), and it is by way
of the elaboration of the theme of “age and youth” that old age in SGGK acquires
its richness. The Gawain-poet is alert to the shifting temporalities to which the
genre of romance lays claim, particularly here to the transmogrifications of begin-
nings and endings, whether played out as “age and youth,” or as Troy and Britain.
Most spectacularly in this romance, the conflict between what seems to be a final
judgment or an act with finality—like the initial beheading of the Green Knight—
and the changing of the terms upon which judgment is based—like the “exchange
of blows” game morphing into the “exchange of winnings” game by way of the
bedroom chess match between Gawain and Bertilak’s wife—are transmogrified
within SGGK. And as the poem concludes, its audience learns that none of the
contests, none of the terms of engagement had motivated the actions in the poem.
In SGGK, the audience encounters familiar conventions and characters, but
each one of these is re-thought and re-imagined. Many poems of the so-called
alliterative revival in medieval England begin with the “first ages” of their
characters and settings, and SGGK conforms to such an expectation. Yet this poet
is alert ways in which such expectations can be used to develop a poem-long
theme about “age and youth.” “For alwatz þis fayre folk in her first age” (line 54)
declares the Gawain-poet, hearkening back to the theme of the rise and fall of
kingdoms, while suggesting too that there is a darker reckoning for the Round
Table’s company. This suggestion deepens as the poem continues. By way of a
line-long periphrasis for “New Year’s Day,” the Gawain-poet tells us that the year
is “ep” (line 60), that is, the new year is young, also untested, undeveloped. This
rhetorical figure, so elegantly decorative that one can almost forget its emphasis

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Old Age 1315
on the perils of youthfulness, opens up the unsettling possibility that Camelot is

untested, and thus young. Perhaps, then, these most beautiful people in the court
of Camelot may also be young, untested, and thus, foolish.
The description of Arthur strengthens this case. The Gawain-poet gives us an
Arthur “so joly of his joyfnes, and sumquat childgered” (line 86). Is the “some-
what childish” Arthur just too much of a boy to win through the “blysse and
blunder” (line 18) for Britain? King Arthur, whom the poem reports cannot sit still,
has an ever-busy brain (lines 88–89), also “wolde never ete”—his custom on
holidays, not a “one of” at the moment of the poem—until a story be told him (line
91). And his choice of genres is similarly boyish—something adventurous, action-
packed, and full of special effects (lines 93–95). One’s wait for adventure at
Camelot is brief.
When the Green Knight and his green horse burst into the hall, the Gawain-
poet recurs to the problem of the youthful Camelot again, and from the perspective
of the Green Knight. It is not at all apparent to the Green Knight, whose mature and
comely masculinity is elaborated in several stanzas in SGGK, who is in charge:
“Wher is, he sayd, / The governour of this gyng?” (“Where is, he said, the governor
of this gang?,” lines 224–25) Even after the Green Knight has looked each of the
knights up and down (lines 228–31), the group looks ungoverned to him. Though
Arthur declares himself to the Green Knight, host to guest, the Green Knight
declares that he is not there to fight with “the berdles chylder” (“the beardless
children,” line 280) of Camelot. The “game” the Green Knight is granted by Arthur
will at least turn a “green” Arthur red “for scham” (“for shame,” line 317) and give
Gawain a decorative notch on his neck. As this evidence makes clear, the plot of
SGGK establishes at once the problem of the temporal and theme of youth and age.
The Gawain-poet expatiates upon youth and age by way of experimenting
with the character known as vetula, a crone familiar in the vernacular literatures
of the Middle Ages, where vituperation of women seems a literary sport at which
men excelled (see, e.g., Mieszkowski 2007; Pratt 2007). And, if a well-known
author didn’t write something, it might still be attributed to him. Such is the
case with the thirteenth-century Latin comedy entitled De vetula, attributed by
way of a pseudo-epigraphic signature to Ovid (Robathan, ed., 1968). In this
drama, a farcical bed-trick puts a caracter named Ovid in the arms of a rapa-
cious vetula, rather than the comely women he had arranged to sleep with, a
metamorphosis that the poet of the Metamorphoses discovers by tracing the
vetula’s figure in the dark bedroom. When Ovid meets the young lady again,
now a widow, they repeat the assignation. This time, however, she has herself
become the vetula. “I have sung of forms changed into new bodies,” laments the
poet, re-forming the famed first lines of the Metamorphoses, “but no more
miraculous a change can be found than this one.” Her changed life results in

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changes in Ovid’s: as a result of the experience, Ovid renounces poetry and

women, takes up sterner pursuits like philosophy, and converts to Christianity
(Heyworth 2009, 1–3). We may expect a similarly comical, if somewhat rueful
bed-trick to be played upon Gawain, but our desire is frustrated by this particu-
lar old woman in SGGK, who both recalls the extraordinary fixity of the stereo-
typed depiction of “the ugly old woman” found in the Middle Ages and turns us
in the direction of the womanly power of Morgan Le Fay, in some ways an
equally stereotyped figure of woman, but one from whose formidable witchy
strength a knight shrinks, at least after the courtly greeting.
The contract between Gawain, as the representative of Arthur, calls for him to
seek the “aghlich mayster” (“terrible master,” line 136) on his own territory and to
receive a return blow from the Green Knight. Weary and chilled by rain under his
armor, Gawain prays for comfort somatic and spiritual—and a castle so perfect
that it seems “pared out of paper” (“pared out of paper,” line 822) appears. Soon,
Gawain is dry, warm, and richly clad in Bertilak’s realm. After dinner, Gawain
accompanies his host to evensong in the castle’s chapel, where they sit in
apparent comradeship through the service (lines 928–40).
The young lady, who will prove to be Bertilak’s wife, wants to gaze at,
perhaps to speculate upon, the well-known Gawain:
941 Þenne lyst þe lady to loke on þe knyȝt,

Þenne com ho of hir closet with mony cler burdez.
Ho watz þe fayrest in felle, of flesche and of lyre,
And of compas and colour and costes, of alle oþer,
945 And wener þen Wenore, as þe wyȝe þoȝt.
Ho ches þurȝ þe chaunsel to cheryche þat hende.
An oþer lady hir lad bi þe lyft honde,
Þat watz alder þen ho, an auncian hit semed,
And heȝly honowred with haþelez aboute.
950 Bot vnlyke on to loke þo ladyes were,
For if þe ȝonge watz ȝep, ȝolȝe watz þat oþer;
Riche red on þat on rayled ayquere,
Rugh ronkled chekez þat oþer on rolled;
Kerchofes of þat on, wyth mony cler perlez,
955 Hir brest and hir bryȝt þrote bare displayed,
Schon schyrer þen snawe þat schedez on hillez;
Þat oþer wyth a gorger watz gered ouer þe swyre,
Chymbled ouer hir blake chyn with chalkquyte vayles,
Hir frount folden in sylk, enfoubled ayquere,
960 Toreted and treleted with tryflez aboute,
Þat noȝt watz bare of þat burde bot þe blake broȝes,
Þe tweyne yȝen and þe nase, þe naked lyppez,
And þose were soure to se and sellyly blered;
A mensk lady on molde mon may hir calle,

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Old Age 1317
965 for Gode!

Hir body watz schort and þik,
Hir buttokez balȝ and brode,
More lykkerwys on to lyk
969 Watz þat scho hade on lode.
[(941) Then the lady wished to look at the knight and left her pew with many fair women.
She was the loveliest on earth in complexion and in features, in figure, in coloring, and in
comportment above all others (945) and more beautiful than Guinevere, so it seemed to the
knight. She came through the chancel to greet him courteously, another lady leading her by
the left hand, one who was older than she, an “ancient” it seemed, and honored highly by
the knights thereabout. (950) But very different in looks were those two ladies, for where the
young one was fresh, the other was withered; every part of that one was spread with rich
reddening; on that other, rough wrinkled checks hung in folds. Many bright pearls adorned
the kerchiefs of one, (955) whose breast and white throat, uncovered and bare, shone more
dazzling than new-fallen snow on the hills; the other wore a gorget gathered around her
neck, her swarthy chin wrapped in chalk-white veils, her forehead enfolded by silk, wrapped
up everywhere, (960) with embroidered hems and fretwork stitches, so that nothing was
exposed of her but her black brows, her two eyes and her nose, her naked lips, which were
sick-making to see and shockingly bleared. A noble lady indeed one may call her, (965) by
God! Her body was short and thick, her buttocks bulging and broad, more delicious in looks
(969) was the lady whom she led.]
The expected superlatives of youthful female beauty are rehearsed in this stanza.
Yet, the initial description is compressed into two lines (lines 943–44), and these
two lines come from Gawain’s perspective. It is revealed in the next line that
Gawain thinks the lady “fairer” (line 945, “wener”) than Guinevere, and by way of
this comparative adjective, the Gawain-poet has us recall that comparing one
woman’s beauty to another’s is that “apple of discord,” that contest at the
wedding of Peleus and Thetis that will fuel a flare-up among the goddesses Hera,
Aphrodite, and Athena—and will eventuate in the Trojan War, the point in time in
fictional history from which SGGK begins.
Another effect of this young woman, however stereotyped her looks as the
poem represents them, is to distract Gawain from the old woman. Gawain, well-
known as this poem explains, as a talker in the tradition of the amatory court,
makes a visual judgment of the pair of women, and by turning his attention to the
conventionally beautiful young woman, the old woman becomes, for Gawain and
for us and for the poem itself—or so it seems—the “other” woman (line 947). The old
woman is “highly honored” (line 949) by the knights in Bertilak’s castle, but that
fact is not one that Gawain investigates. Except for the exchange of conventional
courtesy, Gawain finds this old woman almost literally unremarkable, by contrast
to her young companion. Gawain sees only the convention of an old woman’s body
(lines 952–69), and his young flesh is—quite conventionally—uninterested.

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Even beauty itself can become stale and flattened, when bounded about by
the same rhetorical formulations of descriptio. By the Renaissance, the stereo-
typed ugliness in a woman would eventuate in an ironic praise of models who do
not conform to this dominant female portrait. William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet
130,” one of the so-called “dark lady” sonnets, turns the formulized “forehead
downward” description of a beautiful woman topsy-turvy, explaining that his
“mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” that “coral is more red, than her lips
red,” that of the expected pillow of her bosom can say but that “If snow be white,
why then her breasts are dun.” Shakespeare’s concluding couplet makes clear his
preference: “And yet by heaven I think my love is rare, / As any she belied with
false compare.” In the Middle Ages, too, artists depart from the expected plati-
tudes of female description and exhibit, as well, a keenness for the monstrous
and ugly. Parodies and mischievous rearranging of descriptions of optimal wo-
manly beauty began as early as the twelfth centuries—adjectives are transferred
from one body part to another, yielding, for instance, “snowy teeth,” “flaming
lips,” and a “milky brow.”
Such howlers can be detached from their contexts, ascending above the
social and political down-and-dirty. But the ugly woman, however comical the
exaggerated body and features, she is also a product of a vicious medieval anti-
feminism. Beneath the description of the ugly woman in medieval literature, there
is a revulsion about a woman sexually that is misattached to the aged body. For
instance, in a love-debate in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Filocolo, written ca. 1336–1338
and a source for Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale, a young man sees a poor, shrunken,
withered old woman begging at the house of the beautiful young woman whom
he loves. He hires the old woman to carry messages between the maiden and
himself, eventually arranges a meeting with his lover. Of course, it is the young
woman’s brothers who appear at the tryst. To punish the man for attempting to
disgrace them by violating their sister, the brothers force the man to choose
between death for the attempted seduction of their sister or a deal in which he can
sleep for one year with the youthful beauty, but must also sleep for one year with
the crone who has been his messenger. If he declines death for this arrangement,
then the young man must kiss, caress, and make love to the one woman exactly
as he does to the other—and exactly as much. The question posed by Boccaccio’s
love-debate is: which woman should the young man spend his nights with for the
first year? Outside Boccaccio’s narrative, consider the disgust shown by the
doubled actions of this plot—and a beautiful young lad despoiled by congress
with the withered crone. SGGK exploits the familiar plot of such “loathly lady”
romances to turn things pear-shaped for Gawain.
The Gawain-poet has warned us in a tongue-twisting double maxim at the
beginning of the second fitt that turns again toward the homology of the

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seasons with the ages of man that “a yerre yernes ful yerne, and yeldes never
lyke; / The forme to the fynisment foldes ful selden” (lines 498–99). The
metamorphoses of scene and situation, of host into horror, and of dalliance into
dangerous test force the reader to re-purpose and probe all the usual cultural
and philosophical touchstones of the usual Yuletide at King Arthur’s court. The
“auncian” lady (line 948) wears what is the well-known “costume” of age, and,
though the Gawain-poet has delighted to linger upon her shriveled form, she is
(mis)recognized by Gawain as merely a most loathly old lady. But that, of
course, is not all she is: as Bertilak, now in good form, names her, she is Morgan
le Fay (line 2446). Or, as he further explains (lines 2447–70), Morgan the god-
dess, the lover of the accomplished (though here unnamed) scholar Merlin, the
power behind the plot of the poem, and perhaps, simplest and most explosive
of all, Gawain’s aunt.
Gawain, for all his strengths, is not the best of readers. In this poem, “an-
cient” is not just elegant variation for “old” in an alliterative word-hoard. So well-
whetted is this anonymous poet’s axe that, as the horror of this outcome—the
disruption of all that had been expected and anticipated and, indeed, relied upon
in the poem—falls like a blade through these two stanzas, we and our heads are
divided. But, to re-live the conclusion, safely, as readers, one sees just how crucial
have been the inherited features of old age in playing this game.
H The After-Life of Old Age in the Middle Ages

Let us end with William Shakespeare (1564–1616), another word-smith. His work
is often tagged “timeless,” unless it is being captioned “timely.” Throughout
Shakespeare’s plays, time “frets and struts [its] hour upon the stage” (Macbeth,
Act V, scene v) as a theme, a topic, and a trope, drawn from many sources. It is a
commonplace that Shakespeare’s plays are full of historical and literary matter
that predate the dramatist himself, including re-fashioned medieval tropes, ideas,
and character types (see, e.g., Morse et al., ed., 2013). The common features and
sources regarding how old age is depicted and understood stretch back from
Shakespeare through the earliest reaches of the classical period. Yet, for all the
models of the old man or woman that share common elements or descend from a
familiar paradigm, what is striking is the protean quality of old age, as though
Proteus himself stretched out a hand from his fluid domain and rocked the boat.
Old age is an unsettling problem, an elusive category, and it is the richness of its
mutability that has attracted master artists and thinkers like Shakespeare. For our
purposes, his testimony in a way summarizes what we know about old age as
perceived and discussed in the Middle Ages.

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The taut and electric “all the world’s a stage” speech made by Jaques, a
character in As You Like It by William Shakespeare, is often cited for its concise
catalogue of the “seven ages of man”: from the infant “mewling and puking in the
nurse’s arms” to man’s “[l]ast scene of all”—old age—that “second childishness
and mere oblivion, / sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” (As You
Like It, Act II, scene vii, lines 138 ff.). The state of being old is a scene of lack for
Jaques. Though Shakespeare’s lines characterizing the seven stages of human life
remain well-known for their terse pungency, many other schemes for man’s life
cycle have been proposed, of which Jaques’s list is only one, if one of the most
important and long-lived of these analyses, still vigorous in the early modern
period after centuries of circulation. Composed about 1598, the date of the first
performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It is probably 1599/1600, a short time
before it was entered into the Stationers’ register in London on August 4, 1600.
The play is likely to have been one of the dramas put on by the Lord Chamber-
lain’s Men in the new Globe theater, which opened in 1599. As You Like It was
published posthumously in the First Folio, London, 1623, which contains thirty-
six of Shakespeare’s plays. But this early modern play’s development of “old
age,” though treated with Shakespearean dash, rests upon bases formed much
earlier. Jaques’s “sevens” have a lineage some two millennia in the making
(please see, in this article, the subsection “Old Age By the Numbers”).
As You Like It emphasizes another problem with “old age” by way of the
character “Old Adam”: how does one understand the force with which the
adjective “old” alters nouns its modifies? What is the lexical field of “old”?
“Adam” has a long dramatic history, and his employment in the theater com-
mences with the Adam plays of the Middle Ages, like the twelfth-century French
Mystère d’Adam, which ends with some satisfyingly wicked devils manacling
Adam and Eve and dragging the pair off with what one hopes was the clatter of
every villagers’ pats and pans. This mystery play is ultimately derived from the
apocryphal Latin Vita Adae et Euae (= Life of Adam and Eve), composed in its
extant version in the eighth century. The apocryphal vita had a robust medieval
afterlife: in Middle English alone, there are five “Adam books,” which, though
they concern only the Scriptural text of Genesis 4, elaborate their material with
the verve of what has been named “medieval realism” and are adapted into
several genres of Middle English literature (for the “Adam books” read as portray-
ing “medieval realism,” see, e.g., Dean 2010). This one chapter of Genesis has
material and then some to suggest such ramification as is found in narratives of
the Adamic family: the occupations of Cain and Abel can be compared; there is
envy; there is murder; and there is exile. And, as Northrop Frye observes of the
Adam tale, “The archetype of the inevitably ironic is Adam, human nature under
sentence of death” (Frye 1957, 42).

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Old Age 1321
Within the character of Old Adam are merged not just the theological problem
of “old Adam,” but also textual and contextual traditions that revolve around the
hoary figure of Old Adam. According to a stage tradition recorded in the mid-
eighteenth century by the antiquarian William Oldys, Shakespeare himself, then in
his mid-thirties, played the role of “Old Adam” in As You Like It in this manner: “ …
wherein being to impersonate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and
appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk that he was forced to be
supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among
some company, who were eating, and one of them sung a song.” In addition, as has
been argued (Schleiner 1999), the scene in As You Like It (Act II, scene vii) in which
Orlando carries in upon his shoulders the starving Old Adam—that character who
has given up his home and his savings for his young master and who will now be
honored by the first meats at a banquet table set in a forest place of exile and repair
—balances Jaques’s grim summary of man’s seven ages which it immediately
follows. The good works and inherent virtue in the character Old Adam are redemp-
tive here, continuing the play’s dialectic between the body-centered model of old
age as diminishment, articulated by Jaques within this scene, and an ironic use of
the emblems of old age and of the theological concept of the “old man” by way of a
character named Old Adam, who transcends his bodily failure, inspires charity
from his fellow man, and—in Shakespeare’s ironized reading—requires the support
of food and shelter every bit as much as this old man does a future redemption to be
embodied in the coming of the “New Adam,” Jesus as messiah.
The theological concept of “old” to which the name of Shakespeare’s char-
acter “Old Adam” points is that expressed, e.g., by The Book of Common Prayer
(London 1584, PIv), as found in the sixteenth-century “Service for Public Baptism”
and still read today: “O Merciful God, grant that the old Adam in these children
may be so buried that the new man may be raised up in them.” Rooted in Paul’s
injunction in the Epistle to the Colossians 3:9–10 that Christians put off the old
man for the new, this “old man” or “old Adam,” refers to the unregenerate part of
human nature and to its natural disposition to evil, a fact that may only be
changed by the regeneration offered through the sacrament of baptism (for
baptism as constituting this regenerative act, see further, e.g., Galatians 3:26;
Ephesians 4:23, 24). From the time of the Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church,
commentators have agreed that the skins with which God clothes Adam and Eve
after the Fall (i.e., in Genesis 3:21) symbolize the fallen condition of the “old man”
(see, e.g., Augustine, Patrologia Latina, [ed. Migne], XXXVII, cols. 1341, 1352–53).
That Shakespeare was aware of the tradition of the “old man” as signaled by
means of an Adamic costume fashioned from animal hide is witnessed by another
First Folio play, The Comedy of Errors. There, in Act IV, scene iii, “the picture of an
old Adam,” as the character is described by Dromio of Syracuse, must refer to the

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sergeant in the play, who, clad in a coat of “calf’s skin,” had previously arrested
Antipholus of Epheseus. The sergeant’s leathern clothing, then, links patristic
commentary on animal skins with the play’s picture of “an old Adam” (for a
detailed discussion of this line, see Weld 1956). Thus, the character of Old Adam
in As You Like It, perhaps with Shakespeare costumed to mimic the complicated
references embedded in this character’s name, and the miserable forecast of
Jaques are both indexicals that demonstrate how persistent and ever-morphing
are the sources behind and the uses to which old age as a topic may be put.
I Conclusion: Time to Go
In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Jaques traces further the troubling links between
the passage of time and our embattled bodies. Jaques says that the fool:
… drew a dial from his poke.

And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o’clock:
Thus we may see’, quoth he, ‘how the world wags:
‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more ‘twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.’
(As You Like It, Act II, scene vii, lines 20 ff.)
The “dial” scrutinized by Shakespeare’s “motley fool” signifies, among other

things, the topics of temporal man and of historical man, and one of the “hours”
on the particolored fool’s dial is the hour of human old age. How will the tale of
old age be told by twenty-first-century scholars who may be, as it has been
argued, writing after the tick-tocks of time have ceased?
Time itself can grow old, as some of the medieval tropes for old age have
suggested. This problem of time’s cessation, of writing out of a postmodern spot
in which there are no more beginnings, also has a history. Speaking of “time” as a
topic that has expired, a theme in the works of novelists and poets like Marcel
Proust, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot, Frederic Jameson wonders if indeed
“space” has or will replace “time” in the “general ontological scheme of things”
(Jameson 2003, 695). Jameson continues:
So the dictum that time was the dominant of the modern (or of modernism) and space of the
postmodern means something thematic and empirical all at once: what we do, according to
the newspapers and the Amazon statistics, and what we call what we are doing. I don’t see

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Old Age 1323
how we can avoid identifying an epochal change here, and it affects investments (art
galleries, building commissions) as much as the more ethereal things also called values
(Jameson 2003, 696).
Certainly, the paradigms by way of which human age has been theorized in the
Middle Ages will have an autonomy of aesthetic viewpoint from which we will
have been sundered. The bracing alterity of the Middle Ages, the intellectual
detachment from it that has been so salutary in post-modern discussions of the
era, stimulates us to claim what is accessible and present in this period, rather
than to emphasize what it is, to re-purpose Jaques, “sans.”
Pace Jaques, the topic of old age in the Middle Ages is “sans” nothing in
respect to its interest for the reader. Old age is one of the great themes of art and
thought, for—like the themes of exile, injustice, mutability, and death—it threa-
tens us with division from the senses of coherence of self and situation that enable
one’s life. But, as any consideration of old age reminds us, there is so much to say
—and so little time.
Select Bibliography
Beauvoir, Simone de, Old Age, trans. Patrick O’Brien (1960; New York 1972).
Burrow, John A., The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford 1986).
Classen, Albrecht, “Introduction,” Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Inter-
disciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. idem (Berlin and New York 2007), 1–84.
[= Classen 2007a]
Coffman, George R., “Old Age from Horace to Chaucer: Some Literary Affinities and Adventures of
an Idea,” Speculum 9.3 (1934): 249–77.
Gilleard, Chris, “Aging and Old Age in Medieval Society and the Transition of Modernity,” Aging
and Identity 7.1 (2002): 25–41.
Johnson, Paul and Pat Thane, ed., Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity (New York 1998).
Sears, Elizabeth L., The Ages of Man: Medieval Interpretations of the Life Cycle (Princeton, NJ,
1986).
Shahar, Shulamith, Growing Old in the Middle Ages: “Winter Clothes Us in Shadow and Pain,”
trans. Yael Lotan (1995; London 2004).
Sheehan, Michael M., ed., Aging and the Aged in Medieval Europe: Selected Papers from
the Annual Conference of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, Held
25–26 February and 11–12 November 1983 (Toronto 1990).
Stearns, Peter N., ed., Old Age in Preindustrial Society (New York 1982).
Thane, Pat, ed., A History of Old Age (Los Angeles, CA, 2005).
Walker, Alan and Gerhard Naegele, ed., The Politics of Old Age in Europe (Buckingham and
Philadelphia, PA, 1999).
Walker, Barbara G., The Crone: Women of Age, Wisdom, and Power (San Francisco, CA, 1985).
Youngs, Deborah, The Life-Cycle in Western Europe, c. 1300–c. 1500 (Manchester 2006).

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John A. Dempsey
The Papacy and the Pan-European Culture
A The Role of the Papacy in the Formation of a

Pan-European Culture and its Place Within It
I The Nature of the Papal Contribution
Of all the individual institutions of medieval Europe, the papacy played the most
decisive role in the development of a pan-European culture in the pre-modern era.
Like Christianity itself, the papacy, ironically enough, originated not on European
soil but on the fringes of the Near East. The great contributor to the rise of the
early West was, in fact, then, an immigrant: and until the reign of Constantine
(r. 312–337 C.E.) an illegal one at that. The spiritual universalism of the papacy,
which informed its pan-European perspective in the medieval period, stemmed
from a centuries long interplay between the flow of historical events and Christian
reflection, especially that of the Christian community of Rome, upon the relation-
ship between two Asian Jews, the rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, and his disciple, the
Galilean fisherman, Shimon bar Jonah, as recorded in the four gospels of the New
Testament. The exchange reported in Matthew 16:13–20 between rabbi and dis-
ciple at Caesarea Philippi constitutes, arguably, the most important words attrib-
uted to Jesus in papal history. In this scene, in all likelihood set down by a
Palestinian Jewish Christian for other Jewish Christians, Jesus changes the name
of his leading disciple (in the Hebrew Bible the changing of names is a divine
prerogative) and bestows on him the keys of his messianic kingdom with the
power to forgive sins (another divine prerogative according to the Hebrew scrip-
tures). Although Christians of all times and places have interpreted the words of
this New Testament passage variously, they, nevertheless, evolved by the Eur-
opean High Middle Ages into one of the chief ideological justifications for papal
supervision of the affairs of all nations and peoples. Thus, the institution, which
in its capacity as the teacher of nations contributed both directly and, much more
often, indirectly to the production of so many early western cultural artifacts,
owed much to a cultural artifact (i.e., the New Testament) of an ancient pre-
western culture. Moreover, the cultural unity of the early West, the initial mani-
festation of which emerged in the cultural awakening of the age of Charlemagne
(r. 768–814), was hardly the deliberate creation of the papacy. In the medieval
period, the papacy’s role in the building a pan-European culture was indispensi-
ble, but it never served as a center of cultural initiatives let alone of cultural

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The Papacy and the Pan-European Culture 1325
planning. The Roman Church provided inspiration, guidance, spiritual protec-

tion, and intellectual resources for independent cultural movements and thereby
imparted something of its universal perspective to them. It is, for instance,
impossible to imagine the Frankish warlord Charlemagne consciously re-estab-
lishing empire in the West at Christmas in Rome without the influence of the
Roman Church. Yet, as scholars of the Carolingian period have clearly estab-
lished, Charlemagne arrived at the decision to re-establish empire in the West on
his own; and, while he borrowed heavily from the cultural and religious treasures
of the Roman Church in establishing the Carolingian Re-Awakening, which all too
briefly and superficially united culturally at least some segments of the former
western Roman provinces, he had his own ideas about the ultimate source of
spiritual power on earth (Collins 1998). The presence, nevertheless, of devoted
servants of the Petrine ministry, like St. Boniface (672–754), in the Frankish king-
dom in the decades prior to Charlemagne’s birth surely influenced the Frankish
society in to which he was born and its spiritual and cultural horizons. The
spiritual universalism of the Roman Church, thus, often left an indelible impres-
sion on the cultural imagination of those peoples and movements with which it
established contact.
This influence, in addition, was more symphonic in its effect than harmoniz-
ing. Local diversity and a plurality of institutional forms were hallmarks of
medieval cultural life and papal authority could have never overturned this state
of affairs in any fundamental way. Local culture and circumstances, in fact,
profoundly shaped the papacy itself (Partner 1972). Despite its rise to interna-
tional prominence, the medieval papacy, in many ways, remained a locally
oriented institution. The typically medieval regard for local variation in all mat-
ters found expression in the popes’ dealings with one of the most important
cultural movements in world history, the higher education movement of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The popes, who often had participated in the
movement themselves as students and masters, issued various pieces of legisla-
tion to strengthen the internal life of individual schools and universities and to
ward off the encroachment of hostile local forces on their institutional indepen-
dence. But, there was no attempt to impose a uniform way of life on these
institutions. There was not even a uniform relationship between the Holy See and
the various individual schools and universities of medieval Europe. Such an
approach to institutional relations would have struck the medieval imagination
as quite unnatural.

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1326 John A. Dempsey
II The Evolution of The Papacy’s Place In Medieval Society and

The Chief Source of Its Authority
The place of the papacy in medieval culture, furthermore, was not uniform
through time. As a practical matter, in the Early Middle Ages, the bishop of
Rome was a significant figure only in Rome itself and in its suburban dioceses.
The influence of the Roman pontiffs over the many dioceses beyond Italy was
minimal and their jurisdictional authority over them was almost non-existent.
To most of the Latin rite Christians of the provinces of the old Western Roman
Empire, the pope was a very distant figure who was mainly known as the
custodian of the relics of the ancient Roman martyrs, especially those of Saints
Peter and Paul. It was not until the ecclesiastical reform movement of the
eleventh century decisively took root in the Roman Church itself with the
election of Pope Leo IX (1049–1054) that this state of affairs began to change.
When it did change, the change was rapid. In historical terms, the rise of the
Roman Church to prominence in European society was nothing less than meteo-
ric. In the fifty or so years following Leo IX’s election, the papacy evolved into
an effective pan-European institution with the pope as the leading figure in the
medieval church and a rival to the emperor in terms of political influence on the
continent. By the early 1100s, the build up to the apogee of papal influence in
medieval life in the thirteenth century during the classic age of the papal
monarchy was well underway.
As the brief narrative above indicates, however, the papacy, most ironically,
was not the chief protagonist in its own dramatic rise to religious, cultural, and
political prominence in medieval Europe. The ecclesiastical reform movement
over which the popes eventually assumed leadership and which propelled the
papacy to international status was a broad historical force in the continent’s
religious life which originated not in mid eleventh century Rome but in several
different monastic reform circles of the tenth century which were most active in
France, Germany, and northern Italy and which eventually received popular
support (Blumenthal 1988). While Leo IX and his successors, most notably Gre-
gory VII (1073–1085), devised their own tactics on how to advance the reform
agenda and offered their own diagnoses of the cause of ecclesiastical abuses, the
main items of the reform agenda (e.g., bans on simony and married clergy) long
pre-existed the age of the reform papacy. This reality was lost on many early
scholars of the eleventh century reform movement to the extent that they came to
refer to it as the Gregorian Reform as if it were principally the work of the most
famous of the reform popes, Gregory VII (Fliche 1926).
Once placed upon a perch by the popular thirst for religious renewal and by
the course of events in the reform drama (e.g., the encounter at Canossa between

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Henry IV of Germany (r. 1056–1106) and Gregory VII), the popes attracted to
themselves over the course of the next two centuries a mass of humanity. In the
opening decades of the twelfth century, a flood of petitions and petitioners
reached the papal court. Various local communities and individuals turned to
Rome for “impartial” papal adjudication of their local disputes. Thus, the expo-
nential growth in the size of papal government at this time, which certainly paved
the way to the great age of the papal monarchy in the following century, was also
not the deliberate act of the popes, but rather a response to the demand of
medieval society. Papal government was, early on, then, largely rescript govern-
ment (Morris 1989).
In terms of the continent’s cultural life, the popes and their collaborators
functioned more like surfers riding the various waves which reached them than as
the generators or authors of great movements. The papacy sponsored epochal
undertakings, such as the university movement, and epochal individuals, such as
Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), but it was not an immediate source of inspiration for
them. This patronage, of course, further enhanced papal standing and brought
new potential clients to itself. It also made the popes and the Roman curia more
frequent subjects of cultural discourse. The aforementioned growth in papal
government spawned an entire genre of anti-Roman polemic from the twelfth
century onwards that denounced the alleged greed of the papal court. This
medieval polemical line subsequently found its most vivid expression in the
sixteenth century woodcuts of Protestant artisans and, in some sense it has
endured to the present day.
The ultimate source of papal power in medieval Europe and the guarantee of
the papacy’s privileged position in medieval culture, nonetheless, rested not on
any coercive governmental power, canonical or temporal, but rather on the
institution’s ability to be seen by a continental population, all too familiar with
the deficiencies and dangers of their local worlds (whether political, cultural, or
religious in nature), as the chief agent of a universal spiritual society whose
purpose and values transcended the idiocy so to speak of local life, rural and
otherwise, but which also did not pose a threat to “legitimate” customary local
ways. Papal influence, in other words, flourished to the extent that individual
popes and the papacy as an institution were able to be seen by others as an agent
of their own aspirations who would not smother or fundamentally distort those
aspirations by their embrace. In a very real sense, the papal monarchy required
the consent of its spiritual subjects in order to function. This was true, to a degree,
of all medieval governments as the primordial influence of the political values of
the ancient Germanic tribal Thing strongly influenced medieval ideas about the
nature of political authority. In order to be deemed legitimate and, hence, worthy
of obedience, political leadership required a moral framework wherein power was

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exercised for the advantage of the entire community and not simply out of the
naked self-interest of the rulers (Geary 1988).
Indeed, even at the height of its prestige and influence, the papacy was a
fragile institution highly vulnerable to manipulation and even to physical de-
struction from sundry hostile forces. The Romans themselves, especially the great
families of the city proper and of the surrounding rural districts, perennially
threatened the institutional integrity and independence of the medieval papacy.
For these clans, the papal throne constituted the greatest prize in local politics
and with it came the chance to enrich themselves and their allies through the
manipulation of the Roman Church’s land holdings and administrative offices. In
their behavior, the Roman aristocracy exemplified the quintessential medieval
cultural phenomenon of infeudation whereby aristocratic kin networks sought to
channel the economic resources of every nearby entity, whether as grand as the
papal throne or as prosaic as a water mill, to themselves.
While the Roman magnates’ exploitation of the papacy fluctuated in its
intensity over the course of the Middle Ages, the specter of a putsch by one
aristocratic faction or another perpetually lurked on the horizon. The presence of
a great power in Italy, such as the Carolingian emperors in the late eighth and
early ninth centuries, could, on the one hand, restrain ambitious local clans and
thereby boost papal institutional autonomy and expand the field of papal action;
but, this presence, such as that of the Lombard kings of the sixth and seventh
centuries or the German emperors of the High Middle Ages or the French mon-
archs of the Late Middle Ages, could also just as easily pose an existential threat
itself to papal independence. Domination of papal affairs served the interests of
foreign potentates just as well as those of the Roman barons and on numerous
occasions a foreign power conspired with a Roman faction against the interests of
a Roman pontiff.
As true as it may have been that the papacy’s cultural place did not rest
ultimately on military or economic power, this was understandably largely lost on
the popes themselves. After all, it is hard to maintain confidence in one’s over all
influence in society when the imperial army has you on the run in the Roman
countryside! The formal legal establishment of the Papal State by Innocent III
(1198–1216) in the early thirteenth century was an attempt to guarantee the
institutional autonomy of the papacy through the creation of an independent
source of revenue, which would have theoretically reduced the Roman Church’s
reliance on allies both near and far (Partner 1972). The papal kingdom, none-
theless, was an odd political entity that never possessed enough secure revenue
to procure a ready and independent source of what was most important for any
pre-modern government: fighting men. The intricate legal measures and diplo-
matic maneuvering of Innocent III and of his successors of the thirteenth century

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and beyond never corrected this basic weakness. Throughout its entire existence,
the Papal State depended upon one ally or another for military protection. It fell
definitively in 1870 to the Italian army precisely because the French emperor,
Louis Napoleon (1808–1873), had withdrawn his forces protecting Pope Pius IX
(1846–1878) in order to wage the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871).
Nonetheless, despite its institutional deficiencies and the limits on its ideolo-
gical power, by the pontificate of Innocent III, the papacy exercised an unrivaled
influence over the cultural life of a Western Civilization whose beginnings lay far
into the future at the time of the alleged exchange at Caesarea Philippi between
rabbi and disciple as recorded in Matthew 16. The popes of this new era were no
longer simply the successors of the Galilean fisherman, Peter, but the Vicars of
Christ, who according to Innocent ranked below God but above man. They held
the keys not only to the future messianic kingdom but to a territorial principality
(however vulnerable) that stretched from Rome across central Italy to the envir-
ons of Bologna. They, also, sat atop a pan-European ecclesiastical legal system
and they and their representatives dispensed justice from the British Isles to the
crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean. They held the keys to the treasury of
the merits of Jesus, of his mother Mary and of all the saints. They could forgive
any and all sins. They also possessed the keys to the different national treasuries
of Europe through their management of an ecclesiastical tax system. They re-
served to themselves the right to intervene in the workings of the new commercial
economy and against immoral popular entertainment, such as knightly tourna-
ments. They even possessed the right to intervene in the affairs of any kingdom
endangered by the potential collapse of the moral order. They, in fact, exercised
honorary lordships over several kingdoms. They acted as patrons and protectors
to scholars and to their fledgling institutions of higher learning as well as to
geniuses of the spiritual life. They even stood at the head of the armed hosts of
Christendom as they marched on crusade to the East.
III Papal Decline In The Late Middle Ages
The perch, however, upon which the papal monarchs sat, was not only lofty, but,
as noted, quite precarious. In less than a century after Innocent’s death, the
medieval papacy entered into a prolonged period of turbulence and of institu-
tional instability that did not end until after the Middle Ages themselves had
ended. By the dawn of the fourteenth century, centrifugal cultural forces, espe-
cially in the realms of politics, religion, and learning began to assail furiously the
spiritual universalism of the papacy in particular and the cultural universalism
that it had promoted in general (Dawson 1950). Indeed, in its conduct of its trans-

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national affairs, the papacy found itself very much on the wrong side of the new
cultural calculus and earned for itself a reputation as a hypocritical predatory
power that endangered the dignity of the new national community. European
civilization was embarking upon the very long and frequently bloody journey
toward a world composed of modern sovereign nation states each with its own
established national churches and national culture. It marked the origin, however
distant, of the Europe that engendered the intellectual treason lamented by Julien
Benda (1867–1956) in his classic critique of modern European culture (Benda
1969, originally published 1927).
In the realm of politics, the chief challenge to papal universalism sprang
from the national monarchies, particularly from the French and English monar-
chies. These well organized and financed entities not only posed a diplomatic
challenge to the foreign policy of the Holy See, but, more importantly, to the
religious authority of the popes within the national kingdoms. The national
monarchs, for one thing, loathed any sense of loyalty in their subjects other than
that which was owed to them. They also, understandably, wished to control the
rich source of patronage present within the clerical hierarchies of their national
churches. They equally resented the outflow of precious bouillon from their
territory in the form of tithes and clerical taxes to a foreign court in Rome. The
successors of Peter may have possessed the keys to the eschatological kingdom
of God and to their own principality in Italy, but they were no longer to possess
the keys to either the spiritual or financial treasuries of any royal kingdom on the
European continent.
Discontent with the spiritual leadership of the Roman Church, as noted
above, appears in the cultural record of medieval Christendom as early as the
twelfth century. This discontent not only took the form of the aforementioned
satiric literature directed at the supposed greed and mendacity of the Roman
curia, but, it also manifested itself in other literary forms, most notably in the
form of apocalyptic literature. The twelfth century witnessed the activities and
writing of Joachim of Fiore (died 1202), the most influential apocalyptic author of
the Middle Ages. The abbot looked forward to an impending Age of the Holy Spirit
that would bring about a second Pentecost and renew and cleanse the church and
the Christian faithful. Even a thoroughly orthodox figure, such as Gerhoh of
Reichersberg (1093–1169) looked forward to the Second Coming as a remedy for
what he believed to be the corrupt practices of the papal court. The spiritual
discontent in the twelfth century also took the form of a number of religious
protest movements, such as the Waldensians, that also objected to the apparent
worldliness of the institutional church. While the popes were not completely deaf
to the various expressions of spiritual anxiety, they, nevertheless, failed to dispel
them over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

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The numerous tragedies of the fourteenth century further frayed the fabric of
the spiritual universalism of the pre-modern West. The cumulative effect of the
Avignon Papacy (1305–1377), a full blown civil war within the Franciscan move-
ment between Conventuals and Spirituals and in turn between the Spirituals and
the papacy itself, the Great Schism (1378–1417) and even the Black Death severely
tested the Roman Church’s relationship with the faithful of the continent. By the
Late Middle Ages, many of those most animated by a spirit of religious reform no
longer looked to the Roman Church for patronage or counsel, but instead either
avoided papal affairs as much as possible or denounced the papacy as an agent
of the devil (Dawson 1965).
Fragmentation, in many ways, also characterized the intellectual culture of
the Late Middle Ages. Prior to this age, the main assumption of Western intellec-
tual culture had been that all knowledge was interconnected. Synthesis and
reconciliation constituted the chief watchwords of intellectual activity and led to
the creation of the scholastic method (Pieper 1960). This bias in favor of the
reconciliation of seemingly disparate data accounts for the numerous highly
elaborate epistemological systems produced by medieval thinkers that attempted
to demonstrate the inter-connectedness of all reality. Those of Roger Bacon (ca.
1214–1294) and Ramon Llull (ca. 1232–ca. 1315) come immediately to mind.
Beginning as early as the thirteenth century, at the University of Paris in
particular, the main assumption of medieval intellectual culture came under
attack from the Latin Averroists, who under the influence of the thought of the
Arabic philosopher and translator of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), Ibn Rushd (1126–
1198 C.E.), held that philosophy and theology taught two different sets of truth.
The full flowering of Nominalism and of the theology of Voluntarism, however,
over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries struck further blows
against the idea that the human mind could arrive at sure knowledge of God and
of his cosmos. Each of these schools of theological thought contributed signifi-
cantly to Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) intellectual development (Ozment 1980).
Even the university system itself experienced great fragmentation in the later
medieval centuries. The old ideal, which went back to the era of the Carolingian
Re-Awakening, that the world of scholars and scholarship constituted an interna-
tional society gradually eroded. Universities lost more and more of their pan-
European character and sometimes devolved into organs of the interests of the
various national monarchies (Nardi 1992). Princes, of course, had taken a tremen-
dous interest in sponsoring local institutions of higher education from the begin-
ning of the movement. The degree of royal interference in the internal life of the
universities, nonetheless, increased markedly in the Late Middle Ages and no
doubt reflected the aforementioned penchant of the national crowns to manage
the affairs of their kingdoms more effectively.

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No single European institution suffered as greatly as a result of the emergence

of the centrifugal cultural forces briefly described above as the papacy. In many
ways, the status of the fifteenth century papacy more closely resembled that of
the papacy of the early medieval period than that of the age of Innocent III. It,
once again, found itself enmeshed in local politics: this time in the form of the
tumultuous political world of Renaissance Italy. The popes, largely, operated as
Italian princes and were certainly viewed as such. While the Roman Church had
conceded much of its jurisdictional authority over the local dioceses to kings and
princes (e.g., the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges 1438), the vestiges of authority
that it did retain beyond Italy often only intensified local resentment against it.
One, however, must note that the attachment of the European population to
the papacy was remarkably tenacious in the face of all the institution’s problems.
The Protestant Reformation, after all, was long in the making; and, when it
erupted in the early sixteenth century, it surprised everyone, including Martin
Luther (Ozment 1980). This enduring attachment to the figure of the pope mani-
fested itself in the medieval cultural record in a number of ways, but none more
powerfully than in the figure of the “angelic pope” of later medieval apocalyptic
literature (McGinn 1979). The belief was that God would eventually purify the
papacy and by extension all of society through the election of a great saint as
pope. This angelic pope would initiate a period of spiritual renewal for all of
humanity. Even the Conciliar Movement (1400s), which attempted to restore good
ecclesiastical order by reducing the papacy to the status of a constitutional
monarchy subject to the authority of periodic pan-European councils, constituted
an attempt to preserve the papacy’s central place in European society. The novelty
of the movement was not its fundamental solution to the Roman Church’s pro-
blems, which was an expression of medieval parliamentary political culture, but
its attempt to impose a formal pan-European parliamentary system on the Roman
Church (Dawson 1965, 27). Concilarism, in many ways, constituted a classic
medieval approach to putting the papal Humpty Dumpty back together again
(Tanner 2011).
With the Age of Discoveries and, especially with the so called Catholic
Reformation of the sixteenth century, the spiritual universalism of the papacy,
which never completely dissipated, revived. The confessional division of Europe,
however, narrowed both the scope of the papacy’s spiritual concerns and the
geographical boundaries of its activity. It could no longer promote a genuinely
pan-European cultural ideal. It is not an accident that after the horrors of the two
world wars both the ecumenical movement between the Catholic and Protestant
communions and the desire for European unity and integration appeared on to
the scene. The movements, though, largely operated independently of one an-
other as the bases of the integration of the various European states were to be

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purely economic and political. As a legacy of the Enlightenment, most European

integrationists of the post war period judged religion to be an obstacle to con-
tinental unity: though there were exceptions to this rule such as Robert Schuman
(1886–1963). The increasingly secular tone of contemporary European culture
suggests that this judgment remains in full effect. Meanwhile, the demographic
shift of Catholicism (and of Christianity in general) to the global south and to Asia
suggests that the papacy may shed some or most of its European cultural trap-
pings and evolve into a more global institution. It is also true, of course, that
given the demographic implosion of the native European populations, European
culture will reflect increasingly the influence of the cultures of the many immi-
grants who have arrived on the continent in recent decades.
B The Age of Gregory The Great (590–604)

and the Origins of Europe
Over the span of the sixth and seventh centuries C.E., both broad historical forces
and the decisions of individual human beings wove together the three cultural
strands that formed the basic fabric of early Western Civilization: namely, the
Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Germanic cultural strands. In this process of
cultural synthesis, one bishop of Rome in particular made a very valuable, but
completely unintended contribution. The pontificate of Gregory I, to be sure,
marked the beginning of the papacy’s indispensible role in the formation of a
pan-European culture related to but distinct from the culture of the Roman
Empire.
In 590, however, the papacy was fundamentally a local Roman institution. By
this point in the development of Latin Christian ecclesiology, the Roman Church
technically constituted the head of all the local churches of the old western
imperial provinces. It served as a final court of appeal for the most important local
disputes and as a source for doctrinal guidance. The bishop of Rome, never-
theless, exercised no meaningful jurisdictional authority over other local
churches beyond central Italy. The West, such as it existed in the sixth century,
was a collection of local or regional communities only very loosely connected to
one another. One could hardly yet call it Christendom as the number of pagans
and partially Christianized peoples far exceeded the number of orthodox Latin
Christians. Even among the Christian faithful, Rome was a distant reality and the
pope not much more than a name.
At his papal election in 590, Gregory was personally convinced that the world
was nearing its end. In a sense, he was right. When he was elected pope, the

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Lombards were wreaking havoc on the Italian peninsula and the Byzantine
Empire, of which Italy was still legally a part, could provide no real military
support against the latest wave of Germanic invaders. Weakened already by
Justinian the Great’s (r. 527–565) very destructive “liberation” of the peninsula
from the Ostrogoths earlier in the century, the Lombard Wars brought terrific
suffering to the Italian population as famine, plague, and streams of refugees
fleeing Lombard violence dominated the landscape. The geo-political unity be-
tween “old” and “new” Rome, which Justinian had fleetingly restored, was
collapsing again, but in a more definitive fashion.
In cultural terms, Gregory personified the transition in the Mediterranean
world from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Markus 1997). On the one side of
the ledger, the pope was a patriotic Roman deeply attached to his city and to its
history and steeped in classical and legal studies (Richards 1980). As his deft
management of the papal patrimony bears witness, he also possessed the excel-
lent administrative skills of a true Roman. In his politics, he was traditional.
Despite some serious theological wrangling with the patriarchs and emperors in
Constantinople, he remained scrupulously faithful to the empire politically.
At the same time, although he was sufficiently proficient in Greek to be able
to read some Greek texts and to conduct diplomacy in Constantinople, Gregory,
like so many other western subjects of the Byzantine emperor, was not well versed
in Greek and even bragged about the fact. One can attribute his anti-Greek posture
in part to his intense Roman patriotic spirit. The Roman elites were not at all
pleased with Constantinople’s condescending attitude toward them following
Justinian’s re-conquest of Italy. His attitude, nevertheless, also indicates the
cultural estrangement between “old” and “new” Rome, which began centuries
before the pope’s birth. In so many different senses of the expression, the two
Romes no longer spoke the same language. The Slavic invasions of the Balkans in
the sixth and seventh centuries would all but eliminate the vital land bridge
between East and West for centuries and thus intensify the cultural estrangement
already so evident in Gregory’s age.
Gregory, nonetheless, exercised his greatest influence over the new civiliza-
tion developing around him in the regions of the defunct Western Roman Empire.
One could make a strong argument that the title ‘Father of Europe’ should be
associated with him rather with Charlemagne (Bullough 1970, 59–105). The pope,
in the first place, stood out to succeeding generations as the arch-type of the good
pastor, who provided for the spiritual and material needs of his children. His self-
description as pope as the servus servorum Dei or the “servant of the servants of
God” endeared him to posterity. So strong was the popular medieval attachment
to this cultural image of the pope (a term which after all originally meant some-
thing akin to Big Daddy) as servant that no pope, not even during the height of

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the papal monarchy, ever dared drop the designation “servant of the servants of
God.”
Early on in his pontificate, moreover, he set down in writing his vision of the
good pastor in his guidebook to episcopal governance entitled The Pastoral Rule.
The book exerted a tremendous influence over subsequent thinking about the
nature of the episcopal office and it remained a classic of clerical literature
throughout the Middle Ages. Lay authors of the later medieval period, such as
Chaucer (1343–1400), were also clearly familiar with its picture of the good
shepherd as a conscientious man who assiduously prays, reads, preaches, and
models charity. Gregory’s ideal pastor, undoubtedly, informed the desire of many
clergy and laity alike during the worldly papal regime of later centuries for the
election of the aforementioned angelic pope, who would restore the spiritual
character of the Latin church. In his well chronicled assumption of so many
temporal duties in Rome during the Lombard Wars and his masterful manage-
ment of the papal patrimony, Gregory himself, most ironically, contributed migh-
tily to the eventual formation of the Papal State whose maintenance drew later
popes more and more into the less than angelic politics of Italy and beyond.
Gregory’s dispatch of a missionary team to Anglo-Saxon England under the
leadership of St. Augustine of Canterbury (died 604) in 597, however, argues most
strongly in favor of considering him for the title “Father of Europe.” This mission-
ary enterprise engendered a spirit of religious Romanitas, i.e., an affinity for all
things Roman, within Anglo-Saxon society that many generations later pro-
foundly impacted the character of the Frankish world into which Charlemagne
was born. The scholarly consensus holds that the reason for the pope’s gambit
had little to do either with trying to out-maneuver Celtic Christianity for ecclesias-
tical supremacy in the British Isles or with breaking away from the Byzantine
political orbit (Markus 1997). He, most likely, simply wished to reach out to a
distant people on the edge of the known world as the Last Judgment approached.
Gregory’s bold stroke earned him a prominent place in one of the more notable
historical works of the Middle Ages, The Ecclesiastical History of The English
Peoples by the Venerable Bede (672/73–735). On the regional level, the papal
mission ultimately resulted in the adoption of the Roman rite over that of Celtic
Christianity in the British Isles. Bede’s own joint monastery of Wearmouth and
Jarrow struggled long and hard for this result and in his historical account he
presents Gregory as the spiritual father of the English people. Future generations,
in fact, eventually bestowed the title of “apostle to the English” upon Gregory and
claimed the pope as “our Gregory.”
In Books XXVII and XXX of his history, Bede includes a selection of the
correspondence between Gregory and Augustine of Canterbury and between
Gregory and others involved in the English mission. These letters open a window

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onto that delicate process of enculturation by which Greco-Roman, Judeo-Chris-

tian, and Germanic cultural attitudes and forms came together to constitute the
original basis of Western Civilization. In his responses to various queries, which
touch upon numerous topics, Gregory displays the practical wisdom and intellec-
tual flexibility characteristic of his Roman ancestors. He suggests that his mis-
sionaries present Christianity to their Germanic pagan audience as an enhance-
ment of their pre-existing beliefs and practices. He advises that existing pagan
shrines be transformed into shrines of the saints and to give a Christian twist to
pagan holidays. Remarkably, he argues against the systematic imposition of the
Roman rite on English Christians. He famously observes that things (i.e., liturgical
practices) should not be loved on account of their place of origin, but rather
places should be loved for their good things.
This process of cultural integration was, of course, a multi-polar event. Still,
the creation of a sacred bond between ancient, Mediterranean Rome and a “new”
northern Germanic society powerfully advanced the process. The religious Roma-
nitas of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History pervaded the English church of the eighth
century. As the century unfolded, more and more Anglo-Saxon pilgrims of all
stations in life made their way to the threshold of the apostles Peter and Paul in
Rome. This new sacred highway between the Germanic north and Rome brought
one especially important pilgrim of the eighth century into the presence of the
pope, in coram papam, the monk Winfrid of Nursling. Setting a precedent for the
subsequent Roman pilgrimages of such figures as Francis of Assisi, Bridget of
Sweden (1303–1373), and Inigo Lopez de Loyola (1491–1556), Winfrid traveled to
Rome seeking Pope Gregory II’s (715–731) mandate to preach among the pagan
Germans on the frontier of the Frankish kingdom. The pope likely imposed the
name of the ancient Roman martyr, Boniface, upon him as well as a commission
to preach to the German pagans. In turn, at his episcopal consecration in 719,
Boniface took a special vow of obedience to the papacy (Ullmann 2003, 66–67).
The activity of Boniface (ca. 675–754), the “apostle to the Germans,” formed
an important part of a broader continental mission emanating out of the Anglo-
Saxon church. The missionary work of the monk Willibrord (ca. 658–739) among
the Frisians, who dwelt in what is now the Netherlands, for instance, had first
attracted Boniface to the continent. While one cannot reduce the motivation for
this activity simply to a desire to advance papal claims, a spirit of Roman
universalism, nonetheless, suffused the labors of monks like Willibrord, who
eventually received the religious name of Clement from the pope and of nuns like
Leoba (ca. 710–782).
The religious Romanitas of a missionary like Boniface, in addition, was hardly
devoid of political content. Rome was not just the city of the apostles Peter and
Paul, but also of Constantine and of Christian empire. Roman Christianity sug-

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gested a model of political behavior for its Germanic audience hallowed by the
names of both Christ and Caesar. The close working relationship, which arose
between Boniface and the most powerful figure of the Frankish kingdom at the
time, the mayor or major domo of the Merovingian palace, Charles Martel (died
741), led to a spiritual and political partnership between the Roman Church and
Martel’s own Carolingian clan, who in the person of Martel’s son, Pepin the Short
(r. 751–768), eventually seized the Frankish throne for itself with the blessing of
the papacy. Without exaggeration, one can say that this so-called Franco-Papal
Alliance led, in turn, to the first incarnation of a pan-European culture in the
revival of learning and culture made possible by the political and military
achievements of Martel’s grandson and papal ally, Charlemagne. Ironically en-
ough, then, in launching his Anglo-Saxon mission, Gregory the Great was not, as
he probably thought, taking a last heroic measure in the final days of human
history to bring a distant people to salvation, but, rather, he was taking a vitally
important initial step in the making of a new civilization.
C The Papacy, Charlemagne, And The First

Incarnation Of A Pan-European Culture
I The Purposes of The Franco-Papal Alliance
The multi-faceted relationship, which developed between the Roman Church and
the Carolingian dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries, formed the political
foundation of the first incarnation of a pan-European culture clearly distinct from
that of the Roman Empire. Neither party to the so-called Franco-Papal Alliance,
however, entered into this understanding with any conscious intention of creat-
ing the cultural basis of Western Civilization. Each partner possessed practical,
concrete reasons for seeking the support of the other.
In the Carolingian period, the papacy, and by extension the Roman aristoc-
racy and people, found a powerful dynasty willing to help them realize their
collective aspiration for their own state in central Italy and to be done perma-
nently with the political and military incursions of both the Lombards and
Byzantines (Noble 1986). The Romans, in the parlance of the day, desired a stable
and secure republic of St. Peter or res publica sancti Petri. Pepin the Short’s
limited, but effective military campaigns against the Lombards in 754 and 756
established the basic geographical outline of this papal republic, which in the
eighth century could be more accurately described as a collection of territories
loosely bound to the Roman Church rather than as a fully integrated principality

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(Partner 1972). It was this so called Donation of Pepin that inspired the clerks of
the Lateran Palace administration (the Lateran basilica and palace complex and
not the Vatican complex served as the seat of papal government prior to the
departure for Avignon) to produce the most famous forgery in European cultural
history, the Donation of Constantine. The Carolingians, for their part, desired a
close relationship with the papacy as a means of bolstering their claim to rule
over the Frankish nation in place of the moribund Merovingians and of validating
their ecclesiastical arrangements in Francia and in their conquered territories.
II The Consequences of Charlemagne’s Imperial Coronation

for European Political Culture
This Franco-Papal Alliance reached its zenith in the reign of Pepin’s son, Charles
the Great, or Charlemagne. A close analysis of the Carolingian monk and scholar
Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne, the Vita Karoli Magni (composed ca. 817–
836), reveals how well the three threads of early Western culture were woven
together in his person. A fierce warrior, Charlemagne vigorously promoted Chris-
tianity both among his Frankish and non-Frankish subjects; he restored empire in
the West and, like any dutiful Roman emperor he promoted learning within his
empire. For the present purposes, the two most important aspects of his reign
concern his restoration of empire and its consequences and his sponsorship of the
Carolingian Re-Awakening, which scholars formerly referred to as the Carolingian
Renaissance.
In the wake of Charlemagne’s imperial coronation by Pope Leo III (795–816)
on Christmas Day 800, two key questions arose: what would be the relationship
between emperor and pope and how would the Byzantines in Constantinople
react to the installation of a Germanic emperor of the Romans in the West? The
short answer to the latter question is that Charlemagne’s assumption of the
imperial title further alienated the two halves of the former Roman Empire from
one another. Charlemagne and his party justified his elevation to the imperial
dignity partly on the basis of the fact that in 800 there was no emperor reigning in
Constantinople. The empress, Irene (752–803), sat on the Byzantine throne alone
(of course, her isolation was her own doing as she had had her son deposed,
blinded, and cast into a dungeon). The Franks may have also justified their action
on the basis of apocalyptic fears in East and West. In the contemporary annus
mundi dating system (Bede’s A.D. system had yet to catch on in a major way), 800
was the year 6000 AM, a date that some had predicted would see the end of the
world. With a male on the imperial throne, St. Paul’s very vague prediction in
Thessalonians 2 that the Enemy, i.e., antichrist, would not appear until the end of

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Roman rule, would be forestalled. In any event, the Byzantines, understandably,

reacted coolly to Charlemagne’s maneuver.
The imperial coronation also raised a question for the Latin West: with the
empire restored, who ranked supreme, the successor of Caesar and of Constantine
or the successor of Peter? The origin of the dilemma lies in something alluded to
at the outset of this presentation. The dominant religion of the early West sprung
not from the Greco-Roman roots of the southern tier of the continent or from the
Germanic roots of its northern tier, but from Jewish Asiatic roots. The political
culture and dominant religion of the early West did not grow together like two
peas in a pod in the way that the political culture of the Indian sub-continent and
Hinduism grew together or as ancient Egyptian political and religious cultures
matured together. On various matters, the three strands of the Western cultural
fabric did not mesh easily together. The Palestine of Jesus of Nazareth certainly
toiled under the political domination of the Caesars, but the fundamental reli-
gious values of the Jews, which did not allow for divine monarchy, took shape
long before the arrival of the Roman state and, as Maccabees I and II reveal, long
before the arrival of the Hellenistic Seleucid state and its divine monarchy as well.
Even with the conversion of Constantine centuries later and the gradual establish-
ment of a Christian Roman Empire, tensions between religious and political
authorities remained. The Byzantine East muted the inherent tension between
Caesar and Christ by adopting what scholars used to term caesero-papism. The
emperors of the Greek East, where a tradition of divine monarchy stretched back
to the Hellenistic Age, imposed their will on the ecclesiastical authorities. While
the theology of the Christian East denied the emperor divine status and the
authority to formulate dogma, as a practical matter, the Christian Church func-
tioned as an organ of the imperial state. It is a model for church-state relations
that endured for centuries in the Orthodox Christian world.
At the time of Charlemagne’s coronation, the ambiguous solution in the Latin
West to the dilemma had been provided by Pope Gelasius I (492–496). The Two
Sword Theory expounded by the pope in a letter to the Byzantine emperor,
Anastatius I (491–518), held that God had bestowed the material sword on kings,
which they were to use to establish justice and to protect God’s church, and the
spiritual sword on priests, which they were to use in leading everyone, including
kings, to eternal life. Political and religious authorities were related, but distinct.
While Gelasius asserted that the priestly sword or authority was superior to that
of princes because spiritual matters superseded the necessary but mundane
concerns of princes, he offered no specifics on how to arbitrate clashes between
priestly and royal authorities.
Charlemagne, nonetheless, knew exactly how an emperor and pope should
function together. The emperor should lead and the pope should follow. He was

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thoroughly theocratic in his thinking. The emperor owed the pope, who inter-
ceded with God on behalf of the empire, honor and respect, but not his obedience.
As emperor, Charlemagne assumed the responsibility for both the temporal and
spiritual welfare of his subjects. The content of his many capitularies evince this
dual concern for the material and spiritual well being of his territories. In the
iconography of his church at Aachen, moreover, the Frankish warlord constitutes
a second King David (1040–970 B.C.E.), an anointed of the Lord. It is a theme
repeated in the literary productions of his court scholars (Fichtenau 1988). Charle-
magne, noticeably, never styled himself a priest-king and never assumed priestly
functions. Yet, he supervised the priesthood. Even prior to his imperial elevation,
Charlemagne demonstrated independent authority in matters of faith. The canons
of the Synod of Frankfurt (794) demonstrate this clearly enough. Summoned by
Charlemagne, the synod took positions on several issues in contradistinction from
those taken by Rome and Constantinople at Nicaea II (787).
By in large, the clergy of the Frankish Empire, including the popes, welcomed
Charlemagne’s strong hand as the Frankish David used his authority, on the
whole, to establish good ecclesiastical order in his empire. To the great pleasure
of the Roman Church, he established Roman liturgical principles and ecclesiasti-
cal customs among the northern peoples. The Roman rite, with an admixture of
Gallic elements, and the Rule of St. Benedict were spread far and wide north of the
Alps. Furthermore, Charlemagne’s zealous execution of his plan to improve
clerical education and morals and to protect religious institutions, such as mon-
asteries and cathedral chapters, from both spiritual and material despoilment by
local predatory noble clans, impressed upon clerical minds everywhere the lesson
that strong imperial or royal authority in ecclesiastical life benefited all concerned
(Blumenthal 1988). The clerical world certainly understood that Charlemagne’s
ecclesiastical arrangements were not always canonical, but, churchmen consid-
ered any irregularities a small to price to pay for the overall peace of the church.
This judgment fed a cult of sacral Christian kingship in the ninth, tenth, and early
eleventh centuries that went largely unchallenged by churchmen and laity alike
until the later stages of the eleventh century reform movement. While the imperial
and royal panegyric of Latin clerics never quite reached the level of obsequious-
ness of that of their Byzantine counterparts, they came close to it: especially, that
of the bishops of the Ottonian and Salian emperors of Germany.

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III The Carolingian Re-Awakening
Clerical education also formed a central component of the Carolingian emperor’s

cultural project formerly known to history as the Carolingian Renaissance. Over
the years, scholarly opinion has downgraded the intellectual quality of Carolin-
gian scholarship to the level of a Re-Awakening rather than a full blown renais-
sance (Collins 1998). It is, admittedly, true that the cultural program launched by
Charlemagne and sustained by his heirs through much of the ninth century
produced little original scholarship and mainly concerned itself with the preser-
vation and propagation of the learning of Christian and pagan antiquity. This
labor, nevertheless, constituted no small achievement (Fichtenau 1988). The work
of these scholars, for example, preserved for posterity a fair percentage of the
ancient Roman literary corpus. A comparative analysis of the number of surviving
manuscripts in the West from Late Antiquity to the eleventh century shows that
the vast majority of surviving manuscripts from these centuries belong to the
Carolingian era (Collins 1998). For a variety of reasons (not always best under-
stood by contemporary Carolingian scholars!), concern for and interest in the
written word swelled in the Carolingian period (McKitterick 1989). This period
also witnessed a major advance in writing in the form of Carolingian miniscule.
Even though the scholars gathered at the palace at Aachen and at other
centers of learning in the empire displayed a genuine interest in a number of
Roman authors, especially in Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.) and in certain poets, religious
concerns dominated their activities. Charlemagne, for both ideological and prac-
tical reasons, demanded the production of accurate editions of the Vulgate Bible,
liturgical texts, and monastic and patristic literature. An educated clergy was
important not only for the spiritual welfare of his empire and of its inhabitants,
but also for the quality of its temporal administration. Under Charlemagne, the
Carolingian church had evolved into a state church of a church state (Dawson
1950). While the emperor and his Carolingian successors sought to cultivate a
well-educated core of lay advisors and magnates at the different court schools,
they still depended in large measure on well trained clerical personnel.
The native places of the clerical personnel leading all of the activities of the
Re-Awakening, moreover, reflect the pan-European character of this cultural
project. A major consequence of Charlemagne’s conquest of the Lombard King-
dom in 774, in fact, was his introduction to a number of scholars active then in
northern Italy. Alcuin of York (730–804), a product of the Northumbria of the
Venerable Bede, was the most important of these learned men as he became the
chief architect of the Frankish ruler’s cultural undertaking. Other figures from the
British Isles, who made noteworthy contributions to the Re-Awakening at differ-
ent points in its history, include Sedulius Scotus (died 860) and the very preco-

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cious John Scot Eriugena (ca. 815–877), who was one of the few Westerners who
knew Greek. Northern Italy produced Paul the Deacon (720–795), Peter of Pisa
(744–799), and Paulinus of Aquileia (ca. 726–802/804) Visigothic Iberia produced
the poet and theologian Theodulf (750–821). From the eastern frontiers of the
Carolingian realm came the aforementioned Einhard (ca.775–840) and Charle-
magne’s other great biographer, Notker the Stammerer (840–912), hailed from
modern day Switzerland. The patronage of Charlemagne and of his successors, in
particular that of his son Louis the Pious (814–840) and of his grandson Charles
the Bald (840–877), created a centripetal force in early medieval culture that
inspired the sentiment that the world of learning was, like the empire itself and
the Christian Church as a whole, a universal society. John Scot Eriugena, interest-
ingly enough, was the first scholar to articulate clearly the medieval epistemolo-
gical dogma that all knowledge was inter-connected.
The direct papal role in the Carolingian Re-Awakening primarily involved
provisioning Charlemagne with the model texts his enterprise required. More
indirectly, the papacy and its representatives undoubtedly fed Charlemagne’s
centripetal ideological tendencies. Just as the faith of the Roman martyrs bound
Charlemagne’s new universal society together spiritually and his imperial regime
bound it politically, so too, the revival of learning was geared toward bringing the
new Christian imperium together intellectually.
The papacy, without question, benefited enormously from Charlemagne’s
restoration of empire as it elevated its position in the culture of a nascent Europe.
In ideological terms, Charlemagne’s dissemination of Roman liturgical and cano-
nical material tied the churches beyond central Italy closer to the Holy See than
ever before. The emperor, in some sense, was the most effective papal emissary to
that point in medieval history. His son, Louis the Pious, was, as his name
indicates, more deferential in his attitude toward religious authorities and, as a
result, he greatly softened his father’s strong theocratic policies. Louis left behind
him a number of imperial documents (e.g., the treaty of 817 between himself and
the papacy) that pledged the empire’s defense of the liberty of the Roman Church
in particular, which the eleventh century reform popes used to great effect against
the Salian emperor, Henry IV.
Charlemagne’s acceptance of the imperial crown from Leo III, whether or not
the Frankish king approved of the method of coronation, also advantaged the
papacy ideologically in a profound way and marked an important cultural differ-
ence between the Greek East and the Latin West. In the Byzantine Empire, the
coronation of the emperor by an ecclesiastic was simply a declarative act, i.e., the
emperor was already emperor by virtue of his birth and the coronation was only
recognition of that pre-existing fact (Ullmann 2003). The coronation did not make
him emperor. As a consequence of Charlemagne’s coronation, the Western under-

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standing of imperial coronation evolved along very different lines. In the West,
conversely, the coronation, and by 816, the accompanying anointing of the
imperial candidate by the pope were constitutive acts. In the West, one could not
become emperor without coronation and anointment by the pope. Every aspirant
to the imperial title, thus, was obligated to make the journey to Rome to receive
their office from the pope. This necessity not only provided the popes with a
degree of much needed political leverage with the imperial candidate, but it
elevated the stature of the Roman pontiff in the political culture of the continent.
Like all the other pilgrims, the man who would be emperor had to make his way
to the tomb of the Galilean fisherman.
IV The End of the Carolingian Order
As impressive as Charlemagne’s many achievements were, his empire proved to

be a fragile entity. The combined stress from infighting between his Carolingian
heirs and simultaneous military challenges from the Vikings, Magyars, and Arabs
shattered the empire’s political unity well less than a century after his death. The
Carolingian era gave way to the Second Dark Age and the rise of the feudal order
in much of tenth century Western Europe. While the political and military accom-
plishments of the Franks could not stand the test of time, the pan-European
cultural vision of the Carolingian Re-Awakening endured in the various monastic
centers of the old Frankish heartland and beyond (Dawson 1950, 71–72). The
spiritual universalism, which undergirded this vision, also endured in the Roman
Church. The turmoil of the Second Dark Age, nevertheless, came dangerously
close to eclipsing the spiritual universalism of the papacy as the raucous feudal
politics of the Eternal City severely compromised its institutional integrity and
largely made it the play thing of the various Roman factions.
D The Papal Pornocracy (ca. 890–1046) and the

Place of the Papacy in Second Dark Age Culture
I The Political and Religious Fallout from the Collapse of the
Carolingian Order for the Papacy
Well before the collapse in the mid ninth century of Carolingian authority in the
Italian Kingdom, the Roman population had earned a bad reputation for rowdi-
ness and riotous behavior. This penchant for violent public protest led Alcuin of

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York once to label the Romans a “disgraceful lot,” iniquus populous (Partner 1972,
46). Charlemagne, in fact, found himself in Rome in November of 800 in part
because a Roman mob, led by the relatives of his predecessor, Hadrian (772–795),
had attacked Leo III during a religious procession, imprisoned him (from which
the pontiff escaped) and legally denounced him. Leo, although a long time
member of the Lateran bureaucracy, was not an aristocrat and he had filled
various posts with his own loyalists at the expense of Hadrian’s very prominent
clan.
While the presence of a strong outside power could itself be the cause of
mischief-making by the clans of Rome and of the city’s outlying districts, more
often than not it kept local rivalries from spinning out of control. Charlemagne,
after all, easily facilitated Leo’s safe return to the papal throne. The combination
of dynastic in-fighting among the Carolingians and the appearance of Arab
raiders along the western Italian coast around the mid ninth century spelled great
trouble for all of central Italy. The Arabs, like the Vikings in the north, at first
engaged in piracy and marauding. In August of 846, for example, an Arab force
sacked Rome. Eventually, though, different local political players employed them
as mercenaries in their armed disputes with neighboring principalities (Partner
1972). As occurred in large areas north of the Alps at roughly this same time period
and under similar circumstances, many indigenous predatory powers emerged in
central Italy that sought to grab control of the lands and resources of their weaker
neighbors; they especially targeted the lands of ecclesiastical institutions. In an
attempt to ward off these incursions and the Arab raiders, churches (including the
Roman Church) and monasteries granted the control of much of their lands, and
the castles and fortified villages built to guard these properties, to laymen. This
activity, of course, marked the beginning of feudalism, which contrary to the
impression of some, was not the cause of political chaos, but an attempt to blunt
the consequences of the political upheaval caused by the Carolingian collapse
and foreign invasion. Despite the fact that one cannot find classic feudal termi-
nology in Italian documents until much later in the medieval period, the econom-
ic and political phenomenon known as feudalism emerged in various parts of the
Italian peninsula roughly contemporarily to its emergence north of the Alps
(Partner 1972, 92–93).
The violence of the Arab raiders and the predation of regional political
powers, such as the Duchy of Spoleto, meant that the papacy lost control over its
own patrimony (Partner 1972, 74). Far worse, however, by the late ninth century,
the political machinations of the major Roman families had severely compro-
mised the spiritual patrimony and institutional integrity of the Roman Church.
The papacy of this Second Dark Age bears a striking resemblance to that of the
infamous Renaissance papacy of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries:

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dominated as it was by the major families in aristocratic politics. As one late ninth
century moralist opined, “Roman morals were as ruined as Roman walls” (Partner
1972, 77). It was an age of violence and flagrant corruption in the Lateran Palace
and all over Rome. In the tenth and early eleventh centuries, two branches of the
Roman noble house of Theophylact (ca. 864–924/25), the Crescenti and the
Tusculani, waged an intermittent war with one another for control of the papal
throne. While the German Ottonian dynasty, which had taken up the vacant
imperial title in the mid tenth century, was able to restrain somewhat the excesses
of the Roman clans and their relatives and allies outside of the city proper,
Ottonian policy, especially the policy of Otto III (r. 983–1002), often inflamed
passions in the Eternal City. The Ottonian favorite and emissary, Bishop Luit-
prand of Cremona (922–972), has provided us with a vivid picture of the debauch-
ery and political intrigues of tenth century Rome. Some scholars have questioned
the veracity of this picture of a corrupt papal pornocracy from the late ninth
through the early eleventh centuries (Cushing 2005); but, their arguments are
largely rhetorical and unconvincing. It is telling that when the Roman reformers
of the eleventh century denounced the old papal regime, none of their opponents
came to the defense of the tenth and early eleventh century popes.
II The Cultural Impact of the Papal Pornocracy
The greatest difference between the papal pornocracy of the Early Middle Ages
and the notorious Renaissance papacy concerns the reactions of the contempor-
ary faithful in each era. Whereas the antics of the Renaissance popes and their kin
generated cynicism and contempt for the Holy See among their contemporaries,
particularly among the faithful north of the Alps, the escapades of the Crescenti,
the Tusculani, and of their relatives and allies, inflicted little discernible damage
on devotion to the Roman Church. Pilgrims continued to make the arduous and
dangerous journey to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs. The discrepancy, in
part, is attributable to the fact that in the earlier period, the pope was still a very
distant figure to the vast majority of the population beyond Italy and information
about individual popes was sketchy at best. In addition, medieval pilgrims, like
modern visitors to Disney Land or Disney World, were not necessarily interested
in the goings-on behind the scenes of the production or even in a position to
discover them. As a fundamentally local or regional institution, the papacy also
was not an important enough target for royal propaganda of any kind. The
German kings, Ottonian and Salian alike, actually needed the papacy in order to
secure the imperial title for themselves. By the late medieval/early modern era, a
seemingly bloated papal monarchy, in contrast, made a very convenient target for

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the invective of a host of political players, especially in the German speaking

lands, who could score political points at home with their abuse of the “foreign”
Roman Church (Strauss 1971).
E Eleventh Century Religious Reform and the

Transformation of The Papacy
I The Monastic Origins of Religious Reform
The collapse of the Carolingian order had introduced turmoil not only into the life
of the Roman Church, but into the internal lives of many churches and religious
communities across Western Europe. The Proprietary Church is the term often
employed by scholars of the period to describe the circumstances of many
ecclesiastical communities, especially of the smaller ones (Wood 2009). Just as
the leading families of Rome and of its outlying districts competed for control of
the various elements of the Roman Church, including the papal throne, the kin
networks of locally and regionally powerful clans elsewhere in large areas of
Europe attempted to appropriate the prestige and material resources of their
nearby church institutions for themselves. They, in other words, acted as the
owners of churches and of monasteries. This state of affairs, in the case of many
rural chapels and shrines, was literally true as many clans built their own
religious structures on their lands. Charlemagne, as stated above, also had
tampered with the internal lives of religious communities and exploited their
resources. He, however, had enjoyed a monopoly on such behavior and his over-
all attitude towards his imperial church was decidedly responsible. The host of
great and petty barons, who flourished in the age of the Proprietary Church, was
frequently not very responsible in its management of ecclesiastical affairs. A
number of ecclesiastical abuses, such as simony, nicolaitism (married clergy),
and lay abbacies, flourished in the era of the Proprietary Church and assumed the
aura of “tradition.” Revulsion for these and other irregularities were first acutely
felt in the monastic world of the tenth century where ancient texts and rules
played such an important part in religious life and which were so blatantly
contradicted by contemporary practices. The later, so called Gregorian Reform of
the eleventh century, really began in the tenth century with the various monastic
reformers who set about to restore monastic life to the pristine state that they
believed had once existed (Blumenthal 1988).

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II The Peace of God Movement: The First European

Counter-Culture
The political turmoil of the post Carolingian order, however, also produced
another sort of dissonance not only among monks and clergy, but also among
ordinary lay folk, particularly among the peasantry. The absence of strong central
authority in many parts of the old Carolingian Empire also resulted in a tremen-
dous rise in physical violence as the various potentates raided one another’s
lands in an attempt to carve out their own spheres of influence. Monasteries and
their peasants endured the brunt of this violence. By the late tenth century, a
popular protest movement, which united ordinary lay people with monastic
reformers and bishops, arose in central and southern France against the violence
of a seemingly lawless magnate class. This Peace of God movement was the first
revolutionary movement in Western history and it set the stage for all the great
revolutionary movements of modern European history. The basic message con-
veyed in the various open air peace councils organized by the bishops was that
might does not make right. Just as the interference of the barons in the lives of
monastic communities violated the law of God, so too the violence inflicted on
unarmed peasants, clergy, pilgrims, and merchants by the powerful of this world
offended almighty God and debarred the practitioners of this violence from the
sanctuary of the Christian community. The Christian community was governed by
law and the behavior of the violent placed them beyond the pale of the commu-
nity of the saved. The renegade faced a choice: repent and use his military might
to defend the faithful against injustice or suffer excommunication and face almost
certain condemnation on Judgment Day.
The fairly rapid spread of the Peace of God beyond its center of origin and the
emergence of an off-shoot movement, the Truce of God, which forbade fighting on
certain holy days and for certain periods of time, testify to the popularity of the
Peace’s central ideas and the degree of popular cultural discontent. Some scholar-
ship has indicated that the enthusiasm for spiritual reform among ordinary folk
may have indeed reflected a deep dissatisfaction with the political status quo as
the leading propertied families benefited the most from the exploitation of church
institutions via simony and nicolaitism (Moore 1980, 49–69). People certainly
seemed in search of “clean” religious leadership that would embody and enforce
a reform of European society.

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III The Reform Papacy (1049–1022)
The ecclesiastical reform movement was the cultural force that propelled the
papacy to a pre-eminent leadership position in the medieval world. The pap-
acy’s assumption of the leadership of this enterprise in the pontificate of Leo IX
led to its supplanting of the empire as the heir of Roman universalism and to
the theoretical desacralization of the state in the West (Dawson 1950). The
papacy, in the process, evolved into a genuinely pan-European institution. With
its heightened status, the Roman Church, consequently, was able to promote a
pan-European culture to an extent unimaginable in previous centuries. The
reform drama definitively transformed the pope’s primary roles as guardian of
the ancient Roman shrines and judge of a distant court of appeals to the
supreme spiritual governor of the Latin West who sat atop a sophisticated
governmental structure whose administrative reach extended across the Eur-
opean continent. The moral prestige, which accrued to the papacy as a result of
its embrace of the popular desire for spiritual renewal, made the bishop of
Rome, in short, a king.
IV Leo IX (1049–1054)
Leo IX was the first pope to make the reform agenda the agenda of the papacy.
The former bishop of Toul and cousin to the Salian emperor, Henry III (r. 1039–
1056), Leo was third in a line of four German popes imposed by Henry on the
Romans beginning in 1046. In that year, the German king had traveled to Rome
for his imperial coronation only to find the Roman Church in a state of disarray
with three claimants to the papal throne. At a synod held in Sutri (1046), Henry
engineered the deposition of two of the claimants and forced the third candidate,
Gregory VI (1045–1046), to resign.
In pursuit of the reform agenda, Leo took two significant steps, which inter-
nationalized the Roman Church. First, he began the process of making the college
of the Roman cardinal clergy a distinct, pan-European body by drawing able and
energetic reformers from north of the Alps to his side in Rome. Hugh Candidus or
Hugh The White (ca. 1020–1099), Frederick of Lorraine, the future Pope Ste-
phen IX (1057–1058), and Humbert of Moyenmoutier/Silva Candida (ca. 1015–
1061), all took their place in the ranks of the Roman cardinal clergy during his
pontificate. Leo also internationalized the papacy by traveling outside of central
Italy. In medieval political culture, the adventus or “procession” of a great
personage into a city was an event of tremendous significance as such public
displays vividly communicated to the assembled crowd that the person who was

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approaching their community was a truly significant individual (Fichtenau 1990).

The pope surely knew that by staging such public processions in cities far beyond
the boundary of the bishop of Rome’s metropolitan authority for the purposes of
holding reform councils, he was advertizing the authority of the successors of
St. Peter in as powerful a fashion as possible and exercising the papal primacy
over the Latin Church in a more concrete and immediate way than had ever been
done before. Leo also regularly dispatched legates to act in his stead on important
occasions in areas far from Rome as another means of extending the exercise of
the papal primacy. The adventus of a papal legate would have been an affair for
locals to remember too. One wonders if the pope was not simply following the
lead of imperial governments back to the reign of Charlemagne on this score as
the Carolingians had used the missi dominici or “messengers of the lord” to great
effect for a long while.
F The “Investiture Contest” and its Cultural

Consequences
I The Estrangement Between Papacy And Empire (1056–1073)
Following the death of Henry III in 1056 at the age of 39, the reform papacy and
the German empire grew increasingly estranged from one another on both a
political and an ideological level. This estrangement culminated in the epochal
event in European history best known as the Investiture Contest. On the political
level, the emperor’s untimely death meant that the papal reform party in Rome
had lost its accustomed source of military protection against the hostile Roman
clans as the emperor’s son, Henry IV, was only a child at his father’s death.
During the regency, which began at Henry III’s death, the German court simply
had too many problems at home to aid the reform popes effectively against their
Roman adversaries. These adversaries, to be sure, were quite formidable. Leo IX
had had to wage military operations against the Tusculani and their allies at the
start of his pontificate and one of the reasons for his peripatetic conduct of the
papacy was that he was physically safer away from Rome. Long after Leo’s death,
the reform papacy continued to face many dangerous enemies in and around the
Eternal City. The Roman reformers eventually settled on two Italian powers as
their chief political and military allies. The first new ally, the House of Canossa,
proved quite reliable, especially in the person of Countess Matilda (died 1115),
“the most faithful daughter of St. Peter,” as she came to be known. The other
major partner, the Norman princes of southern Italy, proved to be problematic

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allies to say the least. Yet, the strategic interests of neither of the Roman Church’s
new political partners matched those of the German crown in Italy.
The hiatus in close papal-imperial relations also contributed to a crucial
ideological development within Roman circles that meant that the interests of
papacy and empire would come increasingly into conflict. The shift, stated in its
most extreme form in Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida’s Three Books Against
The Simoniacs (1057),concerned the reformers’ rejection of a decisive lay role in
ecclesiastical governance, particularly in episcopal and abbatial elections. Hum-
bert (the former monk of Moyenmoutier mentioned above) not only rejected the
time honored practice of lay investiture of churchmen with their offices through
the bestowal of ring, staff, and regalia, but he insisted that as long as lay
potentates exercised any kind of authority in the church or over the clergy, the
trade in holy things was bound to continue. The complete removal of lay influ-
ence in ecclesiastical affairs, as advocated by Humbert, would have resulted in
political chaos in many lands, but it would have spelled the end of strong central
authority for sure in the German and Italian kingdoms of the empire. The Salians,
like the Ottonians before them, had enriched the German and northern Italian
churches and maneuvered loyal persons into the episcopates to serve as a
political counterbalance to the fractious and independent minded German nobi-
lity. Without stalwart imperialists filling the German and Italian church hierar-
chies, the Salians would have been reduced to the status of figureheads.
As a whole, the Roman reformers stopped short of Humbert’s radical conclu-
sion in their thinking about the fundamental requirements for the freedom of the
church or the libertas ecclesiae. The pope, most closely associated with the so
called Investiture Contest, Gregory VII, was not himself opposed to all royal or
imperial involvement in the election of prelates (Cowdrey 1998) Regardless, a
consensus developed within papal circles about the necessity for free episcopal
and abbatial elections, which meant by definition that no lay potentate should
attempt to engineer or to unduly influence the election of prelates. This consen-
sus took concrete form in the famous Papal Election Decree of 1059 issued by
Pope Nicholas II (1059–1061) The decree bestowed the decisive role in papal
elections on the college of Roman cardinal bishops and eliminated any mean-
ingful role for the emperor in these proceedings (Cowdrey 1998, 44). While the
papal reformers were probably more immediately concerned with the threat to
papal independence posed by the Roman magnates rather than by a German
emperor (Henry IV did not rule in his own right until 1062), the document
signaled the beginning of a break with the dominant cultural assumption to that
point in medieval history that temporal government and more specifically the
imperial government possessed sacral powers. There were to be no more repeats
of the events of 1046.

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II The First Individual Pan-European Political Event and

Propaganda War
The probably inevitable conflict between the reform papacy and the German
crown erupted during the pontificate of Gregory VII and lasted many years after
his death in 1085 until the sides agreed to a formal end to the dispute in 1122 with
the Concordat of Worms. The origin of the disagreement between Gregory and
Henry IV, ironically, did not at first directly concern the practice of royal or
imperial investiture of prelates. Gregory’s chastisement of the young German king
for his continued close association with counselors, who had been excommuni-
cated by Gregory’s predecessor, Alexander II (1062–1073) because of their tamper-
ing with an episcopal election in Milan, set off the first round of conflict between
pope and prince in 1076. The falling out gravitated around the issue of free
elections not around lay investiture per se. Over the course of the dispute, lay
investiture eventually became the focal point.
The impact of the protracted contest between papacy and empire, most
especially in the stage featuring Gregory VII and Henry IV, on the development of
medieval political and religious culture was tremendous. To begin with, the
dispute, which arose between Gregory and Henry, constituted the first public
individual pan-European political event. Previous political events that had
greatly impacted the life of the continent, such as Charlemagne’s imperial corona-
tion, did not engage large segments of the European population. The great event
that transpired on Christmas Day 800 involved very few actual participants even
if its consequences impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands. The Peace of
God too had changed the political and religious culture of many regions; but, it
did not involve clearly identifiable antagonists and did not unfold simultaneously
everywhere it reached and it was also subject to regional mutations. It was a
phenomenon rather than an event or a clearly connected series of events within a
single drama. The feud between pope and emperor, on the other hand, featured
two distinct principals each with an identifiable cadre of allies and each reacting
to the maneuvers of the other or of the other’s confederates.
Most unique to this contest, each side directly engaged the hearts and minds
of thousands of people from all social classes both clergy and laity across the
continent through propaganda. The rift between pope and prince produced a rich
and diverse body of polemical literature (Robinson 1978). A revival of literacy and
the concomitant rise in the prestige of the written word made this propaganda
war possible (Stock 1983). There would have been no point in producing so much
material earlier in medieval history as there would not have been very many
consumers of the information. It is likewise true that the Peace of God movement
had already aroused popular interest in matters of faith and politics. The person

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on the street so to speak had already been invited in on the conversation about
how the world should function.
III The (Very) Beginning of the End of Sacral Christian Kingship
The Investiture Contest, also, ultimately undermined the notion of sacral Chris-
tian kingship and the sacralization of political authority. It provided, of course,
perhaps the greatest iconographic scene in all of medieval history: a penitent
Henry IV standing in the snow before the castle at Canossa seeking forgiveness
from Gregory VII for his rebellion against the pope. At the time, Henry’s maneuver
(and it was a maneuver) paid strategic dividends for the king against his rebel-
lious princes in Germany by making it far harder for them to defend the religious
justification of their rebellion. In the short term, then, requesting and receiving
the pope’s absolution for his sin proved to be a clever stroke. Yet, Henry’s action
also vividly contradicted the rhetoric of two centuries of sacral Christian kingship.
The terms of the final settlement of the decades’ long dispute, which had divided
papacy and empire, enshrined in the Concordat of Worms did provide the imperi-
alists with a partial victory. The emperors would be allowed to invest churchmen
with the insignia of the temporalities attached to their office (e.g., lands or
political authority); but, they could not confer the insignia of the prelate’s spiri-
tual authority in the forms of ring and pastoral staff on him. Sacred authority
could only be conferred on a man by another sacred authority. Granted, the
golden age of divine right monarchy lay far in the future in the seventeenth
century. The defeat of theocratic kingship in the period 1076–1022 was only a
theoretical one. Eventually, however, the theoretical rejection of the notion be-
came political fact.
IV The Religious Foundations of the Western Legal Tradition
From the tenth century onwards, religious reformers had engaged in an intense
ressourcement in ancient Christian law and literature seeking justification for their
critiques of the Proprietary Church, and eventually of sacral Christian kingship as
well. These intellectual archaeologists held up the past as a mirror, so to speak, to
the present state of affairs in order to change the future. The process exemplified
the traditional Latin Christian notion, rooted ultimately in the ancient Hebrew
idea of historical progress, of reform ad melius or “for the better” (Ladner 1967).
This idea of reform viewed spiritual renewal as a progressive undertaking in that
such renewal resulted in an improved spiritual condition for the individual or

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society that engaged in it than that which pre-dated the moral lapse. The religious
reformers’ quest to provide a rational legal basis for the reform program not only
led in the twelfth century to the novelty of canon law as a separate academic
subject distinct from theology; it also, more importantly, provided the basis of the
entire modern Western legal tradition (Berman 1983). The idea of the law as an
autonomous, organic system of integrated principles and procedures presided
over by a hierarchical court system staffed by professional lawyers trained in
formal schools of law grew out of the canonistic research and analysis of the
ecclesiastical reformers (Berman 1983, 119).
V The Papacy as a Pan-European Institution
As noted above, by taking up the mantle of religious renewal the papacy was
catapulted by popular enthusiasm into a position of pan-European leadership.
The cultural tsunami of religious reform transformed the principal role of the
bishop of Rome from that as guardian of the sacred shrines of the most vener-
able local church in the West to the governor of the entire Western church. In
the period 1073–1198, the papacy acquired all of the apparatus of a contempor-
ary monarchy. First and foremost, the popes developed a sophisticated court or
curia of their own modeled on that of the princely courts north of the Alps:
complete with camera, chancery, and chapel (Robinson 1990). While retaining
some of its ancient liturgical functions, the Roman cardinal clergy emerged as
the principal source of the leading personnel in the papal curia (Robinson
1990). The figure of the Roman cardinal, in fact, first began to emerge in this
period as something of a cultural icon. Whether serving as legates beyond Rome
or as residential bishops or as functionaries in the curia, the cardinals personi-
fied the authority of the Petrine office in its various aspects: spiritual, legal,
financial, and political. Throughout the twelfth century, the composition of the
college of cardinals also underwent change as it evolved into a decidedly more
pan-European institution with fewer native Romans and more members drawn
from elsewhere, especially from France and northern Italy (Robinson 1990). The
internationalization of the college reflected the basic fact that just as the papacy
had grown more important to people beyond central Italy, so too the world
beyond the boundaries of the Papal State had grown more important to the
Roman Church. The popes required loyal servants knowledgeable about local
conditions in the most important regions of the continent. For their part, many
of the continent’s rulers assigned their own representatives and agents to the
Roman curia to keep track of its goings on and to gather political intelligence of
their own.

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One must, however, bear in mind that the transformation of the papacy into a
pan-European monarchy was not wholly or even chiefly a deliberate policy of the
popes and their collaborators. Undoubtedly, the Roman clans gladly used en-
hanced papal prestige and authority to wrest privileges for their native city from
their neighbors in central Italy and to reap material benefits from their patria’s
augmented international status. But, it was not Gregory VII, the compiler of the
highly hierocratic Dictus Papae or “Statements of the Pope,” who was responsible
for Rome’s metamorphosis into a lawyer’s paradise. Without the continuous
stream of petitions from townsmen, peasant communities, and religious groups
that began to flow toward the Lateran in pursuit of legal protection and/or
exemptions, the papacy would not have evolved as it did from the 1070s to 1200
(Morris 1989). Medieval society, in a very real sense, then, demanded the creation
of a papal monarchy; and, the popes obliged.
G The Papacy and the Idea of Crusade –

The Cultural Origins of The Idea of Crusade
The father of twentieth century Crusade Studies, Carl Erdmann, famously opined
that holy war constituted the foreign policy of the reform papacy (Erdmann 1977,
119–47). Erdmann based his assertion on his twin observations that the Latin
church in general had increasingly embraced the principle of righteous martial
combat against perceived enemies of God from the age of Charlemagne forward in
its liturgy, ritual, and prayer and that the reform popes of the eleventh century
were particularly active in organizing and/or sponsoring uses of the material
sword against alleged internal and external threats in a manner and to a degree
unknown in Christian history. Regardless, the implication that crusading emerged
out of a conscious policy of the papal reformers strains credulity. In the case of
the rise of the crusade movement, the popes and their collaborators once again
were riding a cultural wave rather than creating one. The heightened prestige
which had accrued to the papacy over the course of the reform era, without
question, allowed the Roman pontiffs to assume nominal control over a cultural
impulse that with a great deal of effort by the papacy and its allies eventually
developed into a signature institution of the European Middle Ages. The ultimate
cultural origins of crusading, however, lay not in the ideology of Gregory VII or of
any of his confederates, but in the crucible of the Second Dark Age.
Erdmann correctly noted that the Second Dark Age initiated by the Viking,
Magyar, and Muslim Arab assaults on Western Europe influenced the course of
subsequent medieval culture and of ecclesiastical thinking about the morality of

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warfare. The heathen invasions and the concomitant political violence greatly
intensified the warrior ethos already present in nascent Western culture (Dawson
1950, 95–116). The idea that martial combat against violent heathens was meritor-
ious gained broad acceptance in many circles of tenth and early eleventh century
society. Prior to this, the military campaigns of Charlemagne had enjoyed wide
acceptance as morally licit activity. The aforementioned Peace of God movement
ironically advanced the sacralization of violence (Flori 2001). The social compact
of the movement extolled the use of the material sword in defense of the poor, the
unarmed, and God’s church in contradistinction from the violence of castellans
who terrorized their fellow Christians, and thus, spilled the blood of Jesus anew,
in pursuit of their own selfish gain. The Peace movement’s ideology of righteous
warfare undergirded the much later appeal of Pope Urban II (1088–1099) at the
Council of Clermont (1095) to western knights to accept the inherent burdens of a
campaign in the East as an act of sacrificial love (Reilly-Smith 1980, 177–92). By
risking life and limb for the liberation of the Christian East (and by extension the
liberation of holy places in the East), Europe’s knights were responding to Jesus’s
invitation to his disciples in Luke 14:27 to take up their cross and to follow him.
Not coincidentally, Urban II, the former Odo of Chatillon, hailed from the minor
aristocracy of a region which had experienced much Peace related activity and
the legislation of Clermont re-proclaimed the establishment of the Peace of God.
While some scholars have downplayed the link between the Peace of God
phenomenon and Urban’s summons to what became the First Crusade, the argu-
ment is not convincing (Bull 1993). Many of those who responded positively to the
papal call, in fact, also hailed from areas deeply influenced by the ideology of the
Peace.
Over the course of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the popes gave
greater juridical and administrative structure to the cultural impulse of holy
violence that animated the crusading movement. Some have gone so far as to
assert that there were no crusades in the full sense of the term until the pontificate
of Innocent III in the thirteenth century (Tyerman 1998). Without a doubt, Inno-
cent contributed more to the construction of the institutional structures of crusad-
ing than any other single individual. He, more than any other previous pope, also
saw crusading as a valuable tool in the promotion of papal supremacy. Indeed,
his successors turned crusading into an instrument of their European political
policy, especially in Italy itself (Housley 1982).
Although the figure and sacramental power of the pope were indispensable
to crusading, papal management of the individual crusades to the East them-
selves was, with the exception of the initial expedition of 1095–1099, largely
ineffectual. The medieval popes, nevertheless, continuously championed the idea
of crusade to the East and poured a great deal of effort and bouillon into the

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development and refinement of the movement. Setting aside the inherent weak-
ness of the command and control capabilities of all pre-modern governments, the
main reason why the popes could not, on the whole, manage crusades very well
was due to the aforementioned charismatic nature of papal authority in medieval
society. The Roman Church proved skillful at galvanizing pre-existing sentiment
and leading people to action; but, it never was very good at compelling people to
act on their sentiments in exclusively specific ways.
Crusading in the East, furthermore, continually failed to accomplish the over-
arching strategic goal for which the popes supported it: the reunion of the Latin
and Greek churches under the authority of the Roman pontiff. Ironically, the
Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), Innocent III’s first attempt at crusading, technically
succeeded in achieving that grand strategic goal: but, in the disastrous fashion of
the conquest of Constantinople and at the point of a conqueror’s sword! This
temporary, forced reunion poisoned Roman Catholic and Orthodox relations for
centuries. Yet, despite the fact that crusading time and again proved to be an
ineffectual instrument of papal authority, the popes refused to abandon it. Then
again, medieval society itself never abandoned the idea of crusade in principle
(Siberry 1985). The so-called political crusades, nevertheless, provided a rhetori-
cal cudgel for late medieval imperialist polemicists, such as Marsilius of Padua
(1275–1342) with which to attack papal supremacy within the West.
H The Papal Monarchy as an Expression of

Medieval Political Culture
By the end of the twelfth century, the main components of medieval papal
government were in place. On the one hand, the breadth of the theoretical
judicial, legislative, and fiscal powers of the successors of the Galilean fisherman
creates the impression that the Roman Church had successfully subjected the
continent to its authority. Like all medieval princes, the popes assiduously
asserted their right to dispense justice. In the case of the papal monarchy, this
right was principally exercised on the appellate level. The consensus developed
over the 1100s that the Roman Church alone served as the one, final court of
appeal in the pan-European ecclesiastical judicial system. In certain important
cases such as the deposition of a bishop or in a case involving a religious house
that enjoyed a papal exemption from episcopal authority, the papal court could
also function as a court of the first instance (Robinson 1990). The judicial machin-
ery of the papal monarchy, moreover, expanded over the course of the same
century to include special judge delegates appointed by the pope to hear cases in

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local areas (Robinson 1990). This innovation relieved the case load of the person-
nel of the papal court itself without surrendering any of the pope’s jealously
guarded legal authority to hear appeals.
In the legislative field, popes had been granting various kinds and levels of
exemptions to religious communities from local authorities since at least the Early
Middle Ages. The great development of the high medieval period involved the
emergence of the concept of papal discretion (Robinson 1990). Working from the
ancient Latin ecclesiastical law (the so called Gelasian Decree) that no council or
its canons could be deemed legitimate without the approval of the Roman pontiff,
papal canonists from the eleventh century onwards made the argument that only
the Roman Church possessed the authority to interpret contradictory canons, to
suspend ancient canons due to new circumstances, and to issue new ones
(Robinson 1990). Some scholars have argued that the principle of papal discretion
was a revolutionary concept in Western canonical history (Cushing 1998); but,
this argument is one of those true observations that is highly deceiving in that the
notion of the discretionary powers of a sovereign authority was an axiom of
Roman law that was newly applied to a Roman Church that had enjoyed special
standing in the Christian world since the late first century C.E. With this principle
established, the popes began to promulgate decretals or opinions on the applica-
tion of canonical concepts to specific cases brought before the Holy See (Robinson
1990). Initially, twelfth century canonists gathered these papal pronouncements
in their own private collections; but over time, papal decretals attained the status
of official papal legislation (Robinson 1990).
In the fiscal realm, the papacy of the High Middle Ages developed a number of
sources for the much needed revenue to finance the apparatuses of its govern-
ment. Compared to the rising national monarchies of the period, the papal mon-
archy possessed far fewer sure and certain sources of income. Religious commu-
nities who enjoyed some type of papal protection or exemption from local
episcopal authority owed a yearly census or payment. Newly elevated archbishops
paid an honorarium to the pope for the bestowal of the pallium. From the late
ninth century onwards, the English kings forwarded the Peter’s Pence collection
from their dioceses to Rome and the honorific royal vassals of the continent
likewise paid a yearly census. Two expedient measures taken by Alexander III
(1159–1181) during the schism of 1159–1164, the papal provision of benefices in
local cathedral chapters for curial personnel and emergency subsidies from tem-
poral and ecclesiastical sources, eventually, formed the main sources of revenue
for the papacy for the rest of the Middle Ages (Robinson 1990). Those emergency
subsidies became the very controversial papal clerical tax (Robinson 1990).
In terms of ideological developments, scholars have long pointed to the
pontificate of Innocent III as the high watermark of the medieval period. Inno-

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cent, unquestionably, contributed more to the building up of the papacy’s ideolo-

gical position in medieval Europe than any other individual pope. To a far greater
degree than any of his predecessors, he asserted and exercised in a far more
ambitious manner the ancient theological principle that the pope enjoyed the
plenitudo potestatis, or “the fullness of power” within the church. The pope, in
other words, possessed the authority to intervene in the internal affairs of any
diocese or religious institution. The pope, as the Vicar of Christ (a term not of
Innocent’s invention), was below God but above man. Innocent even reserved for
himself and for his successors the right to intervene in temporal kingdoms if a
government proved wholly ineffective in preserving public order. No medieval
pope, in fact, involved himself more energetically in the great political questions
of his day than Innocent. He was a power broker of the first order. As proof of his
diplomatic prowess, he symbolically received several kingdoms as papal fiefs
over the course of his pontificate. His personal prestige made two of his own pre-
papal writings, On The Misery of the Human Condition and On the Mysteries of the
Altar, widely popular. The former survives in six hundred manuscript copies and
made its way into the Prologue of The Man of Law’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales. In November of 1215, he realized his great ambition for the convocation of a
grand council in Rome. Lateran Council IV constituted the largest and most
important pan-European assembly of any kind to that point in the continent’s
history. The council issued legislation over a wide range of issues that impacted
the lives of everyone, Christian, Muslim, pagan, or Jew, on the continent for
centuries.
Yet, the surface appearance of the papal monarchy in general and of Inno-
cent III’s pontificate in particular, creates a false impression. A slew of practical
and theoretical realities considerably restricted all of the papal monarchs, includ-
ing Innocent III. While the medieval papal monarchy constituted something of an
outlier among other medieval crowns (Morris 1989), it was not wholly unique.
Most significantly, the thrust of traditional medieval political culture militated
against any attempt to establish an absolute sovereign power of whatever kind. A
famous maxim of canon law captures quite well the spirit of this aspect of
medieval political culture: Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet or
“that which affects all must be approved by all” (Pennington 1984, 194). The
medieval church, naturally, was not a democracy and this maxim was not a call
for a one man one vote approach to ecclesiastical doctrine and governance; still,
like most medieval people, churchmen took very seriously the libertas, or liberty
of individual communities of persons, such as monasteries and cathedral chap-
ters, as well as the body of bishops as a whole (Pennington 1984, 194). While
most people at most times in the Middle Ages accepted hierarchy as a natural
and divinely ordained principle, no one, especially not monks, cathedral canons,

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or even the cardinal clergy of the Roman Church, believed hierarchical authority
could be legitimately exercised in a capricious or unrestrained manner. At the
height of the papal monarchy in the thirteenth century, the general consensus of
the canonists held that papal authority was itself restrained not only by the
canons of the ancient ecumenical councils and the fundamental articles of the
faith, but also by a regard for the status ecclesiae or “the status of the church”
(Pennington 1984, 68–69). The law of God forbade any pope from treating the
local dioceses or any religious institution or community in a capricious and self-
interested manner. The pope as Vicar of Christ was bound by virtue of his office
to preserve the dignity of every ecclesiastical body. Consequently, although
Innocent III made many grand-eloquent assertions of papal supremacy within
and outside the universal Church, his actual conduct of the papal office was
usually restrained as he clearly preferred the exercise of careful diplomacy and
negotiation with temporal and ecclesiastical powers over bold assertions of
divine authority (Pennington 1984).
In the High and Late Middle Ages, the college of cardinals insisted that the
papal responsibility to deal reasonably with the local churches extended to the
Roman Church itself. Divine law preserved the papacy as well from the caprice of
individual popes. The college of cardinals, in many ways, operated like a parlia-
ment of the Latin church with the pope as a quasi prime minister who needed to
lobby and to win over the cardinals in order to achieve his ends. The practice even
arose whereby potential candidates for the Petrine throne would make certain
promises during a conclave to the cardinals about the conduct of their office
ahead of their potential election (Ullmann 2003).
A number of practical realities also curtailed papal power. First and foremost,
the absence of a significant, independent papal army and the sheer geographical
extent of the continent combined to place tremendous limits on the papacy’s
powers of coercion. In order to accomplish much of anything beyond central Italy,
the popes had to rely on the assistance of local actors and agents. Even the
collection of vital revenues from beyond papal territory depended upon the
cooperation of local rulers. Enforcement of papal law often equally depended
upon the good will of foreign authorities. Time and time again, moreover, the
papacy was poorly served by self-interested local allies who refused to sacrifice
their own needs or well-being in favor of those of the Holy See (Morris 1989). Even
the physical defense of the Papal State against its own frequently rebellious
subjects required the help of foreign powers. These tactical weaknesses impeded
the policies of Innocent III in particular as they often produced circular patterns
in his diplomatic gambits (Morris 1989). For example, he fought a tough diplo-
matic war with King John of England (r. 1199–1216) in order to get Stephen
Langton (ca. 1150–1228) installed as archbishop of Canterbury only to suspend

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the archbishop subsequently for his support of the English barons against John
because the pope had reconciled with the king.
I The Papacy and the Pan-European Culture

of the High Middle Ages (1100–1300)
I The Papacy and the Higher Education Movement
The emergence of centers of higher learning outside of the monastic setting

constitutes one of the most important elements of the Twelfth Century Renais-
sance. Charlemagne, admittedly, previously had encouraged the formation and
maintenance of quality cathedral schools. Still, it was in the twelfth century that
cathedral schools emerged as the principle seat of the new learning that was
sweeping across Western Europe. Moreover, from its beginning, this higher
education movement possessed a strong international character that far exceeded
that of the Carolingian Re-Awakening (Morris 1989). As Peter Abelard’s (1079–
1142) Historia Calamitatum or “History of My Calamities” demonstrates, the twelfth
century began as an era of wandering scholars and students. The pan-European
character of this intellectual revival eventually found its fullest expression in the
rise of the universities at the end of the century.
As was the case with the Carolingian Re-Awakening, the papacy did not play
a direct role in the origin of the cultural springtime of the High Middle Ages. It was
not at all the product of a deliberate papal plan or initiative. As this multi-
dimensional phenomenon unfolded, many ecclesiastical authorities, including
the popes, opposed significant elements of it, such as the concept of courtly love
and the knightly tournament. The popes, in contradistinction, embraced the high-
er learning enterprise from fairly early on in its existence. As noted above, the
reform papacy had strongly linked ecclesiastical life with the life of learning:
particularly, in the forms of theological and canonical ressourcement. So, while
none of the reform popes themselves were legal scholars, least of all Gregory VII,
their collective efforts paved the way for the great era of lawyer popes in the late
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Pope Alexander III, the former papal chancellor, Orlando Bandinelli, was
really the first significant patron of higher education to sit on the papal throne
(Nardi 1992, 77–107). As papal chancellor and as perhaps a former master of law
at Bologna, the future pontiff promoted contact between the papal curia and the
major schools of the day (Nardi 1992, 77–107). As evidence of the esteem in which
he held school men, Alexander once explained to his legate in France that any

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potential Roman cardinal should possess three specific qualities: morality, and
knowledge of letters and of religion (Robinson 1990, 56). At Lateran Council III
(1179), Alexander initiated the stream of legal acts in support of higher education
that would flow consistently from the papal court well into the future.
As attested to by the contemporary witness, the theologian Boncompagno da
Signa (died after 1240), many high churchmen of the early thirteenth century
belonged to the ordo scholasticus or to the rank of scholars (Nardi 1992, 77–107).
The most famous of these churchmen was the former Lothario de Segni, Pope
Innocent III. Innocent had studied theology at Paris and likely canon law at
Bologna. As pope, he, not surprisingly, displayed a keen interest in deepening the
relationship between the Roman Church and the universities. His decree, Tuae
fraternitatis (1207), “Of Your Fraternity,” allowed clerics to continue to receive
their benefices (i.e., the stipends clerics received for providing pastoral services to
a designated community) even while absent from their pastoral assignments at
school (Nardi 1992, 77–107). Equally important, beginning with Innocent’s ponti-
ficate, the Holy See frequently offered its services to help mediate disputes within
university communities and to solidify the internal organization of schools. The
papacy, also, offered its political support to schools in disputes with temporal
authorities, whether local or royal (Nardi 1992, 77–107). Probably the single most
important legal contribution of the papacy to the university movement came in
the form of Pope Gregory IX’s (1227–1241) bull, Parens scientarium (1233), “The
Parent of Learning.” Many have come to view the document as a kind of Magna
Carta for the university movement (Nardi 1992, 97). In the bull, Gregory IX
recalled all teachers and students to the University of Paris, who in a dispute with
King Louis IX (r. 1226–1270) had fled the city, petitioned the king to reconfirm the
original royal privileges granted to the university by Philip Augustus (r. 1180–
1223), and reaffirmed a set of regulations for the university that the papal legate
and former Parisian master Robert Kedleston had composed (Nardi 1992, 83).
Beyond any historical factors that may have made the papacy and the first
universities natural allies, the charism of universalism also united the two institu-
tions. From inception, the spirit of the higher education movement and of the first
universities was transnational. While it is true that the native population seems to
have accounted for the majority of the students at any given university, the entire
university enterprise embodied the notion that there was one, universal world of
learning that recognized no meaningful national or regional boundaries. The
papacy too embodied the pan-national principle; and, therefore, it is not hard to
understand why the popes and their collaborators encouraged an undertaking
that diminished parochialism on the continent.

