Medieval World View and the Medieval Mind

How did the medieval person think? It is safe to assume that, like contemporary humans, the medieval man had emotions, desires, and ambitions – these are intrinsic human values that can be applied to most, if not all, persons throughout history. However, the interpretation of these values, as well as the definition of success, society, and life, are inherently tied to the time in which they developed. Coupled with the desire to contrast the modern age to those gone by as a means of understanding the contemporary, grasping the medieval worldview is an essential, if often ignored, topic of interest.

The medieval world required stability and familiarity. After the fall of Rome, Europe was left in tatters. The collapse of civilization led to war, instability, and fear. As such, a unifying structure was needed to help repair the fractures of society, and in due time, the Catholic church became that organization. Doctor Durant Waite Robertson Jr., a medievalist professor, stated that "During the Middle Ages the Church was responsible for the establishment and maintenance of civilized life in Western Europe." Through monasteries and law, the Church gave the populations of Europe a sense of stability through law and faith. It is no surprise Christendom spread quickly. Although many problems later arose, especially with changes to church doctrine allowing such misadventures as the crusades, this short essay is intent on covering not the failings of the church, but its relevance to the medieval mindset and understanding of the world. As such, one must remember the early medieval world was in need of stability that the church was able to provide. As such, Christianity became the backbone of medieval society and, as a result, its cultures. The result was that "However isolated medieval social groups may have been from one another, and however frequently they may have come in conflict with each other, in feudal warfare, in clashes among guilds, or in other ways, they were united by a common set of Christian beliefs and by a common interest in the larger community of the Church” (Robertson, 1970). Christianity provided stability through shared morals and, perhaps more importantly, through social structure.

The medieval worldview was one of hierarchies. Everything, from animals to plants, was placed on a split pyramid. Lions were the king of animals, while dolphins were kings of the sea. As such, lions were the greatest of animals while dolphins were the greatest of sea creatures. In this same structure, men were placed above women in society, just as the king presided above his lords who, in turn, presided over the peasantry. The intelligible world, or the spiritual world, was above the earthly world, or that of flesh and carnality. This meant "Medieval men tended to think in terms of hierarchies, and to them God represented the apex in the hierarchy of being. God was not, strictly speaking, the apex of the hierarchy of physical being, but the apex of the hierarchy of intelligible being” (Robertson, 1970). Humans were the exception. They were not part of a duality, but rather in the center of intelligible and tangible. By having both soul and flesh, humans were innately flawed beings with the capacity for higher reasoning. It was understood, and even accepted, that humans had flaws and earthly desires. In fact, a great deal of medieval literature espouses this understanding.

In Erec et Enide, a classic French Arthurian legend written by Chrétien de Troyes, Erec, the man, was representative of reason, while Enide was representative of flesh. Erec went on a quest to restore his knightly honor after being accused as womanly (and therefore of the flesh) due to his constant affection for and subsequent lack of action due to Enide. She joins him, despite Erec’s anger towards her due to his failings. Though Erec tells her not to speak at first, she continues to do so. Eventually, Erec’s anger subsides, and he proves himself while still loving Enide – albeit properly – at the end. Although modern sensibilities and, naturally, human rights would declare this sort of behavior abusive, within the confines of medieval allegorical literature, this makes sense – Reason is challenged by the flesh, but the flesh is not evil; rather, the inability to temper earthly desires with reason is sinful. Robertson states the following: "The fact of humanity was not regarded as an excuse for errant behavior, nor as a predicament beset by ambiguity and potential irrationality. It implied, on the contrary, an obligation to act reasonably. Medieval society, as it developed, became hierarchical in structure, and it was widely recognized that some men were more lovable, or more reasonable, than others. Vicious men were not thought of as being merely bestial, but as worse than bestial, since a beast has no reason to corrupt” (Robertson, 1970). As such, flesh was bound to humans, but was not sinful by itself. The body was animalistic, but the spirit – reason, the soul, the part bound to God – was able to impose inhibitions.

