Unit 3 Flashcards
Augustine, CITY OF GOD
□ Written by Augustine as a way to say, “no, Rome wasn’t sacked as punishment for worshipping pagan gods. It’s just part of life.”
□ City of Man : Earthly, those who live for the world - visible, temporal, corrupt
□ City of God: Heavenly, those who seek eternal life - invisible, eternal, perfect
□ Book 19: Reviews of opinions of philosophers regarding the “supreme good,” and vain efforts to find happiness in this life
□ Allegory of the Ark
® Descriptions:
◊ What did it look like? How big?
◊ God’s plan
□ In a Nutshell…
® Call for Christians to live righteously
◊ “Do you want to live in the city of man… or the city of God?”
BEOWULF
□ Oldest surviving epic poem from early Middle Ages
□ Example of Germanic Literature
□ Roman ideals adapted to meet new needs
® 3 Major Exploits:
1. Encounter with the monster Grendel
2. Encounter with Grendel’s vengeful “monstrous” mother
3. Attempt to kill the dragon (50 yrs. into his reign)
□ Anglo - saxons
□ Aragon = Beowulf
□ White City = directly based off of Charlemagne The structure of his imaginary world is correlated with the world of mythological culture and traditions
□ Tribalism and clans inspires the way of the Lord of the Rings
□ Great Gold Buckle, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (MOund 1), early 7th c., niello and gold
□ Interlace
CHANSON DE ROLAND
□ (song of roland) c. 1040-1115
□ Talks about feudalism’s greatest war story
□ Roland is the epic hero, a lieutenant of charlemagne’s army
□ Chanson de geste= celebration of legendary deeds
® Chivalric deeds committed by feudal courts
® Valor of the knight
® Genre of literature focusing entirely on war
® Mentions no women whatsoever
® The only female is Roland’s betrothed wife
® Plot
® The army is retreating from Spain
® Attacked by the stepfather of Roland-Basques in story, Muslims in real life
® Example of courage, but also treachery
® Muslim forces are seen as evil
® Roland blows on a horn to notify/warn Charlemagne
® Ultimately, Roland dies but Charlemagne wins
◊ In reality Charlemagne lost and weren’t being attacked by Muslims
◊ Focuses a lot on Christian values
} Willing to give up their lives
® Main themes:
® Bravery is carried into battle but also the downfall
® Your honor is something worth dying for
® Christianity is something worth dying for
® Conflict between christians and muslims is foregrounded
□ Leads to Crusades
□ Reading Excerpt (lines 181-210)
□ Marks Roland’s death
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias
□ Abbess who documented her allegorical visions and apocalyptic prophecies in text and illuminations.
She wrote SCIVIAS (know the ways of the Lord)
SUMMA THEOLOGICA
□ Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274
○ Wrote Summa Theologica, 1274
§ Summae = long, systematic treatises that attempted to sum up all knowledge
§ “Reason does not destroy faith but perfects it.”
§ His greatest work
§ Answers every question about God and the world
□ He got very close
§ Never actually completed
§ Readings 1A and 2B on Question 92:
□ Production of the woman2
□ Disagree with Aristotle’s ideas
§ Article 1. “Whether Woman Should Have Been Made in the First Production of Things”
○ Dominican friar
§ Not really apart of the catholic church but wanted to just walk around in the streets and preach
○ Lectures at the university of paris
○ Fell off of a donkey when he was old and died
§ Death words: “All that I have written is but straw”
○ Becomes bedrock for theologians and poets
Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY
○ Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
○ Contains many elements such as the Pyramids, King Arthur, Emperors, ets….