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II The Papacy and its Engagement with its Pan-European Flock
In the period after the papacy and the German empire agreed to a rather incon-
clusive conclusion to the “Investiture Contest” with the signing of the Concordat of
Worms (1122), the focus of the Holy See shifted away from concerns about cultic
purity toward the more thorough spiritual formation of clergy and laity alike
(Robinson 1990). In this endeavor, the new international religious orders of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries proved to be indispensible papal allies (Robinson
1990). The transnational character of these orders was itself likely a reflection of
the influence of the papacy’s own universalism. The emergence of the Dominicans
and Franciscans in the early thirteenth century proved especially beneficial for the
Roman Church. In different (but not totally different) ways, each of these mendi-
cant orders manifested the ideal of spiritual universalism. It is no accident that the
same early thirteenth century popes who enthusiastically endorsed the intellectual
transnationalism represented by the universities also heartily approved of the
transnational mission of the Dominicans and the Franciscans. In the friars, the
papacy found ready and able collaborators in the mission of elevating and intensi-
fying the spiritual life of the continent and a source of personnel for religious
missions beyond Europe. In keeping with their universalist charism, the friars
eventually entered the university scene (quite controversially) and also finally the
ranks of the popes themselves. Once again, the papacy did not initiate the move-
ment that proved so beneficial to its institutional interests. But, one has to believe
that the labors of the papal reformers contributed to the fact that more than half a
century later, when a son of Assisi felt called by God to do something great, he
believed it necessary to trod all the way down to Rome from Umbria to seek the
approval of the Roman pontiff for his new way of life. Prior to the age of the reform
papacy, a Francis Bernardone/St. Francis would not have believed it necessary to
receive anyone’s permission to proceed with his plans other than that of his own
diocesan bishop or perhaps that of a local abbot. The tireless campaigning of the
servants of the Roman Church had worked its effect on the popular imagination.
Concurrent with the high medieval papacy’s desire to inculcate a more
refined moral sense in clergy and laity, there arose the related, but distinct
phenomenon of the “new pastoralism.” Also a product of the eleventh century
spirit of reform, the main idea animating the new pastoralism was that the bishop
had a solemn obligation to be in regular contact with all the religious and lay
communities in his charge. The bishop’s chief tasks extended beyond his cultic
and ceremonial duties to include the close supervision of the moral and spiritual
lives of all within his diocese. The episcopal inquisition or regional court became
a more regular feature of ecclesiastical life beginning in the twelfth century. One
can see this vision of episcopal life on display as early as Bonizo of Sutri’s (ca.

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1042–ca. 1094) the Liber de vita christiana (ca. 1090) or “Book of the Christian
Life.” Ultimately, of course, the roots of the new pastoralism go back even further
to the vision set forth by Gregory the Great in his aforementioned Pastoral Rule.
The principles of this renewed pastoral sense find clear expression in the canons
of Lateran Council IV (1215). Prelates, clerics, and prominent laity from across
Europe descended upon Rome in response to a papal summons. Although Pope
Innocent III carefully planned for the event, the council was not at all a papal
rubber stamp as it was almost certainly preceded by intense negotiations between
the pope and the major participants. It was a genuine parliament of the Western
church. Chief among the council’s numerous canons, were those designed to
improve clerical discipline and to increase lay participation in the sacramental
life of the church. While it is certainly true that the ecclesiastical authorities of the
High and Late Middle Ages, including the bishops of Rome, offered ever finer
definitions of the articles of the faith and required more and more of ordinary lay
folk and clergy alike, it is equally true that the avenues for popular participation
in ecclesiastical life, such as eucharistic processions, also proliferated in the wake
of the great council (Dawson 1965).
III Cultural Indications of Tension Between The Papacy and

The Pan-European World (1100–1300)
The desire for simplicity in religious life and the exaltation of evangelical poverty,
which both the Franciscan and Dominican orders represented, also constituted
something of an indictment not only of a high medieval society that had grown
increasingly wealthy and materialistic as a result of the economic boom initiated
by the preceding Agricultural and Commercial Revolutions, but also of the institu-
tional church in general, and of the papacy in particular. The burgeoning of the
Roman curia in the early decades of the twelfth century and the ensuing creation
of pan-European systems of papal taxation and justice undoubtedly disappointed
the expectations of many who had responded enthusiastically to the lofty eccle-
siastical vision of the reform era. This disappointment soon produced howls of
protest in various forms. One early manifestation of discontent with the post
reform era ecclesiastical status quo appeared in the form of popular anti-clerical
preachers (Moore 1985). Henry of Lausanne (died 1148) and Peter of Bruys (died
ca. 1131), for instance, both traversed southern France in the first half of the
twelfth century denouncing clerical avarice (especially that of the Roman clergy)
and ecclesiastical wealth (Moore 1985).
The preaching of Henry of Lausanne may well have contributed to the rise of
the first and most enduring popular heretical movement of the Middle Ages: the

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Waldensians. This sect, which eventually spread across southern France and into
Italy and central Europe (and endures to the present day), likely emerged out of
the preaching ministry of the late twelfth century merchant turned street minister,
Waldes of Lyons (ca. 1140–ca. 1218). An advocate of apostolic poverty, public
preaching by laymen, and vernacular translations of the bible, Waldes initially
sought the approval of Pope Alexander III for his ministry. Although the pope
seems to have responded somewhat favorably at first to Waldes’s enterprise, in
the end, he and his followers were banned from public preaching and later
condemned for their refusal to desist from their activities.
The agenda of the sect associated with Waldes (and that of Waldes himself for
that matter) clearly reflects the cultural trends of the high medieval period.
Mirroring the growing concern in religious thought about the negative conse-
quences of ecclesiastical wealth and the simultaneous exaltation of apostolic
poverty, the Waldensians insisted that the church shed its accumulated wealth in
money and property and that the clergy live simply in imitation of the apostles. In
imitation of the demands of the communal movement, which insisted on greater
political freedom for the urban classes, the sect further insisted on the right of the
laity to preach in public and, as an indication of the flowering of vernacular
literature in the period, the Waldensians called for vernacular translations of the
bible.
Dissatisfaction with the institutional transformation of the papacy and a
perceived betrayal of the high ideals of the eleventh century reform program
produced a considerable literary body of anti-Roman satire as well. In an ironic
twist, the theme of venality, which papal reform polemicists like Peter Damian
(1007–1072) and Humbert of Silva Candida had employed effectively against the
representatives of the pre-reform church, became a standard theme of the anti-
Roman satirists of subsequent centuries (Bourgain 2002, 750). Over the course of
the High Middle Ages, the satirists came to use the term “Rome” metonomously
for papal authority (especially for the papal powers of taxation) regardless of
whether a particular pope was resident in Rome at a particular time (Bourgain
2002, 750). The so called Gospel of Saint Mark Silver or The Silver Mark was a
popular parody of the papal attitude toward wealth and the poor, which existed
in a number of different variations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Bour-
gain 2002, 750). In the parody, an avaricious pope at one point offers his own take
on the Beatitudes, which includes the line: “Blessed are those who possess for the
Roman curia shall be theirs” (Bourgain 2002, 750). Anonymous authors com-
posed a veritable cornucopia of etymologically based witticisms that mocked the
worldliness of papal government.
Maybe the most famous barb directed at “Rome” was the acronym created out
of the biblical maxim that money is the root of all evil or Radix Omnium Malorum

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Avaritia (Bourgain 2002, 750). The troubadour poets seem to have taken special
exception to the papacy’s involvement in crusading (Siberry 1985). Given the
papacy’s unleashing of the Albigensian Crusade in Languedoc and its environs in
the early thirteenth century, the focal point of the troubadours’ anti-papal com-
plaint is not surprising. On the whole, however, vernacular anti-Roman texts,
intended mainly for lay audiences, largely directed their anger more at the papal
court than at the person of the pope himself (Bourgain 2002, 750).
Thoroughly orthodox figures, such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who
also engaged in a war of words with the aforementioned Henry of Lausanne, also
voiced criticisms of the worldliness of the papal court. In his De consideratione
(ca. 1148) or “On Consideration,” which he composed for his protégé, Pope
Eugenius III (1145–1153), Bernard warns Eugenius to guard himself against the
secular atmosphere of the papal curia. The moral failings of the papal court also
bothered the staunch Gregorian, Gerhoh of Reichersberg, who believed the avar-
ice of the Romans had turned the Eternal City into a modern day Babylon (Dawson
1950, 248).
Gerhoh, in fact, stands apart as the first major medieval apocalyptic writer to
ascribe a special role to the papacy in the End Times (McGinn 1979, 104). Prior to
the papal reform era, the pope had not been a significant figure in apocalyptic
literature. On the contrary, the figure of the emperor, of the Last Emperor before
the appearance of antichrist, was the dominant protagonist in apocalyptic think-
ing: especially in that of the Byzantine East (McGinn 1979, 94). From the time of
Gerhoh’s apocalyptic masterwork, The Fourth Watch of The Night forward, how-
ever, the pope assumed a prominent place in various apocalyptic schemes.
According to Gerhoh, his age of the late twelfth century constituted the Fourth
Watch or period of human history in which the unrestrained power of Avarice had
enslaved the popes to the insatiable appetite for gold and silver of the Roman
clergy and people. None would stand to be corrected by wholesome admonitions.
Gerhoh, instead, prays for the deliverance of St. Peter’s successors by the arrival
of modern day Maccabees, who will cleanse the Roman Church and prepare the
way for the Second Coming. Joachim of Fiore, the most influential medieval
apocalyptic author, also ascribed an important role to the pope in his paradigm
(McGinn 1979). He foresaw that at the end of the spiritually dark Second Status or
Age of the Church, a holy pope would appear who would preach the gospel to the
pagans, and together with two new orders of spiritual supermen, would help
defeat antichrist (McGinn 1979). Not coincidently, in the thirteenth century, the
figure of a future angelic or holy pope became a stock character in apocalyptic
literature. From the late twelfth century onwards, the popes of history were
largely competent and sometimes even highly skilled lawyers and diplomats, but
none of them enjoyed reputations for sanctity (McGinn 1979, 186). It is revealing,

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for instance, that Innocent III, who possessed enormous human talent and left
such an imprint on his age, never attained the status of a “Great” pope like Leo I
(440–461), Gregory I, or Nicholas I (858–867). One certainly can interpret this
literary expectation of an angelic pope as a strong, implicit criticism of the
contemporary occupants of the chair of St. Peter (McGinn 1979, 186). The emperor,
Frederick II (r. 1215–1250), the nemesis of Popes Gregory IX and Innocent IV
(1243–1254), made no secret of his hatred for the papal monarchy. In the course of
the protracted and highly emotional polemical war between himself and Gregory
IX that led to open warfare, the emperor denounced Gregory IX as an antichrist
who deserved to be brought to trial before a general council (Ullmann 2003, 256).
The great English churchman and scholar, Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168–1253) also
employed the strongest apocalyptic rhetoric possible against the thirteenth cen-
tury papal monarchy. In a speech before Innocent IV and his chief counselors, the
bishop of Lincoln denounced the venality of the papal court (then in temporary
residence at Lyons for fear of Frederick II) and the failures of the pope himself.
He suggested that the time of antichrist’s appearance may not be far off (Southern
1992, 276–85)! Three later thirteenth century popes, Clement IV (1265–1268),
Gregory X (1271–1276), and Celestine V (1294), managed to excite some of their
contemporaries into believing that they were the much anticipated holy pope. The
existence of such an expectation speaks volumes about the deterioration in the
relationship between the Roman Church and medieval society over the course of
the 1200s.
IV The Papal Responses to Dissent
The multifarious cultural expressions of dissatisfaction with papal leadership did

not go unnoticed by the popes and their collaborators. Two of the popes most
readily associated with the worldly preoccupations of the papal monarchy, the
cousins, Innocent III and Gregory IX, were, ironically, keenly aware of the new
challenges posed to the Roman Church by the many economic and cultural
changes in European life. Despite his many forays into the high politics of his age,
Innocent III, for example, was not at all indifferent to the spiritual aspirations of
those who wished to imitate the poverty and simplicity, which they believed had
characterized the life of the early Christian Church. Given his aristocratic lineage,
his immersion as a young cleric in the elaborate liturgical customs of the Roman
Church, and his extensive learning, Innocent’s acceptance of Francis of Assisi
and of his companions demonstrates that he was far more than a practitioner of
Realpolitik. Innocent also exhibited a genuine desire to reconcile those, who had
broken with the institutional church over issues relating to apostolic poverty and

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lay preaching, with the Holy See. Durandus of Huesca’s (ca. 1160–1224) faction of
the Waldensians, who accepted terms for reconciliation with the church and
subsequently formed the Poor Catholics, is the best example of the papal mon-
arch’s solicitude for dissenters. For his part, Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, the future
Pope Gregory IX, was a strong ally of Francis of Assisi in the Roman curia as well
as an enthusiastic supporter of the nascent university movement: an enthusiasm
he shared with his papal cousin.
It is also true, nonetheless, that these same two pontiffs were willing to
employ coercion against incorrigible opponents. Innocent launched the notorious
Albigensian Crusade in 1209 against the Cathar heretics of Languedoc, and their
protector, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (1156–1222), partly on the basis of the
pope’s application of the Roman legal definition of treason to heresy. While
Innocent’s legislation against heresy did not take the primary responsibility for
combating heresy from the diocesan bishops, it definitely sharpened the tone
against religious dissent. His successor, Honorius III (1216–1227), pressed tempor-
al princes to incorporate provisions for the forceful suppression of heretics in their
law codes (Lambert 1992, 100). The actual founder of the papal inquisition of the
Middle Ages was the great friend of Francis of Assisi and successor of Honorius,
Gregory IX. In 1231, he took the step of granting a general papal commission to the
Dominican prior of Regensburg to seek out and prosecute heretics (Lambert 1992,
100). The first papal commission to discover and prosecute heretics in a specific
region was issued a couple of years later when the pope empowered a group of
Dominicans to root out heresy in Languedoc (Lambert 1992, 100). Unlike the
subsequent Roman Inquisition of the Reformation era, the medieval papal inqui-
sition was not a single institution, but rather a series of extended commissions in
designated regions. It is probably more accurate to speak of inquisitions in the
plural than to employ the term inquisition to designate what Gregory IX created
and his medieval successors modified. While certain princes, like the kings of
England, refused to cooperate with the papal judicial mechanism for putting
down heresy, there is no clear indication that popular sentiment opposed the
Roman Church’s use of coercion against religious dissent. On the other hand,
Gregory IX’s call for a crusade against his political opponent in Italy, Frederick II,
and subsequent papal summonses to crusade against political enemies, almost
certainly created the impression in many minds that the successors of St. Peter
had become self-interested temporal princes.

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V The Popes and the Jews
The concern of the high medieval papacy to evangelize European society more
thoroughly not only exposed dissenters to punitive measures, but it also high-
lighted the anomalous situation of the continent’s Jewish population. What place
was there for the children of Israel in a vigorously Christian Christendom? Rela-
tions between Christians and Jews had been troubled, of course, long before the
advent of the papal monarchy. The antagonism originated in the negative reac-
tion of the Jewish religious establishment to the Jesus movement of first century
Palestine. The Sanhedrin’s negative judgment of the rabbi of Nazareth is quite
understandable. Contrary to the tremendous softening of his image by a late
nineteenth century piety that still exercises a considerable influence on popular
culture today, the Jesus of the New Testament frequently employs the harshest
rhetoric against the Jewish authorities. In this regard, he was in line with the
ancient Hebrew prophets, like Jeremiah (pre 626–ca. 587 B.C.E.), who often
subjected Israel’s religious establishment to the severest criticism.
While the Roman emperors, both pagan and Christian, tolerated Judaism, it is
true that the Christian emperors curtailed Jewish liberties more severely than their
pagan predecessors (Synan 1965, 19). The Christian emperors disbarred Jews from
holding public offices, largely outlawed the construction of new synagogues,
forbade Jewish proselytism as well as intermarriage with Christians, and pro-
tected Jewish converts to the church from slander (Synan 1965). These same
emperors, nonetheless, acknowledged in their legislation the providential role of
Israel in sacred history and preserved the Jews’ rights with regard to freedom of
worship and of conscience. The popes of the early medieval period were the heirs
of this imperial legal tradition and none more so than Gregory the Great. His
words, in turn, cast a giant shadow his successors’ relations with Judaism (Synan
1965). The parameters laid down in his correspondence of the legal position of the
Jews in a Christian society remained largely unchanged throughout the medieval
period (Synan 1965, 35). In setting down his judgments about the place of the Jews
in a nominally Christian land, Gregory, however, was not deliberately attempting
to establish future papal policy toward Judaism. He was reacting to individual
episodes involving Jews and Christians without any concern for the future (Synan
1965, 35). Gregory’s judgments served as the basis for the medieval “Constitution
on the Jews” designated by the opening words of one of his letters, Sicut Judaeis
non, ”Just as not for the Jews.” In the course of his correspondence, the pope
reasoned that Jews should enjoy freedom of worship, freedom of conscience (i.e.,
no forced conversions to Christianity were permitted), and freedom from unrea-
sonable or non-traditional impositions of any kind. Jews, however, were not
allowed to own Christian slaves or enjoy any dominion over Christians.

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The papal summons to crusade in 1095 occasioned the first wide scale
pogroms against the Jews in the medieval period. In the spring and summer of
1096, massacres of Jews and forced conversions to Christianity occurred in France
and Germany. In the popular mind, the call to arms against Muslims in the East
had underscored the anomalous situation of the non-Christians dwelling within
Europe (Synan 1965, 66–82). Why spare the infidels already in one’s midst? These
pogroms as well as those associated with subsequent crusading activity were the
unintended consequences of papal policy. This policy remained quite uniform
through the twelfth century. The decrees of Lateran Council III (1179) commanded
that Jews were not to own Christian slaves or servants or to receive the feudal
homage of a Christian. Jews were allowed to worship freely and were to be
protected against involuntary conversions. They were also not to suffer the loss of
property outside of the judicial process. Those Jews, who did however convert to
Christianity, were to be defended against any slander directed their way by
anyone (Synan 1965, 79).Even though his thinking about the Christian Church’s
relationship with the children of Israel was fundamentally in sync with earlier
papal pronouncements, Innocent III offered a certain twist to the traditional papal
attitude toward the Jews. As was the case with all of his medieval predecessors,
Innocent’s problem with the Jews was theological not racial. Because they had
rejected the true messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh, the Jewish people
had suffered the fate of permanent exile from their homeland of Israel. As
predicted by St. Paul in Romans 11:25–31, a remnant of Israel would convert to the
true religion at the close of human history. This is the reason why forced conver-
sion of the Jews, let alone the murder of Jews, was reprehensible for the popes of
the Middle Ages. Conversion of the Jews was to be the direct work of the Spirit at
the end of the ages. The killing of the Jews was, therefore, heretical, even
diabolical. Innocent III maintained in his legislation the traditional protection of
Jewish worship and of freedom of conscience as well as the ban on extra-judicial
punishments of Jews and of the imposition of novel burdens. He even specified
that Jewish cemeteries were not to be disturbed. But, he also qualified these
protections with a caveat: they only applied to those Jews who refrained from
plotting against the Christian faith (Synan 1965, 98). With this qualification, he
clearly set the papacy against Jewish proselytism of any kind. Four of the canons
of his great council, Lateran IV, deal specifically with the non-believers in
Christendom’s midst. Canon 67 forbids the imposition of immoderate usury by
Jews on Christians and requires Jews who purchase the property of Christians to
continue to pay the tithe (Synan 1965, 234). Canon 69 prohibited both Jews and
Muslims from serving in public office (Synan 1965, 234). Canon 70 forbade Jewish
converts to Christianity from continuing to practice any aspect of their former
religion (Synan 1965, 235). In the post Shoah era, canon 68, which in part imposed

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the wearing of distinctive garb on Jews and Muslims, has acquired an especially
ominous connotation as it seems to anticipate the Nazi imposition of the Star of
David on Jewish clothing and property. In a very remote sense, this canon did
indeed foreshadow the Nazi isolation of European Jewry from the rest of their
subject population. Though, it is equally true that the canon’s stipulation that a
certain segment of a population wear distinct clothing was not unprecedented in
the pre-modern era (Synan 1965, 104). Sumptuary laws even existed within
medieval Judaism. The prevention of sexual contact and inter-marriage between
Christians and non-Christians constituted the primary goal of the Lateran legisla-
tion (Synan 1965, 104).The medieval popes often intervened on behalf of the
continent’s Jews against the predations of their Christian neighbors and rulers.
Innocent IV, for example, defended the Jews against the charge of ritual child
murder in his letter Lacrymabilem Iudaeorum Alemaniae, “The Tears of the Jews
of Germany (1247).” During the initial outbreak of the Black Death, Clement VI
(1342–1352) denounced the popular myth that the Jews were spreading the plague
by poisoning the wells of Christians. But, the Roman pontiffs, combined an
abiding concern for the basic religious rights of Jews with often the most harshly
worded theological and canonical denunciations of the “errors” of Judaism
(Synan 1965, 111). Their theological contempt for the descendants of Jesus (and
yes, the popes were well aware that the savior was a Jew) undoubtedly augmented
the laity’s resentment of the Jews. Thus, in a sense, the medieval popes worked to
restrain a violent impulse that their own rhetoric helped inflame.
J The Medieval Papacy’s Fundamental Problem

In The Pan-European World
Behind the plethora of criticisms of the alleged avarice and dishonesty of the papal
court and of the worldliness of papal conduct, there lay the fundamental critical
judgment of the papal monarchy that it was not what it claimed to be. The key to
the papacy’s privileged place in medieval society from the mid eleventh century
onwards had been the belief that the Roman Church represented a supra-regional
source of spiritual unity whose authority was exercised for the common good and
whose justice was disinterested. The construction of elaborate pan-European
systems of justice and taxation in addition to the employment of crusading against
intramural political opponents created the impression that crass ulterior motives
lay behind papal conduct. In other words, in some eyes, the papal monarchy was
a fraud. It is no accident that Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265–1321) placed the quintes-
sential papal monarch, Boniface VIII (1295–1303), in the Eighth Circle of Hell, the

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realm of Frauds (Dante). More than two centuries after the composition of the
Divine Comedy, the early Protestant woodcuts visually leveled this very same
charge at the papacy. From Gerhoh of Reichersberg in the twelfth century to
Petrarch (1304–1374) in the fourteenth century to Martin Luther in the sixteenth
century, the charge remains eerily the same: the Roman Church is not the Bride of
Christ, but rather the Whore of Babylon. She is not who she pretends to be.
Ironically, the choice that the popes and their collaborators made to go down
the road of monarchy and bureaucracy was in a remote sense forced upon them
by the very pan-European constituency that subsequently grew disenchanted
with the consequences of that decision. Given the cultural and material realities
of the medieval period, the institutional independence of the Roman Church
required the creation of governmental structures, most especially financial struc-
tures, to defend it against sundry predatory powers. While the modern Western
mindset, which benefits from the wide adherence to the rule of law both within
individual nation-states and between them, believes that temporal concerns
poison a religious institution’s spiritual mission and that public authorities
should have no spiritual concerns, the medieval situation did not allow for such a
separation of the spiritual from the temporal. In order to meet the popular
demands for leadership and justice, the medieval papacy had to develop the
apparatuses of a medieval government. Otherwise, the early medieval pattern of
domination by one hostile power after another could have never been broken. In
the end, the effort to break that cycle failed. The fifteenth—century papacy was, in
many ways, more akin to that of the tenth century than that of the age of Innocent
III. It is equally ironic that the seemingly sterile and completely self-interested
juridical activities of the later medieval lawyer popes contributed mightily to the
foundations of the same modern ideology of the rule of law that ultimately
enabled the Holy See to disentangle itself from the temporal concerns that had
aroused the hostility of its medieval critics. The determined opposition of the anti-
clerical Italian republicans of the nineteenth century, admittedly, had a hand in
this disentanglement as well!
K Shifts in the Pan-European Culture of the Late

Middle Ages (1300–1500)
I The Nationalist Spirit of the Late Middle Ages
The formation of comparatively strong, centralized national monarchies in France

and England stands out as the key development in late medieval political life. The

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achievement of the Capetian dynasty in France is especially impressive. In the

tenth century, the Capetian kings directly governed a mere postage stamp of a
kingdom that consisted of not much more than the Ile de France. Like the popes,
the Capetian monarchs adeptly rode the various cultural waves that swept over
Europe in the period 1000–1200. The agricultural, commercial, and intellectual
expansions of the period all (literally) profited their kingdom. Through the
shrewd use of military force and advantageous marriage alliances, the Capetians
had expanded the geographical extent of their kingdom to encompass most of
modern day France by 1300. By this date, Capetian France had achieved a quasi
hegemonic status on the continent, far more formidable than the ethnically and
linguistically heterogeneous empire.
A centrifugal nationalist spirit pervaded the intellectual life of the continent
as well. Throughout the Late Middle Ages, the vernacular steadily replaced Latin
as the language of literary expression. One can see this phenomenon on display
in any well edited undergraduate anthology of medieval primary sources. As one
advances through such a volume, the number of pieces originally composed in a
vernacular language surely would rise considerably. After 1300, aside from per-
haps a sample of the literary endeavors of Trecento humanists, vernacular com-
positions would almost certainly account for the preponderance of the entries.
This nationalist spirit, in addition, affected the great bastion of pan-European
cultural universalism, the university. While universities had always possessed
distinctly local characteristics and student bodies, the jealously guarded designa-
tion studium generale or general school, the first term used to designate a
university, which either a pope or (much less often) an emperor had bestowed on
an institution, embodied the essentially trans-national character of higher educa-
tion. The studium generale was an institution of advanced learning either founded
or confirmed in its status by a universal authority, usually the papacy, whose
members possessed certain universal rights, which transcended all local divisions
or boundaries (Verger 1992, 37). With the eruption of the Great Schism in 1378,
however, when a dispute between an Italian and a French claimant to the papal
throne arose, the universities began their devolution to nationalist institutions of
higher learning in earnest (Nardi 1992, 101).
II The Vindication of the Rational and of the Temporal
One exceedingly important development in medieval intellectual life that contra-

dicted papal universalism and, more directly, the scholastic credo of fides quarens
intellectum or “faith seeking understanding,” concerns the rise in the thirteenth
century of Latin Averroism and its doctrine of the double truth. Rooted in the

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interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy of the twelfth-century Arabic scholar Ibn

Rushid whose name was Latinized into Averroes, the Latin Averroists seemingly
taught that faith and reason exist entirely independent of one another. No com-
mon ground exists between these two different ways of perceiving reality. The rule
of faith may require one to accept as true a proposition that rational thought
rejects as manifestly false: hence the doctrine of the double truth. Despite the
condemnations of ecclesiastical authorities, the most fulsome issued in 1277 by
the former Parisian master and bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier (died 1279), Latin
Averroism won many adherents in university circles. As indicated by the presence
of the leading Latin Averroist, Siger of Brabant (ca. 1240–1280s) in the Fourth
Sphere of Paradise in Dante’s Paradiso, the doctrine of the double truth also won a
sympathetic audience outside of the academic world. Averroism also fed the
flames of conflict between temporal authorities and the papal monarchy. The
French and English crowns as well as the emperors had grown tired of the
machinations of Innocent III’s thirteenth century successors and their apparently
insatiable thirst for revenues. An ideology that asserted the independence of the
natural from the supernatural and of reason from faith provided the opponents of
papal temporal power with a powerful intellectual basis for their own anti-papal
polemic. Both Dante’s De monarchia (1312–1313?) or “Concerning Monarchy” and
Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis (1324) or “Defender of the Peace,” which each
bitterly assail papal temporal power and extol the independent authority of lay
rulers, are unimaginable without the influence of Latin Averroism. Their existence
demonstrates, furthermore, that the vindications of the temporal sphere and of the
vocation of the non-clerical classes began long before the age of Luther.
Two other intellectual phenomena of the Late Middle Ages that prepared the
way for the great revolt against papal universalism in the sixteenth century were
Nominalism and Voluntarism. The Nominalism of the fourteenth century had its
origins in the work of twelfth century scholars like Peter Abelard. The Nominalism
of a William of Ockham O.F.M. (ca. 1287–1347), however, was far more potent
than that of his forbearers. Later Nominalism held that given the fact that the
human mind cannot know any universal realities (e.g., human nature), but, only
individual realities (e.g., individual human beings), all human knowledge is
contingent and quite limited in scope. It held, moreover, that whatever one knows
by faith, one only knows it by faith or sola fide. Nominalist epistemology, there-
fore, undercut the basis of the scholastic enterprise of fides quarens intellectum.
Theology and rational inquiry cannot inform one another’s perspectives. Ockham,
in addition, stressed even the contingency of the articles of faith. By stressing
God’s absolute sovereignty, this Franciscan assailed any assertion that the struc-
ture of the Christian Church or the nature of its sacraments had to be in the forms
that the men and women of the fourteenth century knew them (Ozment 1980).

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God could have saved humanity and offered his grace to human beings in an
infinite variety of manners. Thus, the existence of the papacy itself was in some
sense contingent. God did not have to act in history through a Galilean fisherman
and his successors. In a somewhat similar fashion, another Franciscan, John
Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308), had emphasized the absolute sovereignty of God
prior to Ockham. The theological school of Voluntarism, with which Scotus has
been associated, also emphasized human free will. Perhaps, not surprisingly,
Ockham took a far more radical political line than his confrere. When one of the
more controversial of the Avignon popes, John XXII (1316–1334), rejected the
Spiritual Franciscan interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis that the friars could
not even own property in common, Ockham denounced the papal decision. From
the safety of the imperial court of Louis IV of Bavaria (1314–1347), Ockham, who
had been excommunicated by the pope, composed several tracts asserting the
superiority of imperial authority over that of the popes. He was yet another
leading intellectual light of the late medieval period, who rejected papal monar-
chy.
L The Medieval Papacy in Twilight:

Avignon and Beyond
I The Road to Avignon: Philip IV (r. 1285–1314) and Boniface VIII
Philip IV of France’s victory over Pope Boniface VIII in their prolonged dispute
(1296–1303), which had gravitated around the issue of papal authority in the
national kingdoms, constituted the proximate cause of the papacy’s flight to
Avignon. Two specific issues had turned king and pope against one another. First,
a money- strapped Philip had attempted to tax the French clergy without papal
consent. The king of France simply did not see why he needed the permission of
the bishop of Rome to tax his own subjects. Boniface, however, strongly objected
to Philip’s maneuver in his bull Clericis Laicos (1296). The former cardinal-priest
and renowned canon lawyer Benedict Gaetani was a thoroughly hierocratic
churchman, who evinced very little diplomatic skill as pope. In a sense, like
Bismarck (1815–1898) after him, Innocent III had set up a system that only some-
one as talented as himself could manage successfully. Boniface was living with
his own financial pressures too. His Gaetani clan was not terribly wealthy and his
relatives expected the elderly pontiff (Boniface was probably in his late seventies
at his election) to funnel as much papal business their way as fast as possible
(Partner 1972, 287). In the end, Philip’s threat to cut off the flow of French bullion

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to Rome forced the pope to drop his objection to royal taxation of the French clergy.
Shortly, thereafter, the king renewed the dispute when he attempted to remove
a French bishop from office, who was a papal protégé. To a great extent, the
confrontation between king and pope was a lopsided contest. Philip understood
the importance of framing disputes in a language and manner comprehensible to
public opinion far better than his adversary. Whereas Boniface issued pompous
declarations in Latin, Clericis Laicos and Unam Sanctam (1302), the response to
Philip’s second provocation, the French monarch issued vernacular pamphlets
filled with titillating and completely false accusations against the pontiff as well as
forged papal documents worded in ways designed to offend his subjects’ patriotic
sensibilities. The French crown also possessed far greater material resources than
the papacy. Philip, most importantly, had ready access to an armed host. He also
had valuable allies in Rome in the powerful Colonna clan, whom Boniface had
alienated in pursuit of his own family’s interests (Partner 1972). It was a classic case
of one local Roman faction making common cause with a foreign power to topple a
rival faction’s pope. The eighty-five year old Boniface died of complications from
shock shortly after a detachment of French troops, led by Philip’s counselor
Guillaume de Nogaret (1260–1313), had raided the papal palace at Anagni and
captured an unsuspecting pope in his night garments. Though the cardinals were
able to elect a successor to Boniface, Benedict XI (1303–1304), the violence
between the Gaetani and their enemies was so bad in and around the Eternal City
that his successor, the Frenchman Clement V (1304–1314), moved his court to
southern France and to the military protection of Philip IV.
II The Avignon Papacy (1305–1378)
The migration of the papacy from Rome to southern France exacerbated the rift
between the successors of St. Peter and their pan-European flock. Except for
perhaps outside of France itself, the series of French popes living in the shadow
of the French crown with a court dominated by French cardinals created the
impression in many minds that the French monarchy had reduced the Holy See to
an appendage to itself. Many scholars long have recognized that the Avignon
popes themselves were not a bad lot (Renouard 1970). Urban V (1362–1370), for
instance, was eventually beatified in 1870. The Avignon popes, nevertheless,
enhanced the financial mechanisms of papal government without effectively
fighting the corruption of their court personnel, which reached new heights of
infamy during the Avignon period.
Disaffection with the papacy among English elites can be traced at least as far
back as the time of Stephen Langton, who could not abide by Innocent III’s

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defense of King John against the English barons. The English may have once
considered Gregory the Great their apostle, but as the thirteenth century un-
folded, the English elites, at least, grew more and more suspicious of the motives
of the papal monarchs. The religious Romanitas of an earlier time dissipated
dramatically among the leading figures of the English kingdom. Recall from
above that the great bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste arrived at the conclu-
sion that the papal monarchy had turned into the enemy of the English nation.
When the Frenchman Clement V withdrew from Italy to Avignon (which techni-
cally was imperial territory) in close proximity to the territory of their national
rival the French king, one imagines that many English laid aside any vestige of a
serious attachment to the papal throne. In this regard, it is well worth noting that
the author of the magnificent late fourteenth century English narrative poem,
Piers Plowman, who almost certainly was William Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1386),
held on to the principle of Catholic unity in his text, but no longer looked to the
papacy as the focal point of that unity (Dawson 1965, 34).
Voices were naturally raised in protest in Italy as well against the transfer of
the papacy to Avignon. Three Italian authors, in particular, took up their pens in
protest of what Clement V and his successor John XXII had thought would be a
brief relocation of the Roman curia along the Rhone. In different ways and for
different reasons, Dante, Petrarch, and Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), registered
their disapproval of the flight of the popes from Rome in the cultural record
(Coogan 1983). But, on one important matter all three authors more or less agreed,
the papal flight to Avignon had contributed mightily to the violence and political
chaos that had engulfed their beloved patria in the Trecento. The Avignon popes,
to be sure, spent a tremendous amount of energy and money waging war in Italy
in a desperate attempt to recapture the Papal State and its revenues. Although he
personally profited from the rampant pluralism (i.e., the holding of more than one
salaried clerical post by an individual) tolerated by the Avignon popes, Petrarch’s
scathing critique of the “Babylonian Captivity” of the papacy along the Rhone
contained in his Liber sine nomine or “The Book without a Name” most especially
reverberated down through the centuries as the early Protestants saw its contents
as a foreshadow of the rationale for their own movement (Coogan 1983, 12).
III The Great Schism (1378–1417)
In a darkly comedic manner, Gregory XI’s (1370–1378) return of the papacy to

Rome (partly at the behest of Catherine of Siena) in 1378 led to an even worse
disaster than the interlude in Avignon. Upon his death shortly after his arrival in
Rome, nationalist divisions within the college of cardinals reared their ugly head

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and resulted in a contested papal election and The Great Schism. At one point in
this dispute, three men claimed to be the legitimate bishop of Rome. This debacle
struck a terrible blow against the idea of a spiritually and culturally united
Christendom. The contest divided the continent’s political powers into hostile
camps almost in Cold War era fashion. Of course, by this point, England and
France had been waging the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) against one another
intermittently for nearly fifty years. Conciliarism, which aimed to heal the rift of
The Great Schism through the convocation of a general church council, embodied
the very traditional medieval approach of resolving political crises through the
summoning of a parliament. It was the application of a parliamentary approach
to the problems of the papacy that represented the real innovation (Dawson 1965,
27). The idea of holding a purportedly rogue pope accountable to an ecumenical
council, admittedly, was not a novel idea in itself. Frederick II much earlier had
suggested that Gregory IX be brought before a general council. Philip IV sug-
gested the same treatment for Boniface VIII and William of Ockham likewise
wanted John XXII arraigned before a general council. But, those proposals had
been made by papal antagonists and were not seriously considered by third
parties. In contrast, many of the leading intellectuals of Europe, such as Jean
Gerson (1363–1429), Pierre d’Ailly (1351–1420), and Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464),
subscribed to some form of Conciliarism and hoped that an ecumenical council
could end The Great Schism and create a permanent parliamentary structure for
the Latin church within which a pope could be held accountable to the church as
a whole for his actions. It is not surprising that these university men would have
favored a federal constitution for the church that bestowed ultimate authority on
the assembly of the faculty!
With the assistance of the emperor, a general council was convoked ulti-
mately in Constance in 1414. True to the tenor of the contemporary culture, the
voting at the Council of Constance (1414–1418) was conducted on the basis of
national blocks and not on an individual basis. Among other actions, the council
convinced one of the three contending popes to resign for the good of the church,
deposed the other two claimants, and eventually, elected the Roman cardinal-
deacon, Odo Colonna, as Pope Martin V (1417–1431) and thereby ended The Great
Schism. Once safely established in Rome, Martin dismissed most of Constance’s
legislation: especially, the canon from an early session that asserted the authority
of a general council over that of a pope. He was, after all, a Colonna.
The cumulative effect of the many disastrous episodes in the history of the
late medieval papacy can be seen in the fact that many of those individuals most
animated by a spirit of religious reform in this era deserted the papacy. The
Englishman John Wycliffe (ca. 1328–1384) and the Czech Jan Hus (ca. 1369–1415),
whose own religious views were greatly influenced by Wycliffe’s writings and was

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burned at the stake by judgment of the Council of Constance, exemplify the type
of late medieval reformer, who spurned the Roman Church. Both clerics drew on
the themes of the twelfth-century religious protesters and added a nationalist
tinge to their messages. Each came to see the Roman Church as a corrupt foreign
power that took advantage of the innocent souls of their respective lands. Some
scholars, hence, have portrayed the pair as precursors of the Protestant Reforma-
tion (Ozment 1980). While the Renaissance popes of the fifteenth century sup-
ported the humanist movement and made Rome an important center for humanist
learning, they took little positive action to reconcile the spiritually disaffected
with the Roman Church, and thereby left the door open to far more radical
solutions to the continent’s religious crisis than Conciliarism.
M Conclusion
Even though its historical origins stretch back into the first century C.E., the
popular imagination probably most closely associates the papacy with the Middle
Ages. This is understandable. For, during the medieval period, the papacy experi-
enced its greatest institutional development and the height of its cultural influ-
ence in Europe. The papacy indirectly influenced nearly every realm of cultural
endeavor in medieval Europe. No single entity, indeed, contributed more to the
formation of a pan-European cultural identity in the pre-modern period than the
Roman Church. This papal contribution, most importantly, was not the product of
deliberate design. The papacy never functioned as a center of cultural planning
for the continent as a whole. The imparting of its universal perspective on the
various independent cultural movements and charismatic figures with which it
came into contact constituted the principle element in the Holy See’s contribution
to the formation of a pan-European cultural perspective. The papacy came to
serve as an axis for centripetal cultural and spiritual movements. Its privileged
position in medieval European society, furthermore, was not primarily the pro-
duct of its own effort. One independent movement in particular launched the
papacy into a position of continental leadership: namely, the ecclesiastical reform
movement of the tenth and eleventh centuries. To be sure, without the interven-
tion of the Salian emperor, Henry III, in the internal affairs of the Roman Church
in 1046, this movement by itself would not have altered the papacy’s standing in
medieval society. As the twelfth century unfolded, the medieval papal monarchy
gradually took form very much in imitation of the other rising principalities of the
age: for it is equally true that other cultural agents worked their effect on the
papacy as well. At the height of the papal monarchy in the first third of the
thirteenth century, the successor of the fisherman Peter, then more commonly

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hailed as the Vicar of Christ, seemed to sit above the European continent as its
father and spiritual ruler. The legal and fiscal apparatuses of papal government
extended their reach across the entire continent and beyond. The pope even
governed his own terrestrial kingdom. In council, he and his collaborators in
Rome and in the episcopacy issued opinions on almost every major matter and
weighed in on almost every cultural debate.
Nonetheless, the appearance of almost unlimited papal power is deceptive.
In numerous ways, as discussed above, the medieval papacy was a fragile entity
and a host of potential predators inside and outside of the Eternal City continually
threatened its institutional integrity. In material terms, the Papal State itself was a
minor principality. The real source of papal power lay not in any coercive spiritual
or legal powers, but in its charismatic appeal to spiritual universalism. In a world
filled with petty and frequently violent local and regional squabbles, the chair of
Peter represented a source of order and community that seemingly transcended
the libido dominandi or “the desire for power” which characterized the regimes of
so many lay territorial princes. Fundamentally, then, medieval Europe voluntarily
placed itself under papal over-lordship. As events bore out so often, the papal
monarchs possessed few if any independent means of bending medieval society
to its will. The popes and many other churchmen, for instance, repeatedly
condemned the knightly tournament (Carlson 1988, 141–71). Between the years
1130–1215, five papal councils, including Lateran Councils III and IV, condemned
the tournaments (Carlson 1988, 148–49). Not only did the tournaments continue
despite papal disapprobation, they grew in popularity and became a signature
institution of medieval culture. A similar point could be made about the ineffec-
tiveness of papal judgments against usury (Noonan 1957) and the ethos of courtly
love. The real fissure in the relationship between the papacy and medieval
society, however, emerged slowly over the span of the thirteenth and mid-four-
teenth centuries and involved a growing skepticism about the disinterested
nature of papal authority. The growth of the papal bureaucracy and the overtly
political behavior of the papal monarchy in this time frame contributed greatly to
this impression. Hypocrisy is the most serious charge that can be leveled against
any regime, spiritual or temporal, and this is precisely the charge directed at the
papacy by so many critics from the Late Middle Ages to the outbreak of the
Protestant Reformation. Nevertheless, despite the number of harbingers of the
Protestant revolt that scholars can detect in late medieval religious history, the
Reformation storm brewed for a very long time and its eruption was not necessa-
rily inevitable. The popular expectation of the aforementioned “angelic pope”
serves as one poignant reminder that European society gave up on the papacy as
the center of its spiritual unity very slowly and reluctantly. Carried along by the
centrifugal cultural tides of a nascent nationalism, theological subjectivism, and

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philosophical skepticism, the national monarchy eclipsed the papal monarchy in

political and cultural significance; and, as the influence of the traditional chief
standard bearer of pan-European culture waned so did the ideal of cultural unity
wane in Europe (Dawson 1965).
Select Bibliography
Berman, Harold, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge,
MA, and London 1983).
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the
Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, PA, 1988).
Bourgain, Pascale, “Image of Rome in Literature,” The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillippe
Levellain and John O’Malley (New York and London 2002), 747–51.
Collins, Roger, Charlemagne (Toronto 1998).
Cushing, Kathleen G., Reform and the Papacy in the Eleventh Century: Spirituality and Social
Change (Manchester and New York 2005).
Dawson, Christopher, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (New York 1950).
McGinn, Bernard, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York 1979).
Morris, Colin, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford 1989).
Pennington, Kenneth, Pope and Bishops: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth
Centuries (Philadelphia, PA, 1984).
Nardi, Paolo, “Relations With Authority,” A History of the University in Europe, vol. 1: Universities
in the Middle Ages, general ed. Walter Rüegg, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge and
New York 1992), 77–107.

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Cristian Bratu
Patrons, Arts, and Audiences
A patron is a powerful and resourceful person who commissions, supports, and

occasionally purchases the work of an artist. In general, patrons are either
individuals (kings, princes, aristocrats) or corporate entities (churches, abbeys,
political and social groups, cities, and universities).
Patronage was an essential institution for arts and sciences in the Middle
Ages. As Diane Tyson points out, “[s]ince in the Middle Ages there was no book-
buying public in the way which we know it today, medieval literary production
depended on patronage for its very existence” (Tyson 1979, 216–17). In fact,
Tyson’s remark applies to all arts in the Middle Ages, since very few artists could
have afforded to paint, sculpt or create music without the moral and financial
support of various donors.
As I have suggested elsewhere (Bratu 2010a), the medieval patronage system
became extremely successful due in large part to the mutual benefits for all those
involved. Artists looked to a patron for material support, encouragement, pub-
licity, and fame by association with a public figure. Moreover, by gravitating
around a patron, artists were able to meet other powerful persons and thus
become connected to a whole network of potentates (who could potentially
become future patrons). Patrons, on the other hand, were eager to be seen as
generous benefactors and expected works of art produced under their aegis to
immortalize their glory and importance (Tyson 1979, 104). These factors explain
why patronage, which emerged in the ancient world, became so popular in the
Middle Ages and continued to be practiced thereafter until today.
A The History of Patronage: From Antiquity to the

Middle Ages
The origins of patronage are to be found in antiquity (Holzknecht 1966, 6–20).
Although far less frequent and less developed than in Rome, the institution of
patronage did exist in ancient Greece (Gold 1982; Millett 1989). In Greek literature,
there is an abundance of references to various types of people who earn their
living by attempting to please more powerful folk. The terms used to describe
these clients are often pejorative: parasitos (parasites) and kolax (flatterers). In
the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains that “[o]f those who try to give plea-

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1382 Cristian Bratu
sure, he who does this with no ulterior motive aims at being pleasant and is
anxious to please (areskos); but he who does so in order that some advantage may
fall to him in respect of money (or anything else that money procures), is a kolax”
(1127a 7). Criticism of patronage degenerating into mere flattery in exchange for
money can be found in Latin and medieval literature as well. However, such
criticism should not blind us to the importance of patronage in ancient Greece
(Roberts 1983, 148–208; Gold 1987, 15–38). For instance, Webster’s analysis
(Webster 1972) of pottery production shows just how important large commissions
by resourceful patrons really were in the ancient world, and also how much
clients appreciated such commissions.
The word “patronage” comes from the Latin patrocinium, which designated
the relationship between a patronus and his cliens. According to Saller (1982),
several elements define the patrocinium: a) an exchange of goods/services that is
mutual; b) the relationship was personal and of some duration; c) the relationship
was asymmetrical, as the two parties offered each other different types of services.
The patronus was the sponsor, supporter, protector, benefactor, and sometimes
counselor of his client. The word patronus is related to the word father (pater),
which suggests that the patron was supposed to act as a father figure for his
protégé. The patronus could have several clientes, which formed his clientela
(Badian 1958). In theory, a cliens could have several patroni as well. The nature of
the patrocinium could be political (Rouland 1979; Eisenstadt and Lemarchand,
ed., 1981; Eisenstadt and Roniger 1984), social, legal, financial or artistic (White
1978; Gold 1982), and very often patrons provided several types of patrocinium to
their clients. Thus, a patronus could both fund an artist’s projects and protect him
politically, socially or, if need be, in court. In some cases, patronage and corrup-
tion went hand in hand, as patrons could promote their favorites in positions of
power (Veyne 1981). Obviously, the patron was usually from a higher social class
(a patrician) than his client or, in case of social equality, the patronus was clearly
more influential than the cliens. Some critics, such as Millett (1989, 16), believe
that patronage was one of the methods by which the rich sought “to control the
poor, and the poor to protect themselves in a potentially hostile environment”
(Gellner and Waterbury, ed., 1977; Davis 1977, 132–50). However, although the
patronus was clearly more influential than the cliens, the very existence of the
patrocinium proves that clients had something valuable to offer. In the case of
artists, patrons valued the reputation that they could earn from being the protec-
tors of important writers who could immortalize their fame. The issue of services
provided by the clientes for their benefactors is extremely important, and we will
have the opportunity to examine it in depth in this essay.
In some cases, the clientes could be institutions, corporations, or whole
communities, while patroni could be individuals or entire families. Thus, it was

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Patrons, Arts, and Audiences 1383
customary for various guilds, clubs, collegia, or sodalitates to have (and officially
recognize someone as) a patronus or pater patratus. Exceptionally, individuals or
families could become patroni for larger communities, such as Pompeius Strabo
(ca. 130–87 B.C.E.) for the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul or the Marcelli family for
the inhabitants of Sicily. Thus, patronage was a multifaceted institution in the
ancient world and Wallace-Hadrill is right to point out that “patronage was not a
sharply defined relationship with a predictable set of services exchanged between
men of a given social distance. Rather, we are dealing with a varied, ill-defined
and unpredictable set of exchanges” (Wallace-Hadrill 1989, 9–10). The defining
elements of the patrocinium listed by Saller (1982) do indeed give a broad idea of
what ancient patronage was but they do not exhaust the phenomenon’s tremen-
dous complexity.
The more appropriate term for the relationship between a patron and an artist
specifically would be maecenate or mecenate. The word comes from the name of
the resourceful Roman politician Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (70–8 B.C.E.), the
patron of the new “Augustan” poets. It is in Maecenas’s honor that Virgil wrote
the Georgics, and it is again Virgil who introduced Horace to the Roman potentate.
In fact, Maecenas later provided a stately house for Horace in the Sabine moun-
tains. In return, Horace mentioned Maecenas as his patron in the very first poem
of the Odes. Maecenas also extended his generosity to writers such as Propertius,
Plotius Tucca, Domitius Marsus, Varius Rufus, and others. Conversely, writers
such as Juvenal and Martial (Epigrams XII, 3) regretted not having a Maecenas to
support their literary endeavors. It should also be mentioned that unlike most
medieval patrons, Maecenas composed literary works of his own (Prometheus,
Symposium, a poem titled In Octaviam, and De cultu suo). Maecenas’s name is also
celebrated in a line in Gaudeamus igitur, as well as in the Elegiae in Maecenatem,
as part of the Appendix Virgiliana (a collection of poems believed to have been
composed by the young Virgil). Finally, the words maecenas and mecenate can be
found in many European languages as a synonym for artistic patronage (mece-
naat in Dutch, mécénat in French, Mäzen in German, mecenate in Italian, mecenat
in Romanian, mecenas in Spanish, etc.).
Unfortunately, the institution of mecenate declined after Augustus’s death, in
particular during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius (Salles 1992/2010,
133–34). However, Nero’s reign brought about a revival of artistic patronage. The
Laus Pisonis, for instance, is a panegyric in Latin verse which extols the merits of
a certain Piso, presented as a generous man who opened his house to talented
(and poor) people. However, we are not entirely sure who exactly this Piso was.
Was it the same Piso who had participated in the so-called Pisonian conspiracy
from 65 C.E. and whose generosity Tacitus praised? But then the Laus Pisonis
mentions that “Piso” was a consul, which Gaius Calpurnius Piso was not. Most

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1384 Cristian Bratu
probably, the Laus was dedicated to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Nero’s colleague
during the consulate in 57 C.E. This poem has been attributed to many poets, most
notably to Lucan and Titus Calpurnius Siculus. The latter had also praised in his
bucolic poems a certain “Meliboeus” (a nickname of Virgilian origin), who appar-
ently came to the poet’s aid when Calpurnius Siculus was about to emigrate to
Spain. Thanks to the mentioned “Meliboeus,” Calpurnius secured a position that
allowed him to continue his life in Rome. Several people have been suggested
regarding the real “Meliboeus”: M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, Columella, Cal-
purnius Piso, and Seneca. According to Catherine Salles (1992/2010, 134), Se-
neca is the most probable candidate for this position. As a matter of fact, Seneca
(4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.) was also the patron of the historian Fabius Rusticus and of
Martial, who was, like Seneca himself, from Hispania. Over the years, Martial
(40–102 C.E.) had numerous patrons, some (Flaccus, Caecilianus, and Gallus)
more commendable than others (Arruntius Stella and Terentius Priscus) (Salles
1992/2010, 136).
A few centuries later, the Roman Empire gradually dissolved and its former
provinces slowly morphed into new kingdoms, duchies, and principalities. Like
the ancient world from which it emerged, patronage changed as well during the
Middle Ages.
B Medieval Patronage
One of the defining features of ancient patronage was its fundamentally secular
nature. The emergence of Christianity as a religious and cultural force brought
about major changes in the artistic and literary landscape of Europe. Not only did
the arts become more Christianized, but the Church became more and more
involved in the artistic production of the continent. Thus, the first centuries of the
Christian era witnessed the rise of a new type of patronage that was virtually
inexistent in the classical world: ecclesiastical patronage. Although the Church
played a major role as patron of the arts, one should not underestimate the
importance of secular patronage. Moreover, as we suggested elsewhere (Bratu
2010a), the borders between ecclesiastical and secular patronage were not always
clear-cut. Very often, medieval scribes and monks, illuminators, sculptors, musi-
cians, and other artists often worked for both religious and secular patrons. In
addition, secular politics and religious matters were often intertwined during the
Middle Ages (for a case study, see Costambeys 2007).

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I Ecclesiastical Patronage
The reversal of the situation of early Christian communities, from the persecu-
tions in Judea and Rome, most notably under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Diocletian,
up to the Edict of Milan in 313, followed by the rise of Christianity to a privileged
status under Constantine I and its eventual status as state religion in 380, was
nothing short of spectacular. This turnaround was paralleled by an about-face in
the relationship between Church and art. Naturally, the early Church had very
little time and resources for art, let alone patronage. For example, the frescoes
that can be found in the Roman catacombs (sixty burial chambers in total) built
along various viae (Via Appia, Via Tiburtina, Via Nomentana) were probably
painted in great haste by early Christians. Some of these frescoes, such as the
ones depicting the good shepherd and the agape feast in the catacomb of Priscilla
or the picture representing Adam and Eve in the catacombs of saints Marcellinus
and Peter, are indeed remarkable but very little is known about the commis-
sioners of these works (Jensen 2000). Early churches were actually dependent on
individual benefactors, as is obvious from the large mosaic in the church from Tel
Megiddo (today in Israel, mentioned in the Book of Revelation as Armageddon),
which states that the “God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus
Christ” (Tepper and Di Segni, 2006). Another inscription mentions a certain
Gaianus, a Roman officer who had a mosaic made with “his own money.” Such
inscriptions are proof that the early Church did not have the means to be a patron
in its own right.
In contrast, centuries later, the Church will grow into one of the most
important and resourceful patrons of the arts. Especially after 380, mass was no
longer to be celebrated in the secrecy of catacombs or of individual houses and,
as a result, the number of churches increased dramatically in the Roman Empire.
Basilicas, which were traditionally Roman buildings reserved to matters of justice
and administration, were soon transformed into religious buildings. The new
basilicas, which had a central nave with one or several aisles on each side and a
rounded apse at the end, could be decorated with mosaics, paintings, sculptures,
and so on. Such was the beginning of a long history of architectural, sculptural,
and pictorial patronage for the Church—and the papacy.
In the fifth century, Pope Sixtus III (432–440) commissioned several major
projects across Rome, including the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, known for
its remarkable mosaics (see Cecchelli 1956). The basilica was built to commemor-
ate the proclamation of Mary as Mother of God by the Council of Ephesus in 431.
An inscription attests to the involvement of the Pope—named “Sixtus episcopus
plebi Dei” (“Sixtus, bishop of God’s people”) on the triumphal arch—in the
construction of the basilica. A century later, the bishops of Ravenna drew an

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ambitious plan to provide the city with several basilicas. One such church is the
Basilica of San Vitale, which was built in Byzantine style with an octagonal shape
by bishop Ecclesius in 527 (Simson 1987). At that time, Ravenna was under
Ostrogoth rule. The church was completely renovated almost two decades later
during the Byzantine exarchate by archbishop Maximianus (499–556, conse-
crated archbishop in 546), who is represented next to the emperor Justinian I on a
mosaic from 548. The bald and bearded Maximianus is dressed in white and gold
and, interestingly enough, his name appears on the mosaic while the emperor’s
name does not. Although the impetus for the construction of the basilica came
from ecclesiastical authorities, it should be noted that the actual construction of
the church was partly financed through donations made by private individuals
such Julius Argentarius, a Greek banker who also gave money to the Basilica
Sant’Apollinare in Classe. The latter basilica, built under the aegis of bishop
Ursicinus (served as bishop between 533 and 536) and dedicated to the first
(alleged) bishop of Ravenna, Saint Apollinaris, is contemporary with the Basilica
of San Vitale.
At the end of the sixth century, Pope Pelagius II (served between 579 and 590)
was the main promoter of the construction of the Basilica of Saint Lawrence (also
known as Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura) as a shrine for the remains of
Saint Lawrence (a third-century deacon of Rome and martyr). Seven centuries
later, it was another Pope, Honorius III (1216–1227), who ordered for a new church
to be built in front of the old basilica. Pope Pelagius II’s apocrisiarius (the Pope’s
envoy to the Byzantine imperial court), Gregory—the future Gregory the Great
(Pope from 590 to 604), is traditionally credited for having created what is now
known as the Gregorian chant. However, whether or not Gregory the Great is the
originator of this type of plainchant is still a matter of debate (Apel 1990).
Of course, not all popes initiated construction projects. Some, such as Boni-
face IV (608–615), were concerned with transforming Rome’s extant pagan build-
ings into Christian places of worship. Boniface IV transformed the Roman
Pantheon as well as Agrippa’s temple dedicated to Jupiter, Venus, and Mars into
churches. The latter church was also designated to house the bones of martyrs
from the catacombs. Other popes, such as Benedict II (late seventh century),
restored an important number of existing churches. Pope John VI (701–705)
commissioned several restorations in the basilicas of Saint Andrew the Apostle,
Saint Paul (Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuora le Mure), and Saint Mark. John VII
(705–707) ordered for an oratory dedicated to the Virgin to be built in the old
Basilica of Saint Peter. He is also known for restoring the monastery of Subiaco
(Latium) and commissioning the large icon of Madonna della Clemenza, which is
now located in the Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere. Some popes restored
civilian monuments, not just places of worship. Such is the case with Gregory II

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(715–731), under whose patronage began the restoration of the Aurelian Walls of
Rome. In terms of religious buildings, Gregory II helped restore the abbey of
Monte Cassino. Pope Adrian I (772–795) restored several ancient aqueducts and
rebuilt the basilicas of Saint Mary in Cosmedin and of Saint Mark. Under the aegis
of Gregory IV (827–844), St. Mark’s was rebuilt and its walls were decorated with
Byzantine-like mosaics, the atrium of St. Peter’s basilica was rebuilt, and the altar
in Saint Mary of Trastevere was modified (Mann 1906, 218). As far as civilian
buildings, he repaired an aqueduct built by Trajan and fortified sections of Ostia
to protect the port against Saracen attacks. Gregory IV is also credited for creating
a new settlement on the Tiber that was named Draco (Mann 1906, 216). Popes
such as Leo VII (936–939), exerted their function as patrons by granting privileges
to monasteries and churches—the Abbey of Cluny, for instance, was the recipient
of various privileges through Leo VII’s bulls.
The architectural patronage of the Church remained strong after the year
1000 (on millennial fears and millennium-related issues within and outside the
Church, see Duby 1967). Pope Paschal II (1099–1118), for instance, ordered the
basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome to be rebuilt after the original fifth-
century basilica had been destroyed by the Normans during the sack of Rome
from 1084. Paschal II preserved the apse from the ancient basilica while redesign-
ing other parts of the church. The pope also created a Benedictine monastery next
to the newly rebuilt church. Restoration of old churches continued as well. The
basilica of Saint Mary in Trastevere was rebuilt by Innocent II (1130–1143), who is
actually depicted holding a model of the church on a mosaic in the basilica.
Naturally, popes were not the only ecclesiastical authorities who could
commission the construction or reconstruction of churches. Monastic orders,
bishops, priests, and devout local communities were also active patrons of new or
rebuilt churches. Monastic orders needed convents somewhat secluded from the
rest of the world, and that led them to build a considerable number of monasteries
in which the arts flourished due to the very monastic lifestyle (Dunn 2000). A
monk’s life would have been unimaginable without songs of praise, reading
(often in the form of public recitation), writing, and illuminating manuscripts
(Verdon and Dally, ed., 1984).
Monasteries had been built in Europe since the early Middle Ages. Such was
the case with the abbey of Marmoutier, whose current name comes from the Latin
majus monasterium (“great convent”) and which was founded in the fourth
century by Martin of Tours (316–397). The construction of the abbey began a short
while after Martin became bishop of Tours, in 371. Although pillaged by the
Normans in the ninth century, the abbey became very rich and influential after
the year 1000. As a matter of fact, the abbey even became the main patron of
churches in post-conquest England (Martène and Chevalier 1874–1875). The

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monastery of Lérins was founded in the fifth century in the south of France, off
the coast of what is today Cannes, by Saint Honoratus, who was encouraged in
his monastic resolve by Leontius, bishop of Fréjus (Bertrand et al. 2005). Other
monasteries were founded in the area of Marseilles by John Cassian (360–435).
Of paramount importance for the Middle Ages was Irish monasticism (Ryan
1972). Columba and his disciples, for instance, founded monasteries in northern
Ireland, at Bangor, as well as in north Scotland, at Iona. The monastery of
Lindisfarne was founded in the seventh century by another Irishman, now known
as Saint Aidan. Aidan came from the monastery of Iona and turned Lindisfarne
into an important center for evangelizing missions in north England. It would be
impossible to mention Lindisfarne without mentioning that a great many books
came out of its scriptoria, including the beautifully illuminated Lindisfarne gos-
pels (Backhouse 1981). It has been surmised that one of the artists involved in the
material production of the manuscripts was Eadfrith, one of the later bishops of
Lindisfarne (698–721).
One of the most important monks of the early Middle Ages was Benedict of
Nursia (ca. 480-ca. 543), founder of Monte Cassino and author of the Regula
Benedicti, which has served over the centuries as a quasi-textbook for European
monasticism. The most important order which followed Saint Benedict’s teach-
ings were the Benedictines, who founded or repurposed an important number of
abbeys, like the abbeys from Landévennec, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Brantôme,
Cluny, Saint-Maur in France; Prüm, Regensburg, Fulda, Reichenau, and Hirsau in
Germany; Admont and Melk in Austria; York, Westminster, and Saint-Albans in
England, to name only a few. Important thinkers and theologians belonged to the
Benedictine order at some point in their lives. Among them were Bede the Vener-
able (672/3–735), Paul the Deacon (720–799), Alcuin (735–804), Rabanus Maurus
(780–856), Walafrid Strabo (808–849), Hincmar of Rheims (806–882), Lanfranc
(ca. 1005–1089), and Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109). A former Benedictine,
the monk Robert of Molesme (1029–1111), went on to create the order of the
Cistercians, which in the twelfth century had several abbeys in Pontigny, Mor-
imond, La Ferté, Preuilly, La Cour-Dieu, Bouras, Cadouin, Fontenay, and Clair-
vaux. Cistercian abbeys were later built in Wales (Tintern, to name the most
important one among the thirteen abbeys), England (Rievaulx), and Ireland
(Mellifont, Bective, Boltinglass, Kilbeggan, and others). From Western Europe,
the Cistercians expanded to Norway, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
Bohemia, Poland, and went as far east as Transylvania (the monasteries of Igriş
and Cârța/Kerz). Without a doubt, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was the most
influential Cistercian intellectual. The emergence of the Mendicant Orders (most
notably the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Servites, and the
Augustinians) in the thirteenth century naturally led to an increase in the number

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of abbeys and convents built to accommodate the monks and nuns who were
involved with the orders.
As mentioned earlier, individual bishops could also be the patrons of new
constructions. Such is the case, for instance, with Notre Dame de Paris, the
construction of which began in 1163 under the aegis of bishop Maurice de Sully
(served 1160–1196). Both the bishop and Pope Alexander III (1159–1181) were
present at the ceremony for the beginning of construction. Maurice de Sully’s
patronage was continued by his successor Eudes de Sully and later by the
successive bishops of Paris.
It is necessary to emphasize that ecclesiastical patronage extended well
beyond architectural patronage, as the Church supported many other types of
artistic endeavors. Church music, for instance, was an important component of
medieval music (Wilson-Dickson 1996). Antiphonal music, that is to say music
alternating with the chanted response of the congregation or the choir, has been
used by the Church since antiquity. In the early Church, the monophonic chant,
inherited from the Jewish tradition of psalm singing, was a popular form of sacred
music. This type of chant, also known as plainsong, spread rapidely to the
Christianized areas of the continent (Italy, Gaul, Hispania, and later Ireland)
because it was an integral part of liturgy. Over time, chant diversified into
Gallican, Celtic, Ambrosian, Beneventan, and other types of chant. In Byzantium,
liturgical music developed from preexisting Greek models and flourished as well.
Up to this day, music and chant have been an integral part of the Byzantine
liturgy, which is rich in hymns or troparions. Early troparions such as the hymns
used during Easter Vespers can be traced back to the fifth-sixth centuries. In
Western Europe, the Church attempted to standardize liturgical chants since the
eleventh century. The resulting monophonic chant, known later as Gregorian
chant, was essentially an attempt to reconcile the Roman and Gallican chants.
Like monophonic chants, polyphonic chant or organum, that is to say music
consisting of several melodic voices, emerged in a religious context. Attempts to
create polyphonic music are attested since the ninth century at St. Gall in Switzer-
land. The twelfth century witnessed the emergence of florid organum, which
consisted of a tune in long notes doubled by an accompanying performer who
would sing several notes echoing each note of the original tune. This type of
music flourished under the patronage of the abbey of Saint-Martial in Limoges,
France, which hosted many talented musicians known collectively as the School
of Saint-Martial. Musicians working at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris from the
mid-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth century formed another famous organum school
known as the Notre Dame School of Polyphony. The only surviving names from
this school are those of the composers Léonin and Pérotin (see Hoppin 1978;
Gleason and Becker 1986; Gagnepain 1996; Gross 2008). However, polyphony in

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sacred music did not enjoy universal appreciation. Polyphony was widely used in
secular music, and this merging of secular and sacred music through polyphony
was not to the liking of some Church officials. Certain modes were considered
pagan and lascivious and were banned from church music. The Avignon Pope
John XXII (1316–1334) even banned polyphony in 1322 through a papal bull.
However, the fourth Avignon Pope, Clement VI (1342–1352), allowed polyphony
again. The very first polyphonic mass, known as the Messe de Nostre Dame, was
composed in 1364–1365 by Guillaume de Machaut during the tenure of Pope
Urban V (1362–1370).
It is also under the auspices of the Church that liturgical drama flourished, as
secular (“pagan”) theater, considered dangerous and licentious, had been vir-
tually extirpated. Like church music, liturgical drama emerged out of the mass
itself. Dramatic passages such as the Quem quaeritis? were at first introduced
during Easter or Christmas mass. In the tenth century, the Quem quaeritis?
consisted of a short dialogue between an angel and the three Maries who had
come to look for Jesus in the sepulcher. The angel would ask, “Quem quaeritis in
sepulchro, o Christicolae?” (“Whom are you seeking in the sepulcher, o followers
of Christ?”). The answer was “Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae!” (“Je-
sus of Nazareth the crucified, o Heavenly Ones!”). To which the angel replied,
“Non est hic; surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchro”
(“He is not here, for He has risen, just as He foretold. Go and announce that He is
risen from the sepulcher,” see Petersen 2000). Later, short plays were developed
out of saints’ lives or stories from the Old and the New Testaments, such as
Herod’s massacre of innocent people (known as Massacre des innocents in
France). In the twelfth century, fraternities such as the Confrérie de la Passion
performed such liturgical dramas in front of churches and cathedrals. Together
with the stories depicted on stained glass or on church mosaics and frescoes,
theater plays helped the illiterate public become more familiar with the content of
the Bible. The Church organized and sponsored such events, sometimes on its
own, and other times with the help of the local community. In England, for
instance, plays were sometimes patronized by both the Church and local guilds of
craftsmen (Barroll et al., ed., 1999, 328).
The first French drama, written in the twelfth century by an unknown author,
was the Jeu d’Adam. The play tells the story of mankind, beginning with the fall of
man and up to the prophets who foresee Christ’s arrival and redemption of
humanity through his own death. Mystery and morality plays became extremely
popular during the central and late Middle Ages. Hildegard von Bingen (ca. 1098–
1179), for instance, was the author of a morality play, the Ordo virtutum (on the
patronage and writings of medieval nuns and abbesses, see Caviness 1996;
Martin, ed., 2012). However, it has to be noted that in 1210, Pope Innocent III

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banned the clergy from performing in public, which led not to a secularization of
theater but to the transfer of the duty to perform in plays from clergy to laity. In
spite of Innocent III’s papal bull, miracles (plays focusing on saints’ lives) and
mysteries (plays which usually showed the gates of hell and the entrance to
Paradise) continued to be written and performed (by laymen) near local churches
and cathedrals, and the Church continued to support similar events. In fact,
mysteries remained popular all throughout the Middle Ages (Petit de Julleville
1880). In fifteenth-century France, there are numerous examples of mysteries
written by famous writers (Rutebeuf, Jean Bodel, Eustache Marcadé, Simon and
Arnoul Gréban) and performed over several days by hundreds of actors. Such is
the case, for instance, with the Mystère de la Passion (1420–1430), usually attrib-
uted to Eustache Marcadé, the anonymous Mystère du siege d’Orléans, the Passion
by Arnoul Gréban (written in 1452, it had 400 characters and was performed over
4 days), the Mystère des Actes des Apôtres by the Gréban brothers (with nearly
500 characters), Jean Michel’s Passion and Résurrection (late fifteenth century).
Pierre Gringoire’s Mystère de Saint Louis, written around 1514, proves that mys-
teries were popular even during the Renaissance. Miracles and mysteries have
been played all over Europe, from Spain (the Misteri d’Elx) to Germany, where the
Oberammergau Passion Play has been erformed since 1634 (the most recent
representation dates back to 2010 and the next one is scheduled for 2020).
Whereas the Church saw theater as a means to instruct the poor, works of
literature, philosophy, history, and sciences were not neglected either by eccle-
siastical patrons. The most important type of writings in the Middle Ages were,
naturally, theological works. It is necessary to point out that the “patronage” of
the church of theological works was a special type of patronage since many
authors were already part of the Church establishment. However, since many of
these works were written in an ecclesiastical context with resources provided by
ecclesiastical establishments, one could speak of ecclesiastical patronage in such
cases.
It is important to point out that writing, in the form of epistles (the Pauline
epistles to Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,
Thessalonians, and so on), was an integral part of the early development of
Christianity. For a while, letters and epistles such as the ones written by the early
Church fathers (Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna) in the
first and second centuries C.E. were the early Christians’ first and foremost means
of conveying theological teachings. However, other early Church fathers de-
fended their faith through more consistent treatises. Such was the case with
Irenaeus (second-third centuries), bishop of Lyons and author of several books,
including a treatise entitled Adversus Haereses which strongly condemned Gnos-
ticism. Theological treatises became increasingly common in the first centuries of

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the Christian era: Clement of Alexandria’s trilogy, Origen’s Hexapla and De

principiis, John Chrysostom’s On Priesthood and Instructions to Catechumens,
Tertullian’s De baptismo, Apologeticus pro Christianis, De idolatria, to name only
a few.
It would be impossible to talk about the Church fathers without mentioning
Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354–430), whose work has been considered by
Henri-Irénée Marrou (1938; 1950; 1955) the last major oeuvre of antiquity. At the
same time, it is important to point out that writers of the late antiquity such as
Augustine and others were more than strictly theologians, thus providing later
generations of writers with a model for encyclopedic erudition. Most of Augus-
tine’s writings are indeed religious in nature, such as polemical texts against
various heresies, writings on Christian doctrine (De doctrina christiana), writings
of both religious and philosophical import (De libero arbitrio), but they also
include works such as the Confessiones and De civitate dei which engage with a
variety of subjects. Similarly, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (263–339), wrote
theological works (Praeparatio evangelica, Demonstratio evangelica, Peri theopha-
neias), as well as historical texts (Historia ecclesiastica, Vita Constantini). Isidore,
bishop of Seville (560–636, bishop after 600/601), wrote a variety of texts ranging
from theology (De ecclesiasticis officiis, De differentis verborum) to encyclopedias
(Etymologiae), history (Chronica majora, Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalor-
um et Suevorum), astronomy and natural history (De natura rerum).
This tradition of erudition has led the Catholic Church to label several
scholars “doctors of the Church.” Most of the doctores ecclesiae are indeed
theologians, but many of them have written on a wide variety of topics. The long
list of doctors includes Athanasius of Alexandria (298–373, author of a Vita
Antonii), Hilary of Poitiers (300–368, known as the “Hammer of the Arians” and
author of De synodis and De fide Orientalium), Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390),
Basil of Caesarea (330–379, wrote on the Holy Spirit and asceticism), Ambrosius
of Milan (340–397, author of numerous theological treatises, such as De mysteriis,
De Spiritu Sancto), Saint Jerome (370–420, translator of the Bible into Latin, which
became known as the Vulgata), Leo the Great (400–461), Bede the Venerable
(672–735, monk at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, author of numerous treatises and
known mostly for his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum). The doctors of the
second millennium include the “Doctor Magnificus,” Anselm of Canterbury
(wrote the Monologion, the Proslogion, De grammatico, De veritate, Cur Deus
homo, among others), Bernard de Clairvaux, the “Doctor Mellifluus” (author of De
gradibus superbiae, De laude novae militiae, De amore Dei, De consideratione,
and other writings), Albert the Great (1193–1280), bishop of Regensburg, known
as “Doctor Universalis” (wrote on a variety of topics, as suggest the titles of his
works: De unitate intellectus, De natura boni, De sacramentis, De incarnatione, De

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homine, and the unfinished Summa theologiae de mirabilis scientia Dei). The most
notable doctores of the last three medieval centuries were Bonaventure (1217–
1274), cardinal of Albano and surnamed “Doctor seraphicus” (author of numerous
treatises, including Itinerarium mentis in Deum, De reductione artium ad theolo-
giam, and a life of Saint Francis of Assisi) and the “Doctor Angelicus,” Thomas
Aquinas (1225–1274), who also wrote an impressive number of highly influential
treatises, such as De ente et essentia, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, Summa
contra Gentiles, De regno, De unitate intellectus, numerous commentaries on
Aristotle, as well as his famous Summa theologica.
Thus, intellectuals affiliated with the Church often wrote on topics that were
not strictly theological in nature (on medieval theology and philosophy, see
Gilson 1922, McInerny 1970; McGrade, ed., 2003). In parallel, monastic and
cathedral schools often taught subject matters of the trivium and the quadrivium
that were not directly related to theology. Later, many European universities grew
out of former cathedral schools. Such was the case with the universities of Paris
(it was the papal legate Robert de Courçon who approved its statutes in 1215) or
Toulouse (created by a papal charter in 1229).
It is also important to point out that medieval abbeys possessed scriptoria in
which scribes composed or copied different types of manuscripts, many of which
did not have exclusively religious content (Shailor 1991). Such is the case with the
thirteenth-century chronicle of Robert de Clari entitled The Conquest of Constanti-
nople, which was most probably produced at the abbey of Corbie in northern
France. Benedictine abbeys, such as Monte Cassino, were famous for their scrip-
toria. After the year 1000, the scriptorium of this abbey became one of the most
important book production centers of southern Europe. The Benedicine scriptoria
developed partly as a result of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which demanded that
monks read for two hours daily and that they read an entire book during the
Lenten period. This studious atmosphere led to a high demand for books, many of
which were produced locally, in the abbey. Cistercian abbeys, too, possessed
scriptoria, the most remarkable one being the scriptorium from the mother-abbey
in Cîteaux. At times, the scriptoria were no more than a monachal cell in which a
single monk would assiduously copy a book, whereas in other cases, the scriptor-
ia could be better endowed. Writing and copying manuscripts also played an
important part in the lives of Carthusian monks, whose duties included studying
and writing. From the thirteenth century, secular scriptoria increased in number,
thus providing competition for monastic scriptoria.

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II Secular Patronage
Secular patronage is the other major facet of patronage of the arts in the Middle
Ages. Secular patrons were usually political potentates and rich patrons who
could afford to finance their favorite artists (see, for example, Vale 2001, and
Sleiderink 2003).
Once again, when discussing secular patronage, we should not envisage it as
the polar opposite of ecclesiastical patronage. Very often in the Middle Ages,
secular patrons helped where Church patrons could not. In other cases, the border
between secular and religious patronage was somewhat blurred. For instance, the
construction of the old Saint Peter’s basilica began in the fourth century under the
aegis of Emperor Constantine I. Of course, Constantine had a secular position as
fifty-seventh emperor of the Roman Empire but he was also the first emperor to
convert to Christianity. As a Christian emperor, Constantine granted privileges to
clergy (Gerberding and Cruz 2004, 55–56), attempted to undo the damage done to
the early Church by Diocletian’s persecution, and built the old Saint Peter’s
Basilica and the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As far as the Basilica
of the Holy Sepulchre, it should be reminded here that Hadrian had built a temple
to Aphrodite on the site where Jesus is said to have been crucified. Around 325,
Constantine ordered that the temple be demolished and replaced with a Christian
basilica. Constantine’s mother, Helena, is believed to have commissioned the
churches in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. The blurred nature of the line
separating the secular from the ecclesiastical in the Middle Ages is also apparent
from the uses given to the old Saint Peter’s Basilica, which hosted both religious
events, such as papal coronations, and political events, such as the coronation of
Charlemagne in 800.
Architectural patronage continued to be popular among secular patrons
throughout the Middle Ages. The wife of Theodosius II, Aelia Eudocia Augusta
(ca. 401–460) commissioned the construction of several churches (Saint Polyeuk-
tos, Saint Stephen, Saint Peter) and hospices in Constantinople (McClanan 1996,
51–52). We mentioned earlier several churches erected in Ravenna under the aegis
of the Church. In contrast, the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo was built by
Theoderic (454–526), King of the Ostrogoths, as his personal chapel. This build-
ing, consecrated in 504, was initially an Arian church. Interestingly enough, the
basilica was later dedicated by another secular ruler, the Byzantine emperor
Justinian I, to Saint Martin of Tours, who had been a strong opponent of Arianism.
Royal chapels became a tradition for a great many monarchic dynasties. The
sixth-century historian Procopius writes that Theodora (ca. 500–548), the wife of
emperor Justinian I, rebuilt the church of Saint Irene and two hospices next to it,
as well as the Convent of Repentance for reformed prostitutes (McClanan 1996,

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56). In France, Blanche of Castile (1188–1252) founded the Cistercian monastery

for nuns in Maubuisson, to which she retired toward the end of her life (Caviness
1996, 136). The Sainte Chapelle in Paris was commissioned by King Louis IX (the
future Saint Louis, 1214–1270), the son of Blanche of Castile (Weiss 1998). The
building of this remarkable Gothic chapel began in 1239 and it was consecrated in
1248. It was meant to house the Crown of Thorns (or what was believed to be the
Crown of Thorns), the Image of Edessa (a piece of cloth on which the image of
Jesus’s face was allegedly imprinted), as well as other relics. It is also important
to point out that before having the Parisian Sainte Chapelle built, Louis IX had
already asked Pierre de Montreuil to plan and build a Gothic “holy chapel” at his
castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Pierre de Montreuil later used the plan of the
Saint-Germain-en-Laye chapel and adapted it to the Parisian setting of the royal
palace on the Île de la Cité. Later, the tradition of royal chapels continued.
Charles V of France (1338–1380), for instance, commissioned architects Raymond
du Temple and Pierre de Montereau to plan and build another Sainte Chapelle in
his castle in Vincennes. Construction began in 1379 and continued for over a
century—the façade was only completed in 1480 under the rule of Louis XI. Most
of the time, such chapels were part of secular building complexes, such as royal
palaces and castles.
Naturally, royal, princely or ducal palaces and castles were the primary object
of secular patronage in the Middle Ages. In this case, one can speak of patronage
out of necessity, since kings, princes, dukes and their court needed a residence
anyway. However, the need for aristocratic residences created a market for
architectural and artistic talent in which gifted architects could see their skills
remunerated. With the emergence of feudalism, there was an increasing need for
castles, palaces, and private buildings for the aristocracy. Palaces were usually
residences built in an urban setting, whereas castles were generally fortified and
built in rural areas, and private buildings (or hôtels particuliers) were large town-
houses. The Merovingian kings built a palace on the site now occupied by the
Conciergerie in Paris, a palace that was one of the residences of the kings of
France approximately since the early Middle Ages (possibly as early as the fourth-
fifth centuries, Colas and Pitts 1999). The palace was enlarged during the reigns
of Louis IX and Philip IV, but it became somewhat neglected after the reign of
Charles V who preferred the Palace of the Louvre. The Louvre itself had been
initially a tower, and in the twelfth century it was transformed into a fortress that
was part of the Parisian defensive system. At that time, the Louvre had an
imposing dungeon that was fortified by Philip Augustus and then later extended
and transformed into a royal residence by Louis IX (Devèche 1977).
As is well known, French kings possessed an impressive number of castles
and palaces such as the castles in Quierzy, Fontainebleau, Chinon, Compiègne,

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Blois, Amboise, Plessis-lez-Tours, and others. Medieval castles and palaces can
be found all across Europe. The first residence of the kings of Hungary, for
instance, was built by King Bela IV on Castle Hill between 1247 and 1265. The
castle was later rebuilt in a different location by successive dukes and kings. In
the fourteenth century, Stephen, Duke of Slavonia and brother of Louis I, King of
Hungary, rebuilt a part of the castle that still exists today as part of the Buda
castle.
Local communities and authorities were also the patrons of imposing medie-
val palaces. The local commune built the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The
decision to build an imposing palace for the city was made in 1299, and the task
to draw a plan for the palazzo was entrusted to the architect Arnolfo di Cambio,
who had also built the Florence Cathedral (the Duomo) and the Basilica of Santa
Croce a few years earlier. The main tower of the palace is known as the Torre
d’Arnolfo, in honor of its architect.
The interior of these palaces often housed various artifacts and performances,
which the patrons generously funded as well. Many medieval painters worked for
both ecclesiastical and lay patrons. For instance, Giotto painted a fresco cycle in
the Basilica of Saint John Lateran but at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
he also painted the interior of the Arena Chapel in Padua, which is also known as
the Chapel of the Scrovegni because it had been commissioned by Enrico degli
Scrovegni, a rich Paduan nobleman whose family had amassed a fortune as
bankers. Enrico degli Scrovegni allegedly commissioned the construction and the
decoration of this chapel to atone for his sins (Derbes and Sandona 2008). Maso
di Banco painted a fresco depicting Gualtiero de’ Bardi, a member of a famous
Florentine banking family, asking for forgiveness from Jesus Christ. The fresco
was painted in the fourteenth century in the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence.
A contemporary of Giotto and Maso di Banco’s, Montano d’Arezzo was a protégé
of the King of Naples, Robert of Anjou (1277–1343), who even knighted the painter
in 1310. Prior to this, Montano d’Arezzo had painted the chapels of the Castel
Nuovo and Castel del Uovo in Naples. Another trecento painter, Jacopo di Cione,
known primarily for his altar in the San Pier Maggiore in Florence and his work in
the cathedral of Florence, also painted a chamber in the judges and notaries’
guildhall. Bartolo di Fredi, a trecento painter hailing from the Sienese school,
helped decorate the Hall of Council of Siena in 1361. In 1366, he was asked by the
city council of Gimignano to paint Two Monks of the Augustine Order that was to
be displayed in the local Palazzo Pubblico. He even became part of the local
Sienese government in 1372.
Since we mentioned the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, it should be emphasized
here that most of the rooms in the palace contain frescoes and paintings (which is
also the case with many public palaces in medieval Italy). In the Sala della Pace

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(the Hall of Peace, also known as the Hall of the Nine), one can still admire three
panels known under the title Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government,
painted by the Sienese trecento painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Taddeo di Bartolo,
also from the Sienese school, painted twelve panels for the Palazzo Pubblico at
the turn of the fifteenth century. A few years later, in 1403, Bartolo worked for the
public gallery of Perugia, for which he produced the Descent of the Holy Ghost and
the Virgin and Child with Two Angels and Saint Bernard.
During the last century of the Middle Ages, lay patrons continued their
support for both lesser-known and consecrated painters. The Burgundian court
was a major patron of the arts in the fifteenth century and it used the services of
painters such as Pierre Coustain and Jan van Eyck. Before working for the
Burgundian court, van Eyck had already painted for John III, Duke of Bavaria-
Straubing and count of Holland and Hainaut. According to the records of the
Duke, van Eyck was a court painter with the rank of valet de chambre and he was
paid in this quality between 1422 and 1424 (Châtelet 1980). After the death of his
first patron, he moved to Lille and then to Bruges, where he was recruited at the
court of Philip the Good (1396–1467). At the Burgundian court, he served as a
diplomat and painter (he soon became a member of the painters’ guild of Tournai,
together with other famous painters such as Rogier van der Weyden, himself
painter of ducal portraits). As a diplomat-cum-painter, he went to Lisbon in 1428–
1429 to prepare Philip the Good’s wedding to Isabella of Portugal and he was
asked to paint a portrait of the latter so that the Burgundian duke could know how
his future bride looked. Jan van Eyck was an exceptionally well-paid artist. In a
document from 1435, the Burgundian duke accused his treasurers of not paying
the painter well enough and claimed that he would not be able to find van Eyck’s
equal anywhere in the world. Philip the Good seems to have been the godfather of
one of the painter’s children and continued to support his family even after van
Eyck’s death.
Aside from paintings, medieval palaces and castles housed a variety of
artifacts, such as statues, tapestries, objects made with precious stones, and
richly decorated books. Tapestries, for instance, were both decorative and useful
in so far as they helped insulate the cold walls of medieval buildings (Joubert
1995). Workshops producing tapestries existed all over Western Europe. However,
unlike the highly successful workshops from Northern Europe, tapestry work-
shops from Siena, Mantua or Ferrara did not last very long, nor did they produce
a significant amount of tapestries. The major tapestry workshops were in fact
concentrated in northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands (Arras, Tournai,
Brussels, Oudenaarde, Enghien, Geraardsbergen, etc.). Toward the end of the
Middle Ages, the production of tapestries declined in Arras and Tournai, whereas
Brussels, increasingly favored by the Burgundian court, experienced a major

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1398 Cristian Bratu
production boom. Tapestries decorated the castles or palaces of powerful politi-

cians or well-off citizens. Legend had it that the Bayeux Tapestry narrating the
Norman conquest of England was commissioned and created by Matilda, William
the Conqueror’s wife. However, Odo, Earl of Kent (1036–1097), the Conqueror’s
half-brother and bishop of Bayeux from 1049 on, is the more likely patron
(Stenton et al., ed., 1965; see also Brown 1988; Bloch 2006). The Apocalypse
Tapestry, now on display in the Museum of Tapestry in the castle of Angers, was
commissioned by Louis I, Duke of Anjou in the 1370s. As its name suggests, the
tapestry depicts the Apocalypse and draws its inspiration from the Book of
Revelation. The drawings for the tapestry were made by a Flemish artist, Jean de
Bruges (also known as Jan Baudolf) and produced in Paris by Nicholas Bataille
approximately between 1377 and 1382 (Klein 1992, 191). The famous series of six
tapestries known as the Lady and the Unicorn bears the arms of Jean Le Viste, a
nobleman and courtier of Charles VII of France, which suggests that Le Viste was
the commissioner and patron of these tapestries. Another series of famous tapes-
tries, known as the Hunt of the Unicorn (late fifteenth century), were probably
commissioned by Anne of Brittany (1477–1514) for her marriage to Louis XII of
France. The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries are a group of four large fifteenth-
century tapestries that were probably commissioned by the Duke of Devonshire.
Books, too, could decorate the houses of medieval potentates. It is a well-
known fact that illuminators adorned medieval books with lavish decorations
and, as a result, at a time when both paper and manuscript production were
highly expensive, books served as status symbols (Avrin 1991; Alexander 1992).
We mentioned earlier that a significant number of manuscripts were produced in
the scriptoria of abbeys and monasteries. The twelfth century witnessed the
emergence of secular book production. At that time, booksellers (libraires) from
major European cities became increasingly involved in the actual production of
the objects they were selling. For poorer urban students, the pecia system was an
even better alternative to the actual ownership of the book. Developed in Italy
and later in Paris in the thirteenth century, the pecia system consisted of renting
sections (peciae) of a book and copying them in as many exemplars as possible
(Rouse and Rouse 2000, 85). For customers with more generous pockets, work-
shops specialized in illuminations continued to produce expensive manuscripts.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, specialized scribes and illuminators set up
shop in major northern European cities such as Bruges, Ghent, Valenciennes,
Paris (Croenen and Ainsworth 2006), and others.
In certain areas of Europe, patronage of book production was a family tradi-
tion. Such was the case with the Valois dynasty of France. Bonne de Luxembourg
(1315–1349), the wife of Jean II le Bon, asked the painter Jean Le Noir to illuminate
her book of hours. Jean le Bon’s son, Charles V, created a royal library at the

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Louvre, which contained nearly a thousand volumes by the end of the fourteenth
century (Delisle 1907), including the richly illuminated Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux.
But it was one of Charles V’s brothers, Jean de Berry, who became one of the most
famous medieval patrons. Surrounded by artists such as the architect André
Beauneveu, the painter Jean Le Noir, the miniature painter Jacquemart de Hesdin,
and the illuminators known collectively as the Limbourg brothers, Jean de Berry
(1340–1416) invested considerable amounts in various artistic projects and pro-
ducts. Many of these artifacts were in fact meant to decorate his Parisian resi-
dences as well as his castle in Mehun-sur-Yèvre. Like many medieval aristocrats,
Jean de Berry had a keen interest in precious stones and objects (the beautifully
decorated Saint Agnes cup and the Holy Thorn reliquary), cameos, paintings,
sculptures, tapestries (he probably commissioned the tapestry of the Nine
Worthies) and, last but not least, illuminated manuscripts (see Meiss 1967; Dü-
ckers and Roelofs, ed., 2005). The duke was the patron of the Limbourg brothers,
Herman, Johan, and Paul, who illuminated the Belles Heures (now known as the
Très riches heures du duc de Berry) between 1406 and 1408. In the Burgundian
realm, too, manuscript illumination flourished, as well as ducal patronage of
illuminators. The Breviary of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York, with the
beautiful illumination of the holy virgins greeted by Christ, is a prime example of
the Burgundian court’s interest in lavishly decorated manuscripts.
Of course, writers also benefitted from secular patronage. Early medieval
poets and singers (scops, scalds, and bards) were often dependent on donations
from kings, chieftains or the local population (Holzknecht 1966, 19–35). As
Holzknecht (1966, 23) points out, Beowulf is replete with references to the king as
a gift giver (lines 11, 35, 168. 352, 607, etc.), while Scandinavian sagas make
reference to poets being rewarded for their services (Holzknecht 1966, 24–28). The
scops and the scalds were the predecessors of minstrels, troubadours, trouvères
and minnesingers, who also depended on the patronage of secular rulers or local
communities. Certain troubadours such as William IX of Aquitaine (1071–1126),
Eble II de Ventadorn (1085–1155) or Jaufre Rudel, prince of Blaye, were aristocrats
themselves and did not need anyone’s patronage to support their artistic endea-
vors. In fact, Raimbaut d’Orange (1147–1173) was a troubadour who seems to have
patronized other poets. However, other troubadours such as Guilhem Ademar,
Marcabru, Peire de Maensac or Uc de Pena did come from petty noble families but
they were rather poor. That is why many troubadours did seek the patronage of
wealthy sponsors. Cercamon, for instance, spent some time at the court of
William X of Aquitaine and perhaps also at the court of Eble III of Ventadorn.
Other troubadours, such as Elias de Barjols and Elias Cairel, came from lower-
class families. Perdigon, the son of a poor fisherman, had several patrons: Dalfi
d’Alvernha, Peter II of Aragon, and Barral of Marseille (Aubrey 1996, 18).

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1400 Cristian Bratu
The granddaughter of William IX of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122/

1124–1204), was the patroness of writers such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure,
and Bernart de Ventadorn (for diverging opinions on this issue, see Haskins 1925,
71–77; Lejeune 1954, 5–57; Schirmer and Broich 1962; on female patronage, see
McCash, ed., 1996). Eleanor of Aquitaine was in fact part of a long tradition of
medieval women who commissioned or requested various types of literary, theo-
logical, and historical texts (McCash 1996; Martin, ed., 2012). Joan Ferrante
convincingly argued that women were extremely important to Latin letters in the
Middle Ages (Ferrante 1996). Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose all wrote letters to
various Christian women in response to their questions (Ferrante 1996, 74–77).
Alcuin corresponded with religious women as well, and he wrote his De ratione
animae in response to Charlemagne’s granddaughter, Gundrada. Rabanus
Maurus, too, dedicated two commentaries to Judith of Bavaria (805–843), the
second wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious. Moreover, Abelard’s life
and works would have not been the same without Héloïse (Ferrante 1996, 77–81).
Paul the Deacon (ca. 720–799) dedicated his Historia Romana to the duchess of
Benevento, Adelpurga (Ferrante 1996, 87). Other powerful women, such as Matil-
da of Scotland, the Plantagenet queens of England, and Isabel of Portugal, were
connected to significant literary and artistic networks that they funded quite
generously (see Huneycutt 1996; Parsons 1996; Jambeck 1996; Hanna III 1996;
Willard 1996). Madeline Caviness suggests that the correct word for such women
who supported the arts should probably be matron instead of patroness, the latter
term being simply the feminine form of patron—a word derived from pater (Cavi-
ness 1996, 106).
Chroniclers and historians could also be particularly useful to patrons during
these times when, as Chris Given-Wilson observes, chronicles came to be seen as
“competent and creditworthy records which not only ought to be, but were
consulted about matters of the highest significance” because chronicles “proved”
things (Given-Wilson 2004, 73). After the year 1000, a large number of kings,
princes, and aristocrats left for the Holy Land, and historians were needed to
record the heroic deeds of the knights of a given family, area or country. As a
result, a large number of aristocratic and royal families sponsored the production
of historical texts (both original writings and translations). For example, the
Flemish family of Saint-Pol sponsored the French translation of the Latin Pseudo-
Turpin and, most probably, Richard the Pilgrim’s Chanson d’Antioche (Woledge
and Clive 1964, 25–34: Stanger 1957, 214–29), while the Flemish rulers of Béthune
commissioned the historical texts written by the Anonymous of Béthune. In
England, Constance Fitzgilbert was the patroness of Geoffrey Gaimar, author of
the Estoire des Engleis. In France, a dynastic historiographic tradition was in-
itiated with the Grandes Chroniques de France, written by Primat, Guillaume de

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Nangis, and other scribes from the abbey of Saint-Denis. Successive French kings,
such as Philip III, Louis IX, and others, supported the historiographic endeavors
of the Saint-Denis monks. Lavish manuscripts of the Grandes Chroniques were
produced for Charles V (BNF ms. fr. 2813) and Philip the Good (ms. now found in
the Russian National Library of Saint Petersburg).
By the fourteenth century, most European courts had become involved in the
sponsorship of historical writings (Bratu 2010a). In England, Henry de Lacy
patronized Rauf de Bohun, author of a universal chronicle from Brutus to his
present day, known as Le Petit Bruit (Brut), while Mary of Woodstock, Edward I’s
daughter, was the sponsor of Nicholas Trevet’s Cronicles. Jean Froissart (ca. 1337–
1405), too, began his career as a poet and chronicler at the court of the English
queen Philippa of Hainault, while Froissart’s mentor, Jean le Bel, had worked
under the aegis of Jean of Hainault, Philippa’s uncle. Froissart was later sup-
ported by Robert of Namur and Guy de Châtillon, the latter belonging to an
Hainault family as well. The French king Charles V commissioned several transla-
tions of historical texts: Jean Golain’s translation of Bernardo Gui’s Flores Chron-
icorum, Simon of Hesdin’s translation of Valerius Maximus, and Guido delle
Collonne’s translation of Historia trojana. In Burgundy, too, ducal patronage was
essential to French-Burgundian history-writing. Christine de Pizan’s Le livre des
fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, although dedicated to the memory of
Charles V, was written under the patronage of Philip the Bold. Later, Philip the
Good institutionalized the Burgundian court’s patronage of history-writing by
creating the institution of indiciaire (historian) of the court in 1455 (Doutrepont
1909). Georges Chastelain was the very first court historian of the Burgundians,
followed by his disciple, Jean Molinet.
Medieval texts are replete with flattering references to the patron or patrons
of the author, praising them for their merits and generosity or asking them in a
more or less direct manner to consider opening their pockets even more. Christine
de Pizan’s Livre des Trois Jugemens, for instance, addresses the good seneschal of
Hainault, brave and wise, loyal, courteous in deeds (“Bon Seneschal de Haynault,
preux et sage, / Vaillant en fais et gentil de lignage, / Loyal, courtois de fait et de
langage”). Such references appear quite often in the form of presentations of the
book to the patron, dedications, excuses, apologies and praises, in the prologues
and the epilogues of medieval texts (Holzknecht 1966, 75–170).

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1402 Cristian Bratu
III Audiences
Naturally, patrons and their courts, friends, vassals or superiors were the in-
tended audience of the various artistic products made under their aegis. Paintings
and tapestries decorated the walls of castles and palaces for the visual enjoyment
of patrons; music delighted the patrons’ ears, while books, one would be tempted
to believe, were made to be read. However, in the case of written texts, the mode
of reception was double, for medieval books were often read aloud (as in modern
recitations), and sometimes read individually (and silently). Thus, written texts
enjoyed two types of audiences—readers and listeners.
Twentieth-century criticism has shown how important orality (the oral crea-
tion and transmission of texts) and aurality (listening) were during the Middle
Ages (Lord 1960; Finnegan 1977; Ong 1982; Zumthor 1987; Green 1994; Coleman
1996). It has been amply proven that medieval texts were read out loud or
performed in front of courtly audiences. Of course, the prime suspects in such
cases were Bible passages, moral literature, poems (often accompanied by mu-
sic), chansons de geste and other types of epic poetry. Medieval poems in particu-
lar are replete with formulae that invite the audience to listen—not read—care-
fully. However, other types of texts, such as philosophical and historical writings,
could also be read out loud in front of a royal or aristocratic audience. The
twelfth-century historian Jordan Fantosme asks his audience, whom he addresses
as “my lords,” to “listen” (oez) to his chronicle. Such aural formulae suggest that
these texts were composed with an aristocratic audience (of listeners) in mind
(Bratu 2010b). Froissart actually mentions in the Third Book of his Chronicles that
he read out loud excerpts from his writings to the count Gaston Fébus of Foix-
Béarn, while Christine de Pizan mentions that Charles V had a favorite reader,
Gilles Malet, whom the king appreciated for his ability to read various texts in a
very artful manner. Interestingly enough, Christine also mentions that Charles V
enjoyed listening to the Faiz des Romains which, according to the chronicler and
memoirist Olivier de la Marche, was also one of Charles the Bold’s favorites (Bratu
2010b). Public readings were especially important at a time when many aristo-
crats, including kings and princes, were not able to read.
C Conclusion
To conclude, medieval patrons played a major part in the development of medie-
val art. Without their financial and moral support, many paintings, songs or
books would have simply never existed. Unlike modern patronage, the line
between personal and institutional patronage was in some cases rather porous

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during the Middle Ages. When kings, princes, and other aristocrats decided to
support a certain painter or writer, they often did so with moneys collected from
the general public and of which they disposed as they pleased. More importantly,
however, medieval patronage laid the bases of a system of support for the arts
which, in a very different form and with different actors, persisted throughout the
Renaissance, the early modern period, and is still in existence today. Benjamin
Franklin, for instance, was the proud founder of the University of Pennsylvania,
while Thomas Jefferson took pride in being the patron and founder of the Uni-
versity of Virginia. In the modern era, patrons of the arts have tended to be
governments, universities, and other public and private institutions and indivi-
duals. Although the actors, circumstances, legal conditions and types of support
have changed dramatically, modern sponsors, donors, supporters, and subscri-
bers continue the work started centuries ago by ancient maecenas and medieval
patrons.
Select Bibliography
Croenen, Godfried and Peter F. Ainsworth, Patrons, Authors and Workshops: Books and Book
Production in Paris around 1400 (Louvain 2006).
Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah and Luis Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends, Interpersonal Relations
and the Structure of Trust in Society (Cambridge 1984).
Holzknecht, Karl J., Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages, rpt. ed. (1923; New York 1966).
Martin, Therese, ed., Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architec-
ture (Leiden 2012).
McCash, June Hall, ed., The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Athens, GA, 1996).
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, ed., Patronage in Ancient Society (London 1989).

