January+15+-+The+Early+Middle+Ages+and+the+Romanesque

**Chapter 11 - Chapter Summary**
The period referred to as the "Dark Ages" stretched from the sixth to the eighth century. In the first half of the fifth century, Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain from Europe as part of the vast migration of Germanic tribes into the former territories of the Roman Empire. In Britain they quickly suppressed the indigenous Christian inhabitants, the Celts. By 550, Christianity had all but disappeared from Britain, and the culture of the country had become distinctly Germanic. However a reversal began in 597, when St. Augustine was sent to Britain as a missionary by the Pope,. Within seventy-five years, Britain was once again predominantly Christian. The culture started to blend Christianity with the Germanic tradition. Exquisite objects, such as the p[ruse cover from the burial ship found at Sutton Hoo, England, show how misleading it is to call the period during which they were created the "Dark Ages." The "animal-style" artifacts from Sutton Hoo are among the few examples of art to have survived. The only paintings that survived are illuminated manuscripts produced by monasteries in northern England an Ireland after the mid-seventh century. The //Book of Kells// is the finest gospel book of the Early Middle Ages still in existence. It was written and decorated by Irish monks, probably around 800. Little secular literature survives from the earliest period of the Middle Ages. The greatest of the Anglo-Saxon Germanic epics is //Beowulf//. An almost completely Germanic tale, set in Denmark, the poem tells the story of the good king Beowulf, who slays the monster Grendel. The short poem //Caedmon's Hymn//,, composed between 658 and 680, employes the language of Angl0-Saxon heroic verse in an explicitly Christian context. Charlemagne (742-814) is an example of the convergence of Christian and Germanic cultures. He seized enough land to create an enormous empire, and along the way converted the natives to Christianity. He encouraged a revival of classical learning and the arts. His government was an early version of Feudalism. He built a new capital at Aachen in Germany. One of the most famous of all. early medieval French literary works is the //Song of Roland//, and elegant poem which exemplifies the values of French feudal society.

During the Middle ages, monasticism developed rapidly. The earliest monastic guidelines were those provided by St. Benedict (480-543), who created the Benedictine order. The basic ideal was that monasteries should be self-sufficient, providing for all the monks' needs. Much of the work of the monks consisted of revising, copying,and illustrating liturgical books. Due tot he classical influences encouraged by Charlemagne, the human figure once again became important in the visual arts. This can be seen in many of the works illustrated by the monks. Music was a particular passion of Charlemagne's, and the monks he brought form Rome brought with them Gregorian chants.

After Charlemagne's death in 814, the bonds that held the Holy Roman Empire together soon dissolved int o political fragmentation. Around 1000, a few powerful feudal families developed into full-fledged monarchies. As the secular power of these monarchs grew, the influence of the Church was increasingly threatened. When Hugh Capet (ca. 938-996) ascended to the French throne in 987, he established a dynasty of kings that would rule for nearly 350 years. Throughout the subsequent Capetian era, Paris became the political and intellectual center of Europe. The dukes of Normandy, through servants of the Capetian, claimed England for themselves and rules as kings in their own right. When King Harold of England was defeated by duke William of Normandy, William became the first Norman King of England, and was known there after was William the Conqueror. Relations between England and France remained difficult. Internally the struggle was hard on the English barons, who drew up a list of demands, called the Magna Carta, that King John was forced to sign in 1215. It included concepts such as no taxation without the consent of the realm. These provisions for the first time set a limit on the power of the ruler. The crusades were a series of military expeditions organized in Western Europe with the principal aim of recovering the Holy Land from its Moslem occupiers. The First Crusade was launched in 1095, and Jerusalem fell to the crusaders in 1099. But by the middle of the next century, Muslim authority had begun to reassert itself. In 1189 crusaders reached the outskirts of Jerusalem, but got no further. Politically and religiously the crusades were a failure. One side benefit was that trade between Asia and Europe greatly stimulated.

Pilgrimages were used to worship relics of the saints. The destinations were usually the Church of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, or Rome or Jerusalem. One of the pilgrimage churches was Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, began ca. 1070 or 1077. Like all pilgrimage churches, it was a Latin-cross plan, with one long arm, as opposed to the Greek-cross plan, with four arms of equal length. Another pilgrimage church is Sainte-Madeleine, Vezelay, France, built between 1096 and 1132. Of all the Romanesque cathedrals constructed outside the pilgrimage routes, the most striking is that in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1063. The campenile, begun in 1174, is the famous "Leaning Tower" of Pisa. Romanesque sculpture was very expressive and non-naturalistic, with little emphasis on realism. Romanesque sculpture is found on church portals, especially on the tympanum, the semi-circle above the doorway. An extraordinary tympanum can be found in the narthex of the church of Sainte-Madeleine in Vezelay.

Medieval women promoted a chivalric ideal in which their own position was elevated and the feudal code of stern courage and valiant warfare was displaced in favor of more genteel and refined patterns of behavior. Among the most influential proponents of this new chivalric code were the troubadours, poet-musicians in southern France. In the middle of the twelfth century, their songs celebrated chivalric virtues, especially honor, nobility, and commitment to ideals. Such values were promoted by Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie De France, the first woman to write verse in French. An especially popular literary form depicting the chivalric relations between knights and their ladies was the romance, a long narrative form taking its subject matter generally from King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

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