○ Realized there are terrible consequences to living your life lost
§ 3 Women
□ Mary
□ St. Lucia
□ Woman he was passionately in love with
§ They send Virgil to confront him and take him on a journey through the realm of the dead -> he gets a glimpse of the truths of the universe
§ Dante’s Inferno is only the first chapter in the Divine Comedy
§ Summary of Medieval values and priorities
○ Dante was a poet, especially love
□ Politician - lived at a time where cities were run by powerful families
○ Party with which he was associated lost power
○ Was exiled from Florence - lost his property, could never talk to his friends again, no longer had a livelihood
□ Vernacular Italian
○ Took him 14 years to write
□ “I ONCE WAS LOST BUT NOW AM FOUND, WAS BLIND AND NOW I SEE”
□ Virgil had NO connection with Jesus - died before his birth
□ But Dante decided to use him because he was a great poet
EMPEROR THEODOSISUS 1
○ Heir to Constantine
○ Still encountering controversies like Arianism
○ Makes Christianity the only legal religion
§ Declares it to be the one true faith
§ Bans all Pagan cults
□ Anyone caught practicing pagan religion are threatened with penalities
□ Declared heretic by the bishop
§ Rewriting of the Nicene Creed
○ People want to create a unified idea of Christianity
○ Latin becomes the official Language
NEOPLATONISM
○ Influenced Augustine’s CONFESSIONS
○ Thought that emerged in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity
Influenced by Plato
LATIN “CHURCH FATHERS”
Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, Augustine
Jerome:
□ Wrote the Vulgate
® Latin translation of Hebrew and Greek text
Argued that you could be Christian and study Pagan learning
Ambrose
□ Bishop of Milan
□ Staunch opponent of Arianism
□ Not opposed to classical learning
Converts and baptizes Augustine
Gregory
Later than the other 3 church fathers
Augustine
□ Besides Paul, most important expounder of Christian doctrine
□ Not born into faith, wasn’t baptized at birth
□ Mother was Christian
□ Bishop of Hippo
□ Prolific writer
® It is amazing how much of his writing has survived
® More than 5000 words
® CONFESSIONS
◊ What he embraces about classical thinking and philosophy
◊ Influence of stoicism and Neoplatonism
} Acceptance of one’s fate
} Restraint that one is supposed to adopt
SACK OF ROME
§ Freaks people out
§ The powerhouse of Rome has been taken down and ended
§ People begin to wonder if this happened because they abandoned the old ways and worshiping the pagan gods
Early Middle Ages
§ Called the “Dark Ages” because:
§ Plague
§ People in the Renaissance period called it that
§ Petrarch
§ Fall of the Roman Empire: His Own Day
§ thought to be the “rebirth of Greek and Roman Art and Ideas”
§ Idea that we are in a “dark” time, that a lot was lost
§ In Reality, there was lots of interaction between people
High Middle Ages
○ Characterized by greater conflict, strife, and land ownership
§ Self sacrifice, martyrs
§ Alchemy and chemistry
Castles, dragons, medieval university
Late Middle Ages
Crisis, famine, black death
3 heirs to Rome:
Byzantium, Islam, German tribes
Byzantium
§ Constantinople - “New Rome”
□ Perfectly positioned on trade routes
□ Provides access to East and West
§ Byzantines amass power and land
§ Wealthy and Powerful
§ Greek Speaking - call themselves Romans
§ Deny the Pope’s claims over Christians
Justinian
Justinian
□ Known for making Constantinople a cosmopolitan city
□ Responsible for expanding the Byzantium empire
□ Legal Reforms, Artistic Renewal, Imperial Splendor & Christian Piety, Early Christian Church
Empress Theodora, Law Code, Hagia Sophia, San Vitale
Empress Theodora
® Raised in a circus ◊ Father was a bear trainer ® Woman of ill repute ◊ Desirable in the company of men ® Beautiful and intelligent ◊ She would rule in his absence ◊ Savvy in militaristic decisions ® Ordered her husband to kill protestors ◊ No one protested him again
Justinian’s Law Code
® Corpus Juris Civilis
◊ Asks people to find every Roman law they can find, bring it back to Constantinople, and they combine them
} In Latin and Greek
® 50 books in 3 parts
◊ Justice and Law: “The maxims of law are these: to live honestly, to hurt no one, to give everyone his due.”