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Francis G. Gentry
Poverty
A Introduction
Like so many other “observable facts,” poverty, especially, reveals a complex
socio-economic and cultural interweaving that makes the concept impervious to
a simple definition. Precisely this situation was encountered and very aptly
described by the art historian, Thomas Raff who writes that at first he thought the
topic was quite straightforward, but after intense reading and research, he con-
fesses to some confusion because “ich fand bei der Lektüre die unterschiedlich-
sten Definitionen und Systematisierungen des Begriffes Armut” (Raff 2004, 9–11;
In my readings [on the topic] I found the most varied definitions and system-
atizings of the concept of poverty). He then proceeds to list the various definitions
which he uncovered, most of which will also be encountered in this essay. In the
following pages, the concept of poverty will be traced through antiquity and the
Middle Ages, viewing it primarily within the environment of Christianity’s attempt
to meld both antiquity’s view of the poor with the standpoint found in the Old and
New Testaments. This will be followed by an examination of the “poor” in
medieval society and will culminate in a brief glance at the rise of the mendicant
orders primarily in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Although the thrust of
the present essay is socio-cultural, occasional medieval English and German
works will be highlighted in order to illustrate better particular aspects of the
topic.
In essence, the “state of poverty” signifies a perception of reality by others or
the self. As Uta Lindgren notes: “Eine ganz andere Frage ist die nach der realen
Armut, der Bedürftigkeit, Hilflosigkeit, Elendigkeit, Verlassenheit. Diese reale
Armut ist sehr schwer faßbar, denn obwohl sie von Sozialkritikern aller Zeiten
deutlich angeprangert wurde, ist sie keine ontische Größe” (Lindgren 1980, 7; A
completely different question is the one about real poverty, need, helplessness,
misery, forlornness. This real poverty is very elusive for although it has been
clearly denounced by social critics throughout the ages, it is itself no ontic
dimension). The simple, if uncouth exchange in the film Monty Python and the
Holy Grail (1975) in which a peasant answers his companion’s question as to who
might be the one passing them while clopping coconut halves together with: “I
dunno. Must be a king” because “he ain’t covered with shit,” may be used as a
good illustration of this conundrum. For, if at first glance, a man without an
excremental covering could very well be king, he could also not be a king but

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Poverty 1405
someone who has washed, while, on the other hand, such an odiferous covering
would not necessarily make another man poor.
Although outward manifestations of poverty in the Middle Ages doubtless did
not differ essentially from those of any preceding or following age, there are
specificities not found later, the closer one gets to the modern era. Nonetheless, in
his description of the English poor in Shakespeare’s time, William Harrison
provides three classes of “the poor” which would be applicable for almost any
period in pre-industrial Europe (Harrison 1877, 213). He writes:
1) The poor ‘by impotency’ comprise: “1.1 ‘the fatherless child’; 1.2 ‘the aged, blind, and
lame’; 1.3 ‘the diseased person that is iudged to be incurable’.” 2) The poor ‘by casualty’
comprise: 2.1 ‘the wounded souldier’; 2 .2 ‘ the decaied householder’; 2.3 ‘the sicke persone
visited with grieuous … diseases’.” 3) The poor ‘thriftless’, comprising: 3.1 “‘the riotour that
hath consumed all’; 3.2 ‘the vagabond that will abide no where’; 3.3 ‘the rog[u]e and
strumpet’ (quoted from Jütte 2001, 11)
In the first two classes, one can read the language of empathy, i.e., for those who
are in this lamentable state through no fault of their own. In an ethical sense they
could be labeled the “inculpable poor,” whereas the individuals in class three
would be the “culpable poor” and are mentioned with contempt and, indeed, 3.1
has a special place in Dante’s (ca. 1265–1321) Inferno among the Hoarders and
Wasters in Circle Four (ca. 1308–ca. 1314). The vagabond is a curious character,
not the happy wanderer, but rather someone who is capable of work, but who will
not do so—in other words slothful. As a result of his indolence he was viewed with
suspicion and contempt throughout most European countries during the Middle
Ages and beyond. The rogue and the strumpet probably need no further explana-
tion regarding their inclusion in this group of the “culpable poor,” although the
“strumpet” or prostitute was, in many instances, a poor woman, who because of
her destitute circumstances, was forced into prostitution—certainly in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries (see below: C 1). Thus, according to a reading of
Harrison’s groups, the truly “poor” stratum of society is comprised mainly of
those unable to care for themselves. Not that this situation would guarantee any
more empathy than absolutely necessary from those better off. Nor was it “… until
the end of the eighteenth century that a clear line was drawn between poverty on
the one hand and indigence on the other, between the masses of the labouring
poor and those being so destitute as to be dependent on gifts or allowances for
subsistence” (Jütte 2001, 10).
While the above may strike some as an overtly roundabout manner of
introducing the “problem” at hand, poverty in the Middle Ages, it merely demon-
strates the complexity of the matter even in the early modern period. For the
purposes of this essay the definition by Harrison will be viewed as the terminus ad
quem. The terminus a quo begins in antiquity.

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1406 Francis G. Gentry
B Historical Overview
I Attitudes toward the Poor in Antiquity
According to Hendrik Bolkestein (1939), there is a marked difference in attitude

toward the needy (poor) between ancient Eastern and Western cultures. In Egypt
as well as Israel, the priests cared for the needy and the temples provided asylum
to the destitute. On the other hand, in ancient Greece and Rome there was no
sense of obligation to “care for the needy.” Important in these societies, rather,
was membership in a polis and citizenship. Thus, as Russell Meiggs (1940)
phrased it in his review of Bolkestein: “Generosity in Greece has no special
connexion with poverty; in the East it implies, above all, giving to the poor. This
essential difference the author fully illustrates from the sayings of the wise in
Egypt, from the Old Testament, and from the literature of Greece and Rome”
(Meiggs 1940, 107). This thesis is echoed by Albert A. Trever’s review from 1941,
“The author [Bolkestein] seeks to answer the question as to what was the status of
the poor in the social ethics, politics, and religion of the ancient pre-Christian
Orient (Egypt and Palestine) as compared with that in the West (Greece and
Rome). His general thesis is that, in the Orient, philanthropy is emphasized with
special reference to the poor, and almsgiving and poor relief are praised as
supreme virtues; in pre-Christian Greece and Rome, on the other hand, the object
of well-doing was not the poor but one’s fellow-citizens (Mitbürger, Mit-
menschen)” (Trever 1941, 82).
But not only the “needy” were considered “poor,” also the workers, espe-
cially physical laborers, were socially classed with the “needy.” Paul Veyne notes:
“The first key to ancient attitudes toward labor is that the source and character of
a social group’s wealth determined its value. … According to Plato, a well-
organized city is one in which citizens are fed by the rural toil of their slaves and
the trades are filled with people of no importance” (Veyne 1987, 119). Aristotle,
too, could not fathom “how slaves, peasants, and shopkeepers could be expected
to lead “happy” lives, meaning lives at once prosperous and noble”(Veyne 1987,
119). In his excellent, brief essay, “The Greek Attitude to Manual Labour,” Rodolfo
Mondolfo provides a somewhat more nuanced view of ancient Greek attitudes
toward manual labor than Veyne, but even so it is clear that the social esteem in
which physical laborers and work itself were held was pretty much non-existent.
The situation in Rome was little different, although there was more awareness of
the benefits the city accrued from the work of others. But in the final analysis,
poverty and work were socially déclassé. In other words, class interests play a
decisive social role in ancient as well as later societies.

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Poverty 1407
II Judaism and Early Christianity
As mentioned above, the poor, i.e., the needy, in ancient Israel were viewed as
part of society and were cared for. Indeed, there are numerous biblical admoni-
tions to this effect (see Ebach 2012): “There will not be wanting poor in the land of
thy habitation: therefore I command thee to open thy hand to thy needy and poor
brother, that liveth in the land” (Deut. 15:11); “Thou shalt not refuse the hire of the
needy, and the poor, whether he be thy brother, or a stranger that dwelleth with
thee in the land, and is within thy gates: But thou shalt pay him the price of his
labour the same day, before the going down of the sun, because he is poor, and
with it maintaineth his life: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be reputed
to thee for a sin” (Deut. 24:14f); “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he
humbleth and he exalteth” (1 Kgs. 2:7).
In addition to the admonitions to care for the poor and needy, there are
several passages in the Old Testament that seek to expand the ethical responsi-
bility of society with regard to rich and poor (Ebach 2012): “Despise not a just man
that is poor, and do not magnify a sinful man that is rich” (Sir. 10:26); “Thou shalt
not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly. Respect not the person of the poor,
nor honour the countenance of the mighty. But judge thy neighbour according to
justice” (Lev. 19:15); and “Better is the poor man, that walketh in his simplicity,
than a rich man that is perverse in his lips, and unwise” (Prov. 19:1).
The deeper sense of these few passages above are not only reiterated in
Christianity, which started out, after all, as a sect of Judaism, but become key to
the later Christian message which successfully melds Jewish philanthropy with
ancient Roman/Greek attitudes toward civic assistance.
Much like the Jews in antiquity who, more often than not, lived as a subject
people or as a minority far from their home (diaspora), the early Christians, too,
often constituted a despised minority in their cities. As a result, the biblical
admonitions to care for the poor were also heeded by these early followers of the
new religion, namely care of their own in order to help the community as well as
providing help and employment to their fellow Christians. As Peter Brown writes:
“The early Christian communities realized that a cohesive community—on the
models of Jewish communities—could become strong. Thus, caring for their poor
exhibits more a sense of community than of society, i.e., citizenry. By offering
alms and the chance of employment to the poorer members of their community,
Jews and Christians could protect coreligionists from impoverishment, and hence
from outright vulnerability to pagan creditors or pagan employers” (Brown 1987,
262). Slowly, the Roman civic model was being changed from donating wealth in
order to “nourish” the city to a sense of solidarity between rich and poor. This
situation did, of course, alleviate somewhat the almost hopeless existence of the

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urban poor, who happened to be Christian or Jew living in their respective

communities, but, as Christ reminded his disciples, the poor will always be with
them (Mt. 26,11). However, Christ also has another type of poverty in mind as is
made clear in his admonition to the rich young man who wished to know what to
do in order to have everlasting life. Christ said the man should keep the com-
mandments and, further: “go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mk. 10, 21; also:
Mt. 19, 21). The implication is that the wealthy have no place in Paradise, which
became a problem as the Church progressed from a persecuted sect to a state
religion under Constantine. Early Church Fathers determined that Christ is saying
that the path to salvation is less encumbered if one becomes poor voluntarily and
also embraces that poverty, not, however, that one must abandon wealth in order
to be saved. In other words, one’s attitude toward one’s wealth is most important
(Weaver 1987).
This is very similar in sentiment to the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in
spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (“Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam
ipsorum est regnum cælorum.” Mt 5, 3). This beatitude will prove to be especially
significant during the medieval period, for in it is found the example of true
“poverty,” i.e., poverty in a real and beneficial sense. “Poor in spirit” is the key to
salvation and by becoming such, the believer achieves the status of an imitatio
Christi (for a brief outline of why Christ was “poor,” see: John Chrysostom, Homily
17 on Second Corinthians). This figurative aspect of poverty will become central in
the religious life of the Middle Ages, a point to which we shall return when
discussing the mendicant orders and popular religion. Of course, the care of the
needy remained a central duty of the Christian even after the religion had moved
away from its very early urban roots.
Essential to the broadening ability to care for the needy was the founda-
tion of Benedictine monasteries which, in addition to their primary functions
of “ora et labora” (“pray and work”), provided refuges for travelers and places
for care of the sick since the seventh century. With the slow growth of towns
and the coalescing of the Empire, the needy in towns were, while still desti-
tute, not totally without some access to medical care and some sustenance
through the distribution of alms. “In the first [Christian] centuries, encounters
with poverty in its most elemental forms led often enough to providing aid to
members of the church. During the decline of Roman power and authority, the
bishop of a city functioned increasingly as its protector. Only when society
itself became Christian was poor relief considered a duty of society as a whole.
One major factor in this development was the increasing shift of institutional
care to the towns and the growing involvement of brotherhoods in this work”
(Wischmeyer 2012).

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By the time of the Carolingians much progress had been made, especially
with the emergence of the Canons, who, according to Lindgren, apparently some-
times had to be “encouraged”: “Wenn Ludwig der Fromme die Einrichtung von
Hospitälern zu dem Zweck befiehlt, daß Kanoniker Gelegenheit finden sollen,
Barmherzigkeit zu üben, ohne mit einer entsprechenden Notlage im täglichen
Leben konfrontiert zu sein, so liegt darin eine Art List” (Lindgren 1980, 6; “When
Louis the Pious ordered the establishment of hospitals with the intent that Canons
should find the opportunity to practice compassion without having to be con-
fronted with corresponding hardship in daily life, it implied a type of ruse”).
Nonetheless, structures were being put into place that offered succor to the needy
and sick.
C The Middle Ages

I Urban and Rural Poverty
Urban poverty, on the whole, is better documented than rural in that records are
part of the urban landscape and, aside from perhaps a baptismal certificate, not
at all a component of the rural, aside, again perhaps, from bailiffs’ reports of
manors and other noble holdings. The one thing that rural and urban poor have
in common is that they have no voice of their own. One notable and extremely
moving exception is the collection of documents from the Cairo geniza (Cohen
2005). Geniza(h) simply means a storage place, in this case in the Ezra Synagogue
in Old Cairo. All documents which were no longer usable were stored in a geniza
because they were written in Aramaic using Hebrew letters, the language of God,
or, quite often, contained the name of God in an invocation. Among the many
documents are petitions for assistance in terms of money or clothing and the like.
Petitions were entertained not only from residents of Old Cairo, but also from
foreigners, who found themselves impoverished in the city. Women, too, made
use of appeals to charity. Most often they were widows, divorcees, or abandoned
wives with or without children and, as Cohen notes, were successful in being
granted charity: “the alms lists below (chapter 8) also show a huge representation
of their gender in receipt of public charity” (Cohen 2005, 84). Women in European
cities were not so fortunate as Sharon Farmer makes clear in her excellent study
(Farmer 2002, passim) where many women became prostitutes in order to survive.
The ubiquitousness of prostitutes in European countries has also been noted by
Michel Mollat: “the low wages paid to laundresses, seamstresses, and the like
encouraged the development of prostitution, as the Bourgeois of Paris observed
in 1419: ‘good maids, and good, proud women … of necessity have become

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wicked.’ … . In Paris there were brothels in every district, for example, in the rue
de Macon on the Left Bank, the rue de Glatigny on the IIe de la Cité, and the rue
Saint-Martin on the right Bank. Lyons’s brothels were in the center of town, near
Saint-Nizier. Dijon had seven of them, Avignon six, and Cologne ten. The situa-
tion was not much different in Venice, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Rome, Antwerp,
and London” (Mollat 1986, 245).
The situation in the countryside was not so structured. The needy were most
often the responsibility of the family and neighbors who aided in kind or through
alms to the local church which assumed the responsibility of distributing them.
And although from ca. 1100–ca. 1300 towns experienced considerable growth,
western European society was predominantly an agricultural one. Nonetheless,
according to Janet Coleman, by 1300 forty to sixty percent of the European
peasantry did not have enough land to support a family (ca. 4 hectare/family of
four (Coleman 1991, 625).
During the progression of the Middle Ages to the early modern world, demo-
graphics changed mightily. As Coleman noted above, a very large percentage of
the rural population could not support itself on the land and many went off to the
cities where they worked as day laborers, if they were able, and many turned to
begging or vagabonding, something that was very much frowned upon, as noted
earlier, or in the case of many women became domestics and laundresses, who
then, as already mentioned, were compelled by need to become prostitutes.
II Charity and Almsgiving
The glue which held Christian society together and which helped form Christian
identity long into the modern period, was the concept of charity, which, as noted
above, was assumed from Judaism into Christian practice and everyday life. Since
Christ did not make the picture of a rich man very attractive, but also since the
support of wealthy patrons was important to the establishment and maintenance
of the Church, apologists quickly found a way to allow the rich their riches while
remaining in good stead with the Church. The institutionalization of almsgiving,
making it a part of every Christian’s duty, was inspired. The only problem was
that the giving of alms was not to be ostentatious (i.e., the parable of the Pharisee
and the Publican, Luke 18, 9–14), but rather humble. The practice of almsgiving
to the poor was also extended to gifts to the Church as a means of salvation. Aside
from providing an opportunity for the wealthy to gain entrance into heaven, the
poor played no other significant role in medieval society. Geremek writes in this
regard: “The classic formulation of this doctrine may be found in the Life of St
Eligius ‘God could have made all men rich, but He wanted there to be poor people

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in this world, that the rich might be able to redeem their sins’” (Geremek 1994, 20)
Nonetheless, the onus was on the wealthy man to provide for the poor according
to his means. No amount is stipulated. The eleventh-century rhymed, penitential
sermon, Noker’s Memento mori (ca. 1085), provides an insight into the medieval
Christian view of appropriateness. Noker writes: “Swes er hie verleibet, taz wirt
imo ubilo geteilit. habit er iet hina gegebin, tes muoz er iemer furdir lebin. er tuo
iz unz er wol mac, hie noh chumit der tac. habit er is tenne niwit getan, so nemag
er iz nie gebuozan“ (Str. 15, 258; Whatever he neglects here will be held against
him [there]. [But] if he has given anything away, he will have everlasting life. Let
him do this [i. e., give alms, etc.] as long as he can, for the day [of reckoning] is
coming. If, by then, he has done nothing, he will never be able to make up for it).
Here, Noker is admonishing that the wealthy should properly administer their
wealth while alive; otherwise things will go badly for them after death. The poet
is, however, clear about the amount: he states simply “if he has given anything
(iet)…let him give as much as he can” (Str. 15, 258). This thought is also found, as
might be expected, in St. Augustine (354–430), who admonished in his sermon on
Matthew in response to the question concerning “how much one should give to the
poor,” “Ergo perdituri sunt res suas? Communicent, dixit: non, Totum dent.
Teneant sibi quantum sufficit, teneant plus quam sufficit” (Patrologia Latina
Database, caput IV, 5; Must they then lose all they have? He said, Let them
communicate, not Let them give the whole. Let them keep for themselves as much
as is sufficient for them, let them keep more than is sufficient). Augustine is, like
Noker centuries later, basically saying “give what you can.” Interestingly enough,
Augustine concludes this section by ruminating (further) on how much to give the
poor and remarks that the Scribes and Pharisees gave a tenth: “Nisi abundaverit
justitia vestra plus quam Scribarum et Pharisaeorum, non intrabitis in regnum
coelorum. Scribae et Pharisaei decimas dabant. Quid est? Interrogate vos ipsos.
Videte quid faciatis, de quanto faciatis; quid detis, quid vobis relinquatis; quid
misericordiae impendatis, quid luxuriae reservetis” (Patrologia Latina Database,
caput IV, 5; Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes
and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Scribes
and Pharisees gave the tenth. How is it with you? Ask yourselves. Consider what
you do, and with what means you do it; how much you give, how much you leave
for yourselves; what you spend on mercy, what you reserve for luxury). “Note-
worthy in the above statement is the use of the word justitia to describe the active
charity being demanded. By how much one‘s justitia should exceed that of the
Scribes and Pharisees, Augustine gives no concrete clue, for the answer must be
found in the heart of each individual. The amount is, in essence, inconsequential.
More important is the frame of mind of the donor, the reason for his justitia”
(Gentry 1981, 52).

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The use of the term justitia (Middle High German reht) is frequently found in
religious German writings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries—and, I suspect,
not only in Germany. For it is a concept that is as old as it is new: No justice, no
peace. From passages in the Old Testament, mentioned earlier, through the
Beatitudes, the concept of justice as the prerequisite for and result of peace forms
the cornerstone of medieval society. The one nourishes the other. The ideal king
was the rex iustus et pacificus (just and peaceful king), guaranteeing that his
subjects, poor or rich, noble or not, would be treated equally before the law.
Clearly, this was an ideal that was not always attained, but it codified, in essence,
the responsibility of those better off in society, for their charity to the needy and
the Church is an exemplary demonstration of justitia, i.e., giving each his/her due
according to his/her means. The needy, too, were admonished to demonstrate
their sense of “what was right,” i.e., just, by not taking more than they needed in
charity and alms. This, then, was their task in medieval society, helping the rich
get into heaven, but not over helping themselves to the largesse of the wealthy. Of
course, the needy were not the only “poor” in medieval society as the next section
will illustrate.
1 Ministeriales
Among Karl Bosl’s many contributions to the discipline of medieval history, many
of which are also of great value to literary researchers (Köhler 1970; Bumke 1976;
Kaiser 1978), perhaps the most enduring are those studies dedicated to the
ministerials and the conceptual pair potens/pauper. While similar groups existed
in France (vavasours) and in Italy (vavassori), and also in England (later to be
known generally as the “gentry”), in Germany, the ministerial phenomenon is
distinctive, a unique class which came into being in the post-Carolingian period,
during which the Church, not trusting the free nobility to protect its (the Church’s)
interests, turned to individuals of the peasantry who were militarily trained and
also served as administrators of great Church estates. Although still unfree, they
did receive allods and fiefs from which they were expected to support themselves,
much as a free noble would do. As the eleventh century progressed, the Salian
kings relied more and more on the class of the ministerials for support in their
ongoing power struggle with the free nobility. As a result of the former’s useful-
ness to the monarchy, they received more privileges and wealth so that by the
time of the Hohenstaufen monarchs, some members of the ministerial class were
among the wealthiest and most powerful in the Empire. Many of the most power-
ful, e.g., Markward von Annweiler, gained their freedom, as did all ministerials
eventually, during the course of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. Nothing

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really distinguished them from other members of the nobility except their initially
unfree origin which remained, however, a real impediment to full acceptance by
members of the free nobility. While intermarriage between the free nobility and
the ministerials was not uncommon, it was still frowned upon by those free noble
families that were not impoverished. Thus the daughter who married a ministerial
would have to assume his status as would any children of the match. In this
respect, the ministerials are worthy of mention because their originally unfree
status put them on a level with the “poor,” something that will become even
clearer in the potens/pauper discussion (III b.).
We can see a distinct echo of these sentiments in the Middle High German
heroic epic, the Nibelungenlied, when Kriemhild and Brünhild quarrel as to the
relative merits of their respective husbands, Siegfried and Gunther. Convinced
that Siegfried, although extremely wealthy and powerful, is Gunther’s vassal,
Brünhild accuses Kriemhild of being an “eigendiu” (l. 839; unfree female vassal),
meaning that the latter is of an inferior noble and social status. The quarrel
escalates to the point of no return and Kriemhild resolves to do everything to
demonstrate that she is a member of the free-born nobility and not the wife of a
ministerial. Interesting for the purposes of this essay is the word she uses to
describe her own status, adelvri (“free-born aristocracy,” l. 828), one of the very
rare if not the only occurrence of this legal terminology in classical medieval
German literature. In this connection, it is worth mentioning that at the time of
the writing down of the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200), there were few free-born
aristocratic families left in the Bavarian dialect area where the great epic had its
origins. Thus what might seem to us to have the usual marginal interest of an
historical footnote must actually have been of great interest to the listeners of that
area at that time.
Another view into the life of a ministerial is provided by Walther von der
Vogelweide (ca. 1170–ca. 1230). Walther, although a knight, was, like most
medieval German poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the minister-
ial class and not among the wealthiest of individuals. Some of the poets were in
the service of an aristocrat, i.e., Hartmann von Aue (ca. 1165–ca. 1210–1220), some
had secured positions at a court and others, perhaps the majority, wandered from
court to court, a sort of hand-to-mouth existence. Walther complained mightily
about this state of affairs until he wrote sometime before 1220:
Ich hân mîn lêhen, al die werlt, ich hân mîn lêhen.
nû enfürhte ich niht den hornunc an die zêhen,
und wil alle boese hêrren dester minre flêhen.
der edel künec, der milte künec hât mich berâten,
daz ich den sumer luft und in dem winter hitze hân.
mîn nâhgebûren dunke ich verre baz getân:

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sie sehent mich niht mêr an in butzen wîs als sî wilent tâten.
ich bin ze lange arm gewesen ân minen danc.
ich was sô voller scheltens daz mîn âten stanc:
daz hât der künec gemachet reine, und dar zuo mînen sanc.
(Lachmann, strophe 28, line 31-strophe 29, line 3)
[“Listen everybody, listen! I have my fief; I have my fief! Now I do not fear the frost on my
toes and I will have to kowtow less to cruel lords. The noble king, the generous king has
seen to it that I should have cool air in the summer and heat in the winter. My neighbors, I
deem, will also notice this improvement; they will no longer look down their noses at me as
they have done. Through no fault of my own, I have been too poor too long. I was so full of
scolding that my breath stank; the king has made that sweet again and with it also my
song.”]
Using very expressive images of the frosts of February on his toes, of being looked
down upon by others, of the many complaints he made about being poor so that
his breath reeked, Walther expresses his joy and thanks that he (finally) received
a fief from Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, an act of generosity, the poet sings that
not only sweetened his breath but also his song. An amusing anecdote for modern
eyes, perhaps, but clearly for Walther his existence was anything but a “song.”
The lament about the poet’s own needy state can also be found in the Parzival of
Wolfram von Eschenbach (ca. 1170–1220). In Walther’s case, however, the lament
was certainly more than just a commonplace.
2 Potens/Pauper
Bosl notes: “in der begrifflichen Konfrontation potens und pauper aber bedeutete
pauper schon in archaischer Zeit den Nichtherrschaftsfähigen und damit den
Gewaltlosen, Geschützten, nicht den Minderbemittelten (Bosl 1976, 134; in the
conceptual pair potens and pauper, pauper signified—even in ancient times—the
individual who is not entitled to wield power or to rule, i.e., the powerless and the
one in need of protection, not, however, one who is destitute). This is echoed by
Robert C. Figueira: “We are reminded of this when reading those Carolingian
authors who originally used the term pauper (as an adjective rather than a noun)
to identify the powerless in society in contrast to the powerful, the potentes.
Hence there were poor warriors (pauperes milites) and poor clerics (pauperes
clerici) as well as poor serfs (pauperes servi) or poor women (pauperes mulieres)”
(Figueira 2006, 108). During the medieval centuries, virtually everyone was a
pauper, including workers and artisans. With the growing influence and indepen-
dence of cities and the concomitant impoverishment of the nobility as well as the
social policy of the Church, labor was finally recognized as being of great worth

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(Gentry, 1979). The paupers were referred to in German as the “armen,” which is
best rendered, even if somewhat clumsily, as those without power or influence,
not necessarily as the needy. An excellent, if somewhat unusual, example of
powerlessness is provided by Hartmann von Aue’s verse narrative, the Arme
Heinrich (1190s)—literally “poor” Heinrich, but perhaps better translated as the
“unfortunate” Heinrich. Hartmann narrates the tale of a wealthy lord who enjoys
an exceedingly fortunate existence, but (apparently) neglects to thank God suffi-
ciently. Then, suddenly, he is struck down by leprosy. He loses everything and
goes to live out his days at the farm of a free peasant. He is then named the “arme
Heinrich,” i.e., the unfortunate Heinrich who is no longer part of society. He is
cured by Christ’s intervention only at the end after he realizes that he has not
properly acknowledged God’s gifts to him and after he accepts his fate and refuses
to let a young maiden die for him in order to effect a cure. It is only then that he is
cured and again referred to as the Lord Heinrich. While it is a gripping and daring
(Heinrich marries the daughter of the—to be sure—free peasant) story of noble fall
and redemption, of the transitory nature of wealth and life, it is also an accurate
depiction of the lot of the powerless and the outcasts of medieval society.
IV Poverty Movements
As Elizabeth Rapley notes in the Encyclopedia of Christianity, the late twelfth

century witnessed an upsurge in the foundation of religious orders and groups:
“demographic changes in western Europe—above all the growth of urban
centers—were creating a challenge for the church: a more demanding, more
informed laity on the one hand, a deficient and negligent secular clergy on the
other” (Rapley, Brill Online, 2012). Indeed, Christ’s words of advice to the young
man “go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mk 10, 21; also: Mt 19, 21) found
particular resonance. And certainly no one individual better embodied the fulfill-
ment of that command than St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226). With the official
foundation of the Franciscan Order in 1210 upon the endorsement of Pope Inno-
cent III, a new era began in the Middle Ages. The approval by the pope was
important for many reasons—the most obvious is that it prevented the Order from
being deemed heretical as had happened to the Waldensians, and it also kept the
Church together for another few hundred years until another monk, an Augusti-
nian, would demand reform and did not have Francis’s patience (Martin Luther).

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V Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century
The thirteenth century saw a proliferation of mendicant orders, dedicated to

preaching publicly. In addition to the Franciscans, this era witnessed the founda-
tion and growth of the Dominicans, the Augustinians, and the Carmelites as well
as a proliferation of many individual itinerant preachers. The mendicants also
depended on alms to survive and were, thus in a sense, in competition with the
poor themselves for resources, making the pursuit of voluntary poverty as a
means to perfection somewhat questionable (Wolf 2003). A further observation in
this regard is made by Geremek: “The Christian doctrine of poverty had little to do
with social reality; poverty was treated as a purely spiritual value. The medieval
exaltation of poverty did not alter the fact, however, that the pauper was treated
not as a subject but as an object of the Christian community” (Geremek 1994, 21).
That notwithstanding, there can be no dispute about the sincerity, fervor, and
effectiveness of the mendicant orders in ministering to the laity, especially in the
cities. However, as seems to happen with all grand ideas, within a century or two
of their founding, the preaching mendicant orders, including the Franciscans,
experienced decline.
The subtitle of Barbara Tuchman’s narrative history A Distant Mirror (1978) is
The Calamitous 14th Century, which when taking into account all that took place,
especially in the first half of that unhappy century, is almost a gross understate-
ment. Disastrous weather and floods ushered in the Great Famine that swept
through Europe between 1315 and 1322, bringing with it a death toll of over seven
million people, disproportionately from among the non-noble, rural population
at first, but then spread to urban areas which had grown quite large due to the
flight from the countryside (see also the contribution to this Handbook by Ben
Snook on “Threats and Disasters”). The concomitant societal decay is described
in vivid tones in the multi-authored anonymous Middle English Poem on the Evil
Times of Edward II, also known as The Simonie (ca. 1321–1327). The work relates
that the years of the Great Famine have resulted in a time of lawlessness, greed,
and societal upheaval. The sumptuary laws are no longer upheld so that one
cannot tell a nobleman from a merchant. Chivalry is a thing of the past and
knights have no interest in protecting the Church—not that the Church is so
worthy of protection in that the clergy, both high and low are greedy and ape the
customs, i.e., falconry, of the nobility. We are told that “[w]hen Truth was in the
land, he was a good friend, always ready to speak for poor men, who now go
down; may God avenge them! Pride and Greed judge overall and turn the laws
upside down; thus are poor men destroyed, while rich men don’t have the
slightest fear of God” (“The Wicked Age: Middle English Complaint Literature in
Translation,” The Simonie. The Medieval Forum; http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/

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complaintlit/simonie_trans.html). Although The Simonie refers to the general

condition in England, it can just as easily be extended to all European lands
affected by the Great Famine.
As implied in The Simonie the Church was in turmoil, especially during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with the papal exile in Avignon (1309–1377)
followed by the Western Schism (1378–1417). In addition, early calls for reform of
the Church were made. John Wycliffe (ca. 1320–1384), scholar at Oxford, parson,
and critic of the Church, was one of the very early voices, the “Morningstar of the
Reformation” to come in the sixteenth century. He called for a return to the
poverty of the early Church. His work inspired Jan Hus (1369–1415) and the
Lollardy movement of the late thirteenth century. Wycliffe also promoted the then
radical notion that the Christian should be able to read the Bible in English, a
project upon which he, himself, worked assiduously until his death. Although
possible reflections of his thinking can also be found in William Langland’s (ca.
1330–1387) Piers Plowman (three redactions: 1360s–1380s), this is almost cer-
tainly more coincidental than intentional, for the topics of the corrupt Church and
the grinding, demeaning stress of poverty were quite customary in the fourteenth
century. The preoccupation with Church reform continues into the fifteenth
century and beyond. In this context Thomas à Kempis’ (1380–1471), The Imitation
of Christ (ca. 1418) is worthy of mention.
In addition to the theological upheavals, the Plague, peaking 1348–1350,
swept through Europe claiming millions of victims, destroying entire villages and
livestock as well as decimating cities, and even isolated monasteries. There is no
better contemporary description of the plague in its physical as well as spiritual
and emotional effects than that found in the beginning paragraphs of the “First
Day” of Boccaccio’s (1313–1375) Decameron (1349–1351) in which he vividly por-
trays the ravages of the disease and the reactions to it among the people of
Florence and surroundings.
The fourteenth century also was a period of almost constant warfare; the most
notable is certainly the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). But there were many
regional conflicts among members of the nobility. Popular uprising by peasants
as well as in cities were quite numerous in both the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. And who suffered disproportionately in times of conflict and war?
Clearly, it was the poor. Not to be overlooked either is the fall of Constantinople to
the Turks in 1453. In the fifteenth century one looked back on a period of
devastation with an incredible population decline and loss of direction both
secular and religious. Theatrical portrayals of the Danse macabre from the mid-
fourteenth century, together with paintings, frescoes and engravings of the same
subject matter and Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) The Four Horsemen of the Apoc-
alypse (ca. 1497–1498) serve to illustrate the sense of pessimism and fear that

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informed the spirit of these two last centuries of the Middle Ages. Intellectual,
religious, and economic recovery was, to be sure, just around the corner, but for
the time being, the poor remained and continued their existence as described at
the beginning of this essay (see now the contributions to Scott, ed., 2012).
D Epilogue
“Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.”
Thomas Gray (1716–1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Select Bibliography
Brown, Peter, “Late Antiquity,” A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. Paul
Veyne, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, and London 1987), 235–311.
Coleman, Janet, “Property and Poverty,” The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought.
C. 350–1450 (Cambridge et al. 1991), 607–48.
Ebach, Jürgen, “Poverty: Old Testament,” Religion Past and Present, ed. Hans Dieter Betz, Don
S. Browning, Bernd Janowski, et al. (Brill Online 2012); http://referenceworks.brillonline.
com/entries/religion-past-and-present/poverty-COM_01085. [last accessed on January 29,
2015].
Figueira, Robert C., “Potens et Pauper: Charity and Authority in Jurisdictional Disputes over the
Poor in Medieval Cologne,” Plenitude of Power: The Doctrines and Exercise of Authority in
the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of Robert Louis Benson, ed. idem (Burlington VT, and
Aldershot 2006), 107–24.
Geremek, Bronislaw, Poverty: A History, trans. Agnieszka Kolakowska (Warsaw 1986; Oxford and
Cambridge, MA, 1994).
Jütte, Robert, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe, rpt. ed. (1994; New York and
Cambridge 2001).
Lindgren, Uta, Bedürftigkeit, Armut, Not: Studien zur spätmittelalterlichen Sozialgeschichte
Barcelonas (Münster 1980).
Mollat, Michel, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, trans. Arthur Gold-
hammer (Paris 1978; New Haven, NJ, and London 1986).
Mondolfo, Rodolfo, “The Greek Attitude to Manual Labour,” Past & Present 6 (1954): 1–5.
Raff, Thomas, “Das Bild der Armut im Mittelalter,” Armut im Mittelalter, ed. Otto Gerhard Oexle
(Ostfildern 2004), 9–25.
Veyne, Paul, “The Roman Empire,” A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed.
idem, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, and London 1987), 9–233.

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Charles W. Connell
Public Opinion and Popular Culture
A Introduction
While the modern world is quite caught up with the measurement of public opinion
and its impact, many scholars of the Middle Ages fifty years ago would have been
quite reluctant to consider the possibility of its existence in medieval society, much
less try to measure its impact on medieval culture (see, for example, Strayer 1957).
Yet today medieval scholars in many disciplines seem to make almost the opposite
assumption, namely that “public opinion” should be taken for granted and that its
influence was significant in many arenas of medieval public life.
References by modern scholars to the role played by public opinion in the
Middle Ages are now almost a hundred years in the making. Loren MacKinney
was probably the first to note its function in the Peace Movement of the eleventh
century (MacKinney 1930), T. F. Tout called attention to public opinion in relation
to the English parliament (Tout 1934), and Palmer A. Throop studied its role in
relation to the crusades of the thirteenth century (Throop 1940). However, it was
not until the 1970s that a more thorough, ongoing, and interdisciplinary study of
the role of the medieval public culture began in earnest.
For this article space limitations necessitate a narrow focus which will start
with the rise of public opinion in the Peace of God movement of the tenth and
eleventh centuries, then move to the use of propaganda to manipulate public
opinion during the so-called Investiture Contest; and its even broader use during
the Crusades. Next, we note the role of public opinion in the development and
response to heresy; then, the importance of preaching as the primary medium for
its dissemination and manipulation; and close with an examination of the more
theoretical presentations of the role of the public found in the fourteenth century.
B Medieval Public Opinion Study and the Field of

Communication
Even though they have studied it, historians have long been a bit wary of public
opinion, at least as reflected in the modern focus on polling techniques to
measure it. As Joseph Strayer pointed out in 1957, this was because of the nature
of the sources: “Little is known about anybody’s opinion for the larger part of

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recorded history and even when letters, diaries, and periodical publications
become common they reveal the opinion of only a small, articulate group. Though
convinced of the importance of public opinion historians could seldom study it
directly. They had to deduce its existence, its weight and direction from political
perturbations, much like astronomers trying to prove the existence of a new
heavenly body which they have not yet seen” (Strayer 1957, 263).
Historians of the Middle Ages have also struggled with issues of definition of
the most basic terms, including “public,” “opinion,” and the “people.” For
example, the Latin phrase Vox populi, vox Dei first appeared as a textual reference
in a letter of Alcuin (ca. 740–804) to Charlemagne (742–814) dated 798 with
reference to the election of bishops. Modern studies have suggested that this
proverb defines both the essence and the power of medieval public opinion, that
is, when the voice of the people is expressed with intention, it represents the voice
of God (Peters 1990a, 92; see also Gallacher 1945; Boas 1969 for the overall history
of the idea). However, as Ed Peters points out, the term populus itself is ambig-
uous and must be examined within each context of its use. In Charlemagne’s
world, for example, the major elements in the election of a bishop had carried
over from the sixth century wherein the king, the diocesan clergy, and the
aristocracy controlled the election, but “Just over the horizon would be found the
populus … who might on occasion be excited to play a role in a disputed succes-
sion. The possible titrations of this volatile mixture were as numerous as elec-
tions” (Geary 1988, 133). The inference that the populus was the laity of the
diocese in this instance is made clear though not readily verifiable. Jeremy Adams
was the first modern scholar to examine how the term populus was reshaped out
of the Latin text of Scripture into a distinct Christian term by the Latin Church
Fathers, but one which still “carried with it many of the older politico-juridical
meanings of earlier Roman usage” (Peters 1990a, 99; see Adams 1971). Jerome (ca.
347–420) and Augustine (354–430) used the term populus to denote a group
whose characteristic was simply “unity,” a unity derived either from law or “some
sort of political responsibility” (Adams 1971, 70). Apparently Augustine drew
upon Scipio’s (ca. 236–183 B.C.E.) view of the populus as a “gathering united in
fellowship by a common sense of right and a community of interest” (Adams 1971,
17 n. 13). Thus, Augustine regarded the populus as a body that embraced various
social classes, and he hardly ever used the term to refer to the “common people”
(Adams 1971, 28). In the eighth century, however, Alcuin’s use of the term was
cynical in its questioning of the legitimacy of the voice of the people as little more
than the “shout of the crowd,” and not the voice of God, as did Gerbert of Aurilliac
(Pope Sylvester II, ca. 946–1003) later on in the context of his attack on the
controversial election of an Archbishop of Rheims in 991 wherein a tumultuous
mob allegedly played a role (Peters 1990a, 100–103).

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Public Opinion and Popular Culture 1421
In the early eleventh century, at least two views of the role of the populus
emerged. Ademar of Chabannes (ca. 988–1034), for example, expressed the need
for human beings to work together “in concert with the saints and other super-
natural patrons to solve their problems” (Head 1992, 235). Andrew of Fleury
(fl. 1040), did not allot such a role to the populus. He conceded that the people
could discuss common problems, but not in order to influence any action;
instead, they had to engage in “prayerful dedication of themselves to the saints
which offered a solution” (Head 1992, 234–35). By the late eleventh century, it
appears that the phrase Vox populi, vox Dei moved in new directions and the
populus was seen to play a more legitimate role if its voice was raised to support a
program of ecclesiastical reform, or in favor of a pope or a saint’s cult. However,
some would argue that it was not clearly used in a political context until 1327
when Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury (1313–1327), preached a sermon
on the occasion of the deposition of Edward II (1312–1377) (Peters 1990a, 110). In
the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and John of Paris (1255–1306)
examined the authority of the populus, and in turn were succeeded in that pursuit
by both Marsiglio of Padua (ca. 1275–ca. 1342) and Dante (ca. 1265–1321) in the
fourteenth century when the phrase more clearly assumed a political sense, such
as in the political poetry of John Gower (ca. 1330–1408) and Thomas Hoccleve (ca.
1368–1426) (Peters 1990a, 110–11; 115–16).
Thus, it is not surprising that modern scholars have struggled with the
meaning of the term “people,” as well as the concept of “popular culture,” in
the context of the Middle Ages. In 1986, John Van Engen provided an overview
of some of the most prominent work of the second half of the twentieth century
which focused on the spread of Church reform and the development of lay
countercultural groups (Van Engen 1986a). For example, the Italians Morghen
and Manselli attempted to understand high medieval urban Christian culture in
terms of a distinction between a clerical and a newer “religious community of
lay society” which eventually found its identity and vitality in the world of
heretical reformers (Morghen 1974a; Manselli 1975). Drawing along lines of
education and religion, some have tried to distinguish a “high culture” from a
“low” (Delaruelle 1975; Le Goff 1980; Davis 1974; Gans 1974; Menache 1990, 12–
13; Watkins 2004), but others, like Aaron Gurevich building on the studies of
Peter Brown on late antiquity, have come to see more of a patchwork of
interwoven threads among the elements rather than any clear demarcation
(Brown 1982; Gurevich 1988, esp. 211–25; Bernstein 1998; for an alternative to
the approaches of Le Goff and Gurevich to popular culture, see Bynum 1997).
Norman Cohn in his The Pursuit of the Millennium took an even broader
approach to the culture of fringe groups (Cohn 1970), while Jean-Claude Schmitt
examined the spread of Christianity as an example of a native pagan culture

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being exposed to the influence of Christian missionaries (Schmitt 1983; see also
Davis 1974; and, Frijhoff 1979).
It was Jacques Le Goff who “first propagated the notion of a wholly distinct
religious culture among the people” and tried to use structural analysis as a way
of “getting at a submerged popular culture in which religion … played a key role
as a cohesive force” (Van Engen 1986a, 528–29; see Le Goff 1980). Le Goff and
Schmitt argued that there were two distinct cultures, “one clerical and bookish,
the other popular, oral and customary; the first accessible through traditional
intellectual and spiritual categories, the second mainly through cultural anthro-
pology and comparative religions” (Van Engen 1986a, 529). The latter mode of
analysis according to Van Engen has led historians to separate the study of folk
practices from that of either mere paganism or as the essence of medieval
popular culture, but he also cautions that “to argue that the people had a
wholly distinct religious culture, not somehow amalgamated into Christian
practice, is quite another matter” (Van Engen 1986a, 530; Tentler 1985; Murray
1974; Gurevich 1988, 153–75). There are also issues of methodology which affect
and separate the approach of historians and scholars of folklore in using these
materials to evaluate the concept of “popular” (Schmitt 1974; 1981; Watkins
2004; Gurevich 1988, 176–210). The major evidence used by Le Goff and Schmitt
to support their argument is that of the thirteenth-century exempla, but Van
Engen remarks that studies of the sermon literature using these tales “reveal an
outlook shared, more or less, between preacher and audience” (Van Engen
1986a, 531; see also Murray 1972; 1974; and, esp. D’Avray 1985). Ultimately, Van
Engen concluded his overview by stating that the medieval Christian culture is
best understood as a complex and diverse spectrum of elements rather than one
of “two radically different religious cultures,” and this still holds true (Van
Engen 1986a, 532; for an overview of the work of scholars such as Duby,
Gurevich, Schmitt, and Geremek in the context of the Annales School approach
to the study of mentalities within the context of popular culture and opinion,
see Tinsley 2010, 875–79).
As early as 1972 Colin Morris had taken a broad perspective on the issue of
communication among the elements of medieval society and challenged the view
that cultural interchange was dictated by the clergy and did not reach the
“people” for the most part (Morris 1972). Assuming that the people meant the
masses of lay society, Morris noted that there were ways to reach them and used
the examples of the peoples’ crusades, heresy, pilgrimage, cults, songs, stories,
and preaching to make his point. He viewed the sermon as the most obvious
means of “publicity,” and used two French songs to illustrate how song was the
next most popular way to reach a broad audience. He called attention to broad
movements such as the Truce of God, the so-called Gregorian Reform, and the

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Crusades to conclude that all of them took shape and made an impact as the
result of widespread persuasion (Morris 1972, 14).
In 1990 Sophia Menache picked up on the cue from Morris and extended his
analysis of the role of communication in the Middle Ages (Menache 1990). Begin-
ning with Alcuin’s condemnation of the maxim Vox populi, vox Dei, which she
underlines as the “authoritarian characteristic of ecclesiastical writers in the
feudal period,” Menache moved on to trace the development of communication
broadly as an “integral part of the process of social, economic and political
integration” in medieval society at that time. Her focus in this study is “political
communication” by which she means “the deliberate passing of a political mes-
sage by a sender to a receiver, with the intention of making the receiver behave in
a way that otherwise he might not do” (Menache 1990, 6; emphasis hers). As part
of this process, the theory for which was drawn from earlier twentieth-century
communication studies, primarily in the United States, she defined three systems
of interaction, including that of the opinion-making process (Menache 1990, 6;
see also Kann 1969; David 1957; Feagans et al., ed., 1984). Seeing the develop-
ment of communication as part of the process of socio-economic change in the
central Middle Ages, she argued that the change led to the cultivation of public
opinion as a result of the need for “competing voices of authority to place their
claims for supremacy before the public” (Menache 1990, 5). Her study provides
several examples with which to illustrate how the Church and the monarchs used
various sources and media to wage propaganda campaigns to persuade the
public, and the case of heresy to demonstrate how the margins of society elicited
particularly strong reactions and opportunities to manipulate the media. Follow-
ing the publication of Menache’s study, there has been little question raised about
the reality of medieval public opinion, though there is still much need to avoid
the anachronistic use of the term and to further illustrate its function in various
medieval public arenas over time.
A number of studies of modern public opinion which may be helpful in the
further analysis of medieval public opinion have appeared since the publication
of Menache’s The Vox Dei. For example, The Anatomy of Public Opinion by the
Shamirs, and Splichal’s Public Opinion, Developments and Controversies in the
Twentieth Century provide excellent overviews of the research as well as insight
regarding some of the more interesting and controversial concepts (Shamir and
Shamir 2000; Splichal 1999). In his review of the literature, Splichal takes note of
the work of Noelle-Neumann and her model of the “spiral of silence,” which he
identified as the “first integrated model of public opinion formation in the
empirical sociological tradition” (Splichal 1999, 169 n. 9; Noelle-Neumann 1993).
Starting with the reality that “society threatens deviant individuals with isola-
tion,” Noelle-Neuman provides a reminder that in any society individuals fear

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isolation, and thus are forced to “assess the climate of opinion,” which often
leads many into silence and mass opinion to gain momentum (Splichal 1999, 171).
In arguing for a broader concept of public opinion in historical context, Noelle-
Neumann avers that “there are indeed good historical reasons to adopt a concept
of public opinion which is based on fear of isolation and its result, the spiral of
silence … . societies [may] differ in the degree to which its [sic] members fear
isolation, but all societies contain pressures to conform, the fear of isolation
makes those pressures effective” (Noelle-Neumann 1993, 88). In this model public
opinion operates as a means of social control.
Noelle-Neumann’s views are similar to those published earlier by Tamotsu
Shibutani, who stated that a “public” is made up of “people who regard them-
selves as likely to be involved in the consequences of an event and are sufficiently
concerned to interest themselves in the possibility of control” (Shibutani 1966).
This view is reflected later by the Shamirs who considered public opinion as part
of a “social system that mediates and accommodates social integration and social
change” (Shamir and Shamir 2000, 2–3).
Related to the study of public opinion, much of more recent scholarship has
been devoted to the complementary concept of the “public sphere” as developed
by the work of Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 1989; Calhoun, ed., 1992; see also
Classen 2002; Koller 2010). Though Habermas focused on the post-medieval era of
history, particularly the eighteenth century, where he argues that the public
sphere first emerged as a necessary place for public deliberation of issues in
developing liberal political institutions, he raised the question of the nature of the
public sphere itself and when and how it might have influenced the political
sector. Pincus and Lake, however, in their article on the applicability of the
concept to the sixteenth century in England, decided that it is worth moving the
“public sphere” backward in time so that it is useful in understanding issues from
the Reformation to the eighteenth century (Lake and Pincus 2006, 1). In pushing
back even further in time, James Masschaele examined the English public market-
place of the period from 1150–1300, where he argues that even though the “type
of public sphere created in the marketplaces of medieval England did not lead
directly to the advent of modernity … does not mean that medieval England
lacked a public sphere, or that its public sphere was socially insignificant, or that
its public sphere was irrelevant to the power relations of its own day” (Masschaele
2002, 419–20).
Before moving forward to examine examples of the development of medieval
public opinion, let us summarize assumptions about public opinion in modern
scholarship that guide the use of the term in this essay. First, public opinion is so
complex that there is still no generally accepted definition of the term. It is
dynamic and not simple to measure, even in today’s world of scientific polling

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techniques. Second, public opinion does exist whether we measure it or not. It is

volatile and there are numerous publics, not one mass public to consider in
measuring its nature and impact in any historical period. Third, in trying to track
public opinion it is good practice to follow the process of communication that
identifies the senders and receivers of messages that attempt to influence action
by larger numbers of the populus.
C Public Opinion Emerges in the Peace of God

Movement
Our focus in tracing the development of public opinion in the Middle Ages will be
on situations and events where there is an attempt to reach broad audiences to
influence actions that affect a broad cross-section of medieval society in the
period from ca. 1000 to ca. 1500 C.E. Earliest in this era there occurred a struggle
for power among the nobles of Frankish society which resulted in what many
perceived as anarchy leading to violent seizures of property from both the laity
and the Church. In response, the ecclesiastical leaders made an unprecedented
move in turning to the wider population of their dioceses in an attempt to bring
about greater order. This became a movement known as the Peace of God. Two
major components of that movement, namely the increasing popularity of the
cults of saints and the holding of Peace councils, presented opportunities for the
use of propaganda, preaching, and other tools of the Church to persuade the
warrior elites to take oaths to preserve the peace.
Decades of modern research on the Peace of God have been gathered by
Thomas Head and Richard Landes in The Peace of God: Social Violence and
Religious Response in France Around the Year 1000 (Head and Landes, ed., 1992),
which includes an article by Frederick Paxton on the historiography of the move-
ment (Paxton 1992; see also Kennelly 1962). As early as 1857 the study of the Peace
of God had romanticized its significance to the point that Ernest Semichon had
gone so far as to claim the origin of bourgeois liberties with the activities of the
movement (Semichon 1869). Subsequent studies quickly undermined this ana-
chronistic claim as to the outcome, but recent work has more clearly established
the role of the masses and the attempt to influence them during the Peace of God.
As Paxton pointed out, Loren MacKinney in 1930 took note of the large number of
commoners who attended the Peace councils, and that the Church learned early
on the power of bringing relics to the councils to attract the crowds who would
pressure the knights to take oaths to preserve the peace. Similarly, Carl Erdmann,
in his first edition of his study of the origins of the Crusades in 1933, “character-

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ized the Peace of God as a necessary precondition for the holy wars” (Paxton
1992, 27; see Erdmann 1977). In 1957 Bernhard Töpfer introduced the Marxist
thread of interpretation of the popular aspects of the Peace movement by arguing
that social conditions of that time led to widespread popular unrest which
allowed the church to take advantage. According to Paxton, Töpfer argued that:
“The church did not create public opinion, although it did set out to mold it to its
own purposes and to gain its support” for imposing its sanctions of excommuni-
cation and interdict (Paxton 1992, 28; see Töpfer 1957, 40; 81–83; cf. Töpfer 1992).
Numerous councils in southern France, beginning as early as 989 at Char-
roux, followed by Limoges in 994 and then Poitiers (ca. 1000), seemed to be
connected in intent and marked with similar techniques and came to be called
Peace councils. Limoges in 994 is more widely known from the account of our
most prominent source, Ademar of Chabannes (ca. 988–1034), who indicated that
the local bishop, abbot, and duke decided to hold a three-day event in response
to an epidemic. Relics from all over the region were used to attract a large crowd
of people who witnessed a healing miracle connected to the body of St. Martial
(according to Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594), he was the first bishop of Limoges,
date unknown), and in thanks the duke, along with his men, “swore a pact of
peace and justice” (Landes 1992, 186). Councils continued well into the eleventh
century, each of which seemed to combine the custom of dealing with natural
disasters by holding public penitential ceremonies and the newer technique of
“drawing massive crowds of inspired people to Peace councils by gathering relics
in open fields” (Landes 1992, 187). In Landes’s view these large crowds “created a
powerful public arena of approval for cooperative lords and warriors and of
disapproval for disturbers of the peace,” and thus a public was used to influence
a desired political action (Landes 1992, 194–95).
Other articles in the Head and Landes collection support the concept of the
significance of collective action as it developed in the Peace movement. Thomas
Head, for example, argues that the councils “allowed the populus—that ill-defined
collection of members of the lower orders who had no independent personal voice
in public affairs—to become involved in political events as a collective actor”
(Head 1992, 236). Head also recognized the Janus nature of collective action—it
could be “turned into a revolt against power of the hierarchy, both secular and
ecclesiastic,” with the latter being more significant in the case of the rise of
medieval heresy (Head 1992, 236). Christian Lauranson-Rosaz points out the
increasing significance of the use of relics to attract crowds of both rustici and
milites to a common purpose, such as at the council of Coler (ca. 980). The latter
was not a major council, but it marked another early example of what became a
pattern of the better-known Peace councils wherein “relics added the force of
heaven’s approval to the decrees of the church, pronounced in their presence, on

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earth,” that is Vox populi, vox Dei (Lauranson-Rosaz 1992, 125). Geoffrey Koziol
drew attention to how the ideals proclaimed in the Peace councils came to expand
beyond France, and became a part of the climate of opinion in Flanders at the
local level because monks, bishops, and canons who attended the councils
brought the ideas expressed home to the parishes in their own towns and villages
(Koziol 1992, 258; see also Hoffmann 1964). Hans-Werner Goetz concluded his
article in this volume by affirming the idea that the Peace movement was “direc-
ted against those elements that disturbed peace and order,” and that it was
clearly a popular movement (Goetz 1992, 278–79).
Further study by Charles Connell led to the reaffirmation of the origins of
some of the more modern aspects of public opinion in the Peace movement
(Connell 2011). He argues, for example, that the movement helped to delineate
better distinctions between the lay and the ecclesiastical, the rich and the poor, or
the milites and the unarmed interests or publics. These councils and their devices
also helped to “define more clearly the means by which public opinion was
known, the media through which it was communicated, and the ways in which it
was made effective. The Church first controlled the public opinion network,
developed its symbols, its rhetoric, and its goals. Yet, by the mid-eleventh century
the lay propagandists also understood the value of its manipulation and chal-
lenged the leadership role of the Church in the control of public opinion” (Connell
2011, 185–86). He concludes with several observations. First that the medieval
populus in this era seems to have functioned in ways that correspond with the
Noelle-Neumann model, namely that it was dynamic, that it “responded best in a
highly-charged emotional environment,” and that it was “subject to manipulation
in fear-laden situations to affect social control” (Connell 2011, 191). Even though
fickle and leading to unintended consequences, as noted by Head above, we can
detect a rather sophisticated understanding of the nature of public opinion begin-
ning to emerge in medieval culture.
D Public Opinion and Propaganda in the

Investiture Contest
In 2000 Maureen Miller developed a significant elaboration on how the distinc-
tions among medieval cultures that began to emerge around the year 1000 were
more individually portrayed in various ways, especially in her examination of
how the forms of central public space in lay and ecclesiastical courts of Italy were
used to distinguish one from the other (Miller 2000). She placed her analysis of
the evolution of clerical culture within the debate among scholars about the

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distinction between elite and popular culture. Her point was to argue that the
debate had tended to place a stigma upon the concept of “clerical culture.” In this
article Miller sought to “redeem and redefine” it as a useful category to under-
stand in order to comprehend more fully the struggle for power that occurred in
the wake of the movement toward church reform that is often labeled the Inves-
titure Contest, or alternatively the Gregorian Reform.
Miller’s analysis presents a way to clarify better what amounts to the points
of view and/or climates of opinion that one might most often find within two of
the medieval publics, namely the ecclesiastical and the lay, at least with reference
to their conceptions of authority based on religion, which is her focus. She argues
that in the eleventh century, “European Christians displayed an increasingly
intense interest in defining new differences through religion” (Miller 2000, 1098),
which resulted in the increased violence against religious “others” (particularly
Jews and Muslims). However, it also led to a call for distinctions within Christian-
ity itself, namely the view that the clergy should be different from the everyday
Christian lay person. Miller takes issue with those who identify the origins of this
reform among the ecclesiastical leaders, even Gregory VII for whom the reform is
named (see Fliche 1924–1937; Morghen 1974b; Blumenthal 1988; Fornasari 1989).
Instead, she argues that the movement had “its origins in the demands of lay
people that their clergy be held to higher behavioral standards” (Miller 2000,
1098; also see earlier work by Violante 1955–1956 and 1956–1959; and later
examples, Moore 1980; Howe 1988; Remensnyder 1992; Miller 1993; and Leyser
1994).
The work of Miller and others has broadened the scope of earlier studies on
the way in which propaganda and other means of communication helped to
influence various publics in the struggle for power between the papacy and the
emperors of the eleventh century. Gerd Tellenbach, for example, examined how
the early attitude of the Church toward the world had been split between one of
withdrawal versus one of an expanding conversion through missionary work, but
was changing in the eleventh century toward a more certain embracing of the
Church’s public role in the world (Tellenbach 1991). I. S. Robinson took the lead in
studying the actual polemical literature to see how the polemicists focused on
issues of obedience and rebellion against authority in the period from 1073 to
1095 (Robinson 1978b). His work focused on the various forms of polemic, includ-
ing debates, treatises, and letters that surrounded the reigns of Emperor Henry IV
(1050–1106) and Pope Gregory VII (ca. 1025–1085) to determine how they used the
tools of rhetoric to reach out to their respective publics in the struggle for power.
Robinson’s analysis of the struggle between the emperor and pope illustrates the
development of two major “publics” within the secular and ecclesiastical hierar-
chies. German and Italian princes, as well as the Saxons, and the Normans in

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southern Italy supported the pope, and many of them offered assistance for more
than political reasons. Those, such as the Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1046–
1115), had been influenced by reforming ideas as propagated in the reformers’
treatises. In addition to his court and most loyal secular lords, there were many
German bishops and abbots who owed their positions to Henry IV and supported
him for practical reasons, but who also had been persuaded in favor of the
emperor’s position regarding the correct order in society. Wilbert, Archbishop of
Ravenna (ca. 1029–1100) was declared anti-pope Clement III in 1080 by Henry IV,
and attacked Gregory VII as a “schismatic and disturber of the peace, whose
machinations threatened the most sacred bonds of Christian society” (Robinson
1978b, 7). Other scholars have studied the polemical literature as evidence of
“medieval resistance theory” or as part of the debate about the “just war” prior to
the start of the First Crusade (Carlyle and Carlyle 1928–1932; Erdmann 1977; for a
survey of the publicists, see Mirbt 1894). Each of these studies recognized the
growing development of attention paid to constituent publics, as well as the
masses of the populus.
In cultivating constituencies there were several other options used by the
Church in the Gregorian era. By the early eleventh century, Cluny had clearly
become part of the papal network of influence, and its daughter houses were
included throughout Europe by the time of Gregory VII. On the royal side,
Henry IV similarly used the bishops he had appointed to maintain and expand his
support. Each could send letters or treatises developed by the various propagan-
dists to persuade and control the image. A model of how this worked for
Gregory VII has been studied by Robinson in a separate article wherein he
determined how Gregory likely used his personal influence to win converts to his
side, and they in turn became his advocates to persuade others. In this case,
William of Hirsau (ca. 1030–1091) traveled to Rome in 1075 to secure confirmation
of the charter for his abbey that he had received from Henry IV. Although he came
as a supporter of the emperor, he became ill during the trip, and while remaining
in Rome he met with Gregory several times. The pope succeeded in winning
William to his cause. Upon his return to Hirsau he was a “radical Gregorian,” and
his monks became polemicists and preachers of Gregory’s reforms who were
noted for “sowing the greatest discord everywhere” (Robinson 1978a, 2). In other
cases, the pope used the power of a papal summons to bring those suspected of
disobedience to Rome for synods, and used the occasions to administer “remedial
treatment” to the erring clergy. Those successfully remediated would return and
become advocates for Gregory’s reforms (Robinson 1978a, 3). A variation of this
story is that of Hugh, Bishop of Die (1074–1082) and Archbishop of Lyons (1082–
1106), who had been raised to his original seat by a local spontaneous election,
went to Rome for confirmation and became a trusted associate of Gregory. There-

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after, he served as “a link between Rome and a ‘friendship circle’ of French

reformers,” and often cooperated with the Abbot Hugh of Cluny (1024–1109), who
was “the central figure in the most extensive monastic friendship circle in Wes-
tern Christendom” (Robinson 1978a, 4).
The network of Gregory VII demonstrates the force of personality and “charis-
matic leadership” in the manipulation of public opinion, and it was not limited to
influence over the ecclesiastical public. As Robinson notes, it also included
important members of the laity, such as Duke Rudolf of Swabia (1025–1080), and
Italian noblewomen such as the Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1046–1115). The
evidence for this network is found in the extant letters of the pope. These letters
are in the tradition of the “cult of friendship” that marks letter collections of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, including those of St. Anselm (ca. 1033–1109) and
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) (on the ‘golden age of letters” in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, see Constable 1976). Typical of the messages exchanged in
the papal correspondence are prayers for the recipients and an expression of
interest in their spiritual welfare. Yet, it is also clear that these letters of
Gregory VII were used to persuade important members of the network to pursue
some course of action in support of the papal reform program (Robinson 1978a,
8–10). Moreover, the influence of Gregory extended beyond the high-level pre-
lates and laity. When it was clear to him for example, that the bishops might not
diligently enforce his decrees, he would address the laity in more direct fashion
(e.g. in the decrees of the Roman synod of Lent 1075) “to enforce the reform of the
Church by boycotting simoniac and married priests and by putting pressure on
the bishops who countenanced them” (Robinson 1978a, 11). In this case, Gregory
called for the people to bring the clergy “to their senses through the shame of the
world and the rebuke of the people” (Ep. Vag. 6 in Registrum II.66 as quoted and
translated in Robinson 1978a, 12). The impact of this was apparently widely felt,
because the subjects of Henry IV reportedly complained that “you have armed
subjects against prelates” (Robinson 1978a, 12). This call to the power of shame
and rebuke by the “people” to bring about reform of the Church has been labeled
“central to the history of Gregory VII’s pontificate” and was used throughout
Christendom during his reign (Robinson 1978a, 12–15, 22).
Similar evidence of the use of letters in the short-lived investiture debate in
England is found in the correspondence of the saintly Archbishop Anselm of
Canterbury (ca. 1033–1109), who led the surge of propaganda in support of
church reform (Cantor 1958, 168–70). In sum, the power of letters is defined by
Menache in these words: “medieval letters were quasi-public literary docu-
ments, written to be collected and publicized in the future, and intended to be
read by more than one person … . The papal court was a leading user of
correspondence,” whether by circular letters sent to all churches of an area, or

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by papal bulls that were widely diffused among the clergy and the political elite
(Menache 1990, 16).
In recent years, there has been a successful challenge to what Maureen Miller
labeled the “top down” trajectory interpretation of the Gregorian reform whereby
a small handful of elite clergy surrounding Gregory VII “artfully channeled the
discontents of the masses into a permanent reordering of western society” (Miller
2003, 26). The more prominent view now is that the local populus had as much to
do with change as did the ecclesiastical hierarchy. She refers to examples such as
the broad-based demand for a chaste clergy to perform the liturgies of the Church
in order for the laity to have a better guarantee of salvation (Miller 2003, 27; see
also Remensnyder 1992).
In the example of the Investiture Contest, the weapon used to enforce the
pledges of support gained by the various means of persuasion outlined above, as
in the case of the enforcement of vows to secure the peace in the Peace councils,
was excommunication. This very public exclusion from the rites and sacraments of
the Church for those who violated their vows or who opposed the church reform
relied heavily on the “rebuke of the people.” It became even more significant as
the canon lawyers began to define its range of potential use more clearly in the
process of church reform and the increase of papal centralization of power. The
use of excommunication had grown more widespread during the Truce of God of
the early eleventh century, and Gregory VII himself used the tool against Henry IV
in the Lenten synod of 1076. By 1080, he had to remind the ecclesiastical leaders
that they had often deprived spiritual prelates of their offices, and that their
authority over secular rulers was even greater, so they should not back down
(Vodola 1986, 20; for the use of excommunication in the Truce of God, see Mirbt
1894, 131–213; Hoffmann 1964, 4–20; Bisson 1977).
The link between the deposition of a monarch and excommunication which
released his subjects from allegiance to him was tenuous and had to be used
carefully in light of the growing awareness of the role of the populus. Gregory
recognized this in 1076, for example, when he separated the two actions because
the German princes had agreed to withdraw their allegiance from Henry until he
obtained absolution from the pope. Without the willingness of this public to rise
in opposition, the deposition would be of no consequence and Gregory realized it
(Vodola 1986, 22). Despite his use of it, the pope recognized the danger of too
many excommunications back-firing because depriving the faithful of their spiri-
tual nourishment might turn a large part of the public against the Church. Thus,
in 1078 he issued the canon Quoniam multos which limited the punishment for
those who associated with excommunicates (Vodola 1986, 24).
The issue of condemning those who associated with excommunicates did not
go away after the death of Gregory VII in 1085. Subsequent Lateran Councils, for

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example, took up the question again and again. Si quis suadente of Lateran II
(1139) unfortunately widened the gap between the clergy and the laity on this issue
by excommunicating those who laid violent hands on clerics, and by creating a
new form of excommunication (latae sententiae) whereby a sentence of excommu-
nication took place immediately as the violation occurred, without any trial
needed (Vodola 1986, 28–29). The Third Lateran Council of 1179 excommunicated
all those who joined a heretical sect, or even those who hid, defended or otherwise
associated with substiitute heretics for them (Vodola 1986, 30). This opened up the
door to wider social abuses of public shunning in the midst of growing urban
populations. As Vodola states, excommunication put the sinner into the hands of
the devil, and “By withdrawing its protection, the community gave the devil power
to rage inside an excommunicate and disintegrate his personality” (Vodola 1986,
46). But more importantly the individual was separated from the earthly commu-
nity of the faithful. In the twelfth century Gratian had developed the canon law
(C. 11, q. 3 dict. post c. 21, 24, 26, as cited in Chodorow 1972, 89) to insure its public
nature, that is, “that no separation … was possible without a publicly read
sentence of excommunication and though an unjust sentence could be appealed,
the sentence was effective until overturned by a higher court” (Chodorow 1972,
89). Thus, the individual incurred infamia that often could not be erased in the
court of public opinion even if the sentence was later overturned.
Reflective of the vagaries of public opinion and rumor in society, the term
“infamy” is difficult to pin down. Beginning with its evolution in Roman law, and
because, as Ed Peters relates, in medieval Europe it left a trail in both secular and
canon law, “as well as to the broader concepts of shame and honor, its history
and nature have exercised [a range of scholars]—most recently in terms of
mechanisms of social marginalization—social historians” (Peters 1990b, 43; see
also samples of related scholarly work in various disciplines in Peristiany, ed.,
1966; Piers and Singer 1971; Duerr 1988; Miller 1985; Würmser 1981; Robreau 1981;
Boitani 1984; Geremek 1987). The later medieval complexity surrounding the term
derived in large part from the re-emergence of the Corpus iuris civilis and its study
in Bologna, where “the powerful roots of canon law in conscience and community
opinion as well as in the legal arena produced Gratian’s awareness of two types of
infamy,” which were equivalent to Roman legal infamy on the one hand, and “the
other reflective of general reputation, popular opinion, the doctrines of scanda-
lum and notoriety” (Peters 1990b, 67; see also, Migliorino 1985). By the time of the
canonist Stephen of Tournai (1128–1203) in his writings around 1165, the two had
become infamia iuris and infamia facti.
The Church understood that it was taking a different road from Roman legal
precedents in its attempts to control sin through its definitions of infamia. As
Peters tells us, “Infamia facti is, in a sense, the canonistic development of earlier

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Carolingian mal fama” (Peters 1990b, 68; see also Migliorino 1985, chpt. 5). In
Gratian’s characterization of infamia facti, “infamy occurred not through a statu-
tory offense, the declaration of a judge, or the performance of an infamous act,
but infamia created by certain public knowledge that is widespread” (Peters
1990b, 69). In the latter sense then Gratian was recognizing the community
practice where fama was used to mean “common knowledge.” According to Chris
Wickham: “Fama, most often publica fama (public fame), sometimes vulgaris et
frequens fama (common and frequent fame), communis fama (common fame), or
consentiens fama (accepted fama), was one form of knowledge in twelfth-century
Tuscany” (Wickham 2003, 16). Testimony from case witnesses, for example, when
asked what “publica fama” meant, elicited the response that it is “what all say
publicly,” and this idea that the views of a lot of people (a public) carried a lot of
weight is significant for our understanding of the growing power of public
opinion in the medieval world (Wickham 2003, 17). It not only reflected commu-
nity norms, but it became the enforcer of those norms, and in the case of infamia
or mal fama, shaped the nature of the penalty of exclusion and the loss of a good
reputation.
E Public Opinion and the Crusades

Perhaps the greatest and longest lasting stimulus to the development and manip-
ulation of public opinion in the Middle Ages began in November 1095 with the
call for the First Crusade by Pope Urban II (1042–1099). Pope Urban’s speech at
Clermont that year has long been the subject of much debate regarding its
intention and the nature of its reporting. However, there has been little question
about its impact or that of the subsequent preaching of a crusade by the pope
himself in south-central France in the spring of 1096 which resulted in the
launching of a crusade army numbering around 100,000 participants (Cowdrey
1970; 1976; 1995; Erdmann 1977; Riley-Smith 1986; Asbridge 2004; the scholarship
on the crusades in general, and the first in particular, is enormous; see the
bibliographical overviews, for example, in Purcell 1975, Cole 1991, and most
recently, Constable 2001 and Housley 2006). What has been more difficult to
determine is the rationale for such a widespread response among the laity.
According to Marcus Bull, who has studied “The Roots of Lay Enthusiasm for
the First Crusade” (Bull 1993b), and the nature of the lay response to the crusades
perhaps more than any recent modern scholar, it is a complex matter which
cannot be easily understood on the basis of either medieval culture or modern
theory (Bull 2003). Early on, for example, Bull concluded that the key to the
success of the First Crusade is that it “was a happy marriage between what were

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conceived of as the interests of the church as a single entity and the mundane
preoccupations of thousands of discrete individuals,” namely the “pious in-
stincts” that were “perfectly capable of motivating a long absence from home on
a dangerous and arduous undertaking” (Bull 1993b, 372). More recently, taking
another look at the issue of motivation for crusading to account for the wide-
spread positive response from the populus, Bull examined the evidence of miracle
stories to understand more clearly what might have been the climate of opinion
underlying the popular response. In this article, Bull concluded that the persis-
tence of an interest in Jerusalem and the Holy Land as an ongoing attempt to
locate the saints in a broader historical context reflected a broad-based interest,
or, in his words, developed the “evocative power of Jerusalem as a motif in the
crusade message,” which Urban and others understood as they set forth to preach
the crusades (Bull 2003, 34). In this regard, he argued further that similar images
and metaphors in the evidence provided by charters “suggests a close correspon-
dence with the terms of reference being used in 1095–1096 as the crusade
message criss-crossed Europe. One noteworthy feature of this group of ideas is
the skillful manner in which it elides perils to the individual body with the
hazards faced by the corporate body of believers” (Bull 2003, 24). Thus, the
message in the account of the speech of Urban by Robert the Monk (d. 1122) that
individual Christians are circumcised or decapitated is set beside the image of the
Holy Places in Jerusalem being dishonored and polluted. In Bull’s view, “Cler-
mont became an encapsulation of informed contemporary impressions of what
made western European society respond to the crusade message” (Bull 2003, 22).
Reaching the medieval populus to persuade it to crusade meant the launching
of a concentrated effort focused on one public in particular, the knights who
could afford to travel and who could fight. But in reality the message was so
powerful that it had unintended consequences which underlined the importance
of the medium of preaching. Penny Cole has led the research on crusade preach-
ing. She called attention to the importance of Urban, but she also reviewed the
research on Peter the Hermit (d. 1115) and the debates over the effectiveness of his
preaching (Cole 1991). For some scholars such as Brooke, “Peter’s crusade, with
its anti-Semitism and murderous excess, was popular religious enthusiasm man-
ifested in its darkest, most repugnant form” (Cole 1991, 34–35; Brooke and Brooke
1984). Cole noted further that Brooke found evidence for this view in the work of
Peter’s contemporary, Guibert of Nogent (1055–1124), who expressed disgust over
Peter’s expedition, questioned his religious status, his motives for preaching, and
viewed “with dismay the rapid spread of his reputation and the remarkable
influence which he had upon the people” (Cole 1991, 35). Guibert is also important
because he helps us to understand a likely common perception of the layers of the
populus in his time. In his Gesta Dei per Francos (1108, modified somewhat in

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1121) Guibert attacked Peter’s followers as an “ignorant rabble” that “acted out of
unrestrained wantonness, venality, insolence and presumption” (Cole 1991, 35).
Thus, we see here some of the fears generated by the rising sense of the potential
power of public opinion when a charismatic personality could arouse the unlet-
tered and the needy to inappropriate and wasteful actions.
Another, more positively regarded charismatic preacher of the crusade, was
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who undertook the successful mission to
preach the Second Crusade in 1146. His message to the populus was one of hope
and promise, namely that the crusade was a gift from God, an “opportunity for
men to restore something of the image of God within them” by imitating Christ
through suffering and self-sacrifice (Cole 1991, 59). When the crusade failed, and
many turned on Bernard, he defended it by arguing that the complaint against
God was not justified because the fault lay with “the rejection by the crusaders of
the invitation to salvation. They had lost their love for eternal things which he had
preached to them” (Cole 1991, 60). Ultimately, however, even Bernard recognized
his loss of credibility with the public and how important that was for effective
crusade preaching.
Humbert of Romans (ca. 1200–1277) in the thirteenth century also recognized
the vagaries of the public and the need for credible preaching. As head of the
Dominican Order he needed to field many preachers of crusade and the inquisi-
tion, and in writing his treatise on how to preach (De praedicatione crucis),
Humbert longed for the former days of personal charismatic preaching, with his
particular hero being Urban II (Cole 2003, 171–72). He knew there were many
potential objections to crusading. Thus, in attempting to find the tone and
message to persuade men to sign up, he focused on the salvatory benefits of the
indulgences which the crusaders would obtain, and reminded those who did not
take the cross that without the indulgence they would likely find the “pit of hell
open” with “demons coming to meet them and carry them off” (Cole 2003, 162).
Ultimately, however, it appears that Humbert had simply to accept the fact that
the fiery charisma which he deemed necessary for effective outreach to a wide
cross-section of the public, especially in his time when there was ever-mounting
criticism of the crusade, was no longer the norm.
The evidence of anti-crusade sentiment among the populus of the thirteenth
century was studied early in the twentieth century by Palmer A. Throop (Throop
1940), who focused on the transformation from the age of crusade “excititoria”
(namely, letters, sermons, chronicles and poetry exhorting the need for the
crusade to encourage participation), which lasted from the time of Urban II into
the reign of Innocent III (r. 1198–1216), and to the time of a failing message which
became very apparent by the pontificate of Gregory X (r. 1271–1276). According to
Throop’s analysis, there were many critics of papal crusade policy, including

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representatives of all the literate classes and from many different regions of
Europe, to the point that he concluded that it represented “widespread opinion
with political and even religious implications” (Throop 1940, 27).
Throop’s view of the degree to which public opinion had turned against the
crusade has been challenged over the years. Elizabeth Siberry wrote in 1985, for
example, that although there was admittedly “bitter resentment of abuses, funda-
mental criticism of the concept [of crusade] itself was rare,” and that the evidence
did not really justify the claim that the thirteenth century witnessed a “significant
decline in popular enthusiasm” (Siberry 1985, 220). However, in 1274 Gregory X
was trying unsuccessfully to raise another crusade army to go to the Holy Land as
the Muslim forces threatened to end the last remnant of Christian occupation of
territory in the Holy Land. In his efforts to find a way to persuade participation,
Gregory had solicited advice from several prominent European leaders, including
Humbert of Romans (ca. 1200–1277), who as head of the Dominican Order had
access to information from preachers all over Europe. It is these reports, which
did indicate widespread opposition to a crusade for a variety of reasons, which
Throop used to judge the climate of opinion. Regardless of the interpretation of
this evidence, it is clear that the role of public opinion had become a significant
factor in determining the future of crusading.
In the face of crusade failures after the first, the popes of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries examined many ways to promote a successful venture. Often
they turned to primary media for reaching the widest possible public, namely
preaching, to see if they could find improved stimuli. Christoph Maier studied this
development and concluded that “the number of different types of crusade
sermons preached at various times in late medieval Europe must have been
immense” (Maier 2000, 3). But crusade propaganda had become too diverse as
“undertaken by individually commissioned preachers and the resident secular
clergy,” so the Church turned to the newly-formed orders of preachers, the
Franciscans and the Dominicans. One major thrust of the thirteenth-century
Church was the attempt to use the friars as the propagators of a more clear and
consistent message via the sermon. Thus, model sermons were developed to
assist in the training of new preachers in the use of this mass medium (Maier
2000, 7; 9).
The obligation to take up the cross had been accepted by both the military
classes and the Christian public in general in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This change in attitude had been accomplished by what Colin Morris has called
the “control of opinion” (Morris 1983, 79). In his study of crusade propaganda, he
concluded several things. First, that it was “one aspect of the new social forms
and means of communication” that reached far beyond the boundaries of the
diocese or even the new urban environment, it belonged “to the many institutions

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which in the twelfth century assumed an international character” (Morris 1983,

100). Second, he noted that the propaganda originated with the papacy (see
above regarding the role of the Church in the Peace movement), but the popes
could not control it. It spread and was “transmuted into a form which embodied
their [i.e., new social groups] own aspirations [e.g., the “poor” in the case of those
who took up the cross to follow Peter the Hermit in 1096. Although it is now more
evident that those who followed Peter came from a broad range of the ranks in
society, they did likely represent those seeking a more public voice in the
culture]” (Morris 1983, 100). Third, there was a wide range of propagandists,
including popular preachers, officially sanctioned preachers, aristocratic and
non-aristocratic song writers, and various papal representatives. Thus, as a
corollary to this range of preachers, propaganda was successful in reaching the
populus because it was not completely regulated by central control.
In the analysis of Sophia Menache, “The Crusades present one of the earliest
examples of what has since come to be known as the use of mass media, whose
impact in medieval society is hardly questionable” (Menache 1990, 98). For her,
the Crusades represented an opportunity much larger than the expedition to the
Holy Land; it was an opening for the “Reformer papacy to turn Western society
into the Societas Christiana” (Menache 1990, 99), and this required “the most
spectacular propaganda campaign in the Middle Ages” (Menache 1990, 98). To
carry out the campaign, communication channels were established in the form of
written and oral messages (preaching), as well as through the dispatching of
papal legates and the calling of synods. The flexibility of these methods enabled
the papacy to adapt the message to meet both “the changing needs of the
Crusades and the ever-changing European public opinion as well” (Menache
1990, 103). The ability of the Church to understand the current climate of opinion
was a key to success, that is, one had to “link the Crusade[sic] with deeply rooted
ideas at both the popular and the intellectual levels of perception” (Menache
1990, 111). This meant, for example, by placing the crusade into the category of a
“just war,” crusade propaganda could encapsulate the Germanic war ideals with
those of feudal knighthood in order to gain the support of knights (the targeted
public) needed to fight the battles in the Holy Land, while insinuating papal
leadership into the political sector to gain longer-term hegemony in the process of
controlling the Societas Christiana (Menache 1990, 111). Because the enemy was
relatively unknown at the time of the First Crusade, the propaganda engaged
biblical images and metaphors to stereotype the opponents as “heathens,” and
the crusaders as the children of Israel who once again were called upon to fight
upon holy ground (Menache 1990, 114). As the crusades failed, however, and the
practical experience and knowledge of the enemy became more realistic, these
images failed to provide an incentive for crusading for those in the West. In

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response to the failures, as Humbert of Romans reported, the populus is “asking

what is the purpose of this attack upon the Saracens… [even] When we gain their
lands, we do not occupy them… [thus]there seems to be no spiritual, corporeal or
temporal benefits from this sort of attack” (quoted from his Opus Tripartitum in
Menache 1990, 121).
Once the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land at Acre had fallen in 1291,
according to the study by Sylvia Schein entitled Fidelis Crucis, the loss “pro-
foundly stirred European society” as reflected in the “sheer volume of references
in chronicles, in treatises tinged with apologetics, and in sources dealing with
other affairs” (Schein 1991, 112). However, this stirring did not result in a unan-
imous agreement within or among the publics that these various sources reached.
While many called for a new crusade, many others tied the event to another rise
in eschatological anticipation, or to a renewal of criticism of the crusade with the
citation of the loss of Acre as clear evidence of God’s disfavor toward the Chris-
tians (Schein 1991, 113; 128; 132–36). The battle for public opinion support had
been lost by the papacy.
F Heresy and Public Opinion

The role played by public opinion in the development and reaction to medieval
heresy was ambiguous and filled with potential dangers for the Church as it
confronted the rise of dissident movements in the twelfth and thirteenth centu-
ries. The modern research of medieval heresy began in the late nineteenth century
with the publication of the ground-breaking work of H. C. Lea on the history of the
Inquisition (Lea 1888). Since then a mountain of studies has appeared, from
which using the work from up to about 1975 Malcolm Lambert first compiled a
broad survey entitled Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian
Reform to the Reformation, which he updated somewhat in his second edition
(Lambert 1992). In addition to Lea’s early work, Lambert drew inspiration from
Herbert Grundmann, with whom he agreed that one must examine the “climate of
orthodoxy” in order to understand those who choose not to follow it. Grundmann
was the first in the twentieth century to create a more narrowly focused synthesis
of medieval heresy (Grundmann 1995; see for a bibliographical collection, Grund-
mann 1963; and Russell 1963; for a much more recent update on the bibliography
on heresy, see Biller 2001; Peters 2009).
In the mid-twentieth century, historians moved far from the anti-ecclesiasti-
cal bias of Lea toward the more contextual approach preferred by Grundmann
to analyze heresy as an aspect of Church reform and the popular movements
of dissent. Studies by Richard Landes, Gordon Leff, R. I. Moore, J. H. Mundy,

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I. S. Robinson, and Jeffrey Russell, for example, have attempted to relate changes
in the dynamics of medieval culture owing to the growth in population after the
year 1000 and the revival of cities and towns to the rapid rise and spread of heresy
(Landes 1992; Leff 1967; Leyser 1994, 11; Moore 1975; 1984a; 1985; 1987; Mundy
1973, ch. 14; Robinson 1978b; and Russell 1971, 1992). Bredero, in Christendom and
Christianity in the Middle Ages, argues that there were a number of social factors
contributing to the rise of dissent, including the reforms and centralization by the
popes, the rise of the urban monied elite, and various challenges to Church
authority (Bredero 1994). Because of the link to the populus defined as the work-
ing class, Marxist theories have been applied to the study of heresy in the works
of Werner, Norman Cohn, and Erbstösser (Erbstösser 1984; Werner 1956; Werner
and Erbstösser 1986; Cohn 1970). However, despite the assumption by Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels that the peasants and workers in the revival of the urban
centers would be attracted to movements of dissent, the evidence suggests that it
was the middle class and elite in society who were more often drawn to the
Waldensians and the Cathars which were the most popular. Moreover, it would
appear that the actual number of adherents was not as large as formerly thought,
and declined rather rapidly after the movements were no longer so free to appeal
openly through preaching to mass publics after being condemned as heresies
(Kaelber 1997, 113–14; see also, Becamel 1968; Wakefield 1968, 68–71; Wakefield
and Evans, ed., 1969, 337; Duvernoy 1985, 31, 51; Abels and Harrison 1979, 225;
Menache 1990, 215).
Though the materialist theory per se does not continue to find favor, the
evidence does indicate that many were drawn to various heretical movements
because of popular preachers who attacked the clergy and the wealth of the
Church, while advocating a return to the simpler life of the early Church in the
form of the vita apostolica. Two examples from the twelfth century stand out in
this regard. First, there is Henry the Monk (d. 1148), a French-speaking itinerant
preacher who first appeared bearded, barefoot, and in poor clothing in Le Mans
in 1116. His preaching was so eloquent that he led a revolt against the strictures of
the Gregorian reforms being enforced by the local Bishop Hildebert (ca. 1055–
1133). From Le Mans he continued preaching as late as 1145 in Lausanne, Poitiers,
and Bordeaux with a focus on the clerical rules on marriage and a stress on
poverty, but he was not an ascetic. Though a popular preacher, and one who
obviously understood the climate of opinion regarding the lay discontent with
aspects of Church reforms, he never founded a true heretical movement even
though some of his ideas regarding marriage were condemned as heresy (Lambert
1992, 44–46; see also reg. the Cathars, Barber 2000). Second, Peter of Bruys (d. ca.
1131) was more widely known and the object of a major treatise (Contra Petrobru-
sianos) by Peter the Venerable (ca. 1092–1156), the abbot of Cluny (see Iogna-Prat

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2002, ch. 4 reg. the polemic method of Peter the Venerable). As a priest who had
been ejected from his parish, Peter of Bruys began around 1117 to preach heresy
mostly in southern France, and helped to lay the groundwork for the success of
the Cathars who came after him in that region. Peter’s teachings were radical and
he encouraged the spread of his ideas using violent tactics to arouse large crowds.
In at least one instance his followers dragged monks from monasteries in an
attempt to force them to marry. Peter also attacked infant baptism, the doctrines
of the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the mass, and the use of church buildings in
an attempt to build a “church” based on the unity of a community of the faithful
(Lambert 1992, 49). This approach eventually led to his own death while he was
attempting to incite the people of St. Gilles to make a bonfire for their crucifixes.
As the fire grew, his opponents pushed him into it (Lambert 1992, 48). Of course,
as the force of the masses and the influence of public opinion increased, this
illustrates one of the major fears of the elite in medieval society, namely the
resorting to mob violence to achieve an objective.
Fear of the mob was particularly true in the case of the Church’s attempt to
root out heresy. To be declared “heresy,” the views in question had to be
publically proclaimed as such before any action could be taken against the
alleged heretics. In some cases, as in Henry the Monk, the mob could be aroused
against the orthodox bishop, or in the case of Peter of Bruys, against the heretics.
Underlying this volatile surface emotion and tension, however, the Church’s
response to heresy points to other factors of change in the high medieval culture,
namely changes in the communication system that facilitated the rise of these
dissident movements. Menache called our attention to the connection between
the emergence of heresy and improvements in communication, as well as to the
awareness of the emergence of the new group identities to respond and challenge
traditional norms. In her words, “The development of heresy depended upon the
emergence of a more communication-oriented society, which integrated the
ideology of its members into one wholeness … . Heresy often reflected a deep
religious belief that could not easily be channeled into the frameworks of tradi-
tional society, thus bringing about a growing dissatisfaction with the existing
order” (Menache 1990, 213). Often, this animosity focused on conditions of
society generated by the growth of population and the unemployed poor. Un-
fortunately, beginning with the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century, the
Church’s approach to the institutionalization of evangelical poverty did not truly
respond to the needs of the poor who gathered at the doors of the monasteries
and the churches to plead for physical and spiritual nourishment (Menache 1990,
217–18). This opened the way for itinerant preachers, the formation of the friars,
and the opponents of the Church to reach out to the populus in their own various
ways.

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How did the Church respond and communicate its message? The spread of
heresy presented a real challenge, to which the Church declared heresy to be “a
threat to the very survival of orthodoxy,” and launched a propaganda campaign
to convince the public at all levels of society that, in the words of Pope Innocent
III (ca. 1160–1216) “it is necessary to regard as manifest heretics those who preach
or publicly profess ideas contrary to the Catholic faith and defend their error”
(Menache 1990, 226). As Menache points out, the Church was most concerned
about the public nature of heresy, that is, “the heretics’ tendency to publicize their
faith in open contradiction with the principles of the Catholic faith” (Menache
1990, 226, emphasis hers). Thus, the Church recognized the effectiveness of the
communications system of the new sects as they developed from an isolated set
of beliefs into a “contagious disease” which reached all levels of society, and
therefore demanded the use of “more sophisticated channels of communication
and the more intensive use of propaganda” to influence public opinion (Menache
1990, 228; for the widespread twelfth- and thirteenth-centuries concerns of the
followers of Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) on heresy, see Bird 2003b). But it also
relied on the power of excommunication to use the force of public opinion to
control heresy, as was confirmed at the peak of papal power and influence under
Innocent III in the canons of Lateran IV in 1215.
The origins of medieval heresy and even the time of the origins are much
debated. For example, R. I. Moore suggested that it was “the return to introspec-
tion and contemplation in the eleventh century [which] brought with the stimulus
for dynamic spiritual personalities to become potential antagonists to the institu-
tional church” (according to Riggs 1998, reading Moore 1977). Jeffrey Russell said
that perhaps the ninth century is a better time to look (Russell 1965). But most
scholars focus on the eleventh century, because, as Peters has noted, it is the time
from which there “can be traced the progressive awareness on the part of religious
churchmen of religious dissent” (Peters, ed. and intro., 1980, 6). Church attention
accelerated in the twelfth century with the work of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–
1153) in his sermon on the Song of Songs, grew more aggressive still in the
encounters with the Waldensians and the Cathars, and was fully institutionalized
by the middle of the thirteenth century under Pope Innocent IV (ca. 1195–1254)
with the approval of the use of torture in the process of the Inquisition. Dissidents
did not go away with the Inquisition or even the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229)
against the alleged heretics of southern France. By the fourteenth century there
was widespread approval for anti-clerical feeling and simplification of the doc-
trine among the followers of John Wyclif (ca. 1330–1384) and John Hus (1369–
1415) (Spinka 1953; 1966; 1968; Leff 1967; Mudroch 1979; Somerset et al., ed.,
2003; Evans 2005; Lahey 2009). In all of these cases the key to understanding the
development perhaps lies in the dynamics of social change and the growing

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influence of a populus that was more open and emotionally vulnerable to im-
proved methods of communication which made the messages of the heretics more
accessible through preaching and other forms of propaganda.
Ultimately, the Church’s attempt to publically identify and redeem, punish or
eliminate heretics led to the Inquisition (Russell 1965; Peters 1989; Kieckhefer
1995; Given 1997; Zerner, ed., 1998; Pegg 2001). As Christine Ames has recently
reminded us, “heresy inquisitions involved the pursuit, arrest, interrogation,
possible torture, and punishment (most notoriously, with the death penalty) of
those who persistently, after attempts at correction, refused to ‘believe as the
Roman church teaches and preaches’” (Ames 2005, 11–12). Because this process
cast such a shadow on the medieval Church, and as Ames indicates, one that lasts
today as a blemish or a scandal, historians have turned to the question of why did
the persecution of heretics and others increase so much in the High Middle Ages
(Ames 2005, 12–13; also see Freedman and Spiegel 1998, 699; regarding the
counter-argument to the dominant medieval reputation for intolerance and perse-
cution, see Nederman 2000 and Lansing 1998 on examples of toleration). Moore
in his The Formation of a Persecuting Society argues that “persecution began as a
weapon in the competition for political influence, and was turned by its victors
into an instrument for consolidating their power over society at large” (Moore
1987, 146; see also Moore 1996; Waugh and Diehl, ed., 1996, 1–15; Nirenberg 1996;
Richards 1991). Most recently, Jennifer Deane has examined the broader question
of what it meant to be a Christian in this dynamic and more public world of
change and fear (Deane 2011).
Even so, there was resistance among the populus to the Inquisition. Using the
work of Foucault on the complexity of the dialogue of power, James Given has
studied the nature of the failures of the Inquisition and the resistance it encoun-
tered in Languedoc. He attempted to see how the techniques of the inquisitions
were used to project the will of the inquisitors upon the population in various
communities, and how those were resisted or manipulated by those same popula-
tions in the struggle for power (Given 1997; also see the thoughtful review of
Given’s book by Nirenberg 2000). More recently, Christine Ames included a study
of a violent reaction to inquisitions in southern France in her article on the
Inquisition in order to address the question whether these reactions could be
dismissed as “mob violence,” or better considered as a rational reaction in which
careful choices were deliberated and made by a public (Ames 2005, 27–34). When
considering the Inquisition and reactions to it by the public, she offers the
possibility that: “It may blur an often sharp dichotomy formed in historiography
between ecclesiastics and laity hopelessly divided by the different ‘cultural logics’
that shaped and informed their respective religious mentalities” (Ames 2005, 33).
Perhaps this dichotomy is most visible in the treatment of the twelfth- and

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thirteenth-century German mystics, mostly women, “who followed a mysticism of

union-of-natures that brought their ideas close to pantheism” (Riggs 1998, 158).
Ultimately the Church began to fear the spread of these ideas so much that the
Beguine Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) was condemned as a heretic and burned at
the stake, because her ideas “suggested that individuals could achieve a sinless
state through mysticism” (Riggs 1998, 162).
The intersection of heresy, the Church and the populus bears witness to what
Freedman and Spiegel observed from their reading of Foucault’s “attack on
normalizing mechanisms of modern epistemological regimes,” which opened
scholars to “ways in which knowledge power systems marginalize and exclude—
silence, in effect—some while valorizing others” (Freedman and Spiegel 1998,
698; see also Bisson, ed., 1995). This certainly appears true in the way the Church
variously responded to the Humiliati, the Waldensians, the Cathars, and the
Franciscans and Dominicans. This is complicated in Foucault’s own analysis and
use of the concept and chronology of “normalization.” Friedman and Spiegel
suggest that “the Middle Ages seems to escape the fate of those knowledge-
power-systems so characteristic of the ‘modern’ world. Instead, Foucault tends to
present the Middle Ages as a free, untrammeled period, a time when reason
speaks to unreason, when torture is writ upon the body rather than the soul”
(Freedman and Spiegel 1998, 698). Using Foucault’s views of normalizing tenden-
cies wherein all “discursive formations” need to be undermined to reduce their
impact, this has the effect of transforming the thirteenth century from being the
center of “a modern, rational progressive movement” into a time when the Church
was bent upon taming and punishing those of the populus who were perceived as
dissenting. Freedman and Spiegel see this happening in the move among medie-
val scholars to follow R. I. Moore in examining the “rise of a persecuting society”
(Freedman and Spiegel 1998, 698; Moore 1987; Russell 1992; Richards 1991;
Boswell 1989; Kieckhefer 1976; 1979; Peters 1985; 1988; 2006; Nirenberg 1996).
Similarly, various essays in Bisson’s Cultures of Power illuminate how the non-
elite of medieval society, including the ministeriales and those of servile origins,
were able to exercise power and influence public opinion through satires sung by
jongleurs, and even use the law to contain the power of the elites. Anne Brenon
has explored the reasons why Catharism might even have appeared to represent
“a relatively egalitarian Christian counter-church” because of the active involve-
ment of women (Brenon 1998, 115). In agreement with Moore’s study of the origins
of dissent and its spread among the medieval publics, however, one thing seems
to remain constant in the studies of heresy as a socio-cultural phenomenon,
namely that “heresy might appeal to members of every social group, and that
none of them predominated sufficiently to allow an interpretation of it as an
ideology of any class” (Moore 1997, 267).

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G Preaching as the Major Medium of Public

Opinion
With the events surrounding the Peace of God, the Church reform of the eleventh
century, the crusades, and the confrontation with heresy, the role of preaching was
greatly enhanced, as well as its ever-widening spectrum of “publicness” (Gecser
2010; Althof 1993; Löther 1998). The twelfth-century preacher and author of trea-
tises on preaching, Alain of Lille (ca. 1116–1203), for example, took care to define
preaching in this manner: “Preaching is an open and public instruction in faith and
behavior, whose purpose is the forming of men; it derives from the path of reason and
from the fountainhead of the ‘authorities’” (Evans 1981, 16–17, as quoted in
Muessig 1998, 152, emphasis mine; regarding the sermon as “the central literary
genre in the lives of European Christians and Jews during the Middle Ages,” see
Kienzle 2000, 143–74). Alain thus captured the newfound emphasis on the need to
reach out to the populus in order to “form men’s behavior,” as well as their faith
and trust in the Church. In the dynamics of more rapid change and a limited means
to extend the word, the sermon became the main channel to connect with all types
of audiences. This is perhaps most obvious in the preaching of the crusades and in
the rise, spread, and subsequent response of the Church to heresy.
Penny Cole laid the pathway to a better understanding of the significance of
crusade preaching with her analysis of the preaching of the First Crusade by
Urban II in 1095. The pope understood both the urgency to reach a broad
audience and the need to “form men’s behavior” as per Alain. As the contem-
porary observer Baudri (1046–1130), the Archbishop of Dol, wrote in his History
of Jerusalem, Urban came to Clermont for the purpose of public preaching” to
address an audience which was made up of “not only religious but also of
powerful men from many regions who were distinguished for their prowess in
war” (Baudri of Dol, Historia Jerosolimitana, RHC, Occ. 4:9, as quoted in Cole
1991, 16). Colin Morris had earlier called attention to the success of this model
as it became necessary to extend crusade preaching into the twelfth century. By
his judgment the effort to achieve changes in behavior was “a remarkably
successful exercise in publicity” leading to “profound changes in spirituality
which accompanied the rise in militarism” (Morris 1983, 79). Preachers paid
great attention to detail in their campaigns to recruit crusaders. Public events
were staged with care, such as the crusade of King Louis VII (1120–1180) of
France, who summoned a large assembly to hear the charismatic Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090–1153) preach with great emotion at Vézelay in the open air in
1146, where a large platform had been prepared so Bernard could be seen and
better heard. In urban settings sermons often took place in ceremonial or

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liturgical settings, and reports of the forthcoming event were circulated in

advance to insure an even larger turnout (Morris 1983, 89–90). Sermons to lay
audiences would often be in the vernacular, and since itinerant preaching was
on the rise, translators would be provided for the sermons of incoming preach-
ers who could not preach in the native language. The sermons made great use
of exempla and stories of everyday experiences to hold the interest of the
audience (Morris 1983, 90–91).
By the thirteenth century, the popular demand for preaching had reached its
height and the need to train and prepare more preachers was turned over to the
friars who could move freely across Europe to recruit crusaders to the Holy Land
or to challenge heretics. Humbert of Romans (ca. 1200–1277), Master General of
the Dominicans, prepared model sermons to aid the effort. In his model for
preaching the cross against heretics, Humbert made note of the importance of the
fight against heresy since the “sin” of heresy does not concern only one indivi-
dual, it “passes to other people since it is infectious. It is particularly harmful …
this one aims to destroy the whole church” (Humbert of Romans, Model Sermon
III, as presented in Maier 2000, 223–25). More recent studies show the freedom to
preach acted as a two-edged sword, aiding both the obstinate heretics and the
zealous orthodox preachers. In the words of Jennifer Deane in her review of
Caterina Bruschi’s The Wandering Heretics, the records of the depositions of
accused heretics in Languedoc “reveal how mobility polarized orthodoxy and
heresy” amongst the populus (Deane 2012, 851). Kienzle elaborated upon this
conflict as it played out in the increaseed production of sermons in the late twelfth
century. In her words, “The reaction of the ecclesiastical hierarchy against the
Waldensians’ evangelizing is part of a larger context that involved … an upsurge in
popular religious movements parallel to the burgeoning of monasteries and
schools” (Kienzle 1998, 259–60, emphasis mine). This polarity in preaching
ultimately resulted in violence against the heretics, even to the point of an
organized crusade against them beginning in 1209 in southern France (Russell
1992, 34–37; see also Tyerman 2006, 563–605; Pegg 2008; Patterson 2003; Barber
2000; Sumption 1978; Wakefield 1974).
In addition to the model sermons, Humbert produced a treatise revealing a
number of the obstacles to successful crusade preaching (Opus Tripartitum)
wherein Throop argued he “clearly saw that an unfavorable public opinion” was
one of the greatest problems facing Pope Gregory X (1210–1276) as he asked for
advice on launching a crusade at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 (Throop
1975, 147). A related treatise of Humbert’s (De praedicatione crucis) had laid out a
set of guidelines for Dominican preachers as they attempted to persuade the
populus to join the crusade effort in some way (Cole 1991, 202–17; 2000; see also,
Bird 2003a, 56–59, reg. the use of the Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry [ca.

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1170–1240] as part of the propaganda in crusade preaching in Humbert’s work

and that of other crusade preachers into the fourteenth century).
The so-called “nodal point” of the crusade preaching effort has been seen of
course as the papacy (Bull 1993a, 259). In the case of Urban II, it was the pope
himself who personally preached the First Crusade in his circuit of France in
1096. Later, the popes established the call in papal bulls and then mandated the
preaching efforts by others, sometimes using charismatic individuals like Ber-
nard, and other times via waves of friars, bishops, and priests in the local parishes
who carried out the efforts. It took a massive effort by the Church at all levels to
influence the public to crusade. Marcus Bull, in his study of the lay response to
these efforts in the Limousin and in Gascony, comments on the success of these
efforts at linking the papacy to the local communities by demonstrating how
many crusaders (“remarkable number”) are listed in the cartulary records of
Aureil following the preaching of Urban II at Nimes in July of 1096 (Bull 1993a,
259). Menache adds to this assessment of the success of preaching the crusade in
this way: “the Crusades contribute the most spectacular example of medieval
political communication in actual practice. Despite the large distances, the lack of
a sophisticated communication system, and the many obstacles presented by
particular languages and customs, the papal message succeeded in reaching
Christendom as a whole” (Menache 1990, 123; see also Classen 1993; Classen, ed.,
2013; Kleinhenz and Busby, ed., 2010; Pazos, ed., 2012).
One might similarly argue the importance of preaching in the case of medie-
val heresy. First of all, “Despite its image of a contagious disease, heresy did not
spread by itself” (Menache 1990, 229). It required several means of communica-
tion to survive, but certainly public preaching in the early stages is largely
responsible for its spread. Even the mere threat of the spread of heretical ideas via
preaching led the popes to take measures to prohibit unauthorized preaching in
general, thus cutting at the core of the Waldensian focus on lay preaching that
had been able to communicate Scripture in more simple ways to the unlettered
populus (Kienzle 1998; Menache 1990, 239). The Church recognized, before the
invention of printing, that one had to control the medium of the sermon and the
itinerant preacher in order to maintain control of the public.

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H The Public and Public Opinion in Fourteenth

Century Political Theory
Another way to understand the degree to which the role of the populus and the
concept of public opinion had developed by the late Middle Ages is to reflect
briefly on the works of some of the best-known political thinkers.
William of Ockham (ca. 1287–1347), for example, broke with his predeces-
sors since Gratian who had said that heresy must be confronted in the context
of authority, that is, authority defines orthodoxy. Instead, Ockham defined faith
as “what is prevalently known as catholic truth among Catholics,” and therefore,
heresy does not have to depend on institutional authority to be judged heretical
(Shogimen 2005, 68, emphasis mine). This assumption of the expansion of
responsibility for determining what is good for the greater number, or the
common good, was taken up in great detail by his contemporary Marsiglio of
Padua (ca. 1275–ca. 1342), who has drawn the attention of modern scholars over
whether he was “a theorist of power or of consent” (Nederman 2003, 396; 1995;
1992).
Marsiglio is of interest here because of those such as the historian Brian
Tierney who regard him as more of a consent theorist, which draws him into the
realm of theorists regarding the role of public opinion in reaching consent (Neder-
man 2003, 397; see, for example, Tierney 1982, 48). As medieval society spent
more time considering what is good for life on this earth, and less awaiting the
coming of next life, Marsiglio came to believe that “consent must be introduced to
distinguish those applications of power that promote the common interest”
(Nederman 2003, 398). In his Defensor pacis (1324) Marsiglio attacked the claims
of papal “plenitudo potestatis” (plenitude of power) and denied the ability of any
ecclesiastical authorities to “judge or act upon the temporal good of human
beings,” which was a very extreme claim for his time, and one that if extended
logically, potentially put a lot of power in the hands of the populus, and by
extension, public opinion. As Nederman sums it up, for Marsiglio, “any determi-
nation of the public utility could only issue from the consent of citizens; the
expression of civic assent formed his check against the unwarranted interference
and influence of clerics” (Nederman 2003, 400–01, emphasis mine). Marsiglio
was struggling for a “perfected community” wherein the individual’s natural
pursuit of self-preservation could be achieved in a developed commercial society
that requires “the mutual association of citizens, their intercommunication of
their functions with one another, their mutual aid and assistance” (Nederman
2003, 405). This is not an ideal democratic or utopian society that he envisions, it
requires the “maintenance of civil peace through the exercise of temporal political

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power,” but it does argue for greater toleration of religious dissent and even
heresy, thus allowing for greater differences of public opinion and belief. Peace is
necessary “for the realization of stable intercourse within the community” (Neder-
man 2003, 406–07). As well, government is required in this model in order to
maintain peace, that is, to insure that the private interests of individuals do not
impose upon the common good.
Marsiglio was particularly exercised over what he saw as the unfair claims by
the papacy for exemptions of clerical orders from any regulation by public
authorities which was an unnecessary violation of the peace he deemed essential
(Nederman 2003, 408). According to Nederman, Marsiglio avoids the danger of
tyranny by the secular government by arguing that the community must be
formed through a process whereby “all whose interests are served or affected by a
community must be conceded full membership in it and must consent to the
conditions of association (i.e., law and rulership)” (Nederman 2003, 409). Though
not explicit about how the views of the populus are to be determined in gaining
consent, this model of “consent to government” means that the “legitimacy of
both law and rulers depends wholly upon their ‘voluntary’ character,” and
Marsiglio is explicit that those subject to the jurisdiction of these laws and rulers
must “have publicly and overtly consented to their authority (Defensor pacis I.9.5,
I.12.3, in Nederman 2003, 409, emphasis mine). In arguing that “Each and every
member of the community reserves to himself final judgment about all matters of
public regulation (I.13.8)” a great advance has been made in asserting the poten-
tial power of public opinion. In order to reach consensus about the laws, one must
achieve a sense of the climate of that opinion.
Marsiglio was not the only medieval thinker to consider the issues of “popular
consent” and “common good.” Earlier, for example, Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1096–
1141) in the twelfth century discussed how the success of commerce “commutes
the private good of individuals into the public benefit of all” (in his Didascalicon
2.23, as cited in Nederman 2003, 412 n. 32). Marsiglio’s views linked these two as
well, as had the Franciscan Peter John Olivi (1248–1298) in the late thirteenth
century (Nederman 203, 412 n. 32). Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), who later
considered how one determines the common good, decided that the community
must consult “right reason or natural justice” (Nederman 2003, 410; for further
analysis of the common good in late medieval thinkers, see Kempshall 1999).
According to Nederman’s analysis, what makes Marsiglio stand out among these
late medieval thinkers, is his “systematic and comprehensive explanation of how
the effective maintenance of political order can coexist with the pursuit of
material self-interest on the part of individuals … both the effective exercise of
coercive power and the implementation of thorough public consent … ensure the
perpetuation of a harmonious community” (Nederman 2003, 412).