This splitting of society into segregated groups represented these beliefs. Unlike the modern age, ties to one’s family and friends were far closer. This is not to say the contemporary reader is not close with their family or friends, but that the connections in the middle ages were intensely strong and, to a degree, separate from the larger society. In other words, "From a sociological point of view, medieval men tended to bond themselves together in small, tightly knit groups, most of which preserved the hierarchical structure of the patriarchal family." The medieval family, which could involve workers and apprentices in a middle-class urban merchant’s house, not just the immediate family, was bound to itself. It is no surprise, then, that blood feuds could escalate quickly, and why many medieval laws attempted to address the legality of feuds as a result.

However, all of this is a backdrop to what the medieval mindset really was. Society was divided into small groups, but why? Why was a hierarchy important? Simply put, it created order, but this is not the only reason. Belief itself was different then than it is today. Belief in God was not something that was optional, but expected. To the medieval mind, God was as real as gravity is to us. Naturally, this stands in opposition to empirically-driven science and understandings humans follow today. In the middle ages, empiricism was not as crucial a step in science because discovery for its own sake was not the goal. As Robertson states, "Medieval men, frequently to the disgust of modern historians of science, placed far less faith in 'knowledge by experiment upon things seen.' . . . Medieval men were more concerned with the values used to make human relationships meaningful, and to them the first requisite of such meaningful relationships was faith, not in the validity of natural law, but in God." When someone practiced science, it was to answer a theological question. Why did the medieval alchemist try turning lead into gold? Not because it would make them wealthy, but because gold was seen as the perfect metal, and if one could turn lead into gold, it would mean removing its natural impurities – and if this process could then be applied to humans, it could remove Original Sin, thereby attuning humans more closely to God than ever before. Wealth, while potentially an aspect, would have been an afterthought or pushed to the side.

This, then explains the presence of such tightly-formed groups. Robertson best explains the phenomenon of segregated familial groups developing: "During the Middle Ages, most men, except during dislocations arising from war or pestilence, enjoyed a more or less natural place in their communities. Young boys could readily see their elders at work, knew what they did, and were not puzzled about their own identity as members of the community. In this situation, a man’s interests were naturally centered on the welfare of his group, which was, in effect, a part of his own identity. The behavior of the other members of the group to which he belonged was a matter of vital interest to him, since the effects of that behavior on his own welfare were immediately apparent. Group behavior, however, is a moral rather than a psychological problem. It was natural, therefore, that medieval men should think in moral terms, whereas we today, as members of large amorphous groups not based on close personal relationships, are likely to think of our problems as being personal or psychological.” (Robertson, 1970).

The medieval mindset did not place emphasis on the individual, but the group. The individual was only considered as it pertained to following God. By devoting oneself to one’s community, an identity was given and one’s place was affirmed. A person belonged when they followed God, and they were forever accepted so long as they continued to follow the Church. As such, "[Men in the Middle Ages] easily identified their own interests with those of their communities, so that we should not be surprised to find, in medieval texts, problems of [politics, society, and psychology are] all discussed in terms of morality. With reference to the last especially, it is significant that the word personality, used to mean the peculiar qualities of a given individual, did not come into current use until the eighteenth century, and that ideas like 'the force of personality,' or 'the depths of personality,' are peculiar to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (Robertson, 1970). A medieval person would look at something like psychology as, at best, a peculiar and alien phenomenon, and at worst as if it were a sinful affront to God because it focused too heavily on the individual. Since "Medieval men were likely to think of their problems as community problems and of their own behavior in moral rather than in psychological terms,” this meant psychology as we see it today would not have applied to the medieval mindset.