◊ Natural, Common, and Civil Law: Says, that if it seems good to him, he can enforce it on everyone
The Power of Parents: Everything decreed by the emperor is unquestionably law
Hagia Sophia
® Enormous, impressive space
® Originally was a church that was burned during the revolts against Justinian
® Largest church in the Christian world for over 900 years
® In the center of Byzantium
® Makes a political and religious statement
® Justinian doesn’t hire architects, he hires professors a mathematician and a physicist
® Only took 6 years to make, people were afraid it would collapse
® Looks like a Basilica
◊ Open atrium
◊ Linear structure
® Looks like the Pantheon
◊ Dome
◊ The Pantheon has a light hole at the top, however, the dome in Hagia Sophia has several windows at the base of the dome
} Looks like it is floating on light
® Interior:
◊ Mosaics, gold leaf, marble columns
1. Symbolized the mysteries of Christian religion and Holy knowledge
2. Statement of art in service of political image (think Romans)
3. Architectural uniqueness (domed basilica)
4. Influence on Western Cultures
San Vitale
Authority of the Emperor in the Christian Plan of History
® Presents Justinian and Theodora as:
◊ Heir to the tradition of Roman Emperors
◊ Restorer of the territorial boundaries of the Empire
◊ Defender of the faith
® Centrally planned church: focus is on the center, not the end of the hallway
® Ambulatory: aisle that surrounds its central space
® Octagon shaped
® Bricks were taken from ancient Roman buildings and used on this one
® Columns are stacked on top of each other
® Eastern end is covered in dense mosaic
® In the center Christ is dressed royally in purple by angels on top of the sphere of the earth
® The entire church is covered in designs
® Above the altar is the picture of the lamb of God
® Surrounded by a wreath of victory held in place by the angels
® Bearded picture of Christ
® Scenes from the OT that prefigure the life of Jesus
® Impost blocks
® Mosaics of Justinian and Theodora: them reasserting their control over the city
◊ Political Propaganda
◊ Arians used to be in control of the city
◊ Church, emperor, and military: 3 centers of power
◊ Medieval: no concern for accuracy or realism
® Panel of Theodora:
◊ Mosaic that implies she rules co-equally with Justinian
◊ Halos speak of the divine origin of their authority
Origins of Islam
□ Desert of Arabia, forbidding place
□ Arabs = tribal society
□ Rome is crumbling and Byzantine is rising
□ Islam: a way to unify people on a larger scale
□ Synthesize a great deal of the cultures it comes in contact with
□ Greco-Roman philosophy
□ Byzantine art
Muslim Mantra
“there is no god but Allah”
Islam means
“submission to god’s will”
Muslim means
“one who submits to god’s will”
Muhammad was
“last in a line of prophets”
Born at Mecca, orphaned at age 6
Received a command from the archangel Gabriel to rise and warn people about Allah
Left Mecca for Yathrib (Medina) - the Hijra
Muhammad’s Message
Obedience to god, respect for others, warning of judgment
Five Pillars of Islam
Almsgiving, Fasting, Pilgrimage, Praying 5 times a day, Profession of faith
Qur’an
“words of god”
® Word of God revealed to Muhammad (via Gabriel)
® Later codified: Qur’an
® 114 suras
® Has to be read in Arabic
® Purify yourself by bathing
® Whoever believes in god and does what is right has nothing to fear
® god is one of three
® Says Jesus and Mary were just normal people
® Revelation takes time to reveal itself
Umyyad Dynasty
They are Muhammad’s Successors, see themselves as Roman successor state
Allow people to practice their own religions, but make them pay tax and acknowledge Islam’s authority.
Took over expansion of Islamic world, converted people
Dhimma
pact which governs relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims
□ Pay taxes and you’re fine
® non-Muslims had their own taxes
Great Mosque of Damascus (in present day Syria), 706-715
□ Comparison of floor plan to St. Peter’s
□ Mosques are primarily spaces for prayer
□ Built on top of Temple of Jupiter
□ It’s also a church to John the Baptist
□ Muslim conquest of 651- shared the space with Christians
® Negotiated to eventually take over from Christians
◊ Gave Christians their own church
Basic requirements for a Mosque
Oriented towards Mecca
Minarets: towers that the call to prayer comes from
Must be big and empty prayer hall with many columns
Cleanliness (take off shoes)
Courtyard
No Christian Iconography
Al-Andalus
◊ Great Mosque, Cordoba (Spain)
} enlarged during 9th and 10th centuries
} Church stuck in the middle of it
◊ Same kind of floor plan as Mosque of Damascus
◊ Beautiful interior has a sense of infinity
} Borders only the building itself, the ceiling in the walls
} Very organic, looks like flowers
} A lot of pillars in the inside
– Makes it look like a forest, you could get lost in
◊ Arabesque =
Arabesque
type of ornamentation = geometric and floral shapes
} Calls out to style of calligraphy
} Incredibly bright colors and gold, shimmering mosaics
– Bright golden colors
} Patterns go on and on infinitely (around the artwork)