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As a reflection of the dynamics of change and the evolution of the role of the
public and public opinion, Marsiglio most fully and most clearly illustrates how
medieval thinkers were then considering what role the populus should play in
society moving forward. He regards “discussion and interaction among citizens in
a public forum to be essential for the determination of whether legislative propo-
sals are conducive to … the common good” (Nederman 2003, 414, emphasis
mine). In his maintenance of the need for striking a balance between the indivi-
dual and the common good, Marsiglio raised key questions about the nature and
value of public opinion that remain with us today.
I Conclusion
This brief overview of the nature of public culture, the concept of the public,
and the medieval experience of an evolving role of public opinion only touches
the surface of the ways the public could find expression in the growth of the
medieval public sphere. We provided some examples from some of texts that
were closest to the medieval “popular” milieu, namely exempla, penitentials,
inquisitional records, or saints’ lives (for more detailed examination of these
sources, see, for example, on exempla, Schmitt 1983; for penitentials, Gurevich
1988, 78–103; the inquisitional records, Ginzburg 1989; or, in general, Vauchez,
ed., 1981). But, we did not review the concept of the public as audience for
literature, for example, and thus did not go into the realm of courtly literature
(see, for example, Patterson 2003), or even the role of poems and songs in
influencing public views on the crusades or heresy (see, for example, Regalado
1970). Nor did we examine the role of the arts in shaping the views of the
populus regarding the “other” in medieval society (see, for example, Strickland
2003; Camille 1989; Seidel 1981; and, Connell, “Fear and the Foreigner,” in this
Handbook).
Instead, this article focused primarily on the political nature of developing
publics and how the medieval world came to sense the power of public opinion in
influencing major ongoing political issues over considerable periods of time. In
dealing with the evolution of public opinion one constant is the absolutely
essential role of preaching in reflecting and shaping public views on a very large
scale that cut cross all levels of society. One major theme in the work of modern
scholars is that fear of the masses and mob rule is common in all of these arenas.
But by the time of the fourteenth century, we see how the public sphere of
medieval society is more clearly visible in the county courts and public markets,
and at least one political thinker is optimistic that the public should have a
positive role in achieving a more “perfect society.”

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Another theme relates to the importance of organized communication in the

context of the dynamics of change in a culture. The medieval culture was becom-
ing more urban, more public, more mobile as we move from the tenth to the
fourteenth century. Menache argues in her study of medieval communication,
that as people moved into and/or traveled to cities, they were cut off from family
and their support network and they become more vulnerable to the increasing
propaganda that came from the church, the kings, and the heretics. Key to that
change was the way the Church learned to embrace its public role (Tellenbach
1991). As Lisa Bitel observed in her review of Menache’s work, “Churchman were
the innovators in developing the themes and methods of propaganda, particularly
the use of vox dei—the claim to represent the authority and will of God—which
kings and heretics then appropriated and adapted to their own purposes of
forming public opinion” (Bitel 1992, 535). What studies since Menache reveal
moreover is how sophisticated those propagandists were in understanding the
climate of opinion and in developing appropriate messages that persuaded the
various publics to take action in support of or in opposition to excommunication,
crusade, or heresy. For example, by the time of the trial of the Templars by King
Philip IV of France (1268–1314) in 1307, his advisors assessed that even though his
goal might have been to ally himself with the bourgeoisie by confiscating Templar
wealth, public opinion would be more favorable to a trial based on accusations of
moral crimes than economic issues (Menache 1993; see also Menache 1982).
Another implied theme in this study of public opinion, but not examined
thoroughly herein, is the way that propaganda was used by kings to stereotype
minorities in order to weaken public opposition to their policies. This was particu-
larly true for the kings of England and France in the late thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries. In those cases, rather ironically, it was the kings who
learned to adapt the biblical tradition in their propaganda for secular purposes,
particularly in their attacks on the Jews and the Saracens (Menache 1985, 372–74;
see also, Strickland 2003).
In general, what these studies reveal is that there was an increasingly impor-
tant role for the populus. The lay public, as it felt itself affected by the outcomes of
the decisions of the ecclesiastical elite, for example, sought more of an active role
in the process. This is clear, beginning with the Peace of God and continuing with
the councils called to consider heresy, such as that of Reims in 1148, when Pope
Eugenius III (r. 1145–1153) was forced to acknowledge the presence and to “ac-
count to” a “multitudo laicorum” that was in attendance (Moore 2008, 40–41).
Laymen were involved in the communication networks of the papacy. Letters
reflected and influenced opinion and decisions within a wide range of political
circles. The role of the preacher and the messages from senders to receivers were
more clearly perceived and acted upon as we see in the calls and responses (or

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lack thereof) for crusades against the Saracens or the heretics and non-believers.
In the marketplaces and courts we see developing public spheres of interchange
and influence where the messages of kings were conveyed and acted upon by
many levels within the changing ranks in medieval society. It is clearer now that
awareness of the power of public opinion enhanced a reciprocal relationship
within a system of communication wherein aspects of the elite and the popular
cultures were exchanged in order to influence political decisions (Menache 1990,
5; see also Löther 1998; and, Pazos, ed., 2012).
Finally, as studies of medieval popular enthusiasm (i.e., revivalism among
lay groups, sometimes led by clergy, sometimes by lay persons) in its various
forms have been completed, medieval scholars are beginning to illustrate how
one can even do some “counting” or surveying of medieval public opinion and
gain insight into the popular culture as well. For example, Gary Dickson took a
broad sampling of the regular clergy in an attempt to determine their attitudes
toward various forms of popular enthusiasm itself (Dickson 1999). His study
determined that three types of attitude are discernible. First, there was the
negative, namely, “mockery, derision, denunciation, accusations of heresy.”
Second, he noted affirmation, which includes “praise, endorsement, support or
even a desire to take part.” Third, there is the case where a recognized holy
person, who belonged to some branch of the regular clergy, either initiated or
took charge of a popular movement (Dickson 1999, 268). Dickson cites other
examples of specific medieval contemporaries or broad surveys. The Dominican
inquisitor Bernard Gui (ca. 1261–1331) in his Flores chronicorum, for example,
reported on three unauthorized movements of popular crusading zeal—the pueri
(1212); the pastores (1251), and the pastoureux (1320) (Dickson 1999, 270). Gui’s
account of the pastores is particularly noteworthy because the participants were
“riotous, murderous, irreligious,” which was shocking to Gui and his fellow
clerics. However, according to Dickson, what was more shocking was the “uni-
versal popular favor” with which they were received (Dickson 1999, 272, emphasis
mine). The popular crusade by 1320 threatened the papacy at Avignon so that the
pope ordered its dispersal, and labeled the pastoureaux a “new plague” (Dickson
1999, 274). This sweeping of the public into large-scale threats against the clergy
was a far cry from the fervor of the public in favor of the First Crusade against the
Saracens, or even the mixed review for the Second as observed by Constable in his
article on “The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries” (Constable 1953; see
also Menache 1982 reg. contemporary attitudes toward the Templars).
Perhaps, as a sort of climax to its medieval evolution, the volatility of medieval
public opinion in the struggle for the support of the popular culture can be noted
in the fifteenth century movement known as the Observants. Dickson sees the
conflict of the Franciscan Observants with both the Fraticelli within the Francis-

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cans, and the Dominicans overall, as a battle for “the mendicant leadership of lay
enthusiasm” wherein “urban revivalism reinforced the solidarity of the friars and
the laity, while at the same time it embittered the rivalries of the orders, turning …
one brother against another” (Dickson 1999, 276). Dickson places this episode
within the tradition of revivalism that includes the Crusades as an ”unprecedented
religious movement, which brought the clergy and laity together,” and the Peace
and Truce of God movement which “Testified to the new vitality of Western
revivalism” (Dickson 1999, 278). This so-called revivalist tradition also illustrates
the tug of war over popular opinion and the difficult choices that the various
publics had to make in the process. Should monks en masse support an “armed
pilgrimage,” for example; or even knights who had been previously required to
confess their sins for killing another in armed combat? As we know, the Church
found a way to be persuasive of the populus by offering a plenary indulgence for
killing in God’s war, or even a way to endorse armed monks by creating the
Templars, who even received the endorsement of the saintly Bernard of Clairvaux
(Dickson 1999, 279–84). A similar example was provided in the development of the
cult of Mary Magdalen from the thirteenth century to the onset of the Reformation.
Katherine Jansen examined how the friars transmitted ideas of Magdalen to the lay
public, and notes that it is clear that the sermon literature had “the ability both to
shape popular opinion and to reflect it” (Jansen 1999).
Thus, the development of medieval public opinion presents a pattern that is
consistent with modern theories about how to influence public opinion. First, to
deliver its message it had several components of media (letters, penitentials,
saints’ lives, songs, etc.), the most pervasive and effective of which was preach-
ing, which was flexible, capable of being tailored to specific publics quickly, and
was already widely accepted within the culture. Second, there was the organiza-
tion of staged events within which to provide opportunities to influence opinion.
These include open-air events, such as the display of relics in conjunction with an
announced sermon, processions in support of civic peace or for public prayer to
end a plague or a famine or for the “burning of the vanities.” Third, Christian
dramas could be staged or new devotions promoted in order to gain large support
for ecclesiastical matters, or secular courts could be used to influence the opinion
of the elite public through the use of chansons and networks of friends. Fourth,
the secular side could influence opinion widely at several levels through the use
of public market-places or courts of law to proclaim reforms, justify taxes for war,
or punish criminals and denounce certain kinds of crime. Finally, the church and
state could join together to use the reform of municipal statues to enforce moral
codes or to exile the excommunicates with the taint of mala fama.
It is becoming more clear through research that the medieval world under-
stood that to be effective, one had to detect the climate of opinion of the target

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audience in order to have a message appropriate to that audience, had to have an

effective medium with which to deliver the message, and a means to attract and
reach a large audience to hear the message. The more complete the process was
followed the more likely the vox populi would have been regarded as the vox dei
within the medieval culture. Most recently Leidulf Melve, beginning with the
theoretical impulse from Habermas, has argued for the invention of the public
sphere in the period of the Investiture Contest from 1030 to 1122 (Melve 2007).
Select Bibliography
Cole, Penny J., The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, MA,
1991).
Connell, Charles W., “Origins of Medieval Public Opinion in the Peace of God Movement,” War
and Peace: Critical Issues in European Societies and Literature, 800–1800, ed. Albrecht
Classen and Nadia Margolis (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2011), 171–92.
Ferreiro, Alberto, ed., The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of
Jeffrey B. Russell (Leiden et al. 1998).
Frassetto, Michael, ed., Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the
Work of R. I. Moore (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2006).
Gurevich, Aron, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. János M. Bak
and Paul A. Holdsworth (Cambridge 1988).
Head, Thomas and Richard Landes, ed., The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious
Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca, NY, and London 1992).
Menache, Sophia, The Vox Dei: Communication in the Middle Ages (New York 1990).
Masschaele, James, “The Public Space of the Marketplace in Medieval England,” Speculum 77
(2002): 383–421.
Moore, R. I., “Popular Violence and Popular Heresy in Western Europe, ca. 1100–1179,” Persecu-
tion and Toleration, ed. W. J. Sheils (Oxford 1984), 43–50. [= Moore 1984a]
Morris, Colin, “Propaganda for War: The Dissemination of the Crusading Ideal in the Twelfth
Century,” Studies in Church History 20, ed. W. J. Shields (1983): 79–101.
Nederman, Cary J., Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua’s
“Defensor Pacis” (Lanham, MD, and London 1995).
Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth, The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion—Our Social Skin, 2nd ed.
(Munich 1980; Chicago 1993).
Splichal, Slavko, Public Opinion: Developments and Controversies in the Twentieth Century
(Oxford 1999).
Throop, Palmer A., Criticism of the Crusade: A Study of Public Opinion and Crusade Propaganda,
rpt. ed. (1940; Philadelphia, PA, 1975).
Van Engen, John, “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem,” The American
Historical Review 91 (1986): 519–52. [= Van Engen 1986a]

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John Sewell
Religious Conflict
A Conflict and Religious Institutions

In the highly religious climate of medieval Europe, virtually any conflict of any
sort may have a religious dimension. Therefore, undertaking a comprehensive
discussion of religious conflict in medieval Europe, or any other historical milieu,
is complicated by that very polysemy. Any attempt to address the topic will reflect
the interests, expertise, and biases of the author and so will inevitably be incom-
plete. Consequently, instead of attempting to identify and discuss every example
of medieval religious conflict, the following article will offer more general obser-
vations about religion and conflict in medieval Europe. Because of the signifi-
cance of Christianity to all aspects of medieval European life, the article will focus
on conflicts involving the Church, though it will also discuss conflicts between
Christians and outsiders to that religion, particularly Jews and Muslims. Given the
importance of the Church to this discussion, the article begins with the Church’s
own internal struggles and its increasingly centralized and hierarchical organiza-
tional structure under the leadership of the papacy. It moves on to the issue of
violence and religious conflict, particularly in terms of warfare and inquisitorial
procedure. Finally, the article ends by examining some of the varied ways in
which scholars have sought to understand these conflicts as reflections of perse-
cuting mentalities, cultural and social change, forms of social boundary main-
tenance, and even sources of cultural creativity.
The very history of Christianity is one of conflict. As Christianity spread
beyond its birthplace in late antique Judaea, it came to encompass a variety of
different groups with diverging and often competing interpretations of the faith.
During the Middle Ages, the Church changed dramatically from a coalition of
relatively equal and autonomous local communities, to an increasingly centra-
lized institution, and then began to splinter and transform once again by the end
of the period as it underwent the controversies and conflicts of the Reformation.
Several things should be stressed about the processes that surrounded these
transformations. First, the process was in part one of conflict between religious
and temporal authorities as the Church tried to assert its autonomy from, and
then superiority over, the military aristocracies that held the reins of government
during the Middle Ages. Second, the agents of these changes were often reform
movements motivated by a desire to purify the church from the contamination of
worldly influence. Third, despite this centralizing tendency, the process was

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Religious Conflict 1455
highly contentious and characterized by internal conflict and dissent even as the
power of the papacy continued to grow.
When discussing the first several centuries of Christianity, it may be better to
speak of multiple Christianities than a single, unified faith. Early groups such as
the much-debated Gnostics, the Nestorians, and the Arians developed interpreta-
tions of Christianity that sometimes diverged considerably from one another or
what would eventually become orthodoxy. Eventually, these groups came into
conflict as local leaders sought to define a more universal orthodoxy and Roman
Emperors increasingly offered their patronage and oversight to the Church. The
history of the Patristic period—the first five centuries of Christianity—is largely the
story of these rival groups trying to capture the authority to define Christianity
through various means such as promulgating specific formulations of the canon
of Scripture and debating their theological claims in ecumenical councils of the
Church’s leaders (see for example, Brown 2013).
The bishop of Rome emerged from these struggles as the most prestigious
and influential of the otherwise relatively equal bishops of the Western Church
while the Eastern Church continued as a coalition of relatively more autonomous
bishops. Free of the influence and protection of the Byzantine Empire, the
bishops of Rome parlayed alliances with temporal leaders to assert its authority
and guidance over the Latin Church. One of the most important early alliances
was that forged with the Franks, which contributed to their mutual aggrandize-
ment, allowing the Roman bishops to assert their primacy over the others and
leading to the crowning of Charlemagne (d. 814), King of the Franks, as Emperor
in 800 with the blessing of Pope Leo III (d. 816). But the transformation of the
bishops of Rome into the medieval papacy was not a smooth one. Under some
occupants of the office, like Gregory the Great (d. 604), the papacy asserted a
strong hand in disciplining the church. Other popes, such as John XII (d. 964) or
Benedict IX (d. 1055/56) were incompetent, disengaged, or corrupt. More than
once, multiple claimants asserted the power of the papacy, diminished though it
was (for an accessible account of the history of the medieval papacy, see Morris
1989).
Reform came to the papacy, partly through Imperial intervention. In 1046,
Emperor Henry III (d. 1056) took an army to Rome and asserted the right to
determine future popes. Henry would nominate a series of popes before his death
in 1056 that included Clement II (d. 1047), Damasus II (d. 1048), Leo IX (d. 1054),
and Victor II (d. 1057). Of these, Leo IX would be the most important and worked
to disentangle temporal and religious authority (despite the fact that he owed his
office to the influence of a Holy Roman Emperor). As with many papal reformers,
two of Leo’s targets were married clergy who might divert church funds and
property to their heirs and the practice of selling church office. Leo’s use of papal

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1456 John Sewell
legates given broad powers to intervene in local church activities was a major and
effective assertion of papal authority and a party of papal reformers gathered
around him that included Hugh, the abbot of Cluny (d. 1109), Peter Damian
(d. 1072), and Hildebrand of Sovana, later Pope Gregory VII (d. 1085), would
eventually bring the papacy into conflict with its imperial patrons (Cowdrey
1998).
In addition to conflict with temporal authorities, Leo’s use of papal legates
also precipitated a conflict within the Church itself. Leo sent Humbert, Cardinal of
Silva Candida (d. 1061), as papal legate to Constantinople. The Eastern Church in
Byzantine lands did not recognize papal authority and disputed a number of
elements of Latin liturgy and teaching, most famously the wording of the Nicene
Creed as it was used in the West. In 1054, Humbert delivered a Bull excommuni-
cating the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael I Cerularius (d. 1059), who in turn
excommunicated the pope, effectively severing the already tenuous ties between
the Eastern and Western halves of the Church (Chadwick 2003).
Leo’s supporter and Humbert’s aid, Hildebrand would embroil the papacy in
further conflict after he was elected Pope Gregory VII in 1073. Having already
wrested control of papal elections from the emperors in 1059, Gregory embarked
on a campaign of reform that has come to be known by his name. The most
important religious conflict of this Gregorian Reform involved the right of the
Church to control appointments to ecclesiastical office. This Investiture Contro-
versy, as it is typically known, began when Emperor Henry IV and Gregory VII
quarreled over the right to appoint the Bishop of Milan. In 1075, Gregory issued
the Dictatus Papae, asserting the supremacy of the pope over the Church and all
Christendom as well as claiming that the emperor only served at the pleasure of
the pope. Henry responded by calling Gregory a pretender to the papacy and
Gregory excommunicated the emperor. Germany and Italy were plunged into
conflict with both Emperor and Pope suffering humiliations and helping the
Norman occupiers of Southern Italy to secure their legitimacy through their
alliance with Gregory. A parallel conflict was brewing in England and, in the next
century, provided the model for a resolution to the central European investiture
controversy. The Concordat of Worms separated bishops’ temporal and religious
authority and recognized that their powers in each sphere derived from separate
overlords. Henceforth, the pope would be responsible for naming bishops and the
Emperor would then have the choice of investing them with the temporal power
that customarily, but not automatically, accompanied their office (for more on the
investiture controversy, see Blumenthal 1991). But popes and emperors, as well as
other ecclesiastical and temporal authorities, would often be at odds throughout
the Middle Ages. Notable papal-imperial conflicts also occurred between Pope
Adrian IV (d. 1159) and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as well as between Frede-

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rick II (Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily) and several popes, including his
former guardian Innocent III (d. 1216).
Over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the papacy continued
to grow in power. It developed new tools to support its claims. The articulation of
canon law, judicious use of councils to build and manage consensus and its
continued use of papal legates to intervene in local affairs proved indispensable.
The papacy showed its power to rally the laity to its causes as it mobilized several
crusades within and beyond the boundaries of its greatest influence, and devel-
oped mechanisms such as the sale of indulgences to support them financially. It
also leveraged control over access to the sacraments to discipline its adherents
through excommunication and interdiction and developed methods of inquiry
into the conformity of adherents’ belief and practice through episcopal and, later,
papal inquisition. Pope Innocent III is often considered the greatest example of
the papacy in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. He presided over
Lateran IV, which he used to institute a number of changes to canon law with
little successful opposition, and mobilized the energy of crusaders to address the
perceived threat of Cathar heresy in Southern France, albeit with more limited
success (Morris 1989, Moore 2009).
The relative success of the papacy through Innocent III would not go unan-
swered. But before turning to the challenges that popes faced in subsequent
centuries, it is necessary to broaden this discussion of medieval religious conflict
to other areas. The papacy was able to reshape the Church because it harnessed a
reforming imperative that did not begin with the papacy itself. The perception
that all was not right with the Church persuaded many to seek changes from at
least the tenth century on. Among the earliest to pursue that agenda were monks
and the problem that they addressed was the perception that the Church was
often involved in and corrupted by worldly affairs. As members of powerful
families increasingly entered the Church hierarchy and donated land to the
Church, ecclesiastical authorities were encumbered with obligations to their
patrons and became embroiled in dynastic conflicts. Efforts to free the Church
from contamination by secular political influence and to control corruption with-
in the hierarchy bred reform movements at the local, regional, and central levels
of Church hierarchy. Monastic reform movements, such as the Cluniac movement,
are one such example. Theoretically freed by its charter of any external influence
other than the pope’s, the Benedictine abbey at Cluny became a model of disci-
pline that was copied throughout western Europe, partly through the spawning of
daughter houses subject to the authority of the central house at Cluny. The
independence of the monks at Cluny fed a vision of the Church as a whole
enjoying similar freedom from worldly influence and, not surprisingly, contribu-
ted to the Gregorian vision of a strong and independent Church at the head of a

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1458 John Sewell
harmonious Christian society, or Christendom, all under the guidance of a sover-

eign pontiff. Although the monks, abbots, and admirers of Cluny were far from
monolithic in their views, many aided in that same Gregorian movement includ-
ing Abbot Hugh and Peter Damian, and, later, Peter the Venerable (d. 1156)
(Cowdrey 1970; Iogna-Prat 2002). Ironically, the success and influence of the
Cluniac movement made it the target of the same sorts of criticisms regarding its
worldly entanglement that it was founded to avoid, spurring the development of
other monastic reform movements such as the Cistercians and Carthusians (Con-
stable 1996).
Conflicts over church authority revealed certain tensions within the structure
of the Church itself—regular clerics of the monasteries and abbeys versus the
bishops and priests of the secular clergy, the pope as bishop of Rome versus the
less prestigious bishops—and paradoxes within the movements themselves.
Though the monasteries were a reaction against the temporal power of the secular
clergy, they also acquired land and influence. The Gregorian party found itself at
odds not just with bishops who owed much of their power to monarchs and
emperors, they eventually needed to rein in the zeal of other reformers whose
criticism of clerical abuses were not so different from their own. In the thirteenth
century these tensions would be further complicated by the development of new
sorts of regular orders—the mendicant orders, named for their early occupation of
begging—who explicitly rejected the withdrawal of the traditional monasteries in
favor of a disciplined involvement in worldly affairs as agents of the Church’s
responsibility for the care of souls. They embraced an ideal of poverty that put
them at odds with the aristocratic pretensions of landholding bishops while
simultaneously becoming new instruments of ecclesiastical discipline and papal
authority. These orders, most notably the Franciscans (authorized 1209) and
Dominicans (authorized by the pope in 1216) as well as the Carmelites (authorized
1226) and Augustinians (authorized 1244), included communities of friars and
nuns, committed to serving the needs of the faithful. This, along with the develop-
ment of associated lay brotherhoods, gave them considerable influence over the
intellectual, institutional, and temporal affairs of the Church. The mendicants
would come to play important roles in the universities, missions, and inquisitions
of central and late medieval Europe (Little 1978; J. Cohen 1982a; Lawrence 1994).
A further irony of the enthusiasm for reform that impelled the development of
new monastic movements and the ambitions of the papacy was that it also led to
conflict among reform-minded parties. Not all who sounded the call to renovate
the spiritual and institutional edifice of the Church had the same designs. The
very orders that withdrew from the world and rebelled against temporal influence
acquired wealth and influence themselves. The papacy that once mustered the
anti-clerical zeal of those who opposed the corruption of local bishops found itself

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the target of similar criticism. Those who embraced the reforming spirit too tightly
were often labeled as heretics. The Humiliati and the Spiritual Franciscans were
frequently condemned by representatives of the official Church for their insis-
tence on its need to embrace humility and poverty (Tierney 1972; Burr 2001).
R. I. Moore has argued that the growth of heretical movements from the twelfth
century on was in part an unintended consequence of the Gregorian reform and
similar efforts to eliminate corruption from the church spilling over into more
general anticlerical sentiment. But he has also cautioned against uncritically
accepting the medieval Church’s framing of heretics as radical opponents of
ecclesiastical authority per se. Their origins among medieval reformers would
suggest that they would have viewed themselves more conservatively as at-
tempting to bring back the spirit of the apostolic Church (Moore 1977). Moore’s
most recent book on heresy goes even further in cautioning against easy accep-
tance of the Church’s depiction of heretics. He argues that heresy was largely a
figment of heresiologists’ imaginations. Prior to the twelfth century, attacks on
heretics were mostly opportunistic attempts to clarify points of orthodox doctrine
and limit the appeal of platonic interpretations of Christian dogma, particularly
among those without the benefit of sufficient philosophical training to under-
stand them. Later, and consistent with Moore’s earlier assessment, heresy accu-
sations were a way of controlling the anticlerical genies that the Gregorian
reformers had released in their fight for control of the Church. Moore even argues
that the Cathars were a phantom of the Church’s own imagination, at least early
on (Moore 2012).
While technically heresy refers to the choice to accept an understanding of
Christian doctrine rejected by the Church as false, it was in practice used as a
broad term for religious deviance among those at least nominally under Christian
teaching authority. The work of Patristic heresiologists provided the medieval
Church with an extensive vocabulary with which to paint its opponents. Writers
such as Irenaeus (d. ca. 202), Tertullian (d. ca. 225), Augustine (d. 430), and many
more had catalogued the heresies of their day and wrote critical responses to
them. Medieval writers frequently described what they saw as the mistaken
positions of their opponents in terms derived from that literature (for an example
of a general study of medieval heresy that privileges the doctrinal disputes
implicated in these conflicts, see Lambert 2002).
Indeed, some of the fights about heresy of the early Middle Ages were, at least
in part, a continuation of the heresiological disputes of the Patristic period.
Despite being condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325, the teachings of Arius
(d. 336), which included the belief that Christ was not equal with God the Father
but instead his first creation, remained very popular. Arian Christianity had been
quite popular among Rome’s soldiers and from there spread to many of the

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1460 John Sewell
Germanic tribes that served Rome in a military capacity. Consequently, Arianism

also survived and thrived in the new Germanic kingdoms established as the
Western Roman Empire declined. The Visigoths of Spain, for example, favored
Arianism. But the Franks’ association with the Roman Church, a product of the
conversion of their King Clovis (d. 511) under the influence of his wife Clothilda
(d. 544), helped to secure medieval Europe for the Nicene Christology (Fletcher
1999; Geary 2002).
But new heretical groups also emerged in the early Middle Ages, and the
beliefs that rendered them suspect were still often described using the vocabulary
of earlier heresies. The Bogomils that emerged in tenth century Bulgaria, for
example, were accused of a number of heresies that had already been described
during the Patristic era—dualism (belief in two gods), docetism (the claim that
Jesus’s human body was not in fact material), and adoptionism (the notion that
Jesus was not the Son of God from eternity but was granted that status by God
after his birth). Some scholars have suggested that the Bogomils had acquired
some of these beliefs from earlier groups, such as the Paulicians. But it is also
entirely possible that dissenting religious groups arrived at positions similar to
earlier heresies without any direct influence from them or that medieval here-
siologists simply represented their beliefs in terms of familiar heresies as they so
often did with other groups (Lambert 2002).
Dualism was a frequently revived charge. In addition to the Bogomils, the
Cathars of Southern France and Northern Italy were also accused of believing in
two gods—a good god of the spirit and an evil god of matter and the body. Once
thought to be a transplanting of Bogomil doctrines into Western European soil,
the Cathars were divided socially between an elite group of ascetic perfecti and a
large number of lay followers (Runciman 1982; Lansing 1998). Like many groups
that would be labeled as heretical in the Middle Ages, the Cathars exhibited a
strong anti-clerical tendency even though clerics themselves feared that they were
developing a rival counter-church supported by many of the nobles of Langue-
doc. The threat was perceived to be so great that the Roman church turned to both
crusade and inquisition to answer it. However, contemporary scholars question
many of the traditional claims about the Cathars including their ties to the
Bogomils, the nature of their beliefs and practices, and whether or not they
actually had the sort of centralized organization that would have made them a
threat to the Church itself (e.g., Pegg 2001).
The Poor of Lyons, or Waldensians as they are currently more commonly
called, became active in the 1170s. Their modern name comes from that of Peter
Waldo/Valdes (d. ca. 1218), a merchant from Lyons who renounced his wealth in
favor of a radical endorsement of Christian humility and poverty. In addition to
their call to voluntary poverty and anti-clerical sentiment, Waldensians criticized

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transubstantiation as an explanation for Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and

called for vernacular translations of Scripture. The Waldensians managed to
survive the Middle Ages, eventually aligning themselves with the Reformation
during the sixteenth century (Audisio 1999; Cameron 2000).
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also saw a number of anti-clerical
groups labeled as heresies. John Wycliffe (d. 1384), a priest and doctor of divinity
at Oxford, condemned papal power and the use of indulgences. Despite his own
scholastic training he was also critical of many of the formal scholastic interpreta-
tions of Christian doctrine that had come to dominate medieval theology. Like the
Waldensians, he called for a simpler understanding of the Church’s teachings
acknowledging only the Scripture—to be available in the vernacular—as one’s
ultimate authority. Wycliffe’s followers, nicknamed Lollards, made common
cause with the rebels associated with Wat Tyler (d. 1381) and so further exempli-
fied the connection between religious and political or economic dissent (Hudson
1988). Some scholars have seen in the followers of Wycliffe an important prece-
dent to and influence upon the Reformation (e.g., Hudson 1988), but others
disagree (Rex 2002).
Wycliffe also influenced the Bohemian Hussites. Bohemian scholars studying
at Oxford brought his ideas to Prague where they influenced Jan Hus (d. 1415).
Hus recapitulated many of Wycliffe’s criticisms of church authority and doctrine
and translated a number of his works. Hus was condemned by the Council of
Constance in 1415 (as was Wycliffe, posthumously) and executed under their
orders. But Bohemia erupted in a series of wars as crusades meant to destroy
Hus’s followers failed, sparking rebellion instead (Lambert 2002; Fudge 2010).
Research into many of these groups must be conducted under the caveat that
the labels applied by modern historiography were not so neatly applied during
the period itself. Indeed many if not all of these labels may be the product of
contemporaneous or subsequent revision by writers seeking to frame popular or
ecclesiastical dissent for their own purposes (Grundmann 1995). The pursuit of
heresy tended to exaggerate the size and organization of dissenting groups, such
as the Waldensians and the Cathars (e.g., Audisio 1999; Pegg 2001). In fact, Robert
Lerner has argued that the much discussed heresy of the Free Spirit from the
fourteenth century was largely the invention of inquisitors who fabricated a
heresy to organize and explain certain antinomian and mystical trends that their
investigations had elicited (Lerner 1972).
In fact, many of those groups labeled as heretical questioned the way that the
Church had used its authority to promulgate new doctrines or novel interpreta-
tions of old ones that departed from what they considered established teachings.
But all of them from at least the Cathars on can also be understood, as Moore
suggests, as protesting the Church’s involvement in worldly affairs. Many other

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1462 John Sewell
scholars have looked for economic and social explanations for these doctrinal
controversies. Euan Cameron has made such observations about the Walden-
sians. Initially, the Poor of Lyons objected to the Church’s exercise of authority,
but lacked significant doctrinal, social, or ritual disputes with the Church. It is
only as the Waldensians merged with the Protestants during the sixteenth century
that the teachings of this so-called heretical group began to diverge from Catholic
orthodoxy in significant ways (Cameron 2000). Carol Lansing reads the Cathars in
terms of the social distinctions of medieval Europe, interpreting their identifica-
tion of the body with evil and the dualism typically associated with them as a
form of social protest. The body was a metaphor for the body of society and its
condemnation was thus a rejection of the corruption that had thoroughly con-
taminated it (Lansing 1998). Heresy in the Middle Ages was inevitably implicated
in a variety of social and institutional conflicts that involved but exceeded
“merely” religious matters.
The Church also continued to face challenges from princes and nobles. Just
as the German Emperors had balked at papal claims, so did monarchs who saw
their own power growing and consolidating over the course of the Middle Ages.
Popes met particular challenges during the fourteenth century. For example, King
Philip IV (d. 1314) of France was successful in consolidating his power and deal-
ing effectively with the papacy. His dynasty had been the beneficiary of victories
against both the English and the Counts of Toulouse and so had built French royal
dominions and power to its greatest point since the Franks. Constant warfare
required increased revenue and Philip turned to the church, imposing new taxes
upon its properties. Pope Boniface VIII (d. 1303) resisted, issuing statements such
as the Clericis Laicos and Unam Sanctam that, in the vein of Gregory’s Dictatus
Papae, asserted Papal sovereignty over an autonomous church and any temporal
power. Not cowed by papal invective, Philip accused the pope of heresy, sodomy,
and magic. Philip’s supporters eventually assaulted the Pope in his palace at
Anagni in 1303, ultimately causing his death. The church was riven into pro-
French and pro-Roman camps until a French pope, Clement V (d. 1314) was
elected in 1305. Clement tried to restore papal prestige and authority but also
made conciliatory gestures toward the French, including the dissolution of the
Templars in 1312, thus also negating some of Philip’s nagging debts. In order to
avoid reprisals in Rome, Clement remained in France, bringing the Papacy to
Avignon in 1309 (Mollat 1965; Renouard 1970; Jordan 1989).
The papacy suffered further humiliations. The virulence of the Black Death
brought with it anticlerical attitudes that affected the church at all levels. If pesti-
lence was a punishment for sin, the Church’s powerlessness before it did not speak
highly of their claims to sanctity. More importantly, attempts to return the papacy
to Rome ultimately failed bringing another Schism to the Church. Gregory XI

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(d. 1378) returned to Rome in 1377, but died shortly thereafter. After decades of
French popes, Romans wanted a Roman pope but the election produced a Neapoli-
tan pope instead, Urban VI (d. 1389), in 1378. French cardinals adjourned to France
and elected another pope, claiming that Urban’s selection had occurred under
duress. Reigning once again from Avignon, the French-elected pope Clement VII
(d. 1394) was not able to secure Urban VI’s concession. Two popes reigned in
Christendom—one in France and one in Rome—and the various polities of Europe
lined up behind the leader that best suited their interests. The credibility of the
Papacy’s claim to universal authority severely damaged, some thinkers sought to
heal the breach by promoting Church councils as an important check on papal
authority. A council was called in Pisa in 1409 to solve the problem but only
succeeded in naming a third pope. The absurdity of the papal condition now widely
acknowledged, temporal authorities such as Sigismund (d. 1437), King of Germany,
Hungary, and Croatia, later to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor, threw their
support behind the councils and the Council of Constance in 1414 was able to secure
the retirement of the Roman pope upon the election of a new pope during the
council and to marginalize the pope at Avignon. After a few years the council had
managed to resolve the papal schism and so lent credibility to the desire to
prioritize conciliar over papal authority. The papacy would recover during the
sixteenth century, despite new challenges associated with the Reformation (Hui-
zinga 1996; Tierney 1998; Oakley 2003; Rollo-Koster and Izbicki, ed., 2009).
B Violence and the Church

Pursuing the centralizing and reforming agendas of the preceding discussion
reveals an important tension within the medieval Church. On the one hand, it was
animated by the Christian emphasis on love and desire for peace. On the other
hand, the Church also made use of force and violence to protect itself, expand its
influence, and discipline those over which it asserted its authority. Crusading,
popularly conceived of as holy war against Muslims, was more widely used to
serve other religious agendas as well, including the eradication of heresy. The
Church also made use of violence in association with its inquiries into the beliefs
and practices of the faithful. The Church reconciled these tensions by employing
a theory of the justified use of violence as an instrument of love in both cases.
The most well-known religious conflicts of the Middle Ages may be those
known as the “Crusades.” However, “crusade” is itself a poorly defined term.
Although it conjures images of military expeditions by Christian knights fighting
against Muslims to the East of the Byzantine Empire, the word itself did not
emerge in English until the eighteenth century. Moreover, though crusading is

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popularly identified with Christian-Muslim warfare in the near east, a number of

additional conflicts have been called crusades or would seem to be difficult to
distinguish from the Crusades in the Middle East based on anything other than
geography, including the Albigensian crusades in the Languedoc, the Baltic
Crusades, and the Iberian Reconquista. Scholarly usage is generally divided
between defining the Crusades as conflicts against Muslims in the East and
defining it as papal-directed religious warfare in general. Some in the camp
favoring a broader definition include any religious warfare in defense of Chris-
tians or Christian possessions, regardless of who organized it (Constable 2001;
Housely 2006; Riley-Smith 1977). Those scholars who have advocated a broader
definition of crusades as papally directed religious warfare instead of Christian
expeditions against Muslim polities emphasize that said tool was widely used
from at least the eleventh century on. Norman Houseley, for example, has argued
that when viewed in this broader perspective, crusading became an extremely
important medieval institution until at least the sixteenth century that was deeply
involved in the cultural, theological, and financial foundations of the medieval
Church (Houseley 1992).
With regard to the Crusades in the Middle East, there is relatively high agree-
ment about what constitutes the first four such conflicts. Scholars have tradition-
ally identified the First Crusade as beginning with Pope Urban II (d. 1099) calling
for warriors to fight in the East at Clermont in 1095 and continued until approxi-
mately 1099. That call was inspired by a request from the Byzantine Emperor
Alexius I Comnenus (d. 1118), seeking aid in dealing with the expanding power of
the Seljuks who had taken most of Asia Minor from the Byzantines and had taken
Jerusalem from the Egyptian Fatimids. Urban’s call was answered by a number of
expeditions made up of Christian knights and untrained enthusiasts from England,
Northern France, Germany, and Italy. The forces thus generated acted largely
independently, despite oaths of fealty to the Byzantine Emperor and were able to
take advantage of disunity among their Muslim opponents to carve out a number
of Crusader states including the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch,
and the County of Edessa, among others (Runciman 1987; Asbridge 2005).
The Crusader states managed to hold their own through most of the twelfth
century. But as Muslims regained territory, the call to crusade was renewed. The
second major influx of Crusaders, substantial enough to be called a Second
Crusade, took place from 1147–1149. Crusaders came mostly from France and
Germany and had little effect in the Holy Land, though many passed through the
Iberian peninsula where they aided in the fight against Muslims there, most
notably aiding in the Christian conquest of Lisbon. Christian successes in the East
would be sharply curtailed after 1187 when Saladin (d. 1193), who had carved out
his own empire in Syria and Egypt, retook Jerusalem from the Christians. Pope

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Gregory VIII (d. 1187) called for a new crusade in response. Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa (d. 1190) set off on the crusade but drowned while passing
through what is now Turkey. The King of France, Philip II (d. 1223) also joined the
crusade. He got as far as Acre but left the expedition after a period of illness and
tensions with fellow crusader King Richard I (d. 1199) of England in order to deal
with problems at home. Richard was more successful, making his way to Jerusa-
lem, though he failed to retake the city. He too was forced to leave the crusade in
order to deal with rebellion in England but was captured by Henry VI (d. 1197) of
Germany on the way home. The success of subsequent crusades to the Holy Land
declined precipitously. Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) called for a Fourth Crusade in
1202, but it was diverted by their Venetian creditors. The Venetians had lost Zara,
a port on the Adriatic, to King Emeric (d. 1204) of Hungary a few years earlier and
wanted the crusaders do retake it. Innocent excommunicated the crusaders for
setting aside their mission and making war on a Christian king who also hap-
pened to be one of his vassals. The crusaders never reached the Holy Land and
instead took advantage of the disputed succession of the Byzantine Emperor to
attack Constantinople (Harris 2003). Innocent also made the call for a Fifth
Crusade part of the agenda of the Lateran IV council. The crusade got under way
in 1217 but after four years of fighting in Egypt, accomplished nothing. Holy
Roman Emperor and King of Sicily Frederick II (d. 1250) was able to regain
Jerusalem in 1229 through negotiation rather than war. Louis IX (d. 1270) of France
also undertook crusades in 1248 and 1270, without much success. At this point,
the numbering of the Eastern Crusades breakdown. Some consider Frederick II’s
mostly peaceful expedition to be the Sixth Crusade. Others save that number for
the first crusade by Louis IX (Mayer 1988; Houseley 1992).
Modern accounts of these crusades has tended to focus on the Western
European perspective, though that has changed in recent decades. In fact, histor-
ians of the Crusades have sought to understand the mentality of the Crusaders
themselves. Carl Erdmann is among the most influential of those historians.
During the 1930s, he argued that the Crusades should be read as an attempt to
liberate and unite Christians not an attempt to recapture the holy land, per se.
Moreover, though it coincided with the expansion of Seljuk power, it was actually
the logical conclusion of the Gregorian vision of a united Church under a strong
pope, and the use of warfare to bring about that end (Erdmann 1977; see also Bull
1993). Jonathan Riley-Smith disagrees in part, placing more emphasis on taking
Jerusalem as the goal of the First Crusade. Whatever the significance of papal
ambition in laying the groundwork for the crusading ideology, Riley-Smith also
sees it as a new development informed by visionary, eschatological enthusiasm
as much as papal power plays. It was particularly the success of the First Crusade
in capturing Jerusalem and carving new Christian states out of the Seljuk Middle

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East that allowed the crusaders to recast their efforts as the work of Providence
and key points in an eschatological narrative (Riley-Smith 1986). But one should
be cautious about reading the crusading mentality, if such a thing can be said to
exist, as static. Benjamin Kedar has argued that, from the thirteenth century on,
the crusading ideology was linked to the missionary imperative of the high Middle
Ages as a necessary precursor to preaching among Muslims, perceived by Wes-
tern Christians as unwilling to listen to missionaries without the threat or use of
force to make them receptive (Kedar 1984). Alongside these efforts to understand
the mindset of Latin crusaders, interest in Muslim and Byzantine perspectives on
the Crusades has grown considerably (e.g., Gabrieli 1969; Hillenbrand 2000).
Most of modern scholarship takes a neutral or critical stance to the Crusades, but
that is not universally true. Rodney Stark has recently and controversially written
in support of the Crusades in the Middle East as a necessary defense against new
Muslim aggression (Stark 2009).
The crusades in the Middle East are not just important for understanding
conflicts between Muslims and Christians, they are relevant to the changing state
of Jewish-Christian relations as well. In anticipation of the First Crusade, popular
preachers and untrained would-be crusaders called for conversions and threa-
tened violence against Jews along the Rhine. In May of 1096, crusaders attacked
Jews living in the communities of Worms, Mainz, Speyer, Cologne, and other
nearby towns suffered violence as a result. Some Christians came to their aid,
including the bishops (most effectively John of Speyer, d. 1104), many important
citizens of Mainz, and, belatedly, Emperor Henry IV (d. 1106) who condemned the
attacks from afar. Still, these efforts could not prevent widespread loss of life with
around 2000 Jews dying in Worms and Mainz. Fear of violence and forced
conversion were such that some Jews killed themselves and family members
rather than face the crusaders (Chazan 1987; Abulafia 2011).
Responsibility for the violence has been much debated. The organized cru-
sading campaigns of the upper nobility did not engage in attacks on Jews. Ur-
ban II’s call to crusade generated a greater response than anticipated. Aimed at
monarchs and the upper nobility, the call was answered by people from all ranks
of society. The violence against Jews in the Rhineland seems to have been
perpetrated by popular enthusiasts and the less well organized adventuring
warriors who participated in the Crusades on a more opportunistic basis and who
may have hoped to finance their expeditions through bribes or plunder. Many
accounts blame all of the attacks on a certain Count Emicho (of either Flonheim
or Leinigen, his precise identity is disputed; Chazan 2000). He did lead the attack
on Mainz and some smaller places around Cologne in which Jews were taking
refuge. But Robert Chazan has recently argued that careful study of Jewish
accounts of the attacks do not name him in relation to all the assaults and

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repeatedly mention the involvement of local townsmen alongside the crusaders

(Chazan 2000; 2002).
However responsibility for the attacks associated with the First Crusade
should be apportioned, they were not the last such incidents of violence. Similar
violence occurred in connection with later crusades as well. The prominent
Tosafist R. Jacob ben Meir was reportedly attacked in 1146 around the beginning
of the Second Crusade and Bernard of Clairvaux was instrumental in limiting the
effects of popular preachers who called for renewed violence at that time. Mobs
also threatened violence against the Jews of Germany and France in the wake of
the Third Crusade. Emperor Frederick I distinguished himself by his actions to
prevent such violence, while Richard I of England did nothing (Abulafia 2011).
Crusading violence against the Jews has garnered attention because it was
unusual. Prior to these outbreaks of violence, Jews and Christians coexisted in a
tense, unequal peace in much of Western Europe. Jews enjoyed relative political
safety in many parts of medieval Europe. The Franks allowed them considerable
freedom, depending in part on their learning to cultivate their own scholarly
abilities and so afforded Jews an important place in the so-called Carolingian
Renaissance. Moreover, there is some evidence that during the eighth and ninth
centuries the Jews of Francia were organized under the guidance of a Jewish
prince based in Narbonne who owed fealty to the King of the Franks (Zuckerman
1972). At the same time, not all Christians were willing to afford Jews considerable
privilege and recognition. Unlike the Franks, the Visigoths of Spain were more
repressive in their attitudes toward the Jews. Even in France, Agobard (d. 840),
bishop of Lyons complained about Jewish privilege and condemned the freedom
with which Jews spoke out against Christians and Christianity (Benbassa 1999).
The relatively tolerant atmosphere of the early Middle Ages may be attributa-
ble to the influence of Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). Augustine had described Jews
as unwitting witnesses to the superiority of Christianity. The political demise of
the Jews coincided with the ascendency of Christianity and so provided important
evidence that Christianity superseded Judaism as the most complete revelation of
God’s will for humanity. The pedagogical value of small subjugated populations
of Jews within Christendom was such that their extirpation could be postponed
until the end of days insofar as their survival actually served a greater missionary
role than their immediate conversion would (Cohen 1999; Fredriksen 2010; Abula-
fia 2011). But sometime around or after the turn of the millennium, things began
to change for the Jews. Rumors of Jewish violence against Christians began to
spread as did negative portrayals of the Jews in general (for more, see below).
Christian authorities also turned to other measures that made life difficult for
Jewish communities. At various times, temporal and spiritual authorities called
for Jews to wear distinctive clothing, confiscated land or interfered with its

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inheritance, banned Jews from specific trades, or subjugated them to additional

taxes and fees. As the Middle Ages wore on, Jews were frequently expelled from
their homes. In 1290, Edward I (d. 1307) expelled the Jews from England. They
were expelled from France several times between 1306 and 1394. Various German
and Italian cities and territories expelled them between the twelfth and sixteenth
centuries. The most famous expulsion occurred in 1492 when King Ferdinand
(d. 1516) and Queen Isabella (d. 1504) expelled them from their Spanish and
Italian lands, followed in 1497 by their expulsion from Portugal (Jordan 1989;
Stow 1992; Foa 2000).
The violence against Jews in response to the Crusades may have emerged as
the rising impetus to build a unified Christendom, free of the threat of unbelie-
vers, inspired some who answered it to turn that momentum against non-Chris-
tians living in their midst instead of fighting those at their geographical margins
and so began to target Jews and other marginalized groups (the association is
attested in many crusade chronicles and so widely attested in secondary scholar-
ship, for one scholarly explanation of the link, see Riley-Smith 2002, also dis-
cussed below). Many scholars have seen a decline in Jewish-Christian relations
through the central and later Middle Ages. The novelty of the violence associated
with the First Crusade and the crusading mentality that seems to have inspired it
has made these attacks an attractive candidate for those seeking a watershed
moment after which the state of Jewish-Christian relations decisively changed
(e.g., Poliakov 1974; Langmuir 1990a; 1990b).
But not all scholars agree. Robert Chazan has disputed the notion that the
First Crusade was a turning point in medieval relations between Jews and Chris-
tians. The crusading mentality was an anomalous disturbance in the tense coex-
istence of medieval Jews and Christians that had little lasting effect in the Rhine-
land in terms of instigating repressive legislation against the Jews. Rather than
being a decisive turning point, it was at most the first indication of a change that
had not yet occurred (Chazan 1987). Similarly, Kenneth Stow has been an out-
spoken critic of any sort of sudden change in Jewish-Christian relations during
the central Middle Ages. Stow is less enthusiastic about the state of early medieval
Jews than many other scholars. Claims that Jews were generally better off before
some proposed medieval turning point and then increasingly subject to hardship
and exclusion afterward both exaggerate the toleration of early medieval Chris-
tians and fail to recognize that the tenor of Jewish-Christian relations always
varied subject to local conditions and ongoing power-struggles (Stow 1992). But
even if the pogroms of the First Crusade did not initiate a generally repressive
legal climate, they certainly had a profound effect on Ashkenazi Jews. A great
deal of literature has been written in an attempt to understand the chronicles of
these events generated by the communities that experienced them and the narra-

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tives themselves have been compiled and published several times (e.g., Eidel-
berg, ed., 1977; Haverkamp, ed., 2005). Jeremy Cohen, for example, argues that
the messianism, anti-Christian sentiment, and tendency to interpret suicides as
Kiddush ha-Shem, or “sanctification of the Name of God,” i.e., as a religious act
meant to avoid blaspheming against God by accepting conversion, should be seen
as indices of the profound grief, and indeed guilt, of those who survived or
descended from survivors (Cohen 2006).
Crusading violence was not just directed against Muslims and Jews, either.
The Church used it internally for a variety of reasons as well, most notably the
extirpation of heretics. The most famous example was the thirteenth century
crusade against the Cathars of Southern France. Pope Innocent III initiated the
so-called Albigensian Crusade (named after the town of Albi, which was thought
to be one of the Cathars’ strongholds) in 1209 when one of his legates was killed
in Toulouse. The murder took place after several years of resistance from the
Count of Toulouse, Raymond VI (d. 1222), who refused to participate in efforts to
discipline the Cathars and those nobles who supported them. Intermittent fight-
ing ensued for the next twenty years, resulting ultimately in King Louis IX gaining
control of the County of Toulouse and expanding the power of the monarchy
considerably. Research on the Albigensian Crusade and the Cathars has uncov-
ered the influence a complex set of intertwined religious, political, and social
factors involved in the conflict. Malcolm Barber has argued that the alleged
alliance between Cathars and local nobles of Southern France was partly a
cultural one rather than a real alliance.
The lack of strongly hierarchical feudal relations among the local nobility
made the hierarchy of the international Church a bit foreign to the culture of
Languedoc. In fact, many local nobles were quite orthodox Catholics as far as
their beliefs went (as seen by their support for other orthodox movements in the
area), just uninterested in aiding the Church in hunting down heretics. Thus the
conflict between the Albigensian crusaders and their “unbelieving” opponents
was as much about culturally accepted notions of authority and the personal
interests of local parties, as it was a conflict over religious conflict. But Barber
also acknowledges that a wider crusading ideology and the sting of having
recently lost Jerusalem to the Muslims were important motivating factors on the
side of the crusader (Barber 2000). Elaine Graham-Leigh has gone a little farther
in this direction. She sees the Albigensian Crusade as a conflict between networks
of feudal obligation operating in Southern France and its surroundings. Instead
of being a war against an identifiable Cathar threat, she reads it as a war between
one group of French nobles led by a Cistercian papal legate and another group of
French nobles who offered little patronage to the Cistericans and saw their
primary allegiance not to France or even the Count of Toulouse but to the County

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of Barcelona and the King of Aragon (Graham-Leigh 2005). Malcolm Lambert

links two religious struggles, understanding the power of the Cathars to survive
the Church’s efforts to exterminate them with the weakening of local episcopal
authority during the investiture crisis (Lambert 1999).
Another series of Crusades, often called the Northern Crusades, occurred in
the region of the Baltic Sea from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. In
1147, the same year that the Second Crusade began, Pope Eugenius III (d. 1153)
acknowledged the need for a crusade against pagans in the Baltic region. German
speaking crusaders, followed by Danes and Swedes, fought against Wends,
Finns, Estonians, Livonians, Samogitians, and other non-Christians in the name
of spreading Latin Christianity but more often converting rulers, establishing
client kingdoms, and conquering territory. Much of that territory entered into the
hands of ecclesiastical lords such as a number of fighting bishops and military
orders, particularly the Teutonic Knights. Given that German colonialism in the
area was already well underway before the Northern Crusades; that the area was
important for the production of amber, timber, and fur; and was subject to
considerable piracy and raiding; it is important not to overlook the desire to
protect and expand trade in the region as a motivation for the Northern Crusades
(Christiansen 1980; Urban 1994).
The preceding conflicts illustrate a persistent conundrum faced by the
Church. Christian teachings valued peace and a sense of the universal brother-
hood of the faithful. In practical terms, ecclesiastical authorities had also worked
to pacify the more warlike elements of medieval society. Through the tenth and
eleventh centuries, bishops and abbots had advocated the Peace and Truce of
God—two movements that hedged the pursuit of war with pious limitations such
as protecting non-combatants and the religious from the use of force and en-
couraging warriors to abstain from fighting on holy days. In the process, they not
only curbed violence in Europe, they also asserted the right of the church to
regulate its conduct (Head and Landes, ed., 1992). However, the Church also used
that authority to encourage the use of violence to achieve certain of its own ends.
Though its officers typically did not exercise force themselves (certain religious
lords and the military orders notwithstanding), they certainly encouraged others
to wield their arms on behalf of the Church. The most obvious example, of
course, would be the Crusades. But forces loyal to the popes also fought against
emperors, as in the conflict between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV
during the Investiture Controversy. The Church pointed to examples of divinely
sanctioned violence in the Bible for precedent and relied on the writings of
Church Fathers like Augustine of Hippo and, eventually, scholastic philosophers
like Thomas Aquinas to articulate a theory of just war (Russell 1977; Syse and
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For a military engagement to be considered just, it had to be fought for the

right intentions, in response to a just cause, and with the approval of a legitimate
authority. That meant that violence of this sort had to be exercised out of a greater
sense of love and only with sufficient provocation (Riley-Smith 2002). A war to
defend the oppressed, for example, might qualify as a just war. But a just war
further had to be guaranteed by the authority of a duly ordained minister of God—
a ruler, whether temporal or spiritual—not on the initiative of an incensed
bystander or victim—except in the face of immediate danger. The rhetoric sur-
rounding the First Crusade, describing the military adventure as a response to
Seljuk aggression in defense of pilgrims, fought at the behest of no less an
authority than Pope Urban II thus justified the violence to come within a frame-
work provided by this theory of just war. Jonathan Riley-Smith has further
considered Christian violence against Jews at the outset of major Crusades within
this sort of context. Purity of motive was a prerequisite for the justified exercise of
force. Riley-Smith argues that outwardly directed violence conducted in the name
of religion, as one sees in the Crusades, tends to involve a concomitant inward-
turning search for defects that might mar such intentions. This collective social
introspection, in the case of the Crusades, led some to interpret toleration of
unbelieving Jews as just such an impurity. Though Jews were not aggressors
against Christians, and they were protected by a theory of deferred justice also
articulated by Augustine, the voluntary and decentralized nature of most crusad-
ing allowed individuals who felt impelled by the first criterion of a just war (purity
of intention) to overlook the defects in their fulfillment of the second and third
criteria (just cause, legitimate authority). Thus forces such as those led by Emi-
cho, detached from the oversight of a greater military authority, were not in
practice restrained from acting on the impulses aroused by the penitential crusad-
ing rhetoric of the day (Riley-Smith 2002).
The practices of medieval inquisitions are also worth consideration when
discussing the use of violence in medieval religious conflicts. The medieval church
used inquisition to ferret out dissenting individuals and groups for discipline,
punishment, and sometimes execution. First it is important to remember that there
was no single, enduring institution known as “the Inquisition” in the Middle Ages
that held universal jurisdiction over all of Roman Christendom. The Roman Inquisi-
tion would not be established until 1542. Even the Spanish Inquisition would not be
formed until 1478. Instead, “inquisition” refers to the procedure by which judicial
authorities investigated possible misconduct. The practice derived from Roman
criminal law and was normally used for matters too severe to wait for charges to be
brought under the normal system of accusatory law. The principle examples of
such crimes under Roman law were crimes of lese majeste. As religious dissent was
increasingly criminalized through the twelfth and thirteenth century, heresy came

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to be viewed as a crime against God—and so a crime against the divine majesty—

and subject to inquisitorial prosecution (Kieckhefer 1979; Kelly 1989).
The responsibility for inquiring into cases of possible heresy at first lay princi-
pally with bishops. In 1184, Pope Lucius III urged bishops to pursue such inquisi-
tions in the bull Ad abolendam. In 1215, during the Lateran IV council and engaged
in the pursuit of Cathars and Waldensians, Innocent III reinforced the surveillance
activities of the Church, requiring even more avid inquiries from bishops in their
diocese and priests in the parishes, including the obligation that all the faithful
make a yearly confession of their sins. Heretics faced excommunication and the
loss of their property, though the former penalty would be lifted if they reconciled
with the Church. Unrepentant heretics faced punishment by secular authority. In
1231, Pope Gregory IX affirmed the appropriateness of the death penalty for unre-
pentant or backsliding heretics, a punishment already legislated by some secular
authorities. Gregory also reserved for the papacy the right to appoint papal inquisi-
tors to investigate cases of “heretical depravity” in other bishops’ sees. In 1252,
Innocent IV allowed secular authorities the right to torture suspects and witnesses
on behalf of inquistorial tribunals. In 1256, Alexander IV allowed clerics who
made use of torture themselves, rather than merely allowing lay authorities to do
so on their behalf, to absolve each other of the sin (Peters 1988).
Ironically, the efforts of inquisitors to find and eliminate heresy became a
major contributor to the heretical discourse itself as their efforts built expecta-
tions regarding what heretics were like and what their heresies entailed (Pegg
2001, 2008). For example, John Arnold has framed the Albigensian inquisition’s
roles in Foucauldian terms, discussing the way in which inquisitors and the
subjects of their inquiry collaborated in producing a discourse of heresy that
typically cohered with prevailing expectations (Arnold 2001). As a result, reading
the inquisitorial records and understanding the nature of the individuals and
groups that the Church opposed during these and other conflicts over claims of
heresy is complicated by the degree to which the views of the institutional Church
and its representatives are over represented within those records.
To be fair, even though the fact that Alexander IV allowed inquisitors to
absolve each other indicates that ecclesiastical officials did perform torture and
possibly other acts of violence themselves, in theory that was a responsibility
reserved to the secular arm which was freer to engage in bloodshed. But regard-
less of whether ecclesiastical officials did it themselves or relied on their secular
agents, there is no way to avoid the Church’s responsibility for committing acts of
violence as part of its conflicts with various dissenting movements. The Church
took pains to justify its use of violence with reference to Roman law. Innocent IV
called heretics spiritual murderers and the moral equivalent of thieves, insofar as
they stole the belief of the faithful from its rightful owner—God—and so also

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guilty of crimes against the sovereign of the universe. Torture was hedged in with
rules about its proper conduct. The inquisition could subject someone to one
session of torture, though that restriction could be circumvented by suspending
the session and continuing what was procedurally the same session at a later
time. Ad extirpenda forbade the breaking of limbs or endangering the torture
subject’s life. The goal was identifying further suspects, obtaining confessions
necessary in most cases to convict suspects, or confirming the veracity of testi-
mony that was itself suspect. But the church was also aware of the problems with
torture (Peters 1988). Aristotle had pointed out its unreliability and Pope Nicholas
II had already ruled it impermissible in 866 (Bishop 2006).
Similar problems surrounded the use of the death penalty in punishing here-
tics. Augustine and John Chrysostom (d. 407), among the Patristic theologians,
and Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), among medieval thinkers, had called for
persuasion rather than violence in correcting heretics. But the Church justified
such executions on the grounds that doing so contained a pernicious public
threat. Augustine, despite his statements to the contrary, conceded the possibility
that such practice could be justified, as did Aquinas. The church also had biblical
precedents for the use of corporal punishment and the death penalty for certain
offenses and recognized the right of sovereign secular authorities to inflict such
punishments for the maintenance of order. Overall, the justification for such
violence is not dissimilar from that behind the use of violence in crusading or
other just war—pure intentions for the greater good on the part of a legitimate
authority could authorize the use of violence (Peters 1988).
C Understanding Religion and Conflict

In addition to asking how the Church justified its involvement in the sorts of
religious conflicts thus far discussed, historians have asked why they arose at all. It
is probably impossible to offer any comprehensive answer to the question, given
the variety of religious conflicts that occurred during the Middle Ages. But again, it
is possible to offer some general observations. The Church sought to enforce its
authority over a number of different targets, the laity, clerics, dissenters, secular
powers, members of other religions, etc. Some scholars, particularly Robert I.
Moore, have asked whether this indicates a propensity toward persecution itself in
medieval Europe. Noting similarities in the way the medieval church responded to
a variety of marginal groups, Moore has sought to explain those similarities and
look for their underlying causes, and his work has been extremely influential (for
an example of the debate that Moore’s work has provoked, see Frassetto, ed., 2006;
and for Moore’s response to such debates, see Moore 2007). His most famous

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contribution, The Formation of a Persecuting Society, argued that religious persecu-

tion proliferated in Europe from the eleventh and twelfth centuries on as heretics
and Jews, but also lepers, prostitutes, and men who engaged in homosexual sex,
were marginalized as deviating from this new vision of Christian society. The
authors and advocates of that vision were a literate, clerical elite who benefitted
from the economic expansion of the period and sought to deploy their learning to
channel this productivity in an orderly fashion and eliminate any segment of
society that threatened their vision or the legitimacy of their right to articulate it
(Moore 2007). But the opportunity to articulate and advance this new clerical vision
was a result of widespread changes to medieval society after the year 1000, which
Moore discussed in The First European Revolution. There, Moore argued for the
development of an alliance between the Church and the military aristocracy to
vouchsafe their legitimacy, organize land tenure, provide for peace in rural Europe
to maximize the productivity of the medieval revolution in agriculture, and direct
the consequent commercial activity through the newly burgeoning urban centers
of Europe (Moore 2001; cf. Robert Bartlett’s somewhat similar argument that spe-
cifically stresses the colonial expansion of the military aristocracy, Bartlett 1993).
Other scholars have also tried to explain these developments in terms of
underlying social and economic conditions. Lester Little has tried to understand
both the Church’s response to heresy and the origins of that heresy itself in the
same processes of commercial expansion. He sees the growth of the commercial
economy as coupled with attempts by religious leaders—popular and official
alike—to either resist or accommodate those changes. Thus Little explains both
the rise of certain heretical movements (e.g., the Waldensians) and persecution of
the Jews (as economic rivals) as well as the development of new forms of
traditional monasticism (e.g., the Cistercians) to resist these changes and other,
novel forms (i.e., the mendicants) to embrace and incorporate them into the
Church (Little 1978). The twelfth century, in which these changes began, and the
thirteenth century, into which they continued, is often described as a pivotal
moment in medieval European history when a confluence of economic expan-
sion, intellectual flowering led to important cultural, social, and political changes
(for more on the so-called “Twelfth-Century Renaissance,” see Haskins 1971;
Abulafia 1995; Constable 1996; Swanson 1999; and Southern 1997–2001 as well).
Scholars have also looked to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance as an important
turning point in the conflict and coexistence of Jews and Christians. Ironically,
Jewish-Christian relations declined precisely as Christians became more aware of
the actual content of post-biblical Jewish belief and practice. Prior to about the
twelfth century, Christian writers about Judaism displayed relatively little aware-
ness of the religion as it was practiced in their own time. In their works, Jews were
little more than stock characters and Judaism was more or less as it was depicted in

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the Bible. This has led scholars to describe such early Christian accounts, even
polemically framed ones, as using Jews and Judaism simply as rhetorical instru-
ments for making other points, particularly about Christian doctrines. Knowledge
of post-biblical Judaism only started to increase in the twelfth century. Some of this
interest came from the missionary interests of monks and friars (J. Cohen 1982a).
Peter the Venerable took an interest in the Talmud but was more remarkable for his
polemically motivated study of Islam (Kritzeck 1964; Iogna-Prat 2002).
Christian missionaries and polemicists were aided by the conversion of Jews
to Christianity who were then able to make their knowledge and experience as
practicing Jews available to their new co-religionists. Many, indeed, took holy
orders and joined the efforts to convert adherents of their former religion. Petrus
Alfonsi, once a Spanish Jewish scholar, converted in 1106, was an early example
who wrote an important polemical dialogue soon after. Jewish converts to Chris-
tianity also brought expertise on Jewish languages and learning and so opened
the range of source material upon which Christian writers could draw. As expo-
sure to more recent Jewish thought increased, some Christians perceived Jews as
having strayed from the Judaism of the Bible, misled by philosophy and, more
importantly, the influence of the Talmud. Christians such as Raymundus Marti-
nus (d. ca. late thirteenth century), whose Pugio Fidei exemplified the new level of
Talmudic learning possessed by some Christians even as his work excoriated Jews
for their unbelief. The Pugio Fidei exhibited a double approach to the Talmud. On
the one hand, certain parts of it seemed to reinforce Christian belief and so could
be used as a valuable tool in disputing with Jews. On the other hand, Martinus
pointed to derogatory characterizations of Jesus, Mary, and certain points of
Christian doctrine included in manuscript versions of the Talmud as evidence of
Jewish hatred for the faith and its adherents.
Even as missionaries used the Talmud to advance their efforts to convert
Jews, copies of the Talmud were confiscated and burned and disputations held
between Jews and Christians with intention of exposing Jewish errors. Notable
campaigns against the Talmud began after the Paris Disputation of 1240, led by a
converted from Judaism named Nicholas Donin (d. thirteenth century), and the
Disputation of Barcelona, led by Pablo Christiani (d. ca. late thirteenth century)
also a convert (J. Cohen 1982a; Chazan 1992). Many of these efforts, like the
campaigns against heretics, were led by members of the mendicant orders. Anti-
Talmud campaigns continued through the late Middle Ages and into the early
modern period with Pope at Avignon, Benedict XIII (d. 1423) banning Jews from
reading it in 1415.
Cohen argues that it was this focus on the Talmud beginning in the twelfth
century and the anti-Talmud campaigns of the thirteenth and subsequent centu-
ries that mark the real transformation in Jewish-Christian relations. For Cohen,

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the underlying cause had to do with the rise of the mendicant orders and their
convert accomplices who were responsible for reframing the Talmud as a source
of blasphemy and heresy. Mendicant control over the tools of inquisition and
forced conversion made the violence surrounding their efforts fundamentally
different from earlier popular violence that lacked any form of ecclesiastical
sanction. Moreover, the campaign against the Talmud indicated a significant shift
in the way Christians saw Jews. The Talmud’s unstable mix of truth and error was
dangerous and misleading, according to its critics. Jews had failed to understand
its more valuable elements, had their views of Christianity tainted by its blasphe-
mous passages, and used it to justify unwarranted innovations and practices that
led them away from the biblical faith upon which Augustinian toleration was
predicated. In short, contemporaneous Jews had become heretics to their own
faith. According to Cohen, the friars of the mendicant orders had a new rationale
to combine their preaching and heresy hunting roles in extirpating Judaism from
Christian lands (J. Cohen 1982a; 1999). Robert Chazan calls for more caution in
evaluating the impact of the anti-Talmud campaign. Although the attack on the
Talmud was indeed a novel approach, it proved too labor intensive and ineffec-
tive to mark a change in the strategies used by missionaries. So, much like his
arguments regarding the violence against Jews associated with the First Crusade,
Chazan argues that as dramatic and novel as the anti-Talmud campaign was, its
long-term influence was not as profound as Cohen has suggested (Chazan 1989).
Instead, Chazan argues that the worsening state of Jewish-Christian relations
was a result of a more complex process. Events like the attacks on Jewish commu-
nities in the Rhine or the anti-Talmud campaign of mendicant missionaries and
polemicists are indicative of a larger transformation, and neither causes them-
selves or watershed moments. Chazan argues that the change was initially due to
economic factors that were intertwined with larger social and cultural changes. In
the tenth century Jews started to settle in Northern Europe to take advantage of
the economic expansion going on there and they generally prospered up until the
twelfth century. Chazan claims that Jews came to fulfill an important economic
niche by engaging in money lending. Tensions surrounding that role, and the ties
that they sometimes cultivated with elites, made them a target of popular animos-
ity and thence accusations of usury. This animosity provided the kernel around
which a perception of Jewish foreignness, as relative newcomers to the area, and
Jewish-Christian enmity could form around at the same time that a stronger and
more cohesive sense of a unique Christian identity was forming in Europe, fed by
the Gregorian movement, the consolidation of the Church around the papacy, and
the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Negative images of Jews thus served as a foil
against which this Christians could further articulate this identity and, in turn,
reinforce the perception of Jewish danger. For Chazan, it was this transformation

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in the perception of Jews, dominated by a snowballing accumulation of stereo-

types, fueled by underlying social and economic conflicts, that was responsible
for the worsening state of Jewish-Christian relations, rather than any single event
or development in missionary strategies (Chazan 1997).
There has been considerable scholarship as well regarding the sorts of Jewish
stereotypes and libelous tales spread about the Jews during the Middle Ages,
many of which endured long past end of that era. In 1144, the body of a boy
named William was discovered near Norwich, England. His death was blamed on
local Jews who were accused of trying to fulfill an annual ritual meant to end their
Exile by crucifying a Christian. Despite the utter lack of evidence for such a
practice, belief that Jews engaged in such rituals spread, partly due to the work of
popularizers such as Thomas of Monmouth (d. after 1173) who published an
account of the Norwich libel in 1150. A similar account surfaced surrounding the
death of another child, Hugh of Lincoln, who died under mysterious circum-
stances in 1255. Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) refers to the story in the Canterbury
Tales (“The Prioress’s Tale”). In many of these cases, the dead children were
popularly acclaimed as martyrs and in some cases became the focus of local and
regional pilgrimages. The details of the ritual alleged to underlie the ritual murder
accusation ballooned from a single annual ritual done by isolated communities to
a widespread part of Passover observation. When such murder accusations broke
out, Jews faced considerable danger at the hands of authorities or local mobs
looking for perpetrators upon which to blame otherwise inexplicable deaths. On
the other hand, many Christians were aware of the absurdity of such charges and
both temporal and religious leaders made some efforts to contain these accusa-
tions, including Pope Innocent IV (d. 1254) and who denounced the accusations
as baseless (Langmuir 1990a; Langmuir 1990b).
These and similar accusations also surfaced on the continent in relation to
other deaths, most famously in connection with the death of Simon of Trent in
1475. Although the term “blood libel” and its variants has been used indiscrimi-
nately to refer to all such similar accusations that the Jews ritually murdered
Christians, some scholars note call for more precision. Following earlier prece-
dents, Gavin Langmuir has noted that the ritual use of blood only enters these
accusations after a libel that occurred in Fulda in 1235 in which local Jews were
accused of burning down a mill and killing the mill operater’s five sons in an effort
to obtain Christian blood for its curative powers. Thirty-five Jews were executed,
Frederick II investigated, and declared the accusation false. Langmuir argues that
the Fulda libel marks a new stage in the development of these claims, wherein
Jews were accused not just of ritually killing Christians but also of some form of
ritual cannibalism, typically involving the consumption of the blood of Christians,
and that such distinctions are important to recognize (Langmuir 1990b).

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Other accusations surfaced as well. Jews were blamed for the spread of the
Black Death, believed by some contemporaries to have been caused by poisoning
well water (Foa 2000). Starting in the thirteenth century, Jews were also accused
of desecrating the Eucharist (Rubin 1999). The transformation of the Christian
conception of the Jews from uncooperative but relatively harmless witness to
Christianity into the more demonic portrayal of the later Middle Ages included a
number of even more absurd flights of fantasy including claims that Jewish men
menstruated and the artistic depiction of Jews with bestial characteristics (Melink-
off 1993; Strickland 2003; Cuffel 2007). The development of the “Judensau,” or the
depiction of Jews suckling from a pig, further exemplifies the increasing demoni-
zation of Jews in the medieval Christian imagination (Shachar 1974; Wiedl 2010).
The rise of such accusations has called out for explanation. Many writers
have noted how these claims replicate the logic of Christian doctrines and rituals
in an inverted fashion. R. Po-Chia Hsia has pointed out how ritual murder accusa-
tions reflect the shedding of Christ’s blood on the Crucifix on the part of both the
Christian child and the Jews accused of the child’s murder. He has also noted the
late medieval fusion of ritual murder and host desecration stories into a single
narrative based on Eucharistic notions of the soteriological power of blood
sacrifice (Hsia 1990). Folklorists have also examined the blood libel and similar
accusations, most typically in terms of the stories, ballads, and legends about
them that have entered various folklore traditions. In fact, they are common
enough motifs that Stith Thompson devoted the V360 series in his comprehensive
motif index to Jewish and Christian stories about each other. The series includes a
number of common accusations against the Jews: V361 refers to the blood libel,
V362 refers to well poisoning accusations, V363–64 describe a range of host
desecration motifs (Thompson 1989). As an example of folklorists’ approach to
ritual murder accusations, Alan Dundes uses them as an example for his psycho-
logical reading of folklore. He claims that ritual blood libel claims, whether deal-
ing with historical accusations or subsequent folk narratives, reflect a process he
calls “projective inversion” in which a group of people turn a discomfiting aspect
of themselves around and attribute it to others. Uneasy about the fact that
Christian faith requires the execution of its own savior for the benefit of the
faithful, Christians project the murder of an innocent onto the Jews. In the case of
blood libel accusation, the anxiety is more specifically seated in the ritual con-
sumption of the body and blood of Christ in the form of the Eucharist which is
then reimagined as Jewish consumption of the mundane blood of a Christian
child (Dundes 1991).
Much more controversially, Israel Yuval brings psychological interpretation
into the realm of historical accusations themselves by trying to identify an actual
event that could serve as at least a partial inspiration for blood libel and ritual

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murder accusations. He finds that original inspiration in the events surrounding

the First Crusade. Yuval speculates that ritual murder accusations were an out-
growth of Christians’ awareness of both Jewish martyrdom and suicide and a
subsequent rise in Jewish messianism in the wake of the First Crusade. The
perception that Jews had been willing to kill their own children and the inter-
pretation of the act as a religious one, opened the door to fantasies of blood
sacrifice and thus stimulated Christian paranoia regarding the Jews (Yuval 2003).
Yuval is not the first scholar to suggest that anti-Jewish libels reflect a misunder-
standing of some aspect of Jewish history or culture, but pointing to an actual
instance of Jewish violence, self-directed though it may have been, is not typical.
Cecil Roth’s interpretation of the blood libel as a confused reflection of the festival
of Purim is much more typical and has been very influential. Roth argues that the
Purim festival’s symbolic tormenting of the oppressive figure of Haman from the
Book of Esther may have given rise to the belief that Jews sought to torment their
Christian oppressors as well (Roth 1991).
Alongside Chazan, other scholars have attempted to understand these accu-
sations and stereotypes as part of the larger narrative of declining Jewish-Chris-
tian relations. Gavin Langmuir has argued that it is possible to understand
Christian derision for the Jews, and indeed much inter-group rivalry in general,
along a continuum of rationality. Criticism of other groups, in this case the Jews,
can involve realistic assertions, xenophobic assertions, or chimerical assertions.
Realistic assertions about another group, even if critical, are predicated on an
understanding of the other as still essentially human. Xenophobic assertions
exaggerate the real characteristics found among members of a group, no matter
how infrequently, into a derogatory caricature while ignoring neutral or positive
characteristics. Chimerical assertions posit entirely fantastic and irrational claims
about the other (Langmuir 1990b). Langmuir argues that the story of medieval
Jewish-Christian relations is one in which Christians’ xenophobic assertions
about the Jews (e.g., making the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as the messiah their
defining characteristic) into chimerical accusations (e.g., the blood libel). For
Langmuir, this change marks a transformation of Christian anti-Judaism into the
type of anti-Semitism that would characterize modern hostility toward the Jews.
Furthermore, Langmuir argues that the conditions impelling this changing hosti-
lity were an internal development within Christian religiosity. All religions in-
volve non-rational propositions of one form or another—claims that do not
necessarily involve a rejection of reason (and hence are not inherently irrational)
but simply do not appeal to reason as the basis of their truth claims (and so are
just non-rational). Still, to a society that values reason, they can be difficult to
reconcile. From at least the twelfth century, reason began to play an increasing
role in medieval Christian theology, due in part to the influence of the scholastics.

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According to Langmuir, internal conflicts generated by the need to harmonize

rational and non-rational propositions were projected outward onto an already
marginalized group—the Jews—who then became a kind of scapegoat for Chris-
tian anxieties and doubts. It should be noted that Langmuir’s usage of the terms
is idiosyncratic insofar as he defines “antisemitism” (to use his preferred spelling
for a moment) by its irrationality, not by the racial basis of its rhetoric (Langmuir
1990a; 1990b). He agrees that racial anti-Semitism—what he calls “physiocentric
antisemitism”—is a distinctly modern phenomenon (Langmuir 1990a, 318–46).
Other scholars have proposed similar claims. Hsia’s and Dundes’s previously
described interpretations of the blood libel and ritual murder are reminiscent of
Langmuir’s projection of anxiety onto Jews. Anna Sapir Abulafia has argued that
during the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, Christian theologians came to identify
Christian truths with reason itself and so explained Jewish unbelief as a rejection
of reason (Abulafia 1995). But for Abulafia, this explanation has given way to
much more of a social explanation, accounting for one way in which the Augusti-
nian perception of Jews as providing something useful to Christians, and so
worthy of preservation, diminished as Christians came to view Jews as less and
less willing or capable of serving Christian interests. Thus the change was much
more one of eroding protections than increasing hostility (Abulafia 1995; 2011).
Hostility toward the Jews might profitably be compared with Christian-Mus-
lim conflicts. Just as with Jews, Christians were not necessarily on a collision
course with Muslims from their initial encounters. The first contacts between the
two groups occurred very early in Muslim history—Christians lived in the Arabian
peninsula during Muhammad’s life time and were among the groups living in the
lands absorbed by early Muslim expansion. But Muslim conquerors did not
immediately require subjugated populations to convert to Islam, indeed by many
accounts they made conversion difficult. They required recognition of the politi-
cal supremacy of Islam from their subjects, but allowed other monotheists (in-
cluding in their eyes Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians) to take on a dependent
status as “dhimmi” (or protected) in exchange for accepting certain legal and
social restrictions and payment of an annual tax called the jizya. Certainly these
practices put religious groups into conflict, but it also provided a blueprint for a
viable, if decidedly unequal, coexistence. In some areas, such as Muslim Spain,
the politically dominant Muslim minority had to coexist with a non-Muslim
majority. In the Iberian peninsula, as part of the numerous struggles between the
taifas and principalities of Muslim and Christian Spain during the eleventh
through thirteenth centuries, military/political allegiance and religious identity
became entangled in very complicated ways with warriors of each religion fight-
ing on both sides of any given conflict. The most famous example of this may lie
in the career of “El Cid,” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (d. 1099), who fought for and

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against both Muslims and Christians and similarly counted members of both
groups among his own supporters and subjects.
But despite these interactions, many Christians in Europe had a severe lack of
understanding of Islam, Muhammad, and Muslims themselves or at least pre-
sented very distorted views of all three. Christians had difficulty understanding
how to conceptualize Islam in relation to Christianity. It was described as a
Christian heresy (or at least the product of the influence of heretical monks on
Muhammad), a false prophecy, and as a separate pagan religion in its own right
(Tolan 2002; 2008). Norman Daniel has shown that Christian understanding of
Islam was not just characterized by lack of knowledge but a much more distorted
misunderstanding of the religion. In Western Europe, that false picture of Islam
largely took shape during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries after a period
of relative neglect and disinterest. It was shaped by the military conflicts between
the two religious communities during that time and so influenced by the percep-
tion of Muslims as the enemy other—a perception that Daniel argued has been
difficult to dislodge even in the modern era (Daniel 1993). Benjamin Kedar has
argued that Western Europe’s lack of interest in Islam prior to the Crusades was
due to the Church’s essentially conservative and inward looking preoccupation
with a moment of revelation that it saw as already completed, making it disin-
clined to take new developments outside its boundaries seriously (Kedar 1984).
All Christians viewed assertions that Muhammad was a prophet as false
claims but some thought that Muslims worshipped Muhammad as divine in the
same manner that Christians acknowledged their founder Jesus to be the Son of
God. Whether they understood Muslim views of Muhammad or not, Christians
often compared Muhammad and Jesus unfavorably, noting the former’s lack of
miracles and several marriages as markers of his unworthiness (Cuffel 2007). A
tradition of satirical biographies of Muhammad developed, such as that written
by Pedro Pascual (d. 1299), bishop of Jaen. Such “anti-biographies” described
Muhammad as vulgar and excessively material, frequently attributing to him an
ignominious death in which his body was devoured by dogs or swine. Christian
polemicists, such as Peter the Venerable (d. 1156), and Raymundus Martinus (d.
ca. 1280s) included attacks on Islam alongside their attacks on Judaism (for a
discussion of how both Muslims and non-Muslims have remembered and pre-
sented the life of Muhammad, see Daniel 1993; Bennett 1998).
Christians extended their criticism of Islam and derogation of Muhammad to
cover Muslims themselves as well. Christians used a variety of techniques to
depict Muslims as the demonic or sinful other in art and literature. John Tolan has
pointed out the eschatological elements of Christian representations of Islam,
from early Byzantine associations between Muslims and the armies of the Anti-
christ to Innocent III’s identification of Muslims with the Beast of Revelations

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(Tolan 2002; 2008). Scholars such as Ruth Melinkoff and Debra Higgs Strickland
have shown how this was done in visual representations of Muslims (as well as
for other marginalized groups), in which ugliness, monstrosity, or physical defor-
mity were used as markers of Muslims’ and others’ alleged inhumanity and sin
(Melinkoff 1993; Strickland 2003). Muslims were depicted in Christian polemic as
excessively materialistic, licentious, either hyper- or hypo-masculine. Although
one should be cautious about attributing modern constructions like race to
medieval thinkers, medieval Christians did present the darker skin color they
associated with Muslims as a marker of their inferiority and/or perfidy. Alexandra
Cuffel has argued that such portrayals of Muslims associated them with carnality
and so distanced them from all things divine or spiritual in the medieval Christian
imagination. More importantly, Cuffel argues that this technique of using highly
gendered depictions of the corporeal to disparage the other was a technique that
Christians, Jews, and Muslims all used against each other (Cuffel 2007). Christians
also engaged in this sort of demonizing of the other against dissident Christians.
Norman Cohn has described the development of a certain medieval paranoia
regarding antisocial heretics given not only to false beliefs but indulging in lurid
orgiastic and cannibalistic rites and notes that such fears have coexisted with
Christianity since its very foundation, originally directed at Christians themselves,
then internalized and aimed at any number of its enemies including Jews, here-
tical Christians, and, eventually, accused witches (Cohn 1993).
Discussions of medieval religious conflict can cultivate the impression that
medieval Europe was a highly polarized society in which no social or economic
transactions ever occurred across religious boundaries, casting the Church as an
unrelenting foe of any dissent or opposition. Such a view goes several steps too
far. Whatever social tensions or persecutory impulses and agendas may have
existed, people adhering to varying religious ways of life interacted all the time.
Joseph Shatzmiller has been particularly instrumental in reminding scholars that
Jews and Christians could get along quite well at the local level, despite larger
medieval trends. Shatzmiller has shown that despite their negative reputation as
usurers, those Jews that did lend money were not always the subject of social
stigma. First, he notes that money lending was much more common among all
segments of medieval society than is generally understood. Moreover, as his
study of the early fourteenth century trial of the moneylender “Bondavid” in
Marseilles shows, those Jews who did lend money were sometimes respected
members of the communities in which they lived (Shatzmiller 1990). Shatzmiller
has shown a similar avenue for acceptance and prosperity existed through the
practice of medicine, despite attacks from those who wanted to eliminate Jewish
competitors in the field and who invoked religious identity to do so (Shatzmiller
1994). Similarly, even though heretics became the subject of medieval paranoia,

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at the local level, individuals accused of heresy seem to have gotten along with
neighbors as well or as poorly as any neighbors ever do. Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie
found considerable indifference toward fine doctrinal distinctions among Cathars
and Catholics in fourteenth century Montaillou (Ladurie 1978). James Given has
shown that in Languedoc, the charge of heresy itself was not so devastating that it
destroyed all other social ties. Some accused heretics were able to use to use a
variety of local connections and networks to escape, or at least resist, the power
of inquisitors in the region (Given 2007).
For all its influence, Moore’s notion of central and late medieval Europe as a
persecuting society may not fully capture the subtleties of the forces driving
religious conflict. It is important to reconsider the discussion of the effects of
religious conflict and consider what, despite their destructiveness, such conflicts
may have accomplished or whose interests they may have served. To some extent,
discussions of medieval religious conflict have always paid attention to their role
in larger political, social, and economic transformations, as the repeated implica-
tion of Gregorian, papal, and mendicant interests in religious conflicts already
discussed suggests. For example, even though Po-Chia Hsia has interpreted ritual
murder in general as a reflection of religious symbols deeply embedded in
Christian culture, he has also been attentive to the political, social and economic
contexts in which the events occurred (Hsia 1990). In the case of the murder of
Simon of Trent and the ritual murder accusations that followed in 1475, the drama
was orchestrated by the local bishop who had his own political aspirations and
complicated by the political connections of the accused and the involvement of
both the Archduke of the Tirol and the Pope himself, whose envoy was skeptical
of the charges brought by the bishop (Hsia 1996). But over the last two or more
decades, scholars have become ever more perceptive and critical in discerning
subtle links between religious conflicts and other contemporaneous issues.
Among the stories told about medieval Jews were narratives in which Jews
were accused of acquiring communion wafers through deceptive and surrepti-
tious means and then desecrating them. In these stories, Jews are depicted as full
of hatred for Christ and recapitulating the act of deicide attributed to them by
anti-Jewish writers. The outbreak of these stories during the thirteenth century
has led Miri Rubin to situate these stories in the context of the rising popularity of
various sacramental devotions and the formulation of the doctrine of transub-
stantiation which were occurring at the same time. The act of desecrating the host
to torture Christ suggests, rather incredibly, that Jews believed in the Christian
doctrine of transubstantiation. Moreover, although stories of host desecration
could vary considerably, they generally included miraculous consequences such
as the production of blood from the tortured wafer or the sound of wailing
children. Often the stories suggested the Jews who witnessed such miracles were

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moved to repent or even convert. Rubin argues that host desecration should be
read as providing anecdotal support for belief in transubstantiation and so
provided a valuable tool for sermon writers. Although the story contributed to the
ongoing marginalization of the Jews, the stories themselves served other agendas
as well (Rubin 1992; 1999).
David Nirenberg has pointed to the social functions of violence among rival
religious communities. He has argued that historians have been too drawn to
dramatic episodes of violence between religious groups and not paid enough
attention to the more conventional, lesser violence, such as that which Christians
regularly committed against Jews around Easter. Nirenberg argues that, at least in
Aragon, such violence paradoxically served a preventative effect, allowing the
dominant community to vent building tensions at expected times of the year that
minority communities could then prepare for. When larger examples of violence
took place, they were anomalies, often deliberately undertaken by political actors
to achieve specific goals, such as sending a monarch a message by attacking
communities that were dependent upon their protection (Nirenberg 1996). Jews,
Christians, and Muslims who engaged in the demonization, ridicule, and expres-
sion of disgust with regard to members of the other traditions not only attacked
those “others,” they sent a clear message to members of their own group that
fraternization was dangerous and conversion was foolish. Polemical exchange,
derogatory commentary, and the cultivation of stereotypes thus also served as an
important mechanism of boundary maintenance between religious groups (Cuffel
2007).
And yet scholarship has uncovered even more complicated and subtle rela-
tionships between members of different religious groups that were frequently in
conflict. The tensions between them have themselves been a generative force
behind those traditions and so an important if problematic source of religious
creativity. Such research has been particularly fruitful in the study of medieval
Jewish-Christian relations. Ivan Marcus, for example, discusses the history of
Jewish liturgy in dialogue with Christianity. He argues that elements of Jewish
ritual developed as responses to Christian practices. For example, he reads early
Ashkenazi rituals of initiation into the Torah involving the consumption of cakes
inscribed with Torah verses as a reflection of a child’s first communion (Marcus
1996). Israel Yuval has made similar arguments. According to Yuval, much of
Jewish tradition developed in response to Christian innovations—Passover stimu-
lated by the birth of Easter, Talmud as a counterpart to the New Testament,
matzah as an answer to the Eucharist (Yuval 2003). Peter Schäfer and Arthur
Green have each found evidence of such creative dialogue across religious bound-
aries within the history of Jewish esotericism. Both have argued that kabbalistic
notions of the Shekhinah, or feminine divine presence, developed in Southern

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France and Northern Spain under the influence of the growing importance of the
Virgin Mary as a female intercessor figure (Schäfer 2002; Green 2002).
D Conclusion
Religious conflict in the Middle Ages was varied, diverse, and complicated. It
entered into a variety of different historical and social contexts and was bound up
with a host of different motivations, many of which were far removed from
matters of pious belief or spiritual inclination. Thus unified or comprehensive
treatments of religious conflict as a thing in itself prove elusive. It may be better
to consider the role of religion in conflict or the significance of conflict for religion
than to posit a unique form of religious conflict per se. That said, even this
necessarily selective survey of the issues suggests that the ubiquity of religion and
conflicts’ intersections in medieval Europe makes it impossible to underestimate
their importance for the history and culture of the period.
Select Bibliography
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Christendom (Harlow 2011).
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the
Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, PA, 1988).
Chazan, Robert, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, CA, 1987).
Cohen, Jeremy, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, NY,
1982). [= J. Cohen 1982a]
Erdmann, Carl, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall Baldwin and Walter Goffart
(1935; Princeton, NJ, 1977).
Kieckhefer, Richard, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia, PA, 1979).
Ladurie, Emmanuel Leroy, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village (London 1978).
Lambert, Malcolm, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the
Reformation, rev. ed. (1992; Oxford 2002).
Langmuir, Gavin I., Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, CA, 1990). [= Langmuir 1990b]
Little, Lester K., Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London 1978).
Moore, R. I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe
950–1250 (Malden, MA, and Oxford 2007).
Peters, Edward, Inquisition (New York and London 1988).
Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia, PA, and London
1986).
Strickland, Debra Higgs, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Prince-
ton, NJ, 2003).
Tolan, John, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York 2002).