Why, though, would this idea prevail? Obviously, people today see the individualist aspects of society as pleasant, as it allows every person to pursue their own dreams and ambitions. To understand why, one must understand Saint Augustine’s “On Christian Doctrine,” and, along with it, the concepts of Cupiditas and Caritas. Cupiditas refers to bad love” or “sinful love;” essentially, love of the visceral for the visceral’s sake. On the other side of the dichotomy was Caritas, “reasonable” love that was Godly in intention. If a man loved his wife for her body, that would be sinful. If he loved her because she was devout and bore children, then this would be acceptable. So long as one loved something for the right reasons, enjoying the natural sensations of the flesh was not wrong. These ideas are also bound in the Old Laws and the New Laws. The Old Laws refer to the Old Testament’s message of justice over mercy – of domination and tyranny – while the New Laws preached of virtues and mercy given through Jesus. Christians were told to follow the New Laws, even though it was known they would occasionally fall to the Old Laws. As Robertson writes, "The vices that men were taught to avoid were described as essentially selfish habits of the soul springing from misdirected love. Such habits led to actions called sins, or actions contrary to reason" (Robertson, 1970). It is for this reason Christians were told to go to confession, as doing so meant they could cleanse the mark of sin from their souls.

As stated previously, God’s existence was not questioned. The idea of an atheist would have been utterly alien to the medieval mind. Robertson states that "It was felt that devotion to God was extremely reasonable and that those who pursued selfish ends were foolish and that their actions were self-defeating. The transitory world of the tangible was said to produce merely transient satisfactions leading to inevitable frustration. Creation was thought of as a grand hierarchy, but beyond the hierarchy of nature was a hierarchy of values that alone could satisfy a reasonable creature . . . . The faith a man owed his fellows was felt to be an aspect of his faith in God. Faith placed in a temporal object for its own sake-in a man, in a woman, or in wealth or position-was regarded as false faith, in the nature of things inevitably frustrating and disappointing. Men, women, possessions, and worldly acquisitions of all kinds are subject to the whims of Fortune. He who has faith in them subjects himself to those whims also” (Robertson, 1970). As such, the world was fleeting. All things would come to an end by the fickle chance of fortune. Bad fortune was seen as good because it gave people the chance to prove their worth and devotion, while good fortune was sinful in excess because it allowed laxness and sloth; as such, to place love in things governed by fortune was to love the fleeting and deny God. To deny God was to deny reason which was, in essence, insane. It was irrational, and conscious irrational behavior was the basis of sin. Belief in God, then, was rational. Robertson states the following on the medieval belief in God: ". . . we shall have difficulty understanding medieval art and literature unless we can imagine that men once believed firmly in an external realm of the intelligible readily accessible to the reason. To medieval men, God was something that existed outside of the world of space and time, except, that is, in His Incarnation. However, He permeated the physical world, through which He might be understood partly as in a mirror. He was also the source of the virtues. To believe in God was, among other things, to believe in the reality and efficacy of virtue." Virtue, being reasonable due to existing because of reason, was then bound to faith.

This explains why the medieval world had such an emphasis on following the Church, as well as why opposition towards the church was sinful. If one’s neighbor did not believe in God, they were inherently sinful. Their sin could infect the other nearby groups, and as such, drag the entire society down. The individual’s choices affected the group, and as a result, one’s actions were not private. As such, "To the medieval mind, if a man had no faith, he could not be expected to be virtuous except when an appearance of virtue suited his selfish interests” (Robertson, 1970). Therefore, to not believe in God was to renounce virtue, make oneself untrustworthy, and damage the group as well as every individual inside it.