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Michael Sizer
Revolt and Revolution
A Revolt, Revolution, and Resistance: Theoretical

Approaches and Typologies of Social Conflict
and their Problems
While they varied in form, intensity, meaning, and outcomes, revolts were a major
feature of politics and culture of the Middle Ages. Samuel Cohn, Jr. counts 1112
incidents of revolt in Western Europe between 1200 and 1425 alone (Cohn 2006).
Because they are a recurring historical phenomenon, revolts provide an excellent
basis for comparative analysis, not only between medieval societies but also
between medieval forms of the phenomenon and those in other areas and chron-
ologies (Malia 2007; Krejci 1994; Bluche and Rials, ed., 1989; Eisenstadt 1978).
Furthermore, medieval revolts intersected with all forms of culture—judicial and
legal culture, royal and aristocratic power, criminality and marginality, festive/
ritual customs, literature, social structures and hierarchies, communication and
memory, uses of space, religion, and others—and engaged people from all social
ranks, making them a particularly complex but rich field of study for a deep
understanding of the period’s political culture.
One of the most challenging aspects of the study of medieval revolt is defin-
ing the category of analysis. Existing vocabularies, both medieval and modern,
inevitably only capture partial aspects of a large and complex phenomenon.
Medieval terminology for revolt was not systematic, and medieval concepts of
revolt and revolution do not correspond neatly to our own (Touati 1990). Most
available descriptions come from sources hostile to popular uprising or juridical
sources engaged in their repression, meaning that our perspective of revolt is
constructed around notions of crime, disorder, and disobedience that likely did
not reflect the feelings of participants (Pearsall 1989). Both the community in
resistance to authority and possibly the authorities themselves might see the
taking of arms as part of a continuum of political contestation, a negotiation tactic
rather than a definitive signal of a new category of political action (Boone 2010;
Neveux 1997).
Medieval texts often use several terms to describe revolutionary incidents
associated with a movement rather than use one single word to indicate that a
revolt has happened (Gauvard 1991, vol. 2, 564–66). Medieval authors tended to
make a distinction between latent plotting and the open taking of arms, and would

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Revolt and Revolution 1487
use different terms to describe each of these elements. Before they took arms, the
people might murmure (French) or engage in rumores (Latin) (de Pisan 1958, 128–
29; Quaglioni, ed., 1983, 163). Another category of words focused on conspiracy,
illegal assembly or oath-taking: for example Carolingian laws referred to conspir-
ationes and coniurationes of tax-resisting peasants (Goldberg 1995, 470), and later
French texts express fear of monopoles (Ordonnances, vol. 10, 175). When events
moved to the taking of arms, a different set of words could appear. Narrative
sources often describe revolt activity in terms of chaotic movement, emotion, and
noise (Dumolyn 2008). Words connoting disorder or rising, for example the Latin
commotio, tumultus, motus, insurgere, and turba, and the French commotion or
émeute, the German Zwietracht or Auflauf, or the Italian expression correre per la
città simply stand in to describe a popular uprising in some texts (Pintoin 1994,
vol. 1, 52; 44; 136; Oresme 1970, 187; Borgolte 1996, 69; Heers 1977, 161). The
Flemish term wapening, meaning the taking of arms, was originally a neutral term
that was used by hostile chroniclers to signal the emotions and violence of an
uprising (Lecuppre-Desjardin and Van Bruaene, ed., 2005, 70).
A more general vocabulary did exist to describe revolt, particularly in the later
Middle Ages when medieval theorists, influenced by Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) and
other classical authors translated into Western languages in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, increasingly saw politics and history as an objective science.
The most important term was perhaps seditio. Nicolas Oresme’s (ca. 1320–1382)
gloss in his fourteenth-century translation of Aristotle’s Politics (1370–7) provides
one definition of sedition: “Sedition, it seems to me, is conspiracy or collusion or
commotion or division or hidden or open rebellion of one member or part of the
city or political community against another part […] and it is done collectively in
order to change the government or policy or lordship or out of vengeance”
(Oresme 1970, 203). In Thomas Aquinas’s (1225–1274) definition of seditio in the
Summa Theologica (1265–1274) the combination of plotting and the taking of arms
is important (Aquinas 2002, 248). Oresme and Christine de Pizan (1363-ca. 1430)
also discuss “mutation of lordship” as a natural process (Oresme 1970, 152; 203; de
Pisan 1958, 133). Chronicler Matteo Villani’s (d. 1363) description of the popular
overthrow of the oligarchic government in Siena in 1355 as a “sudden revolution
[revoluzione] made by the citizens of Siena” is striking not only for its precocious
use of the word “revolution,” but also for the agency it ascribes to the Sienese
popolo. Still, according to Arthur Hatto prior to the eighteenth century this rarely-
used term generally referred to a natural, cyclical process of the succession of
governments rather than the installment of a new order (Hatto 1949).
Much of the medieval terminology for revolt-like activity was structured
around a discourse of disobedience. Rebellio and its cognates signified disobe-
dience on the part of a subordinate, and could be applied to an individual or,

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1488 Michael Sizer
particularly in the late Middle Ages, to a collective entity such as a town (Cohn
2006, 4). The concept of treason was mobilized effectively by late medieval
authorities to label resistance efforts. While in earlier texts such as the Coutumes
de Beauvaisis (1283) treason had referred to a personal offense (The Coutumes de
Beauvaisis 1992, 303), later medieval kings extended this notion of a personal
injury to apply to a violation against themselves and thus the community as a
whole (Cuttler 1981; Bellamy 1970). In France whole communities, such as Lan-
guedoc after the Tuchins revolt of the 1360s–1380s, and Paris after the Maillotin
Revolt of 1380–1383, could be accused of lèse-majesté in the aftermath of an
uprising (Challet 2002; Ordonnances, vol. 7, 179). Sources critical of revolt can
refer to it on a moral plane as a scandalum (Boucheron and Offenstadt, ed., 2011,
325).
Modern historians and social scientists have attempted to define objectively
the various types of social conflict in ways that can be constructive as they allow
for generalization and comparison, but as they have been derived mostly accord-
ing to a modern standard, they cause problems for medievalists (Tilly 1978: 1993;
Brinton 1965; Kimmel 1990; Parker, ed., 2000; Eisenstadt 1978; 2006; Cohan, ed.,
1975; Malia 2007; Krejci 1994; Johnson 1982; Foran, ed., 1997; Foss and Larkin,
1986; Bluche and Rials, ed., 1989; Beck 2011). Synthesizing these numerous
studies provides the following general categories of collective action:
1) Social protest is the broadest category. Charles Tilly, the foremost scholar on
forms of social conflict, uses the category of “collective action,” which is
defined as “people’s acting together in pursuit of common interests” (Tilly
1978, 7). What social protest, revolt, and revolution have in common is that
they all involve collective participation by subordinate groups in open con-
frontation with a ruling authority to attempt to deny encroachments by that
authority and/or to effect change. Social protest, however, does not have to
involve extra-legal activities.
2) Revolt differs from social protest in that it employs extra-legal methods—
usually violence—in the confrontation with authority and, for some scholars,
must also entail the determination to seize power. Many scholars, in order to
differentiate pre-modern revolt or rebellion from revolution, argue that revolt
is generally conservative or backward-looking, seeking to restore an ostensi-
bly old and lost order (Bercé 1974). Chalmers Johnson describes “rebellion”
as “an act of social surgery; it is intended to cut out one of the members who
are offending against […] joint commitments to maintain a particular social
structure” (Johnson 1982, 123).
3) An attempted seizure of power defines revolution for a few scholars, but most
argue that revolution goes beyond simple revolt in that it signifies the effort

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to alter fundamentally the social order. Further distinguishing revolt and

revolution is that revolution is inherently progressive and future-oriented,
imbued, in the words of Hannah Arendt, with the “pathos of novelty” (Arendt
1963, 27).
We certainly see the first two types in the Middle Ages, but there is some question
whether we see the third. A standard scholarly argument has emerged that
according to these criteria revolt belongs to the Middle Ages but revolution does
not. Modernity is even defined in opposition to the medieval or pre-modern by
revolution in that one of the major aspects of the modern age is to seek the
possibilities for better life in the social, secular world that can be remade in the
future as opposed to the traditional, religious world focused on the past as was
the case in the Middle Ages (Pocock 1975; Arendt 1963; Koselleck 2004; Malia
2007; Hatto 1949; Hobsbawm 1959; Bluche and Rials, ed., 1989). Many medieval-
ists have essentially agreed, characterizing the aims of medieval revolt partici-
pants as limited in scope, because medieval culture was tradition-bound with an
entrenched social system never fundamentally questioned by the period’s social
movements (Fourquin 1978; Bluche and Rials, ed., 1989; Gauvard 1989; 1991;
Dumolyn and Haemers 2005, 372). Vigorous disagreement comes from Cohn, who
notes the pervasiveness of medieval revolt within the source material and within
medieval culture in general, the radical quality of the demands of many medieval
movements drawing from a broad tradition of “liberty,” and the success of some
movements to achieve their aims (Cohn 2006).
For all their utility for heuristic and comparative purposes, there are serious
problems with the application of modern typologies of social conflict to the
Middle Ages. Although some are careful to emphasize that they these typologies
of social conflict should be made without teleology or value judgments (Tilly
1993; Kimmel 1990), the result of many of these studies is to create a hierarchical
scale of contestation, moving from lesser to greater degrees of aspired change in
the social order, that is derived from modern Western forms of revolution. Theor-
ists of non-Western movements have noted that the crisis-resolution structure of
the concept of revolution is based solely on modern European historical models
in such a way that non-Western revolutionary movements are necessarily seen as
limited or hopeless in comparison (Maloba 1993; Walton 1984, 3–32). By exten-
sion this argument could apply to medieval movements which have also gener-
ally been described as precursors of modern revolutions or failures in that regard.
Furthermore, evaluating revolutionary change is a subjective practice: even epo-
chal revolutions such as the French Revolution, while they radically altered
society in many ways, perpetuated some systems of social privilege (De Tocque-
ville 2008; Aya 1979). Revisionist historiography of the French Revolution has

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1490 Michael Sizer
tended to see concepts such as liberty and freedom as historically constructed

and contingent rather than universal (Baker 1990; Chartier 1991; Hunt 2007). By
implication, then, neither these values nor the modern revolutionary movements
that championed them should be used as standards for comparison with other
historical eras with their own cultural contexts.
A related issue in understanding medieval revolts on their own terms is the
centrality of the “rise of the state” within the narrative of European political
history. Because of this, when medieval revolutionary movements are incorpo-
rated into the longer narrative of European political history, they are often seen as
part of the futile response of aggrieved interest groups or sub-state communities
to the growth of the state, or as participating in the creation of the state through
the incorporation of groups that had previously been outside the political sphere
(Autrand 1986, 470–500; Chevalier 1982; Bulst and Genet, ed., 1988; Rucquoi, ed.,
1991; Tilly 1990; Tilly and Blockmans, ed., 1994; Foran, ed., 1997, 14–21). A related
approach sees state formation in the late medieval/early modern period as a
bottom-up movement driven by the common people rather than a top-down one,
where revolts are part of the assertion of a more inclusive concept of “community”
or “commonwealth” against the elite political structures and culture that had
dominated most of the medieval period (Rollison 2010; Blickle, ed., 1997). These
approaches, though compelling, place the state at the center of the narrative and
allow its development to explain even those forms of political action, such as
revolt, which might run counter to it.
Alongside and against these structural models of revolt are approaches that
focus on the larger political culture within which social conflict is embedded
rather than focusing on revolt as an isolated and exceptional moment. The goal in
these approaches is to look for the diversity of strategies and cultures of resistance
within a society, and then to understand the ways in which these various local
strategies and groups unite to form a more cohesive and unified bloc of opposi-
tion (Foran, ed., 1997, 203–26). The concept of resistance, a broader and more
fluid concept than the social conflict models above, is instrumental here. Michel
Foucault articulates his influential notion of resistance in The History of Sexuality,
vol. I: “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently,
this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power […]. Points
of resistance are present everywhere in the power network. Hence there is no
single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law
of the revolutionary. Instead there is a plurality of resistances, each of them a
special case […] by definition, they can only exist in the strategic field of power
relations” (Foucault 1990, 95–96). The resistance approach to political history is
useful in that it corrects for the teleological narratives and over-determined
models of structural methodologies, but it is less able to explain how resistance

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moves from its everyday, low-level forms to exceptional, mass scale events like
revolt (Freedman 1993, 39; Schulze, ed., 1983).
B Revolt in Medieval Political Theory

Although medieval society was essentially hierarchical, the social system was
based on reciprocal obligations between ruler and subject which implied the
active participation of the subordinate members of the political community (For-
onda, ed., 2011). Public opinion, discussed elsewhere in this volume (see Charles
W. Connell’s contribution), has increasingly been recognized by scholars as hav-
ing played a crucial role in the ordinary machinery of medieval politics (Boucher-
on and Offenstadt, ed., 2011). While there was no formal body of revolutionary
theory in the Middle Ages as there would be in the modern period, medieval
revolts drew from a robust intellectual tradition of political thought which in-
cluded numerous articulations on the ways that monarchical power should be
limited, and also theorized about how and when changes in government could
take place. Collectively the texts of this tradition created conceptual space for
resistance to be an accepted part of political life. Many of the formal expressions
of this tradition were composed in the thirteenth century or later, as it was then
that politics became a more abstracted, objective field of inquiry, but these texts
had earlier sources of influence: Classical authors such as Aristotle and Cicero
(106–43 B.C.E.), patristic writers such as St. Augustine (354–430), and medieval
customs of reciprocal obligations and community consent (Burns, ed., 1988).
Mainstream political thought allowed ample space for the contestation of
royal or princely authority. Political theorist Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275–1342) in
his Defensor Pacis (1324) placed sovereignty in the people, and the more moderate
Bartolus de Sassoferrato (1314–1357) defended regimes of the popolo (Marsilius of
Padua 2001; Quaglioni, ed., 1983, 177). Twelfth-century legal theorist Bracton (ca.
1210–1268) famously invoked the Roman maxim “Quod omnes tangit ad omnibus
approbetur (what touches all must be approved by all),” which expressed the
representative principle of medieval politics. The programs of some revolt move-
ments included advocacy of a role for representative bodies in government, most
notably the 1215 Barons’ Revolt in England which issued the Magna Carta, Etienne
Marcel’s (d. 1358) revolt in 1356–1358 in France in which he advanced a prominent
role for the Estates-General, and Philip van Artevelde’s (ca. 1340–1382) Flemish
uprising in 1380. Many other protest movements originated in more local repre-
sentative community bodies (Blickle, ed., 1997). In the late Middle Ages, the
concept of the Common Good, borrowed from Aristotle and Cicero, became nearly
ubiquitous in medieval political texts from the refined to the mundane. A multi-

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1492 Michael Sizer
valent concept that served to advance centralized sovereign authority in most

contexts, the Common Good could also be invoked to promote the interests of the
community against the will of the prince, his ministers, or the municipal govern-
ment (Kempshall 1999; Lecuppre-Desjardin and Van Bruaene, ed., 2010). The
evocation of the Common Good in rebellious movements occurred in Flanders
repeatedly, as when towns formed urban leagues in 1342, 1379, 1415–1420, 1477,
and 1482 (Haemers 2009). The magnates’ revolt in France under Louis XI (r. 1461–
1483) organized itself as a “League of the Public Good” in 1465.
Limits on the monarch were important even for those theorists who believed
in the indivisibility of royal sovereignty. The Mirrors of Princes genre of advice for
kings reflected an effort to place moral and ethical limits on the king in a context
of unlimited legal authority (Krynen 1981). Giles of Rome (ca. 1243–1316), in one
of the most influential Mirrors, states that “if [the king] flourishes in prudence and
in the other moral virtues […] then he is worthy to govern, whereas if he is lacking
in these, then, even though he may rule through civil power, he is nevertheless
more worthy to be a subject than to rule” (McGrade et al., ed., 2001, 211). Con-
sultation with others was not a question of rights so much as one of efficiency and
moral rectitude. Pierre Salmon and Christine de Pizan both emphasize the impor-
tance of having moral and just counselors to ensure good government (Salmon
1833, 38–40; de Pisan 1958, 85). Such moral criteria could be cited in social
movements: the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt as well as Jack Cade’s 1450 uprising
criticized the English king’s ministers and the 1413 Cabochien rebels employed
this sort of moral terminology to justify their takeover and purge of corrupt
courtiers in the French king Charles VI’s (r. 1380–1422) retinue (Sizer 2008; Ross
2009).
Medieval political theory struggled to reconcile the objective perspective on
politics and history borrowed from classical authors, which viewed the rise and
fall of regimes and systems of government as a natural process, with notions of a
moral-governed universe and the desire to perpetuate existing ideologies of
power. Theories on the “useless king [rex inutilis]” and precedents of papal
sanction of dynastic turnover (as with the Carolingians in 751), or declarations of
deposition (as with Innocent IV’s ruling against Frederick II in 1245) were invoked
by Henry Bolingbroke (r. 1399–1413) in his overthrow of Richard II (r. 1377–1399)
in 1399 (Peters 1970; Caspary 1965). The most direct consideration of failed
governments and their overthrow came in theorizations of tyranny. John of Salis-
bury (ca. 1120–1180) states in the Policraticus (1159) that the tyrant is he who does
not rule according to law or the concerns of the community (John of Salisbury
1990, 28). Subsequent thinkers such as Bartolus in his Tractaus de Tyranno
(ca. 1350) and Thomas Aquinas write that the tyrant rules according to his own
individual benefit rather than the public good (Aquinas 2002; Quaglioni, ed.,

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1983). Tyrannical rule was further characterized by excessive taxation, the use of
mercenaries, and the failure to seek or heed counsel. What the appropriate
response to tyranny was emerges less clearly. John of Salisbury says the killing of
tyrants is licit, but also writes that “those who are oppressed should humbly
resort to the protection of God’s clemency” (John of Salisbury 1990, 209). Ptolemy
of Lucca (ca. 1236- ca. 1327) argues that those rising up against a tyrant should do
so “with the favor of the multitude” but also insists that such an action be
instigated and led only by those with public authority (Ptolemy of Lucca 1997,
74–76; 90). Aquinas and Oresme point out that resistance to a tyrant, even when
called for, can create as much damage as enduring his rule (Aquinas 2002, 247–
49; Oresme 1970, 203–05). In a speech given before the royal council in 1405, Jean
Gerson (1363–1429) argued that in response to tyranny dissimulation (inaction)
and sedition are “two monstrous vices,” with discretion and reform constituting
the appropriate middle path (Gerson 1824, 19). In general, medieval intellectuals
found in the discourse of tyranny a useful vehicle to limit abuses of sovereign
power, but stopped short of advocating popular rebellion.
C Commune and Community in the Formation of

Rebellious Groups
Because revolt is a collective activity, understanding how its participants define
shared interests and create group identity is central to analyzing the cultural
history of the phenomenon. Medieval persons felt loyalty to several social and
cultural communities at once and each of these group identities could provide a
basis for the unity of groups in rebellion. The scale of the community to which
rebels claimed adherence and its degree of solidarity determined the scope and
form of acts of resistance. The structural organization of the political system and
legal definitions of the territory under control of a sovereign authority, in combi-
nation with culturally-based notions of self-identity, determined the arena of
contestation and the tactical possibilities available to subordinate groups. The
existence of robust social and cultural communities between the sovereign state
or ruler and the individual subject in medieval Europe created the conditions for
frequent contestations of authority and determined the shape of many revolt
movements (Blickle, ed., 1997).
The most significant cultural type of these communities was the sworn
association, especially the commune. Because oaths allowed for flexibility and
the transcendence of status differences while providing rapid cohesion to newly-
formed groups, they were a central part of medieval revolt culture. Several

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1494 Michael Sizer
scholars have argued that because communes and rights-based communities

represented an extension of the oath-based collective association to include
members of the popular classes, they supplied a form of civil society that would
shape popular participation in politics for the rest of the medieval period and
beyond (Prodi 1992; Fögen, ed., 1995; Black 1984, 44–65). The lack of communes
and municipal culture in the Byzantine Empire’s core cities has been cited as a
major reason for the relative absence of autonomous popular rebellions in that
region (Kazhdan and Epstein 1985, 54–56).
The commune movement stemmed in part from the Peace of God movement.
Although directed by the clerical class, the Peace of God movement represented a
significant moment in the history of popular participation in politics. In response
to the disorder and arbitrary violence of secular lords plaguing most Western
European societies in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, and in the absence of
royal authority strong enough to protect them, clerics allied with their congrega-
tions to create a collective moral authority that would condemn aristocratic
violence using excommunication and expressions of popular disapproval. This
was enacted through mass public performances and spread through church
councils. A template for the movement was set in Le Puy in 975, when Bishop
Guy, angry at the recent pillaging of his church, assembled many members of his
diocese in a field and directed them to take an oath of peace (Head 1999). The
Council of Charroux in June 989 established an oath that would be echoed in
subsequent gatherings, condemning “criminal activity” which included attacks
on churches and clerics but also the arbitrary seizure of livestock from “peasants
[agricolae] or from other poor people [pauperes]” (Head and Landes, ed., 1992,
327). Similar assemblies spread throughout Western Europe in the eleventh
century, with large and festive crowds galvanized by the display of local relics
(Gergen 2005). The Peace of God movement thus resembles a social movement
rather than a revolt, but its revolutionary possibilities were realized in Bourges in
1038. In this year, archbishop of Bourges Aimon de Bourbon required all men
above the age of fifteen in his diocese to swear on the relics of Saint Stephen to
uphold peace, and created a militia made up of clerics and the “unarmed poor
[inermes pauperes]” to enforce it. This clerical-popular army marched behind the
church’s banners, and crushed the forces of local lord Stephen of Beneciacum
before being themselves routed by another lord, Odo of Déols. This Bourges event
was atypical, but it shows the new and revolutionary possibilities unleashed by
the Peace of God movement. The extension of the voluntary association cemented
by oath into an impersonal form capable of mobilizing mass action constituted a
significant innovation in medieval political culture. In Bourges this went so far as
to appropriate the right to violence, but even in its other, less revolutionary
manifestations, the Peace of God represented a claim that the right to violence

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must be subordinated to a moral order created in part by the active participation

of the common people (Head and Landes, ed., 1992; Fossier 1973, 49–50).
The other major form of sworn association to emerge in this period was the
commune, the oaths of which were similar to those of the Peace of God. The oath
and structure, for example, of the Bourges commune in 1108 seems to have much
in common with Aimon de Bourbon’s militia of 1038 (Vermeesch 1966, 46–48).
Communes were “a sworn association of free men collectively holding some
public authority” (Martines 1988, 18). Pride in local place, the rule of law (as
opposed to the lord’s arbitrary power) manifested in judicial autonomy, control
over taxation, institutionalized delegation, and government with assemblies or
elected representatives were other regular features of communes. Communes,
therefore, combined affiliations of place, community, oath, and class and formed
one of the most powerful forms of group identity and solidarity in the Middle
Ages. The granting of commune charters proliferated in both urban and rural
areas in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, although in many cases, such
as in Northern Italy, it seems that the institutionalization of the commune was a
formal recognition on the part of the king of a pre-existing autonomous govern-
ment (Jones 1997, 134). The dates of some commune foundations (or the earliest
mention in the sources) are: 1070 for Le Mans, 1077 for Cambrai, 1081 for Saint-
Quentin, 1108 for Noyon, and 1111 for Laon in France; 1084 or 1085 for Pisa, 1087
or 1088 for Lucca, 1095 for Asti, 1097 for Milan, 1098 or 1099 for Genoa, 1123 for
Bologna, and 1138 for Florence in Italy. Communes often represented an alliance
between the interests of common people with those of kings, emperors, and other
magnates. The common people sought to protect themselves and their property
from arbitrary exactions and work obligations from aristocratic lords, while kings,
emperors or powerful magnates saw the formation of communes as a way to
create a wedge against the power of local lords (Petit-Dutaillis 1947; Vermeesch
1966; Martines 1988; Schulz 1992; Fögen, ed., 1995; Milani 2005). Rights-seeking
bourgeois revolts in Leon and Castile were also directed against bishops’ power in
the twelfth century (Pastor de Togneri 1973). It is important to note that the
development of a distinct community with a sense of identity and ownership of
rights and privileges did not necessarily require the creation of a formal com-
mune, as many communities received rights such as those above in more piece-
meal fashion, but which they nevertheless guarded fiercely. This seems to be the
early pattern in the Empire, for example (Haverkamp 1988, 162–69). It should also
be emphasized that these changes were not democratic in the modern sense of the
word, with full rights of citizenship and political participation extending to only a
limited number of community residents, mostly propertied men.
If the foundation of a commune was threatened by aristocratic power, the
community would often vehemently defend its privileges with violence. Genoa’s

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commune was founded after a series of popular insurrections unseated the

dynastic marquis family of the Obertenghi in 1099 (Martines 1988, 20). In Flanders
a collection of cities (Ypres, Ghent, Lille, and Bruges) won their concessions in
1127–1128 after they had favored Count William of Clito (1102–1128)’s rival, Thierry
of Alsace (ca. 1099–1168), and Lille’s townsfolk had rioted against William’s tax
collectors in the marketplace. When Count William died in battle, the Flemish
towns were able to get a guarantee of their rights from Thierry of Alsace who was
installed as the new count (Dumolyn and Haemers 2005). The most dramatic
example of revolt associated with the commune movement comes perhaps from
Laon. The citizens of Laon proclaimed a commune in the absence of their lord, the
Bishop Gaudry in 1111, who was on a diplomatic mission. The bishop resisted this
act upon his return, levied further taxes, and enlisted the help of French King
Louis VI (r. 1108–1137) to deny the commune. In response, just after the king’s
arrival in the region in April 1112, the Laon’s townspeople, led by a serf named
Thiégaud Ysengrin (the Wolf), rose up crying “Commune! Commune!” They
hunted down Bishop Gaudry who was hiding in a barrel in the cellar of his
residence and hacked him to death with their hatchets (Petit-Dutaillis 1947, 86–
90).
The commune movement left a lasting legacy on medieval political culture
generally, and on medieval revolt culture specifically. Communities would for
centuries evoke the rights and privileges they had been granted during this
period, particularly during moments of revolt. As instances of collective resis-
tance to encroachments on communal rights recurred, a historical memory of
revolt developed that communities could draw on for tactics, mobilizing symbols,
vocabulary, and a sense of identity. Flemish revolt participants in the 1480s, for
example, evoked Galbert of Bruges (d. 1134)’s account of the successful commune
uprising of 1127–1128 as a source of inspiration (Boone 2010, 11–12). In some
places, such as late medieval Switzerland and Flanders, several communes could
band together to create federated units to combat aristocratic enemies (Dumolyn
and Haemers 2005; Brady 1985).
Communes and Peace of God collectives were only one form of oath-based
community in the Middle Ages. Some of the earliest references to organized
popular resistance in the sources mention pacts sworn by subordinate groups to
resist authorities. A 643 edict of Lombard king Rothari mentions violence against
landlords by an allied pact of peasants and freemen, and Carolingian law codes
refer to peasant conspiracies and sworn pacts to resist taxation (Hilton 2003, 65;
Goldberg 1995, 470). Revolt participants used oaths to unite and forge defense
groups or militias, and were often condemned for it, as in the Stedingen Peasants’
Revolt in Flanders (1204–1234) which was deemed heretical partly for its use of
oaths, or the Tuchins uprising in Languedoc in the fourteenth century (Van Bavel

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2010; Leguai 1982; Challet 2002). Some groups such as the Credenza of Saint
Ambrose, a sworn military organization including men of several trades formed in
twelfth-century Milan, gained greater popular representation in Milan’s political
structure (Martines 1988, 39). The peasant armies of the fifteenth-century Catalo-
nian Remensas uprising employed a “sacramental” derived from peasant assem-
blies to solidify their bonds to one another (Hilton 2003, 121). Confraternal
organizations provided a natural oath-based micro-society from which rebellion
could be hatched: we see this dynamic in Flanders, for example (Dumolyn and
Haemers 2005). Reflecting the sort of horizontal, associative bond that oath-based
communities implied, revolt participants, characterized as disobedient subjects
defying the vertical social hierarchy by most sources, often referred to one
another as “companions” (or some variation of the term), as in Flanders in 1323–
1328 or Languedoc during the Tuchins (TeBrake 1993; Challet 2002).
D Class and Status as a Factor in the Formation of

Rebellious Groups
Many revolts included class or status antagonisms as a factor even if it is difficult
to say whether these antagonisms were primary causes of unrest as they inter-
sected with other grievances. Some forms of rebel coalition such as factions and
parties transcended class or status and were defined by other political motiva-
tions. Because medieval revolt discourse generally revolved around an axis of
order/disorder and obedience/disobedience, the social composition of revolt
movements, which is at the center of modern revolt theory, can often be obscure
in medieval sources. Designations such as populus, popolo, peuple, die armen
Leute, vulgus, plebs, rustici, and pauperes were constructed in relation to the
powerful and did not describe objective social groups, and so determining from
sources who participated in social movements can be difficult (Boglioni et al., ed.,
2002). At times the populus in an uprising would include wealthy bourgeois or
even noblemen; at other times this term describes only lower groups. The partici-
pation of social groups outside those accepted to wield public power is often
remarked upon to signal condemnation of the movement or because in moralizing
narratives the discontent of an oppressed people could serve as commentary on
the failures of an inadequate leader.
In Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries we see a number of social
movements undertaken in the name of the popolo, which signified a faction in
opposition to nobiles/milites, rather than a universal group. Operating through
guild structures or neighborhood militia organizations, movements of the popolo

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gained power or major concessions, such as inclusion on municipal councils and

tax reforms, through violent uprisings in the thirteenth century, as in Vicenza in
1215, Bologna in 1228, Siena in 1233, and Florence in 1282. In the course of these
events, a set of ideals of the popolo, including an association of peace with
prosperity, fiscal policy equity, and a conviction in impersonal law and govern-
ment, were stated in opposition to aristocratic violence, special tax exempt status,
and self-interested politics (Martines 1988; Jones 1997; Poloni 2010). Similar
values would shape urban citizens’ political identity and ideology for the rest of
the Middle Ages (and beyond) throughout Western Europe.
In the later Middle Ages, increasing divisions between social groups, exacer-
bated in many areas by restrictions of citizenship and political participation, and
the consolidation of economic power and/or influential access to the crown in the
hands of the families of an urban patriciate, led to new conflicts between non-
aristocratic factions in cities (Bourin et al., ed., 2008). A series of uprisings in the
later decades of the thirteenth century signaled this increasingly important
dynamic, and texts describing the events make distinctions between social
groups through use of terms such as popolo minuto/grasso and menu peuple/
greigneurs bourgeois. In Bologna in 1289 a rioting crowd “of the most vile condi-
tion… the people without underpants” ejected their podestà in the first appear-
ance of the popolo minuto in historical accounts (Cohn 2006, 91). Flemish revolts
in this period such as the “Kokerulle” in Ypres in 1280 and revolts in the same
year in Bruges and Douai, had a strong element of class antagonism, pitting those
working in the “mechanical arts” such as fullers and weavers against merchant
patrician aldermen. Although some of these Flemish revolts were suppressed,
workers and artisans in many cities successfully ejected aldermen from ruling
families and gained access to government either through violence or political
maneuvering (Dumolyn and Haemers 2005, 374–76; Mollat and Wolff 1970, 43–
44). The Paris trades were suppressed in the aftermath of fiscal riots in December
1306/January 1307 which had targeted the house of the Provost of Merchants
Etienne Barbette, a member of a prominent Parisian moneychanger family, in
what Raymond Cazelles refers to as a moment that “brutally marks the rupture
between the people of Paris and the upper bourgeoisie” (Cazelles 1972, 273). The
Ciompi rebellion of 1378 Florence displays perhaps most clearly an urban revolu-
tionary agenda strongly influenced by social concerns, even if its participants
ranged widely in terms of status and wealth. The Ciompi were mostly lower status
workers predominantly from the textile trades who formed a large guild of the
popolo minuto that took control of Florence’s government from merchant guilds
and enacted several reforms, including price controls and debt cancellations,
ruling for several months until the movement collapsed in late summer (Screpanti
2008; Stella 1993).

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Accompanying and sustaining conflicts between social groups were cultural

expressions of antagonism between those of high and low status. Anti-bourgeois
satire became common in the late thirteenth century. One example comes from
Jehan de Douai’s poem “Le Dit de la Vigne” in which he declares that “We cannot
hang all thieves / because then we would hang […] the mayors and aldermen”
(Alter 1966, 103). Expressions of respect for the virtue of labor and poverty in the
literature of the later Middle Ages were common, as we see in Piers Plowman (ca.
1360–1387) for example (Farmer 2002; Wood 2002, 42–68). The political discourse
of some movements contained calls for equality of treatment of the poor and
complaints about the greedy rich. The Procureur of the Commons of Ghent
declared in 1297 that “the poor should be sustained in their rights as well as are
the rich (Lecuppre-Desjardin and Van Bruaene, ed., 2010, 207).” In his speech
before the gathering of the Estates-General in 1413 that instigated the Paris
Cabochien Revolt, University professor Eustache de Pavilly rails against tax
policies that drain the resources of the “poor” and the “plebeians” and recom-
mends instead that 1500 “wealthy men” should be taxed 100 francs each (Pintoin
1994, vol. 4, 764). Tuchin rebels in mid-fourteenth-century southern France were
said to have cried out “Let’s kill all the rich!” (Gauvard 2002). Radical preacher
John Ball (d. 1381)’s famous slogan questioning the primacy of social inequality
during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt—“Whan Adam dalf, and Eve Span / wo was
thanne a gentilman?”—was not an isolated or novel sentiment (Freedman 1993).
Wace (ca. 1110–d. after 1174) claims that the rustici involved in the 996 Normandy
peasant uprising stated, in reference to the nobility they were fighting, “we are
men like them” (Hilton 2003, 71). Such ideas were not wholly divorced from the
mainstream: Eike von Repgow’s (ca. 1180-ca. 1235) thirteenth-century compilation
of Saxon customary law, the Sachsenspiegel (ca. 1220), affirms that “God created
man in his own likeness and saved man, each and every one, with his martyrdom.
The poor man as well as the rich one was dear to him…. Bondage resulted from
coercion, imprisonment, and unlawful exercise of force, which has become unjust
custom since ancient times, and now people take it to be right and good custom”
(Dobozy, ed., 1999, 125–26).
Other revolutionary groups cut across class lines. Factions and parties were
at the heart of urban politics throughout Europe, and many conflicts were in fact
feud and vendetta writ large, as powerful families vied for municipal offices
(Lansing 1991; Heers 1977). Such groups coalesced around elite families or indivi-
duals, but also could include popular elements. Tension between trades within
cities was mostly motivated by rivalries between merchant families for access to
municipal government and/or influence on royal court, although the “outsider”
families of the bourgeoisie would often find allies in the disgruntled popular
classes in these disputes. The Cabochien Revolt, for example, was led in part by

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prominent families of the Butcher’s Guild, who, in spite of their significant

wealth, had been marginalized from city government and access to positions in
court by traditional Paris bourgeois powerbrokers in the money changing trades
(Ross 2009). The butchers’ ambitions were combined with popular hostility over
tax policies and a University reform agenda to create a diverse revolutionary
movement in which class antagonisms were a contributing but not principal
factor (Sizer 2008). Similar uprisings against entrenched bourgeois families by
rival bourgeois factions in alliance with popular classes took place in Lübeck in
1384 (once again led by butchers), Brunswick in 1386, and Metz in 1405 (Nicholas
1997, 134–36). Formal parties, such as the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, or the
Armagnacs and Burgundians in the civil war-era (1407–1435) France, could forge
togetherness and identity with workers and artisans through the use of banners,
insignia, badges, and slogans (Heers 1977).
Coups, dynastic struggles, and aristocratic conflicts could also spill out of
elite class circles and bring in popular participation. When rebellion is mentioned
in early medieval sources it usually signifies aristocratic feuds and palace coups
rather than popular revolts. It is unclear the degree to which populations beyond
the contending families and their soldiers participated in such intrigues, as
sources often depict these conflicts as personal disputes and military struggles of
elites. Karl Leyser refers to the conflicts in Ottonian Saxony in the ninth and tenth
centuries as “gang warfare of the great,” but also suggests that the recurring civil
wars and intrigues within the royal family served to channel discontent of aristo-
cratic clans, preventing more widespread disputes (Leyser 1979, 28–31). In Byzan-
tium, which retained a more robust state structure than most other regions,
rebellions and court intrigue in the context of dynastic struggles were common,
but only occasionally involved popular elements, and even if so were directed
closely by elites (Cheynet, ed., 2006, 194–200). For several reasons, magnate
rebellions or coup attempts involved popular elements more frequently in the
later Middle Ages. As royal power was centralized, with the king’s government
claiming with increasing success to embody the state, opposition to the Crown
from any corner was seen as treasonous, and this lumped barons in with lesser
people as subjects. Recognizing the tactical and ideological potential of popular
participation, magnates allied with non-elite groups and their revolts were justi-
fied by appeals to more universal rights and grievances. This pattern clearly
emerges in England, where barons positioned themselves as champions for the
greater good and reform against corruption in the royal administration in the
revolts against King John (r. 1199–1216) in 1215, as well the Baronial Movement of
1258–1267. Although the barons may have been concerned primarily with their
own interests, the reform movement as a whole reflected concern for the entirety
of the realm’s subjects (Maddicott 2010; Valente 2003). French magnate rebellions

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of the later Middle Ages followed a similar pattern, as reflected in the Civil War
from 1407–1435 and the League of the Public Good in 1465 (Sizer 2008).
As with most historical eras, revolts stemming primarily from misery or want
are not common in the Middle Ages: we see few disturbances during the years of
the Great Famine, for example. Even those underclass riots about grain shortages
or hoarding operating according to a “moral economy” famously described by
E.P. Thompson as a recurring feature of early modern politics do not seem to have
been common in the medieval period, although some examples exist (Thompson
1971; Cohn 2006). Part of the revolutionary program of Cola di Rienzo (d. 1354),
himself descended from Rome’s lower classes, was to instill price controls on
food, and we see similar measures during the brief reign of the Ciompi (Collins
2002; Nicholas 1997, 126). Those from the margins of society may have been
participants but were rarely instigators of uprisings. The riots in Paris in 1418 of
4000 persons led by the city executioner, which resulted in the massacre of
around 2500 prisoners in Paris prisons accused of plotting against the city in the
context of the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War, may be an exception (Geremek
1976, 340–48). However, participants are described as coming from “the vile
mechanical arts,” implying workers rather than social marginals, and the role of
the executioner Capeluche may have been exaggerated by chroniclers for shock-
ing effect (Klemettilä 2006, 268–72). Chroniclers’ frequent assertions that revolts
involving the urban poor were motivated by the desire to steal the goods of the
rich, as we see in Jouvenal des Ursins (1388–1473)’s account of the Cabochiens or
Gino di Neri Capponi (1350–1421)’s chronicle describing the Ciompi, mostly reflect
biases of hostile, elite authors—in fact other chroniclers assert that the Ciompi
burned rather than looted the houses of the wealthy precisely because they did
not want to be seen as thieves (Jouvenal des Ursins 1875, 478; Mollat and Wolff
1970, 144). Looting and political idealism are not mutually exclusive, of course,
something that medieval observers could recognize: as Landulf the Elder remarks
in his analysis of the motives behind Milan’s eleventh-century communal revolt,
“[the popolo] were strong in poverty, very strong in their aspiration for liberty,
desiring wealth but more anxious to be free” (Tobacco 1989, 184).
E Resistance to Outsiders in Revolutionary

Movements
Rebellious activity often coalesced around resistance to foreign rule or to local
authorities allied (or ostensibly allied) with others labeled as outside the local
cultural community. As with medieval culture generally, what constituted the

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foreign was a variable designation, the product of a community forging its

identity through the naming of an “Other” (Classen, ed., 2002).
In the Stellinga Revolt of 841–842, the lower orders of the Saxons, named the
frilingi (freemen) and lazzi (servile class) exploited divisions within the ruling
edhilingui (aristocracy) to revolt against their rule, and thereby also against that
of the Franks with whom the edhilingui were allied. The animosity toward the
edhilingui was political, religious, and cultural. Calling themselves the Stellinga, a
name which likely meant “companions” or “comrades,” these lower orders
sought a return to the less extreme hierarchies of pre-Carolingian social structures
in which all groups had a voice in annual assembly meetings held at the ritually
significant pagan site of Marklo on the Weser River. The Stellinga revolt was thus
also a pagan revival movement. The Saxon lower classes equated Christianity
with the ruling classes, as the edhilingui had converted to Christianity in accor-
dance with the Carolingian conversion strategy in which the upper classes of a
conquered area were first incorporated into the Christian community. Although
initially successful, the Stellinga were defeated in 842 when the edhilingui closed
ranks and, with Frankish help, crushed the uprising (Goldberg 1995). There was a
different result in the pagan uprising of the Liutizi Slavs against Ottonian rule
which began in 983. In this revolt, a coalition of several Slavic groups situated
near the Baltic coast ejected Saxon Christian churchmen and rulers and revived
old pagan political structures and religious practices, maintaining their autono-
my for generations (Barford 2001, 259).
Later medieval revolts also featured resistance to foreign rule. Flemish and
Italian politics in particular were defined by local forces in alliance with, or
defiance of, the powerful foreign monarchs who had territorial claims in those
regions. In the case of Flanders this dynamic has been most ably described by
Marc Boone, who has noted the close interconnectedness of the “big” tradition of
Flemish revolt–resistance to the claims of territorial rulers such as the Count of
Flanders and the Dukes of Burgundy, which often involved the intervention of the
King of France—to the “little” tradition of revolt, which involved conflicts within
Flemish cities for control of municipal government (Boone and Prak, 1995).
Similarly, in Italy the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy
shaped rivalries in the form of disputes between the Guelph and Ghibelline
parties within city-states. Parisian popular opposition to the Armagnac party in
the period of the Civil War, which manifested itself in the revolts of 1413 and 1418,
was fueled by resentment of the foreign (Brabançons, Lorraines, Flemish, south-
ern French) troops used in the party’s ranks: the Journal of the Bourgeois of Paris
refers to them as “Saracens” and “foreign people” (Journal d’un Bourgeois 1990,
46; 77; 91). The revolutionary movement that included most clearly a nationalistic
element was the Hussite Revolt in fifteenth-century Bohemia. Hussites conflated

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Czech identity with faithfulness to their movement and against Roman papal or
German influence. One Hussite pamphlet declared “ancient is the enmity and
rooted deep between the Czechs and Germans,” and other Hussite texts claimed
Germans were descended from Judas or Pontius Pilate (Fudge 1998, 218–19; cf.
Fudge 2013, 135–253).
Violence in popular uprisings could take the form of attacks on ethnic or
religious minorities who were branded as foreign elements within communities.
English royal Patent Rolls describe an “insurrection” in 1395 in which a mob of
Oxford townsfolk chanted “Sle sle sle the Walshe dogges!” as they hunted down
Welshmen and forced them to kiss the town gate before beating them (Calendar
of the Patent Rolls, vol. 5, 605). Flemish inhabitants of London were a target of
the peasant rebels in 1381 (Dobson, ed., 1983, 188–89). Some mass violence was
organized around pogroms against Jews and violence against others such as
lepers, as in the Shepherd’s Crusade of 1320–1321 in France and Aragon, or the
violence in Strasbourg and other areas during the time of the Black Death in
1348 (Aberth 2005, 151–54). The rioters in Paris in 1380 attacked both Jews and
Italian bankers (Pintoin 1994, vol. 1, 50–52). The conviction on the part of mass
groups that cleansing the community of “outsiders” such as Jews was important
to the health of the community, stemming from cultural antagonisms, explains
some of these riots (Moore 2007). But this violence was only partly caused by
religious or ethnic chauvinism. Attacks on these groups were also economically
and politically motivated. Not only could riots destroy records of the significant
debts owed to Jewish moneylenders, but as these minorities were often pro-
tected by royal or ecclesiastical authorities, violence against them served also as
an indirect but unmistakable challenge to these authorities’ power (Nirenberg
1996).
F Taxes and the State

Although the causes of medieval revolts are difficult to distill down to one
grievance or issue, resistance to fiscal demands played a prominent role in a
majority of medieval uprisings. Discontent over fiscal policies and modes of
extraction necessarily intersected with other issues, such as class antagonisms,
political authority, and the meaning of legal rights. Most often, resistance to
taxation and rents took place on a local, individual, and everyday level (discussed
in the section on peasants, below), but the scale of this resistance increased into
collective forms of popular revolt when the system of authority was larger and
more centralized, and when communication and solidarity created tactical possi-
bilities that made mass revolt possible.

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Recorded instances of popular revolt in the early Middle Ages are rare, but
some of the earliest refer to tax uprisings. Gregory of Tours (ca. 539–594) de-
scribes several riots instigated by unpopular tax policies in the History of the
Franks. Exploiting the death of King Theudebert in 548, a mob in the city of Trier
burst into a church where a tax collector named Parthenius had sought refuge,
found him hiding in a chest, dragged him out and stoned him to death. One riot in
Limoges against a tax collector of King Chilperic (r. 561–584), in which the crowd
destroyed account books, was brutally repressed, but the king’s death in 584 gave
another opportunity for a mob to attack the royal tax collector Audo, and strip
him of his clothes and wealth (Gregory of Tours 1974, 192; 292; 399).
Still, we see more instances of large-scale anti-tax revolt in the late Middle
Ages. This is explained in part by the growth of centralized fiscal states: as
subordinate classes encountered an increasingly powerful and rapacious author-
ity structure, especially in the form of centralized royal states such as France and
England making unprecedented claims on the right to taxation, their response
was of a correspondingly large scale and degree of violence (Tilly and Blockmans,
ed., 1994; Kaeuper 1988). Tax policy was the primary grievance of the Etienne
Marcel revolt in 1356, the Tuchins rebellion, the 1380s revolts that erupted
throughout the realm of France, and the Cabochien revolt of 1413. Chronicler
Michel Pintoin (1349–1421)’s assessment on the eve of the 1380 revolts encapsu-
lates the mood in that tumultuous period: “In all the realm of France they
fervently sought […] to free themselves from the yoke of taxation” (Pintoin 1994,
vol. 1, 21). The 1377 Poll Tax was cited as the primary cause of the 1381 Peasants’
Revolt in England by several chroniclers (Dobson, ed., 1983, 134–37). Resistance
to the encroachments of smaller states spurred tax revolts as well: fifteenth-
century uprisings of the peasants of the contado of the expanding Florentine city-
state successfully contested the city’s tax regime (Cohn 1999).
These revolts were fueled by debate over tax policy in both high and low
culture. Theologian Godfrey of Fontaines (ca. 1250-ca. 1306–1309) argued in 1295
that “[a king’s] subjects ought to resist” if a tax was imposed without proper
consultation of council (McGrade et al., ed., 2001, 320). The long-standing custom
that royal taxes should only go toward the maintenance of the king’s household
or to specific emergencies was strained by royal demands for funds to pay for the
perpetual crisis of the Hundred Years’ War, resulting in widespread and continual
calls for reform and tax rebellions in France (Scordia 2005). Intellectuals critiqued
the crown’s tax policies in works such as the Songe du Vergier (ca. 1378), and
letters of Nicolas de Clamanges (ca. 1360–1437) reinforced the reciprocal nature of
taxation in claiming that taxes made the king a debtor to his people (Lecuppre-
Desjardin and Van Bruaene, ed., 2010; Songe du Vergier 1982). Resentment of the
tax collector appears regularly in the period’s literature as well. In the fifteenth-

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century “New Farce of the Amazed,” in which three fools go to Justice to complain
of what astonishes them, one says, “I will be amazed when comes / the time when
no longer will show up / at my doorstep, a pile of shit / to ask for tax money”
(Recueil des farces 1949, 24). Popular opinion was moved against taxation, as
chronicles comment on how the people continually “murmur” against new taxes
(Journal d’un Bourgeois 1990, 171; Pintoin 1994, vol. 6, 124; 150; 292). One letter of
remission from 1384 captures this sentiment from Guillaume le Jupponier in
Orléans: “we have no king but God; do you think they acquired what they have
justly? they burden me again and again, and it weighs on them that they can’t
have all of our things; what affair is it of theirs to take that which I have gained
with my sewing needle?” (Douët-d’Arcq, ed., 1863, vol. 1, 59).
G Peasant Revolts
In view of the fact that medieval society was to a large extent built on the
exploitation of agricultural labor, it would seem likely that peasant revolt would
be a common feature of medieval history. Marc Bloch contended that this was so
(Bloch 1966, 170). But in fact medieval peasant resistance took on many forms, of
which large-scale revolt was just one, and was subject to varying intensities
depending on the historical circumstances. Furthermore, peasant revolt is not
always so easy to disentangle from other revolts. Many of the larger peasant
revolts coincided or involved alliances with urban rebellions: this is certainly true
of the Jacquerie in 1358 which was connected to Etienne Marcel’s Paris revolt,
Flemish uprisings such as the Stedingen revolt in the thirteenth century and the
1323–1328 revolt, and others. Furthermore peasant society was not homogeneous,
and there was a high degree of variation in social status and wealth in most rural
communities. The diversity of these circumstances makes generalizing about
peasants or their modes of resistance perilous; nevertheless, the domination of
agricultural labor and resources by landlords was an essential quality of medieval
society, and along with this came resistance and defiance.
Boris Porchnev has identified three modes of resistance available to peasants:
partial resistance, flight, and revolt (Porchnev 1972). The importance of these first
two forms of medieval peasant resistance cannot be over-emphasized. Rather
than take the risk of open revolt, peasants were most likely to engage in the sort
of everyday resistance activities famously analyzed by James Scott in his study of
modern Malaysian peasants: “foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false com-
pliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage” (Scott 1985, xvi).
Although by their very nature such acts are scarce in the sources, historians have
noted traces of them throughout the Middle Ages and have accorded them

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importance (Wickham 1998; TeBrake 1993). Sources do reveal peasants vehe-

mently fighting servile status and rent obligations in court hearings, indicating
their determination to resist burdens placed upon them by dominant classes
(Hilton 2003, 64–74). Unpopular lords were not infrequently struck down by
assassination or small-scale collective violence in the twelfth century (Jacob
1990). Such piecemeal forms were the predominant mode of peasant resistance in
decentralized political and economic systems, and in fact their prevalence may
have been largely responsible for the commutation of labor obligations into
money rents in the High Middle Ages, as enforcement of non-monetary obliga-
tions became too burdensome (Rösener 1992).
Larger-scale peasant resistance in the form of revolt became more common in
the late Middle Ages. The increase in scale was in large part a response to the
centralization of political and economic systems of authority whose representa-
tives were often the target of revolt activity, and also due to greater economic and
cultural interconnection and communication between communities. Peasants in
revolt generally had a combination of fiscal and political grievances, and often
expressed these grievances in the form of demands for justice and legal rights
(Neveux 1997). Beyond the grievances typical of medieval revolts in general,
peasant revolts frequently were concerned with servile status. Sometimes this
could be symbolic, as when Wat Tyler (d. 1381) demanded an end to serfdom in
his demands at Smithfield even though serfdom was rare in Kent from which the
movement originated. The destruction of official records of servile status was a
common feature of peasant revolts: against such testaments to their subordina-
tion which they saw as newfangled and unjust peasants would invoke older
customs and traditions. That the peasants in the 1381 Rising sought to encode
their demands in law showed that they were not anti-literate but could embrace
legal culture if it fit their political ideology (Justice 1994). The prolonged move-
ment of the Remensas in Catalonia in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries, notable not only for its success but also for the alliance between the
crown and the peasantry, was motivated by the desire to end servitude and
arbitrary powers of the local aristocracy, and to replace novel “bad customs” with
new relationships safeguarding what were seen as traditional rights (Freedman
1991; 1993). The dependence of peasants was called into question in a different
way during the 1358 Jacquerie in France. In this short-lived but bloody revolt,
peasants rose up out of resentment of the failures of the aristocracy to provide for
community defense in spite of revenues from taxation, in the Hundred Years’
War. The failure to protect peasant communities in effect had “de-nobled” the
aristocracy in the eyes of the peasants (Neveux 1997, 103–11).

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H The Cultural Repertoire of Medieval Revolt

Movements
In spite of the diversity of motivations and forms of solidarity involved in medie-

val revolt movements, some tactical and ritualized features reappear frequently in
accounts of these episodes. These responses were embedded within the historical
memory of communities, and could easily be drawn upon in moments of resis-
tance. These recurring features constitute what Charles Tilly has called a cultural
repertoire of revolt (Tilly 1978; 1993).
Most revolt movements were extensions of existing community customs and
structures of self-defense and representation. The summoning of the community’s
people to participate in an armed uprising thus mirrored the customs used in
other instances of rallying the community for collective endeavors. Ringing the
town tocsin, or similar measures such as the passing of the budstikke (a stick
burnt on one end passed from village to village in late medieval Norway), could
call the people to arms. Local assemblies of all sorts could also be the occasion to
plan or debate resistance (Neveux 1997; Blickle, ed., 1997). The many local
assemblies of the dense agricultural areas of Flanders nurtured and sustained the
peasants’ revolt of 1323–1328, for just one example of many (TeBrake 1993). Revolt
could also be incited by rumors spread at the marketplace, popular preaching,
and pamphleteering. Existing evidence for this is piecemeal before the late Middle
Ages, but that does not mean it was not important. Where evidence does exist, as
with the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England and the Hussite Movement, it seems
that such activities were decisive in expanding the scale of resistance beyond
local community structures (Justice 1994, 16–36; Fudge 1998).
Revolt movements often involved contestation or occupation of symbolically
and tactically significant social spaces. Marketplaces, as they were public zones
and also sites where tax collection occurred, were often arenas for revolt. The 1382
Maillotin Revolt in Paris erupted when a mob beset a tax collector who was trying
to collect a sales tax from a woman selling watercress in the Halles marketplace
(Pintoin 1994, vol. 1, 136). After its construction in the thirteenth century, Ghent’s
Friday Market was the staging ground for that city’s many movements, as groups
deployed speeches, banners and slogans to claim the public space (Boone 2002).
Florence’s Piazza della Signoria played a similar role in that city’s politics, and
many of the significant actions in the Ciompi rebellion involved the occupation of
the Piazza’s visual space with banners (Trexler 1984). Just as princes tried to
express their power in organized and elaborate entry ceremonies along symboli-
cally important routes in the city, the people in revolt would enact processions on
these same routes to express their claims over urban space with their bodies (Cohn

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1508 Michael Sizer
2006; Boone 2002). The most confrontational form of occupying space was in the
crowd’s invasion of leaders’ palaces or residences. John of Gaunt’s (1340–1399)
Manor of Savoy was burned down in the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt (Dobson, ed., 1983,
156–58). The Paris crowd attacked the municipal residence of the Provost of
Merchants in 1306, ransacked the Duke of Berry’s (1340–1416) palace and de-
stroyed some of the artwork collected by this famous patron of the arts in 1410,
and penetrated the queen’s chambers and arrested her ladies-in-waiting in the
Cabochien Revolt of 1413 (Ross 2009). These were more than gestures of intimida-
tion, but in fact represented the marking of these spaces, with their lavish decora-
tions and sizeable household staffs funded by tax money, as public and thus
subject to popular disposal rather than private (Sizer 2008).
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie famously described how festive rituals could
shape political and social rivalries in his account of the Carnival in sixteenth-
century Romans (Le Roy Ladurie 1979). In spite of the subversive potential of
festive culture analyzed by Mikhail Bakhtin, medieval scholars have debated
whether festive elements in medieval culture contributed to social conflict or
whether they functioned as a sort of safety valve to relieve social pressures before
they could reach the level of active resistance (Bakhtin 1984; Justice 1994, 153–
55). Medieval revolts could incorporate festive elements. It seems that the 1381
Peasants’ Revolt drew on the rural idioms of Midsummer for inspiration. Jack
Straw is named as one of the purported leaders of the rising but this may have
been a festive nickname, and Geoffrey Lister, leader of the revolt in Norfolk,
assumed judicial powers and created a mock royal court in a way that echoes the
Lord of Misrule tradition (Prescott 1998; Justice 1994, 140–92). The Harelle revolt
in 1382 Rouen took place during Lent, a time associated with renewal and reform.
In this uprising, the city’s laborers propped a merchant draper surnamed Le Gras
(the Fat) on a throne and paraded him around the city to the main marketplace,
where he made a series of decrees including freedom of the city’s residents from
taxation (Pintoin 1994, vol. 1, 132–34). The raid on the Queen’s dwelling in Paris
during the 1413 Cabochien Revolt is likely to have been a form of political
charivari (Sizer 2008).
I Religion in Medieval Revolt

Some scholars suggest that the only possibilities for truly revolutionary thought
and action in the Middle Ages were in the religious rather than the political sphere
(Graus 1967; Hobsbawm 1959). Though this argument seems to have been over-
stated, it is true that medieval revolts, like medieval culture generally, almost
always included religious themes. Because church figures were also entrenched

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within the social hierarchy, and because ideologies of rule contained sacred
elements, it was inevitable that political conflicts would combine with religious
conflict, and that dissent could be expressed using religious discourse. It is not
coincidental that the most radical medieval revolutionary movements–the 1381
Peasants’ Revolt and the fifteenth-century Hussite Revolution–were strongly
influenced by religious dissent. Religious conflicts are covered elsewhere in this
volume (see the contribution by John Sewell); what follows here is a brief discus-
sion of the way religious discourse and culture interacted with political revolu-
tionary movements.
Most medieval revolts were not apocalyptic or utopian in their aims, and did
not draw heavily from the apocalyptic tradition in Christianity. The distinction
made by Günther Franz between revolts for God’s Law, which were revolutionary
in their aims, and revolts for Old Law, which sought to restore old customs, is now
seen to be overstated, at least for pre-Reformation movements (Franz 1976; Freed-
man 1993, 43–44). However, apocalyptic discourse was by no means absent. A
diverse Joachimite group which called itself “The Apostles” ignited by the preach-
ing of the illiterate Gerard Segarelli engaged in banditry near Parma for several
decades at the end of the thirteenth century (Hilton 2003, 106–09). Popular
preaching during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt included apocalyptic themes (Dobson,
ed., 1983, 123–30). Hussite imagery drew heavily on eschatological themes to
advance the notion that they were the Chosen People in a struggle against the
corrupt church (Fudge 1998, 143–44; 148–49; 161). Hans Behem (d. 1476), the
Drummer of Niklashausen, is said by a hostile clerical chronicler to have pro-
claimed the impending arrival of the Mother of God who “will bring us to a new
age” in a brief peasant uprising in 1476 (Wunderli 1992, 99). Though not explicitly
apocalyptic, the Ciompi’s declaration of themselves as the Popolo di Dio indicates
their belief in their cause as sanctioned by God.
The resentment toward churchmen for their dominance in the social and
cultural life of the Middle Ages, voiced repeatedly in anti-clerical literature of the
period, also found its expression in popular revolt. Wat Tyler demanded the
confiscation of church property in his demands at Smithfield in the 1381 Peasants
Revolt (Hilton, ed. 2003, 227–28). Pintoin provides a (likely exaggerated) descrip-
tion of the brutal ritualized slaughter of a priest in his account of the Tuchin
Rebellion: “out of hatred and disrespect of his clerical dignity, they cut of the
ends of his fingers, flayed him of the skin of his tonsure and then burned him”
(Pintoin 1994, vol. 1, 310). Priests were also targets of the peasant rebels in Forez
from 1422–1431 (Leguai 1982). Once again the Hussite Revolution provides the
most extreme examples of anti-clericalism in word and deed. The Four Articles of
Prague (1420), reflecting relatively mainstream Hussite Revolutionary ideology,
called for the abolition of church property (Fudge 1998).

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1510 Michael Sizer
Christian discourse often affirmed the existing order, but it could also be
subversive. Sermons preached in the streets might play on popular resentment of
the rich. Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) compared the powerful (“majores”) to a whale
which devoured the little fish, the poor (“pauperes”) and said that the powerful
“live off of the blood and sweat of the poor” (Boglioni et al., ed., 2002, 31). A 1419
sermon by the priest Jan Zelivský preceding the popular uprising in Prague in late
July, stated: “Only those who labor have the right to say, ‘this is our daily bread.’
The others who eat this bread are thieves and swindlers. […] Without doubt, all
those who work at useless endeavors eat their bread unworthily. […] Those who
commit deeds without any regard for the public good, whether they are kings,
princes, judges or other idlers of the courts who avoid work and who flaunt
themselves in the luxury for which others have greatly sweat and toiled, are also
unworthy of the bread” (Fudge, ed., 2002, 22). The well-known rhyme of popular
preacher John Ball addressed to English peasants leading up to the 1381 Rising,
“Whan Adam dalf, and Eve Span / wo was thanne a gentilman?” had its analogs
in France (Leguai 1982). Commentators sympathetic to revolt movements could
employ discourse from the Christian pathos of suffering and martyrdom to de-
scribe the oppressed poor and crushed rebellions (Lecuppre-Desjardin and Van
Bruaene, ed., 2005). Conversely, clerical authorities could use religious discourse
to condemn and even call for a crusade to crush revolts, as occurred in the
Stedingen Peasants’ Revolt in Flanders (Van Bavel, 2010).
Select Bibliography
Blickle, Peter, ed., Resistance, Representation, and Community (New York 1997).
Bourin, Monique, Giovanni Cherubini and Giuliano Pinto, ed., Rivolte urbane e rivolte contadine
nell’Europa del Trecento: un confronto (Florence 2008).
Cohn, Samuel K., Jr., Lust for Liberty: the Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200–1425:
Italy, France, and Flanders (Cambridge, MA, 2006).
Dumolyn, Jan and Jelle Haemers, “Patterns of Urban Rebellion in Medieval Flanders,” Journal of
Medieval History 31 (2005): 369–93.
Fögen, Marie-Theres, ed., Ordnung und Aufruhr im Mittelalter: Historische und juristische Stu-
dien zur Rebellion (Frankfurt a. M. 1995).

Foran, John, ed., Theorizing Revolutions (New York 1997).

Hilton, Rodney, Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of
1381 (New York 2003).
Mollat, Michel and Philippe Wolff, Ongles bleus, Jacques et Ciompi; les révolutions populaires en
Europe aux XIVème et XVème siècles (Paris 1970).
Neveux, Hugues, Les révoltes paysannes en Europe (XIVe–XVIIe siècle) (Paris 1997).
Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading 1978).
Valente, Chris, The Theory and Practice of Revolt in Medieval England (Aldershot and Burlington,
VT, 2003).

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Volume 3
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Handbook of
Medieval Culture

Edited by
Albrecht Classen
Volume 3
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Albrecht Classen
Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Travelers
A Transportation Systems and Society: From the

Roman World to the Middle Ages
Streets, roads, mountain passes, bridges, and fords to cross rivers have always
been the essential nodules in any social network, and they speak volumes about
the development of a society at any given time in history (Szabó, ed., 2009). We
can grasp an entire culture through a study of its infrastructure (Fischer and Horn,
ed., 2014). One of the major hallmarks of the Roman Empire, for instance, was its
outstanding network of roads connecting all parts of the huge territory under the
possession of Rome. Those roads and bridges made possible excellent and sus-
tainable communication over thousands of miles and so guaranteed in many ways
the Romans’ military superiority for many centuries. The Romans were master
builders of imperial and frontier-crossing roads, which they secured at regular
intervals with fortresses. Moreover, they set up huge military camps, many of
which later became the foundation of future cities. And they were also responsible
for significant bridges, canals, sewer systems, mountain passes, and other fea-
tures relevant for the communication system all over their empire, not forgetting
the large number of inns or taverns where the travelers could rest and sleep
(mansiones) (Heinz 2003). Many roads were created to facilitate major military
operations, and many continued to exist in the following centuries (Popoviċ 2012).
Calculated altogether at the height of their development, the Romans had ca.
80,000 to 100,000 km, or ca. 54,000–67,500 Roman miles, or ca. 50,000 modern
miles of main roads. At any time during late antiquity, a traveler could easily
travel from the Hadrian’s Wall in the extreme North-West of the Roman Empire to
the border of Ethiopia, ca. 4,500 miles, always on Roman roads. Similarly, at those
times the Balkans were as much integrated and connected with the heartland of
the Roman Empire as the Iberian or English territories (Schreiber 1961, 129–30).
This most impressive transportation system more or less survived the Ro-
mans’ fall in the West by the end of the fifth century far into the Middle Ages, if it
has never disappeared completely. Nevertheless, with the gradual loss of stable
and centralized governments and quickly changing rulerships in the Germanic
kingdoms, we witness the rapid decline of the logistic network during the post-
Roman world. One major consequence was the reorientation of cultural, military,
political, and economic centers, simply because the early medieval rulers in
England, Italy, on the Iberian peninsula, in Germany, or France could not main-

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tain the old transportation arteries and had to rely on other features, some
natural, such as rivers and valleys, ancient tracks, and mountain passes. Even
though major transportation routes survived and were constantly worked on out
of sheer necessity to maintain them, the overall network suffered significantly.
This did not mean, however, that the Middle Ages did not have or did not care
about good logistics. Without those no wars could have been fought, and no
markets could have been supplied. All trade, communication, and travel for
countless purposes depend on a reliable transportation network (see the contribu-
tion to this Handbook by Romedio Schmitz-Esser, “Travel and Exploration”). But
it is important to keep in mind that medieval streets and roads in general were not
simply identical with those from antiquity because the technical know-how, the
political will to maintain such a transportation network, and the financial means
to do so were simply lacking or got lost in the course of time. We also would have
to consider that early-medieval armies operated differently than Roman armies,
transported less military equipment, making them much more mobile, and so
soon resorted to more direct routes when, for instance, crossing the Alps aban-
doning the old Roman roads that had been built better but usually went on
detours for convenience’s sake (Winckler 2012, 116–19).
However, many ancient roads continued, such as the Via Aurelia, the Via
Cassia, the Via Claudia (Walde, ed., 1998), the Via Appia, the Via Julia Augusta, or
the Via Flaminia (Bonomi 1991), continued to be traveled on. Until today remnants
of those roads still can be seen, such as the Via Appia (Bogstad 2010) at Rome, the
Roman road ascending Blackstone Edge, above Littleborough, near Manchester,
or the famous short stretch next to the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne.
Another example is the Roman military road parallel to the Hadrian’s Wall in
Northumberland, still clearly visible today. Similarly, the Romans had to build or
expand the roads crossing the Alps since the second half of the first century C.E.
because they had expanded their territory beyond that mountain barrier and
needed to provide their troops north of it with the necessary resources (Winckler
2012, 62–72).
Modern words reflect the longevity of the Roman transportation system, for
we still talk of “street” (Engl.) or “Straße” (Ger.) based on Latin via strata (paved
path), or of “la route” (French), based on Latin via rupta (a passage forged
through), and “la rue” (French) based on Latin ruga (crevice, crack, passage)
(Heinz 2003, 12). Nevertheless, throughout the Middle Ages new roads came into
existence, new cities emerged, and new bridges were built. But critical Alpine
passes, such as the Great St. Bernard Pass, continued to be used as in Roman
times because they were ideally located and most convenient for the bulk of
traffic, and only had to be maintained continuously (Pauli 1980; Hunt 1998;
Bergier and Coppola, ed., 2007). The same applies to other routes crossing the

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Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Travelers 1513
Alps, as extensive archeological research has revealed (Planta 1985; Schneider

2002/2003). Interestingly, the St. Gotthard Pass was not developed until the early
thirteenth century because of local difficulties, especially the turbulent Reuss
river which swelled up too much during the snow melt and made all travel
impossible (Woodburn Hyde 1935). The first bridge, the so-called “Devil’s Bridge,”
crossed the Schöllenen Gorge not before 1230, and it had to be rebuilt many times,
though it was always constructed of wood until the sixteenth century when the
first stone bridge spanned over the Reuss (see also below).
Some of the key components of Roman roads consist of (1) a solid foundation,
sometimes laid on pile-gratings in marshy areas; then (2) a self-contained bottom
layer of broken stones, tile fragments, and gravel; (3) the use of clay, lime, or lime
mortar to bind the stones into a cohesive and watertight mass; and (4) a solid and
durable paved surface. Older research still assumed a uniform application of this
layer throughout the empire (Speck 1950; Schreiber 1961, 120–22). This, however,
has proven to be erroneous since especially in the Northern provinces many roads
were covered only with a layer of crushed rock (summa crusta) (Heinz, 2003, 43;
47–48). The Romans placed greatest emphasis on roads because of their supre-
mely military function, since the far-flung borders of their huge empire had to be
defended from ever-growing numbers of hostile Germanic tribes coming from the
North and East (Goffart 2006), not to forget the Parthians in the East and other
peoples. But merchants also traveled on those roads, and those continued to be
used far into the Middle Ages and beyond.
By the same token, we need to keep in mind that the Romans were not
necessarily the first to build roads and streets, but often followed much older
systems, as the case of the city of Trier illustrates, allegedly founded by Emperor
Augustus in 16 B.C.E., although the ancient Celts had already lived there, utilizing
the location as a convenient rest stop for merchants and warriors who traveled
through that area. In other words, ancient trade routes crisscrossed Europe even
before the Romans left their first impact.
We must also not forget that major roads existed in other parts of the world,
before and after the Romans, if we think of the famous Silk Roads, the roads
through the Egyptian empire, the merchants’ trails through the Sahara, and the
massive road system built by the Incas until ca. 1500 (Regal 1936; Schreiber 1961,
182–94). Moreover, every road leads to a specific point of interest, and the Asian
road system more or less connected China with Europe, especially because of the
great demand for silk and spices from the East. By late antiquity relatively intense
trade involving lead, zinc, and glass connected both continents (Schwarz 2005),
but the highpoint of East-West trade was not achieved until the thirteenth century
when the Mongols established their vast empire under Genghis Khan and his
successors (d. 1227; Hartog 1989; Krämer, ed., 2011). When the Mongols moved

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their large armies, they obviously sent military engineers (or pioneers) as an
advance unit to clear and level the roads, to build pontoon bridges, and we can
assume that other cultures operated in a similar fashion, though perhaps less
effectively than the Mongols (Krämer 2011, 103). Being less concerned with
religious issues, and more in fostering trade, the Mongols invited Westerners with
relatively open arms, reducing or eliminating the usual toll and setting up rest
stops every twenty-five to thirty miles, as Marco Polo reported. In other words, the
history of roads, transportation, and travel easily transcends the usual historical
periods of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Likewise, this eco-
nomic and logistical history quickly forces us to abandon the traditional Euro-
centric perspective and to pursue a much more global orientation (Borgolte 2010;
see also the contribution to this volume by Romedio Schmitz-Esser, “Travel and
Exploration”).
B Travel, Roads, and Transportation

in the Early Middle Ages
Roads, streets, and paths were created by a variety of measures throughout the
Middle Ages, and we commonly identify them as “Altstraßen” or ‘original roads’
(Wopfner 1931). The holloways result from people regularly walking or riding the
same stretch, creating an ever deepening passage, making it hollow. Then there
are man-made earthworks, embankments, terraceways (on the slope of a hill),
zigzags (to climb a hill), causeways (similar to embankments, but mostly crossing
a marshy or swampy area), and cuttings (not developed until the modern age; cf.
Morriss 2005, 80–100). Archeological excavations have uncovered evidence that
by the early Middle Ages fairly extensive bridge and road constructions were
carried out that even made possible the crossing of wetlands and swamps, such
as by Slavic people in the modern region of Mecklenburg (Schuldt 1975). We know
of many people who traveled, and this especially since the eighth and ninth
centuries, even if we disregard the entire age of migration in the third to fifth
centuries. Whether we think of the major military operations undertaken by
Charlemagne (d. 814) (Götz 1985, 529) and his successors, whether we consider
the extensive travels by pilgrims along the old Via Flaminia (Einhard, vita 2; cf.
Heinz 2003, 108) or the Benedictine monks who went on missions in seventh-
(originating from Ireland under the leadership of Columban) or in eighth-century
Germany (Anglo-Saxons, led by Saint Boniface) and thus had to cross many lands
to reach out to the local people both in the North (Frisians) and the South
(Bavarians), or whether we include the fairly large groups of administrators and

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warriors who belonged to the courts of the early-medieval peripatetic kingdoms,

travelers used a broad system of roadways in this era. Early medieval Europe also
witnessed a variety of military attacks from the outside, such as that by the Huns
(fifth century), the Saracens/Arabs in the eighth century, the Vikings between the
eighth and the eleventh centuries, and the Magyars in the tenth century. Those
massive military operations would not have been possible without extensive
logistic opportunities having been available to them, irrespective of the presence
of good roads or bridges. In addition, the Huns, like the Saracens and later like
the Mongols, had the great advantage of being very swift on their horses, which
allowed them to cover huge distances in a short span of time, free of the need to
have good roads at hand. The Vikings mostly relied on their extraordinarily well-
built ships with which they could easily travel along the shore line, into estuaries
and deep inland on rivers, and even cross the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
None of these attacks, however, seem to have been supported by special road
systems, especially since none of those peoples really settled after their con-
quests, except for the Vikings, who began to build their own fortified camps and
harbors especially along the Western coast of England, in Normandy, and in
Southern Italy by the ninth and tenth centuries (Haywood 1991; Ellmers 1998;
Løset 2009; see also the contribution to this Handbook by Timothy Runyan).
Regarding real roads, however, as we knew them from the Romans, we have
to wait until the ninth century to witness a renewed effort to maintain, rebuild, or
create roads and streets, and even canals in a systematic fashion. Charlemagne
would not have been able to carry out his life-long military explorations and
conquests without the possibility to transport large amounts of equipment over
long distances. He is also said to have tried to create a waterway connection
between the rivers Main and Danube to make possible his attack on the Avars,
begun in 792 and continued until 793 or 794, the so-called Fossatum magnum
(Spindler 1998). Scholars still debate whether that canal was actually ever com-
pleted, but recent dentrochronological and archeological research has now pro-
vided the evidence to confirm this report (Ettel and Daim, ed., 2014), which
underscores the extent to which the early medieval engineers were capable of
organizing long-term and large-scale projects. Moreover, Charlemagne could
realize his excursions into Arab-controlled Northern Iberian Peninsula only be-
cause some kind of a good road system actually existed. We know especially
about his retreat through the pass in the Pyrenees, the Valle Roncesvalles, as
described, though poetically embellished, by the anonymous poet of the Chanson
de Roland (ca. 1100) and later, in close imitation, the Rolandslied by the Priest
Konrad (ca. 1170). This developed further in the course of time, especially because
economic factors played a significant role insofar as merchants needed to trans-
port their wares and sell their goods at many different markets scattered all over

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Europe and beyond. While many ancient cities dwindled considerably or disap-
peared from the geophysical map altogether in the post-Roman period, new
settlements were created and set up in heretofore neglected areas. Their survival,
however, was only achieved because old or new roads made all kinds of ex-
changes possible, bringing in business to the early-medieval markets.
C Roads Supported by Monasteries and Cities

Since the twelfth century many new monasteries were founded, especially by the
Cistercians, but also by the much older Benedictines, which required a close
connection with their mother houses for organizational, spiritual, and economic
purposes. They were commonly placed strategically next to major road arteries
(Kaminsky 1972, 16–21; 149–50; et passim; Wehlt 1970, 17–18). The monastery of
Corvey, for instance, was situated at the water crossing of the Hellweg, one of the
most important East-West axes traversing the Holy Roman Empire (Stephan-
Maaser 2000). Other roads arriving from Mainz and Frankfurt, Kassel, and
Cologne passed by Corvey and continued to the North and North-East. Only by the
middle of the twelfth century did this major road lose some of its importance due
to changing economic and political conditions in the Empire, especially because
then the maritime trade and the massive immigration of farmers from the West in
Eastern European countries reoriented the economic foci. This did not diminish at
all the need for roads, but the new ones took different directions, leading into new
Eastern territories.
At the same time, the city communities began to take better care of their intra-
urban streets and bridges, as we can tell from the city plans of Pisa (1155), Reggio
(1204), Treviso, (1231), to establish market squares, such as those in Florence,
Bologna, and Vercelli. The cities of Paris and Hanover began to put in pavements
in 1183 and 1200 respectively. They were followed in this by Duisburg (1250),
Venice (1264), Lincoln (1286), and London (1253).
In order to pay for the enormous costs, taxes were raised and tolls (pontages)
were taken, as stipulated in the Mainzer Landfrieden from 1235, in which Emperor
Frederick II ordered for the first time that tolls were to be raised by local autho-
rities that had to use those monies for the maintenance of roads. Nördlingen set
up a toll system in 1358, Mergentheim in 1340. The famous bridge at Totnes in
Devon, a town situated on one of the most important an ancient trackways in
Southwest England and at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon
(Stansbury 1998), raised a significant amount of toll throughout the centuries;
only the king or his officers were exempt. In northern German cities, we often hear
of wealthy individuals who made large donations to the city for the building of

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streets and roads, such as in Lübeck (1289) and Hamburg (1398). In France,
regional treatises arranged the establishment of tolls and taxes to create a road
system, such as in Bourges (1095), Narbonne (1157), and Vexin (twelfth century).
The Coutumes de Beauvaisis from 1283 granted the public authorities the power to
raise taxes and to take tolls specified for the building of a road system. In
Scandinavia, private individuals of greater financial means mostly took care of
the transportation system, while in England the logistics were lacking consider-
ably even far into the high Middle Ages, unless merchants or monks undertook a
major effort, such as in Canterbury (1389).
One reason why roads apparently had deteriorated by the sixteenth century
might be closely linked with the dissolution of a vast number of monasteries in
the wake of the Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther in 1517. These
institutions had traditionally cared for roads reaching and departing from their
location, trying to attract pilgrims and supporting the exchange with other
monasteries. Wien their disappearance, a major source of road maintenance was
lost (e.g., the monastery at Corvey in Northern Germany; cf. Stephan 2000, 35–
39). But by then we also have to consider the crucially intensified traffic with
much larger loads, heavier carts, and iron material used for the wheels, which
had a catastrophic effect on roads everywhere, as the general complaints about
travel conditions teach us, such as those by William Harrison, third and last
archpriest of England (1586). Those problems had already existed in antiquity,
but the Romans had simply built superior roads that could handle those weights
effectively.
On the Iberian Peninsula, the various royal houses supervised the establish-
ment and maintenance of their road systems since the end of the thirteenth
century. In Italy, the individual urban communities took the initiative to work on
the streets and roads since the second half of the thirteenth century. Rural
communities were regularly charged with working on the country roads. We know
of city offices explicitly charged with supervising the streets and roads, such as in
Siena (1290/1299), Milan (1346), and Madrid (cf. Montero Vallejo 1988; Segura
1993). However, the major imperial roads leading through Italy were still the
responsibility of the German king (Schrod 1931).
D Medieval Travelers and Roads

In general, however, we have rather limited knowledge about streets and roads in
Europe, and must mostly rely on itineraries by kings, on travelogues by pilgrims,
nobles, and merchants, indirectly drawing information about the possibilities of
traveling and of the intensity of travel at specific times (see also the contribution

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to this Handbook on “Travel and Exploration” by Romedio Schmitz-Esser). Gen-

erally, it would be erroneous to assume that medieval people were mostly village-
bound and had hardly any means or the freedom of departing from the places
where they lived; on the contrary, as we know now, they traveled for a myriad of
different goals, depending on their individual purposes and needs (Ohler 1986).
Monks regularly sent manuscripts to other monasteries, abbots and bishops
attended synods and councils, crusaders amassed at certain points and then
traveled in groups and armies to the battle location, and to the next harbor to
cross the Mediterranean (Labarge 1982, 137–54). Throughout the entire Middle
Ages, we encounter knights on their way to tournaments, to court festivals,
weddings, and ceremonial events, such as knighting squires (Mainz, May 1184,
called by Emperor Frederick I, for instance; Fleckenstein 2002, 202–03). Although
they were regularly using horses, they had to be accompanied by squires, carts for
their lances, armor, weapons, and a tent or tents, clothing, foodstuff, and other
essentials. Thus, they were dependent on more or less good roads for themselves
and their rather large retinue (Fleckenstein, ed., 1985; Barber and Barker 1989).
The institution of the tournament was not developed until the early twelfth
century, but then it quickly attracted huge interest in the European aristocracy.
Although France was always the center of tournaments, we find similar events in
all other countries, especially Flanders, despite many attempts by the king or the
pope to ban those events, which at times resulted in the death of a participant and
numerous injuries (Keen 1984, 83–101; Krüger 1985). By the twelfth century, we
witness increasingly young scholars crisscrossing Europe, following major scho-
lars and teachers to individual universities (Courtenay and Miethke, ed., 2000;
Irrgang 2002).
Courtly poets, minstrels, goliards, and jugglers traversed the lands, looking
for new audiences for their livelihood. And the massive building projects of the
Romanesque and later the Gothic cathedrals and churches would not have been
possible without large groups of expert stone masons, architects, carvers, pain-
ters, artists, and other workers required (Harvey 1984; Coldstream 1991). Late
medieval roads were increasingly crowded by poor people, haberdashers, those
suffering from leprosy (if not quarantined in lepers’ colonies) and other sick-
nesses, beggars, Gypsies (today properly identified as Sinti and Roma), lansque-
nets and other soldiers, cripples, unemployed teachers and scholars, artists,
prostitutes, and many others (Landolt 2011).
The craft system in late medieval cities was based on young men beginning
the learning process as apprentices with a master, and subsequently wandering
around from town to town, working with a variety of masters to learn as many
different techniques as possible, until they were allowed to pass their exam,
doing their masterpiece (Schulz 2002). However, this did not automatically grant

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them the privilege of opening their own workshops. Instead they had to wait,
often for many years, until a position opened through the death of an old master
or the expansion of the city population, which caused much social unrest espe-
cially in early modern cities (Metzger 2002; von Heusinger 2009; Schulz 2010). In
other words, the social mobility in the Middle Ages was considerably higher than
we commonly assume today, even though it would be somewhat true that the
peasant class could hardly move away from the village until the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries (Schubert 1995; Dobozy 2005). Nevertheless, even they re-
sorted to the great opportunities in Eastern Europe by the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries and left home to create new existences in those distant lands. Alto-
gether, a large number of people traveled for many different reasons over surpris-
ingly long distances throughout the entire Middle Ages.
Even though we do not hear much about specific road building projects or of
the conditions of roads in high medieval sources (that is, chronicles or romances,
pilgrimage accounts and travelogues; late medieval sources generally reveal
more data on this aspect), it would be inconceivable to assume that merchants
with their valuable goods, for instance, would not have been able to rely on fairly
decent modes of transportation (Brennig 1993; Spufford 2002). The most famous
example might well be Marco Polo, who traveled all the way from Venice to China
and spent ca. twenty years there at the court of the Mongolian Khan, after which
time he returned and finally wrote about it in his Il Milione (ca. 1298). One telling
example of how little he reflected on the actual road conditions would be: “When
the traveller leaves this castle, he rides through a fine plain and a fine valley and
along fine hillsides, where there is rich herbage, fine pasturage, fruit in plenty,
and no lack of anything. … Sometimes the traveller encounters stretches of desert
fifty or sixty miles in extent, in which there is no water to be found … . After these
six days he reaches a city called Shibarghan, plentifully stocked with everything
needful” (Polo 1958, 74).
The fact that most medieval kings pursued a peripatetic life style in order to
be physically present at least once in most parts of their kingdoms required that
they could travel without too many difficulties, being accompanied by their entire
court, which implied considerable logistic tasks to be handled on a daily basis
(Peyer 1964). King John moved over thirteen times a month throughout his reign,
while King Edward I moved at least nine times per month (Hindle 1998, 17). Much
depended, of course, on the size of the kingdom. The German-Roman kings, for
instance, had to cover a much larger territory than his French, English, or Spanish
counterparts, so their itineraries were considerably longer and more complex,
which also meant that a real capital city never quite developed in the area of the
Holy Roman Empire, except for Prague by the fourteenth and Vienna by the
fifteenth century (Ditchburn et al, ed., 2007, 51; Scales 2012, 80–83). By the late

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Middle Ages, the courts of justice were also traveling from location to location,
and both the royal and the legal courts had to be accompanied by their scribes
and the relevant archives, not to mention the treasury, clothing, food supplies,
arms, tents, and at times even the most valuable royal insignia (Duggan 1993). In
a similar way, the ecclesiastic courts were on the road, both the episcopal synods
(Sendgerichte) and the papal inquisitors.
It was not enough for the king to travel all the time: but he also had to send
ambassadors, emissaries, couriers; he had to receive foreign visitors, his own
princes, dukes, and barons, and in general run a whole country, which meant
that traveling was a very common aspect of a noble or courtly lifestyle (Labarge
1982, 33–51; 115–36; Brummett 2009). For instance, the marriage of two young
people from different countries commonly involved heavy diplomatic exchanges
and negotiations, and many letters, gifts, and contracts had to be exchanged
before a mutual agreement was reached. Subsequently, the bride usually traveled
to the court of her future husband, bringing with her a whole household, staff,
wardrobe, and library, as in the case of the Byzantine princess Theophanu
Skleraina and Emperor Otto II in 972 (Davids 1995), Anne of Bohemia and King
Richard II of England in 1382 (Suchý 2009) or of Leonhard of Görtz and Paula de
Gonzaga in 1478 (Antenhofer 2007).
In England, the members of Parliament also traveled on a regular basis,
assembling at Oxford, Winchester, or Westminster, which tells us that there must
have been sufficient roads and accommodations alongside for travelers of all
social classes. Similarly, justice courts moved around to be available to every
person in England, and by the same token, countless individuals undertook
considerable travels to the respective courts to have their cases heard, such as
Bishop Wilfrid of York who went three times to Rome to plead for the primacy of
his see over that of Canterbury (Brundage 2008). By the thirteenth century, we
witness an ever growing institution of the legal court system, with professional
lawyers and judges, and then the courts, secular and ecclesiastical, were mostly
located in specific cities (Naegle 2002). In the Holy Roman Empire, the king’s
central power was fading throughout the Middle Ages, which also meant that the
territorial princes increasingly gained independence, which found its expression
also in the establishment of regional courts following a variety of legal systems,
until in 1495 Emperor Maximilian I introduced Roman law at the Imperial Court
of Justice (Reichskammergericht), which maintained its status of the final legal
authority. All these developments required intensive travel by lawyers, judges,
plaintiffs, defenders, witnesses, and simple observers (Janin 2004).
Pilgrimage can be identified as the most central religious motive to go travel-
ing, irrespective of the difficulties of the various roads, the costs, the dangers from
robbers and other criminals, inclement weather, and the barriers of the various

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mountain ranges (that is, the Pyrenees, Alps, Appenine Mountains). While Jerusa-
lem and Rome have always been regarded as the supremely important pilgrimage
sites, by the eleventh century Santiago de Compostela began to attract an ever
swelling number of pilgrims because the remains of the Apostle St. Jacob had
allegedly been transferred there, making the cathedral to a deeply veneered
shrine of his relics since their ‘rediscovery’ in 814. Apart from four major routes
traversing Northern Europe leading to Northwestern Spain in Galicia, many
smaller roads were filled with pilgrims aiming for Santiago de Compostela, such
as the notorious English mystic Margery Kempe (ca. 1373–ca. 1440) (Bogstad
2010). As in the time of Charlemagne, the pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees
was the main artery for the flood of pilgrims, who then took the road to Burgos,
Leon, and Villafranca to Santiago. Others chose the route east of the Pyrenees
from Girona to Montserrat, then on to Lerída, Zaragoza, Burgos, and Astorga. The
pilgrimage to Santiago was also known as “The Way of St. James,” but until
today, the most popular route proved to be the “The Camino Frances,” which
begins in Saint-Jean-Pied-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees and finishes
about 780 km (ca. 500 miles) later in Santiago (Stokstad 1978; Dunn and David-
son, ed., 1996; Brabbs 2008; Wolfzettel 2012). The four major pilgrimage routes
through France were the “via lemovizensis” (via Vezelay), the “via touronensis”
(via Tours), the “via bodnesis” (via Le Puy), and the “via toulosana” (via Tou-
louse) (Plötz, ed., 1990; Plötz 2002; Denecke 2013, 180).
Compared to antiquity and the early modern age (seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries), the Middle Ages seem to have known considerably less wheeled
traffic, if we disregard the transportation of goods by merchants, farmers, and
others. In England, there was no official traveling coach for the monarch until the
time of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Nevertheless, wealthy and powerful individuals
owned splendid carriages, as shown in the fourteenth-century Luttrell Psalter on
fols. 181v–182r, drawn by five horses and being a stately vehicle for at least four
noble ladies who used it more for a kind of procession than for actual transporta-
tion needs (Kreuger 1920; Backhouse 2000, 54–55). Queens and other noble ladies
could commonly resort to a kind of chariot, although it would have been an items
of considerable luxury, and even though it did not have any springs, making the
journey rather hard and uncomfortable (Labarge 1982, 37). Sir Geoffrey Luttrell,
on the other hand, is presented only in full armor, seated on his war horse, on
fol. 202v. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400), the entire company of
pilgrims rides on horseback. As to the Knight, we learn that he had been to
Alexandria in Egypt, Prussia, Lithuania, Russia, Grenada (Spain), Ayash (Syria),
Antalya (Turkey), Tlemecen (Algeria), and Balat (Turkey), all locations of major
battles between Christians and Muslims or representatives of other religions. His
son, the Squire, has not yet seen so much of the world, but he as well has had

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considerable knightly experiences in Flanders, Artois, and the Picardie (Chaucer

2008, 51–86).
Chaucer might have exaggerated here a little, but it was certainly not uncom-
mon for late medieval knights to roam the entire European world in search for
military challenges. Chaucer’s near-contemporary, the South-Tyrolean poet Os-
wald von Wolkenstein (1376/77–1445) claimed similarly of having visited many
different countries during his years as squire and then as a knight, such as Prussia,
Lithuania, Tartary (probably Russia), Turkey, France, Italy, and Spain (Kl. 18,
17–18). In other poems, he mentions Hungary (Kl. 23, 82; Kl. 30, 25 [‘Kl.’ refers to
the number of each song in the critical edition]), Portugal (Kl. 23, 101), and North-
ern Africa (Kl. 23, 101). Then Oswald also refers to extensive travels through the
various German-speaking lands, having visited Salzburg, Munich, Augsburg,
Ulm, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Aachen (Kl. 41), while he subsequently bitterly
complained about his sorrowful existence back home in his castle Seis am Schlern
in the Tyrolean Alps, contrasting his boring and frustrating life with the splendor
of his international travels to Turkey, Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Flan-
ders, France, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and France (Kl. 44, 1–17).
The most attractive travel goal, however, remained Jerusalem, apart from
Rome and Santiago de Compostela. One of the most famous authors of an
extensive travelogue was Arnold von Harff who departed Cologne in November
1496 and did not return home until October 1498. He traversed all of Germany,
crossed the Alps, made stops in Meran, Verona, and Rome, from whence he
toured Rimini and Venice. There he took a ship all the way to Alexandria via Crete
and Rhodes. Once in Egypt, von Harff went to Cairo, and from there traveled to
Mount Sinai, then to Jerusalem. The return route took him north via Damascus,
Beirut, Conya, and Constantinople. After having journeyed across the Balkan, he
aimed for Santiago de Compostela, visiting Verona, Milan, Nîmes, and Burgos.
Traveling from Santiago, he stopped at Burgos, Bordeaux, Rennes, Paris, and
Brussels. Von Harff also claimed to have visited Mecca, Aden, and India between
September 1497 and September 1498, but this was only a fictional account
(Classen 2010). Nevertheless, his travelogue proves to be fascinating because of
its astonishing details, global perspective, and open-mindedness, especially
when he visited completely non-Christian territory or cities, such as Cairo. Other-
wise, however, von Harff was not unique at all, as documented by a plethora of
contemporary travelogues and pilgrimage accounts.
It was, indeed, highly fashionable for anyone in Christian Europe who had
the financial means to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once in his/her
lifetime (Halm 2001), very similar to the Muslim hadj (Wolfe 1997). One of the
most impressive accounts about such a travel was published by the Canon of the
Mainz Cathedral, Bernhard von Breidenbach in February 1486, who had em-

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barked on his journey together with his two friends, Count Johann Solms-Lich and
his knight Philipp von Bicken, and with the famous Utrecht artist Erhard Reuwich
in 1483. This work proved to be a bestseller, so a German translation appeared
already in June of the same year, which was followed by ten new editions until
1522 in five different languages (Latin, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French). The
program of illustrations was probably one of the major selling points, which
allows us today to gain some insights in the road conditions. On fol. 138r, for
instance, we see a group of Muslim horsemen, most of them playing a music
instrument. The road is fairly smooth, but there are many rocks and plants over
which the horses have to step. We do not observe any particular road work or
pavement. Looking at the woodcut showing the entire Holy Land, we discover a
feature typical of the art of woodcuts (see also Hartmann Schedel’s World Chroni-
cle from 1493): a heavy emphasis on the cities with their major buildings, espe-
cially the churches and the city wall, rather than on mountain ranges, wide open
plains, the Mediterranean, rivers, and hills, but not on roads. Many other con-
temporary travelers went on pilgrimages and followed the same paths, and visited
the same sites, but hardly any of them was more detailed in his comments about
the roads, since the religious experience dominated all accounts. The one impor-
tant exception proves to be Felix Fabri who went to the Holy Land twice, first in
1480 and then in 1483, and in his account, Evagatorium, he provided amazingly
detailed comments about the road conditions in the Alps.
This observation finds its confirmation by way of many contemporary maps,
such as the one of the Holy Land by an anonymous artists, in Ptolomy’s Cosmo-
graphia (Ulm 1482), plate 24. Erhard Reuwich, obviously following the artistic
standards of his time, paid attention to essential urban and natural elements, but
ignored roads and streets altogether, such as in his woodcut of Rhodes (fol. 23v–
24r). In Sebaldus Rieter’s pen-and-ink drawing of Jerusalem (2nd half of the
fifteenth century, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Cod. iconogr. 172), there are at least
some streets included connecting the major buildings, but even here we have to
realize that artists did not consider roads or streets worthy subjects to be treated
in their works (Timm 2006).
This situation proves to be rather ironic, considering the intensity of traffic
already since the early Middle Ages. Insofar as many goods had to be transported
over vast distances, both the roads and the vehicles must have met higher
standards than we can perhaps imagine today. Geoffrey Hindley’s comments
speaks volumes in this regard: “The constant movement of the royal courts
demanded transport and if the king himself and his immediate entourage could
look to a comparatively rapid and easy journey on well-fed and well-groomed
horses, their effects had to be transported in the lumbering vehicles taken from
the farmyard” (Hindley 1971, 53).

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E Medieval Horses
Not surprisingly, the horse played as big a role in the daily lives of medieval
people as the car does for us today, and we could not even claim that the cost for
and the trouble with horses were considerably higher compared with modern
vehicles (for a most detailed study, see now the contribution to “Horses” by
Cynthia Jenéy in this Handbook). In this regard, the horse truly determined much
of travel in the Middle Ages; not surprisingly, until today we talk about ‘horse
power’ to identify a car’s power (Hyland 1999). As much as we now have available
a large number of different cars and trucks for all kinds of purposes, so in the
Middle Ages the variety of horses was great, depending on the specific use they
were put to, whether we think of the great war-horse (charger or destrier), the
secondary war horse, the rouncey, then the palfrey of the ladies, cart-horse (pack-
horse), the sumpter horse, and the hubby (used for skirmishes by light cavalry),
to mention just the most important types (Hewitt 1983; Gladitz 1997; Clark, ed.,
2004). The German equivalents were ros/ors (for the war-horse) and pfert (pal-
frey), in equivalence to the Latin dextrarius (destrier) and palefridus. Often the
best horses were considered to be those that were imported from Spain, and then
those of the Arabian kind (Bumke 1986, vol. 1, 236–40; Ackermann-Arlt 1990; for
horses in medieval Spain, see Rivas 2005). Massive caravans, pulled by horses
and mules, dominated the medieval highways, and they even managed, ob-
viously quite successfully, to cross the Alpine passes to Italy or to Germany vice
versa. The problems were manifold, whether we think of the countless tolls to be
paid, the dangers from bandits and robbers, warfare, inclement weather, and
then, of course, the bad road conditions. None of those, however, ever prevented
intensive trade between all parts of medieval Europe and the neighboring coun-
tries, and this already since the sixth and seventh centuries between the Austra-
sians (Rhineland), the Frisians, the Danes, and the Anglo-Saxons. Trade existed
in the area of the Baltic Sea, and it extended all over the Mediterranean and
beyond (Ditchburn et al, ed., 2007, 61–63).
In fact, considering how little individual travelers complained about the
challenges of crossing those high mountain passes, they were not as difficult or
dangerous as we might assume they probably would have been for medieval
people. Archibishop Rigaud, for instance, was held up for three days in early
February of 1254 at Salins in the Jura mountain (on the road from Paris to
Lausanne) due to deep snow, but then he pushed on and reached his goal there-
after. We have, for example, a detailed report about the specifics of crossing those
passes by the Spanish traveler Pero Tafur from the 1430s, but others were also not
shy about commenting on the mountains and the roads crossing them (Labarge
1982, 29). Nevertheless, most pilgrimage authors only list the individual towns

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North and South of the Alps, and might add the distance, but do not say anything
about the road conditions, such as Konrad Grünemberg (1486; Denke, ed., 2011,
282).
F Road Building, Maintenance, and Improvement

Only occasionally do we hear of efforts by the authorities to improve roads. King
Edward I charged Roger Mortimer in 1278 to enlarge and widen the roads into
sections of northern Wales as part of his military campaign against the Welsh. In
1353 King Edward III ordered that the road between Temple Bar and Westminster
be repaved. The City of London levied tolls on all trade entering the city, and used
that money to improve the roads in the immediate surroundings. But medieval
Europe did not know any comprehensive plan to create and maintain a systematic
road network, as the Romans had done. When new towns sprang up in England,
like Oxford, Coventry, or Plymouth, which were not located on one of the ancient
Roman roads, new ones had to be built. In contrast to the Roman world when roads
were simply physical entities, in the Middle Ages roads were regarded as “a right of
way, an ‘easement’, with both legal and customary status” (Hindle 1998, 6).
If under bad weather conditions the road became impassible, the traveler was
generally entitled to deviate and even trample over crop, as stipulated by the
Statute of Winchester in 1285. When a road led over a hill, normally a variety of
tracks developed, each traveler trying to find the most convenient way, especially
for the wagons and carts. If roads followed the ancient Roman lines, such as
Watling Street (between Canterbury and St. Albans; see Roucoux 1984), Ermine
Street (from London to Lincoln; see Ellis and Hughes 1998), Fosse Way (from
Exeter to Lincoln; Oswald 1928), and Icknield Way (Southern England from the
Dorset coast to the Norfolk coast, probably pre-Roman; Thomas 1980), those
medieval arteries survived until today. If, however, they lacked in a solid founda-
tion, and then might have fallen out of use, they quickly disappeared from view
and can hardly be tracked today, though arial photography has certainly revealed
them once again.
These four roads were greatly admired and reflected on by chroniclers such
as Geoffrey of Monmouth. Although he referred only to a legendary king, Belinus,
his comments about the need of royal investment in the road system deserve to be
cited: “He ordered them to make a road of cement and stone which would traverse
the length of the island from the Cornish sea to the shore at Caithness and lead
directly to the cities on the way. He commanded that another road be built across
the width of the island from the city of St David’s on the coast of Demetia to
Southampton, to lead to the cities there as well as two more roads diagonally

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across the island, leading to the remaining cities” (III, 39, p. 52; Given-Wilson
2004, 129–30). The Leges Edwardi Confessoris (early twelfth century) granted
travelers royal protection on those roads, and by ca. 1250–1259 Matthew Paris
included them in his map of England contained in his Historia Anglorum (British
Library MS Royal 14.C.VII). He mostly designed illustrated itineraries for specific
routes, such as from Dover to the North or from London to Apulia, but these were
for the learned, hence just for readers, while most travelers had to rely on oral
accounts helping them to find their way (Labarge 1982, 11). When Marino Sanudo
wrote his Secrets for Crusaders and presented a copy to Pope John XXII in 1321, it
was accompanied by map illustrations by Pietro Vesconte from Genoa, who
provided astonishing details about Palestine: resorting to a grid of squares over
the whole surface which made the detection of specific locations possible with
much more accuracy than ever before (Labarge 1982, 11–13).
Depending on the specific use of a road, it was either called a ‘portway’
(leading to a port or a market town), ‘herepath (road mostly used by the army),
‘church path’ (for access to the parish church), ‘corpse road’ (to transport dead
bodies to a remote cemetery), ‘pilgrim route’ or ‘pilgrim way,’ ‘abbot’s way’
(connecting abbeys with each other), ‘drove road’ for herding animals. The same
phenomenon, with local variations, can be found on the Continent, a good
example being Ochsenfurt in Northern Franconia/Bavaria in the vicinity of Würz-
burg. As the name tells us, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, large herds
of oxen were driven through the ford of the river Main. The same etymology
applies to Oxford.
From early on, great emphasis was placed on the Alpine passes, since they
were the crucial arteries connecting southern with northern Europe. As a result of
the fall of the Roman Empire the economic, political, military, and hence logis-
tical importance of the Alpine regions underwent profound transformations,
which were both periphery and critical juncture for the major European powers
already in the post-Roman world (Winkler 2012). Early medieval pilgrims, sol-
diers, and merchants continued to ply the old Roman roads, which were in steady
use throughout the centuries. Since the high Middle Ages both the major roads
and the mountain passes received increasing attention by the urban and territor-
ial authorities, such as in Milan, Italy. In the early thirteenth century, the opening
of the Alpine pass of St. Gotthard made possible a much more intensive traffic by
merchants and traders between Italy and Northern Europe. The Milanese society
of merchants, the Universitas mercatorum, undertook many efforts to secure the
maintenance of that pass for its own profits. Contracts were regularly signed to
guarantee the security of the Alpine routes, such as a contract from 1270 with the
bishop of Sion/Sitten to guarantee the safety of travelers across the Sempione/
Simplon pass. Bellinzona and Biasca, above all, made great efforts to control the

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route through its valley because of the major economic impact. They were even
entitled to raise a road toll to support the maintenance efforts (Conta 1996; Chiesi
1996). Some of the most important items that were transported across the Alps
were wool, metal, and salt, apart from a wide variety of ordinary commodities,
including wine, tools, cloth, spices, and the like. The transport on waterways,
such as the Lago di Como, was not necessarily or always the preferred mode
because of difficult climatic conditions, so the Strada Regina on the land route
often enjoyed priority, even though constant maintenance was necessary (Schef-
fel 1914; Frigerio 1996; Hille 2000).
G Bridges and City Streets

Most medieval cities were interested in attracting merchants to their markets, so
they all made some efforts to build and maintain roads leading to their city gates,
even though, throughout the Middle Ages, the king was regarded as the central
authority over all roads, supposed to guarantee peace and protection on the
roads. Many cities were developed according to some kind of master plan, though
we cannot compare this with those in place since the seventeenth century. The
streets and houses were grouped around major centers, such as the church or
cathedral and the market square with its city hall (Bruges, Tours, Rennes, Metz,
Bordeaux, Freiburg i. Br., etc.; cf. Leguay 1984, 17–49), although rectangular
design was rare. Crafts and guilds tended to be grouped together, forming smaller
neighborhoods in the city, so they took care of their own streets and sewer system,
if any was in place. Many times gallows were erected at road junctures outside of
cities and well visible to all travelers, as we learn, for instance, from Wernher der
Gartenære in his didactic verse narrative Helmbrecht from ca. 1260–1270 (v. 1305),
and court cases were often heard at a crossroads, where the punishment was also
enacted (v. 1705; cf. Reinhold 2010). Building bridges always proved to be a
significant financial investment and demanded great engineering skills. Charle-
magne was not only famous for his establishment of the cathedral of Aachen, but
also for the bridge over the Rhine near Mainz. Archbishop Willigis of Mainz
(975–1011) ordered the building of the oldest stone bridges in Germany at Bingen,
crossing the Nahe, and at Aschaffenburg, crossing the Main (Wenniger 2012,
391–92; Tuczay 2012).
Originally, the erection and maintenance of bridges were royal privileges, but
in the course of time the cities took over the responsibilities and hence the control
and income resulting from bridges. At times, bridges provided asylum, and they
were also regarded as ideal locations for negotiations, offering a kind of neutral
space between two opposing sides (Schneider 1977; Maschke 1978). Spanning a

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river or a gorge was generally viewed, disregarding the extensive technical

challenges, as a pious act, as the crossing of such a body of water by human
means constituted almost a religious ceremony, often closely associated with the
spiritual transition into another dimension. Consequently, religious, mystical,
and secular authors often operated with the metaphor of the bridge for a variety
of purposes (Dinzelbacher 1973; 1990). While rivers were mostly crossed by means
of ferry boats or rafts during the early Middle Ages, as the names of numerous
cities such as Bedford, Hereford (both England), Frankfurt a. M., Ochsenfurt, or

Erfurt (all Germany) indicate, since the time of Charlemagne new bridges, mostly
out of wood, were erected. The twelfth century witnessed the beginning of ever
wider and lengthier bridges out of stone, such as in Regensburg (1135–1147;
Feistner, ed., 2005) or Würzburg (since 1133) (both Germany), or Beaugency
(France) (Bachmann 2014, 282–87) (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Medieval stone bridge at Beaugency crossing the Loire, ca. fourteenth century
(© Albrecht Classen).
Between the twelfth and the fifteenth century, medieval Europe witnessed the
construction of at least fifty major bridges out of stone, such as the one at the
Thames in London (1176–ca. 1209), at Capua (1234–1239), Torgau (1490s, spanning
the river Elbe), or at the Vitava in Prague (1357–early fifteenth century; see below).
Most of them followed the model provided by Roman bridges, but in the
course of time other types came into being, such as bridges with relatively flat

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arches or with segmental arches, such as the Ponte Vecchio in Florence (1335–
1345). But the vast majority of medieval bridges all had very heavy and low
columns which often made the passage by ships underneath rather hazardous,
such as in Bruges (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Stone bridge crossing a channel around the city center of Bruges (© Albrecht Classen).
Some bridges were used by craftsmen and merchants to pursue their jobs,
others served for taking tolls; a good number of bridges, however, were financed
by religious donations and hence were toll-free (Troyano 2003; Hänseroth
2008). In 1423, for instance, Richard Whittington, mayor of London, left £100 for
the repair and improvement of bad roads, while William Chichele, brother of the
archbishop, determined £10 for the maintenance of London Bridge (Labarge
1982, 22). Some of the most important bridges were those at Castle Combe,
Wilshire, built ca. 1180, and at Sutton, built ca. 1500. Some towns had fortified
bridges, such as Warkworth in Northumberland, and Monmouth in Wales. Apart
from the famous London bridges (Watson et al., ed., 2001), the fen causeways to
Ely are some of the largest examples in England (Hindle 1998, 41–45; for
bridges, see also the contribution on “Architecture” in this Handbook by Char-
lotte A. Stanford).

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All major rivers (for instance, the Rhine, Danube, Elbe, Po, Rioja, Rhone,
Loire, Thames, etc.) invited the building of cities at their shores because the
waterway was the easiest and the most economic means of transporting goods
and people. Consequently, bridges were also built to facilitate travel across the
rivers. Julius Caesar built a bridge out of timber trestle over the Rhine as early as
in 55 B.C.E. The bridge at Mainz was built in 90 C.E., and the Constantine bridge
at Cologne in the fourth century. The Romans also built a stone bridge over the
Moselle at Trèves (Trier). During the Middle Ages no bridge was built at the middle
or lower part of the Rhine, where ferries normally took over the task of transport-
ing people and goods, but we know of many bridges, such as at Säckingen in the
very southwest of Germany. Other important bridges were the stone bridge over
the river Main at Würzburg and the stone bridge over the river Danube at Regens-
burg (see above).
All major cities, such as Paris and Rome, witnessed the erection of bridges in
the course of time, and the actual number of bridges all over Europe is too large to
list here (Boyer 1976, 171–95). Bridges often tell us why a certain road took a
specific direction because rivers had to be crossed at concrete locations, and the
roads were not supposed to follow long detours (Cooper 2006). In fact, most
bridges were the decisive points determining the direction roads took; otherwise
major detours would have been necessary (Labarge, 1982, 22). Although bridges
have been mostly the object of attention of local historians, we can now under-
score their central importance for the larger transportation system over hundreds
and thousands of miles (Jervoise 1930; 1931; 1932; 1936). Goods could be trans-
ported either on land with packhorses, which was the most expensive mode, on
carts and wagons, which considerably reduced the price, on barges using rivers,
while sea transport was the cheapest (Cook 1998, 12–13; Röder et al., ed., 2014).
Both the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges were highly expen-
sive and difficult to carry out by medieval authorities.
We know that freely roaming masons were in charge, but not much informa-
tion about them has survived, although they required detailed technical know-
how when constructing a bridge. Most bridges had no stone parapets, but only
wooden railings, while the major emphasis rested on the starlings and cotwaters
to break the force of the water. While the high Middle Ages mostly saw bridges
using ribbed arches, by the fifteenth century segmental arches were introduced.
Major bridges were normally strong enough to allow toll houses or workshops to
be built on them (for instance, Florence, Erfurt, London, Paris, and Venice),
which facilitated the collection of taxes and tolls (for good illustrations and
references, see Grewe 1999). In England and in other parts of Europe, the trinoda
necessitas, introduced by the Normans after their conquest in 1066, required
freemen to offer their service in the building and maintaining of bridges and roads

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at least until the time of the Magna Carta (1215), after which only those tradition-
ally charged with that task were obligated to do so. Especially King John (r. 1199–
1216) pursued a vigorous policy of having the owners of estates see to it that their
part of the roads was maintained and that they build bridges if ordered so by the
king. This was, however, such a huge burden that a special clause was included
in the Magna Carta to change that. This stipulation was also introduced to Ireland
in 1216 by John’s son, Henry III. The Statute of Winchester from 1285, however,
required from each lord of the manor upkeep of the king’s highway, and hence
probably also of the bridges (Cook 1998, 47). A truly intriguing example of an
extensive stone bridge probably dating back to Roman times but today preserved
in its medieval shape (prior to 1196) is the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio) spanning
the river Trebbia outside of the north Italian town of Bobbio. It consists of eleven
uneven arches and displays a rather irregular shape, which became the source of
many local legends.
H Roads and Bridges Reflected in Textual

Sources
At the same time many towns and cities received royal privileges to erect their
own bridges and to charge toll (pontage), such as the Dublin Bridge charter of
1214 or the Bennetsbridge in 1285. In order to finance the bridge at Agen in
France, the king assembled a general court in 1189 to approve a hearth tax of six
deniers arnaudins. The bridge ultimately cost 30,000 sous arnandins, but it
hadwashed away already in 1320 (O’Keefe and Simington 1991, 26–28). Other
famous bridges were the Pont-Saint-Bénezet at Avignon (1177–1188), the Bridge
at Saint-Savin sur Gartempe at Vienne (twelfth/thirteenth centuries), and the
Nyons Bridge (1361) at Nyons, Drôme, to name a few. All of them continue to
attract modern interest. Major bridges in Germany were the one crossing the
Danube in Regensburg (ca. 1135–1147), the bridge spanning the Main in Frank-
furt a. M. (1276), the one over the Neckar in Heidelberg (1284), or the one over

the Lahn in Limburg (1248). The bridge over the Regnitz in Bamberg (1387)
proves to be spectacular until today, for the city hall, today in its Baroque
appearance, was erected on top of it to mark the border between the bishop’s
domain and the city. The oldest wooden covered bridge still in existence was
created in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1333 (it burned down completely in 1993).
We should also not forget the famous Charles Bridge in Prague over the Vitava
River, started by Emperor Charles IV in 1357 to connect the Old Town with the
area around the castle, the Hradschin (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3: Stone Bridge, later called Charles Bridge, Prague, crossing the Vitava, begun in 1357
(© Albrecht Classen).
The earliest medieval road map dates from ca. 1355–1366, the Gough Map (Oxford
Bodleian Library, MS. Gough Gen.Top 1), which is the oldest road map of England,
covering ca. 4.700 km, though it was based on a prototype from the time of King
Edward I (r. 1272–1307) (Szabó 1996; von den Brincken 2009, 243–50). Much of its
material is derived from portolan charts, paying most attention to coastal areas and
the towns there. As precise as this map might be, it also misses a major road, the
Watling Street (see above). Both islands and lakes, and as well as rivers are,
particularly the latter due to their importance for transportation and trade, over-
sized. Although we have many maps from the entire Middle Ages, mappaemundi
(world maps), portolan maps, regional maps, city maps, and the like, the emphasis
rarely rests on roads and streets. For instance, the Ebstorfer Weltkarte, or the
Hereford mappamundi provide information about the entire world in macro- and
microcosmic dimensions. In that context, roads and streets did not matter. As
Harvey emphasizes, “we have to see as a map any representation of landscape
viewed as though from above the ground, form some point unattainable in reality.
It means too that these picture-maps of the Middle Ages were the ancestors of both
the large-scale maps and the bird’s-eye views of later ages” (Harvey 1991, 87).
Medieval secular literature commonly describes some protagonist roaming
the world, traveling on horseback, on foot, by boat, and the like, and many times
we are provided with rather detailed road descriptions (Chrétien de Troyes’ and

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then Hartmann von Aue’s Erec, respectively). These, however, focus on the larger
geographical and physical setting and rarely give us more than a glimpse into the
specific conditions of the roads or bridges. In the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200), for
instance, the entire court of the Burgundian kings travels from Worms to what we
call Hungary today, covering a huge stretch of land, but the poet does not
comment on the road itself. In the lais by Marie de France (ca. 1190) the main
characters regularly move from one country to another, which is also the case
with Tristan in the many medieval versions of this text, but we do not learn
anything in particular about the roads or bridges. Boccaccio follows the moves of
his countless figures in the Decameron (ca. 1350), and sometimes the events are
located in the city, sometimes in the countryside, but sometimes they take place
at many different sites, such as on the sea, on islands, and elsewhere, covering
the entire Mediterranean territory. In Juan Ruiz’s El libro de buen amor (ca. 1340)
the Archpriest encounters the dangerous mountain girls (serranas), who help him
survive his failed attempt to walk up to the pass, but there are no specifics about
the passages or paths. Sir Gawain in the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight (late fourteenth century) traverses large parts of Wales in his search for the
Green Chapel, but he seems to cross more wild and uninhabited areas than
civilized and cultured territories. He never travels on any significant roads. In one
of the first prose novels, the anonymous Fortunatus (printed in 1509 in Augsburg),
the protagonist traverses all of Europe and also part of Egypt, the Holy Land, and
the Near East, and the text often reads like a travelogue, taking us from one
location to the next in a rather monotonous manner. But apart from informing us
about the distances between cities or towns, the author could care less about the
roads themselves. On the other hand, the religious biographies, the Vitae sanctor-
um, contain many scenarios of traveling religionists, from the early medieval
missionaries to the late medieval preachers of the mendicant orders. In any case,
to repeat our previous observation, which now serves well to sum up our discus-
sion, medieval people were often on the road and traveled far and wide for many
different reasons and purposes. Roads existed at many places, but we have much
less information about them in concrete terms than about the Roman roads. It is
easier to identify the central nodules of a large-scale transportation and road
system in the Middle Ages by focusing on monasteries, villages, cities, and
bridges than on the actual roads, but archeological evidence and aerial photo-
graphy have considerably assisted us in tracing the surprisingly dense system of
medieval roads (Szabó, ed., 2009). Although maps existed, of course, those were
mostly products for the learned and kept in libraries, while the actual travelers
had to rely on oral accounts, personal experiences, and geographical observa-
tions (von den Brincken 2009, 242–43). Nevertheless, the many records about
medieval travelers, from the simple goliards to merchants, ecclesiastics, knights,

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kings and queens, confirm that traveling must have been more easily possible
than we can imagine today, even though the roads in general were certainly in
much worse conditions than those built by the Romans, and even though hardly
anyone possessed reliable maps, detailed or not. Both the literary evidence and
historical travelogues confirm this observation from many different perspectives
(Labarge 1982, 141; Blaschitz 2009; Holzner-Tobisch et al., ed., 2012).
Select Bibliography
Bergier, Jean-François and Gauro Coppola, ed., Vie di terra e d’acqua: infrastrutture viarie e
sistemi di relazioni in area alpina (secoli XIII–XVI) (Bologna 2007).
Cooper, Alan, Bridges, Law and Power in Medieval England, 700–1400 (Woodbridge 2006).
Grewe, Klaus, Großbritannien: England, Schottland, Wales: Ein Führer zu bau- und technik-
geschichtlichen Denkmälern aus Antike und Mittelalter (Stuttgart 1999).
Hindle, Paul, Medieval Roads and Tracks, 2nd ed. (1982; Princes Risborough 1989).
Hindley, Geoffrey, A History of Roads (London 1971).
Hundsbichler, Helmut, “Wahrnehmung von Wegen – Wege der Wahrnehmung: Straßen als
Bildelemente im späten Mittelalter,” Die Welt der europäischen Straßen: von der Antike bis
in die Frühe Neuzeit, ed. Thomas Szabó (Cologne et al. 2009), 215–35.
Leguay, Jean-Pierre, La rue au Moyen Âge (Rennes 1984).
Morriss, Richard K., Roads: Archaeology and Architecture (Stroud 2005).
O’Keeffe, Peter and Tom Simington, Irish Stone Bridges: History and Heritage (Dublin 1991).
Schwinges, Rainer C., Straßen- und Verkehrswesen im hohen und späten Mittelalter (Sigmarin-
gen 2007).
Szabó, Thomas, “Strasse,” Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich 1996), vol. 8, col. 220–24.

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Daniel F. Pigg
The Rural World and the Peasants
A Introduction
When the words “rural world” surface in medieval studies, they seem almost
ubiquitous with the medieval world. Until the rise of cities in the high and late
Middle Ages, the rural world seems to be almost the only world. In literary texts, the
rural world is the area through which knights pass on their quests and engage in
hunting; it is the area devoted to agricultural activity, including the growing of
crops and the raising of livestock for consumption. That world was the subject of art
in such productions as the Luttrell Psalter and was imaged in the margins of many
Books of Hours. At the same time, as Albrecht Classen observed in an introductory
essay to one of the most comprehensive studies of the rural world, “the vast
majority of premodern societies lived in the countryside. Everyone depended on
the rural world for foodstuffs, and no individual can exist without the natural
environment. Plants, birds, animals, and fish are all integral elements in the larger
context of humanity, hence the greater need to approach the Middle Ages and the
early modern age from this perspective as well” (Classen, ed., 2012, 7).
Without question, since much of the literature of the Middle Ages actually
occurs in the rural world, it would seem prudent that such a space be examined
for itself. In many cases, however, the rural has been regarded as merely serving
as a kind of backdrop against which the characters in narrative engage in actions.
From the historical angle, much work has been done by scholars such as Georges
Duby (1968), Jacques Le Goff (1980), Werner Rösener (1992), and Barbara Hana-
walt (1986), with particular attention to the material and economic aspects that
not only constitute the peasant life, but also the means of production of which
they are a part in the larger medieval economy. At the same time, the rural was a
place of mythical elements, and the dark and lonely locations far away from
urban and courtly civilization” (Classen, ed., 2012, 24). In the early Middle Ages,
the peasant, as Le Goff notes, became “a synonym for ignorance and illiteracy”
(Le Goff 1980, 96). In the literary imagination, the peasant (rusticus) degenerated
into subhuman categories when seen beside the clergy (Le Goff 1980, 96–97).
Thus it is hardly surprising that in literature of the late Middle Ages readers
experience a kind of ambivalence to the peasant. Not only does Langland’s (ca.
1332–ca. 1386) Piers Plowman see a slightly elite peasant, Piers the Plowman who
owns his own plow, but he works with individual peasants who are significantly
degenerate individuals on his half acre. Paul Freedman extended Le Goff’s study

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1536 Daniel F. Pigg
of medieval tripartite society (Le Goff 1980), but he suggests that we must
differentiate between the peasant and the poor. The representation of the peasant
was generally favorable, given their Christian status. The poor on the other hand
were seen as evil and were demonized (Freedman 1999, 15; 19). The rural world
was subject to famine and plague, changes in economic market factors, the
tyranny and extravagance of monarchs, the care and the avoidance of the Church
and a host of other factors that make the rural world a significant space for study.
As its principal dweller, the peasant tends that world.
B The Land Itself and Its Classifications

No study of the rural world should begin without attention to land, its divisions,
and the population that lived on it. From the time that the Roman world began to
lose control in England and Europe in the fifth century, the majority of the land
was agricultural. The Middle Ages actually continued many of the practices from
the Roman period with respect to land usage. In rural areas, the distinction
between champion and woodland is typically made (Homans 1936, 338–51).
Champions refers to “great open stretches of arable fields broken only, here and
there, by stands of trees” (Homans 1936, 339). Woodland refers not to forest land
but to an area where “fields were small and were surrounded by ditches, and
walls made of earth thrown up in digging the ditches” (Homans 1936, 339).
Barbara Hanawalt notes that the description of the woodland most clearly mirrors
the modern notion of agricultural domains in its divisions (Hanawalt 1986, 20). A
traditional way to describe the divisions of land is cities, towns, villages, and the
countryside outside of those domains. Cities and towns typically held their own
charters and governed themselves. The only ties of the cities and towns to the
rural would, of course, would be related to the export of goods to national and
international markets.
Much land was obviously tied up in feudal obligations. Leonard Cantor
isolates several distinct areas: forests, chases, parks, and warrens. Forests were
held by the king and were the location of game such as deer particularly for royal
hunting. Typically no farming occurred in this area, except for some few grants
directly from the king. Chases were private forests with exclusive claims as
hunting areas for nobility. Parks were typically smaller areas of perhaps 100 to
200 acres, and they were typically tied to the feudal manor, again specifically for
hunting. Warrens, typically held by and from the king, were still small parcels of
land for the raising and hunting of rabbits (Cantor 1982, 56–85).
Readers may easily imagine that a good deal of the medieval literature that
features hunting would have occurred in these areas of regal grant. The village

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The Rural World and the Peasants 1537
itself is perhaps more significant for a study of the rural world in the Middle Ages,
particularly from the perspective of the peasant. In his study of the village which
he labels as “the farming unit,” Homans notes houses in rows and a parish
church. Further, “The village was a unit in that the fields which spread out in a
ring around the houses and closes were village fields, cultivated according to the
rotation of crops which were customary and binding on every villager” (Homans
1936, 343). The production of goods, of course including food, to support the
manor was certainly important to the design. While we think of peasants occupy-
ing these villages, it is also true that not all peasants achieved the same status. If
the invention of the plow was important to the world order, certainly labelling
someone a “plowman” in distinction to a “laborer” was significant (Hilton 1975,
20–25). Poll tax rolls show that these “wealthier” peasants would actually have
those who were poorer to live them with, although it seems typically one to two in
that case (Hilton 1975, 34–36). Having a team of horses or oxen would, of course,
also have been assumed, and as Hanawalt notes through her study of court roles,
there were specific laws governing the borrowing of animals and plows by others
(Hanawalt 1986, 51–52).
From the literary angle, characters such as Chaucer’s Plowman of the General
Prologue to his Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400) and Langland’s (ca. 1332–ca. 1386)
titular character of Piers seem to be of the wealthier group. That Piers employed
others to work on this half acre is thus not a significant surprise as it accords with
historical records normatively found in the period. What seems clear from litera-
ture and historical records as determined through materials such as court rolls
and coroners’ reports is that the peasants were a vital and at times volatile force
in medieval culture.
C Population
Population changes and shifts typically reflect the vagaries of life, except for
experiences such as plague. Historians, not just literature such as the Decameron
(ca. 1353), note a significant change with the Black Death of 1347–1351 and its
subsequent visitations throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in less
devastating forms. Rosemary Horrox’s The Black Death notes that typically 1/3 to
1/2 of the population of Western Europe died during that period (Horrox, trans.
and ed., 1994, i). Such is the standard statement, but that certainly means that
local variations would have meant some villages were complete eliminated while
others fared better. A devastation too apocalyptic to imagine except through the
scattered historical records and literary pieces, the Black Death brought a signifi-
cant change to the world. It apparently even took Laura about whom Petrarch

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(1304–1374) wrote his sonnets down to those people for whom history does not
register by name in mortality lists. The experience reshaped the world, including
the labor market.
That the English Parliament of 1351 established the Statutes of Labourers to
hold down the wages of a shrinking labor market demonstrates both a real and
imagined anxiety about the extent to which the means of production in a society
would be impacted (Horrox, trans. and ed., 1994, 286–88). Judith Bennett has
shown that problems with available land, wages, and rents were already high
before this experience occurred in England and that the Black Death actually
increased the problem and that such changes were responsible for changing the
socio-economic and agricultural structures in the late Middle Ages (Bennett 1987,
18–22). As the larger economy was expanding to allow wealthier peasants a great-
er stake in their own fortunes, only paying rents to their landowners, the market
was obviously already moving away from a formal feudal and manorial structure.
With the loss of laborers during the Black Death, the rural landscape began to
move away from crop-centered agriculture to more open grazing land for animals
(Bennett 1987, 20–24). Vast tracks of land were abandoned. Overall population
through the end of the Middle Ages reveals a growth between the eleventh to the
thirteenth centuries, with declines during the fourteenth century during years of
plague and famine, but a slight growth during post-Plague years that actually only
sustained the significant loss during the plague years (Poos 1985, 516–17).
An examination of the rural world and the peasant during the Middle Ages in
terms of land and population shows what Hanawalt observes: “a new social
structure was developing in the countryside that eventually eroded the good
features of the old communities” (Hanawalt 1986, 7). For Hanawalt that meant
greater social stratification and a deeper inculcation of a rigid social structure. At
the same time, the potential for a reinvention of the world on a micro-level was
possible. Evidence shows both landowners worried about their loses and those
who occupied the land seeing the potential for shaping more of their own future.
The market economics of capitalism may indeed owe their origins to medieval
villages.
D The Rural World and the Peasant in Literature

It would be impossible to pretend to present the scope of representation of the
rural world and the peasant in medieval literature in a short essay, but there are
several patterns that can be suggestive by looking at some representative pieces.
Perhaps the single most ambitious examination of the rural world was under-
taken in a massive volume edited by Albrecht Classen entitled Rural Space in the

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Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (Classen, ed., 2012). An introduction and 27
essays cover literary texts as diverse as selected poems by Walter von der Vogel-
weide (ca. 1170–ca.1230), the Mabinoigi (ca. 1350), Guillaume de Palerne (ca.
1200), and various Arthurian romances from England, France, and Germany, just
to name a few specifics. This collection of essays along with Justice’s Writing and
Rebellion: English in 1381 (Justice 1994), Freedman’s Images of the Medieval
Peasant (Freedman 1999), and Newman’s Growing Up in the Middle Ages (New-
man 2007) provide excellent background for the study of the rural world and
peasants.
In medieval literature, three key themes can be found regarding the rural
world, both with and without peasants present. At times, the rural world can be
represented as a harsh place for living—first, a place beyond the reach of recog-
nizable law or custom. The rural world can be represented, second, as a kind of
liminal space through which individuals pass and in which they encounter
peasants of exemplary quality from whom they learn virtues that can be trans-
lated back into a courtly or noble world. The rural world can, third, be presented
as a microcosm of the entire world in which a peasant is entrusted with the
possibility of either overhauling or revitalizing the social order in the midst of the
decade of the feudal world. These themes span the literatures of all European
cultures, but they are not limited to these areas. Readers will be able to find
additional literary texts that affirm similar thematic points.
Representing the rural world as an inhospitable place for living on account of
those who live there can be seen in a text such as the Old English Beowulf (ca.
8th–10th century) and “The Wife’s Lament” (ca. 10th century). Readers might
immediately think of the sea with its harsh waves, the swimming match between
Beowulf and Breca, the dwelling place of Grendel and his mother, and the
location of the dragon’s lair. Clearly, the poet juxtaposes a superhuman Beowulf
against these various landscapes to suggest his success against them. Each of
these locations has its own rules, and these are hardly the internalized codes of
Germanic law and behavior. The underwater cave of Grendel and his mother, not
far from Hrothgar’s compound, including the treasure hall of Heorot, is its own
kind of anti-hall. The dragon in the second part of the poem, living outside the
court culture of Geatland, destroys the rural world and even burns down Beo-
wulf’s own mead hall. That the poem locates these events away from the center of
society—the court—is significant. These rural areas test the strength and wisdom
of the hero, and he is able to overcome them. Perhaps pushing the point of rural
space a bit further—even as an exile—is the anonymous “Wife’s Lament.” Spec-
ulations about the reason for the wife/speaker’s exile to a cave with barren
surroundings can easily be made, but the rural world here is seen as a hostile
space that provoking longings and despair. While both text certainly understand

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the rural space as literal, they can also be read as fictive spaces of exile from the
preferred court life of early Germanic society. While it is certainly not absolute in
its expression, this version of the rural world as hostile seems more dominant
during the early Middle Ages.
Representing the rural world and the peasant as exemplary suggests that
medieval writers, particularly of the high and late Middle Ages held the location
and its primary inhabitants with respect. As Classen notes in his study on Hart-
man von Aue’s Der arme Heinrich, a peasant daughter and her significant place-
ment in the story “if she met the specific demands and submissively adapted to
the expectations of noble society, marrying the man who could thus profit her,
while she was tremendously elevated in social rank” (Classen 2012, 279). Classen
also mentions Griselda in Boccaccio and Chaucer’s works (Classen 2012, 279). This
motif deserves greater treatment here. In Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale, adapted from
Boccaccio (1313–1375), Griselda, the daughter of a poor farmer, shows her dexter-
ity not only as a judicial force standing in for her husband Walter in court; but she
is also significantly stronger that women of a higher social status. That she warns
Walter he must not treat his new wife-to-be as he has treated Griselda because the
harshness of life experienced by those at labor and living in poverty can with-
stand the vagaries of tyrannical rule. Griselda is one sense seems too exemplary;
certainly one can imagine that someone put through the mental torture that she
must endure as she witnesses her children being taken away from her would be
highly grief-stricken if not combative. In the Envoy to Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale,
readers are reminded that they are to follow Griselda only in her humility. At the
same time, given that she represents the rural world, it is also significant that she
is the character in the tale who represents true virtue. Two women have been
chosen to represent this aspect not because male from the rural and peasant
worlds do not possess virtue, but that the virtues of the specific women are
transformational to their social orders. Historians would likely note that in this
way the mixing of noble and peasant worlds was probably more a matter of wish
fulfillment than concrete reality, but it suggests that writers felt it important to
show the virtues learned in the peasant world. The Matter of England romances,
particularly Havelok the Dane (ca. 13th century), often show that the virtues of the
rural world, learned from peasant families, could enrich the understanding of the
nobility as it prepared them to rule.
Representation of the rural world and the peasant could not only be exemp-
lary, but that same world would serve as a microcosm for social change through-
out the order. That literature could assume a life beyond the written text in this
way, Steven Justice has noted that John Ball refers to the central character of
William Langland’s (ca. 1332–ca. 1386) Piers Plowman in a significant sermon on
1381 in which he envisions Piers as one to restructure society as he attempted to

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do on his half acre before leading the pilgrims on their search for St. Truth (Justice
2004, 118). In the poem, in all versions, Piers is represented as owning a plow and
being in the service of a landowner for some forty years. He understands truth to
be an emblem of the social order itself—even the feudal order—which he attempts
to restore (Alford, ed., 1988, 32–34). At the beginning of the endeavor, he is able
to get everyone to engage in labor, even his social betters. Fine ladies knit
liturgical garments; knights may hunt as well as provide protection from those
who would seek to endanger the activity.
The laborers—some of whom will ultimately look more like the dangerous
poor that both Le Goff (1980) and Freedman (1999) commented on—will begin
well, but will break their contract of work with Piers. Deeply rooted in the
specifics of post-Plague England, Piers Plowman represents the poet’s attempt at
finding a way forward in a society where change at all level has resulted in
religious, social, and economic paralysis at its best and corruption at its worst.
Piers, an elite peasant, becomes the icon of a change. Historians have shown that
the feudal and manorial system was beginning to change in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Piers seems to represent a skillful leadership that can enable
those at the level of peasant and poor to engage in their own entrepreneurial
activity that will enrich the entire society. Langland’s view (ca. 1332–ca. 1386) is
an optimist one at one level. That it is has less to do with Pier’s rural vision than
with the lack of human will to understand the current situation. That Piers moves
more to a visionary status in the second portion of the poem is indicative of the
fact that Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1386) still sees the seeds of social change in the
very hopper of his medieval plowman and his team. The rural world and the
peasant can make a difference.
Scholarly studies of the rural world and the peasant, combining the methods
of archeology, anthropology, archival research, economic analysis, art history,
and literary studies, show that peasants were far from passive people engaged in
labor within a system that seemed to provide few rewards. Hanawalt’s study
(Hanawalt 1986) was groundbreaking with its attention to correct views of pea-
sant families and their behavior. Literary studies have raised the possibility of the
changing ideologies at work throughout the Middle Ages in the presentation of
the rural world and the peasant. What seem clear is that anyone who writes off
the rural world and the medieval peasant is missing some of the most vital
imaginative and energetic social spaces in the period following the fall of Rome
and the rise of European states. While readers may think transformation begins at
kingly courts, literature and history show that changes had already begun among
the peasants of the medieval world.

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1542 Daniel F. Pigg
Select Bibliography
Cantor, Leonard, “Forests, Chases, Parks and Warrens,” The English Medieval Landscape, ed.
idem (Philadelphia, PA, 1982), 56–85.
Freedman, Paul, Images of the Medieval Peasant (Stanford, CA, and London 1999).
Hanawalt, Barbara A., The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York and
Oxford 1986).
Le Goff, Jacques, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Paris
1977; Chicago 1980).
Rösener, Werner, Peasants in the Middle Ages, trans. Alexander Stüzer (Munich 1985; Cam-
bridge, Urbana, IL, and Chicago 1992).

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Christina Clever
Saints and Relics
Medieval Christendom worshipped saints who either died for their faith (martyr-
dom), lived an exceedingly pious life, or accomplished an extraordinary deed for
the church. For this purpose a formalized process of canonization was established
in the high Middle Ages. Saints were attributed a special closeness to God as a
transcendental reward for their deeds and virtues. Accordingly, people believed
saints could act as intercessors (intercessores) on behalf of the living and the dead
before God to alleviate their sins. In this regard, their function is comparable to
that of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
A Diversity of Saints
The origin of the veneration of saints can be traced back to the early Christian cult
of martyrs. Consequently, there was only one kind of saint in early Christendom,
the martyr. Initially, the Greek term martys referred to a witness in general. There-
fore, all apostles, even those who did not die for their faith, are venerated as
martyrs. All of them are word witnesses who had to overcome different kinds of
resistance, but not all are blood witnesses, who gave their lives. Since the middle
of the second century, the meaning of the term ‘martyrdom’ gradually narrowed
from incorporating suffering for one’s faith in general to sacrificing one’s life.
Subsequently, the focus shifted toward the blood witness.
The veneration of saints was very popular throughout the Middle Ages. Not
only did new narratives emerge all the time, but the already existing ones were
continuously passed down and the circumstances of suffering were more drasti-
cally depicted. Lately, this special emphasis on suffering and physical agony
raised the question of their psycho-social function. Robert Mills, for instance,
urges his readers to “consider how the masochistic scenario embraced by medie-
val martyrs might have provided a framework for structuring people’s worldly
experiences and desires,” and posits that “within the sphere of medieval devo-
tion, religious sublimation and carnal desire can become powerfully intertwined”
(Mills 2005, 176). Parallels can certainly be seen in the development of the image
of Christ and the Imitatio Christi as well. After all, Christ, being the first who gave
his life for his faith, had to be the basis for any veneration of martyrs.
With the end of the great persecution of Christians in the fourth century, the
significance of “unbloody martyrs” increased. This meant saints who would have

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1544 Christina Clever
given their life for their faith any time, but for different reasons did not have to.
Opportunities to die for one’s faith simply decreased; most of all, they were
limited to missionary work (e.g., Saint Boniface) or to contact with heathen
conquerors (e.g., Ursula and her 10.000 virgins). For the sanctification of those
who did not suffer martyrdom, a spiritual death was often the decisive element,
comparable to St. Paul’s repeated demand to ‘mortify’ one’s own body (Rom. 8:13;
Cor. 1.9:27). Important sources which convey this new image of sainthood are, for
instance, the account of the monastic father Antonius by the Alexandrian bishop
Athanasios from the middle of the fourth century (Deferrari, ed., 1952, 133–224) or
Sulpicius Severus’s letter about St. Martin which is approximately 50 years
younger and of especial importance for the Western Church (Peebles, ed., 1949,
101–40). Both reveal a completely different picture than that of the suffering
martyr. Rather, the sanctity becomes apparent through particularly distinct vir-
tues: first of all prayer and meditation, poverty and unworldliness, for instance as
a hermit in the desert (Russell, ed., 1981; Ward, ed., 1975), hard work and asceti-
cism (Wimbush, ed., 1990), and ultimately love of one’s neighbors and enemies.
All these virtues bear the ideological imprint of the simultaneously emerging
monasticism (Vivian, ed., 1996). This shift was accompanied by a proliferation of
terminology with which saints were now described: besides confessors (confes-
sores) we find, for instance, hermits (eremitae), ascetics (ascetae), and virgins
(virgines). Furthermore, certain social groups supplied specific images of saints
with specific virtues like bishops, monks or nuns, kings or soldiers. Nevertheless,
these do not always constitute divisible categories.
The tradition of the Orthodox Church considers saints to be manifestations of
the Holy Spirit; they serve Him as visible likenesses (Hackel, ed., 1981; Efthymia-
dis, ed., 2011). This is the reason why in the East icons played an important role
relatively early, while the West still argued about whether such images were
allowed. Saints are also present in the Ethiopian and Syrian Church (Wallis
Budge, ed., 1928; Brock and Harvey, ed., 1987).
B How to Become a Saint?

Until well into the Early Middle Ages the veneration of saints was basically a
matter of tradition. Cults emerged without a formalized process. Nevertheless,
they were normally depending on the confirmation of a local bishop to be kept
practised in the long run. The causes for veneration, also in later times, were often
reports of miracles which happened at the site of the saint’s grave. The removal
(elevatio) and translation (translatio) of the saint’s remains was decisive in order
to establish a cult already in earlier times. In some regions, this encountered

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Saints and Relics 1545
fierce resistance due to disagreements whether this act was allowed or not. In
Rome, for instance, the first grave opening and translation was not performed
until after 754; for a long time it was strictly forbidden.
During the period of papal reform in the 11th century, a formal process for
canonization was established, with its initiative being reserved for the Holy See
(von der Nahmer 1994, 11–25; Klaniczay, ed., 2004). The oldest known example for
a formal canonization is the one of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg by John XV in 993
(Berschin and Häse, ed., 1993; Bischof 1993). Since then, the papacy demanded a
strictly formal process, in which clear rules for the possibility of becoming a saint
became apparent. Criteria examined were whether the Christian in question had
led an extraordinarily virtuous life, had worked miracles during his/her lifetime or
after his/her death, or had suffered martyrdom (Barone 1982). The bull for the
canonization of Homobonus of Cremona from 1199 reads: “Two things are neces-
sary, for someone to be deemed holy, a virtuous way of life and real signs”
meaning pious deeds during his lifetime and miracles after death (Hageneder and
Haidacher, ed., 1964, I, 762). Martyrdom, however, was no conditio sine qua non,
but was interpreted as one of the aforementioned “real signs.”
The files which were collected in the course of a canonization process are an
important source for today’s medieval history of religion, piety, and monastic
orders, but also of everyday life, because some are extraordinarily comprehensive
(Klaniczay 2004; Goodich 2007). Actually, the obstacles for canonization during
the Middle Ages were comparatively high (Kleinberg 1989; Goodich 2004; Ziegler
1999; Wetzstein 2004). Only recently, Ronald C. Finucane showed the complex
interaction of factors behind a successful canonization campaign using the exam-
ple of the last five canonizations before the Reformation (Bonaventure, Leopold
of Austria, Francis of Paola, Antoninus of Florence, and Benno of Meissen)
(Finucane 2011).
The papal claim for the exclusive right to canonize was, however, not com-
pletely established in the twelfth century; bishops frequently performed canoni-
zations as well (Kuttner 1938; Silano 2001). Furthermore, existing cults were still
practised—partially even beyond the twelfth century—even though a formal con-
firmation from Rome was missing. Still in 1171, Alexander III addressed the
Swedish king, reminding him that it is not permitted to venerate a person as a
saint without approval by the Holy See (Kemp 1945).
The distinction between saints (sancti) and blessed (beati), which emerged in
the course of the fourteenth century, was an attempt to alleviate the problem of
existing veneration against the papal claim for the monopoly of canonization.
Before then, sanctus and beatus had been used almost interchangeably in medie-
val sources—and even afterwards, their usage was not completely unambiguous
(Vauchez 1997). However, a clear distinction between the two processes was not

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established before the sixteenth century. Henceforth though, only those who
successfully went through a process of canonization were regarded saints, while
all those were considered blessed, who were believed to have already been
granted access to heaven due either to their pious way of life or their good deeds.
A formal process for beatification was not established until 1631; before that, the
final decision was commonly left to the bishops. Between the years 1215 and 1334
alone roughly 500 people achieved this status, while only 79 persons altogether
were canonized. However, even this attempt to bind canonization to the papal
curia, was not entirely successful and would not be until Urban VIII achieved it to
some degree at least in 1634.
The Orthodox Church did not participate in the process of formalization.
There, saints were and still are venerated as such, foremost on the basis of
universal acceptance, in other words on the basis of tradition (Patterson Ševčenko
2012). Local processes which resemble those of Western canonization occur
occasionally only. Subsequently, the Eastern Church never shared the distinction
between saints and blessed.
C Hagiography
The special veneration of saints in medieval Christendom resulted in a variety of
different kinds of texts, images and material evidence, which testify to the lives of
these saints. The basis for all these evidence of veneration is mostly texts, which
chronicle the life and deeds of the saint. Those texts are subsumed under the term
‘hagiography’. There has been a long discussion about possible genre differentia-
tions (for the Latin tradition, see: Delehaye 1955; Boyer 1981; von der Nahmer
1994, 130–45). Essentially, three large kinds of texts remain, which then again
show overlaps among each other. In this general form they can be found in the
Western-Latin as well as in the Byzantine tradition.
I Acts of Martyrs
The beginnings of Christian hagiography are to be found in the genre of the acts
of the martyrs (Musurillo, ed., 1972). They describe the confession, interrogation,
and gruesome death, and normally also the accompanying miracles of the Early
Christian martyrs. Since these texts are often written in a remarkably sober tone,
the assumption that they draw from judicial records or notes becomes quite
reasonable. Other stories of martyrdoms, like the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis,
are quite extensive and give detailed biographical information. The Early Middle

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Ages in particular see the emergence of a large number of collections of martyr-

dom accounts (martyrologies) which put an emphasis on the suffering and
sacrifice for the Christian belief, but ignore most of the saint’s life (Dubois 1978).
An especially widespread example for this is the martyrology of the Frankish
monk Usuard, written around the year 850 (Nelson 1993).
II Saints’ Lives
The genre of the Lives of the Saints is next to the acts of the martyrs the second
large genre of hagiography (Feistner 1995; von der Nahmer 1994). In contrast to
the aforementioned the emphasis is laid on the life, rather than the gruesome
death, of the saint. The Saint’s Life chronicles the extraordinary virtuousness and
exemplary way of living, and sometimes also his or her special deeds of faith or
miracles, if those were done during the saint’s lifetime (Speyer 1997). Neverthe-
less, they are not biographies, but rather follow a clear intention in their way of
depiction, which often reveals itself in certain topoi. Regularly, the main concern
is to show the evolution of holiness, which is basically already inherent from
birth, as well as the steadfastness of the way and the obstacles which the saint
had to overcome in order to follow his or her call. Not until the 12th and 13th
centuries does the character of the Saint’s Life change into a more individual text.
Most Lives emerge directly after the saint’s death and are repeatedly recorded by
persons from their imminent environment like pupils, confessors, or monastic
brothers or sisters. Ultimately, some cults did not have an impact outside of their
regional context of origin.
III Miracle Stories and Reports
The post mortal deeds of a saint in contrast to an exclusive depiction of his or her
lifetime are what miracle stories and reports are often concerned with. They
represent the third large genre of hagiography. A lot of these reports emerged in
connection with processes of canonization in order to testify to a saint’s thauma-
turgy. As a result, these stories often follow a strict pattern with a view to the type
of miracle as well as the course of events. Many miracles occur during important
moments of contact with the saint’s remains, for example while their elevatio or
translatio took place (Heinzelmann 1979).

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IV Passionals and Legendaries
All three aforementioned genres of hagiographies can be found early on in

collections, which occasionally also constitute hybrid forms. Amongst the oldest
and for centuries most influential hagiographical collections are the Vitae Patrum
from the turn of the fifth century and the Passiones Apostolorum from the sixth
century. Other important early collections are the Dialogi de Vita et Miraculis
patrum Italicorum by Pope Gregory the Great (540–604) and the Libri Octo
Miraculorum by Gregory of Tours (538–594). Already the titles indicate quite
obviously that we cannot always draw a clear distinction between saints’ lives
and miracle stories—furthermore, individual lives of martyrs have naturally been
incorporated as well (Godding 1998).
In the eighth century, collecting hagiographical texts becomes institutiona-
lised and results in the passional, a composite manuscript for liturgical usage,
which was read aloud during meals or used for the liturgy of the hours. They can
be arranged in alphabetical, chronological or hierarchal order; however, most of
the times they are oriented for liturgical use according to the ecclesiastical year.
Parallel to the liturgically inspired passionals, the so-called legendaries (Blurton,
ed., 2011; Williams-Krapp 1981; Herbers 2002, 264–67) emerged, which were,
amongst other things, used for the preparation of sermons, but were also, in the
late Middle Ages, read increasingly by laymen.
Important legendaries of the 12th century are the Dialogus miraculorum by the
German Cistercian Caesarius of Heisterbach (around 1180–1240; Smirnova 2010)
and the Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum by the Dominican Jean de
Mailly (around 1190–around 1260; Geith 1987).
However, the certainly most important collection of medieval saints’ lives for
the European region is the Legenda aurea by the Dominican monk Jacobus de
Voragine (around 1230–1298) (Ryan, ed., 1993; Fleith 1991, 2001; Le Goff 2014).
This is shown by the unusually widespread circulation of manuscripts, the
numerous revisions, in which local saints were often incorporated, and the multi-
ple translations into the vernacular. For academia this extraordinary circulation
constitutes severe difficulties: Admittedly, it is quite obvious that the Legenda
aurea was used frequently as a source for other hagiographical texts and espe-
cially for artistic depictions of saints. On the other hand, the challenge that
remains constantly is to unearth the exact version which was used. After all, there
is no single stable text of the Legenda aurea. It has been repeatedly altered
according to regional and local requirements: Saints were incorporated or
dropped, and the sequence of the ecclesiastical year was changed. Many manu-
scripts contain about 150 lives; all things considered, numbers may vary substan-
tially.

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In the late Middle Ages, writing about saints differentiated further due to the
new needs of lay piety (Boesch Gajano 1985; Herbers 2002). Although the Legenda
aurea made the transition into incunabula very early, it still lost significance quite
rapidly in the sixteenth century. As its most important competitor, the Sanctuar-
ium by Bonino Mombrizio (1424–1482) emerged at her side (Eis 1933). Further-
more, the collection by the Capuchin monk Martin of Cochem became important
for the circulation of many later saints’ lives from the late Middle Ages, because
roughly a fifth of the lives he collected derived from the period between the
fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.
V The Acta Sanctorum
The probably most ambitious hagiographical project to date goes back to the
seventeenth century. Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629) and Jean Bolland (1595–
1665), two Belgian Jesuits, initiated the Acta Sanctorum in the spirit of the new
demands of text critical biblical studies that were popular not only in the protes-
tant camp, which rejected the veneration of saints anyway, but spread among
catholic scholars as well. The plan was to compile a multi-volume, source-
critically verified collection of Saints’ Lives arranged according to the ecclesiasti-
cal year. The first two of the all in all 68 volumes were subsequently published in
1643 already; the Société des Bollandists, frequently called just Bollandists, are
still continuing the work up to the present day.
The Acta collect all stories, reports of deeds, testimony to translations of relics
etc. Therefore, despite its age, these volumes are often the most comprehensive
tool that we have. For some years now, they are being made available on CD and
—admittedly only accessible with subscription—as an online database (http://
acta.chadwyck.co.uk). Additionally to the Acta Sanctorum, the Société publishes
also one of the relevant journals regarding hagiographical research, the Analecta
Bollandiana, and a regular series for monographs and essay collections, the
Subsidia Hagiographica, finally an inventory, the Bibliotheca hagiographicae. The
latter might seem difficult to handle at first, but is extremely helpful for a quick
orientation, especially with regard to lesser known saints who are otherwise hard
to find. Each volume consists of an alphabetical register of the saints with an
overview of the Early Christian reports, translations of relics and miracle stories,
including the manuscript tradition of each text.

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D Veneration of Saints
To worship humans is strictly prohibited in Christendom. Subsequently, al-
ready the Second Council of Nicaea (787) made the significant distinction that
God alone is worshiped (adoratio), whereas saints experience veneration (ve-
neratio). However, this certainly does not mean that in actual everyday piety
there never was nor is direct praying to saints. After all, it was this practise
that ignited the vehement criticism during the Protestant Reformation in the
sixteenth century.
The veneration of saints in the Middle Ages was not only of relevance for the
individual, but could also fulfil social functions (Derwich and Dmitriev, ed.,
1999), for instance the identificatory purpose of a city’s patron or the consolida-
tion of a brotherhood under the protection of a particular saint. Early on churches
and monasteries, too, were placed under the patronage (patrocinium) of a saint
(Angenendt 2002).
I The Saint’s Grave
As early as the second century, graves of individual martyrs took a special role
in early Christendom. During Constantine’s reign, whole basilicas were erected
over individual graves to commemorate the witnesses of faith. The best known
example is todays St Peter’s Basilica, which was built on the gravesite of St
Peter.
A decisive step was the translation of St. Ambrose’s relics to the cathedral in
Milan, where they were buried anew. This new practise established itself quickly,
so that new churches did not have to be built over the graves of saints anymore,
but that relics were translated into already existing or elsewhere newly erected
churches (Fig. 1). Additionally, the integration of saints into the liturgy was even
more immediate this way (Rose 2005). The transfer of the saints’ remains had
influence on Christian funeral rites as well. According to classical custom, burial
sites were located outside of settlements, but when the saints’ remains were
translated into the cities’ churches, the wish arose in others to be buried close to
them. The consequence was that from the eighth century onwards, burials were
held in the vicinity or even inside of churches. Many believers had the wish to be
as close as possible to the saint’s grave, because they thought that a special virtus
would radiate from his remains.

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Fig. 1: London, British Library, Add. 40000, f. 11v: List of relics from the Benedictine abbey of
Thorney, Cambridgeshire, England (twelfth century).

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II Relics
This virtus is at the very bottom of the belief in the virtue of relics. It coalesces with
the belief in the real presence of saints in their reliquaries and graves (Dinzelba-
cher 1990). Sanctifying as well as healing effects were being ascribed to relics and
their virtus. Accordingly, they became the most important medium of contact
between believers and saints besides prayers. In Psalm 16 (Vulgata 15,10) God
promises that he will not let his “holy one see decay.” St Peter sees these words
fulfilled in the example of Christ being free of decay after lying in his grave for
three days (Acts 2, 24–28). Lactantius elaborates on this even further by postulat-
ing that Christ’s body did not decay, because it was predetermined to resurrect on
the third day. The Middle Ages transferred this concept onto saints. A whole range
of reports have survived which tell of grave openings that revealed bodies with no
sign of decay. One of the best known examples is probably the report of the
opening of Charlemagne’s grave by Otto III, who found the body to be “without
decay in its limbs” (Chronicon novaliciense III, 32 [MGH SS 7, 182]). Remarkable is
the assumption that even those who suffered a gruesome martyrdom returned to
full physical integrity. Gregory the Great reports that the head of the decapitated
bishop Floridus of Perugia was reattached to its body after 40 days without any
sign of external force (Gregory, Dialogi, 3.13.3).
In early Christendom and occasionally until the 10th century, the separation
of the body was held to be sinful and only administered in exceptional cases.
The dominant notion was that the intact body (corpus incorruptum) was indis-
pensable for the physical resurrection during Judgment Day. Organic material,
such as hair or fingernails that could regrow, on the other hand, was dispensa-
ble. The further development of the veneration of relics was significantly fos-
tered by the role that Charlemagne ascribed to it: Oaths, for instance, were in
principle sworn on relics; and every newly consecrated altar had to incorporate
relics (Geary 1990).
From the High Middle Ages onwards, the perception established itself that
the saint is present as a whole in every part of his or her body. Victricius of Rouen
uses the same explanation in one of the first works about relics, De laude
sanctorum (PL 20, 443–58). Accordingly, every part of the body incorporates the
virtus of the saint, even very small particles. This concept did not remain limited
to the body of the saint, but was extended to objects with which the saint had
close contact, and on which, therefore, the virtus had been transferred. These
objects are being called contact relics and were often the tools of the saint’s
torment, his/her clothes, his/her staff or something similar. Contact relics are also
called secondary relics in contrast to primary relics which correspond to the
saint’s body or individual parts of it.

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Relics of Christ and Mary are of course in existence as well. However, in

contrast to the saints there are significantly less primary relics of both, because
their ascension to heaven was not only imagined as a spiritual but also a physical
transfer. Thus, hair, teeth and fingernails as well as the milk and tears of Mary just
as the foreskin and especially the blood of Christ were predominately venerated
as primary relics in the Middle Ages. The vita of the Austrian beguine Agnes
Blannbekin († 1315), for instance, explained her exceptional holiness by the
appearance of Christ’s foreskin on her tongue during confirmation (Dinzelbacher,
ed., 1994)
Of course, secondary relics like particles of the cross or nails existed simulta-
neously. The Longinus-Lance (“Holy Lance”), which was in the possession of the
Roman-German Emperor since Henry I, the Crown of Thorns (Sainte-Chapelle,
Paris), the Robe of Christ (Cathedral of Trier) and the Veil of Veronica (St Peter’s
Basilica, Rome) were venerated as especially renowned contact relics. Further-
more, primary relics themselves, for instance the blood of Christ, could turn
objects into secondary relics through contact; Caroline Walker Bynum (2004)
illustrated this by using the example of the bleeding host.
Relics were kept in special vessels: reliquaries (Fig. 2; for an international
research survey, see Cordez 2007). The oldest relic cases have survived from the
sixth century, also capsules, which could be worn around the neck, and buckle
reliquaries, which were worn on the belt. Charlemagne wore a large rock crystal
around his neck on a chain which had enclosed in it a hair of the Virgin Mary
(Robinson 2010, 113, Fig. 42). Relics were not only worn during one’s lifetime, but
occasionally also placed in graves.
From the eighth century onwards, reliquaries become more elaborate and
valuable. Simultaneously, a new characteristic type emerges: the speaking reli-
quary or image reliquary (Falk 1993). From now on, reliquaries take the form of
body parts. This often leads to the misconception that these cases represent the
body part that they contain, in other words that an arm reliquary would contain
the bone of an arm. This, however, is often not true. Rather, the intention is for
them to epitomize the whole body of the saint (as a pars pro toto). Subsequently,
there are sculptural depictions of the whole body. The oldest example of this kind
of reliquary is said to contain relics of St Fides of Conques and originates from the
ninth century.
Guibert of Nogent (d. 1125) is often cited as one of the main critics of the high
medieval practise of relics (McAlhany and Rubenstein, ed., 2011; Fuchs 2008; for
a broader review of critics, see Sumption 1975). He mainly opposed image reli-
quaries. Others, for instance Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), criticised that the
veneration of the holy was forgotten over the admiration of the valuable reli-
quaries: “The eyes are fed with gold-bedecked reliquaries, and the money-boxes

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Fig. 2: Reliquary of the Basilica of Our Ladies, Maastricht, Netherlands. Crafted from gilded silver
and copper with crystal in France or the Rhine-Meuse region in the early thirteenth century.
spring open … People run to kiss it; they are invited to give; and they look more at
the beauty than venerate the sacred” (Freemann 2011, 119).
The passing on of relics extended over the whole of Europe from the ninth
century onwards and was probably an important impulse for trans-regional con-
nections for long periods (Geary 1986). Since commercial trading with relics was
prohibited, those transfers often happened in the form of presents and counter-

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presents. Influential personages and wealthy institutes frequently were not satis-
fied with owning just one relic, but rather gathered large collections (Klein 2010).
An especially famous example of such a collection was compiled by Charles IV
and can still be visited today at Castle Karlštejn (Studnicková 2009). One decisive
moment with regard to increasing the numbers of relics in the West were the
crusades, especially the siege of Constantinople in 1204. During these times, the
Near East, but most notably the wealthy Byzantine collections of relics were
plundered and many relics brought to Western Europe (Barber 2005; Klein 2004;
Touissant 2011).
III Saints in Art
The depiction of saints occupies an important place in medieval Christian art.

This applies as much to the Western-Latin as to the Eastern Church, where icons
were seen as spiritual mediators between observer and saint from quite early on
(Wortley 2003). A decisive turning point for the West as much as for the East was
the Byzantine iconoclasm, which was fought fiercely especially in the years
around 800 (Brubaker 2012; for a broad-ranged intellectual history of icono-
clasms, see Besançon 2000).
Early Christendom depicted saints mainly in scenes which were known from
the Testaments or the Apocrypha so that the observer was in the position to
identify the depicted from the context. This became difficult as soon as whole
groups of figures would accompany Christ or a deceased. The increasing popular-
ity of saints and the spreading of the veneration of relics led to a rise in individual
depictions.
Occasionally, a first iconographic identification can be found, foremost of the
apostles and evangelists, as early as the fifth century. In the course of the Middle
Ages more or less fixed attributes for many saints emerged which allowed an
approximate identification (Fig. 3). Martyrs were frequently given their tools of
torment; beyond that, palm twigs and crowns were often the symbols of martyr-
dom. Clothes or tonsure could point to the social class of the saint. Individual
attributes, however, indicated particular features or single episodes from the Life
of the saint. Jerome, for instance, is often depicted with a cardinal hat and a lion,
from whose paw he pulled a thorn and who was subsequently tamed. The
iconography of saints can best be accessed through the Lexikon zur christlichen
Ikonographie (8 vols., 1968–1976; vols. 4–8 treat the iconography of saints) or
Schiller‘s Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst (5 vols., 1966–1991). The best aid in
English is probably the translation of The Bible and the Saints by Gaston Duchet-
Suchaux and Michel Pastoureau (1994).

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Fig. 3: London, British Library, Add. 39636, f. 11r: St. Lawrence with a grill, the typical
iconographic attribute memorizing his martyrdom. Cutting from an Italian Graduale (2nd half of
the fifteenth century).
There are a number of motives in which saints are depicted especially often.
Frequently, those are subjects of rogation, the act of writing, or divine inspiration.
This form of depiction is particularly dominant in the Early Middle Ages. Not until
the Carolingian period did the portrayal of events from the Saints’ Lives in whole
picture cycles increase. One of the most important works of goldsmith’s art, for
instance, is the golden altar of Sant’ Ambrogio in Milan: the front shows twelve
scenes from the Life of Christ and correlating on the back are twelve scenes from
the life of St Ambrose, which thereby are typologically juxtaposed to Christ’s life.
Another example of this kind of artistic interpretation of a Saint’s Life would be
the iconographic program of the bronze door at the south portal of the cathedral
in Gniezno from the last quarter of the 12th century. It tells the life of St. Adalbert

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in 18 image fields. Here, too, the typological references to the life of Christ show
the perfect Christiformitas of the saint.
Picture cycles that depict scenes from a Saint’s Life become more frequent,
especially on reliquary shrines of that same saint, from the 11th century onwards.
The portrayal of saints finds its way into other media as well, namely illuminated
manuscripts (Abou-El-Haj 1994, 137–46 provides a handlist of illustrated saints’
lives). Many collections of Saints’ Lives from the high or late Middle Ages were
subsequently illustrated with corresponding cycles or single pictures. This is also
true for psalters and calendars which, due to the numerous saints’ days of the
ecclesiastical year, bear an immanent relation to the subject and were, conse-
quently, illuminated with matching miniatures with increasing frequency (Pfaff
1998; Kerschner, ed., 1993). The altar, however, remains the most important place
for the depiction of saints. With the invention of printing then, the printed image
of saints becomes a popular motive, especially as cheap single-leaf prints for
devotional uses.
E Modern Resources and Research Aids

Farmer’s Oxford Dictionary of Saints is a good choice for an initial orientation
regarding individual saints. More comprehensive information can be found in the
Bibliotheca Sanctorum (13 vols., Rome 1961–1970), published by the Pontifical
Lateran University. Important introductory handbooks regarding hagiography
and its study are listed in the bibliography (Aigrain 2000; Boesch Gajano 1976;
Gregoire 1987; von der Nahmer 1994; Vauchez 1981). Special attention should be
paid to the 4 volume work Hagiographies: Histoire internationale de la littérature
hagiographique, which has been published by Guy Philippart since 1994. There,
internationally renowned scholars give overviews, differentiated by countries and
period. For introductory purposes, the Introductory Guide to Research in Medieval
Hagiography by Thomas Head should be mentioned. It is only available at: http://
www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/hagiography/guide1.htm. The introduction
to his anthology Medieval Hagiography can also be used as a road map to trans-
lations of a large number of Saints’ Lives; moreover, it contains a helpful guide to
further reading (Head, ed., 2000, xxvi–xxxii).
A recently published Companion (Efthymiadis, ed., 2011) provides a good
access point to research on the rich Byzantine hagiography. Additionally, the
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library runs a bibliographical online-database: http://
www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/resources/hagiography-database.
In 1994, the journal Hagiographica was founded as a forum for the study of
Christian veneration of saints. Besides the Revue histoire ecclesiastique it is one of

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the most important bibliographical resources to keep up to date with recent

publications in the field.
Select Bibliography
Abou-el-Haj, Barbara, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge
1994).
Angenendt, Arnold, Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum
bis zur Gegenwart, 2nd rev. ed. (1994; Hamburg 2007).
Bauer, Dieter R. and Klaus Herbers, ed., Hagiographie im Kontext: Wirkungsweisen und Möglich-
keiten historischer Auswertung (Stuttgart 2000).
Bognoli, Martina, Holger A. Klein, et al., ed., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in
Medieval Europe (London 2010).
Farmer, David, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th ed. (1978; Oxford 2011).
Freeman, Charles, Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe
(New Haven, CT, and London 2011).
Head, Thomas, ed., Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York and London 2000).
Philippart, Guy, ed., Hagiographies: Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique
latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550 (Turnhout 1994).

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Richard G. Newhauser
The Senses, the Medieval Sensorium, and
Sensing (in) the Middle Ages
A Introduction: Studying the Senses

The study of the senses as a factor in medieval cultural life has burgeoned over
the last decade. This new scholarship has focused on a wide array of elements in
the understanding of the medieval sensorium, that is to say, the “sensory model”
of conscious and unconscious associations that functions in society to create
meaning in individuals’ complex web of continual and interconnected sensory
perceptions (Classen 1997, 402; Corbin 2005; Howes 2008). This new work is itself
an expression of a wider realization that is central to the “sensory turn” in the
humanities, namely that no cultural history can call itself complete which does
not take into account the sensorium of the period it is analyzing. In fact, sensol-
ogy has a claim to be particularly indispensable for understanding the Middle
Ages because both a theoretical and a practical involvement with the senses
played a persistently central role in the development of ideology and cultural
practice in this period (Newhauser 2009; Howes 2012). Since the 1980s, the study
of the sensorium in the humanities has been enriched by cross-fertilization with
scholarship in the social sciences, in particular the influential work of two anthro-
pologists: Constance Classen and David Howes. The expansion of the pioneering
work by them and others attracted increasing attention in various disciplines
within the humanities in the study of many historical periods before it was taken
up in medieval studies. For a number of reasons having to do in part with the
alterity of sensory information transmitted by medieval texts and partially with
the denigration of sensory perception in many theological works in the Middle
Ages, scholars of the medieval period were somewhat slower to take up sensory
studies (Newhauser 2009). But the study of the senses has quickly become one of
the most important ongoing projects of medieval studies in the twenty-first
century. As a recent survey has demonstrated (Palazzo 2012), the past decade of
intensive research has already borne significant fruit in understanding the cultur-
al valences of sensory perception and sensory expression in the Middle Ages in
their historical development.
A number of features characteristic of the medieval sensorium emerges from
a reading of this new scholarship. First, one can note the extensive amount of
agency with which the senses were endowed in the course of the Middle Ages,
which may even be said to exceed the interactive nature the senses are perceived

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1560 Richard G. Newhauser
to have today. Sensory organs were not just passive receptors of information, but
actively participated in the formation of knowledge. This particular feature of the
medieval sensorium is sometimes documented by referring to the extramission
theory of vision. According to this understanding of vision, sight occurred when a
visual ray left the eye of the observer and landed on an object, so that sight was
thought to work in ways parallel to the sense of touch (Newhauser 2001). But in
fact the theory of extramission was challenged and largely replaced by the
intromission theory championed by the Perspectivists in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries: John Pecham (ca. 1230–1292), Roger Bacon (ca. 1214/1220–1292),
Peter of Limoges (first half of the thirteenth century–1306), Witelo (ca. 1230–after
1280), among others. According to this scientific understanding of vision, the
process of sight begins when a ray of light enters the eye, which describes the
function of the eye in a more passive procedure. Still, one can maintain that the
senses were endowed with much more agency than they are today by noting that
throughout the Middle Ages speech was very often numbered among the senses
of the mouth. Taking in tastes formed a continuum with the active production of
the sounds of speech, demonstrating both the agency of the mouth as a sense
organ and the much wider range of reference in understanding taste in the Middle
Ages than what is expected from that sense today, though speech can still play a
role as a “sixth sense” (Howes 2009, 4–5).
The agency demonstrated by the medieval senses also had important ethical
implications for the evaluation of the validity and reliability of sensory informa-
tion generated in the process of understanding the world, and the ethical under-
standing of the senses is a characteristic element of the medieval sensorium
(Woolgar 2006). The moral valences of the senses were expounded in hortatory
treatises and sermons, but they were also informed by natural philosophy in such
presentations of sensorial potential as the “bestiary of the five senses,” in which
each sense was linked to an animal because of the animal’s often legendary
properties. These series were frequently illuminated (Nordenfalk 1976; 1985). The
representatives taken from the bestiary tradition in such lists could change, but a
typical series that mentioned each animal because it was thought to excel all
others in the powers of a particular sense included the lynx for its sharp sight, the
mole for hearing, the vulture for smell, the spider for touch, and the monkey for
taste. The lynx was not an animal always understood in medieval Europe; Richard
de Fournival’s (1201–1260) mid-thirteenth-century Bestiaire d’amour substitutes
the lens here, a small worm thought, like the lynx, to have the power to see
through walls (Richard de Fournival 2009, 192). Both examples of sharp-sighted
animals seem to represent the reception of a misreading of the Consolation of
Philosophy by Boethius (ca. 480–524/525) who had written of Lynceus, one of the
Argonauts endowed with the gift of especially acute vision (book 3, prose 8;

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The Senses, the Medieval Sensorium, and Sensing (in) the Middle Ages 1561
Boethius 1957, 48). In antiquity, human beings had served as the representative
of taste, but in the Middle Ages humanity was supplanted by the monkey in this
role (Pastoureau 2002, 142). A lesson of humility was not difficult to draw from
this substitution because of the limitations of humans in sensing their world;
Thomas of Cantimpré (1201–1272) did precisely that in On the Nature of Things, his
thirteenth-century encyclopedia of the natural world:
Homo in quinque sensibus superatur a multis: aquile et linces clarius cernunt, vultures
sagacius odorantur, simia subtilius gustat, aranea citius tangit, liquidius audiunt talpe vel
aper silvaticus (4.1.190–92; Thomas of Cantimpré 1973, 106).
[In the five senses a human being is surpassed by many animals: eagles and lynxes see more
clearly, vultures smell more acutely, a monkey has a more exacting sense of taste, a spider
feels with more alacrity, moles or the wild boar hear more distinctly.]
The ethical context of the medieval senses is one part of a potential paradox in the
Christian sensorium (Spiegel 2008). As has been observed by others, in the
Aristotelian tradition of medieval thought epistemology is based on sensory
perception, in that the senses act as the first steps that will result in cognition. As
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) put it, the Peripatetic dictum that “there is nothing
in the intellect that was not previously in the senses” refers to human epistemol-
ogy, not to the divine intellect (Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, quaest. 2,
art. 3, arg. 19 and ad 19; see Cranefield 1970). On the other hand, the Christian
moral tradition reacts with suspicion toward the senses as the potential portals of
sin. It has been argued that this paradox amounts to an impasse that cannot be
perfected, that if the means of perception are also the agents undermining cogni-
tion, the connection of perception and the will can have no coherence (Küpper
2008). But if the senses potentially destabilize cognition, one can observe that the
connection of perception and the will still achieves coherence in the Middle Ages
in a process of reforming the interpretation of sensory data, that is to say, through
educating the senses.
In fact, in all periods of the Middle Ages, sensation was not just guarded, but
guided. Guarding the senses is a fairly static phenomenon (Adnès 1967); educa-
tion is progressive. Advancing from sensation to cognition involves an interpre-
tive process that always implicates the edification of the senses (Newhauser 2010;
2014). The senses were educated in numerous ways: later medieval penitential
practice encouraged the examination of the conscience using the taxonomy of the
five external senses (Casagrande 2002). Medieval books containing advice about
the education of children also demonstrate the importance of sensory training,
which began already with baby and toddler care. In his influential De regimine
principum, for example, Giles of Rome (ca. 1243–1316) suggests accustoming

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young children to the cold (Orme 2001, 63). And for the education of older
children he suggests that three senses are of paramount importance: sight, hear-
ing, and speech. What was required for children was not an ascetic renunciation
of sensory input, but the exercise of what was called a proper measure in sensa-
tion (2.2.10; Giles of Rome 1607, 314–17). Thus, children should be restrained from
speaking of lascivious matters and chastised for lying; they should learn to refrain
from listening to what is unseemly. All of this advice, reflecting to an appreciable
degree borrowings from Aristotle’s (384–322 B.C.E.) Politics as well as from the
Nicomachean Ethics, belongs to the articulation of a precise catalogue of moral
entities, transmitted by the clerical estate, that was one of the elements in the
instrumentarium of the “civilizing process” in the Middle Ages (Elias 1997; Rosen-
wein 1998, 241). But there is more to it than what can be comprehended as
custodia sensuum. Because children are inexperienced and know only a few
things, their speech may be inappropriate without them recognizing it. Because,
according to Aristotle, what we see first makes the strongest impression on us,
children must be instructed in how to see: they must come to look at matters with
maturity and not with wandering eyes in order to learn what might infect them
morally, and Giles’ singular example of the moral danger of vision is the sight of
naked women. Nor is this a matter of the deleterious effect of the sight of things
themselves that children must come to interpret as morally disruptive, but as
Aristotle recommended (Politics 7.17), the pedagogical need for instruction ex-
tends to representations in paintings and sculptures as well (in picturis et in
imaginibus). By the fourteenth century, developments in the science of optics
were adapted for use in the process of edifying the senses (Biernoff 2002; Akbari
2004). Peter of Limoges drew on, and contributed to, the work of other Perspecti-
vists to recommend the interpretation of optical illusions as material to be used in
sermons, which made his Moral Treatise on the Eye (composed 1274/1275–1289)
into an amalgamation of science and theology on the topic of how to see correctly
(Peter of Limoges 2012, 18–44).
Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604), pope from 590 until his death and one of the
most astute observers of the psychological realities underlying human behavior,
gives a detailed view of the ethical context of the medieval sensorium. In the
Morals on Job, he describes how the senses could function in a progression from
temptation through sensible impression to delight in perception to concupiscence
and, finally, to willfulness in sinning:
Cum sit inuisibilis anima, nequaquam corporearum rerum delectatione tangitur, nisi quod
inhaerens corpori quasi quaedam egrediendi foramina eiusdem corporis sensus habet. Visus
quippe, auditus, gustus, odoratus et tactus, quasi quaedam uiae mentis sunt, quibus foras
ueniat, et ea quae extra eius sunt substantiam concupiscat. Per hos etenim corporis sensus
quasi per fenestras quasdam exteriora quaeque anima respicit, respiciens concupiscit. …

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Quisquis uero per has corporis fenestras incaute exterius respicit, plerumque in delectatione
peccati etiam nolens cadit; atque obligatus desideriis, incipit uelle quod noluit. Praeceps
quippe anima dum ante non prouidet, ne incaute uideat quod concupiscat, caeca post
incipit desiderare quod uidit (Mor Iob 21.2.4; Gregory the Great 1979–1985, 1065).
[Since the soul is invisible, it is not at all affected by pleasure in corporeal things, except
that, being closely attached to a body, it has the senses of that body as types of openings for
going out [into external matters]. Indeed, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are types of
pathways for the mind, by which it comes into the external world and desires things that are
beyond its substance. For by these senses of the body, as if by windows, the soul gazes at
each and every external object, and by gazing at them, desires them. … But whoever
heedlessly gazes out through these windows of the body very often also falls into the
pleasure of sin, whether he wants to or not, and being bound up by his desires, he begins to
want what he did not want earlier. For the rash soul, while it does not at first act with
foresight—in order not to heedlessly see what it might lust for—afterwards begins to blindly
desire what it has seen.]
The windows to the external world depicted by the senses offer the mind informa-
tion that also results in desire. While desire can lead to knowledge when directed
to fitting objects and engaged in with temperance, it is the heedless and rash soul
that cannot act with prudence and is blinded into acts of sin. Both knowledge and
sin, in other words, have the same potential origin in sensation.
B The Medieval Sensorium: Classifying the

Senses
The senses were configured in a number of ways in the Middle Ages. Broadly
understood, however, there were three major taxonomies of the senses that
medieval thinkers used to classify and organize sensory perception: the external
or physical senses, the spiritual senses, and the inner senses. Each of these
organizations of material or spiritual perception or cognitive processes in one way
or another has its roots in classical antiquity, but each was essentially shaped and
re-analyzed in the course of the Middle Ages.
The conception that humans have only five senses is purely arbitrary, but
traditional in the West (Classen 1993; Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk 2012). The
paradigm of the five external senses was inherited from antiquity, specifically
from the classification of the senses by Aristotle or Democritus (ca. 460–ca. 370
B.C.E.) (Classen 1993; Jütte 2005, 61–71), with Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.) as an
important intermediary (Dronke 2002), but this list was hardly as rigid as it is
sometimes made out to be, and in all events it allowed for more multisensoriality

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than a static hierarchy might be taken to permit (Dugan and Farina 2012). The
influential monastic writer and papal advisor, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153),
gives a clear and schematic view of the five external senses, and one of their most
frequently seen hierarchies. In his Sententiae, a collection of Bernard’s thoughts
that may represent notes for later sermons, he states:
Quinque enim sunt sensus animales vel corporales, quibus anima corpus suum sensificat,
ut ab inferiori incipiam: tactus, gustus, odoratus, auditus, visus (3.73; Bernard of Clairvaux
1972, 108).
[There are five senses of the flesh, or the corporeal senses, by which the soul endows its
body with sensation, namely, beginning from the inferior ones: touch, taste, smell, hearing,
sight.]
This hierarchy, in which sight and hearing are considered “superior” senses and
taste and touch “inferior,” was repeated widely in the Middle Ages (Vinge 1975). It
is reproduced in the examination of the senses in the influential book On the
Properties of Things, composed in Latin early in the thirteenth century by Bartho-
lomew the Englishman (before 1203–1272) and translated into Middle English late
in the fourteenth century by John Trevisa (ca. 1342–1402) (3.17–22; Bartholomew
the Englishman 1975–1988, 1: 108–23; Woolgar 2006, 14–15). The Speculum vitae,
an English verse translation (completed in Yorkshire in the third quarter of the
fourteenth century) of the Somme le roi (composed for the king of France in 1279)
inscribes this ordering of the senses in its lesson on the good management of the
body:
Bot a man bihoues lede warly

Þe fyue wyttes of his body
Thurgh þe lyne of Equyte,
So þat na witte passe his degre,
And rewell þam so in þair offyce
So þat þai turne fra alle vyce:
Als þe eghen to se, þe eres to here,
Þe nese to smelle sauours sere,
Þe mouth to tast and to speke wele,
Þe handes and al þe body to fele. (Speculum 55–56; Hanna 2008, 1, 6)
[But it behooves a man to carefully manage / The five senses of his body / With the principle
of fairness, / So that no sense surpasses its rank, / And to govern them in their duty in such a
way / That they turn [away] from all vice: / As the eyes to see, the ears to hear, / The nose to
smell various odors, / The mouth to taste and to speak well, / The hands and the entire body
to feel.]

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As a learned inheritance of antiquity, the five-sense taxonomy took some time to

spread through medieval Europe (Howes and Classen 2013), and even when it was
well established it could be supplemented. In Wit’s description of the castle of the
body in Piers Plowman, published by William Langland (ca. 1325–ca. 1390) in
three versions composed between ca. 1370 and ca. 1386, the five senses are
presented as the sons of Inwit (conscience):
Sire Se-wel, and Sey-wel, and Sire Here-wel the hende,

Sire Werch-wel-with-thyn-hand, wight man of strengthe,
And Sire Godefray Go-wel—grete lordes alle (B.9.20–22; Langland 1997, 131).
[Sir See-Well; and Speak-Well; and Sir Hear-Well, the courteous; / Sir-Take-Action-Well-
With-Your-Hand, a man of great strength; / And Sir Godfrey Walk-Well—all of them power-
ful lords.]
Sight, speech, hearing, and touch appear in their idealized forms as morally
contoured senses, not simply as tools for external sensation, and they are joined
here by motion, one of the common sensibles in Aristotelian psychology. That
walking well is numbered among the five senses is a fitting enhancement of a
narrative centered on the allegorical action of pilgrimage.
The hierarchical ordering explained by Bernard of Clairvaux is an inheritance
of classical philosophy’s view of the value of sight and hearing occurring at a
distance from the object of perception. As Carolyn Korsmeyer has observed, “In
virtually all analyses of the senses in Western philosophy the distance between
object and perceiver has been seen as a cognitive, moral, and aesthetic advan-
tage” (Korsmeyer 1999, 12). But with a changed context, the “proximity” senses
of touch and taste could be valued more than the “distant” senses. In the medical
field, taste was appreciated for its pedagogical value as the single sense that can
teach each person perfectly about the various natures of things because we take
a substance completely into ourselves when we taste it with the tongue (Burnett
1991; 2002; Wallis 2014). As a diagnostic tool, tasting the bodily fluids of their
patients served physicians as a more reliable guide to health than using most of
their other senses, and a patient’s experience of the feeling of pain was also
considered especially useful in diagnosing illnesses (Cohen 2010). Even on
ethical grounds, the proximity senses could be appreciated more highly than
sight or hearing. In the “Treatise on Temperance,” part of the influential Summa
on the Virtues composed in Lyon before 1249 by the Dominican William Peraldus
(ca. 1200–ca. 1271), proximity senses are valued because they do necessary
service in preserving life: taste is a required element in eating, touch an essential
part of reproduction. The other senses add to the quality of life, but are of less
importance in its rudimentary maintenance. Basing his work on Aristotle’s libri
naturales, Peraldus observes that sight, smell, and hearing are activated at a

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distance from the object of perception, but taste and touch require proximity to
that object:
Vnde delectationes que sunt secundum gustum et tactum maiores sunt quam sunt secundum
alios tres sensus. Et pronitas ad operationes et delectationes secundum illos duos sensus
maior est quam secundum alios tres. Et uicia que sunt secundum operationes et delecta-
tiones illorum duorum sensuum magis sunt periculose. Ideo uirtutes que sunt contra illa
uicia magis sunt necessarie et magis note … . (Summa, 3.3.8; William Peraldus, fol. 251vb).
[Whence the pleasures that occur through taste and touch are greater than those that occur
through the other three senses. And the inclination to the actions and pleasures stimulated
through these two senses is greater than that stimulated through the other three. And the
vices that occur through the actions and pleasures of those two senses are more dangerous.
Hence, the virtues that are contrary to these vices are more necessary and more note-
worthy….]
This variation in what is sometimes portrayed as the typical hierarchy of the

senses in the Middle Ages is a function of the context in which the senses are
discussed. For pastoral theology, the immediacy of sensation and its possible
allure had far more potential for the process of edifying the senses than a
statement on vision as the superior sense. Contextual analysis is a crucial step in
understanding statements of order among the senses.
Because the senses played an active role in the process of perception, they
were a vital element in the formation of the individual’s moral identity. In an
effort to deepen the Christian ethics of the senses, moral theologians often
contrasted the pleasures of the spiritual senses with those of the external senses.
Plato (428/427–348/347 B.C.E.) and other classical authors wrote of apprehending
intelligibles using language that has counterparts among Christian authors who
described spiritual perception (Gavrilyuk and Coakley 2012, 7), but the expression
“spiritual senses” (sensus spirituales) is first attested in translations of Origen’s
(185/186–253/254) works by Rufinus of Aquileia (340/345–410). While Patristic
authors generally treated the concept without systematizing it, in Western medie-
val theology the concept of the spiritual senses was used more analytically
(Gavrilyuk and Coakley 2012, 2–5). Here, the spiritual senses were at times
articulated as a system parallel to the external senses that was used to give
expression to the non-physical human encounter with the divine (Rahner 1932;
1933), as if they were the sense impressions of the “eyes of the heart,” or the “ears
of the mind,” or the “eyes of faith,” and the like. But the spiritual senses could
also have wider implications and be less closely named after the physical senses.
In direct connection with Bernard of Clairvaux’s enunciation of the five external
senses, one also finds an equally schematic numbering of a parallel list of
spiritual senses in his particular system:

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Similiter quinque sunt sensus spirituales, quibus caritas animam vivificat: id est amor
carnalis parentum scilicet, amor socialis, amor naturalis, amor spiritualis, amor Dei. Per
quinque sensus corporis, mediante vita, corpus animae coniungitur; per quinque sensus
spirituales, mediante caritate, anima Deo consociatur. Tactui comparatur amor parentum,
quia affectus iste promptus omnibus et quodammodo grossus et palpabilis sic se omnibus
naturali quodam occursu praebet et ingerit, ut effugere eum non possis, etiam si velis (Sent
3.73; Bernard of Clairvaux 1972, 108).
[Similarly, there are five spiritual senses by which caritas vivifies the soul, i.e., namely the
corporeal love of parents, a social love, natural love, spiritual love, and the love of God.
Through the five senses of the body, during one’s lifetime, the body is joined to the soul;
through the five spiritual senses, with the intervention of caritas, the soul is joined with God.
The love of parents is comparable to touch, since this feeling, exposed to all and in a certain
sense coarse and palpable, shows and offers itself to all in the course of nature so that you
could not flee from it even if you wanted to.]
Bernard of Clairvaux demonstrates the importance of touch among the spiritual

senses (Coolman 2004, 151–52; Mark M. Smith 2007, 97–99; C. Classen 2012, 29–
31). More generally, he envisioned a unified sensorium in which caritas is
achieved by a process that mediates between the corporeal and the spiritual
senses. In Sermon 10 among the Sermones de diversis, he calls caritas the life of
the sense(s) (Serm div 10.1; Bernard of Clairvaux 1970, 121). This sermon also
elucidates at greater length the relationship of the spiritual to the physical senses
that is treated inchoately in the Sententiae: The soul gives sense to the body,
distributed in five bodily members; likewise, the soul gives a corresponding
spiritual value to the senses distributed in five kinds of love: sight is related to the
holy love (amor sanctus) of God; hearing to dilectio at a remove from the flesh;
smell to the general love (amor generalis) of all human beings; taste to a pleasant
or social love (amor iucundus, amor socialis) of one’s companions; and touch to
the pious love (amor pius) of parents for their young (both humans and animals)
(cf. Fulton 2006, 191). And elsewhere, Bernard uses rhetorical synesthesia (Rudy
2002, 13–14; 54–55) to describe the unity of how the spiritual senses work: In his
explication of the Song of Songs he writes that: “Habet oleum effusum sponsa, ad
cuius illae [adolescentulae] excitantur odorem, gustare et sentire quam suavis est
Dominus” (The bride has poured out an oil to whose odor the maidens are drawn
to taste and feel how sweet is the Lord) (Sermones super Cantica canticorum
19.3.7; Bernard of Clairvaux 1957, 112).
In the development of an emphatically somatic language to describe mystical
experience among writers in the centuries following Bernard, one can also see
further reflection on the unity of the spiritual and physical senses. Hadewijch of
Antwerp (mid-thirteenth century), a Dutch or Flemish beguine, avoids a clear
distinction between inner and outer perception, insisting on a unified sensorium of
experiencing God in which there is a continuum between external acts of sensation

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by the physical senses and interior perceptions (Bynum 1987, 153–61; Rudy 2002,
67–100). For the English mystic Richard Rolle (1290/1300–1349), the gift of God’s
presence felt within is meant to flow outward and transform ordinary physical
sensation as it united the spiritual and physical senses, and in a way that empha-
sized the sense of hearing in Rolle’s foregrounding of the soul’s participation in
heavenly song (Watson 1991, 113–91; McGinn 2012, 207–08). Significantly, the
unity of the senses also implicates the vitality and importance of the process of
their edification. Though the fruition of the concord of external and spiritual senses
was not envisioned to be achieved until the resurrection of the body at the end of
time, the process was considered to be “under way now in the interim period, the
time of transitus, during which the senses have begun to be reformed by the action
of grace on the whole human faculty of sensation” (McGinn 2012, 209).
Later medieval writers sometimes use the phrase “inner (or internal) senses”
to refer to the spiritual senses, as a way of contrasting them with the external, or
physical senses. More specifically, however, the phrase “inner senses” designates
the stages that were considered to be involved in the process leading from
physical sensation by the external senses through perception to cognition. The
list of these inner senses was fluid, containing anywhere from four to seven
senses or faculties, but the system of five external senses served as the basic
paradigm for a parallel series of five inner senses developed in Aristotle’s De
anima (On the Soul) and some of his works on natural philosophy (Modrak 1987;
Gregoric 2007; Karnes 2011, 31; 33). These psychological faculties were further
theorized by Aristotle’s interpreters, above all Avicenna (ca. 980–1037) and
Averroes (1126–1198), and developed in the recovery of these works along with
Aristotle’s texts in the West. The psychological faculties were understood to work
in stages of increasing abstraction, but the process begins with sensation by the
external senses and then their combination and judgment in the collection point
of the αἴσθησις κοινή, the “common sense” (Heller-Roazen 2007, 31–41; 2008).
The work of both Islamic scholars influenced Scholastic theologians, importantly
among them Albert the Great (ca. 1200–1280). In Albert’s account, the steps in the
cognitive process are, first, sensation by the external senses, and then collection
in the common sense, followed by imagination, estimation, fantasy, and memory.
The common sense receives forms only from the act of sensation by the external
senses, but after it passes these on, imagination “accepts the form of an object
even when the object is not present” and stores these forms for future reference.
Estimation does not receive sensible forms, but intentions (e.g., whether a
perceived object is sociable or friendly, etc.) and uses this information to motivate
a person toward particular action. Fantasy serves complex functions by combin-
ing intentions from the estimative faculty and forms from imagination and mem-
ory, with the result being what we would understand as “fantasies” (e.g., a man

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with two heads) or artistic works. Memory “apprehends an object through a form
that it has stored rather than a form that it receives de novo from the senses at the
time of apprehension” (Steneck 1974, 201–02; see Carruthers 2008).
One of the most important early vehicles of transmission of Aristotle’s view of
these cognitive faculties is Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. The view of the
psychological processes at work in human cognition laid out by Boethius was still
influential in the late Middle Ages. In the fifth book of Geoffrey Chaucer’s (ca.
1340–1400) Boethian translation, for example, Lady Philosophie explains faculty
psychology to Boece, distinguishing the faculties, or inner senses, as received
through Aristotle’s De anima (On the Soul). Thus, in explicating how human
perception differs from divine knowledge, she notes that a round shape is com-
prehended differently by different senses, and analogously a human being is
comprehended differently by the senses, or by imagination, or by reason, or by
intelligence. These faculties culminate in the highest faculty, that of intelligence,
which comprehends the pure form of a human being that remains eternally in
divine thought. But the process begins with the physical senses, that is to say, in
the external comprehension of the shape of the body of a human being as this has
material existence (Boece, V.pr4.155; Chaucer 1987, 463). The senses function here
as information gathering tools, perhaps limited in scope to the comprehension of
material substance, but nevertheless necessary as the starting point for the
further forms of understanding that eventually subsume them.
The edification of the senses adds an important component to the under-
standing of the activity of the inner senses. Beginning in the thirteenth century,
the linkage between aesthetic and didactic effects in literature and the arts
became part of a new reflection on the cognitive processes and the senses that
was stimulated by the expanding corpus of Aristotelian texts and commentaries
(Black 1989; 2000; Gillespie 2005). It had been a commonplace since Horace’s
(65–8 B.C.E.) Ars poetica to say that the goal of literature was both to entertain
and to teach, but to this was added a consideration of the pathways of pleasure
that made it possible and advisable to use the former goal to simultaneously
achieve the latter one. Vincent Gillespie has observed that Roger Bacon, one of
the earliest academics to lecture on Aristotle’s works on natural philosophy,
encouraged writers to engage with the affectus, not just the rational abilities, of
human beings to achieve ethical ends. This required an understanding of how the
pleasures of poetry appealed to the senses and through them to the imaginative
faculties that led to ethical understanding. In Bacon’s Optics, one finds an
exhortation for the training of these cognitive processes as analogous to processes
of spiritual growth. Bacon recommends that engaging the imagination is more
effective as a way to stimulate the affective connections leading to higher levels
of comprehension (Gillespie 2014).

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C Sensing (in) the Middle Ages

Underlying research into the senses, in historically distant periods as well as in
the contemporary moment, is the recognition that sensory experience is socially
and culturally constructed, that an investigation of the “sensate” is an examina-
tion of social and cultural processes (Mark M. Smith 2007; Vannini, Waskul, and
Gottschalk 2012, 5–8). Concepts of time, place, and identity are constructed within
the totality of these processes, forming important parts of the “sensory model”
that maps a community’s understanding of the senses.
Sonic culture is an integral constituent of the sense of time, not only in the
important activity of measuring the distance between now and time past (Sterne
2012, 1)—the span of centuries separating plainchant and punk rock, for example
—but also in the measurement of time as it passes. The sounds constructing time
are contextualized: In the monastery or anywhere within hearing of a church
tower, the medieval day was apportioned into eight liturgical hours: matins,
lauds, prime (around 6:00 a.m.), terce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline, each
separated by three hours and each generally introduced by the ringing of bells.
But beyond liturgical time, from the thirteenth century the development of the
mechanical horologium (clock) led to the building of municipal and ecclesiastical
clock towers which eventually rang out the passing time on a twenty-four-hour
schedule. In the industrialized cities of Ypres, Bruges, and Ghent, bells were used
to mark the start and end of the work day, analogous to factory sirens in the
modern period (Reyerson 2014). In 1355, the inhabitants of Aire-sur-la-Lys (Pas-
de-Calais, France) were authorized to build a belfry in order to help regulate the
labor of the textile workers there. The Zytglogge (clock tower) in Bern was fitted
with a bell in the early fifteenth century. As Jacques Le Goff has noted, these
communal clocks in urban centers were a function of “merchant time,” the instru-
ments “of economic, social, and political domination wielded by the merchants
who ran the commune” (Le Goff 1980, 35). The sound of a bell, in both liturgical
and urban time, came to signify not just the mechanical measurement of time, but
the temporal transition from one state of being to the next (ora/labora, work/rest,
wage earning/consumption, etc.). This aspect of the medieval soundscape also
reveals much of the subjectivity of the authors who inscribed bells in their works
(Fritz 2011). Geoffrey Chaucer employed the bell of a horologium to mark the
passage between dreaming and a waking state in The Book of the Duchess:
Ryght thus me mette, as I yow telle,

That in the castell ther was a belle,
As hyt hadde smyten houres twelve.
Therewyth I awook myselve
And fond me lyinge in my bed … (1322–25; Chaucer 1987, 346).

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[Just as I tell you, I dreamt / That in the castle there was a bell / And it was striking the hour
of twelve / And with that I awakened / And found myself lying in my bed… .]
And William Langland used the sound of bells on Easter day at the end of Vision
six in Piers Plowman not only to awaken the dreamer briefly from his dream, but
also to mark the transition to the next narrative sequence introducing grace and
the founding of the Church, a movement from humanity’s fallen state to the
promise of redemption (B.18.428; Langland 1997, 325).
Of course, many more of the senses are involved in the construction of time
than hearing: Taste marked the passing of the liturgical year in celebratory feasts
or by what was not eaten during Lent; vision and touch tracked the cycle of
seasons, the movement of the sun to the south in winter and the return of its
warmth in the spring; smell was essential in timing agricultural processes (e.g.,
the ripeness of fruit) or the baking of bread. And all of the senses worked together
in intersensorial (or multisensorial) processes of mutual interaction to construct
the various contexts of time.
The importance of intersensoriality as a factor in a culture’s sensorium can
hardly be overstressed (Mark M. Smith 2007, 125–29). It plays a key role in the
construction of place, and a number of contributions to sensory studies have
called for increased attention to this factor as a way of overcoming a dependence
on the visual alone. As Stephen Feld has noted, “The overwhelmingly multi-
sensory character of perceptual experience should lead to some expectation for a
multisensory conceptualization of place. But by and large, ethnographic and
cultural geographic work on senses of place has been dominated by the visualism
deeply rooted in the European concept of landscape” (Feld 2005, 182). As Yi-fu
Tuan has observed, medieval cathedrals were constructed as environments that
stimulate “the simultaneous use of three or four sense receptors.” Sight, sound,
touch, and smell reinforce each other “so that together they clarify the structure
and substance of the entire building, revealing its essential character” (Tuan
1990, 11; see also Tuan 1993, 135–42). The multisensuality of the liturgy added to
the multisensuality of the cathedral’s space (Palazzo 2010). Likewise, the well-
being ideally offered by the warmth of the hearth, the human warmth of the
family gathered around it, and other domestically-contained sensory comforts
could make returning home after a day’s work or long travels one of what
Constance Classen has called the “rites of pleasure” afforded to both the lower
orders and the upper echelons in the Middle Ages (C. Classen 2012, 7–22).
Whereas the interactions of the senses in the cathedral took place in a controlled
environment under the watchfulness of clerical organization in order to optimize
spiritual goals, the senses working together could become unregulated in other
places, so that these multisensual possibilities became sites of anxiety. The Liber

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de humanis moribus by Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) depends on the multi-

sensoriality of place to define the potential danger of two important locations
visited by the monks for whom Anselm wrote: the refectory and the marketplace.
Where Anselm comes to examine sinful curiositas here, he develops a schematic
approach that classifies “curious” activity in forty-four types of behavior, differ-
entiated according to how many basic elements they combine, the elements being
the most discrete methods for indulging one’s curiositas: in thoughts, words,
deeds, or the various external senses. Thus, there are five simple types of sinful
curiosity (in thought, word, deed, sight, or hearing), six double types (word and
deed, word and sight, word and hearing, deed and sight, deed and hearing, or
sight and hearing), and so on. The last six chapters of this analysis are devoted to
twenty-eight types of the sin of curiosity that are exclusively concerned with
matters of sensory perception.
The minuteness and practicality of this analysis for the monastic life is seen
especially well here, for all of these types of curiositas are located in the market-
place or the dining hall. The sin of curiosity is seen, in this way, when one is too
eager to see what dishes are being served, or tastes the food on the table only to
know whether it tastes good or not, or smells the spices for sale in the market
simply to know what each one smells like (Anselm of Canterbury 1969, 47–50).
They reveal the fundamental monastic orientation of the author of the Liber de
humanis moribus, for as examples of a faulty will and the results of one of the
three major categories of sin, they assume an ascetic life as their “curiosity-free”
diametric opposite. Places potentially beyond the control of monastic authority
also became potentially threatening because they allowed multisensory indul-
gence (Newhauser 2010).
The confrontation between competing spaces is also made sensible in the
opposition between their conflicting sensory regimes. One can think here of the
response of the perfumed elite in Rome to the “stench” of the Germanic armies
invading from beyond the Alps in the fourth century, an introduction of one odor,
and its rejection, into the space of another (Classen, Howes, and Synnott 1994, 51).
Aroma is one of the keys to understanding social differences (Dugan 2008), but it
also helps uncover the distinction between rural and urban space in the Middle
Ages (as also today). To highlight this distinction, Jacques de Vitry (1160/1170–
1240) uses one of the major techniques to appeal to the affective understanding
that was foregrounded by the mendicants starting in the thirteenth century,
namely narrative exempla. He relates a story about a peasant who came to the city
and was so overcome by the odor in the vicinity of the spicers’ quarter (apothecar-
ia) where fragrant spices were being ground up that he collapsed and could not
recover until he was carried back to the country, half dead, and was able to smell
the stench of fumes and dung at home again (Jacques de Vitry 1890, 80, no. 191).

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The olfactory order presented here serves also to emphasize class distinctions:
peasants did not possess the refined abilities to be able to breathe, let alone
appreciate, the scents of fine spices (Reyerson 2014). Soundscapes, too, create
localized meaning (Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk 2012, 8), at times using the
same contrastive pairs as was formative for the olfactory sense. The political
complaint poem “London Lickpenny,” from late medieval England, narrates a
Kentish peasant’s confrontation with the noise of Westminster and London where
he has gone to seek legal redress. Because he has no money to pay off the various
judicial clerks, his journey is fruitless. Outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Flem-
ings accost him to buy hats or reading glasses; in London, he is confronted by a
bewildering array of hawkers wanting him to buy their goods: “Hot shepes fete!”
(hot sheep feet); “Ribes of befe, and many a pie!” (beef ribs and a variety of pies);
“Ser, a pint of wyn would yow assay?” (Sir, would you like to try a pint of wine);
and many more (Dean, ed., 1996, 222–25). He is overwhelmed by the sensory
overload of the city and returns to being a plowman (Carlin 2014; for the sounds-
cape of Paris in the later Middle Ages, see Dillon 2012). The confusion of voices
and the smells and sights of urban space underscore the gap between the city and
the countryside and the alienation of the peasantry in the urban economy. But
foregrounding the cacophony of voices also makes sensible a moral confusion at
the heart of the poem, that is also a critique of English society, in which the
failures of the law and the aggressiveness of commercialism form a continuum.
Speaking of the senses as socially and culturally constructed also implicates
the way social identity is defined within “sensory communities” (Vannini, Was-
kul, and Gottschalk 2012, 7–8). These social groupings establish sensory regimes
and enforce standards that are reflected in concepts of the hierarchy of the senses
and other aspects of the sensorium, but since social identity also has a political
character, sensory communities are subject to resistance by conflicting or insur-
gent or “reinterpretive” understandings of the senses. The political potential of
the haptic sense can be observed in regulations on who can touch whom; physical
violence is also the “ultimate method of enforcement of the status hierarchy”
(Synnott 1993, 169). But touch is also bi-directional—when someone leans against
a wall, her back both touches the wall and is touched by the wall—so that the
social order of touch also regulates what a sensory community considers fitting to
be touched by, expressed in particular by the clothing it finds appropriate for
itself. In the Middle Ages (as also now), “class distinctions were impressed on the
skin through the use of symbolically potent textiles” (C. Classen 2012, 9). Aristo-
crats wore silk and refined furs; the lower orders could not afford these materials.
The significance of power, wealth, and beauty in such clothing contrasted with
warnings about how it indicated the sinfulness of pride, creating complex pat-
terns of ethical implications (Nicole D. Smith 2012). But after the mid-fourteenth

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century the spread of what had been first a court fashion of close-fitting clothes to
the lower orders is typical of a disruptive pattern of resistance in which the lower
orders imitated aristocratic fashion. Likewise, urban designs of houses influenced
the building of rural homes; an increased use of pewter for tableware can be
attributed to its similarity in appearance to the silver used by aristocrats (Dyer
2005, 137–47).
Taste provides a complement to the sensory ordering of touch because of its
supremely social nature in its literal, gustatory meaning (e.g., indicating food that
tastes good); in its widest, aesthetic implications (e.g., indicating someone of
discriminating taste) (Bourdieu 1984); and in the range of its ethical significance
(Vecchio 2010). The development of the penchant for sweetened food, and the
importance of sugar in creating this sweetness, again shows how conflict between
the social orders played itself out as the competitive appropriation of one sensory
community’s prerogative by another social group. The early and high Middle Ages
were comparatively “salty” when measured against the sweetness that became
pervasive in the later medieval period (Schulz 2011, 541). The increased use of
sugar in the European diet is often linked to discoveries in the New World (Mintz
1985), but in fact from the twelfth century sugar was a significant commodity
throughout Europe, where it was brought as an export, along with a variety of
spices, from the Middle East, Cyprus, Sicily, and southern Spain (Ouerfelli 2008).
Through their connection with Muslim civilization, imported spices and sugar
served as part of the links to the Mediterranean world and beyond, and using
spices in a great number of dishes became a demonstration of the upper orders’
ability to enjoy the opulence of the fabled East (Freedman 2008, 39; 143). Combin-
ing many spices and sources of sweetness in a great many dishes at feasts,
customary among the English upper classes in the late Middle Ages, was also
designed partially to appeal to many of the senses all at once (Woolgar 2007, 175–
77). But after the middle of the fourteenth century, the lower orders possessed
enough spending power to be able to emulate aristocratic styles of eating, as can
be seen in the occasional grand meals using venison, wine, and spices that were
organized by some peasants for weddings and funerals, or by urban artisans in
fraternities (Dyer 2005, 126–72). Sweetness began to grow to be a ubiquitous
gustatory pleasure, adding to the already complex and at times ambiguous
associations of “sweetness” (Carruthers 2006) to designate everything from the
taste of divinity (Fulton 2006) to the corrosive effect of moral decline among the
clergy (Newhauser 2013).

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Select Bibliography
I cinque sensi: The Five Senses. Micrologus 10 (2002).
Classen, Constance, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch (Urbana, IL, 2012).
[= C. Classen 2012]
Fritz, Jean-Marie, La Cloche et la lyre: Pour une poétique médiévale du paysage sonore (Geneva
2011).
Fulton, Rachel, “‘Taste and See That the Lord is Sweet’ (Ps. 33:9): The Flavor of God in the
Monastic West,” Journal of Religion 86 (2006): 169–204.
Gavrilyuk, Paul L. and Sarah Coakley, ed., The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western
Christianity (Cambridge 2012).
Howes, David, ed., Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader (Oxford and New York
2005).
Jütte, Robert, A History of the Senses: From Antiquity to Cyberspace, trans. James Lynn (Cam-
bridge and Malden, MA, 2005).
Newhauser, Richard, ed., A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages, 500–1450 (London
2014).
Nichols, Stephen G., Andreas Kablitz and Alison Calhoun, ed., Rethinking the Medieval Senses:
Heritage, Fascinations, Frames (Baltimore, MD, 2008).
Nordenfalk, Carl, “The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art,” Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 1–22.
Palazzo, Éric, “Les cinq sens au Moyen Âge: état de la question et perspectives de recherche,”
Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 55.4 [220] (2012): 339–66.
Schleif, Corine and Richard Newhauser, ed., Pleasure and Danger in Perception: The Five Senses
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, special issue of The Senses & Society 5.1 (2010).
Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul and Simon Gottschalk, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture:
A Sociology of the Senses (London 2012).
Vinge, Louise, The Five Senses: Studies in a Literary Tradition (Lund 1975).
Woolgar, Christopher M., The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven, CT, 2006).

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Charles W. Connell
The Sermon in the Middle Ages
A Introduction
From the time of the preaching of Christ himself based on His commentaries on
Jewish scripture the sermon became a bulwark of Christian culture. In the medie-
val world of Western Europe it was the main literary genre in the lives of everyday
Christians. The study of medieval sermons as a reflection of medieval culture has
grown rapidly in the past forty years and well illustrates the diversity of sermons,
sermon audiences, and the influence of sermons upon the development of that
culture. One of the major issues in the study of medieval sermons is the gap
between the vast amount of preserved written records of sermons that have been
passed down to modern scholars, and the fact that they are trying to understand
the power of oral performances in the context of medieval audiences.
The work of these scholars has become more organized in the past thirty years
with the creation of the Medieval Sermon Studies Society, which attracts numer-
ous individuals from across the globe to present the results of their research at
annual conferences such as the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo in
Michigan or the Leeds International Medieval Congress in England, and through
the ongoing publication of the Medieval Sermon Studies periodical to provide a
focused forum for tracking ongoing work. This work has also become more
interdisciplinary in nature over the past twenty years, and in an attempt to
demonstrate and enhance the value of this approach, there has been an effort to
provide both a working definition of the sermon, and a one-thousand page hand-
book for approaching future study called The Sermon. This lengthy volume both
highlights the interdisciplinary approach, and provides a vast bibliography on
preaching and the sermon (Kienzle, ed, 2000).
Another similar approach, though only about half the size, has been com-
pleted more recently in an attempt to amplify our understanding of how sermons
both reflect and reflect upon the worlds of the preachers. This has resulted in the
publication of Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Medieval
Sermon (Donavin, Nederman, and Utz, ed., 2004). An earlier work, De Ore Domini.
Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages (Amos, Green, and Kienzle, ed., 1989;
especially O’Malley 1989), that attempted to address some of the weaknesses in
the previous writing of the history of preaching, covered the chronological gamut
of medieval preaching in a modest way, but still achieved its objective of calling
attention to the potential for increased study of medieval sermons. Finally, there

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The Sermon in the Middle Ages 1577
are the excellent brief overviews of the sermon as a primary source for the study
of medieval history in an article by Anne Thayer in Understanding Medieval
Primary Sources (Thayer 2012), and the entry in the Handbook of Medieval Studies
(Classen, ed., 2010) on “Sermons” by Robert Zajkowski, which provides a discus-
sion of the definitional issues in the study of medieval sermons, as well as an
overview of the history of research on the topic. Taken together these offer a good
beginning point for understanding the nature of Sermon Studies and provide
many insights into the value of the sermon in medieval culture.
In trying to define the sermon for modern study, it became apparent that one
could not find a common understanding based on the inconsistencies of use of
terms like sermo in the Middle Ages. However, in order to move the research
efforts forward, Beverly Kienzle in The Sermon has settled on this approach: “the
sermon is essentially an oral discourse, spoken in the voice of a preacher who
addresses an audience, to instruct and exhort them on a topic with faith and
morals and based on a sacred text” (Kienzle, ed., 2000, 151; Murphy 1974; Caplan
1929). Using this definition herein we trace the evolution of the medieval sermon
acting as a valuable barometer of the dynamics of change in medieval culture
from the early rural medieval Church of the fourth to tenth centuries, then
through the period of Church reform in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to the
thirteenth century which marks a “watershed in the history of preaching and
sermon production” during the peak of medieval urban society (Thayer 2012, 43).
We conclude with a brief look at the use of the sermon in reaching the public to
attack the declining Church in the face of the forthcoming Protestant Reforma-
tion.
B The Early Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages the focus of the sermon was individual salvation.
But it was used broadly as a means of communication, as well as an effective tool
for teaching and control of the medieval public. Recognized as the descendants of
the disciples of Christ, the bishops were the earliest preachers, but as the Church
grew in numbers, monks and the parish priests were also authorized to preach
and soon became the central vehicle for administering to the spiritual needs of
the greatest numbers of Christians. Early medieval authors used two terms,
namely sermo and homilia, to refer to texts associated with acts of preaching, but
by the fourth century’s end, sermo was the most commonly used. Augustine (354–
430) and Ambrose (ca. 330–397) in particular were responsible for establishing
the term to reference the exhortation delivered by a Christian preacher in the
context of public worship (Hall 2000, 204).

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The term tractus was also used by medieval authors interchangeably with
sermo and homilia. Thus, the modern scholars have to grapple with a lack of
precision or consistency that did not seem to bother the medieval authors of these
treatises. Further study, however, has lent itself to a modern distinction between
a sermon as a “catechetical or admonitory discourse built upon a theme or topic
not necessarily grounded in Scripture,” and a homily as a “systematic exposition
of a pericope (a liturgically designated passage of Scripture, usually from a
Gospel or Epistle) that proceeds according to a pattern of lectio continua, com-
menting on a given passage verse by verse or phrase by phrase” (Hall 2000, 205).
Because of these distinctions it is much easier to identify a homily, since it
begins with a Scriptural passage as its basis, whereas the sermon is found in a far
greater range of types. For example, some of the earliest “sermons” in the medie-
val West are simple explanations of the Lord’s Prayer or the Creed for new
Christians, so the sermon is a simple instruction. In the Carolingian era, sermons
were used to chastise the audience to forego pagan practices such as consultations
with the oracles or the performance of abortions, or howling at the moon’s eclipse,
as per the example of early ninth century sermons by Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–
856) (Hall 2000, 211; 216; Etaix 1986). One key aspect of most medieval sermon
literature noted already in the early medieval period is its respect for tradition.
From the fourth century on sermons were distributed in one of three ways: (1) as
part of collections of works by a single author (e.g., sermons by Augustine or
Ambrose, or the Homilies on the Gospels of Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604); (2) in
collections of the works of multiple authors; and (3) as an individual copy of a
sermon. Thus, many early sermons look much alike, at least until the Carolingian
period when greater originality emerged. Whereas in the sixth and seventh cen-
turies a monk or bishop would compose a sermon based on models brought
together from a collection of earlier sermons, often drawn from the Church fathers
such as Augustine or Ambrose, the Carolingian sermons appear more creative,
and even exemplify a willingness to turn away from the patristic examples (Hall
2000, 217; 213). The sermons of Hrabanus Maurus (early ninth century) are cited as
examples of how in his preaching against superstitious practices he was acting in
response to local events to which he and other preachers like him were often eye-
witnesses. Therefore, the preaching was more spontaneous.
As scholars look further into some of the major collections of early sermons,
such as that one known as the “Eusebius Gallicanus,” or those of later antiquity
by Caesarius of Arles (ca. 468–542), we learn how sermons in Gaul were devel-
oped and preached, and we are able to examine how sermons were prepared by
the best-known preachers such as Caesarius and Augustine, and compare them
with the everyday users of the Eusebian collection. The study of that collection by
Lisa Bailey in Christianity’s Quiet Success (Bailey 2010) demonstrates the rhetori-

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cal strategies and foci of the preachers. Taking case studies to illustrate popular
topics (the creed, the virgin birth of Jesus, scriptural interpretation, theodicy, and
sin, for example), Bailey indicates that Eusebian preachers called upon their
audiences to take personal responsibility for their lives by doing penance for their
sins in several ways, especially prayer, lamentation, fasting and almsgiving. By
focusing on a number of sermons that were delivered to both monastic and lay
audiences Bailey shows how similar the sermons were for these different audi-
ences, and how they all focused on the responsibility of the individual for his/her
own salvation. Though anonymous in authorship, the Eusebian collection pro-
vides much evidence regarding how the pastors of Gaul attended to the spiritual
needs of their parishioners. Bailey’s study also provides examples of how these
earlier sermons continued to be used in the Carolingian era, and received further
attention in the later sermon revival of the twelfth century.
An important issue in the study of early medieval sermons is that of literacy,
and once again the interdisciplinary nature of the study of medieval sermons comes
into play. As reviewed by Thomas Amos (Amos 1993) cultural anthropologists
provide insight regarding how literates and non-literates view the world around
them, and how that might help us better understand how medieval preachers
attempted to communicate with largely non-literate audiences. As we know, in the
period from 500–900, literacy meant largely the ability to read and write in Latin
(Grundmann 1958; Goody and Watt 1962; Thompson 1963; Goody, ed. 1968; Parkes
1973; Ong 1982; Stock 1983; McKitterick 1989), and although there is evidence for a
small lay literate population, the most literate in society were the clergy. Thus we
have a dichotomy between the literary culture of the sermon authors and the oral
culture of the audience, and the question of how to bridge the gap.
Amos begins his approach to this issue with a summary of the main cate-
gories of non-literate thought as (1) no sense of the past; (2) difficulty in moving
from the particular to the general, (3) the importance of symbols; (4) the inability
to apply abstract concepts to one’s life; and (5) the dependency on memorization
skills (Amos 1993, 6). He accepts the assumption that sermons were likely deliv-
ered in ten to thirty minutes in a simple and direct language easily understood by
the listeners, even though the texts that come down to us are in Latin (Amos 1993,
6; 1989). Then taking the model elements of the early medieval sermon as
(1) pericope; (2) introduction; (3) development; and (4) conclusion, Amos ana-
lyzes each one to show how the preacher attempted to personalize the sermon to
bridge the communication gap. For example, the pericope is framed as “once
upon a time,” which brings the event into contemporary time or makes it “time-
less” to address the oral culture’s lack of any sense of the past. In the introductory
section of the sermon the preacher would address the audience as fratres or
fratres charissimi in order to build community and introduce a teaching to be

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based on Scripture or a type of behavior to be praised or condemned. In develop-

ing the teaching in part three of the sermon, the preacher would treat the
particular actions that the audience should perform and use many symbols with
triads, numbers, lists and the technique of internal recapitulation to link to the
dependency of the oral culture on memorization skills. In the conclusion the
listeners would be reminded of the overall theme and how to apply the teaching
to their individual lives, and be provided with an ending formula, such as “with
the help of the lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit
forever and ever, Amen,” in order to reinforce correct doctrine (in this case the
Trinity) that could also be easily memorized (Amos 1993, 6–7; 1982; Daly 1970).
Many sermons concentrated on the teaching of good and evil and tried to
demonstrate how the listener could “put on the new man.” One author persona-
lized the message of the need to focus on human actions by starting his encoura-
ging message with “we seek to conquer the devil by living rightly.” This would
often be succeeded by lists of sinful actions with lists of how to overcome them
(Amos 1993, 9–11). That approach is also found in the early medieval penitentials,
which again address the needs of the oral culture to rely upon memory techniques
to assist in the application of the model to one’s own life (Gatch 1978; McNeill and
Gamer 1965). Thus, the penitentials provide a valuable insight into the popular
culture (Gurevich 1990; orig. 1988). Amos concludes this study of early medieval
sermons and their audience by pointing out how the authors of sermons likely
knew their audiences well, and would attempt to reach beyond the immediate
audience by asking listeners to memorize parts of the sermons themselves and to
discuss the sermons with others not present at the time of delivery. He also
recognizes that literates also memorized Psalms, the liturgy, and sermons be-
cause books were costly and rare, and that evidence from the literate culture (e.g.,
sermons, poetry, saints’ lives, charters, and legislation) is really “written forms of
oral forms or transactions” (Amos 1993, 13–14; Delehaye 1962; McKitterick 1989;
Martin 1989).
During the Carolingian era there was an initiative directed by the monarchy
which sought to reform the religious life of the peoples of the Empire, many of
whom were not far removed from paganism. This program included legislation
which called for using the sermon as the means to bring about the transformation
of the culture through religious education because sermons were seen as the best
means to communicate to all levels of society and to reach the common people.
The clergy were required to preach regularly, specifically on Sundays and feast
days, and their sermons were to be based upon Scripture in order to provide basic
religious instruction for the people. Therefore, the language of the sermon was to
be that of the people, not Latin. Recognizing the immense scope of this reform
program, it was made clear that it should not be left to the bishops alone, which

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meant that most of the regular clergy had to be better educated as well (Amos
1989, 41–42, 46–47; Ullmann 1969; Wallace-Hadrill 1984; McKitterick 1976).
Based on a review of the large number of Carolingian sermons used for
popular preaching, such as that prepared by Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856) for
Bishop Haistulf of Mainz (d. 826), the focus of much of the preaching was on the
application of good works, especially charity and mercy. One of the collections of
mostly eighth- and ninth-century sermons known as the Pseudo-Boniface shows
that another primary purpose was to instruct Christians who only recently had
been baptized and needed instruction regarding issues of faith and correct moral
action. Sermons were normally delivered during the Mass on Sundays and feast
days, and the Church dictated that the clergy should specifically “strive to teach
the people subject to you the healthful doctrine from the Holy Scripture after the
Gospel has been read” (Amos 1989, 48–49).
The Carolingian reform program was influential in the development of ser-
mon practices in Anglo-Saxon England as well (Smetana 1959; Gatch 1978;
Clayton 1985; Amos 1989; McKitterick 1977). In the late tenth and early eleventh
centuries the Lenten homilies of Aelfric (ca. 955–1010), who served as abbot of
Eynsham in Oxfordshire; Wulfstan (d. 1023), bishop of London and Archbishop of
York; and, the anonymous Blickling homilist stand out as examples of how the
tradition was carried out (Green 1989). Aelfric’s work is perhaps the most promi-
nent among the three. He was devoted to having an impact upon his listeners,
and his sermons for the Sundays of Lent provide a view of the main teachings of
the Church on matters of faith and morals, as well as reveal Aelfric’s own favorite
subjects while he preached. Aelfric emphasized patience, good works, and spiri-
tual healing, and his sermon for the First Sunday of Lent called upon the audience
to live a life of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Like his peers, Aelfric was primarily a catechetical preacher, and he relied
heavily upon Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604) for models upon which to build his
gospel narrative. Throughout this sermon the theme of universal and personal
salvation is prominent and he uses the temptation of Christ and how Christ
overcame the lures of Satan to teach his hearers about the need to avoid their own
temptations of greediness, vainglory and covetousness (Green 1989). Though the
program of reform was overly ambitious, the sermon and its key messages
remained a core value and helped to hold the Christian community together in
difficult times imposed by the establishment of Viking rulership in the early
eleventh century.

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C Eleventh and Twelfth Century Sermons and

Preaching
As evidenced in the work of Aelfric (ca. 955–1010) and Wulfstan (d. 1023) in
England, the reform of the Church was becoming a widespread concern and
achieving momentum by the early eleventh century. Initially driven by the monks
of Cluny, the reform of the Benedictine order was attempting to influence the lives
of the secular clergy as well, and had received support from the Carolingian rulers
in the tenth century. Thus, monks like Aelfric and Wulfstan became more attracted
to public preaching, but were in conflict with the secular clergy who wanted to
maintain preaching as their central function by arguing that the role of the monk
was to live in common and to stay within the monastery delivering sermons only to
fellow monks within the cloister (Muessig, ed, 1998, 5–6; Bynum 1982).
Regardless, the medieval world was undergoing far greater changes that
affected the nature of preaching and its goals. In particular, society itself was
shifting from a rural to an urban focus; both the population and agricultural
production were growing which enhanced the mobility of society and the interac-
tion with distant lands; the dangers of external invasion by the Vikings, Moslems,
and Magyars had subsided; and, the tenth-century call for reformation of the
clergy from the evils of simony and clerical marriage had begun to undermine the
credibility of the clergy. Therefore, changes in preaching followed several of these
lines of development.
First, we note the growth of population which led among other things to
greater competition for resources and the plundering of church lands by lay lords.
In response in central France there began the Peace of God movement in the late
tenth century and continuing into the eleventh. So-called Peace councils were
summoned in places such as Le Puy and Charroux, and the acts of these councils
show how they were related to concerns expressed by the monastic and papal
reform movements trying to regain a sense of order over internal abuses and
crimes against church people and property, as well as the livelihoods of the
peasants (Head and Landes, ed., 1992). Preachers began to attack these wide-
spread evils that reached beyond the boundaries of a single parish, and the use of
relics to attract crowds to these events led to the creation of cults and greater
concerns for the afterlife. Monasteries created pilgrimage sites and sermons were
used to attract visitors based on the miraculous efficacy of a particular saint.
Second, the reform movement had noted the weaknesses of the clergy and
preachers began to circulate calling into question various church doctrines as
well as the need for the clergy itself. At first in the Eastern Empire a dualist heresy
known as Bogomilism began to be preached in the second half of the tenth

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century in Bulgaria. There is little evidence to indicate that this heresy took root
further West, but by the twelfth century it is clear that another dualist dogma,
Catharism, perhaps influenced by Bogomil ideas, had taken root (Hamilton 1994;
Lambert 1998; Roquebert 1995). As well, in southern France where the Cathars
developed significant roots, the followers of Peter Waldo (ca. 1140–ca. 1213) in
particular attacked the role of the clergy and sought greater involvement from the
laity, even seeking the right for lay preachers. The heresies of this period were
largely concerned with ethical matters and received a much more sympathetic
response from the laity than earlier heresies which were much more intellectual
in nature. This threat by heretical preachers served to enhance the call for more
popular preaching by the end of the twelfth century (Cole 1991, 113).
The call for action led the Church to ask the Paris theologians to develop a
plan to train more preachers for work in the dioceses throughout Europe (Cole
1991, 113). Wisely, men such as Alan of Lille (ca. 1117–ca. 1202), Maurice de Sully
(d. 1196), Peter the Chanter (d. 1197), Stephen Langton (ca. 1150–1228), Robert de
Courçon (ca. 1160–1219), and Jacques de Vitry (ca. 1160/70–1240) recognized that
teaching the clergy speculative theology was not the answer. Therefore, they
developed a new approach to training which required among other tools, some
manuals for preaching that emphasized the practical aspects of preaching. Thus
developed the artes praedicatori (Cole 1991, 114).
In his Summa de arte praedicatoria Alan of Lille defined preaching as public
instruction in faith and behavior and created ad status sermons which addressed
themselves to specific audiences, including soldiers, princes, cloistered religious,
priests, and people who were about to be married, or to widows and virgins (Cole
1991, 114). Maurice de Sully, who served as bishop of Paris (1160–1196), developed
nearly seventy sermons in the vernacular that could be used by the clergy of his
diocese (Cole 1991, 115; Robson 1952). One of the most prolific of these preachers,
Stephen Langton, is credited with developing the use of the exemplum in order to
create moral stories that could be easily understood by the common people with
roots in folk culture. Jacques de Vitry was perhaps the most significant of the
Paris masters by the end of the twelfth century. He was a skilled preacher himself
and went on to develop four sermon collections which were arranged according
to the occasion for preaching. The divisions included sermons for Sundays, feast
days, sermones vulgares (i.e., for the different classes of society), and, sermones
communes (i.e., for general or everyday use). Jacques was particularly clever in
the use of exempla in all of his sermons (Cole 1991, 115; 132–33; Crane 1890;
Muessig 1998). It was clear to these preaching masters that to combat heresy
effectively, the parish priests had to understand how salvation worked and how
to communicate that message clearly to their parishioners (Cole 1991, 115–17).