Sin, therefore, was a communal problem, as it was a moral issue, and morals applied to the group. This meant someone committing sin was a danger to everyone: "From a practical point of view, a vicious person in these terms would be a disruptive element in his community, and the more elevated his station in the community hierarchy, the more dangerous his actions would become to its welfare. . . . The problem of sin was thus a very practical matter in daily life and not simply a manifestation of what is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be a characteristic medieval concentration on the afterlife” (Robertson, 1970). Interestingly, this focus on religion applied more heavily to the upper echelons of society than the middle class and peasantry. The implied responsibility on the shoulders of rulers meant they were more in need of virtues than their subjects; as such, "Tyranny and oppression in any medieval community, from the hierarchy of the kingdom to the domestic hierarchy of the family, were associated with the Old Law, the malice of which was considered natural to fallen man” (Robertson, 1970). Any ruler, from a king to a father, had to temper the “Old Laws” within them with mercy. If they did not, they risked damaging the group, and to do so meant ostracization. To be ostracized in medieval society was dangerous not only to one’s emotional stability, but to one’s life. At one point in Medieval England, male children over the age of twelve had to form into groups of adult males. If they did not, they would have been considered outlaws – and outlaws could be killed without any legal repercussion. Conformity to the group meant following the faith, and following the faith meant belief in the structure of the church.

In the end, this meant one was expected to, chiefly above all, love. Love was essential: "The last of the theological virtues, often called the greatest of them, was charity, or love. All men, it was said, love, for without love a man would die, since he would have no interest in preserving himself or in perpetuating his species. Love, that is, was regarded as the source of all human motivation” (Robertson, 1970). Robertson writes that "[Medieval Christianity] was founded squarely on the principle that human behavior is ultimately a matter of love. The Christian conception of grace developed from the conviction that if men could be led to love properly, that is, to love intelligible rather than tangible realities, they could live together in harmony and be freed from the burdens of social oppression and personal frustration. Fluctuations between prosperity and adversity, or changes in Fortune, as they were called, would not affect them deeply. A virtuous man could, to paraphrase St. Augustine, love and do what he wished to do, satisfying his own desires and at the same time contributing to the welfare of his fellow men” (Robertson, 1970). Therefore, a man could do as he pleased so long as his intentions were pure and his actions benefitted society. This was not challenged by the difficulties of human fallibility; rather, "No man was expected to be altogether virtuous, but all men were encouraged to love virtue, which was, as Cicero had long ago pointed out in his treatise on friendship, the only satisfying source of amicable human relationships. One was urged to love his fellow man, not because he was accidentally human, but because he was either virtuous or potentially virtuous” (Robertson, 1970). As such, one had to love not in spite of sin, but because of the potential for virtue.

Of course, this was not always the reality. War was common. However, as with all societies, the ideals of the society adapted to the predilections of reality. When a king went to war, he often paid for more monasteries or simply funded already-existing ones. Doing so meant more monks could pray for him, and as a result, his soul would be cleansed of the act of murder and war. For William the Conqueror, he was required to spend 120 days in penance for every casualty. His answer was to pay monks to pay penance for him. This trend corrupted monasteries, turning them from secluded centers of prayer and education into dens of iniquity and wealth, something the church was not meant to be. A chief question during the middle ages was how the Church could represent a God who demanded a meager life when they themselves possessed the wealth of Europe. Over time, even the very notion of killing was contorted – joining a crusade was seen as an act of penance. The code of Chivalry was seen as virtuous, making it Christian as a result, even though it espoused constant and unending war for a man-at-arms. However, throughout the middle ages, belief in the importance of groups over the individual, as well as the belief in God equaling reason, remained a key aspect that defined the period. Although the medieval mindset is inherently different than the modern view, it is by no means less important or unworthy of study. A thousand years of history lay governed by these principles, and to ignore them due to their difficulty or because of how alien they are is to do a disservice to the millions that lived, breathed, and died, these ideals. Thank you for your time.
TL;DR: Middle Ages be trippin’, yo.

SOURCES
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Charny, Geoffrey de, translated by Richard Kaueper and Elspeth Kennedy. The Book of Chivalry Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

Jones, Terry. "Medieval Lives: The Monk." BBC, 2004
Robertson, D.W. Jr. “GENERAL INTRODUCTION I. Medieval Life and Ideals”. The Literature of Medieval England. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970: 1-9.

Tuchman, Barbara W. "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century". New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1978.

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#medieval #history #textwall #middle_ages #religion