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I Sermons Against (and for) Heresy
Men were not the only ones to take up the fight against heresy. Perhaps influ-
enced by her reading of the Apocalypse, Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179),
recorded a vision in 1163 about the Cathars in which she interpreted their appear-
ance in the Rhineland as a consequence of the release of the Devil from the
bottomless pit, which was followed by the appearance of four angels of the winds
at the corners of the earth who brought various evils to mankind, one of which
was the Cathars (Lambert 1998, 19). Subsequently, Hildegard preached skillfully
against them (Kienzle 1998b).
Another engaged in the struggle against the Cathars was probably the most
influential and charismatic preacher of the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux
(1090–1153). A prolific writer of sermons, including more than eighty “Sermons
for the Whole Year” and eighty six on the Song of Songs, his reputation led
Everwin, provost of a house of Premonstratensians near Cologne in the 1160s, and
contemporary of Hildegard, to request that Bernard help him in the battle against
the Cathars. Bernard in reply wrote two of his sermons on the Song of Songs in
which he interpreted the little foxes as heretics. As Malcolm Lambert comments,
“It was powerful polemic in a flowing and sparkling Latin” recognizing the
sinister potential of the heresy, because as Bernard indicated, it “sprang from the
suggestions and artifices of seducing spirits” (Lambert 1998, 39; Kienzle 1995).
The Cathars had spread rapidly and rather widely in Italy and southern France,
where Bernard had preached against them as early as 1145. In Italy, the power of
the sermon in medieval culture was once again demonstrated by the preaching of
a layman, a certain Mark who had been a grave-digger near Milan and had sought
religious counsel in Naples from a bishop of the Cathar persuasion, who made
Mark a deacon, and in turn sent him back north after a year to preach in
Lombardy and Tuscany in the 1160s. The Cathar preachers attacked the Church
with sweeping allegations in various sermons claiming that the Church was the
Church of Satan and that it was mired in earthly preoccupations, with its arrogant
clergy too busy thus to attend to the needs of the people (Lambert 1998, 37–38).
The heresy continued to spread as a result in the 1160s and 1170s (Lambert 1998,
38–45; Arnold 1998).
II Crusade Sermons
Another significant arena for the sermon opened in the late eleventh century with
the preaching of the First Crusade. Penny Cole in 1991 helped us to affirm that
“Preaching was the principal means by which the church recruited and organized

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people for each major crusading expedition.” She went on to elaborate how the
first crusade sermon, namely that of Pope Urban II (ca. 1035–1099) at Clermont in
1095, was “received with extraordinary popular enthusiasm.” Not all subsequent
popes personally served as preachers of crusades, but they did follow a standard
practice of first declaring a “crusade” in a papal bull or encyclical, and then
delegating the preaching mission to one or more individuals (or groups, i.e., the
friars, in the thirteenth century) especially appointed to preach (Cole 1991, ix,
passim; Rist 2009). Like other sermons, those preaching the crusades, reflected
the broader concerns of medieval society, and some advocates of effective crusad-
ing, such as Humbert of Romans (ca. 1190/1200–1277), who in his thirteenth-
century treatise De praedicatione crucis, took time to elaborate on how to preach
the crusade in the face of potential opposition to it (Cole 1991; Morris 1983;
Röhricht 1884; Lecoy de la Marche 1890).
Urban II’s preaching of the crusade was an important shift in the nature of the
sermon, as well as the environment for medieval preaching. Much preaching in
the eleventh century still remained in the monastery and was carried out by
monks in the performance of daily office, or it was in the hands of local parish
priests or bishops responding to local needs. Even the Peace of God movement,
though broadening the nature of the audience, had not brought it to a European-
wide level. There was not a broad forum nor was there a “universal public cause”
such as that projected by the pope in 1095. This had begun to break down with the
preaching of the Gregorian reform and the Peace and Truce of God movements
and the popular demand for more sermons led to the appearance of an increasing
number of lay preachers (Cole 1991, 7; Gatch 1977; Cohn 1984). Yet, in this context,
with the increased interest in personal salvation nurtured somewhat frenetically
by the passage of the first millennium, the development of the cults of saints’
relics, and the growth in the popularity of the pilgrimage which were the objects
of the sermons by increasing numbers of lay preachers, “the papal sermon of
Clermont must surely have been a momentous preaching occasion for laity and
clergy alike” (Cole 1991, 8).
The words of the sermon of Urban were not captured verbatim at the time but
have been preserved in the accounts of various contemporaries, some of whom
may have been eye-witnesses to the event. In those reports we see a pope who is
in tune with contemporary issues and interests from the Peace of God to simony
to the call for help from Eastern Christians. Fulcher of Chartres (1059–1127?), for
example, reported that the pope urged his audience to not let simony “take root
among you …Keep the church and the clergy in all its grades entirely free from the
secular power” (Medieval Sourcebook). He also referred to the abuse of those who
stole from the church or the poor, first recognizing that “It is so bad in some of
your provinces…that one can hardly go along the road by day or night without

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being attacked by robbers,” and then calling upon the knights “to try hard to have
the truce [i.e., Truce of God so called] kept in your diocese.” He went on to
recognize and flatter the listeners with these words: “Although, sons of God, you
have promised …to keep the peace among yourselves…there remains still an
important work for you to do.” Urban then described the abuse of the Holy Land
and the lands of the Eastern Christians by the Turks and Arabs and issued a
universal call to arms: “I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to
publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-
soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and
to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends … . Let those who have been
fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the
barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now
obtain the eternal reward.”
Other accounts of Urban’s speech, especially those of the monk Robert of
Reims (d. 1122) and Baudri the Archbishop of Dol (ca. 1050–1130), were more
focused on the quality of Urban’s oratory and his persuasiveness. Baudri was a
preacher himself who paid attention to sermon technique, so his presentation of
the sermon gave special notice to Urban’s passion and his ability to understand
and appeal to the sympathy of his audience by projecting the listeners as mem-
bers of Christ’s army who would be shamed by not taking up arms and going to
recapture the lands despoiled by the forces of Amalech. Similarly, Guibert of
Nogent (ca. 1055–1124) left an account of Urban’s speech that places it into the
moral ground of justification for religious warfare, a very important fact in the
context of a society that had tended to treat warfare as an amoral act in which it
was a sin to kill another, even in warfare (Cole 1991, 14–27; Cowdrey 1970). Clearly
the power of words was noted in these accounts, and their authors understood the
value of a preaching event which really raised the influence of the sermon another
notch in medieval society.
Pope Urban did not stop with the preaching of this single sermon. Instead he
went on the circuit and traveled throughout central and southern France preach-
ing and calling for an army to gather in 1096 to begin the long journey to the Holy
Land in order to obtain their personal salvation by fighting for the Church. His
message was enthusiastically received by all levels in society and others began to
take up the call to preach the crusade in other parts of Europe from Wales to
northern Germany. Individuals such as Peter the Hermit (d. 1115) were quite
effective in preaching, though the results of their preaching did not always
achieve the result desired by Urban himself. In the case of Peter, the message
about the vile race of the East to which Urban had alluded began to be turned
inwardly on those at the margin of local society, i.e., the Jews, who were subse-
quently attacked in large numbers in Germany. Nor did Urban likely intend the

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non-combatants in medieval society, i.e., clergy and peasants, to join the crusad-
ing ranks, but the charismatic sermons of individuals such as Peter in fact led to
the so-called Peasants Crusade which ended unfortunately along the way and
never reached the Holy Land to join the main army recruited by Urban that
eventually did succeed in capturing Jerusalem in 1099.
The crusades also attracted the attention of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153),
who had first written about the struggle in the East around the beginning of the
third decade of the twelfth century when he composed his eloquent treatise De
laude nove militie, which praised the founding of the Order of the Temple and in
fact endorsed the notion of religious warfare for a just cause. Partly as a result of
this work, Pope Eugene III (first Cistercian pope from 1145–1153, when he died),
having issued the bull Quantum praedecessores in 1145 calling for a crusade
following the loss of Edessa to the Turks in 1144, met with Bernard at Vézelay and
commissioned him to preach the Second Crusade. By his own report to Eugene,
Bernard’s preaching at Vézelay, and subsequently throughout France and Flan-
ders in 1145 was a huge success: “I opened my mouth, I spoke, and soon the
numbers of crusaders multiplied. Villages and towns are empty” (Cole 1991, 43).
Though these particular sermons have not survived, we know something of the
contents of Bernard’s preaching of the crusades from a letter he wrote to Duke
Wladislaus of Bohemia (ca. 1110–1118 to 1174) during his preaching mission. In
this letter urging the Duke to take up the cross, Bernard develops several themes,
including the “uniqueness of the times, and the “opportunity for salvation”
presented by the call for a crusade. Bernard paints a picture of the crisis in the
East as part of God’s plan for individual salvation, and a necessary action to
defend Christ himself by recapturing the land of his birth and life, the place
“stained by the blood of the immaculate Lamb.” He concludes with a sense of
urgency: “Why do you delay, servants of the cross .…Take up the sign of the cross
…Take up the gift [i.e., plenary indulgence] which has been offered to you” (Cole
1991, 48–49; Constable 1971, 1994).
By the time of Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) two unsuccessful crusades had
been launched and the urgency to recover Jerusalem was more obvious in the
efforts put forth by Innocent to call for yet another crusade. Early on in the first
year of his reign Innocent recruited charismatic preachers such as Fulk of Neuilly
(d. 1201) to preach, and gave Fulk the authority to select others, such as the
Cistercians who at first resisted, to assist him in the effort. Though Fulk’s preach-
ing was done with enthusiasm, it appears that the sermon messages of his fellow
recruits were not always focused on the crusade so much as personal salvation,
or local issues of usury and sexual promiscuity. Thus the efforts of this early
mission were not successful. However, in 1201, we have a more clear account of
the mission of Fulk himself undertaken in France and the Low Countries. In this

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case Fulk’s audience seems much like that of Peter the Hermit (d. 1115) before the
First Crusade, namely the more gullible poor among the populace, and his efforts
brought significant results if his claim to have “signed up” around 200,000
people for a crusade is to be believed (Cole 1991; Forni 1981).
Analysis of the sermons of the Cistercian abbot Martin of Pairis, who was
preaching in response to the mandate of Innocent to aid Fulk, gives us further
insight into the nature of the content of crusade sermons. Martin considered his
sermons to be the words of Christ himself, so he used the sermons to recall the life
of Christ on earth, so that the Muslim capture of the Holy Land meant it has “been
placed under the hand of the impious,” thus afflicting Christ, as well Christ’s
people whose “Churches have been destroyed and the sanctuary polluted.” Thus,
the “necessity of Christ” demands an army to recapture it. In a particularly
moving sermon at Basle, Martin demonstrated his understanding of the difficulty
of raising an army after the failure of two earlier crusades, when he depicted his
role as one which confers a “sacred trust” upon those he recruits: “Today I
commit to you the cause of Christ; I give into your hands …Christ himself, so that
you may be zealous in restoring him to his inheritance.” He also used the model
of the successful crusaders of the First Crusade to instill a sense of pride and a
“can do” attitude, and points out that Godfrey of Bouillon (ca. 1060–1100) and his
colleagues had an even more difficult task than current crusaders. For in their
time, he points out, there is already a Christian presence. He concludes the
sermon by indicating the rewards to be gained for this difficult task, including
eternal life for those who die on the campaign. This sermon has been compared to
that of Urban II in its ability to generate a highly emotional audience response,
with men reportedly weeping and sighing over Martin’s words (Cole 1991, 92–96).
Innocent III tried to standardize crusade preaching, but did not succeed as
indicated by the diversity of both preachers such as Fulk and Martin and their
messages. A Fourth Crusade was finally launched in 1204, but was diverted to
Constantinople, to the embarrassment of Innocent. He still persisted thereafter,
commissioning preachers, and urging lay princes such as King Philip Augustus
(1165–1223) of France to assume leadership and go to Jerusalem. He issued papal
letters, such as Utinam Dominus in 1208 to the inhabitants of Lombardy and
March, which had the semblance of papal bulls and called upon the listeners to
be aware of Christ’s loss because of the sins of Christians and reminded them that
it was their duty to restore the Holy Land to Christ. In March of 1208 the focus of
crusading was diverted when Innocent called out the knights of France to a
crusade against the count of Toulouse (eventually referred to as the Albigensian
Crusade), and required the Cistercians to preach the crusade throughout all of
northern France with promises to potential crusaders of a plenary indulgence and
the opportunity to take the lands of the heretics for their own (Cole 1991, 98–104).

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After success in Southern France against the heretics, and encouraged by

events in Spain against the Muslims, Innocent resumed his focus on the Holy
Land in April 1213 with the issuance of the encyclical Quia Maior. This is an
important document because it was composed specifically with the goal to
provide assistance to crusade preachers: “You must pass on with great care…
exactly what is contained in the encyclical, transmitting … everything you will see
has been included in that letter for the aid of the Holy Land.” Innocent saw the
crusade as both necessary and as a legitimate military service for Christ. Further-
more he is adamant as he raises the stakes for those capable of military service;
that is, he makes personal salvation dependent upon going on a crusade. By the
end of his reign Innocent had issued the papal bull Ad liberandam at the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215) which called for the Fifth Crusade to Jerusalem, and
endorsed the preaching mission of the new religious orders, namely the friars of
Dominic and Francis. Later, to indicate further the central significance of the
sermon and its preachers to the Church, these two orders were specifically given
missions to preach against heretics in the Inquisition following the early stages of
the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1255) in Languedoc, and the crusades in general
after the death of Innocent (Cole 1991, 104–08; 161–65). Thus, the nature of
preaching had changed—it was much more diverse and a greater individuality of
sermons had been achieved by the early thirteenth century. We now see the great
charismatic preachers, such as Bernard, Fulk and Martin, replaced by an increas-
ing diversity of preachers who had different styles and who did not present a
unified picture of the crusade or its ideals as expressed by a pope such as
Innocent III (Cole 1991, 96–97).
III Monastic Sermons in the Twelfth Century
Attention to the sermon is found in other twelfth-century venues, including the

monastic communities, where the growth in size and number of the monasteries
led to a more systematic preaching regime. As one might expect, the sermons
were inward-looking and focused on themes relevant to the monastic life and not
on the outer world. These sermons do provide insight into the nature of issues on
the road to spiritual achievement, such as the failure of monks to follow the
Benedictine Rule closely, and the human weaknesses attested by sermons against
dozing off while reading Scripture or snoring during the reading in the Oratory, or
rushing the reading of the Psalms. In addition to the sermons of Hildegard and
Bernard of Clairvaux, we have available for review today the collections of the
sermons of many of the more prominent Cistercian authors of the twelfth century
who were also critical of the increasing influx of outer world influences on the

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monastery and the pending decline of monasticism. Individuals such as Julien of

Vézelay (ca. 1080–1165), Peter the Venerable (ca. 1092–1156), Guerric of Igny (ca.
1070–1157), Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167), and Hélinand de Froidmont (1160–ca.
1229) provide testimony to the pattern and trends (Schneyer 1969–90; Kienzle,
ed., 2000, esp. 301–05). There are exceptions to the inward focus, such as the
sermons of Hélinand, which give us interesting perspectives on various worldly
issues that troubled him, including excessive taxation, pillaging, seizure of
church property, and wasteful spending on monastic buildings. Bernard’s preach-
ing on the crusades, or Hildegard’s on the Cathars, also indicate the degree to
which monks and nuns might be drawn into the world around them. Sometimes
these sermons provide personal information about the preacher, such as the
reference by Bernard to his illness that prevented him from doing manual labor,
but for the most part they remained focused on contemplation and preparation
for the life to come (Kienzle, ed., 2000, 271–313).
Another Cistercian who was concerned about both the need for a crusade and
the spread of heresy in France and Germany was the German monk Caesarius of
Heisterbach (ca. 1180–ca. 1240), who served as the novice-master at the monas-
tery near Bonn. He traveled widely and gathered anecdotes and stories to include
in his Dialogus miraculorum, which was written in the form of dialogue between a
master and his novice to educate the young monks, such as about the heresy of
the Albigensians. Since the Cistercians were charged by Innocent III with preach-
ing the crusade, it is likely that the work was also intended to provide exempla
and stories to be used by those preaching the crusades. This work is famous for its
inclusion of various forms of propaganda and news which were carried through-
out the Cistercian network. The most nitrous anecdote he reported was attributed
to Arnoud Amaury (d. 1212), the abbot of Citeaux and a papal crusade legate, who
preached the crusade against the heretics in southern France in 1209. According
to Caesarius, during the siege of Béziers in that year the heretics reportedly
urinated upon a copy of the New Testament and flung it over the wall in contempt
at those attacking the walls. This so outraged those below that they immediately
scaled the walls of the city, but momentarily hesitated in attacking those inside
for fear of killing loyal Christians as well as the heretics. So they turned to Amaury
to seek his advice about what to do. Reportedly, Amaury said “Kill them [all]. For
the lord will acknowledge his own” (Bird, et al., ed., Crusade and Christendom,
Dialogus miraculorum, 2013, 78–82; Berlioz 1989 and 1994; Kienzle 2001; Kay
2002; Bird 2007). Caesarius’s Dialogus was extremely popular in Germany, the
Netherlands, and France.

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IV Sermons by Women
Public preaching by women, who were more likely abbesses, was rare in the
Middle Ages. The content and impact of that preaching remains mostly obscure,
largely because the texts of the sermons were not regularly preserved, and the
role of the abbess was often controversial. Perhaps the latter is the reason that
Innocent III condemned the public preaching by abbesses (Blamires 1995, 138
n. 14; Kienzle, ed., 2000, 152–55; 165–66; 168; Kienzle 1998a).
In addition to the exception of Hildegard of Bingen previously discussed
above, and the preserved sermons of Humiltà of Faenza (1226–1310) (Kienzle, ed.,
2000, 165; Mooney 1998), we seem to know more about the sermons of women
from the reading of saints’ lives than from actual sermon texts, as suggested in
the studies of Radegunde (520–587) and Rose of Viterbo (1235–1252) (Kienzle, ed.,
2000, 165; Pryds 1998; Rusconi 1998). It is likely that other public preaching by
women did occur but is not recorded, such as in the case of those condemned as
lay heretics, including Waldensians and Cathars in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, or the Lollards in the fourteenth (Kienzle, ed., 2000, 166–67; Kienzle
and Walker, ed., 1998). Thus, though many studies have come forth in the past
twenty years in particular, much work remains to expand our knowledge of the
role of women in preaching in the Middle Ages.
V Sermons by Schoolmasters and Canons

in the Twelfth Century
In contrast to earlier monastic preaching in the cloister, the twelfth century

witnessed the rapid growth of public preaching by both masters and canons of
the cathedral communities. The monks continued to be an audience for these
preachers, but now secular clergy, clerics, and students became targets, and even
preaching to the lay audiences became common. The preserved collections of the
sermons ad status indicate both the breadth of the teaching and the goals of the
preachers which Alan of Lille (d. 1203) identified as primarily instructio morum,
i.e., how to aspire to virtue and abhor vice; and, instructio fidei, i.e., elaboration
on the doctrines concerning Christ and the Church which were controversial and
spawned several marginal or even heretical movements in the twelfth century
(e.g., Waldensians or Cathars). Many of these latter sermons reminded the readers
and/or listeners that the return (more likely deemed imminent) of Christ and the
forthcoming Judgment Day necessitated a call for repentance which is seen again
in the thirteenth-century preaching of the mendicants (Longère 1975; 1983; Zier
2000, 325–27).

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Because of their focus on moral lessons a group of these masters is sometimes

referred to as the “biblical moral school.” Included among them would be Peter
Comestor (d. 1178), a student of Peter Lombard and a master at Paris himself;
Peter the Chanter (d. 1197), master at Paris; and, Stephen Langton (d. 1228), a
master at Paris, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Preachers of virtue, especially
that of love, the “queen of virtues,” and humility, in their ad status sermons we
also see a tendency to associate the opposites of virtue, that is the vices they
castigated, with particular classes of society. Alan of Lille and Jacques de Vitry
(d. 1240), who was an Augustinian canon at Liege, then bishop of Acre, were
particularly harsh in denouncing such vices as simony, usury, luxury, and pride
among the upper classes (Baldwin 1970). Thus, the sacrament of penance was
foremost among their weapons against these vices.
In defining the imitatio Christi as a battle of virtue against vice, the moralist
preachers of the later twelfth century prefigured the thirteenth-century shift to the
way the imitation was to be interpreted. Whereas Bernard of Clairvaux in the early
twelfth century had seen the imitatio as “adoration derived from the contempla-
tion of the mysteries of Christ,” Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) came to speak of it as
“following the suffering Christ” (Zier 2000, 330). In between, we find Peter
Comestor (d. 1178) and Alan of Lille (ca. 1117–1203) placing emphasis on the
humility of Christ, and Stephen Langton (ca. 1150–1228) defining the path to
imitatio as beginning with the battle against the vices, with a reminder of the
model of Christ’s own life on earth marked by both poverty and suffering (Zier
2000, 330–31).
There is little reference in the sermons of the masters and canons to contem-
porary events of the twelfth century. Nor is there much theological speculation
therein; they are accepting of the Church’s version of the faith. We do find “a great
explosion of preaching in this period” that reflects much concern over one’s
personal salvation, and we do find increased regularity of providing models for
preaching using Scripture, distinctiones, the Glossa Ordinaria which was just
coming into prominence, model sermons, and exempla. Thus, we do know a lot
about how masters and canons did their work, and about which teachings of the
church were being emphasized as they opened up to a much broader audience
reflecting the growing diversity of the increasingly urbanized Europe (Zier 2000,
350–51).

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D Sermons at the Peak in the Thirteenth Century

Much of the extant medieval sermon texts come to us from the period after 1200.
For example, there are over 100,000 texts, 60,000 in Latin, of sermons that are
conserved and date from the period 1150–1350; and of these, only about 5% date
from before 1200 (Beriou 2000, 363; Schneyer 1971–1973). Drawn from the
libraries of the medieval schools and colleges, monasteries, and especially the
convents of the friars minor, texts continue to be systematically collected, edited,
and catalogued in increasing numbers and studied by modern scholars. Recently,
the focus has more and more turned toward the vernacular sermons and the study
has become more interdisciplinary in nature and regionalized, so that, for exam-
ple, we can discern the sermons in Old English and Middle English, German,
French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, even Catalan and Old Norse, as well as
Latin (Kienzle, ed., 2000). In the context of inter-disciplinary efforts to further
broaden our understanding of the scope and impact of medieval sermons, the
sermons of Muslim and Jewish preachers have been added to the list of ongoing
projects. Most of the latter date from 1200 to 1500, and each phase of the ongoing
medieval sermon study has revealed many similarities, such as the focus on moral
issues and matters of faith with individual salvation as the ultimate goal, but also
cultural and community differences in the way sermons were crafted and deliv-
ered by both Jews and Christians which are highlighted below.
I The Medieval Jewish Sermon
The growth of the interdisciplinary approach to the study of the sermon has
opened up greater interest in the Jewish approach to the sermon in the Middle
Ages. Recent work by Marc Saperstein indicates that there is a standard medieval
Hebrew term for the sermon (derashah), as well as for the person who delivers the
sermon (darshan), along with a verb “to preach” (il-derosh), and that each of these
words is related to the biblical root meaning “to seek, demand, investigate”
(Saperstein 2000). In contrast to the availability of Christian texts from much
earlier periods of the Middle Ages, the earliest extant texts of the Jewish sermons
(excluding the midrash literature) only date from the thirteenth century. The
midrash are excluded from Saperstein’s analysis because their content is both
drawn from antiquity, and is too far removed from what would have actually been
preached in European medieval society (Saperstein 2000, 175–76). Finally, when
discussing Jewish sermons, Saperstein is referring only to “sermons delivered by
Jews to audiences consisting primarily of Jews, based mainly on classical Jewish
texts, and usually situated in a Jewish liturgical context” (Saperstein 2000, 177).

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It was common practice for sermons to be delivered during the ordinary

Saturday morning Sabbath service, as well on holidays or the Sabbaths in the
midst of holiday weeks, and usually soon after the liturgical readings of Scripture
during these services. Since it was standard practice to divide the Pentateuch into
sections such that all five books would be read during each year, the medieval
Sabbath Saturday sermons occurred in conjunction with the appropriate season
of the year for the reading of each book (e.g., Fall would be Genesis, Spring was
Leviticus, etc.). The sermon collections are usually arranged accordingly (Saper-
stein 2000, 179; 1989). In addition to the ordinary Sabbath, sermons were com-
posed for holidays themselves, as well as for the Sabbaths immediately preceding
the holidays, and the Sabbaths during the holiday weeks. These sermons were
based on themes related to the festival or holy day itself such as the Sabbath
preceding the Day of Atonement, when the sermon would likely deal with the
doctrine of atonement itself, as well as the difficulty of the listeners in preparing
for the forthcoming fast days (Saperstein 2000, 179; 1996).
Other categories of Jewish sermons include those composed for events of the
life cycle, for example, circumcision, marriage, and death, which were delivered
outside the synagogue at the place of the event, and those on special occasions in
the life of the individual preacher or the community he served. Dedications of new
synagogues, some natural or man-made disaster (e.g., plague or pogrom), or just
the completion of a plan of study by the preacher might lead to a sermon occasion
(Saperstein 2000, 180–81). The notion of community was critical in determining
the nature of these sermons and it is important to note that all Jewish commu-
nities were not alike. In northern Europe, including northern Germany and
France, England until 1290, and early settlements in Poland, for example, weekly
Sabbath sermons were not common. In contrast, the most active preaching com-
munities were those of the Mediterranean region, especially in the Iberian penin-
sula, and even then the evidence to confirm the nature and extent of preaching is
slim before 1500 (Saperstein 2000).
Unlike Christian preachers, who saw themselves as the os Domini (mouth of
the Lord), the Jews did not usually claim that they had been called upon by God
to preach. Christian preachers spoke with the authority of the Church, but Jewish
preachers were not necessarily even rabbis. By around 1300, we know that much
like for their Christian counterparts, there were preaching aids made available to
assist Jewish preachers by providing not model sermons, but biblical and rabbinic
statements related to various specific subjects and organized alphabetically for
easier access. We should also note that most of the Jewish sermons were not
delivered in Hebrew, but in the spoken vernacular language of the communities
in which they lived. Because there was no hierarchy in the Jewish communities
comparable to that of the Christian bishop, archbishop or abbot who could order

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that a sermon might be recorded, and because there was no known charismatic or
famous Jewish preachers such as the Christian Jacques de Vitry, the texts of
Jewish sermons were not preserved by contemporary hearers of those sermons.
Thus, the issue of interpreting the impact of a Jewish sermon is even more
complicated by the fact that most medieval texts of sermons were written after the
event. If a sermon was to be read later, it was necessary then to write the text in
Hebrew, which was like Latin for the literate Christian of the time, and Hebrew
had many stylistic facets that were quite apart from the spoken vernacular.
Regardless, certain aspects of the oral delivery had to be present in the written
form, and this allows us insight into the mindset of the Jewish preacher and his
community. For example, references to individuals in a congregation, a reference
to the reason for the sermon, allusions to recent historical events or local con-
cerns, or criticism of the community’s fallacies, the use of particular exempla to
clarify abstractions, or instances of humor are part of a written version (Saperstein
2000, 188–89). Yes, there are texts, but they are much fewer than the Christian
corpus and only post-1220. We have mostly isolated texts as well, so it is difficult
to read community reaction in any particular region. Since the synagogue audi-
ence for sermons included the entire community, we do not have to try to
distinguish a “lay” from a “clerical” audience response as in the case of the
Christian world. However, given the range of listeners from the barely literate to
Talmudic scholar in that audience, the question for modern scholars remains:
how can we know the impact of any sermon with its intention “to educate,
reassure, console or inspire” (Saperstein 2000, 190–91)?
II Regional Preaching of the Thirteenth Century
Whereas much of the audience for the Latin sermon remained the literate clerical
readers in monasteries or cathedral schools (Beriou 2000), the growth of popular
preaching in the thirteenth century necessitated the rapid growth of the use of the
vernacular throughout Europe. In Italy, for example, modern scholars note that
preaching saw the development of a dynamic interrelationship among three
elements: the Bible as portrayed in a liturgical context; a public fluid in its
reception and shaping of the religious message; and, the evolving rhetoric of
sermons (Delcorno 2000, 449). Driven by what Carlo Delcorno calls the “almost
intoxicating quality… of public discourse,” the period from 1200 to 1500 was
dominated by the use of the “sermo modernus,” which, while still aiming at the
explanation of Scripture with a base on a biblical verse (thema), could adjust to
treat almost any sort of issue, whether it be theological, moral or political
(Delcorno 2000, 450–51). The primary focus appears to have been moral in

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nature, especially in preaching to the laity and in the amplified use of the
exemplum to help prepare the audience for confession and penance. After 1215,
when the Fourth Lateran Council prescribed annual confession and Easter Com-
munion for every Christian, the requirement for preaching linked the preacher to
the confessor.
In Italy in the midst of the turbulence of urban heretical preaching by the
Cathars, Waldensians, and Humiliati, the Franciscans responded with a message
of conversion and peace. Francis (1181–1226) himself preached at Bologna on the
feast of the Assumption in 1222 a sermon intended “ad extinguendas inimicitias et
ad pacis foedera reformanda” (to extinguish hostilities and to establish peace
treaties Delcorno 2000, 452). Similarly the Lenten sermons in 1231 by Saint
Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) ended with a general peacemaking attempt. This
continued in the Alleluia of 1233 with preaching by both Franciscans and Domin-
icans, and the work of the Observant Franciscans into the fifteenth century as
well, as perhaps best exemplified in the preaching of Bernadino of Siena (1380–
1444) in 1427 (Delcorno 2000, 450–52; Lesnick 1989).
In France, the sermo modernus was also popular from 1200 to 1500. Preachers
used earlier models of sermons and drew exempla from well-known preachers,
including Jacques de Vitry and the Dominicans Jacobus da Voragine (ca 1230–
1298) and Étienne de Bourbon (ca. 1195–ca. 1261). It was not until Erasmus (ca.
1466–1536) came to France in 1495 and introduced the ideas of Christian Human-
ism to the students of the Collège de Montaigu that the models were eventually
supplanted in the 1530s. The modern method was suited to French society of the
thirteenth century because the model of sermon construction developed by the
Paris masters in the twelfth century offered an outline to enable greater coherence
to the sermons. Second, as an oral event, the sermon required the use of auditory
and visual cues that served as mnemonic devices to facilitate understanding and
retention by the mostly non-literate audience. Thus, repetition of themes, use of
lists, numbers, and the like all served this purpose.
In the thirteenth century preaching in France was dominated by the mendi-
cants, and their mandate to spread the Word of God and to root out heresy
affected the way sermons were constructed and delivered. As time passed one
notes some differences in the reception of the sermons. Though mostly alike in
structure and content, sermons delivered by Franciscans were reportedly more
likely to appeal to the emotions of the simple listener, and the Dominican
sermons, which were more learned in content and style, were more likely to
appeal to a more sophisticated urban inhabitant (Taylor 2000, 711–12; 720–21).
Most preaching was done during the liturgical year, and the Bible was the primary
source for preachers. Larissa Taylor indicates that 76% of all citations in sermons
in France came from the Bible, with those from the Old Testament only slightly

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favored above those from the New (Taylor 2000, 719). Preachers were constantly
challenged to shape sermons to fit the ordinary person, thus stick to a simple
Christian message, avoid the esoteric, and “determine if the audience sins from
the passions and fragility of human nature or out of simple obstinacy”(Taylor
2000, 718). As students of human nature and its psychology, the mendicants rose
to the challenge and the audience was usually drawn in through a combination of
instruction and entertainment. Exempla, personal anecdotes, jokes even, as well
as fables and animal stories, the use of earthy everyday metaphors, and simulated
dialogues were just a few of the devices used to connect to the listeners. Ulti-
mately, as a call to action by the individual to reform his or her life, or for society
itself to become more Christian, the French sermon of this era provides insight
into the views of the preachers about the nature of the society they addressed.
Though extant sermon texts from the Iberian Peninsula are scarce, we can
gleam some insight from other sources such as chronicles, legislation, synod
records or histories of the Church, visitation records by bishops, or confessor
records, for example. In this case we are looking at preaching in three different
vernacular languages (Castilian, Portuguese, and Catalan), as well as in a com-
mon language of the literate, Latin. The complex nature of the geo-political
structure on the peninsula from 1200 to 1500 also makes for difficult general-
izations about preaching.
All of this has been outlined by Manuel Ambrosio Sànchez Sànchez, who has
drawn some preliminary conclusions (Sànchez 2000, 759–860). First, little
preaching was done at all in the rural areas because of negligence and the lack of
an educated clergy. This void was occasionally filled by the appearance of a
mendicant friar. But the need apparently was not being met even by 1303, because
the Synod of Leon then made such a case of insisting that parish priests preach
every Sunday that it was clear that there remained a failure of priests to execute
the mandate. Still later in Salamanca in the synod of 1396, it was noted that the
clergy were ignorant of the basic elements of doctrine and so could not preach
them. Second, the urban areas fared somewhat better after the appearance and
permanent establishment of the mendicant orders. Reading from extant sermon
collections indicates that most often sermons were focused on the topic of peni-
tence, with the parishioners being reminded that the path to salvation leads
through contrition, confession, and penance. Penance should be considered a
way of life if man is to beat his enemies—the world, the devil and the flesh. Finally,
it appears that the Iberian sermons do not differ significantly in form as a literary
genre in this period from those found elsewhere in Europe (Sànchez 2000, 796).
In addition to the sermons embedded into the annual liturgical cycle, Iberian
sermons also highlight special events, or focus on special targets. The former
would include funerals, while the latter encompassed Apocalyptic sermons, as

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well as those for a crusade, or polemics against Jews and heretics. Parallel to the
sermon delivered for a funeral itself, there are also sermons de mortuis or de
defunctis which philosophically contemplate the nature and significance of death
(Sànchez 2000, 768–71). Probably the most famous of Iberian preachers was
Vicente Ferrer (1350–1419), a Dominican who attempted to solve the Schism and
the inheritance problems within the reign of Aragon, and undertook a wide-
ranging preaching mission that carried him into France, Italy, Switzerland and
the Low Countries, as well as the Iberian peninsula (Sànchez 2000, 804). Ferrer is
noted for his thematic preaching that favored a very simple rhetorical style. He
felt he could achieve his goal best through the unity of the various parts of the
sermon, and by involving his audience, sometimes as in a dialogue. Finally, from
his sermons one can gain insight into the political and social ideas of his
contemporaries, and can discern his own personal contempt for usury, fashion
among women, immorality among the clergy, and vices in general (Sànchez
2000, 807).
Dating from before 800 C.E., with the evidence provided by three sermon
fragments by an anonymous author(s) known as the “Isidore Translator,” the
German sermon represents one of the oldest genres of medieval vernacular
literature (Schiewer 2000, 861). During the reign of Charlemagne (d. 806) the
issuance of the Admonitio generalis made preaching the duty of the bishop, and in
the early ninth century text of the Exhortatio ad plebem christianum we have
evidence that preaching actually took place. However, the bulk of the extant
evidence enabling us to understand the nature and impact of medieval German
sermons begins around the end of the twelfth century.
In the thirteenth century the ad populum and ad monialum sermons of the
German friars were most noteworthy, whereas in the fourteenth century it was
sermons by the German mystics that stood out. Like their other European counter-
parts in the earlier period, German priests were urged to preach in a way that
could be easily understood. It is most likely that these sermons were written by
Benedictine monks or Augustinian canons. Although intended mostly for a mon-
astic audience, there is evidence that after 1200 some were directed toward a
wider range of audience, including ad populum sermons for the laity (Schiewer
2000, 862–65). Regardless of the audience, the site for these sermons was the
regular worship service.
Most prominent among the thirteenth—century mendicant preachers in Ger-
many was the Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg (ca. 1220–1272), who preached
in both Latin and the vernacular. Modern scholarship indicates that most of the
sermons attributed to Berthold were not written by him, but through the examina-
tion of chronicle reports we do have some understanding of his method of preach-
ing and his influence. Beginning in Bavaria in ca. 1250, his preaching mission

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spread widely and popularly throughout the Rhineland and Switzerland. By 1260
he was further east in Austria, Hungary, and perhaps Bohemia. He was so popular
that Pope Urban IV asked him to preach the crusade in 1263. In all of his preach-
ing Berthold consistently focused on the common man. He avoided theological
issues; instead, his sermons are witness to everyday issues, including the super-
stitions and prejudices of the communities, with the emphasis on persuading his
audience to a true repentance for their sins. Making good use of allegory, Bert-
hold’s known sermons are sprinkled with humor and vivid illustrations likely to
hold the audience’s attention.
Outside of Berthold, there are a few other extant collections of German
sermons of the thirteenth century by anonymous authors. Probably the most
prominent is the Schwarzwälder Predigten of the late thirteenth century sermons
by Franciscans most likely. It consists of fifty-five sermons for the temporal cycle,
and forty-six for the sanctoral, many of which emphasize God’s grace and mercy.
Later in the thirteenth century Dominican predecessors to Meister Eckhart begin
to appear in such collections as the Kölner Klosterpredigten (Cologne Monastic
Sermons), where the emphasis shifts away from the everyday matters found in
Berthold to the mystical (Schiewer 2002, 870–71).
According to Hans-Jochen Schiewer, “The mystical sermon developed pri-
marily within the framework of the Dominican cura monialium and spiritual care
of the laity” (Schiewer 2000, 874). In the early fourteenth century these sermons
became the basis for developing the so-called German Dominican theological
school, as illustrated in the Dominican sermon collection known as the Paradisus
anime intelligentis. The German theologians gathered around first Dietrich of
Freiberg (1250–1310) and then Eckhart von Hocheim, who was best known simply
as Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–ca. 1327). Dietrich wrote extensively on nearly every
known branch of medieval theology, philosophy and natural science, and was
especially noted for his contributions on the subject to natural science. Though
not known for his sermons, his ideas permeated the works of his contemporaries
such as Eckhart, whose best-known works are his sermons, which ultimately led
to the latter’s inconclusive trial as a heretic by Pope John XXII (1244–1334) near
the end of his life.
The known vernacular sermons of Eckhart (thirty two of which are found in
the Paradisus anime intelligentis) were preached in a time of great turmoil for the
Church, with the papacy at Avignon, the growth of a number of restless and pious
lay groups, and the ongoing process of the Inquisition trying to root out the
further spread of heresy. The fact that he regularly preached in the vernacular
suggests the intended audience to be the laity. Although his sermons may seem
less likely to influence the laity, because they focus on a wide theological range of
topics, it can be seen how his emphasis on the presence of God in the soul of each

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individual, as well as the dignity of that soul, would appeal to a lay audience
troubled by the problems of the fourteenth-century Church. The ongoing research
seems to confirm that he exercised a considerable influence, with his words being
“found assimilated into collections of aphorisms and excerpts, and into compila-
tions of tract literature.” His influence is even more obvious in the works of his
disciples Heinrich Seuse (also known as Henry Suso, 1300–1366) and Johannes
Tauler (ca. 1300–1361), and as it is found in various sermon collections of the
fourteenth century (Schiewer 2000, 875–79).
By the time we reach the fifteenth century, German preaching had come
under the influence of the religious reform ideas, especially the Dominican
observance movement, and the developing urban preaching offices. The reintro-
duction of a strict observance of the mendicant and Benedictine Rules, as well as
the practices of lay orders such as the Devotio moderna led to a rapid growth in
the production of sacred literature which is just beginning to be studied by
today’s scholars. Many of the three thousand sermons collected so far have yet to
be published. A good bit of the sermon production was apparently exchanged
within and among the houses of the different orders. Largely an urban phenom-
enon, Strasbourg, for example, presents “a culture of city-wide preaching, which
makes it a model for urban sermon history” (Schiewer 2000, 886–87).
Peter of Breslau (ca. 1445), a Dominican confessor who left us thirty three
sermons that focus on the cura monialium for sisters of the observant convent of
St. Nikolaus, illustrates one of the favorite German themes of the fifteenth century
sermon, namely that of Christ’s Passion. In the other direction, it is clear that the
urban growth led to a need for even greater attention to the laity. John Geiler
(1445–1510), who took over the newly created preaching office in Strasbourg in
1479, preached a sermon cycle in Augsburg in 1488 that dealt with the concept of
the contemplative life for the lay public in which he reflected the ideas of Jean
Gerson (1363–1429) that a “theologia mystica” should not be an elite theology, but
a “piety based on prayer and penitence, which can lead to a mystical union and
which every believer, regardless of his education, can realize”(Schiewer 2000,
890 n. 71).
III Crusade Sermons in the Thirteenth Century
Late in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), crusade preaching took a turn
away from the charismatic individuals such as Bernard of Clairvaux, to the
institution of wholesale preaching by the friars minor. Early in his papacy,
Innocent seemed to believe in the older model, but the preaching of the Fourth
Crusade from 1198–1204 lacked unity. For example, instead of a single individual

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to lead the effort, Innocent wanted to step up the coverage and his wholesale
selection of preachers was not always prudent. Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202), for
example, had an excellent reputation for piety and oratorical skill, but at the time
of his selection was seventy years old, and his eschatological views were being
questioned by the Church lawyers; even Innocent himself had some doubts (Cole
1991, 98; 85–86). The best known popular preacher selected by Innocent was Fulk
of Neuilly (d. 1201), who began his preaching as a parish curate, but rose beyond
to preach to large audiences of the laity, and to the masters at Paris. As early as
1198, Fulk came to the attention of Innocent who “commanded the worthy priest
to preach a crusade in his name” (Cole 1991, 87). Fulk recruited a number of
others to assist him, but overall the effort was not very successful. It has been
suggested that Fulk failed because he tried to do too much by linking his crusade
mandate to the preaching of a moral revolution, with the emphasis more on the
latter (Cole 1991, 90).
The failure of the Fourth Crusade (1204) led Innocent III to recalculate his
goals for preaching the crusade. Near the end of his reign, the bulwark of the
Christian faith against the rising tide of heresy was defined at the Lateran Council
of 1215, and tools were provided to facilitate the diocesan preachers, as well as the
preaching of the crusades beyond local boundaries. For the latter, it was deemed
important, as evidenced in the Brevis ordinacio de predicacione crucis, to confirm
the purpose of the crusade as a means to achieve personal salvation. This was like
the ars praedicandi, a guide for preaching the crusade, but we know little about
how it was actually used. We do know that preachers such as Jacques de Vitry,
who began his career as a fellow student of Fulk of Neuilly at Paris and subse-
quently rose to prominence in the first quarter of the thirteenth century and
preached the Fifth Crusade, were responsive to ideas such as those contained in
the Brevis. His Sermones ad crucesignatos focus on the loss of Jerusalem and the
suffering of Christ there that must be redeemed by a new crusade. He reminded
the men he sought to recruit of both their “feudal obligation” in the service of
God, and the promise of the eternal life with God if they respond to His call.
Jacques also drew on the connection he made between the crucifixion and
crusading to provide the audience with a new meaning for the crusades and their
role in expressing their love for Christ by responding to his time of need with their
love for Him.
The sermons of Jacques de Vitry illustrate another change in crusade preach-
ing based upon lessons learned by Innocent III. From his earlier policy of a more
discriminant signing of crusaders, Innocent now apparently understood the value
of recruiting both warriors and those who might support the crusades in other
ways. For example, de Vitry’s collection of crusade sermons has two types, one
urging the warrior to take up the cross and do battle; the other addressed to

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noncombatants (i.e., wives, children and aging parents) attesting to the value of
the sermon for them, meaning an inspiration leading to confession, the taking of
the cross, and then providing funds for someone else to go to battle in their place.
Following the untimely death of Innocent, his successors did not cease
efforts to recapture Jerusalem. Honorius III (r. 1216–1227) saw to the implementa-
tion of the Fifth Crusade which ultimately floundered in Egypt, for example, but
as a result of these ongoing failures the papacy began to change the rationale for
crusading in order to explain why Christians had failed to retake Jerusalem. More
and more the sermons reflect a response to the growing criticism of crusading by
laying the blame for failure on the laxity of Christian sinners, and the need to see
the crusade as a major act of penance. For example, one crusade sermon of John
of Abbeville (d. 1237), an early follower of Peter the Chanter and Stephen
Langton and later cardinal and papal legate, uses Ps. 78.4 as the basis for his
chastisement of the audience with the words “We have become a source of
reproach to our neighbors …,” and Lam. 5.2, “Our inheritance has been turned
over to aliens….” Having set the scene, John then raises the specific question in
the minds of many in the thirteenth century: Why has God let this happen? His
answer is Christian moral failure and the lack of penitence for their sins (Cole
1991, 151–52).
Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–1241) was quite important in the crusading effort for
several reasons, but perhaps he is best known for having officially assigned a
major role for preaching the crusades to the Franciscans and Dominicans in 1234
(Cole 1991, 161). By the 1260s the friars were the most prominent among the
preachers in the field and they were producing new works on how to preach the
crusades as well. The Franciscan Guibert of Tournai (d. ca. 1284) was a theologian
and mystic, as well as a preacher himself, and spent some time at the court of
Louis IX (1214–1270) the saintly French crusader. His writings contain a number
of ad status sermons, including three regarding the preaching of the crusade.
Based on internal evidence, it would appear that these sermons may have been
actually preached, perhaps by Guibert himself. These sermons focus on the
significance of the cross for crusaders and they use a number of exempla which
are likely drawn from Jacques de Vitry to develop the themes. Throughout these
three sermons of Guibert, we see clearly the message that people are not respond-
ing to the crusade rhetoric, regardless of how much guilt, the promise of salva-
tion, or the fear of damnation is laid upon the shoulders of the crusade sermon
audiences (Cole 1991, 199–201).
The Dominican friar Humbert of Romans (ca. 1190–1277), who served as
master general of the Order from 1254 to 1263, also recognized the severity of the
need to attract people back to the crusade mission, and he understood the nature
of popular criticism of the failed efforts of the thirteenth century. Thus, around

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1265, he composed De praedicacione crucis, a new manual for preachers of the

crusade. At the beginning of this text Humbert states his purpose, namely to
provide preachers with a variety of materials, including some complete sermons,
to enable them to preach more effectively against the Saracens. He then lets the
readers know that he will also develop a number of topics, and each repeatedly
with different support materials, in order to provide flexibility for the preacher to
develop a sermon to meet the needs of each different preaching opportunity. Like
Jacques de Vitry, Humbert recognized the need to provide sermons for both the
potential combatant and the non-combatant who might provide funds for the
crusade. Acknowledging the needs and interests of those who stay home, he
offers the argument that it is more worthy to fund the crusade than it is to give to
other causes such as the building of a church, or even more so than to give to the
sick and the poor because the latter are local needs, whereas the crusade is for the
benefit of all Christendom (Cole 1991, 202–05). Perhaps most interestingly, Hum-
bert topped his collection of aids for crusade preaching with a copy of the sermon
of Pope Urban II at Clermont, thus directly connecting preachers to a model of a
successful crusade sermon, which in the words of Penny Cole: “demonstrated
that the crusade had been, by implication, and could continue to be preached as
a salvatory war proclaimed by the church in defense of the faith” (Cole 1991, 217).
IV Model Sermons and the Preaching of the Crusades
One other example of the specific use made by model sermons is found in the
collections of model sermons for the preaching of the crusades. Christoph Maier
has advanced scholars much further along the pathway for an in-depth study of
these sermons and their authors, who are among the most prominent of crusade
preachers in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. For his most recent
study of crusade preaching, Maier selected and edited ad status sermon texts by
Jacques de Vitry, Eudes of Châteauroux, Gilbert of Tournai (ca. 1200–1284),
Humbert de Romans and Bertrand de la Tour (ca. 1262–1332). Therein he also
examines the role of these sermons in the pastoral reform movement initiated in
Paris around 1200 in the circle of Peter the Chanter, and shows how important it
was deemed necessary to develop crusade propaganda to try to offset the growing
apathy or outright resistance to crusading (Maier 1994 and 1998; 2000).
To make clear the need and the means for pastoral reform it was necessary to
reach a broad cross-section of medieval society, and the only really mass medium
for doing so was the sermon. Many of these preachers saw the possibility of
accomplishing both reform and the launch of a new crusade by linking the two
goals in their sermons. In order to achieve the goals, regular preaching had to be

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insured, and many new preachers had to be prepared. At Lateran IV in 1215

Innocent III took the step to require regular diocesan preaching, and the Francis-
cans and Dominicans led the way in both preaching and educating the clergy to
become better preachers. The model sermons were just one of the means, but
perhaps became the “most useful of the preaching aids” (Maier 2000, 6). The
mendicants also provided a hierarchic structure and network of their houses in
various locations that the papacy could use to propagandize the crusade effort.
All but one of five authors listed above were active crusade preachers, with their
sermon collections among the most popular of the later medieval period; all but
Bertrand spent most of their lives in the reform climate at Paris; all produced
many preaching aids; and three of the five played prominent roles in the mendi-
cant communities they served (Maier 2000, 8).
Overall, in the sermons of these five we see many similarities in their
approach to the crusade. For example, picking up on the strong message of
Innocent III, they describe crusaders in very positive terms, even creating an
image of them as morally superior beings compared to those who were choosing
not to take up the cross. Because of the division between warriors and other kinds
of supporters, these preachers underlined how it was possible for everyone to
participate, even the poor who might donate a very small amount but still main-
tain the momentum for crusading. The crusade was placed in the middle of the
medieval preaching narrative of penance, redemption and salvation, with the
idea that becoming a crusader meant that one would actually enter “a more
thoroughly Christian life” (Maier 2000, 64–67). Thus, these collections of model
sermons were presented as two kinds of model: (1) a model of how to preach the
sermon; and (2) an individual model for the potential crusader who by taking up
the cross could assume the best way to devote oneself to Christ.
E Uses of the Sermon in the Fourteenth and

Fifteenth Centuries
First, using England as the example, well-known preachers of the late Middle
Ages such as John Wyclif (ca. 1330–1384) were strong believers in the power of the
sermon. Wyclif even considered preaching a more important function of the
priesthood than administering the sacraments. Although he composed many
sermons in Latin and English, he strongly encouraged the clergy to preach in the
language of the people, even to the point of breaking with the Church tradition by
arguing that the laity should also be allowed to preach (Dolnikowski 1998, 371–
72; Hudson and Gradon, ed., 1983–96; Thomson 1983). In his Latin sermon

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collection we find both sermons per se and teaching materials for preachers.
Wyclif was conservative in his approach to preaching, as he was in most of his
theological beliefs, even though the latter got him into trouble with the papacy.
He rejected the more flamboyant methods of the mendicants, for example,
and selected a text from Scripture carefully to elucidate a bit of its theological
meaning before ending with a concrete lesson for the faithful (Dolnikowski 1998,
374–75).
As he became increasingly critical of the Church, Wyclif also sought to root
out the weaknesses he saw in preaching. In noting several barriers to good
preaching, Wyclif chided the clergy for seeking lucrative and comfortable
parishes, while refusing to reach out to the poor and the sick. He attacked next
the power exercised by the bishops over preaching, claiming that their rigid
control of their own parishes closed out needed preaching opportunities that
crossed beyond those boundaries. Thus, overall, Wyclif seemed to argue that for
these two reasons the need for preaching was greater than the service being
provided, because the clergy were too confined within the limits of their own
parishes, and that these limitations weakened the passion for preaching itself
(Dolnikowski 1998, 380–81). Like other late medieval preachers, Wyclif let his
audiences know his increasingly skeptical views of the nature of the Church, and
argued that Scripture (not the Church hierarchy) should be the sole basis for
determining the nature of the faith and the practice of the believers. This led to
the condemnation of his views as heresy.
Another English example of the way public preaching was becoming more
and more a forum for social and political issues is found in the preaching done at
Paul’s Cross outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Though the occasion for
sermons was somewhat traditionally on Sunday afternoons, as well as important
religious or civic festivals, the content was more controversial or reached beyond
local boundaries, such as the preaching done on the occasion of the symbolic
burning of heretical books of Wyclif, or the recantations by his later followers. As
late as 1490 it is reported that Lollards were forced to stand before preachers at
Paul’s Cross acknowledging the shame of their misguided beliefs (Horner 1998,
267–68). Even the disruptions to preaching of crusades across England and
France caused by the Hundred Years War are reflected in the preaching at Paul’s
Cross. The use of Paul’s Cross as a forum for public discussion of political and
social questions had been demonstrated many times earlier, but the preaching of
Thomas Bradwardine (ca. 1290–1346) in the early fourteenth century in praise of
the English victory at the Battle of Crécy, and that by Bishop Thomas Brunton (ca.
1320–1389) lamenting recent military setbacks in the 1370s and 1380s, put the
context of failure in rather ironic terms remindful of the thirteenth-century lamen-
tations over the failure of the crusades to Jerusalem: “But I am fearful that

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because of our sins every part of our kingdom falls and collapses, and God, who
was accustomed to be English, abandons us” (Horner 1998, 269).
Meanwhile, on the continent, John Hus (ca. 1369–1415), who had been
influenced by the teachings of Wyclif, began around 1402 with his preaching
from the pulpit at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague to address his lay audiences
with exhortations to live a life of piety in order to nurture a life of “faith formed
by love.” Mostly Hus was in despair over the spiritual condition of the faithful in
Prague, but he reached more broadly to castigate the social evils of worldliness
in general, especially the sins of fornication, adultery, and drunkenness. As he
grew more disappointed with the performance of the Church clergy and its
hierarchy, Hus also began to define his church in such a way as to justify
disobedience of his clerical superior, Archbishop Zbyněk, and even the pope
himself. In his efforts to reach out to the public Hus composed ninety-nine
sermons for the church year 1404–1405 alone. Eventually his sermons and his
teachings in particular led to his excommunication in 1411, which aroused public
indignation in Prague, where he had become such a popular preacher (Spinka
1965, 37–38; 1968).
F Conclusion
The past forty years of medieval sermon research have revealed much insight into
the nature of sermons, their form, their foci, their audiences, and ongoing issues
which still must be addressed as scholars attempt to further mine the richness of
this resource for an interdisciplinary understanding of medieval culture. Though
the written form was Latin for most of the sermons, we know that they were also
written and definitely preached in the vernacular. We know from the early days of
sermon writing in the fourth to seventh centuries, with the Church Fathers Augus-
tine and Pope Gregory I as models, that much of the purpose and structure of
sermons, as well as the site for preaching and identity of the preachers was being
established, and that the reliance on authority never left the focus of medieval
preaching. It is also clear that sermons were the primary means of mass commu-
nication during the entire Middle Ages in Europe, and that sermons were the
primary vehicle for exhortation to reform within the Church throughout that
period. We know that sermons were focused on the salvation of the individual
regardless of how they were used to preach reform, urge a crusade, or attack the
Church for its failure to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful from the time of
Augustine to the pre-Reformation sermons of reformers such as Wyclif and Hus.
Because of the vast number of extant manuscripts now collected, but not yet fully
studied, any overview of the medieval sermon such as this can only fail to do

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Sermon Study justice. This review has only touched the surface and called atten-
tion to only a few of the versatile, skilled, and influential preachers of the era.
Readers are thus urged to dig deeply into the literature cited, and the enormous
bibliographies therein, in order to pursue their own interests with an expectation
of a great reward. However, let us conclude with a brief indication of some of the
more pressing issues that are driving current study.
Moving far from the early nineteenth century treating of sermons as the
history of dogma (e.g., Bourgain 1879; Lecoy de la Marche 1886; Cruel 1879;
Linsenmayer 1986), today’s research reveals a wide-open approach that views the
sermon as a reflection of the general culture (Thayer 2012; Bériou and d’Avray,
ed., 1994; Muessig 2002; Roberts 1999). As one might expect, current sermon
research thus reflects the concerns of current society. Scholars are approaching
issues that concern the role of women (Kienzle and Walker, ed., 1998), the role of
the sermon in the life of the laity, and what can be learned about lay preachers
and their sermons, or the role of the sermon within the popular culture. The
ongoing SERMO project, for example, is seeking to collect a more thorough body
of vernacular sermons for study (Thayer 2012, n. 21, p. 57). This concern with
culture has also led to a broader approach to sermons that is both interdisciplin-
ary and comparative, i.e., comparing themes and related issues between and
among sermon collections instead of focusing so much on individual sermons or
collections (Amos et al., ed., 1989). For example, regarding the former, scholars
are now examining the influence of music and the reflection of sermons in the art
of cathedrals, or the use of theatrical techniques in preaching (Donavin et al., ed.,
2004; Waters 2004; Kienzle 2002). The use of computers to study the vast sermon
literature using content analysis and related tools is also growing (De Reu 2004).
One of the ongoing issues in the study of sermons and sermon collections is
more strictly methodological (Anderson, ed., 2007; Kienzle, ed., 2000; Bataillon
1980). Since 1969 with Schneyer’s work in editing and publishing the huge
number of sermons (Schneyer 1969–1990), we have a large resource to work with,
but scholars still must try to determine the context for preaching, the nature of the
audience, the issues of transcription from the vernacular to the Latin and vice-
versa, and the possible impact of the sermons when we have the differences
between the more or less literate preacher and the variety of listeners in the
various audiences to consider. The extant sermons we have were transmitted over
time in several forms, including the written, which may or may not have been
preached. Sometimes we have a full text, and at other times only a partial one.
Shorter forms of transmission include summary reports or even outlines of
sermons that usually consist of a brief overview of the structure of the sermon and
its authorities used to support the main points. Then there are the more complete
reportatio, which are based on a listener at the time of delivery who took notes

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and wrote not only about the structure and authorities, but also mentioned
exempla used, as well as providing some sense of the preacher’s oratorical style
and the audience reaction. Finally, we have a large number of model sermons and
model sermon collections to decipher. Though most prominent in the post-1200
period, there are collections dating back to Paul the Deacon (ca. 720–ca. 799),
who played a prominent role in the Carolingian reform of the eighth century.
Under these circumstances, a key issue is the problem of determining the
reliability of any given text. In trying to verify authorship, for example, various
methods have been tried, the most recent being championed by David d’Avray,
who uses pecia in conjunction with other manuscripts from various textual
groups to try to verify authenticity. Developed in the thirteenth century, pecia
were copies of pieces of sermon manuscripts borrowed from a stationer and then
copied over for personal use to produce numerous copies that facilitated mass
distribution before the invention of printing (Thayer 2012; D’Avray 2001).
For the period after 1200 scholars note more complex sermon structures and
several styles currently called thematic; “modern” (i.e., purposefully breaking
with the older homiletic form); scholastic (i.e., showing the same interest in
organizing knowledge as the masters at Paris did with theology, but not preached
in the schools); university; and, mendicant. Of all these, the thematic sermon was
the most popular from 1200–1500 because of its flexibility and its adaptability to
all audiences (Thayer 2012; Muessig 1998; D’Avray 1985). Future research will
likely expand on the comparative study of these texts to enrich our understanding
of medieval popular culture.
Building upon preaching as a reflection of medieval culture, Anne Thayer has
recently argued that it was also “a powerful shaper of medieval culture” (Thayer
2002, 194–95). Thayer further encourages scholars to broaden the study of the
author, the content, and the context of sermons in order to further enhance our
understanding of the sermon culture. As an example of what she means, she cites
the study by Beverly Kienzle of Hildegard of Bingen’s gospel homilies which
provides insight regarding how Hildegard’s visions gave her justification for
preaching within a culture that did not authorize women to preach (Thayer 2012,
53; Kienzle 2009, 2–3).
Finally, perhaps among the more interesting issues for future historians of
the sermon in the Middle Ages, and exciting for research, are found in questions
of theory. Given what we know about the power of words and the voice, how can
we use the work of anthropologists and linguists on communication by the
literate to the non-literate to further understand the effectiveness of sermons? Can
computer technology help us better understand the relationship among sermon
themes, and help us to compare similarities and differences among the various
regional sermon collections more efficiently and more effectively given the large

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volume of material we have to work with? Can performance theory, or the concept
that framing techniques are used by the mind to interpret actions, enlighten our
knowledge of the way sermons were constructed and why they were effective in
rousing people to action? Are these really a way of better understanding what we
mean by “charisma,” a term we often apply to preachers of the Middle Ages such
as Bernard of Clairvaux (Thayer 2012, 50; Kienzle 2002)? What about the value of
comparative studies of Jewish and Muslim sermon practices which are just begin-
ning to be explored, and interwoven into the interdisciplinary examination of
Christian sermons? All of these suggest an interesting long-term future for the
study of how the medieval sermon was both a powerful mirror and a powerful
tool throughout the history of the Middle Ages (Morenzoni, ed., 2013).
Select Bibliography
Amos, Thomas Leslie, Eugen A. Green and Beverly Mayne Kienzle, ed., De Ore Domini: Preacher
and Word in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, MI, 1989).
Bataillon, Louis-Jacques, “Approaches to the Study of Medieval Sermons,” Leeds Studies in
English n.s. 11 (1980): 19–35.
Berkey, Jonathan P., Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East
(Seattle, WA, 2001).
D’Avray, David L., The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford
1985).
Donavin, Georgiana, Cary J. Nederman and Richard Utz, ed., Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplin-
ary Reflections on the Medieval Sermon (Turnhout 2004).
Kienzle, Beverly Mayne, ed., The Sermon (Turnhout 2000).
Kienzle, Beverly Mayne and Pamela J. Walker, ed., Women Preachers and Prophets Through Two
Millennia of Christianity (Berkeley, CA, 1998).
Muessig, Carolyn, Preacher, Sermon, and Audience in the Middle Ages (Leiden 2002).
Muessig, Carolyn, ed., Medieval Monastic Preaching (Leiden and Boston, MA, 1998).
Roberts, Phyllis, “Sermon Studies Scholarship: The Last Thirty-Five Years,” Medieval Sermon
Studies 43 (1999): 9–18.
Schneyer, Johannes B., Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von
1150–1350 (Münster 1969–1990), 11 vols.
Thayer, Anne T., “The Medieval Sermon: Text, Performance and Insight,” Understanding Medie-
val Primary Sources, ed. Joel T. Rosenthal (London and New York 2012), 43–58.
Zajkowski, Robert W., “Sermons,” Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms – Methods –Trends, ed.
Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York 2010), vol. 3, 2077–86.

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Timothy Runyan
Ships and Seafaring
A Ship Building
The ship was a central feature of the medieval economy on the seas and inland
waterways, including the lengthy Rhine and Danube Rivers. The Mediterranean
Sea was home to the seafaring traditions of the ancient world. Subsequent devel-
opments would see the expansion of shipping along the Northern Seas—the Baltic,
North Sea, and Atlantic Ocean including the Bay of Biscay. The seafaring tradi-
tions of the east—the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean, were distinct, but
influenced developments in the west. This was especially true after the rise of
Islam in the seventh century and the expansion of Arab seafaring. The European
seafaring tradition is the product of distinct regional and external influences that
are perhaps best identified in the construction of ships (Lewis and Runyan 1985).
Ancient seafarers constructed ships using a variety of techniques. Roman
ships were built by joining the hull planks using mortise-and-tenon construction.
Rectangular shaped mortises were cut into the edges of planks and tenons were
inserted to hold the planks together. Wooden dowels or nails were driven through
the tenons to keep the planks from pulling apart. We have learned from investiga-
tions of Roman shipwrecks that the mortises were closely spaced, making for a
very tight and sturdy hull. Only when the hull was formed were interior frames
added to provide additional strength and to support decks. This form of hull-first
construction did not limit the size of ships as one might suspect. The Romans
constructed vessels in excess of 1000 tons for carrying grain and other bulk
commodities. But this method of construction was very labor intensive and
demanded skilled laborers (Casson 1995, 201–23; Morrison, ed., 1995, 127–32).
The succeeding method of construction, frame-first construction, simply
reversed the process and began by creating the frames that formed a skeleton of
the ship. The planks were then attached. The strength of this ship was no longer
the rigid hull, but the keel and framing timbers. Ships built in this fashion had
several advantages. They were simpler to build, requiring fewer skilled workers—
no more chiseling thousands of mortises and tenons. Their construction was less
labor intensive. They could probably be built more quickly. They were lighter.
These are important considerations to a merchant ship owner who must consider
the cost of his vessel in relationship to the profit he hopes to earn through the
carriage of goods. All of this conditioned by risk—many vessels never returned
home, and therefore never made a profit. It also meant that the buyer wanted a

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Ships and Seafaring 1611
ship that was suited to his needs. There were a variety of designs to choose from
(Steffy 1994).The standard vessel for war and carriage of high value cargoes was
the galley. Roman liburnae (galleys) were capable of sailing on their own or
rowed. The galley was versatile and less subject to the winds or lack of wind, than
a pure sailing ship. Oarsmen propelled the vessel in calms, or to direct her where
the wind might not allow, or against an enemy. Galleys carried sails. Roman
galleys had a single mast supporting a yard carrying a square sail, and usually a
smaller square sail at the bow. This smaller sail was helpful in controlling this
ship which was directed by a single rudder, or pair of rudders affixed to the stern
quarters of the hull (Morrison, ed., 1995).
Galleys were used by the Byzantine Empire as its primary weapon of war at
sea. Built initially with one, and then a second bank of oars, these dromons
(runners) could carry catapults and some were fitted with bronze-sheathed rams
(Pryor and Jeffreys 2006). They enabled Byzantine victories over the Ostrogoths
during the reign of Justinian. That power was quickly challenged by the Arabs in
the seventh century. Alexandria was taken, followed by all of Egypt and Syria.
The Arabs quickly took to the sea using local vessels and crews. Cyprus was
taken, and at the “Battle of the Masts” off Asia Minor in 655 the Byzantine navy
suffered a major defeat. The Arabs assaulted Constantinople by sea in 674, failing
to take the city because of the use of a secret weapon.
“Greek fire” is a combustible mixture of chemicals that was expelled from
shipboard tubes (siphones) at enemy vessels that burned upon contact. The
Chronicle of Theophanes credits Kallinikos of Heliopolis for devising a sea fire
which ignited the Arab ships and burned them. The weapon was also another
factor in the ability of the Byzantines to withstand continued attacks on Constan-
tinople and elsewhere. Most sea battles to consisted of the hurling of projectiles,
including arrows, lances and stones, followed by boarding and grappling hand-
to-hand. Greeks and Romans relied on bronze rams affixed to a ship’s prow to
destroy enemy ships, but that practice went out of favor.
Galleys continued in use throughout the medieval era because of their
military value and ability to operate when the wind was not advantageous. We
must also allow that they were built in large numbers. Sources of medieval
battles are often greatly exaggerated in order to emphasize the significance and
scale of an event. But if the records are to be trusted, in 960 as many as three
thousand Byzantine ships were involved in the battle for Crete (Lewis and
Runyan 1985, 31).

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1612 Timothy Runyan
Fig. 1: Composed of a secret formula known only to the Byzantines, Greek fire was a
combustible chemical that was “fired” from a tube. It was used in sea battles against the Arabs
from the seventh century. From a 12th-c. Sicilian manuscript of the chronicle of Joannes
Skylitzes. Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, Vitr. 26–2, fol 34v. Creative Commons BY-NC.
1. Evidence from Shipwecks
There are a number of shipwrecks from the early medieval period that demon-
strate the evolution of ship development. One example is the seventh century
Yassi Ada shipwreck discovered off the coast of Turkey. A Byzantine merchant
vessel that frequented the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, the recovery of
artifacts from the ship confirms the extent and variety of maritime trade during
this period. The small single-masted vessel of about 60 tons was one of many
ships that carried wine, grain, olive oil, and other items, usually sealed in
amphorae. Over 700 amphorae littered the seabed at this site; most of them
contained cheap wine, possibly destined for an army. The 20-meter long vessel
was built using mortise-and-tenon construction for the lower hull, with the
mortises widely spaced. The balance of the planking was attached directly to the
ship’s frames. Maritime archaeology has added greatly to our understanding of
the construction of early ships, and therefore of the extent and capability of early
seafarers (Bass and van Doorninck, ed., 1982).

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One important contribution credited to the Arabs upon their entry into
Mediterranean seafaring was the use of the lateen sail. This triangular sail may
have originated among seafarers in the Indian Ocean. It possessed the advan-
tage of allowing a vessel to sail closer to the direction of the wind. It was also
more manageable than square sails. Today it is the shape of sails on yachts
across the globe. Oared galleys soon carried the lateen sail, and merchant
vessels did as well. The square sail was the better choice when the wind came
from the stern and pushed the ship forward, but was less effective sailing
against the wind, requiring constant tacking (moving side to side) to make
forward progress.
The lateen-rigged sailing ship became common in Mediterranean shipping
and may have contributed to an increase in ship size from the tenth century. A
Byzantine shipwreck discovered at Serçe Limani near Rhodes, Greece, dates to the
eleventh century and was carrying crushed glass for recycling, one hundred
amphorae of wine and other items when it sank. Archaeological investigations
have revealed that it is a two-masted ship that carried lateen sails. It is further
evidence of the adoption of the lateen sail and adaptation of the sail plan to
include two masts. Lateen rigged sailing ships, usually with a length to beam
ratio of about three to one, became the standard cargo carriers on the Mediterra-
nean (Bass, ed., 2004).
B Arabs and Byzantines

The Arabs became a force in Mediterranean naval affairs and shipping from the
early seventh century. Success in military affairs required the construction and
manning of fleets. Once those fleets began to appear, the Byzantines countered
with the creation of their own standing fleets. The resulting conflicts continued
from 649 until the eleventh century. The Arabs won the first major engagement at
the battle fought off Lycia in southwestern Turkey. The Battle of the Masts likely
was named because both sides flew standards of crescent or cross from their
ship’s masts. Emperor Constans II led the Byzantine forces in person, but was
forced to flee in disguise to avoid capture according to one source. This battle was
lost, but it also was an indicator of a new approach to naval warfare by the
Byzantines. Catapults to throw stones were mounted on large dromons (double-
banked warships) to disable enemy vessels. Missing was the traditional ram
whose purpose was to hole and sink a ship. The Arabs besieged Constantinople in
674 and clearly benefited by their victory at sea. But Byzantine technology
responded to the crisis as Greek fire was used in 679 to drive the Arab fleet away.
A subsequent Islamic assault on the capital in 717–718 was repulsed. The reorga-

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1614 Timothy Runyan
nization of the Byzantine navy into regional fleets was done to better counter the
Arab ability to reach the capital (Hourani 1995; Fahmy 1966).
But the battleground shifted. Crete became the new target and was conquered
in 826. Major Byzantine campaigns involving 177 ships in 911 and 109 ships in 949
failed to recover Crete. Both Crete and Cyprus were held until 965 when Byzantine
control was restored. While the numbers can be challenged, records indicate that
19,600 sailors manned the 911 expedition, and 8,870 sailors participated in the
failed 949 attack (Dimitroukas 2007, 507). Ships carried armies which required
horses, suggesting the range of vessels built or enlisted for such major engage-
ments. Recruitment of sailors was primarily from the maritime communities of the
coasts where fishermen and merchant mariners made excellent recruits (Chris-
tides 1984).
The naval conflict between Byzantium and Islam extended over 350 years
during which the Muslim navies were successful in many theatres. The Byzantine
monopoly on the Mediterranean was broken. The initiatives at sea were aided by
the victorious armies on land that conquered important ports in Syria, Palestine
and Egypt that were essential to naval development. The rise of the Seljuk Turks
added the port communities of Asia Minor. The conquest of Egypt provided not
only access from Alexandria but the inland resources of the Nile. Pressing across
Africa, Tripoli fell and Carthage in 698. Ships provided the bridge to Europe as the
Arab offensive crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 711 and reached Spain.
The caliphate understood the value of skilled shipwrights and navigators as
well as others with maritime skills. The newly constructed naval base at Tunis
employed men recruited for their abilities from across the empire to create a
critically needed ship building center. Naval forces provided the impetus for the
conquests of Malta (870), and then from Tunisia the conquest of Sicily in 902. The
only major interruption to the Muslim conquest was the political change that
came with the rise of the Abbasid caliphate in 750. The Umayyad survivor of the
coup that ended his family’s rule established an independent caliphate at Cordo-
va. The Shiite Fatimids in Tunisia gained power through the strength of their
navy. They courted neither Baghdad nor Cordova.
The unity of the Arab world was fracturing, on land and at sea. The Fatimids
lost a sea battle to the Abbasids in 920, but ultimately prevailed to conquer Egypt
in 969. Now focused more on the eastern Mediterranean states, the naval forces
languished, contributing to the Byzantine recovery of Crete, Cyprus, and related
commercial shipping. But it was the entry of the Normans into the Mediterranean
that signaled the extent of change. Sicily was taken in 1091 along with Malta and
southern Italy as part of what was a Christian recovery during an era of decline in
Muslim naval power. Led by Venice and Genoa, a number of Italian city-states
began their rise to prominence in both commercial and naval affairs. This shift in

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sea power lasted throughout the remainder of the medieval era. Christian fleets
monopolized the trade routes and commercial terms at ports of the eastern
Mediterranean while securing monopolies on the carriage of goods (Fahmy 1950;
Pryor 2003).
C The Crusades
Following the call by preachers and the pope for a recovery of the Holy Land from
the infidels in November 1095, the First Crusade began a protracted “interna-
tional” war involving ships that could transport knights, their horses, armies and
pilgrims from Europe across the Mediterranean. These complex operations chal-
lenged the organizers to master the logistical needs of these enormous under-
takings. Secure ports were required at each end of the voyage. The major ports of
Syria, Palestine and Egypt were coveted by Crusader forces that needed secure
harbors for their ships and supplies. This included not only supplies for the
passage, but also to support the armies in the field. Commanders also needed
access to their fleets should their armies fail and an evacuation was necessary.
The fall of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade was primarily a military
operation. But afterward the naval aspect of Crusade operations became more
significant. The Muslim response was to fight to retain control of the ports and
harbors as key strategic elements in the conflict. In this they were not very
successful. Even the great Saladin who built a fleet that challenged the Crusaders
and won a naval victory in 1183 on the Red Sea, was unable to prevent the western
control of major ports.
The Mamluk rise to power and control of the eastern Mediterranean coastal
areas of Syria and Palestine did not advance naval development. There were few
victories at sea and some significant losses, as off Limassol, Cyprus in 1270. This
is the event that prompted the sultan to write a letter to the Christian ruler there
proclaiming that a victory on land was of much greater consequence than one at
sea. For the Christians, he declared, “your horses are ships,” while for us “our
ships are horses.”
The Seljuks from Anatolia did incorporate the maritime traditions of the
people they conquered, mainly Christian seafarers along the coasts. They estab-
lished raiding squadrons that at times acted more as privateers than state navies.
The raids from Izmir so agitated the Christians that a fleet composed of ships from
several Italian cities was organized to capture the city, which they accomplished
in 1344.
This lesson was not lost on the successor Ottoman Turks during their rise to
power in the early fifteenth century. Mehmet II depended upon his large fleet of

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1616 Timothy Runyan
war galleys during the siege of Constantinople in 1453 in a victory that earned him
the title of “Conqueror.”
Byzantine seafaring was largely focused on the eastern Mediterranean, the
Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean. Much of the shipping was
confined to coastal navigation and sailing short distances to ports or to the many
islands along the trade routes. Galleys were suited for these shorter ventures
while larger sailing ships made the longer passages across the seas. Rhodes,
where the Roman maritime law was codified, Cyprus and Crete remained impor-
tant destinations and waypoints for seafarers. We know about these voyages from
written sources, and most remarkably from the discovery and recovery of the
Yassi Ada shipwrecks from the fourth and seventh centuries. The seventh century
vessel was about 20 meters in length and 5 meters in beam. Its sailing rig is
unknown, but it likely carried lateen sails on one or two masts (Bass and van
Doorninck, ed., 1982).
The build of the two ships reveal the transition in construction techniques
that mark the movement from shell construction to frame-first or skeleton con-
struction. In the earlier form, the planks that shaped the vessel were joined at
their edges by mortises and tenons to create a shell or hull. Frames were then
fitted into this hull. Skeleton construction is the technique whereby the keel and
frames are assembled to create the skeleton of the vessel before the planking is
attached. This technique can be cost effective in that fewer skilled workers may be
required. By the tenth century many ships were constructed in this fashion,
although the shell first technique continued to be employed in various forms. An
example of ships incorporating elements of both techniques includes the amazing
cache of more than two dozen ships discovered in Istanbul in 2005 during a major
excavation project near the waterfront. These vessels are dated ca 1000 and are
built with edge-joined planks up to the waterline and then finished off using the
skeleton technique. Ships built using the skeleton technique could be of great size
and carry multiple masts and sails. Such vessels were common in Western
Europe. The best archaeological example is the eleventh century Serçe Limani
shipwreck, raised from the seabed, conserved and reassembled for exhibition at a
museum in Bodrum, Turkey (Steffy 1994; Bass, ed., 2004).
The sailing ship was a preferred vessel for trade, but the vessel of war in the
Mediterranean remained the oared galley. Initially the principal weapon was the
galley itself when fitted with a bronze ram at the bow that could be driven into an
opposing vessel. This was complemented by the use of Greek fire carried aboard
Byzantine dromons, fast and effective war ships. Dromons usually had a single
bank of about 50 oars; there were also bireme dromons. The move from one man
to an oar to multiple men pulling a single oar was a later rethinking of the means
of propulsion. More efficient, with the opportunity to make better use of interior

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space, ships underwent design modifications with the adoption of these changes.
Standard vessel size was now more than 30 meters, enough size to accommodate
cargo, two masts and sails in addition to the oarsmen. The stability and naviga-
tional capability of these vessels was augmented by the use of two side rudders
(Pryor 1988; Pryor and Jeffreys 2006, Pryor, ed., 2006).
Crusaders demanded ships that could carry not only men and supplies but
also horses. Horses could be transported on sailing ships, but also on galleys.
Chelandia were galleys adapted to carry horses through increasing the beam or
width of the ship and the depth of the hold. These galleys did not sail. The rails
were close to the water and they could be easily swamped by a following sea.
Weather was a commanding factor in the decision to put to sea. Galleys had to
carry large quantities of water. The oarsmen either had enough water or suffered
from dehydration, and the attendant consequences. This meant that a substantial
amount of the cargo was water, and the route traveled needed to include places
where water could be obtained.
The ships employed by the Latin West during the Crusades included a variety
of types, or at least names, as many of them are not precisely identified. The
chroniclers frequently change their descriptors of ships and rather than specifi-
cally identifying them by types, sometimes refer to vessels as naves or galée, or
another term. The number of ships involved in the Crusades is impressive.
England sent a fleet of 30 ships for the First Crusade. Those from France and the
Italian states drive the number into the hundreds. Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian
ships often dominate the records by number and appearance at key engagements.
Ships carried not only the Crusaders, but also their gear, horses, supplies, food-
stuffs, and weapons. Provisions were critical in maintaining large armies in a
hostile environment with limited or unreliable sources of support. In sum, logis-
tics was a determining factor in the outcome of overseas warfare. Ships were
sometimes the lifelines of armies, either for support, or transportation in case of a
retreat (Pryor 1988; Pryor 1994, 59–76).
D Italy and the West

Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Norman Sicily emerged as naval powers in the central
and western Mediterranean by the First Crusade in 1095. They were never in
harmony, often allied against one another rather than a common foe. Venice had
opposed the Norman Robert Guiscard’s efforts to take the Balkans, and Pisa often
opposed Venice. During the First Crusade in 1099 the Pisans attempted a landing
at Rhodes to which the Venetians objected. In the ensuing battle, fifty Pisan ships
were routed by a smaller Venetian force. Once Jerusalem fell, the Italian maritime

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1618 Timothy Runyan
powers and the Normans expanded their influence at sea. Most of this was
through trade and the transportation of men and goods, and sometimes raiding
and warfare. Pisa and Genoa allied to attack the Balearics. Amalfi never recovered
as a maritime force following the 1181 assault by Pisa. The Normans and others
traded along the coast of Africa from Morocco to Egypt while Pisa and Genoa
joined Venice in a lucrative trade relationship with Constantinople (Lewis and
Runyan 1985, 65).
Venice mounted a crusade in 1122 that included 120 ships. The fleet sailed
only as far as Corfu where the sailors spent the winter. Fulcher of Chartres says
there were 15,000 men on board, whose accommodation must have been a
challenge to the local population of this small island. After reaching Acre they
won victories that secured Tyre and Fatimid power was reduced further after the
fall of Ascalon in 1153. Muslim naval forces were pushed south into Egypt.
This situation changed with the rise to power of Saladin who in 1177 began
the construction of a fleet that challenged the western navies. He built ships that
could transport horses, and he built at least 60 galleys for warfare at sea. His
ships harassed the coast though failed to take Beirut. But he did win the signifi-
cant land Battle of Hattin in 1187. Saladin’s attempt to secure the entire Mediterra-
nean coast was only halted by the steady supply of troops and men in operations
secured by western naval power. In fact, it was the interception of their grain
supply ships that caused the starving Muslims to surrender Acre in 1191. The
naval forces of the Latin states helped shape subsequent strategy to recover
Jerusalem by taking Egypt. Attention now focused on Alexandria and Damietta
which were the keys to victory.
The initial plan for the Fourth Crusade called for an assault on Alexandria
and the conquest of Cairo. The Venetian role in the subsequent change of plans
resulting in the capture of Christian Constantinople is usually identified accord-
ing to state interest. But the Venetian assembly of about 50 large galleys and
150 horse-carrying vessels (uisseri) was a huge force, one that was appropriate to
a conquest of Egypt. While the spoils to the Venetians following the Latin
conquest of Constantinople may have been substantial, victory in Egypt could
have secured even greater riches. But that campaign required more knights and
soldiers than those recruited for the crusade. The decision to redirect the expedi-
tion to Constantinople not only resulted in Latin rule from 1204 to 1261, but the
demise of Byzantine naval forces (Murray, ed, 2006, III, 869–74).
The tactics employed during the amphibious assault on Constantinople are
dramatically described in an eyewitness account:
On the Thursday after mid-Lent, all entered into the vessels, and put their horses into the
transports. Each division had its own ships and all were ranged side by side; and the ships

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were separated from the galleys and transports … But for our sins, the pilgrims were
repulsed…On the Monday they would return to the assault, and they devised further that the
ships that carried the scaling ladders should be bound together, two and two …. And two
ships that were bound together … the Pilgrim..and the Paradise, approached so near to the
tower, the one on the one side and the other on the other … that the ladder of the Pilgrim
joined on to the tower … When the knights see this, who are in the transports, they land and
raise their ladders against the wall, and scale the top of the wall by main force, and so take
four of the towers. And all began to leap out of the ships and transports and galleys helter-
skelter … and they draw horses out of the transports; and the knights mount and ride
straight to the quarters of the Emperor (Geoffrey de Villehardouin 1957, 59–62).
Naval tactics coupled with competent seamanship enabled the Latin forces to
topple the key towers that defended the protective chain across the Golden Horn. It
was the removal of this barrier that allowed the battle to proceed to the city walls.
Some of these tactics would be employed in the crusade directed initially at
Damietta in the Nile delta in 1218. Partly due to the lack of appropriate shallow
draft vessels and galleys, the crusaders did not succeed, even when supported by
Emperor Frederick II. The naval forces launched by Frederick produced no stun-
ning victories, but did force a peace in 1229. The saintly Louis IX attempted the
conquest of Egypt and conscripted, hired and built ships for the undertaking.
Damietta was taken in 1249, but that was the limit of his success. His fleet was
caught in the shallow waters of the Nile delta and the Muslim galleys triumphed,
isolating the army which was forced to surrender.
The Christian states of Aragon, Catalonia and Castille in the western Mediter-
ranean pursued the Reconquista in Iberia. James I of Aragon and Catalonia
created substantial fleets that enabled the conquest of Majorca in 1229, and later
of Seville. Trade expanded, reaching as far as the Levant. A rival soon emerged
with the Angevins who claimed Naples and Sicily, initiating two decades of
warfare. Aragonese strategies triumphed, largely due to the genius of naval
commander Roger of Lauria. His abilities were complemented by the skilled
Catalan shipbuilders and crossbowmen (Mott 2003, 107).
Castile faced the challenges of managing naval forces on two coasts following
the capture of Seville, and the subsequent conflicts with Portugal and England
that drew Castilians into the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). For those activities
on the Atlantic coast and Bay of Biscay, the Castilians needed vessels more suited
to those waters, primarily cogs. However, in sea battles in the Mediterranean and
with Portugal they continued to utilize galleys. Of note, is the victory won by a
Franco-Castilian fleet of large sailing ships at La Rochelle in 1372 and subsequent
raids along the English coast (Sherborne 1969).
Genoa first cooperated with Pisa in attacking Muslim states from the eleventh
century. Both states extended their commercial and naval presence to the eastern

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1620 Timothy Runyan
Mediterranean following the First Crusade. But they warred over control of
Sardinia and other issues. Venice emerged as the principal contender for control
of the lucrative eastern trade. Conflict accelerated after the 1290s with initial
Genoese victories that came at a high price. Renewed warfare in 1350 eventually
ended with the battle at Chioggia in 1380 at the southern end of the Venetian
lagoon. The Genoese secured the city to besiege Venice and control the shipping
lanes. In a remarkable turn of events, the Venetians besieged the besiegers who
were without sufficient logistical support and cut off from reinforcements. During
the fighting, Genoese naval commander Pietro Doria was killed while under fire
from cannons mounted aboard the Venetian ships (Dotson 2003, 125–31).
Genoa remained committed to the sea through the fifteenth century, with one
qualification. It had a great merchant fleet, but its navy was weak. The preference
of the dominant merchant families was not to pay for a standing war fleet, but to
pay the forced loans in times of crisis and to provide their own ships. This was
possible because of the ability of the Genoese shipbuilders to rapidly modify
merchant vessels for naval service. To better protect those vessels, the Genoese
adopted the convoy system (Balard 2003, 145).
Venice relied on a similar set of principles that propelled its assent as a
commanding maritime power. The creation of the Arsenal to build and maintain
ships was the core of a naval program. The Venetians built high quality vessels
and adapted new technologies as they emerged. Attention to detail and manage-
ment by government was critical. The importance of Venetian naval power was
understood to be linked to the larger interests of protecting trade, including use
of the merchant convoys, and linked to the creation of a colonial empire (Dou-
merc 2003, 152). Compliant ports across the Mediterranean served as outlets for
trade, and the provisioning of galleys and merchant ships. After 1420 all merchant
galleys were built to the standard of the “Flanders galley” of about 250 tons.
Merchants bid on the galleys, fitted them out once in their service, and operated
them under a popular fixed schedule of shipping costs.
The Arsenal received funding for modifications routinely until its final expan-
sion completed in 1475. By this point the situation in the eastern Mediterranean
had changed dramatically. The Ottomans swept across Asia Minor and into
Europe, securing the Balkans with their victory at Nicopolis in 1396. Renewed
conflict with the Genoese in the 1430s and the loss of some key ports in the east to
the Ottomans were followed by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The fleet was
the necessary first line of defense and the only means of holding overseas
territories. Those territories were critical in providing galleys to supplement those
of Venice. But it would not halt the emergence of Muslim sea power. The Black
Sea was taken, followed by assaults on strategic centers in the Mediterranean,
including Rhodes which resisted conquest until 1522.

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E Iberia and the Caravel

The near exclusive focus on the Mediterranean and Northern Seas came to an end
in the fifteenth century as Europeans entered an age of oceanic voyaging and
discovery. The cogs and keels were replaced by caravels, carracks and galleons
that were fitted to explore the uncharted seas.
Portuguese mariners initiated the passage around the Cape of Good Hope and
into the Indian Ocean opening the route to the East Indies. On the Atlantic side
the same sturdy caravels proved capable sailors in the competition to claim the
New World following Christopher Columbus’s epic voyages of discovery. The
evolution of the caravel is uncertain and there is little archaeological evidence. It
is identified in the historical record from the thirteenth century as a vessel for
transport and fishing.
By the middle of the fifteenth century, caravels comprised the majority of
Portuguese oceanic sailing vessels. They mounted two or three masts with lateen
sails, and had length to beam ratios of about 5: 1. The caravel sailed close to the
wind, a distinct advantage over square rigged vessels. But when a following wind
was blowing, it was possible to re-rig a caravel with square sails, as Columbus did
the Nina. The sail plan of caravels was modified as needed and as more masts
were added. Square sails were added to the fore and main masts and lateen sails
on the other masts, as in the four-masted Portuguese caravela de armada (Elbl
and Phillips 1994, 93).
Although the caravel was the key vessel in this early period of oceanic
navigation, it was the galleon that would emerge as the most characteristic vessel
on through the seventeenth century. The Vasa, built for the Swedish crown by
Dutch shipwrights, is the lone surviving example. She sank on her maiden voyage
in 1628 due to a lack of ballast and design issues. She was raised from Stockholm
harbor in the 1960s and conserved for study and public display.
F Northern Europe
Roman occupation of northern Europe and Britain ended in the early fifth cen-
tury. The collapse of Roman authority was followed by several seaborne migra-
tions. The most significant of these were by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who
crossed from North Sea coasts to Britain after 450. Their settlement required
vessels capable of transporting large numbers of people across the open sea. The
vessels were large clinker-built rowing vessels, though some argue they carried
mast and sail. Archaeological evidence for early vessels includes the Hjortspring
boat built in ca 350 B.C.E. and discovered in southwestern Denmark. Made of

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1622 Timothy Runyan
Fig. 2: The Oseberg ship dates to ca. 820, was built of oak and used for the burial of a woman of
high status in southern Norway. The ship measures 22m in length, 5.2 m in beam. It carried a
single square sail and could be rowed. Viking Ship Museum, Oslo. By permission Kultur Historisk
Museum, Oslo.
planks, it is 9 meters long and 2 m wide. It is the earliest example of clinker
construction (overlapping planks), which becomes the dominant form of ship
construction in northern Europe.

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This early war vessel did not have a mast and sail. The 24 m Nydam boat from
the 4th century was found nearby and is more advanced. The planks are joined by
iron rivets clinched over iron roves (washers) instead of lashings. The Nydam boat
was propelled by oars and controlled by a steering oar. The Sutton Hoo ship built
about 600 C.E. and found in a burial site in East Anglia had no mast. Vessels of
this type may have carried the Angles and Saxons to Britain (Haywood 1991;
McGrail 1998).
It is important to note the difference in shipbuilding techniques employed in
the Mediterranean and southern Europe with those of northern Europe. The
southern tradition depended on the use of mortise and tenon fasteners to join the
hull planks, and the creation of the hull before adding internal frames. The
northern tradition was to overlap the planks that formed the hull. These were
joined by clench bolts (thus clencher, clinker, or lapstrake). This technique used
more timber, but produced a strong but flexible hull (Steffy 1994; Unger 1980,
36–40).
Viking raids on Europeans to the south began in the late eighth century.
These raiders became colonists and traders, gaining control of the Shetlands,
Hebrides and large sections of England. They also controlled parts of Ireland
including Dublin. Fleets were raised by use of the leding, an obligation to supply
ships on command of the ruler. Vikings’ mastery of the sea resulted from their
construction and use of large double-ended ships, each propelled by a square sail
on a single mast. A fine example of this vessel type is the Viking ship found at
Oseberg, Norway. Built ca 820, the ship is 21 m in length. It has beautiful lines
and was used for a burial ceremony. The Gokstad ship is a heavier built vessel
23 m in length also with a mast and square sail.
Constructed to carry cargo as well as people, this ship performed well in the
Northern Seas and Atlantic. Replicas have been sailed across the Atlantic in
attempts to confirm the sailing capability of this vessel to transport colonists to
the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland, and Vinland (America). Four ships found in 1957
at Skuldelev, Denmark, include two warships and two cargo ships. One of these is
a knarr, a cargo vessel. A longship of 28 m was also found (Crumlin-Pedersen and
Olson 2002). It may represent a drekkar or dragon ship, a type mentioned in
Scandinavian sagas. Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla contains a graphic account
of a naval battle in 1000 at Svolder:
King Olaf (of Norway) had seventy-one ships … The king’s ship (the Long Serpent) was in the
middle of the battle array, with the Short Serpent on one side and the Crane on the other.
And when they began to lash the ships together, stem to stem and stern to stern … Now Earl
Eirik brought his ship Barthi alongside the outermost ship of King Olaf, cleared it of its
crew, and straightway cut the hawsers connecting it with the other ships, then attacked the
ship next to it and fought till that was cleared too … There was such a shower of weapons

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1624 Timothy Runyan
directed against the Serpent that the men could hardly protect themselves … (Sturluson
1964, 231–37).
Viking superiority in seamanship and ship construction enabled their conquest of

not only the peoples of the North Atlantic but those along the rivers of Eastern
Europe. They faced a formidable opponent in the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the
Great (871–899), who turned back the Vikings on several occasions with his own
long ships. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Alfred’s long ships were built
to new standards. It is unclear in what manner Alfred’s long ships differed from
others. Alfred also ended the practice of buying off the Vikings with money—the
Danegeld. Instead, he taxed his people and used the money to build a fleet to
resist them. But once Alfred was gone, Viking attacks resumed until a Danish king
sat on the Anglo-Saxon throne.
Rival claimants to the English throne in 1066 prompted contender King
Harald Hardrada of Norway to gather a large fleet for an invasion of England. His
forces lost to Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge. A second
invasion by sea was launched by Duke William of Normandy. A fleet was
assembled to transport Duke William’s men and horses across the Channel to
England. William’s fleet included more than 700 ships for the carriage of an
estimated 14,000 men and a large number of horses. Horses were essential to
armies led by mounted knights during the age of chivalry.
The transport of horses requires large ships with stalls to accommodate and
protect the horses on a rolling sea. None of these features are shown in the famous
Bayeux Tapestry that provides a wonderful visual account of the invasion and
conquest including the building of Viking-style ships and the transport of horses
across the Channel (Gillmor 1984, 105–31; Rodger 1997). William won a great
victory near Hastings in October 1066 that led to the conquest of England.
G British Isles and the Channel

The Norman kings of England continued to govern their possessions in France
which required a naval force. Henry II ruled Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Brittany,
and through marriage he acquired Aquitaine. Naval power was a necessity in
order to maintain control on both sides of the Channel. But rather than build a
royal fleet, Henry impressed merchant ships. His son and heir Richard Lion
Heart raised a navy for the Third Crusade from English and continental sources.
He sent it into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar and on to the
Levant. His fleet helped conquer Cyprus, destroyed Saladin’s fleet off Egypt, and
served in the invasions along the Palestinian coast. Richard’s successes were

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not matched by King John who lost Normandy and other lands to French king
Philip II.
King John established a navy for defensive purposes. He ordered the con-
struction of galleys and put in place an effective system of royal impressment of
merchant vessels. He also organized a naval administration to man, equip and
pay for the fleet. His navy won several victories, including the capture of the
pirate Eustace the Monk. The Crusades continued to attract recruits and required
ships. Some Crusader fleets sailed from northern Europe. A Flemish fleet sailed
from the North Sea through Gibraltar and on to Palestine during the Fourth
Crusade. Fleets sailed from the Northern Seas to the eastern Mediterranean in the
Fifth and Sixth Crusades during the thirteenth century. These enterprises mingled
northern European vessels with Mediterranean ships, enabling mariners and
builders to study the advantages found in each type. The result would impact
shipbuilding in the north and south (Runyan 1991).
Edward I initiated a number of conflicts requiring naval forces. In 1294, he
ordered construction of 20 galleys, and three years later raised a fleet of over
300 ships. In 1303 he created the office of admiral. His naval organization facili-
tated his conquest of Scotland and Wales. The English Channel was the focus of
conflict between the French and English. An undeclared war of piracy and
privateering was one cause of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). Naval activity
accelerated as it was necessary to bridge the Channel in order to prosecute he
war. The French clos des galées established at Rouen in 1293, became a center of
naval operations and ship construction. Mediterranean shipwrights were hired to
build galleys and Genoese mariners served as admirals of the fleets. Galleys
served only military purposes as they were not effective as carriers of bulk cargo.
Larger, high-sided vessels with decks and one or two masts emerged as the
principal carriers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The crown did not provide all of the naval forces. The Cinque Ports, including
Dover and Winchelsea along the southeastern coast of England, provided vessels
for the king by ancient custom in return for special privileges. In fact, privately
owned shipping supplied the bulk of ships for royal expeditions through obliga-
tion and arrest. The establishment of a more permanent fleet of king’s ships with
an administrative official to supervise their care and maintenance emerged dur-
ing this era. The office of admiral and clerk of the king’s ships in England was
mirrored in France, though unevenly. The creation of the office of admiral
resulted in a more centralized navy, at least for a time.
The English court of admiralty developed in the fourteenth century, and
adjudicated cases in rem which allowed them to make monetary settlements. The
justices of common law courts objected to this expansion of authority. But this did
not impede the emergence of standing navies composed of purpose-built ships of

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1626 Timothy Runyan
war. Some of these vessels carried gunpowder weapons and were capable of
keeping the sea under the command of professional sailors. The royal fleets did
not always function well. These ships were sometimes more purpose-modified
than purpose-built. There were gunpowder weapons aboard ships, but they were
not expected to sink ships. Most guns were anti-personnel weapons. Sea-keeping
was limited by the nature of the vessels, the environment and weather, and
provisioning. This was not an effective standing navy (Friel 1995, 139–56; Runyan
1993).
H Maritime Law
Maritime law in medieval Europe derived primarily from Roman and Byzantine
traditions. It later expanded from the Mediterranean to influence developments in
northern Europe. Much of that early tradition derived from the island of Rhodes,
located on the major shipping routes of the eastern Mediterranean. The Lex
Rhodia emerged as the standard for the determination of maritime disputes
during the Roman era. Focused on commerce, the law addressed matters of
concern to merchants and all those involved in the maritime trades. Examples
include the recovery of cargo jettisoned to lighten a ship in peril on the sea. The
origins of the Rhodian Sea Law are obscure, but it contains elements of Phoene-
cian and Greek maritime custom.
The Byzantine emperor Justinian established a comprehensive body of law in
the sixth century that incorporated much of Roman legal practice. A later mod-
ification of Justianian’s code was the Basilica, which incorporated many of the
Rhodian sea laws. Those laws established a uniform body of maritime law
throughout the Mediterranean. Merchants often crossed political and religious
boundaries in search of profit. Christian trade with Muslims is confirmed by
documentary evidence, and the archaeological record includes the eleventh
century Serçe Limani shipwreck. Merchants benefited from laws that clarified
business relationships and enabled the resolution of disputes in maritime trade.
Examples include the rights of the investors who owned shares in a particular
vessel or voyage, the patron (owner), the duties of pilots who guided vessels into
ports, the obligations of the owner to the crew, responsibilities in case of ship-
wreck or piracy, including the jettison of cargo to save the ship.
The Rhodian sea law was in use throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Its scope was broad, and it was adopted by numerous cities and states engaged in
maritime commerce. The laws provided a framework for the conduct of trade and
business, provided protections, and defined the responsibilities of the parties to
the enterprise. Elements are found in laws such as the eleventh century Tabula

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Amalfitana that derives its name from the port of Amalfi, near Naples. This
popular body of maritime law was copied by Venice, Genoa, and other Mediterra-
nean ports (Ashburner 1909; Khalilieh 2006).
The maritime laws of the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic, and the Northern Seas
(English Channel, North Sea, Baltic Sea), have links to the Mediterranean. There
are also laws related to other traditions, including the Norse. The Laws of Wisby,
a port on the island of Gotland, was a compilation of Norse maritime customs and
other laws. The laws included load limits for ships by directing the placement of
marks on the hull to indicate maximum loading depths. This safety feature was
the forerunner of the Plimsoll marks now in use. Key among the northern laws,
are those of the island of Oléron, located off the coast of France near La Rochelle.
Centered on the wine trade from Bordeaux to England and northern Europe, the
jurads at Oléron were called upon to resolve maritime disputes. The Rolls (or
Laws) of Oléron addressed all aspects of seaborne trade and were widely accepted
from Spain to the British Isles and Baltic.
The laws were codified in the mid-thirteenth century. They were also incorpo-
rated into the legal codes of the many towns that composed the Hanseatic League.
The laws provide harsh punishments for certain infractions. If a pilot takes
command of a ship and loses it resulting in the loss of life and cargo, he faces the
loss of his right hand and eye. The laws also provide sanctuary aboard ship,
usually at a shrine at the mainmast where crewmen can escape the wrath of a
ship’s officer. Mariners had rights that included care due to illness or injury. Their
food ration was spelled out, and if the ship carried wine or beer, they were entitled
to a portion for meals (Ward 2009, 9–46).
Another important maritime code was the Llibre del Consulat del Mar (Con-
sulate of the Sea), which originated in Iberia in the thirteenth century. Spreading
from Barcelona throughout Mediterranean Spain, Italy and France, it influenced
the development of maritime law in northern Europe. The most complete and
popular version was the Consulat del Mar of 1370; a printed version appeared in
1494. The Consulate addresses the commercial enterprise, including marine insur-
ance (Jados, ed., 1975).
Maritime law addressed the needs of ship owners, merchants, masters, mar-
iners, investors and others involved in the carriage of goods in ships. The law
codes at Oléron and Barcelona were regionally focused, but spread through
adoption by partner trading communities. A legacy of the medieval era is mar-
itime law. The law is international in scope. Specific elements of the law can be
found in contemporary maritime law, including mariners’ rights and the safety
provision setting maximum load levels for ships.
Other elements were incorporated from the Rhodian Sea Law. Courts dis-
pensed justice using the law as a guide. The English Court of Admiralty by the

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mid-fourteenth century recognized that the Laws of Oléron had the status of law.
Maritime law and the dispensation of justice through maritime, admiralty, muni-
cipal or other courts is a valuable legacy of the medieval era.
I The Hundred Years’ War at Sea

Leadership of the English naval forces during the Hundred Years’ War was given
to English admirals who primarily served as administrators. This was unlike their
counterparts in the Mediterranean. Their responsibility was to arrest ships and
assemble them at the ports of embarkation and to prepare them for expeditions.
Once at sea, the admiral could become active in directing the fleet. His flagship
carried lanterns and flags or streamers to signal commands to the fleet. Nearly
half of the admirals who served during the fifty year reign of Edward III served at
sea as well as ashore. There were three English admiralty commands: north (from
the Thames to Scotland), south (Thames to Bristol), and west (from Bristol to
Carlisle).
Naval strategy is difficult to discern in this period. French naval strategy
included the recruitment of Genoese naval commanders to prepare fleets of
galleys to attack England. French diplomats also worked to encourage the Scots
to raid northern England in order to divert English military resources from the
Channel.
The English did establish an effective naval organization. Edward III utilized
his authority to impress mariners and ships for the carriage of his armies to the
continent. In 1340 he organized and sailed with a fleet of about 300 ships to
attack a French fleet preparing for an assault on England. He won the battle of
Sluys, a major English naval victory. The combined French, Castilian and
Genoese fleet was destroyed while in the harbor. Chronicler Geoffrey le Baker
writes that Edward III had “the wind and the sun at his back and the flow of the
tide with him, with his ships divided into three columns … an iron shower of
quarrels from crossbows and arrows from longbows brought death to thousands
of people.” French losses may have exceeded 200 ships (Geoffrey Le Baker
1889, 68–69).
More than 700 ships were raised by Edward I for his siege of Calais in 1347. A
confrontation off Winchelsea in 1350 known as the battle of Les Espagnols sur
Mer, was another victory. Edward III and his son the Black Prince participated in
the battle. Chronicler Jean Froissart provides a graphic description of warfare at
sea:

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Fig. 3: Lieven van Lathem, illuminator (Flemish, about 1430–1493, active 1454–1493); David
Aubert, scribe (Flemish, active 1453–1479): A Naval Battle Between Gillion’s Troops and the
Soldiers of the Saracen Prince, after 1464, Tempera colors, gold, and ink on parchment; Leaf:
37 × 25.5 cm (14 9/16 × 10 1/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 111, fol. 21.

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1630 Timothy Runyan
Then King’s ship was stoutly built and timbered, otherwise it would have split in two, for it
and the Spanish ship, which was tall and heavy, collided with a crash like thunder and as
they rebounded, the castle of the King’s ship caught the castle of the Spaniard with such
force that the mast on which it was fixed broke and it was flung into the sea. The men in it
were killed or drowned. The king’s ship was so shattered water began to pour in … Then the
King looking at the ship with which he had just jousted and said, “Grapple my ship to that
one. I want to have it.” “Let that one go,” his knights answered, “You’ll get a better one.” So
that ship went on and another big ship came up. The knights flung out hooks and chains
and fastened their own ship to it. A fierce battle began between them, the English archers
shooting and the Spanish defending themselves lustily. The advantage was by no means
with them for, the Spanish ships being bigger and higher than theirs, they were able to shoot
down at them and hurl great iron bars which did considerable damage. The knights in the
King of England’s ship seeing that it was making so much water it was in danger of
foundering, made desperate effort to capture the ship to which they were grappled. The
Spaniard was taken, and all the men on board it thrown into the sea. Only then was the King
told of the danger they were in of sinking and urged to move into the ship they had just
captured. This he did. But finally the day was with the English. The Spaniards lost fourteen
ships, while the rest sailed on and escaped (Froissart 1968, 118–19).
The Spaniards blockaded the entrance to the port of La Rochelle in 1372, setting
the stage for a great sea battle. Froissart described the encounter:
The next day, at high tide, The Spaniards weighed anchor and with a great noise of trumpets
and drums formed a line of battle, and endeavored to enclose the English, who, observing
the manoeuvre, drew up their ships accordingly, placing their archers in front. As soon as
they came to close quarters the Spaniards threw out grappling hooks, which lashed the
vessels together, so that they could not separate. The contest continues with great fury. Until
nearly nine o’clock, when the Earl of Pembroke’s ship was boarded, himself made prisoner,
and all with him either taken or slain. … On the afternoon of the day the Spaniards set their
sails and departed, much rejoiced at their victory (Foissart 1901, 139–40).
The war provided opportunities for pirates and privateers to raid shipping and
disrupt trade. Edward III’s successors did not value a standing navy resulting in
the sale of the king’s ships. This left vulnerable the profitable Gascon wine trade
centered at Bordeaux, and the trade in wool and cloth with the Low Countries.
Those fleets often sailed in convoy for protection.
Ships used in these campaigns were valued for their capacity to carry men,
horses and war materiel. Large round-hulled cogs could accommodate almost
any contemporary cargo. The cog had evolved over several centuries into a flat-
bottomed, high-sided vessel with a raked stem and decks supporting castles,
sometimes fore and aft. It carried a square sail supported on a single mast that
moved it at only a few knots per hour. The high freeboard (distance from the deck
rails to the water) provided protection from boarding by smaller, but faster and
more maneuverable galleys and other vessels. Cogs also provided protection for
the cargo and to the mariners in the rough northern seas. Fore and after castles

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were added on to ships for military purposes. Later they became integrated into
the hull lines. A top castle was added to the main mast for observation and as a
station to fire arrows or hurl object down on an enemy vessel.
The best surviving example of a cog was found along the Weser River at
Bremen, Germany in 1962. Dated to 1380 it is a smaller cog rated at about 80 tons.
Some exceeded 200 tons. The Bremen cog is 23.5 m long, with a beam of 7 m. It
was steered by a tiller attached to a stern post rudder. The vessel has undergone
extensive conservation to preserve its clinker-built hull formed by overlapping
planks secured to frames by iron clinch bolts. More than 57 vessels in the English
navy between 1337 and 1360 were cogs. Other large transport vessels known as
hulks began to appear at the end of the fourteenth century (Ellmers 1994, 29–46;
Runyan 1994, 47–58).
England’s emergence as a maritime power coincided with the rise of the
league of Baltic city states known as the Hanseatic League (Hansa). England’s
position at sea was challenged over time by the Hanseatic League. This union of
maritime communities located on the Baltic Sea and North Sea began to assert
itself in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The league was centered in
Lübeck with Hamburg, Bremen and sometimes Cologne, serving as major part-
ners. The Hanseatic League consisted of over one hundred commercial centers
and dominated trade in the Baltic. Hanseatic League offices were established in
every trading center including the Steelyard in London.
One source of financial power was the control of the herring trade and the
related salt trade. After 1300, the Hanseatic League controlled Norway and
Sweden. The Danes tried to fight its growing monopoly and lost. The treaty of
Stralsund in 1370 reflects the decline of the Danish navy. Composed of merchant
communities, the League behaved as a state and went to war to protect its
interests, using some of the best ships available from its widespread membership.
The power of the Hanseatic League declined by the fifteenth century due to
internal differences, and the emergence of new forces such as the Netherlands
(Dollinger 1970; Lloyd 1991; Hammel-Kiesow 2008).
J Conclusion
The ship was the most important technological development of the late medieval
era. Vessels continued to evolve to accommodate the weapons of war. The place-
ment of cannons aboard ships required various changes, none more dramatic
than the cutting of gun ports into the hull of vessels to accommodate cannon.
Mounted on carriages that could be positioned to fire out the gun ports and then
withdrawn, cannon turned ships into floating batteries with enormous destructive

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1632 Timothy Runyan
power. While early cannon were more effective as anti-personnel weapons than
in other capacities, by the sixteenth century they changed the nature of ship
construction and warfare at sea. The carrack, which replaced the cog as the major
commercial vessel, also became a ship of war when fitted out with cannon. It was
a blend of northern and southern European seafaring traditions. The carrack
incorporated the southern carvel-built tradition of edge-joined planks, creating a
smooth hull, and carried both northern square sails and the Mediterranean lateen
rig (triangular sails) on 2 or 3 masts. This was the full-rigged ship that would
enable the age of discovery and the European imposition of its might on much of
the unexplored world (Runyan 1994; DeVries 1998, 389–99).
Henry VII (1485–1509), and Henry VIII (1509–1547) built an English navy.
Tudor naval administration was more formalized and effective. This is reflected in
the construction of the great battleship Mary Rose in 1509, one of the earliest
vessels fitted with gun ports. This innovation contributed to her loss in 1545 off
Southsea Castle. While maneuvering to face the attacking French, she listed
abruptly, and her gun ports filled with water sinking the ship. She sank quickly
with a huge loss of life and considerable embarrassment to Henry VIII who
witnessed the tragedy from shore. The Mary Rose was discovered in the 1970s and
her hull was raised in 1982. She is undergoing conservation while on exhibit at
Portsmouth, England (Friel 1994, 81–90).
Select Bibliography
Bass, George, ed., A History of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology (London 1972).
Brogger, A. W. and Haakon Shetelig, The Viking Ships: Their Ancestry and Evolution (Oslo
1951).
Casson, Lionel, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Baltimore, MD, 1995).
Fahmy, Aly M., Muslim Naval Organisation in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Seventh to the
Tenth Century, 2nd ed. (1948; Cairo 1966).
Friel, Ian, The Good Ship: Ships, Shipbuilding and Technology in England, 1200–1500 (London
1995).
Gardiner, Robert and Richard W. Unger, ed., Cogs, Caravels and Galleons: The Sailing Ship
1000–1650 (London 1994).
Hattendorf, John, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (Oxford 2007), 4 vols.
Hattendorf, John and Richard W. Unger, ed., War at Sea in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge 2002).
Hourani, George, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, rev. by
John Carswell (Princeton, NJ, 1995).
Hutchinson, Gillian, Medieval Ships and Shipping (London 1994).
Lane, Frederic C., Venice: a Maritime Republic (Baltimore, MD, 1973).
Lewis, Archibald R. and Timothy J. Runyan, European Naval and Maritime History, 300–1500
(Bloomington, IN, 1985).

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Lloyd, T. H., England and the German Hanse 1157–1611: A Study of Their Trade and Commercial
Diplomacy (Cambridge 1991).
McGrail, Sean, Ancient Boats in North-West Europe: the Archaeology of Water Transport to
AD 1500 (London and New York 1998).
Morrison, John, ed., The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels Since Pre-Classical
Times (London 1995).
Pryor, John H., Geography, Technology and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterra-
nean 649–1571 (Cambridge 1988).
Pryor, John H., Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (Aldershot 2006).
Rodger, Nicholas A. M., The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Great Britain, vol. 1:
660–1649 (London 1997).
Rose, Susan, Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500 (London 2002).
Steffy, Richard, Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks (College Station, TX,
1994).
Unger, Richard W., The Ship in the Medieval Economy, 600–1600 (London 1980).

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Ben Snook
Threats, Dangers, and Catastrophes
A Overview
“So far,” wrote Gerrit Schenk in 2007, “no one has written a comprehensive history
of the engagement with disasters from an explicitly historical angle” (Schenk
2007, 11). One reason for this apparent lack of scholarly interest is the difficulty
inherent in marshalling completely different kinds of disasters (flooding, earth-
quakes, famines, volcanic eruptions, and so on), which occurred in different
places at different times and for different reasons, together under the umbrella of
a single academic discipline. A geographer, a demographer, and a meteorologist
might take a dim view of any methodology which considered seismic activity,
plague, and extreme weather events as part of single, cogent field of academic
study. However, as Schenk went on to observe, when one examines the psycholo-
gical impact of these disasters, analyzing the psycho-social, literary, and cultural
responses of medieval communities to the destruction wrought upon them by
catastrophic events, the real causes of which lay far beyond their comprehension,
then a viable argument for a field which might flippantly be termed “Medieval
Disaster-Impact Studies” begins to emerge (Schenk 2007, 11–14).
One unifying characteristic of threats, dangers, and catastrophes, which is as
prominent in human responses to disasters today as it was in the Middle Ages, is the
powerful sense of fear that they provoke. Fear, in the Middle Ages, was an emotion
which transcended all political and social boundaries; and rightly so, since there
was a lot to be afraid of (Delumeau 1989). For much of the millennium between ca.
500 and ca. 1500, public safety was more a matter of chance than design. Although
laws to protect property and the individual certainly existed from an early date,
their enforcement, even in Europe’s more “civilized” regions, was often irregular to
say the least (Bowsky 1967; McRee 1994; Grewe 1984, 105–18; also, see the entry on
Law in this volume). Law, moreover, was only effective under certain, particular
circumstances. Many threats were entirely beyond its remit: attack by a foreign
army was an ever-present danger, as was civil war; the arrival of a plague, earth-
quake, or other natural disaster had the potential to be more devastating still; a
volcanic eruption might not only destroy the livelihoods of those people living in its
immediate vicinity, but could also bring about dramatic and catastrophic climate
change resulting in harsh winters and crop failures on a global scale. Violent
weather patterns, particularly in Northern Europe, could produce cataclysmic
storm surges which inundated low-lying coastal areas (Lamb 1991).

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Threats, Dangers, and Catastrophes 1635
As if the very real prospects of being slaughtered by barbarians, incinerated

by a fire, drowned in a flood, cremated by a pyroclastic flow, or starved in a
famine were not enough, the medieval imagination worked overtime to create a
vast array of somewhat less rational threats. In a world in which scientific under-
standing and empirical investigation were in their infancy, and where they did
exist were usually subjugated to beliefs informed by esoteric superstitions, no-
tions of a little-understood “other” world, bursting with enigmatic and formless
but potent threats to humanity were widespread. Christianity, which on the one
hand offered the prospect of salvation from such otherworldly horrors, on the
other brought with it a terrifying pantheon of new, supernatural creatures of its
own, whose capacity for causing serious harm was immense. The irony here,
perhaps, is that, more often than not, the real threat came from people’s reactions
to these perceived dangers: deviance of any kind, be it physical, sexual, or
spiritual, was often blamed on demonic intervention of some sort, and the efforts
of the Church and its agents to counteract it, even when genuinely well-meaning,
were rarely characterized by an overabundance of compassion (Moore 1987).
In the long term, however, medieval disasters were not always as disastrous
as they at first appeared. In the well-known case of the Black Death, massive
depopulation seems to have led, in some areas, to improved standards of living
and better wages for the peasantry; some even suggest that it kick-started a period
of rapid technological, economic, and social development in Europe (Herlihy
1997; Byrne 2004). Likewise, the rebuilding of cities after major fires often gave
rise to new architectural styles and improvements in town planning (Hansen
2005). While it can often seem callous to look beyond the death toll, contextualiz-
ing threats, dangers and catastrophes is fundamental if we are to understand the
“grand narrative” of the European Middle Ages.
B The Psychology of Fear

Fundamental in the identification of something as a “threat” in the Middle Ages
(and ever since) was ignorance. Dangerous things which were well-understood,
such as warfare, could be effectively coped with. Efficient countermeasures could
be fabricated (armor, for instance), which reduced the likelihood of something
unpleasant happening and therefore minimized the level of fear felt. Going into
battle was certainly a stressful experience, but for most medieval soldiers, it was
also a comparatively familiar process in which a favorable outcome might reason-
ably be expected. Notwithstanding collapses of morale when faced with defeat,
medieval soldiers only tended to become abnormally scared when pitted against
an unknown enemy or new technology. In literature, fear of the mundane was

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1636 Ben Snook
sometimes utilized as an illustrative device (Ribémont 2008), but it rarely carried

with it the same sense of utter, hopeless terror as inhabited the medieval fear of
the unknown.
Otherness was, perhaps, the greatest source of medieval fear. Being part of a
community was essential in the Middle Ages, not just for social reasons, but in
order to sustain life itself. In the Anglo-Saxon context, Bede’s famous metaphor,
found in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (completed in 731), of the
sparrow flying through the hall, demonstrates clearly the importance of the
protected, communal setting as opposed to the cold, frightening and unknown
world beyond its boundaries:
You are sitting feasting with your ealdormen and thegns in winter time; the fire is burning
on the hearth in the middle of the hall and all inside is warm, while outside the wintry
storms of rain and snow are raging; and a sparrow flies swiftly through the hall. It enters in
at one door and quickly flies out through the other. For the few moments it is inside, the
storm and wintry tempest cannot touch it, but after the briefest moment of calm, it flits from
your sight, out of the wintry storm and into it again. So this life of man appears but for a
moment; what follows or indeed what went before, we know not at all. (II.13) (Bede 1969,
185)
The importance of the hall in Anglo-Saxon England, and in the Middle Ages
more generally, has been well documented (Hume 1974; Thompson 1995; Ma-
gennis 1996; Pollington 2010). It offered safety, companionship, warmth, and
sustenance; beyond it, there was a vast, dark, cold, hostile landscape of other-
ness, out of which emerged all kinds of unknown threats. In the poem Beowulf,
it is from the unknown darkness beyond the hall that the horrific, man-eating
creature, Grendel, emerges. There is no doubt that Grendel is intended to be an
intensely frightening figure in the poem, but it is interesting that the key to the
fear he causes is his ambiguity. Famously, the poem gives no idea of his
appearance beyond his luminous eyes and his tough, calloused arm. The very
reason that he is so frightening is because the poem implicitly invites its
audience to fill in the hazy outline with its own worst fears. As such, Grendel
becomes the epitome of medieval otherness, a half-imagined sum of all fears
(Orchard 1995, 28–57).
It was not just monsters who were other, though. The Anglo-Saxons could,
themselves, be ostracized from their communities by some personal or national
calamity (Magennis 1996). In the Old English poem, “The Wanderer,” the protago-
nist’s sense of fear is founded, above all, upon his separation from his lord and
from society. He is not afraid of the other; he is afraid because he has, himself,
become other (Gwara 2007), irreversibly separated from the comforts of his
former, more sociable life:

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Where is the horse? Where is the rider? Where is the giver of treasure? Where are the seats at
the feast? Where are the delights of the hall? Alas, the shining cup; alas the mailed warrior;
alas the splendour of the prince. How that time has passed away, obscured by enveloping
night, as if it had never been (lines 92–96) (Krapp and Dobbie, ed., 1936, 136).
The Anglo-Saxons were by no means alone in practicing and fearing exile;

throughout medieval Europe, the potency of exile as a legal tool lay primarily in
its capacity to turn a compatriot into an alien, forcing an individual to become
part of the otherness that was feared so deeply by so many, creating the mon-
strous out of the mundane (Starn 1982).
Otherness could also exist within a community and was often at the root of
medieval prejudice toward minority groups. The best-known instance of this,
perhaps, was the widespread belief that European Jewry was in some way
involved in an ongoing plot to undermine the well-being of Christian society
(Chazan 1997; Elukin 2007). As well as giving rise to some unpleasant and
enduring myths about Jews, this underlying distrust had a disturbing tendency to
erupt into violence, and pogroms were common in medieval Europe. The Jews,
because of their religious and cultural otherness, were often convenient scape-
goats in troubled times: for example, in the religious fervor stirred up by the
Crusades, massacres of Jews in Germany, France, and England multiplied; the
arrival of the plague in Central Europe in 1347 also provoked instances of violence
against Jews, who were blamed for causing it, particularly in Switzerland and
Germany. Even in Muslim Spain, which has often been seen as having been more
tolerant toward minorities than Christian Europe, attacks on Jews were not
unknown. In 1066, violence against the Jewish population of Muslim Granada
(which was caused by popular resentment toward a particularly powerful and
influential Jewish vizier in the city) led to a large number of deaths (Lewis 1984).
Jews were not alone in being identified as outsiders within their own commu-
nities, though: executioners, prostitutes, lepers, and many other groups were, at
different times, the subjects of sustained social discrimination (Moore 1987;
Mellinkoff 1993). Fear was not always the cause of such prejudice, but it was often
an important factor. In general, the more a particular group became separated
from the social mainstream, the more fear it generated. A striking example of this
phenomenon comes from western France. Here were found cagots, a caste of
people who were subjected to shocking and sustained persecution across several
centuries (Loubès 1995). Limited to only a few specific professions (many were
carpenters), they were forced to live apart in their own communities and were
only permitted to enter churches through special doors, which were too small to
pass through easily so that the cagots would be humiliated by having to duck
down to get through them. By the eighteenth century, interaction between cagots
and everyone else was governed by law; considered “unclean,” they were forbid-

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den from sharing food or drinking vessels with non-cagots, and could be violently
punished if such regulations were breached. Even as late as the 1850s, discrimina-
tion against cagots remained sufficiently widespread to come to the attention of
an outraged Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote an essay about it (“An Accursed Race,”
first published in 1855). Stories about the origins of the cagots abounded: some
believed they were descended from Saracen soldiers who had settled in Southern
France in the early Middle Ages; others thought they were descended from here-
tical Cathars; a few suspected that they were the progeny of demons. Yet, all the
available evidence suggests that cagots were no different racially, ethnically,
linguistically, or religiously from anybody else. They were feared and discrimi-
nated against by the majority simply because they always had been. Differences
were perceived where there were none, and upon those differences was con-
structed an immense edifice of fear and prejudice which was designed, more than
anything, to dehumanize and to degrade (Pigeaud 2000).
For much of the Middle Ages, a potent sense of imminent doom pervaded
European thought. Christian civilization, it must have seemed, was under con-
stant and dire threat from the innumerable agencies of chaos. Beyond its borders,
both physical and spiritual, there lay an almost limitless wasteland of otherness
threatening to encroach upon and to erode the proper order of things. Even within
Christendom, communities of “deviants” supposedly presented a threat to life,
wealth, and morality. It is important to remember that, even when a perceived
threat seemed perfectly rational, its supposed cause often was not. At the heart of
almost all medieval dangers, threats, and disasters there lay profound and
unchallengeable ignorance which often manifested itself in acts of shocking
cruelty, prejudice, and systematic victimisation in the name of any number of
weird, esoteric, spiritual superstitions. Perhaps the greatest threat to order in the
Middle Ages was fear itself.
C Natural Disasters
I Volcanic Eruptions
The impact of volcanic eruptions on medieval society could be dramatic (Oppen-

heimer 2011, 253–68). In the middle of the sixth century, widespread crop
failures, famines, plagues (not least the devastating Justinian Plague which had
wiped out, perhaps, as much as 40% of Constantinople’s population) and
unusual meteorological phenomena (such as “dry fog”) have often been asso-
ciated with the fallout from a major volcanic eruption (Gunn, ed., 2000). In
1258, an enormous volcanic eruption (possibly in South America) brought about

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significant climate change on a global scale, again causing a combination of

agricultural decline, plague, and famine in Europe and elsewhere (Stothers
1999; 2000).
However, volcanic eruptions large enough to have global consequences were
very rare; moreover, few (if any) people in medieval Europe associated colder
temperatures and strange weather with volcanic activity, which took place far
beyond their horizons. The threat posed by volcanoes in the Middle Ages, there-
fore, was understood to be immediate, local, and comparatively small-scale.
Without doubt, the most volcanically active part of medieval Europe was Iceland,
where the locals regarded this potentially lethal phenomenon with remarkable
ambivalence. Indeed, medieval Icelanders appear to have thought of volcanoes
as less of a threat than a part of everyday life scarcely worth remarking upon: it is
very striking that across the whole, considerable corpus of Icelandic Family
Sagas, there is not one explicit reference to volcanoes or their effects (Falk 2007).
That said, volcanic activity in Iceland was not without its consequences: the
eruption of Hekla in 1104, for instance, caused the abandonment of farmsteads in
the Þjórsárdalur valley (Dugmore et al. 2007), several of which have been exca-
vated and found to be in remarkably good condition.
In Southern Europe, a similar disinterest in volcanoes prevailed. In about
1030 (the precise date is a matter of some speculation), Mount Etna erupted. The
resulting lava flow swept down the south-eastern slope of the volcano and spread
for almost ten kilometers, reaching the sea. The effects of the eruption must have
been devastating, not to mention terrifying, for the people living in the vicinity,
and yet it warranted scarcely a handful of lines in extant written records. The
same is true for much of Etna’s medieval history: geological evidence proves that
the volcano was relatively active during the Middle Ages, yet its eruptions, which
were presumably dramatic and life-threatening events, seem to have caused
relatively little, wide-scale disruption (Tanguy et al. 2007). This is all the more
surprising given the proximity to the volcano of Catania, an important cultural
and political center and, in the fourteenth-century, the capital of the Aragonese
dynasty which had seized Sicily from the House of Anjou.
Perhaps, though, the apparent lack of interest in Etna can be attributed to the
comparatively limited impact of the volcano’s eruptions. Whilst the destructive-
ness of the volcano should not be underestimated, its capacity for causing
damage on a wide, let alone international scale was very limited. In fact, the
benefits of living in the vicinity of Etna probably outweighed the dangers: the
combination of the rich, volcanic soil with Sicily’s favorable climate galvanized
the island’s agricultural economy for much of the Middle Ages (Chester, et al.,
1985, 52–54; Epstein 1992). The same is true of Vesuvius, in the main. The volcano
was certainly active in the early Middle Ages and several eruptions were recorded

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between the sixth and the eleventh centuries. Yet, none of these eruptions seems
to have caused enough damage to have been considered a major catastrophe.
II Earthquakes
Earthquakes were more widespread and were certainly more common in Europe
and the Middle East than volcanic eruptions. As such, their impact on both the
physical and the psychological landscapes of medieval Europe was markedly
greater.
Earthquakes were, perhaps unsurprisingly, often associated with larger cata-
strophes. In the Gospel of Matthew, an earthquake occurred at the moment of
Christ’s death; at the same time, the sky mysteriously darkened and the tombs of
ancient saints shattered as their inhabitants were resurrected (Matt. 27:51–52). In
the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Dream of the Rood,” the cross itself paraphrases
Matthew’s account in verse:
Then I saw the Lord of mankind hasten with much fortitude, for he meant to climb upon me.
I did not dare then, against the word of the Lord, to give way there or to break when I saw
the earth’s surfaces quake. (Bradley, trans., 1982, 161)
In early medieval England, where earthquakes were presumably not common

events (although the “Annales Cambriae” record an earthquake in the Isle of Man
in 684), one might imagine that the sense of fear and wonder provoked by the
thought of the ground shaking would have been especially profound.
Perhaps the most famous medieval earthquake (and there are several con-
tenders for the title) was that which struck in the Italian region of Friuli in 1348.
Some of the worst damage was in Venice, close to the epicenter, but the effects
were also felt as far away as Rome and even Naples. The impact of the earthquake
was extremely well documented by a range of Italian, German, and Austrian
sources. They paint a vivid picture of society’s rapid deterioration into chaos: as
the shaking commenced, people ran into the streets exclaiming in horror; Pet-
rarch, recalling the event in a letter written two decades later, was in his library in
Verona when the earthquake struck, and he remembered the sense of fear that
gripped him as the shaking threw his books from the shelves around him; and, in
a particularly remarkable instance, the bankers of Udine, terrified that the earth-
quake might be a divine comment on their financial practices, cancelled the
interest on all debts for eighty days (Rohr 2003, 134). The relevance of this
particular disaster was intensified by the arrival in the region, very shortly after-
wards, of the Black Death. Many conflated the two events, seeing them as part of
a broader campaign of divine retribution (Borst 1981; Carmichael 2008).

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Despite its prevalence in the sources, the Friuli earthquake probably caused
relatively little damage, and the loss of life does not seem to have been that great
(particularly not when set against the catastrophic death toll that resulted from
the subsequent plague). The disasters which struck Aleppo in the twelfth century,
however, were a different matter altogether. In 1137 and 1138, Aleppo suffered a
particularly devastating series of quakes; the death toll has been estimated by
some at almost a quarter of a million. Although this figure has been disputed and
is probably an overestimate, it is fairly certain that Aleppo, previously a substan-
tial and bustling city, was largely destroyed. Rather than being struck by a single
earthquake, the city was the victim of an ongoing seismic event which resulted in
a swarm of intense quakes and aftershocks over the course of several decades.
Further serious earthquakes occurred in 1157 and 1170, which had a major impact
upon political relations between Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land (Ra-
phael 2010).
In an area where seismic activity was relatively common, it is striking that it
was often thought worthy of comment by contemporary chroniclers (Poirer and
Taher 1980). Of the 1157 earthquake, the Damascene scholar and politician Hamza
ibn Asad abu Ya’la ibn al-Qalanisi (d. 1160) wrote:
Reports arrived from the north with the horrifying and disquieting news that Hamah,
together with its citadel and all its houses and dwellings, had fallen down upon the heads of
its inhabitants – old men, young men, children and women, a large number and vast
assembly of souls – so that none escaped, save the merest handful. As for Shaizar, its suburb
escaped, except for what had been destroyed earlier, but its famous castle fell down upon its
governor, Taj al-Dawla … and his followers, save for a few who were without. At Hims, the
population had fled in panic from the town to its outskirts and themselves escaped, while
their dwellings and the citadel were destroyed. At Aleppo some of the buildings were
destroyed, and its people left the town. As for the more distant castles and fortresses as far
as Jabala and Jubail, the earthquakes produced hideous effects on them; Salamiya was
ruined and all the places in succession therefrom as far as al-Rahba and its neighbourhood.
(Gibb, ed. and trans., 1932, 338)
Clearly, this was a major disaster which had a massive impact upon the urban
infrastructure of northern Syria, causing significant damage and loss of life. In
contrast, Ibn al-Qalanisi’s reaction to it makes for an informative comparison with
the usual Christian response to catastrophes. Although such views were by no
means universal (Rohr 2003), European Christians were inclined to interpret
earthquakes as a punishment from God (Clark 1965; Meier 2009; Severn 2012).
However, the Muslim chronicler expressed his gratitude for what he considered to
have been divine clemency: “had not the mercy and goodness of God overtaken
His creatures and the cities,” he wrote, “there would have been a terrible disaster,
and a serious and distressing situation” (Gibb, ed. and trans., 1932, 339–40). It is

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interesting to note, furthermore, that the Christian tendency to attribute natural

disasters to the petulant outbursts of an enraged God is surprisingly enduring:
following two earthquakes in 2001 in El Salvador, which killed almost a thousand
people, 57% of survivors considered the event to have been an indicator of divine
displeasure (Pérez-Sales et al. 2005).
III Plague
Plague was not, in the Middle Ages, as frequent an occurrence as one might at
first imagine. Although localized outbreaks of disease were quite common, most
burned themselves out before they could spread beyond the confines of a
relatively small locality or urban area. Few lasted longer than a season or, at
most, a year. Medieval medicine, moreover, while not always sophisticated,
could often be effective (Riddle 1974; Grmek and Fantini, ed., 1998, 259–90;
Horden 2011). By the fourteenth century, quarantine, a technique which had
long since been used to curb the spread of leprosy, was introduced in the
Mediterranean to deal with other diseases (Gensini et al. 2004). Hygiene, too,
was often a good deal better than some have since imagined (Palmer 1991).
Indeed, it is worth considering that, in the millennium between the fall of Rome
in 476 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, only two outbreaks of disease can
certainly be classed as pandemics, at least in the context of the Old World. The
first was the Justinian Plague, which arrived in Europe in the middle of the sixth
century (Horden 2005); the second, of course, was the Black Death of the mid
fourteenth century. In contrast, in the century between 1889 and 1989, there
were at least five major pandemics, two of which (Spanish Flu in 1918–1920 and,
more recently, the AIDS pandemic) caused tens of millions of deaths, putting
them very much in the same bracket as the Justinian Plague and Black Death.
Plague, then, should certainly not be thought of as a medieval phenomenon
(see now Ebola).
In terms of impact, the most obvious, short-term effect of plague, wherever
and whenever it occurred, was depopulation on a large, sometimes a massive
scale. It has been estimated by some (although the figure is controversial) that the
Justinian Plague could have wiped out as much as 40% of the population of
Constantinople (Mango 1980, 68–70); the population of the Byzantine Empire as
a whole (which, at the time, included Asia Minor, much of North Africa and the
Middle East, Italy, and Southern Spain) may have been reduced by a third (Sarris
2002, 49). Later, the Black Death is generally thought to have reduced the popula-
tion of Europe by between a quarter and a half (albeit with significant regional
differences).

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The medium- and long-term results of this depopulation have been the
subject of some debate (Gottfried 1983, xiii–xvii). A long-held view has been that
the Black Death kick-started the transition from “medieval” to “modern,” bring-
ing about radical transformations in almost every European institution (for in-
stance: Gasquet 1908; Coulton 1929). This view has since been qualified some-
what (for instance: Hatcher 1994) and some of the early scholarship (Gasquet’s
work, in particular) has been heavily criticized. Nevertheless, the idea that the
mass depopulation of Europe led to, in some places, a general rise in living
standards as a smaller population faced less competition for wages, land, and
resources, remains popular (Penn and Dyer 1990). Indeed, there is little argument
that the Black Death was a transformative event in medieval European history,
which had far-reaching economic, social, political, religious, and cultural impli-
cations for the way Europeans lived (Herlihy 1997).
The causes of medieval plagues have been much debated (Byrne 2012, 67–
69). Overall, a combination of factors seems the best explanation: urbaniza-
tion, burgeoning trade links, failing harvests leading to reduced immunity, and
a more mobile population are all likely to have played their part in spreading
pestilence (Meier, ed., 2005). At the time, though, there was very little doubt as
to the origins of these outbreaks. Procopius, a contemporary (and a keen critic)
of the Emperor Justinian, blamed the plague that broke out during his reign on
the poor behavior of the Emperor himself and, moreover, on God’s judgment
upon him (Horden 2005, 134; Kaldellis, ed. and trans., 2010, 164–66). Almost a
millennium later, Gabriele de’ Mussis (d. 1356), a lawyer from Piacenza, revis-
ited much the same themes in his own account of the causes of the Black
Death:
God, king of heaven, lord of the living and of the dead, who holds all things in his hand,
looked down from heaven and saw the entire human race wallowing in the mire of manifold
wickedness, enmeshed in wrongdoing, pursuing numberless vices, drowning in a sea of
depravity because of a limitless capacity for evil, bereft of all goodness, not fearing the
judgements of God, and chasing after everything evil, regardless of how hateful and loath-
some it was. Seeing such things he called out to the earth: […] “I pronounce these judge-
ments: may your joys be turned in to mourning, your prosperity be shaken by adversity, the
course of your life be passed in the never-ending terror. Behold the image of death. Behold I
open the infernal floodgates. Let hunger strike down those it seizes; let peace be driven from
the ends of the earth; let dissensions arise; let kingdoms be consumed in detestable war; let
mercy perish throughout the world; let disasters, plagues, violence, robberies, strife and all
kinds of wickedness arise. Next, at my command, let the planets poison the air and corrupt
the whole earth; let there be universal grief and lamentation. Let the sharp arrows of sudden
death have dominion throughout the world. Let no one be spared, either for their sex or their
age; let the innocent perish with the guilty and [let] no one escape” (Horrox, ed. and trans.,
1994, 14–15).

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Just as with so many other disasters, the Black Death was perceived in Christian
Europe as a divine punishment visited upon humanity to punish it for its way-
wardness. The mechanism by which God delivered this punishment, so it was
often thought, was astrological: Gabriele de’ Mussis, Geoffrey Chaucer, and
William Langland were not alone in believing that the immediate cause of the
pestilence should be put down to planetary alignments (Grigsby 2004, 107–09).
As such, the psychological impact of the Black Death upon the survivors was
immense (Renouard 1948; 1968). In a famous article published in 1921, James
Westfall Thompson compared the psychological fallout from the Black Death with
the impact of World War One (at the time, a very recent memory indeed) and
argued that the consequences of the former were more enduring and more
emotionally damaging (Thompson 1921). More recent scholarship has tended to
confirm Thompson’s findings (Foster 1976; Lerner 1981). Perhaps one of the most
persistent images of the aftermath of the plague, and one of the most poignant
indicators of its devastating psychological impact, is that of the flagellant. These
were individuals who, driven half mad by grief and fear, wandered the country-
side under a strict, semi-monastic rule, mortifying their own flesh by whipping or
beating themselves in penance for humanity’s sins (Gottfried 1983, 69–74). Isla-
mic responses were, to some extent, similar; however, rather than seeing the
plague as an outright punishment, some contemporary accounts sought to por-
tray it as a gift, even a reward from God which made faithful Muslims into
martyrs, thus enabling them to ascend to heaven ahead of schedule (Dols 1974;
Lawrence 1995; Borsch 2005; Meri, ed., 2006, 235–37).
Even the most cursory reading of the literature produced in response to the
Black Death underlines the powerful psychological impact that mortality on so
enormous a scale had on Christian, European thought. As if experiencing the
plague were not bad enough in itself, descriptions of suffering often glory in
hyperbolizing lurid details, lending the pestilence new and terrifying dimensions.
In some accounts, victims become virtual zombies who charge around the coun-
tryside infecting as many people as they can before they die (Jones 1996). Else-
where, the tone of European literature more generally became distinctly melan-
cholic in the second half of the fourteenth century. The main narrative of
Boccaccio’s Decameron (completed in 1351 or 1353), for instance, is framed by an
account of a group of men and women fleeing plague-afflicted Florence and, as
such, the whimsical stories they tell each other to pass the time can be read as a
kind of escapism from the horrific reality of the outside world (Bernardo 1977).
Likewise, Guillaume Machaut (d. 1377) adopted the plague as a contextual device
in his Le Judgement dou Roy de Navarre, giving an otherwise conventional tale of
courtly love a dark, malevolent subtext (Calin 1971; 1974). An altogether more
down-to-earth (literally) reaction to the plague is the darkly-humorous, late

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medieval, Middle English poem, A Disputacioun betwixt þe Body and Worms in

which a pilgrim who is fleeing the plague hears, in a dream vision, a debate
between a recently buried body and the worms who are consuming it (Rytting,
trans., 2000). The Worms, responding to the Body’s indignation at being eaten,
are unequivocal in their justification of their actions:
All the nine worthy: Alexander the Great,

Judas Maccabeus, and David of old,
Caesar and Hector and Guinevere’s mate,
Godfrey and Joshua and Charlemagne bold,
With all Trojan knights, each with honor untold,
And beautiful Helen, so fair of visage,
Polyxena, Lucrece, and Dido of Carthage.
These – and more – were your equals in looks

Yet dared they not to stir or move
Once we possession of them took.
For all venomous worms it does behove
To do this labor, as soon they’ll prove.
With us to stay they’re fully set:
They’ll waste and devour you utterly yet.
(lines 93–106) (Rytting, trans., 2000, 229)
IV Famine
“In the year of our Lord 1315, besides the other adversities by which England was
troubled, a famine came about in the land,” wrote Henry of Blaneford in his
continuation to the “Annales” of John of Trokelow (Riley, ed., 1866, 92). “Going in
to the city […] we see the poor and deprived, weighed down upon by hunger,
prostrate, stiff and dead in the wards and in the streets” (Riley, ed., 1866, 95).
Henry was describing the English branch of a Europe-wide disaster, known
subsequently as the Great Famine, which caused, in all probability, several
million deaths. The Famine is important for many reasons: it had far-reaching
consequences for Europe’s political and religious establishment and was partly
responsible for bringing about a major social revolution throughout the continent
(Aberth 2010). It also gave rise to a new genre of “protest literature” directed
against Europe’s inept ruling classes, of which the Middle English poem, “Poem
on the Evil Times of Edward II,” also known as “The Simonie,” is a good example.
A scathing attack on the negligence and corruption of the Church and the
aristocracy, the text remains a powerful and compelling work of social protest
(Dean, ed., 1996; Matthews 2010).

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Moreover, the Great Famine proves, if proof were needed, the fragility of
medieval systems of food production and supply. Before 1300, circumstances had
coincided to create the ideal environment for sustained population growth: a
period of relative peace in Western Europe during the twelfth century enabled
rural societies to thrive unhindered and, moreover, gave Europe’s economic
infrastructure a chance to develop; furthermore, a series of improvements in
agricultural technology (including new methods of ploughing, the advent of
horse collars and so on) enabled previously barren land to be cultivated, signifi-
cantly increasing the food supply; and finally, all this coincided with the so-called
“Medieval Warm Period” which brought warm summers and mild winters to
Europe for almost two centuries (Hughes and Diaz, ed., 1994). England’s popula-
tion, it has been estimated, might have increased by as much as 500% in the
centuries between 1100 and 1300; some suggest that France’s population rose
even more sharply. Although medieval demography is at best an inexact science
(at worst, it is little more than guesswork), these figures at least seem to demon-
strate the rapidity and scale of Europe’s pre-fourteenth-century population explo-
sion (Postan 1973; Russell 1987).
Tempting as it is to think of the Great Famine as the inevitable “Malthusian
Crisis” that terminated Europe’s unsustainable population growth (Postan 1950),
the reality is more complex. The Great Famine was not caused by a single, dramatic
event, but rather by a series of infelicitous coincidences. A combination of soil
exhaustion, an increasing population, and poor weather (appalling harvests in the
years before 1315 had sent bread prices soaring) all seem to have played their part
(Kershaw 1973). At the same time, the mechanisms for transporting food over large
distances simply did not exist; therefore, although harvests remained good in
Southern Europe, Northern Europe was unable to benefit.
Indeed, for much of the entire Middle Ages, localized famines were caused by
the slightest changes. Even in good conditions when food should have been
plentiful, administrative meddling, greed, and incompetence could cause serious
shortages. In 362, a shortage of food in Antioch coincided with a visit to the city
by the Emperor Julian. In order to relieve the crisis, Julian issued an edict introdu-
cing a maximum price on bread and imported large additional stocks of grain.
These measures, however, had precisely the opposite effect: prices immediately
rose to the new maximum price, and local landowners bought up as much of the
freshly-imported grain as they could to prevent it flooding the market before
selling it on at a higher price (Stathakopoulos 2004, 49–50). The Antioch famine
is just one example of a much wider phenomenon: in many cases of famine, food
was available, sometimes even plentiful, but prices were simply too high.
Famine was not as common as a device in medieval literature as some other
disasters. There are, however, a few memorable, literary famines. Notably, in the

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story of Apollonius of Tyre (an extremely widely-known text which circulated in

many different versions throughout medieval Europe), the protagonist arrives at
the city of Tarsus (in Asia Minor) just as a famine is beginning to take hold.
Despite being a wandering exile, proscribed because he has solved a terrible
riddle with which a king had tried to hide his own crime of incest with his
daughter, Apollonius is somehow able to produce an enormous quantity of grain
which he donates to the city. Out of gratitude, a statue is erected in his honor. This
passage, as well as proving Apollonius’s generosity of spirit, perhaps played on a
widely-held and fundamental medieval fear of famine (Archibald, ed., 1991).
V Flooding
In January 1362, an enormous storm battered England, the Netherlands, and

Northern Germany, producing widespread flooding which killed as many as
25,000 people in an event which became known, in Low Saxon, as the “Grote
Mandrenke” (“Great Drowning of Men”). It was by no means the first event of its
kind: two enormous floods in 1282 and 1287 had inundated huge swaths of low-
lying territory in what is now the Netherlands, breaching the primitive sea
defenses and drowning several thousand people (van Engelen et al. 2001). The
second of these, known as “St Lucia’s Flood,” was, in part, responsible for the
creation of the Zuiderzee (Buisman and van Engelen 1995).
While flooding was more common in Northern Europe than it was in the
south, the Mediterranean and Middle East were by no means exempt from such
disasters. The regular flooding of the Nile was an annual cycle which had fuelled
Egypt’s economic prosperity since antiquity (Borsch 2000); however, even this
apparently beneficent inundation could be disastrous, as it was in 1371–1372,
when the waters rose higher than usual, flooding urban areas and spreading
disease (Tucker 2006).
The potential of flooding to cause serious damage and loss of life is not in
doubt. There is, moreover, little reason to believe that medieval populations were
able to keep rivers, lakes, and seas in check in any meaningful, sustainable way
before the fifteenth century at the very earliest (Fockema Andreae 1952). Perhaps
it is for these reasons that flooding became a common topos in many European
folkloric traditions. In some cases, a flood could be used as a literary device to
demonstrate the vastness of a character or mythical item. For instance, a poem in
the Black Book of Carmarthen (Jarman, ed., 1982), probably written in the middle
of the thirteenth century, recounts a colorful story of a place called Maes Gwydd-
no (“the plain of Gwyddno”) which had lain formerly in Cardigan Bay. A woman
called Mererid was responsible for tending a well there and, when she neglected

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her duty, the well overflowed, inundating Maes Gwyddno. Similarly, a Finnish
folk tale, incorporated into the epic “Kalevala” in the nineteenth century, tells
how the hero, Väinämöinen sustained a wound to his leg. The blood which
gushed from the wound subsequently inundated the world (Bosley, trans., 1990,
84). In both cases, familiar events are exaggerated to an apparently absurd extent
for literary effect.
Perhaps the most common use of the flood as a literary device, however, was
as a mechanism for cleansing and renewal. Undoubtedly, the “cleansing” flood
which loomed largest in the medieval imagination was that recounted in the Book
of Genesis. As well as influencing medieval flood narratives, Noah’s flood also
provided an opportunity for the invention of origin myths which brought remote
peoples and places into the immediate orbit of biblical history. For instance, the
eleventh-century Irish compendium, Lebar Gabála Érenn (“The Book of Inva-
sions”), contains material which inserts Ireland neatly in to the biblical narrative
by recounting the impact of Noah’s flood on a lively cast of mythological, proto-
Irish, one of whom, Cessaire, is supposed to have been Noah’s granddaughter.
Several other flood legends from Wales and Brittany contain comparable ele-
ments (Minard 2006, 754–55).
Floods had other, literary uses, too. Just as Boccaccio’s characters fled from
the plague in his Decameron, the characters in Marguerite of Navarre’s Heptamér-
on (published posthumously in 1558), which was directly inspired by Boccaccio’s
work, and followed a very similar narrative pattern, were forced to seek shelter
from a flood in the Abbey of Saint Savin. Here, as they tell each other stories to
pass the time, the flood (along with several other natural disasters) looms
constantly in the background, creating an effective framing device which, whilst
perhaps not as insidious as Boccaccio’s plague, is no less threatening (Tetel
1973).
VI Fire
Most medieval buildings, from the smallest huts to the most imposing cathedrals
and fortresses, were timber-framed. Most medieval cooking was done indoors on
an open fire, which was also used for warmth. The combination was not a happy
one and had predictably devastating consequences. London suffered serious fires
in 1130, 1132, 1212, 1220, 1227, and 1229; Rouen experienced thirteen major fires
between 1200 (when the cathedral was largely destroyed) and 1250; and as much
as three quarters of Amsterdam was destroyed by fire in the fifteenth century. It is
perhaps not surprising, then, that medieval fire-management techniques became
quite sophisticated in some places (Lloret and Maài 2001).

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Fire is unique in this section in that it is the only disaster with an explicable
and unambiguous cause. While divine retribution or demonic mischief were
sometimes cited as contributory factors in the outbreak of fires, the primary
agency was usually unambiguously human, and was recognized as such in the
Middle Ages. Indeed, many of the fires which did so much damage to medieval
Europe’s cities were started deliberately. Such was the destructive potential of fire
that punishments for arson tended to be severe. The second Statute of Westmin-
ster (1285) considered arson alongside homicide and rape as a crime of the highest
order, punishable by death (Rothwell, ed. and trans., 1975, 428–57). Likewise, the
Norman law code, Très Ancien Coutumier de Normandie, which dates from around
1200, imposed the death penalty on arsonists (Bloch 1977, 35). The same was true
in fourteenth-century Florence and Siena, where convicted arsonists were routi-
nely hanged (Stern 2004, 270–71).
D Supernatural Threats
I Overview
The French medievalist Jacques le Goff supposed that “in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries supernatural phenomenon were divided, in the West, into three
categories, fairly and clearly delineated by three adjectives: mirabilis, magicus,
miraculosus” (Le Goff 1985, 30). Mirabilis equated, more or less, to happenings,
beings and things which were beyond conventional explanation; magicus to the
harnessing of supernatural forces either for good or for evil; and miraculosus to
explicitly Christian miracles (Le Goff 1985, 30–31). The forces described by these
categories were by no means completely malign. The last, in particular, was
inherently positive and beneficent, designed to prove divine potency. However, it
seems fair to say that most supernatural threats, even before the twelfth century,
emanated in some way from forces which could broadly be classed as mirabilis or
magicus.
In most cases, the supernatural was threatening because it harbored, for
reasons which were often incomprehensible, a deeply-held desire to do serious
harm to humanity. Some of these threats had their origins in ancient folk beliefs:
in early England and Scandinavia, for instance, a belief in elves prevailed well
into the Christian period. These creatures could be mischievous but also had
strong positive, curative properties and certainly do not seem to have been
“frightening” as such; in some circumstances they were quite the contrary (Hall
2007). The intentions of medieval monsters, on the other hand, were rather less
ambiguous. They might chase, cheat, or even gobble up humans who came across

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them; demons were less likely to do physical harm (although this was not beyond
them) than they were to taint and seek to claim one’s soul. As ancient folk beliefs
became tangled up with Christian doctrine, so the supernatural took on Satanic
characteristics which at once made it all the more threatening but also easier to
defend against (Farkas, et al., ed. 1987; Bildhauer and Mills, ed., 2003).
It is scarcely necessary to state that the vast majority of the supernatural
beings described in medieval texts did not exist (one of very few exceptions,
perhaps, is the sea monster described in the Old Norse texts, Övar-Odds Saga and
Konungs skuggsjá, which may be identified with the giant squid). Rather, they are
interesting because of what they represent: these creatures are idealized figures of
fear distilled by decades if not centuries of reinvention into the most terrifying,
threatening and shocking characters imaginable. These beings, perhaps more
than any other source, tell us what medieval Europeans were most afraid of
(Delumeau 1989, Dinzelbacher 1996).
II Monsters
Medieval Europe had a very large population of monsters indeed. Some, like
Grendel in the poem Beowulf, were essentially humanoid in their appearance and
emotions, but monstrous, even demonic in their behavior (Orchard 1995, 28–57);
others, like the dragon Fáfnir from the Icelandic Völsungasaga, were animalistic
and otherworldly. The horrific draugr of Norse myth (an animated, decaying
corpse which, immune to normal weapons and unnaturally strong, stalked the
mortal world attacking people) was a terrifying and altogether supernatural being
(Hume 1980). However, there is some debate as to whether such creatures as these
were genuinely believed to exist during the Middle Ages or were little more than
compelling devices with which to frighten wilful children. Although there may be
reason to believe that, at one time, imagined Grendels could have existed beyond
the confines of Beowulf (Lapidge 1982), the narrative of the poem took place
during a pseudo-mythological pre-history, in geardagum (“in days of yore”) as the
poet put it in the first line, clearly demarcating a time which was not “now.” While
the themes and ideas of the poem may have had considerable relevance to the
Anglo-Saxons, the characters were clearly not intended to be their contempor-
aries. Völsungasaga, too, is unequivocal in locating its narrative within a mytho-
logical frame. The monsters encountered in these texts, therefore, were probably
not intended to be real as such, but rather were terrifying literary constructs
designed chiefly to play a metaphorical role rather than to reflect real life.
However, there were other kinds of monsters which, while not necessarily
any more real, occupied a different part of the medieval imagination. The Won-

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ders of the East is a vernacular, Anglo-Saxon text, the earliest witness to which is
found in the Beowulf manuscript. Taking the form of a series of letters addressed
to the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian, the narrative reports on the weird
and fantastical creatures that the authors supposedly encountered on their trips
to the East:
20. Then there is an island in the Red Sea where there is a race of people we call Donestre,
who have grown like soothsayers from the head to the navel, and the other part is human.
And they know all human speech. When they see someone from a foreign country, they
name him and his kinsmen with the names of acquaintances, and with lying words they
beguile him and capture him, and after that eat him all up except for the head, and then sit
and weep over the head.
21. Going east from there is a place where people are born who are in size fifteen feet tall and
ten broad. They have large heads and ears like fans. They spread one ear beneath them at
night, and they wrap themselves with the other. Their ears are very light and their bodies are
as white as milk. And if they see or perceive anyone in those lands, they take their ears in
their hands and go far and flee, so swiftly one might think that they flew. (translated in
Orchard 1995, 197)
Not all the creatures in the Wonders of the East are dangerous. The race of
monsters with the large ears, for instance, despite their enormous height, seems
quite timorous. Many, however, pose a serious potential threat to the uninitiated
traveler: some are keen on eating people, while others are manipulative, covet-
ous, and greedy. Overall, the text demonstrates a “mutual mistrust” (Orchard
1995, 27) between humans and monsters. The Wonders of the East does not stand
alone, but is part of a larger genre of texts known as mirabilia, which have a
continental as well as an English history (the Wonders of the East drew explicitly
on some of them for its information), in which such fabulous and oddly-behaving
monsters are encountered in abundance.
The vernacular, Irish immrama (“voyages”) texts make for an interesting
comparison with the mirabilia. Immrama contain plenty of compelling stories of
weird monsters and mythical beasts (drawn from all kinds of sources, not least
native Irish folk traditions) but, importantly, introduce Christian ethical struc-
tures into their narratives. In each of the three extant immrama (“The Voyage of
Máel Dúin,” “The Voyage of the Uí Chorra,” and “The Voyage of Snegdus and Mac
Riagla;” another text, “The Voyage of Bran,” is also sometimes classed as being
of this genre), the protagonists rely to differing extents on prayer and Christian
teaching to overcome the obstacles they face: Máel Dúin, having encountered
islands populated by angry blacksmiths and multicolored sheep, and a sky which
rained salmon, undergoes a profound conversion to Christianity (as well one
might after being confronted with such things). Meanwhile, the Uí Chorra con-
clude their voyage (for the duration of which they were accompanied by a bishop,

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a deacon, and a priest) by building a church on the Iberian peninsula. The theme
seems to reach its climax in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani (“Travels of Saint
Brendan”), a Latin text which draws on the immrama tradition. Here, as the
eponymous saint and his band of monks float around the North Atlantic, they
encounter a gryphon, some more angry blacksmiths, and a variety of more or less
malevolent sea creatures. Each time the group is threatened, Brendan, with
characteristic sangfroid, averts disaster through prayer. Although the earliest
manuscript witness to the Navigatio dates from the late ninth or early tenth
century, there is good evidence that stories about him circulated from a much
earlier date. The Navigatio itself was copied, altered, rewritten and translated
repeatedly throughout the Middle Ages, spreading quickly throughout Europe
(Mackley 2008). While its popularity may well have had something to do with its
solemn, Christian message, it seems much more likely that it was the fantastic
creatures and sensational encounters that drove its appeal. Whatever the cause of
its prominence, the Latin Navigatio made accessible a text which combined the
traditional features of the mirabilia and the immrama with a strong Christian
message, prefiguring subsequent developments in related genres.
By the thirteenth century, the monsters of the Early Middle Ages were no
longer dealt with by secular heroes, but, just as in the Navigatio, by saints. In
the famous Golden Legend (originally composed by Jacobus de Voragine, Arch-
bishop of Genoa, in about 1260, but augmented considerably over subsequent
centuries), St. Silvester, aided by a vision of St. Peter, was required to dispose of
a dragon that was terrorizing Rome. Whereas Beowulf and Sigurd both charged
in to tragic-heroic hand-to-hand combats with their dragons, Silvester calmly
tied a length of twine around the mouth of his, baptizing Rome’s population
along with a couple of pagan magicians while he was about it (Ryan, ed. and
trans., 1993). The Golden Legend is the best known (and certainly was the most
popular) of a much broader genre of miracle stories. Caesarius of Heisterbach’s
Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1214/1215–1225/1226), Jean de Mailly’s Abbreviatio in
gestis miraculis sanctorum (a mid-thirteenth-century text which, at 525 pages in
its 1947 translation, seems anything but an abbreviato), and Vincent de Beau-
vais’s Speculum historiale (also from the early-mid thirteenth century) all cov-
ered similar themes, attesting to the rampant popularity of the genre in Europe
at the time (see also the contribution to this Handbook on “Monsters” by Mary
Kate Hurley).

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III Demons
Christianity brought with it new ways of averting the attentions of supernatural

beings, but it also introduced a large and terrifying new family of potentially far
more malicious creatures to the medieval intellectual landscape. Demons were
the most numerous of these; but, despite their abundance, they lacked a precise
definition for much of the Middle Ages. In the New Testament demons were
represented as agents of Satan who sought to induce sin or apostasy through
temptation or intimidation (they appear relatively often; for instance: Mark 1:23–
27; Luke 11:24–26; Matthew 17:15–16; Corinthians 11:13–15). However, the Bible
largely left their precise nature, appearance, and number to the imagination of its
readership. Partly for this reason, “demonology” emerged in the Middle Ages. As
it attempted to fill in the blanks left by the Bible’s somewhat sparse descriptions,
it transformed the study of demons and demonic behavior into a pseudo-scien-
tific, academic discipline (Boreau 2004). For some, demons lacked physical
bodies and so relied on influencing humans psychologically in order to work their
mischief. What made these demons so frightening was the randomness with
which they chose their victims. In one well-known (and much imitated) account
from the sixth century, a nun became possessed after she had consumed a
diabolical lettuce (Müller 2005). For others, demons were real, substantial crea-
tures endowed with all manner of supernatural powers, whose capacity for
causing fear rested, primarily, on their hideous appearance (Caciola 2006).
In the eighth century, a remarkably colorful and almost contemporary hagio-
graphy, the Vita S. Guthlaci by an individual now known only as Felix, records
how St. Guthlac retired to his cell in the fens of East Anglia to pursue a life of
ascetic poverty. Whilst there, the saint came under sustained attack by groups of
demons who tried to tempt and trick him (Colgrave 1956, ed. and trans., chpts.
30–34). For all that they were threatening and aggressive, in their appearance
these demons were not presented as fearsome or alarming so much as foreign and
a little peculiar. In one passage, their otherness was demonstrated by their
tendency to speak Welsh (Colgrave, ed. and trans., 1956, ed., chpt. 34), the
language of the Britons against whom Guthlac fought as a soldier earlier in his
life. If anything, the ambiguity of their portrayal probably reflects Felix’s own
uncertainty of exactly what a demon was supposed to look like.
By the middle of the medieval period, however, demons had become hid-
eously deformed, subhuman, and intensely disturbing creatures whose capacity
to induce fear relied, chiefly, on their perverse and often ghastly subversion of
human traits, both psychological and physical. Dante’s Inferno was populated by
vast numbers of demons who were organized according to a clear hierarchy.
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these beings. The Malebranche were a particularly malevolent breed of demons:

black in color, they had wings, protruding horns and claws, and took some
pleasure in torturing their charges, albeit rather incompetently. On one level, they
are strangely human in their behavior: Dante uses them to satirize human deceit-
fulness and, at the same time, presents them as disorganized, bumbling and
shambolic, using their uncoordinated actions and rather blasé approach to
torture as a vehicle for dark, slapstick humor (Barillari 2003; Tulone 2007). On
another level, though, the Malebranche are unmistakably bestial and other-
worldly in their appearance, clearly distinguishing them from the tortured sinners
who suffer their attentions.
Perhaps the most memorable demons of the (late) Middle Ages, however,
were those which crawled out of the imagination of the Dutch artist, Hieronymus
Bosch (ca. 1450–1516). There is absolutely nothing ambiguous or indistinct about
Bosch’s demons. In his famous triptych, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” the
pleasures of heaven are contrasted with scenes of infernal torture, administered
by all kinds of deformed, demonic creatures. Bosch’s demons are animalistic,
often having the heads of dogs or birds; they are a range of lurid, unnatural
colors; most horrifying of all, they turn the tools of mortal human pleasure (dice,
food, musical instruments, and so) into instruments of torture, tormenting sinners
with the very things in which they had so overindulged whilst alive (Jacobs 2000;
Silver 2001). It is perhaps fair to say that Bosch’s demons represented the culmi-
nation of the millennium-long evolution of the demon in European thought.
Certainly, by the fifteenth century, the threat posed by demons to humanity had
been defined and even rationalized; demons had come a long way from the
malevolent but rather hazy creatures that had teased the unfortunate Guthlac in
the fens.
As the Church became increasingly prudish, demonic intercession acquired a
sexual element and demons were believed, by some, to compel their victims to
perform all manner of sexual acts. In many cases, even comparatively “normal”
sexual behavior and desires were blamed on demonic forces (Elliott 1999; Ostling
2011, 209–26). The stubborn refusal of Satan and his demons to manifest them-
selves in the physical world, however, meant that countermeasures against them
were often diverted toward the humans who were thought to have come under
their influence. In the early fifteenth century, the aggressive preaching of the
fanatical Saint Bernadino of Siena created a genuine, popular belief in a conspi-
racy of demon-worshiping witches hell-bent on the destruction of Christian, civil
society. Although Bernadino was himself tried as a heretic, the hysteria he created
led directly to the execution of several alleged “witches” in Rome (Mormando
1999). His hate-campaign, moreover, was an ominous precursor of the far more
widespread fear of witches that gripped Europe over the coming centuries. The

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infamous Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which was composed in

1486 by Heinrich Kramer (d. 1505), a papal inquisitor, lent the popular panic an
official, pseudo-academic dimension and, more damagingly, outlined the sup-
posed practices and identifying features of witches in gratuitous detail (Mackay,
ed. and trans., 2006; see the contribution to this Handbook on “Witchcraft and
Superstition” by Christa A. Tucza). The text’s popularity lay, in part, in its explicit
and often puerile descriptions of female sexuality, which excited and horrified its
predominantly male readership in equal measure. Although there is some debate
about the exact impact of the text, there is no doubt that it was a work of stunning
ignorance, unapologetic misogyny, and wild superstition which fed a European
preoccupation with witches that would last long enough to be transferred, with
horrible consequences, to the New World (Brodel 2004; Levack 2006).
E Conclusions
The prevalence of fear in the Middle Ages was indicative of the constant and near
presence of death. Death’s “PR” was handled, chiefly, by the Catholic Church;
even when death was not present, the agents of the Church invariably were, and,
in order to secure the salvation of their souls, they readily encouraged their
congregations to meditate upon their own, imminent mortality (Daniell 1998).
Both within the Church and beyond it, reminders of the dead were everywhere:
their distorted images bore mournfully and judgmentally down from stained glass
windows; their names were chanted as part of the liturgy and were recorded,
usually for a price, in the countless Libri uitae which became so popular during
the Middle Ages; their tombs loomed out of gloomy cloisters, often bearing their
likenesses in life alongside graphic carvings of decaying cadavers and, in order
that the point not be lost, some variation of that well-known motto: quod fuimus
estis, quod sumus vos eritis, “that which we were, you are; that which we are, you
will be” (Cohen 1973). In the later Middle Ages especially, a widely-shared
sensitivity to the universality of death is well attested by the widespread appear-
ance of the “Dance of Death” allegory in art and literature (Gertsman 2010).
Beyond this, it is fair to say that the majority of the literature produced in the
Middle Ages, if not concerned explicitly with death, at least featured it at some
point as a literary device. Some characters die spectacularly valiant deaths
defending their people, fighting off dragons or being cut down by pagan barbar-
ians; others slip peacefully and serenely away. What unites these accounts is the
obvious discomfort of their authors (and, no doubt, of their audiences) about
what happened next. Even the most devout Christian may have had some cause
to doubt whether he was bound for heaven, for hell, or for the convenient catch-

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all in the middle, purgatory. This uncertainty, this fear of the unknown, perhaps
more than anything else, lay at the heart of medieval fear, and had the power to
transform almost everything in to a powerful threat.
Select Bibliography
Aberth, John, From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in
the Later Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (1988; New York 2010).
Byrne, Joseph P., Encyclopaedia of the Black Death (Santa Barbara, CA, 2012).
Janku, Andrea, Gerrit Jasper Schenk and Franz Mauelshagen, ed., Historical Disasters in Context:
Science, Religion, and Politics (London and New York 2012).
Le Goff, Jacques, The Medieval Imagination, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Paris 1985; Chicago and
London 1988).
Le Goff, Jacques, L’imaginaire médiéval: essais (Paris 1985).
Moore, R. I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe,
950–1250 (New York and Oxford 1987).

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Ken Mondschein and Denis Casey
Time and Timekeeping
A General Overview
Timekeeping can be said to be a human universal. The British historian of science
G. J. Whitrow in his book What is Time? traced a sense of time back to prehistory,
hypothesizing it as derived from music and observation of nature: “A highly
developed sense of rhythm enabled a tribe to function with precision as a single
unit both in war and in hunting. Time is experienced by man in the periodicity of
his own life as well as in the periodicity of the natural world” (Whitrow 1972, 4).
Nonetheless, human societies have developed separate and sometimes very
different means of reckoning time, as well as ascribing different imports to this
reckoning.
The development of a sense of time and timekeeping in medieval Europe, in
both its intellectual and its practical aspects, is striking both for its debt to
antiquity and for the unique innovations birthed by physical, social, and theolo-
gical necessity—innovations that, in turn, influenced the intellectual, economic,
and legal spheres. These included ideas of cyclical and linear time; the religious
use and conception of time; the historical use of time in chronicles and legal
documents; timekeeping, both natural and artificial; and the birth of the equal
hour, which in turn affected both the social use and natural philosophy of time.
We will therefore begin with the macrocosmic concerns of theology and natural
philosophy, and then turn to the social use of time and, finally, the development
of the mechanical clock and modern timekeeping regimes.
B Theology and the Natural Philosophy of Time

I Theological Time
Christian theology, positing the immortality of the soul; holding to a cosmology

that began with Creation and will conclude with Judgment; and believing in an
eternal and unchanging deity that nonetheless entered historical time in the
person of Christ, existed in dynamic tension with classical philosophy on time
and eternity. It is thus not surprising that Christian ideas of time provided grist for
theologians. In his City of God XII, 13, Augustine specifically refutes the cyclical
nature of time, and then states (XII, 14) that humanity was created in time without

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1658 Ken Mondschein and Denis Casey
affecting God’s omniscience or eternal, unchanging nature. In XII, 15, Augustine

places the creation of angels—transcendental omniscient beings whose aware-
ness encompasses all times—as posterior to God but prior to the creation of the
heavens. Moreover, since angels are changing creatures subordinate to the Crea-
tor, he makes this creation the beginning of time. This then leads into a discourse
on whether, since the creation of the angels began time, they cannot be said after
all to be coeternal with (and thus equal to) God.
Interestingly enough, it is in the Confessions (ca. 397) that Augustine presents
the nucleus of his thought on time. In XI, 6–8, he raises the question of how an
eternal and unchanging God could speak to create the heavens and the earth,
since that would involve action and therefore change. The answer, as anyone
familiar with the Nicene Creed knows, is through Christ, the Word of God, who is
coeternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He thus reconciles an eternal and
unchanging God with a notion of creation in time and a Savior who works in
human history.
In his Consolation of Philosophy (ca. 525), Boethius explains that lived time is
a continuum that “proceeds in the present from the past into the future,” but
eternity embraces all moments. Intelligible time only exists in relation to eternity
—which, being infinite, is unknowable (V, 6). Boethius obviated the problem of
the eternity of the world by making a distinction between time, or tempus; the
aevum, a temporal thing whose existence is drawn out infinitely (i.e., a soul,
which, though it has an origin point, is immortal); and aeternitas, a truly eternal
thing that embraces all moments at once. For our purposes, Boethius’s signifi-
cance is that he established the orthodox view that would be inherited by
medieval thinkers, and which would have to be reconciled with the Aristotelian
view: that time and eternity are incommensurate, a concentration on eternity as
an aspect of the Divine, and a lack of concern with the metric of time.
II Time in Scholastic Philosophy
This orthodox view of theological time was shaken by the reintroduction of

Aristotle’s Physics in the twelfth century. The Physics was the primary work to
inform this new medieval philosophy on time, and, in turn, later scientific
conceptions of time. In a sense, the Physics can be seen as a work entirely about
time, dealing as it does with the properties of bodies in motion, which might be
better understood in the Aristotelian sense as “change in accidentals,” or proper-
ties. First, in IV, 10, Aristotle raises many issues, pointing out that there is a
plurality of opinion on whether time exists, whether it is infinitely divisible, and if
there is such a thing as the “now.” He holds that time is not change itself, since

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Time and Timekeeping 1659
change is measured in terms of time. Nor is it the heavenly sphere, for even a
portion of the rotation of the heavens is time, and besides, if there were a plurality
of heavens, the movement of each would be time. In IV, 11, Aristotle says that
without motion, there is no perception of time; however, time is not motion, since
if we are in darkness, sensing nothing with our bodies, our minds or souls (anima)
still perceive time. Time, like magnitude, is a continuous quantity. Furthermore,
things that stand still are still in time. Time is therefore not motion, but neither
does time exist without motion. Finally, Aristotle concludes that time is nothing
more than the “number of the motion with respect to the before and after”—in
James of Venice’s twelfth-century Latin translation, numerus motus secundum
prius et posterius.
The attempt to reconcile the neo-Platonic and the Aristotelian positions, and
to theoretically defend the growing science of timekeeping, would fill many
Scholastic manuscripts. As Richard C. Dales has summarized the intellectual
problem: “If the eternal is not subject to time but exists tota simul. … how is the
term ‘duration’ to be understood at all with respect to that whose mode of
existence is non-temporal?” (Dales 1988, 27). Dales suggests that reconciling these
theologically necessary positions became a topic of contention in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, fueled by the universalizing Scholastic impulse to
reconcile all worldly and supernatural phenomena under the divine plan, and
causing an entire vocabulary of eternity and duration to be invented in the twelfth
century. Roland J. Teske, on the other hand, has countered Dales’ opinion that this
scholarly explosion was a result of refinement of intellectual problems within the
body of patristic thought, using the writings of William of Auvergne as his
counter-example: “…it was only, it seems, when the Aristotelian doctrine of the
eternity of the world was thrust before the Christian thinkers of the West and when
the problem of two senses of ‘eternity’ was realized that there was a pressing need
to reach some clarity on the topics of eternity and time” (Teske 2000, 125).
Likewise, the increasing emphasis on astronomically-based chronological
measurement from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries (see below),
required a re-evaluation of the possibility of time-measurement. Commentaries
on Aristotle provided one medium for this discussion. For instance, Richard Rufus
of Cornwall (2003) in his commentaries on the Physics composed ca. 1235 includes
Aristotelian arguments on the objective reality and measurability of time. Simi-
larly, in Robert Kilwardby (Lewry, ed., 1987) we find explicit references to objec-
tive measurement. Alain Boureau goes so far as to argue that “we find with
Kilwardby the first speculative defense of the quantification of time by instru-
ments” (Boureau 1998, 41). Roger Bacon, ca. 1267, gives the epitome of the realist
position on time: time is independent, unitary, is abstracted from and does not
adhere to individual things, and flows without reference to moving things,

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though we can know of its passage from moving things. Bacon gives an addi-
tional, theological proof of this, using the doctrine of transubstantiation: just as
there is no moment in which the Host is partially bread and partially the Body of
Christ, but rather the whole is accomplished, so, too, can there not be two times.
Moreover, astronomy is the most sure judge of time. Bacon then goes on to tell us
there were precisely 2226 years, one month, 23 days, and four hours between the
creation of Adam and the Flood (Brewer, ed., 1859, 142–46 and passim, 208).
Thomas Aquinas, by comparison, is much less concerned with the metric of
time and motion, and more with an Augustinian idea of the perception of time
being a witness to the existence of God. As Helen S. Lang remarks of his Physics
commentaries, Aquinas’s sense of “physics starts out from mobile things as an
effect in order to reach the first cause of motion in the universe, the unmoved
mover of Physics 8, whom Thomas identifies with God” (Lang 1992, 164).
Pierre Duhem in his Le Système du Monde famously wrote that the first, most
important step toward the conceptualization of an absolute, evenly-flowing, New-
tonian sense of time was taken in 1277, when Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris,
prohibited (at papal prompting) the teaching of 219 propositions debated in the
University—most significantly, condemning in articles 80–89 the proposition that
God could not accelerate the universe in a straight line (as the universe would
then leave a vacuum behind it, an Aristotelian impossibility), as well as the
proposition that God could not have created a multiplicity of worlds, had He so
wished (Duhem 1956, 439–41). Rather, Tempier decreed, God could have created
other worlds beyond the outermost sphere of fixed stars and moved the whole
Ptolemaic universe which we inhabit into an outside space beyond and between
these spheres. As Milič Čapek has summarized, “This space received the name
‘imaginary space’ (in contradiction to the ‘real’ space contained within the celes-
tial spheres), and in analogy to it the concept of imaginary time was formed. Thus
in order not to confine the divine power within the limits of the finite Greek
universe, the first departure from the Aristotelian relational theory of time was
made… the first step toward a separation of time from its physical content—which
is the very essence of the absolutist theory of time—was made” (Čapek 1987,
607–08).
An equally compelling case, however, might be made for the effects of the
nominalist turn and the invention of the mechanical clock on the theorization of
time. The arch-nominalist William of Ockham, living at the dawn of the age of the
mechanical clock, defined the essence of time to be the very act of “telling time.”
The pressing question for Ockham was what is this known thing, the “better-
known measure,” against which we compare time? Ockham answers that the
outermost heavenly sphere, the primum mobile, is the absolute guide by which
the motion of every other body is known (including the sphere of the stars). As

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Herman Shapiro summarizes, “‘Time,’ for Ockham, is a connotative term signify-

ing directly the motion of an absolute existent—i.e., the prime mobile—and
consignifying the soul which imparts number to this motion” (Shapiro 1957, 111,
n. 274).
Those who followed Ockham, such as Jean Buridan, followed this conception.
“Because only the first and most regular motion is properly called ‘time,’ it is only
the motion of this outer sphere that is time in the first and most proper sense,” as
Dirk-Jan Dekker has summarized Buridan’s position (Dekker 2001, 155). None-
theless, Buridan also displays some discontinuities, for instance, in this idea of
time as an independent metric that did not rely on a soul to perceive it. According
to Dekker, time for Buridan “is a successive thing (res successiva) and is thus
identical to motion”; “… time signifies the same as ‘motion’… and is applicable as
a measure”; and “[t]he existence of time does not depend on an activity of the
intellective soul” (Dekker 2001, 152).
Buridan’s student Nicole Oresme introduces other hallmarks of modern
thinking on time, such as introducing the metaphor of the clockwork universe in
his De Caelo, written between 1372 and 1377 (Clagett 1968, 6–7, n. 10). In the same
work, Oresme also introduces the “traveller’s dilemma”: suppose one of three
priests sets out from a central point eastward along a road that goes around the
entire earth; his colleague sets out westward along the same road; and the third
stays at home. Both travelers circumnavigate the globe and come back home on
the day that the stay-at-home-priest celebrates Easter. However, the priest travel-
ing westward has counted ten days, while the one traveling eastward has only
counted eight days! Time is, therefore, an independent thing from any observed
physical phenomenon, even if we tell time by such things—an opinion Oresme
makes clear in his Physics commentaries. Clearly, over the course of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, a break from both the agnostic Augustinian orthodoxy
of the unknowability of time and the development of a position indistinguishable
from the “independent world of mathematically measurable sequences” that
Lewis Mumford (see below) identified with Newton and modernity (Mumford
1934, 15).
III Christianity, Judaism and Islam: the Lunar Calendar

in a Solar Calendar World
It is no coincidence that Oresme chose to use the date of the celebration of Easter
to make his point about the relationship between time and observation. In addi-
tion to the importance of contemplating the nature of time for the philosophical
underpinnings of medieval Christianity, the importance of practical timekeeping

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for cultic practice in medieval Europe ought not to be underestimated. A great

deal of intellectual energy was expended on chronological matters, particularly
with regard to the delineation of the year, owing to the perceived necessity of
accurately calculating the days on which particular festivals fell. The three
Abrahamic faiths that dominated medieval Europe (Christianity, Islam, and Juda-
ism) operated three separate calendars. The oldest of these three was the Jewish
lunisolar calendar, which is divided into twelve lunar months (the amount of time
it takes the moon to rotate around the earth [approximately 29.5 days]) that run
from new moon to new moon and an additional thirteenth ‘embolismic’ month,
which is inserted to ensure that the lunar calendar synchronizes with the solar
year. In contrast, the Muslim calendar is purely lunar, being divided into twelve
lunar months. Thus, there are approximately 33 Muslim years in every 32 solar
years (Freeman-Grenville 1995, 2–4).
As in so many other aspects of Christian culture, Christian chronography was
heavily indebted to its Jewish and Roman antecedents. The Christian year is
centered on the celebration of two main feasts: Christmas (which is fixed in the
solar calendar) and Easter (which is moveable and dependent upon both the solar
and lunar calendars). The most important of these was Easter, a celebration both
of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus and the potential salvation of men more
generally, and methods used to determine the correct date on which to celebrate
Easter were the cause of major controversies within late antique and medieval
Church and society.
It is hardly surprising that the method of calculating the date of Easter
Sunday should have been vigorously debated, when even fundamental aspects,
such as the celebration of Easter upon Sunday, were not universally agreed upon
in the early Church. One early Christian sect, the Quartodecimans, celebrated
Easter on the fourteenth of the Jewish month of Nisan, regardless upon which day
of the week it fell. The Quartodecimans could claim apostolic authority for so
doing and such scripturally derived authority was at the heart of the issue, owing
to the general acceptance that orthodoxy in belief was outwardly manifested
through uniformity in ritual. Scriptural authority for liturgical practice was the
same as that for belief; it followed, therefore, that a refusal to follow the liturgical
customs sanctioned by scripture displayed the same attitudes that encouraged
doctrinal heresy (Charles-Edwards 2000, 413). Unfortunately, the holy books were
not prescriptive; they contained ambiguities and were in places contradictory and
so their texts had to be interpreted and rules construed from them. Political
pressures (and expediencies) frequently featured in the various attempts to over-
come Easter controversies, such as Constantine’s demand for unity of practice at
the Council of Nicaea or the political machinations surrounding the Synod of
Whitby in seventh-century Northumbria (Mayr-Harting 1991, 101–13). Indeed,

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within individual kingdoms the celebration of separate Easters could seriously

disrupt the communal life of royal courts and by extension society as a whole
(Holford-Strevens 2010).
By the third century most Christians agreed that Easter should fall on the
Sunday after luna XIV (the fourteenth day of the first lunar month of spring), but
agreed on very little else, except that the date was to be calculated, rather than
based upon celestial observation (Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 801).
Various traditions developed regarding the day upon, and the chronological
limits within which, Easter should fall. In the middle of the fifth century Victorius
of Aquitaine produced his popular Easter table, which ran in a cycle of 532
Easters, but problems with his methods resulted in the papacy commissioning
another system of calculation, by Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century. Both
were widely used in Western Christendom (alongside other systems, such as the
Irish and British Latercus) and it was the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon author Bede
who eventually secured the triumph of Dionysius over Victorius (Blackburn and
Holford-Strevens 1999, 796). The methods for calculating Easter were generally
based on increasingly good mathematics and ever worse biblical exegesis, with
the latter taking precedence over the former (Charles-Edwards 2000, 395–96). In
addition, the prioritization of calculation over astronomical accuracy led to such
farcical situations as that of 664, when Dionysius’s table placed the new moon on
the 4th of April, Victorius’s on the 3rd of April, and the Latercus on the 30th of
March—whereas the new moon actually occurred on the 2nd of April (Blackburn
and Holford-Strevens 1999, 706). Muslim Europe was blessedly free of such
manmade problems; the Muslim calendar worked upon an observational princi-
ple, in which a new month did not begin until the new moon was perceived in the
sky and calculations were, strictly speaking, merely a guide (Freeman-Grenville
1995, 4).
Despite victory for the adherents of the Dionysian system in the eighth
century, the matter was far from forgotten and study of computus (the science of
calculation and the texts themselves) continued to be an important intellectual
activity in Ireland (Ó Cróinín 2010) and indeed much of Europe during the
subsequent centuries, as witnessed by the computistical writings of men such as
Abbo of Fleury (tenth century) (Pfaff 2004), Roger of Hereford (twelfth century)
(Burnett 2004), or Marianus Scotus of Mainz (eleventh century), who used his
computistical knowledge to create a substantially new chronology for his univer-
sal chronicle (Verbist 2002).

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C Historical Time in the Middle Ages

I Chronicle Writing and Identifying the Year
A key factor in historical chronology is the identification of the year, which allows
events in one year to be catalogued together and relative chronologies to be
established. Identification of the year (whether solar or lunar) could be achieved
through a variety of systems. During the Roman Republic and Empire the year
was usually identified by reference to the name of the holders of the consulship.
The result of this eponymous system was that long-term dating could only be as
accurate as the consular lists upon which it was based. Cyclical dating systems,
such as the financial fifteen-year cycle of Indictions instituted by Constantine the
Great, provided fixed points of reference only within each cycle. Cyclical systems,
like the Olympiads (the ancient Olympic Games’ quadrennial cycle) and in parti-
cular the Indictions, continued to be used frequently in the medieval period, long
after they lost their original function in the West. Increasingly popular in the
medieval period, however, was the use of regnal years (dating to a particular year
in a ruler’s reign), which did not begin in the Empire until the reign of Justinian in
the sixth century. Regnal years generally ran from an anniversary to the day
preceding the following anniversary, though the anniversary in question could be
that of the ruler’s accession (as practiced by the Byzantine emperors and Merovin-
gian kings) or coronation (as practiced by the later kings of France, Holy Roman
emperors, and popes) (Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 764–65).
The method of identifying the year most familiar to the modern mind is dating
by era; the reckoning of years in sequence from a particular starting point. A
number of era systems were used in the middle ages, some of which are still used
to this day. One system, counting years ab urbe condita (‘from the foundation of
the city [of Rome]’) although actually rarely used in Rome, was nonetheless
popularized by the fourth-/fifth-century historian and theologian, Orosius (Black-
burn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 676). The Muslim calendar, used in parts of
medieval Europe such as Al-Andalus (Spain), dates its (lunar) years from the Hijra
(the Prophet’s departure from Mecca), while in the Judaeo-Christian world Anno
Mundi (AM) dating (a measurement of the age of the world) was popularly used in
world history chronicles. The precise starting dates of individual systems were
frequently disputed, owing to the contradictory claims (and interpretations) of the
sources of authority upon which they relied, for example the Hebrew and Vulgate
(Latin) Old Testament traditions concerning the age of the world differ consider-
ably from that of the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament). The
form of era dating that eventually won out was Anno Domini (‘in the year of [Our]
Lord’), a system of counting from the year of Jesus’ birth. Like other era systems,

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the starting date was disputed, not least because the dating criteria offered in the
nativity narratives of the canonical Gospels of Luke and Matthew are irreconcil-
able. Nonetheless, the system of AD dating became dominant, owing to its use by
Dionysius Exiguus in his Easter table and its subsequent popularization by Bede
in his highly-influential De temporibus (703) (Kendall and Wallis, trans., 2010)
and De temporum ratione (725) (Wallis, trans., 1999).
The historian (both medieval and modern) was frequently required to master
a number of these dating methods, as adherence to a single dating system was
not mandatory and the employment of multiple dating systems in documents was
not uncommon. In annalistic and chronicle texts, patterns of dating criteria are
one possible method of identifying periods of chronicling practice and the pre-
sence of different textual strands (Mc Carthy 2008; Evans 2010). Medieval Irish
annals, for example, generally identified a year by the characteristics of the
Kalends (first day) of January, namely the feria (the day of the week upon which it
fell) and frequently the luna (day of the lunar month upon which it fell). Thus
when the Annals of Inisfallen noted in 990 that Kł. .iiii. f., i. luna, it is understood
that the Kalends (Kł.) (i.e., first) of January was the fourth feria (the fourth day of
the week, i.e., Wednesday) and the first day of the lunar cycle (Mac Airt, ed. and
trans., 1951, 168–69). In 1317 the same text recorded no less than eleven dating
criteria:
The Kalends of January on Saturday, the fifteenth of the moon; the first year after bissextile,
with Dominical Letter B and Tabular Letter A. (postpunctata); the seventh year of the
Decemnovennial Cycle, the fourth of the Lunar Cycle, and the last of the Indiction; has five
as the Concurrent, and is the tenth year in the Solar Cycle of Dionysius, and the twenty-first
of the Solar Cycle according to Gerlandus (Mac Airt, ed. and trans., 1951, 424–25).
Within the subdivisions of the year Roman influence also extended to the names
of months and days in various Romance and non-Romance languages (Ó Cróinín
1981) and the method of identifying individual days within the solar months. Days
were identified by inclusively counting backwards from three fixed points, the
kalendae (first), nonae (fifth or seventh), and idus (thirteenth or fifteenth) of the
month, thus the 1st of January is Kalendis Ianuariis but the 31st of January is pridie
Kalendas Februarias (i.e., the day before the kalends of February). Increasing
Hellenization in the Byzantine Empire resulted in the abandonment of the Roman
backwards dating system, but in the West, outside of Merovingian Francia,
forward counting did not make significant progress until the eleventh century
(Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 673).

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II Synchronizations: Bringing the Histories of the World

into a Single Timeframe
Just as those calculating the dates of religious festivals had to grapple with the
complexities of asynchronous calendars, so too anyone wishing to write cross-
cultural history (or express the chronological progression of a foreign history
using the domestic calendar familiar to their audience) would be faced with
similar problems. The most significant figure to rise to the challenge was the late-
third-/early-fourth-century bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius. His works became pop-
ular in the West through the Latin translations of Jerome and were frequently
drawn upon for the preambles of medieval chronicles (Burrow 2007, 189), for
example in Otto of Freising’s Chronica sive Historia de duabus civitatibus (Mierow,
trans., 1966).
Eusebius set himself the monumental task of writing the first-ever world
history, in which he synchronized the regnal years of the nineteen most impor-
tant world kingdoms in vertical columns and noted important events under their
appropriate year. Eusebius, however, actually used three chronological systems:
years elapsed since the birth of Abraham, the Olympiads, and regnal years of
the aforementioned kings, pharaohs, emperors, etc. In constructing his chronol-
ogy Eusebius, of course, faced many of the challenges outlined above (section
C.I). The nineteen kingdoms operated a variety of lunar, solar, and lunisolar
calendars, which never synchronized with each other. Similarly, reign lengths
posed problems; some kingdoms used the anniversary principle, while others
synchronized the second regnal year with the beginning of the following year
according to the local calendar in use and each subsequent calendar year was
equated with a regnal year (Burgess 1999, 28). In order to bypass this calculatory
quagmire, Eusebius coordinated all the regnal years with the calendar used in
his own Caesarea. Thus the ‘regnal years’ he records were not the actual regnal
years of each ruler but rather “useful chronological place-holders for calendar
years” (Burgess 1999, 30). The ultimate aim of Eusebius’s highly providentialist
Chronicle was not to provide a rigorous chronological apparatus; rather it was
intended to prove the superiority of the Hebrew religion (and more to the point
its Christian successor), through making manifest its antiquity (Burrow 2007,
189–90).
Similar motives inspired peoples on the fringes and adjoining the former
Roman Empire, who were nonetheless heavily influenced by Roman Christianity.
For example, the Irish (who had never been part of the Empire) faced the vexing
problem of chronologically arranging their history (and pseudohistory) so that it
synchronized with the histories of the peoples of the rest of the known world,
which they encountered through Greco-Roman and early Christian sources. As a

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people converted to Christianity and convinced of the veracity of biblical history,

the Irish were faced with the challenge of finding for themselves a place within
historical traditions that did not explicitly include them. Irish authors produced a
substantial body of pseudohistory that helped forge Irish identity, which had, as
points of chronological reference, events in Biblical and Classical history. Indeed,
they also borrowed from the substance of these works. Thus the origin legends of
the Irish (such as Lebor Gabála Érenn [‘The Book of the Conquest of Ireland’]
which purport to tell of the wanderings of the ancestors of the Irish) (Macalister,
ed. and trans., 1938–1956) drew upon Orosius’s Historiae adversum paganos
(Deferrari, trans., 1964) and were ultimately temporally anchored in a chronologi-
cal model based upon Eusebius-Jerome (Jaski 2009, 68). The pervasive influence
of Eusebian-style chronological tables may be seen in the recording of Irish
history of the Christian era, for example in the parallel lists of kings and arch-
bishops found in Bodleian Library MS Laud 610 (Meyer, ed., 1913, 478–79).
The Irish were not alone in using the traditions of the Biblical and Classical
world as a means of anchoring their origins within a universal chronology.
According to the so-called seventh-century Chronicles of Fredegarius the Franks
were descended from exiles of Troy (Krusch, ed., 1888, 45–47; 93). Likewise the
Historia Brittonum, which was probably written in Wales ca. 830, claimed that the
Britons were descended from Brutus/Britto, a wandering great-grandson of the
Trojan hero Aeneas. (Morris, ed. and trans., 1980, 18–20; 59–61). As late as the
twelfth century the great Icelandic historian Ari inn fróði Þorgilsson (Ari the
Knowledgeable) combined AD dating with the terms-in-office of Icelandic law-
speakers in his magnum opus, Íslendingabók (Grønlie, trans., 2006), in order to
integrate the history of recently settled (and even more recently Christianized)
Iceland into world history (Würth 2004, 158).
III Calculating the End of Time
The Book of Revelation posited an inherent problem for Christianity. On the one
hand, it posited a future free of injustice and social ills. On the other hand, those
protesting the order of the world, or merely seized by religius furor, might make
religious claims of an impending judgment day and the thousand-year “kingdom
of the saints.” The term “millennialism” itself shows the significance given to the
thousand years spoken of in Revelation 20; we find the term, for instance in
Radolfus Glaber’s chronicle written ca. 1000 and “the half-time after the time” in
Botticelli’s Mystical Nativity. Such claims occur throughout the medieval period,
though some of the most well-known, such as the 1534–1535 Münster rebellion,
date from the Reformation.

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The fact that various medieval intellectuals made attempts at calculating the
age of the world has important millennial implications. The purpose of the
exercise of determining the age of the world was to fix the ending point, since the
history of the world was generally held, followng Sextus Julius Africanus, to be
organized into a Great Week: 6,000 years of historical time, and then, following
the plan of Revelation, a thousand-year sabbatical kingdom of God on earth. The
general trend in this calculus was that the more the writer had invested in this
world, the further off the Apocalypse. This presents us with a moving date given
by successive generations of authorities, who placed it more or less distant
according to their proclivities. Thus, Hippolytus expected it in 500, Augustine,
Jerome, and Gregory of Tours (who had to argue against the “false Christ of
Bruges”) around 800, Bede around 1000. On the other hand, Joachim of Fiore
(1135–1202) predicted it sometime in the thirteenth century. Later followers of
Joachim such as Arnold of Vilanova also predicted immanent apocalyptic dates.
Needless to say, the Church tended to frown upon such heterodox beliefs for their
inherent destabilizing nature (Cohn 1990).
D The Social Use of Time

I Life Rhythms
Although many computistical pursuits were only performed by an educated

minority of the population, ordinary medieval people would probably have been
reasonably aware of the necessity of recording the passage of time for a variety of
reasons, not least because their agrarian-based survival depended upon it. Even
though different numbers and starting dates of seasons were recognized by
various communities, the changes in weather that generally accompanied the
lengthening and shortening of daylight were vital for all facets of agricultural life.
Ploughing, sowing, harvesting, insemination, and slaughter were all determined
with reference to both the solar calendar and the realities of climatic conditions.
In addition, these activities were punctuated (and partially defined) by various
festivals, many of which were probably intended to avert possible dangers as
much as to celebrate past and present good fortune (Kelly 2000, 460–61). Many of
these agricultural festivals were held during the summer and autumn months,
which helped balance out the distribution of festivals in the social calendar, as
most of the main Church festivals took place in Winter and Spring
(e.g., Christmas and Easter) (Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 651).
Just as festivals may be understood as attempts to ward off potential
misfortune, particular importance was also attached to the designation of

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certain days as auspicious or inauspicious for certain activities. For example,

the so-called “Egyptian Days” (of which it was believed that there were two in
each month) were held to be particularly unlucky and it was considered
unwise to engage in a variety of activities on such days—e.g., entering into
contractual arrangements or starting journeys. The Roman Republic had occa-
sionally sacrificed the smooth running of their calendar to the demands of
superstitions or political pragmatism but the Christian requirement for fixing
the date of Easter precluded such expediencies. The consequences of inap-
propriate activity on inauspicious days could be visited upon an individual or
the community. A patient might be unnecessarily endangered by undergoing
phlebotomy on an Egyptian Day, but when Richard I of England was crowned
on one (3rd September 1189), the chronicler William of Newburgh noted in his
Historia rerum Anglicarum that it proved extremely unlucky for the Jews of
London, who were subject to a pogrom by their fellow townsmen. To William
they appeared to have metaphorically gone from one Egypt to another (How-
lett, ed., 1884–1889, I, 294). In addition to individual days, temporal bound-
aries (such as twilight or the beginning of winter) were also fraught with
supernatural danger, especially when experienced at physical boundaries,
where the convergence of multiple forms of liminality added to their potency
(Mac Cana 1983, 127).
Socially, linear and cyclical views of time were vital to the rhythms of life and
medieval people would have been conscious of a “plurality of ‘times’” (Porter
2010, 1351). Seasons and tides followed expected cycles on a linear trajectory,
while the life of individual beings too would follow a cycle, for example the
progression from childhood (Classen, ed., 2005) to old age (Classen, ed., 2007),
although this latter cycle was non-renewable. The juxtaposition of cyclical and
linear time is brilliantly expressed in the Irish poem Aithbe damsa bés mara
(“Ebb-tide has come to me as to the sea,” popularly known as “The Lament of the
Old Woman of Beare”) (Ó hAodha, ed. and trans., 1989), in which an old woman
staring at the sea recalls her youth among the kings of Cashel in the inland plain
of Femen. In the words of John Carey:
The ‘Lament’ makes extensive use of two natural images: the sea along the rocky coast of the
Beare peninsula, and the rich plain of Femen in Tipperary. In terms of the argument of the
poem, each has the same import, exemplifying the cyclical regeneration of nature in
contrast with the linear existence of the human individual: the tide will return after every
ebb, and grass sprouts again every year, but the Old Woman’s youth and beauty are gone
forever. In terms of the poem’s narrative background, however, sea and land may be seen as
reflecting another contrast: in age the speaker is associated with the bleak coast (as the very
name ‘Old Woman of Beare’ and the associated local legends indicate); while her youth as
consort of kings was evidently spent in the rich plain, with its chariots and royal strong-
holds. On different levels, then, the poem presents two distinct temporal oppositions:

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cyclical versus linear time (plain and sea versus woman), and past versus present (plain and
youth versus sea and age) (Carey 1999, 31).
Just as the Old Woman of Beare foresaw an end to her own enjoyment of linear
and cyclical time, so a variety of belief systems proposed that these cycles would
ultimately come to a head in an unknown (but frequently considered imminent)
point in the future, such as the Christian Apocalypse or Norse Ragnarok.
II Legal Usage
For legal purposes, time did not need to be calculated using years or even their
subdivisions, but could rather be measured in the more variable unit of the
generation. This was particularly true when dealing with matters of inheritance,
especially within kin groups. Not only was membership of a kin group defined
through counting the ascent or descent of generations from a central figure, but
the period required for certain inheritance processes to be completed might be
measured in generations, rather than in years. Thus, just as the twelfth-/thir-
teenth-century Welsh lawbook Llyfr Cyfnerth notes that kin land is only shared out
within a four-generation group, it also states that the children of a Welshwoman
given in marriage to a foreigner do not come into possession of their share of her
paternal homestead until the third generation (Charles-Edwards 1993, 211–15).
Closely allied to the role of generation counting in inheritance was its func-
tion in regulating systems of social mobility (Jaski 2000, 171–72). In seventh- and
eighth-century Ireland, the highest grade of commoner could rise to the rank of
the lowest grade of noble, provided the property qualifications for nobility could
be maintained over three generations (Kelly 1988, 11–12). The man of the third
generation was known as a fer fothlai (“man of withdrawal”), as he was in the
process of withdrawing from the ranks of the commoners and ascending toward
lordship. His son would, in turn, become a fully-fledged lord (Binchy, ed., 1941,
10). Similarly, in Burgundy from 1275, a three-generation holding of a purchased
fief conferred nobility, a process which would otherwise take forty years in
Normandy or one hundred years in Brittany (Bush 1988, 74). Downward social
mobility, however, was probably more common and it too was sometimes mea-
sured in generations. The polar opposite of the early Irish fer fothlai, was the fuidir
(semi-freeman), whose descendants would become senchléithe (serfs bound to the
land who were transferable with its ownership), should they fail to improve their
status over three generations (Binchy 1984, 10–11).
The calculation of Easter discussed above (section B. III) also determined the
dates of many of the other feasts and rituals of the Church, such as Shrovetide,

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Ascension Day, and Whitsunday/Pentecost and a great deal of non-ecclesiastical

business was organized and conducted with reference to these days or days
determined in relation to them (in addition to fixed feasts, like Christmas). This
included court ceremonies held at major feasts such as Easter and Pentecost or
the falling due of rents and customs on particular days. For example, in England
(from at least the early thirteenth century), the second Monday and Tuesday after
Easter were known as Hockdays and were the chief payment days in spring
(Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 627). Their corresponding payment day in
autumn was Michaelmas (29th September), which was fixed within the solar
calendar. The payment of Church dues by specific dates was frequently regulated
in law but other legal processes might also be enjoined or forbidden at certain
periods. Thus the 1008 law code of the Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready
legislated that “ordeals and oaths are forbidden on feast-days and the legal
Ember days, and from the Advent of the Lord until the octave of Epiphany, and
from Septuagesima until 15 days after Easter,” while secular debts were also to be
paid before or after these seasons (Whitelock, trans., 1955, 407).
III Urban and Rural Work Hours
For purposes of everyday economic production, time regulation had to deal with
much shorter periods. Chief amongst these were work hours. As Gerhard Dohrn-
van Rossum summarizes, “In the cities, working time was determined in part by
daylight, in part by the ringing of the Hours in various churches, in part by civic
time signals” (Dohrn-van Rossum 1996, 293). In Paris, for instance, the transition
from night to day was determined by such experiential values as being able to
recognize a man in the street or distinguish between two coins, while civic
symbols were epitomized by the curfew bell and the dinner bell (Gauvard 1991,
480–81). Claude Gauvard, in her De Grace Especial, made a comprehensive study
of the use of hours in descriptions of crimes found in late fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century letters of remission—some 3,752 from the reign of Charles VI
(1380–1424) alone (Gauvard 1991, 491). In some 35% of Gauvard’s cases, the hour
is specified. Gauvard divides the expression of time into several categories: clock-
time (horlogére), used in 14.5% of cases where the hour was specified; ecclesias-
tical hours (ecclésiastique), 11.5%; “folkloric” (folklorique, customary expressions
such as entre chien et loup), 4.0%; “alimentary” (alimentaire, such as around
lunchtime), 27.5%; “solar” (solaire, such as “sunrise and sunset”), 29.0%. Besides
these, 13.5% have “many qualifiers” (plusiers qualificatifs) or “others” (autres).
Use of time was not what one would expect between classes: Gauvard notes that
clerics were less likely to use clock-time (1.1%) than guild-members (7%), officers

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(4.5%), or even laborers (3%), but more likely than men-at-arms (0%); clercs were
more likely, however, to use ecclesiastical time or folkloric time (16.3% each, as
compared to 8.5%/0% for officers, 0% in each for men-at-arms, 4.5%/1.0% for
guild-members, and 4.0%/2.0% for laborers).
The canonical hours were initially eight, corresponding to the sequence of the
Passion and the words of Psalm 119 (“seven times a day I praise you”): Matins
(sunrise), Sext (midday), Compline (sunset), and Laudes (around midnight), to
which were added the quarter-hours mentioned in the Bible, whose timing
depended on the natural signals: Prime (shortly after Matins, around 06:00);
Tierce (around 09:00), None (originally 15:00, but gradually moved closer to
modern noon, to which it gives its name, over the course of the thirteenth
century), and Vespers (18:00 more or less—later in summer, earlier in winter).
Later, sext disappeared and nones moved to midday; the reasons for this are
obscure. Dohrn-van Rossum points out that the idea of the modern regime of
twenty-four equal hours—the “four o’clock” of Chaucer’s Parson’s Prologue—
gained currency through the fourteenth century as the municipal mechanical
clock became more widespread. Nonetheless, this was not an overnight transfor-
mation: according to Claude Gauvard, it was 5% under Charles VI, but 11% under
Louis XI (r. 1461–1483). Gauvard also notes that measures of duration such as the
half-hour, quarter-hour, and half-quarter hour gained currency. However, the
older ways of reckoning time clearly still persisted, and clocks, such as the
fifteenth-century example on the choir screen of Chartres cathedral, usually
showed both equal and unequal hours. Moreover, the system of “Italian hours,”
which were kept in Italy and some parts of Bohemia and even Poland and
reckoned the day in twenty-four hours that began at sunset (as opposed to the
“French hours” that began and ended at midnight) lasted until the mid-eight-
eenth century and beyond in certain places.
One of the first guilds to have their labor organized by equal hours was the
Parsian métier of the tondeurs de draps, or cloth-cutters. In 1384, we find that from
the Feast of St. Remigius to Candlemas (February 2), they were required to go to
work at 12 o’clock at night and work until daylight, whereupon they had a break
until 9 o’clock. There was a further one-hour break at one PM , and then they
worked to sundown. The rest of the year, they worked from sunrise to 9 o’clock in
the morning, then had a one-hour break, and then worked to one o’clock in the
afternoon, when they had either a one- or two-hour break, depending on the time
of year. They were then required to return to work until sunset, at which time they
had a half-hour to drink and refresh themselves at their work site. They were
further enjoined not to quarrel about the work-times and not need to be reminded
of them daily. However, it is important to remember that these regulations existed
alongside other, more traditional measures of time.

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Hourly wages would have also simply been impractical in many situations.
The cloth-cutters of Paris were clearly an exception in that they worked in a
centralized factory system; most of the work in urban industries was accom-
plished through a putting-out system. And, as E. P. Thompson and other econom-
ic historians have observed, labor in the premodern period was hardly performed
at a uniform rate, with workers observing a “Saint Monday” of slow production at
the start of the week, and speeding up toward the end in order to earn enough for
their needs and pleasures (Thompson 1967, 76). That this was true also in
thirteenth-century Genoa is suggested by Epstein’s study of notarial casebooks, in
which he notes a preponderance of business on Tuesdays and suggests that
“E. P. Thompson’s ‘Saint Monday’ may be a custom as old as the work week”
(Epstein 1988, 250–51).
Wages and work hours in the post-Plague rural economy were often a source
of conflict, and in turn gives us insight into timekeeping in the rural economy.
Dohrn-van Rossum cites the well-known case of the vineyard workers of Sens and
Auxerre in Burgundy to argue that church bells were becoming insufficient for
measuring working time in the late fourteenth century. This was actually a series
of ongoing conflicts, beginning in 1383, when the nobility, clergy, and bourgeois
of Sens complained that the workers were demanding high wages and leaving the
vineyards after only a half day’s work—“between midday and None, in any case
long before sundown,” as Dohrn-van Rossum summarizes (Dohrn-van Rossum
1996, 294).
A royal ordinance established a maximum wage and that they should work
from sunup to sundown; an appeal to the Parlement of Paris was rejected. In 1392,
suffering from war-related devastation to their businesses, the vintners of Auxerre
obtained a similar order. This time, the workers’ protests led to widespread
disturbance; they claimed that the half-day was traditional, that None had crept
closer to the third or fourth hour of the afternoon—a timing for None that Dohrn-
van Rossum notes was, in fact, more common to the thirteenth century, even if
the workers employed the new-fangled clock-time to express their objections
(Dohrn-van Rossum 1996, 294–96). Moreover, as we can see from the drafts of the
acts, neither side could agree when work ceased—the “cliquest” (that is, the
clicket or pre-ringing bell) to None, two o’clock, two-thirty, or three o’clock. In the
end, the king tied the end of the day’s work to sundown; it was not until 1447 that
the Parlement of Paris definitely tied them to clock-time and decreed work would
end at the last stroke of the seven o’clock ringing.
Running medieval universities likewise required a great deal of coordination
for scheduling and duration of faculty meetings, examinations, and the length of
lectures. By the very nature of their daily routines, the members of the University
tended to be conscious of time, and perhaps at an earlier date, than other

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segments of society. We often find temporal notes appended to decrees as a usual

part of the opening formula, to inform the reader that a decision had been reached
in a lawful and customary assembly. Likewise, universities are some of the ear-
liest institutions to make use of clock time. This academic concern for the equal
hour is reflected not only in the legal decrees issued by the faculty, but also the
Scholastic and theological concerns discussed above.
E The Development of Clock Time

Time, as we have seen, is no less a social concept than a scientific one. These two
ideas have become inextricably intertwined in Western histories of chronography,
with a primary assumption being that the revolution of the hour-hand around the
clock-face was a necessary antecedent to the revolution in production. As Lewis
Mumford wrote, “The clock … is a piece of power machinery whose ‘product’ is
seconds and minutes: by its essential nature it dissociated time from human
events and helped created the belief in an independent world of mathematically
measurable sequences: the special world of science” (Mumford 1934, 15). The
central historiographical debate, then, centers on when the equal hours began to
be kept, as opposed to mere prayer-times.
The first observation that even a casual student of the history of time might
make is that timekeeping and astronomy were inextricably intertwined. The
Benedictine Rule, following earlier writers such as Cassian and in keeping with
Psalm 119: 62 of the Vulgate (medio noctis surgam ad confitendum tibi super iudicia
iustificationis tuae, “at midnight I rise to give thee thanks because of your right-
eous judgements”) and 119: 164 (septies in die laudavi te super iudiciis iustitiae
tuae, “seven times a day I praise thee for your righteous judgements”), estab-
lished the eight times-daily round of prayer. Times for work and prayer were
specified, as well—in chapter XLVII of the Rule, the office of None is at the
“middle of the eighth hour” from Easter to October, and from October to Lent,
Tierce is at the “second hour.” These were not fixed times in the modern sense,
but unequal hours that varied by the length of season, signalled by bells that were
in turn regulated by water clocks which essentially functioned as timing devices.
The whole system was maintained by astronomical tables and verified by obser-
vation. Monastic life was thus tied not only to the cycle of the seasons, but also
the stars.
More than knowing when to rise for prayer, because of the timing of Easter a
good cleric had to be able to determine the equinoxes. Indeed, the first post-
classical documentation of a water clock was for this purpose. Bede, in De
Temporum Ratione, discusses the use of what is presumably such a device

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(horologica) to help find the vernal equinox. Similarly, in his Historiam ecclesias-
ticam gentis Anglorum, he quotes a letter from the abbot Ceolfrid to the same
effect. Astronomy was chronometry, and chronometry was astronomy. Macrobius
(fl. 395–423), whose writings were known to Bede, also mentions using a clepsy-
dra for astronomical observations in Book 21 of his Commentariorum in Somnium
Scipionis.
However, gleaning information from the motion of the sky, or modeling it,
wasn’t simply religious duty or abstract knowledge: it was a glimpse of the
sublime. The preeminent medieval text on cosmology was Cicero’s Somnium
Scipionis, the passage from his De Re Publica in which the Roman general and
Stoic hero Scipio Aemilianus is raptured into the heavens to observe both the
sublime motion of the heavenly spheres and hear their subtle music while at the
same time realizing the infinite smallness of all human activities. The easily-
Christianized moral message follows that while the sublunar world is to held in
contempt, the virtuous have their reward in heaven. This passage was well-known
to Bede, Abelard, and other medieval intellectuals from Macrobius’s commentary,
which was not only a summa of ancient astronomy, but a primer of neo-platonic
philosophy: Macrobius’s spheres are not only natural phenomena, but also
manifestations of divine will. Humans, created in God’s image, can, if virtuous,
take their place amongst the stars whose regular movements astronomers can
track with their devices. It follows that regular motion, timekeeping, and god-
liness go hand-in-hand. For instance, Isidore of Seville’s fifth book of the Etymolo-
giae was on “laws and time”; the two subjects are the regulators of the world.
The wise use of time was also a trope of virtue. Candles were of religious,
symbolic, and practical importance, and marking time by the burning of candles
is a trope that occurs often in the lives of saintly kings. Asser, in his vita of Alfred
the Great, has the king having six candles, each of twelve pence weight, burned
every day in a specially-constructed horn lantern (Keynes and Lapidge, trans.,
1983, 107–08). Each candle, in turn, was marked in twelve divisions, each of
which would lasted twenty minutes. If true, the expense would have been exorbi-
tant. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus’s vita of St. Louis gives great detail on his
devotion and his singing the canonical hours with his chaplains, as well as the
candle trope. This trope of candle-burning may explain why, even though Char-
les V ordered public clocks to be built in Paris, he himself made use of portable
clocks and hourglasses (Dohrn-van Rossum 1996, 120). Christine de Pisan, in her
biography of the king, notes that he burned candles to divide the day into three
parts (Solente, ed., 1936–1940, 56).
In his seminal 1960 Annales essay “Merchant’s Time and Church’s Time,”
Jacques Le Goff argued that the critical leap in time-measurement, the ordaining
of regular hours, came about as part of late medieval urbanization and the desire

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for ordering time (Le Goff 1982, 29–42). Le Goff challenged the wisdom of the
previous generation of French medievalists, particularly Marc Bloch’s conception
of a vague medieval “perpetual floating of time” (perpetuel flotment du temps)
and Lucien Febvre’s dichotomy between premodern experiential “lived time”
(temps vecù) and modern “measured time” (temps-mesurè) (Bloch 1939, 1.117;
Febvre 1942, 426–34). Le Goff posited, instead, two competing systems: a particu-
larly Christian ontology of time as having a beginning and an end—bookended,
as it were, between Genesis and Revelations, and the commercialized time of the
emerging merchant class of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. “The commu-
nal clock,” Le Goff further tells us, “was an instrument of economic, social, and
political domination wielded by the merchants who ran the commune.” This time
was rationalized as church time could not be, thus linking modern time regimes
and capitalism.
This thread was picked up by Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum in his magisterial
1992 work Die Geschichte der Stunde (Dohrn-van Rossum 1996). Dohrn-van Ros-
sum exhaustively traces the rise of the mechanical clock in thirteenth- and four-
teenth-century Europe, attributing the mentality of keeping regular hours to the
fourteenth-century technological innovation of public clocks, arguing that within
the space of a mere two generations the pace of urban life that would hold until
the late eighteenth century had been set. This development, in turn, often came
from an unexpected quarter, spurred on by the desire of monarchs and princes to
compete for prestige—often over the protests of merchants who saw such extra-
vagances as unnecessary, thus replacing Le Goff’s Marxist idea of the develop-
ment of timekeeping regimes with a more Whiggish one.
F Development of the Mechanical Clock

The regularity of monastic prayer is why Lewis Mumford saw the monastery as the
engine that produced the machine that produced time. Dohrn-van Rossum notes
that by the year 1000, monastic water clocks were usually made to sound bells or
another alarm, thus functioning as a sort of timing device (Dohrn-van Rossum
1996, 60–64). To give a simple example, in the device for keeping the unequal
hours discussed by Vitruvius in Book IX of De Architectura a float placed on top of
the water basin regulates the descent of a weight, which in turn drives a mechan-
ical device such as a clock-face or bells. The primary observational device for
taking the time from the sun and stars so as to calibrate the water clock would
have been the astrolabe, which was introduced from the Muslim world in about
the eleventh century and, as Emmanuel Poulle has shown, was also used to
reckon the equal hours from the mid-thirteenth century on (Poulle 1999, 140).

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Indeed, the influence of Arabic science on Western timekeeping cannot be

underestimated: As David King has stated, “virtually all innovations in instru-
mentation in Europe up to ca. 1550 were either directly or indirectly Islamic in
origin or had been conceived previously by some Muslim astronomer somewhere”
(King 2004, vol. 2, ix). The Muslim world was not only as tied to regular daily
prayer as Latin Christianity (if not more so) and made use of shadow-angles and
astrolabes to determine the proper times, but was, to a much greater extent than
the West, the inheritors of Greek science (Saliba 1995; King 2004). Scholars in
ninth-century Baghdad were capable of creating fairly complex water clocks (Hill,
trans., 1979; 1981), and German chronicles speak of an immense mechanical
astronomical simulation given to Frederick II in 1232 by Sultan al-Ashraf of
Damascus (Dohrn-van Rossum 1996, 73–74).
By the mid-thirteenth century, European water clocks had not only become
quite complex, but attempts were possibly being made to keep track of twenty-
four hour time (presumably, of equal hours). For instance, in his De Anima, written
about 1240, Guillaume of Auvergne describes astronomers’ use of water clocks
that moved “by water and weights,” though he notes that these are inaccurate.
Still, just like the perpetual-motion machine that appeared in contemporary
treatises, the idea of a reliable clock by which one can know the motion of the
heavens to tell time in an objective sense and, presumably, thus synchronize the
functioning of human society, was clearly present by the late thirteenth century.
For instance, Robertus Anglicus, a professor at Montpellier, noted in his 1271
commentary on Johannes de Sacrobosco’s ca. 1230 Treatise on the Sphere that a
good, accurate clock would keep time with the heavens (Thorndike 1949, 229–30).
The era of the water clock ended in about 1300 or shortly thereafter. Its
replacement was a mechanism that became standard until the late seventeenth
century: The virge-and-foliot escapement. The “virge” part of the verge and foliot
is named from the Latin virga, “stick” or “rod.” The escapement itself, or “crown
wheel,” is a gear with vertical sawtooth-shaped teeth (thus the name “crown”).
The virge has two tabs called “pallets” offset at such an angle that, as the crown
wheel rotates thanks to the downward pull of the weights, the pallets will engage
and rotate the virge, which in turn moves the weighted “foliot,” a weighted bar. A
tooth on the opposite side then catches the other palette, rotating it back and
returning the foliot to its original position. The verge-and-foliot serves to trans-
form the downward pull of gravity into a regular oscillating motion, producing
the characteristic “tick tock” as it rotates forward and back. Moreover, if the
weights on the foliot are moved inwards or outwards, the period of the cycle can
be adjusted, thus regulating the clock.
An interesting precedent was the strobe clock, such as the one constructed by
Richard Wallingford, twenty-eighth abbot of St. Albans. In his brief tenure

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Handbook of Medieval Culture

Fundamental Aspects and Conditions

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Miriamne Ara Krummel

Christa Agnes Tuczay

Philipp Robinson Rössner

Mary Kate Hurley

Ken Mondschein and Denis Casey

Christa Agnes Tuczay

Index of Names  2117

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success, and exhibitions on medieval art, history, literature, religion, or politics

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5 Albrecht Classen, “Survey of Fundamental Reference Works in Medieval Studies,” Handbook of

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(© Benjamin Yuchen, June 2014, with permission).

As I have already outlined in the Introduction to the Handbook of Medieval

Traditionsbildung im Mittelalter: Wissen–Literatur–Mythos, ed. Manfred Eikelmann and Udo

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11 http://www.cmedst.umn.edu/assets/doc/Brief_Sketch_of_CSPW_at_UMN.pdf (last accessed

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This is a ‘handbook,’ not a ‘lexicon’ or an ‘encyclopedia,’ that is, a broadly-based

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9404579016662718868576#printMode (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014); concerning Liberal Arts

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19 http://cmems.stanford.edu/ (last accessed on Sept. 26, 2014).

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of Oregon,20 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,21 at the University

I have also to express my great gratitude to the contributors. Every article

20 http://admissions.uoregon.edu/majors/medieval%20studies (last accessed on Sept. 26,

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pillars, inside a circular basin. It is the craftmanship of master Roberto (his

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2) They represent a part of nurturing nature, which links humans to their

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Each chapter generally begins with or makes reference to a biblical verse,

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III Isidore’s Etymologies, Book XII

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as well as in the very architecture of the churches: one witnessed familial

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